“I always had an existential crisis, trying to figure out ‘what does it all mean?’ I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world, if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then, we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. That’s the only way to move forward.”
——Elon Musk
Ran across this quote on the Love & Freedom Project website. The site has a profile of Musk called Fierce Gentleman Profile, and it’s a pretty good read.
The quote is one of my favorites because it is Musk’s core vision and life pursuit. And the cherry on top is the way he is bringing this grand vision to fruition…physics. Elon Musk has talked many times about the way he approaches problem solving. He boils a problem or situation down to core principles and reasons up. Check out this two minute clip about how Musk uses this thinking to argue how a small company can be more productive than a larger one.
“The thing that got me started with SpaceX was the feeling of dismay — I just did not want Apollo to be our high-water mark. We do not want a future where we tell our children that this was the best we ever did. Growing up, I kept expecting we're going to have a base on the moon, and we're going to have trips to Mars. Instead, we went backwards, and that's a great tragedy.”
—From a great interview in the LA Times: The Goal Is Mars
Musk: Humans on Mars Before SpaceX Goes Public | SpaceNews.com
spacenews.comInvestors eager to own a piece of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) could face a very long wait. According to a recent tweet from the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company’s founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, there will be no initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX stock before humans have begun to settle Mars. “No near term plans to IPO SpaceX,” Musk wrote in a short message posted to Twitter June 6. “Only possible in very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.” The Mars Colonial Transporter is a conceptual vehicle that Musk has discussed as part of his company’s stated long-term goal: sending human settlers to Mars. This is a change in tone for Musk, who up until the June 6 tweet had said that SpaceX would go public in the near-term, as his other two companies, Solar City and Tesla Motors, have. As recently as February 2012, Musk told Bloomberg News that he might take SpaceX public in 2013.
“What appears as brash self-confidence is simply precocious intelligence and a strangely literal mind mixed with a deep urge to change the world.”
——Carl Hoffman, Smithsonian Magazine
This is a bit of a reblog, but featuring a different quote. Not knowing Elon Musk, I’m not sure how accurate this description is but it’s totally what I see in him.
