Here is a brief excerpt from an article by Zachary Shahan, featured by CleanTechnica, the #1 cleantech-focused website in the US and the world according to Compete.com and Quantcast. To check all five of the interviews, please click here.
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I’ve been saving up a number of Elon Musk interviews for awhile but haven’t been able to get to them. So, now I’m getting to them all at one time. Below are links to the full interviews, or videos of the interviews when they were videotaped, but I’ve also gone ahead and pulled out some of my favorites quotes from the interviews, a ton of them.
I hope you enjoy these, and feel free to drop your own favorites quotes or thoughts in the comments below the article.
Since this turned into such a massive post, I’m planning to simply add onto this when good new Elon Musk interviews come out. So bookmark this page!
[Update January 4, 2015: I’ve added the interview below from CHM Revolutionaries. It’s probably my favorite yet. Notes come via my post on Planetsave.]
CHM Revolutionaries
Here’s a really interesting interview (videotaped) with the head of Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX — Elon Musk. This is perhaps the most interesting interview I’ve seen with him, as it runs through life stories from age 6 to today. For some reason, it took me ages to get to this, and it is actually from 2013, but most of it is timeless. Check it out, followed by just a few of the many highlights:
o Showing his determination even at a young age, when grounded at the age of 6 and really wanting to go to his cousin’s birthday party, Elon walked about 4 hours across town to get there. Granted, he didn’t realize at the time that it would take so long.
o At the age of 12, Elon started creating video games and selling them… in order to buy more video games and better computers.
o When dating in college, Elon was so fond of electric cars that he would talk about them on dates, even starting at least one with the line, “Do you ever think about electric cars?”
o Elon initially provided something like 95% of the funding for Tesla Motors, and tried really hard to not be the CEO, but eventually had to take up that role.
o Elon pushed his cousins Lyndon & Peter Rive to create SolarCity, and as the key founder and Chairman of the Board.
o The one thing Elon Musk thinks the federal government needs to do is price/tax externalities. It’s common sense that is covered in some way or another in a basic economics course, but we still don’t adequately do it….
o He also noted that we’re playing Russian roulette with the atmosphere. Not addressing global warming is the world’s dumbest experiment.
o Elon gets a lot of his big ideas during long showers or late at night pacing around the house.
o It’s good to solicit negative feedback from friends on your ideas.
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Here is a direct link to all five interviews.
Zachary Shahan is tryin’ to help society help itself (and other species), one letter at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. Otherwise, he’s probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity; or as president of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media: ZacharyShahan.com. His website.