Intro
In this episode of “The Lex Fridman Podcast,” host Lex Fridman engages in a conversation with Walter Isaacson, the renowned biographer and author. They delve into Isaacson’s books, drawing on personal stories to explore the principles of striving for greatness in various fields. The discussion covers the lives of iconic figures such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Da Vinci, and Ben Franklin. Isaacson’s new book on Elon Musk serves as an inspiration for young people to tackle the world’s hardest problems and find innovative solutions.
Main Takeaways
Inspiration to Solve Impossible Problems
- Walter Isaacson’s new book on Elon Musk will inspire young people to take on the hardest problems in the world and build solutions to those problems, no matter how impossible they are.
Exploring the Lives of Great Minds
- In this conversation, Walter and Lex cover all of his books and used personal stories from them to speak to the bigger principles of striving for greatness in science, tech, engineering, art, politics, and life.
Integrity and Authenticity
- Lex values his integrity and will not sacrifice it for any friendship, influence, money, access, fame, or power. He celebrates the good in people, empathizes and understands, but also calls people out on their bullshit with respect and compassion.
Learning from the Best
- Masterclass offers the opportunity to learn from the best people in the world at doing whatever it is they do, and Lex believes that observing the people that do the thing at a world-class level is a way to excel in life.
Cloud Business Management Systems
- Netsuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system, has helped 36,000 companies upgrade to NetSuite by Oracle.
The Struggle of Humanity in Reaching for the Stars
- This podcast is about the struggle of humanity in reaching for the stars with big and small goals, featuring stories of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Da Vinci.
Childhood and its Influence
- Difficult childhood is not a requirement for success, but it can be a catalyst for driven people.
- Elon Musk’s violent and psychologically problematic childhood has influenced his riskier and more adventurous behavior.
- Elon Musk’s father was psychologically abusive and had a Jekyll and Hyde personality.
- Elon Musk’s mother warned that the danger for him is that he becomes his father.
- Elon Musk is self-aware of the demons in his head, but they can still take over and cause him to go dark.
- Elon Musk has many different personalities, including engineering mode, silly mode, charismatic mode, visionary mode, and demon/dark mode.
- Inside the man, he’s still there as a child, the child standing in front of his dad.
- Elon Musk is a drama addict and for him, love and family are associated with psychological torments.
- Those of us who are lucky enough to have a gentle, sweet childhood grow up with fewer demons but also with fewer drives.
Harnessing Demons and Superpowers
- Rule one in life is to harness your demons and know what’s eating at you and how to harness it.
- Harness your demons and know your strengths and superpower.
- Being a tough manager is not everyone’s superpower.
- Elon Musk’s superpower is being an executive in highly intense situations.
- Elon Musk is addicted to intensity and risk, but there’s always a big mission above it.
- Empathy towards humanity is important in leadership.
- Elon Musk is driven by three big missions: making humans a space-faring civilization, bringing us into the era of electric vehicles and solar roofs, and making sure AI is safe and aligned with human values.
- Musk’s mission is not just a pep talk, but a deep frustration and impatience when minor engineering decisions hinder the accomplishment of his big mission.
- Musk’s epic sense of the role he’s going to play in helping humanity on big things is like the characters in the comic books, sometimes ridiculous, but also sometimes true.
Innovation, Creativity, and Visualization
- Growing up feeling like a misfit can be painful, but it can also inspire great achievements in life, like Leonardo da Vinci and Jennifer Dowden.
- Jennifer Dowden, a gene editing pioneer who helped discover CRISPR, was told by her school guidance counselor that science is not for girls, but it pushed her to pursue math and science.
- Books can inspire and encourage people to pursue their passions, regardless of their background or gender.
- Innovation and creativity are key qualities shared by successful people like Einstein and Steve Jobs.
- Overcoming adversity and dealing with scars can be more important than avoiding them.
- Einstein’s success was not immediate, but he persisted and eventually made groundbreaking discoveries in science.
- Being a visual thinker and working outside of traditional academic settings can be advantageous in fostering creativity and innovation.
- Out of the box thinking and visualization helped Einstein, Musk, Jobs, and DaVinci in their innovations.
- Einstein’s visualization of riding alongside a light beam led to his theory of relativity.
- Musk’s visualization of materials and engineering solutions led to breakthroughs in electric vehicles and space travel.
- All four individuals were likely visual thinkers, possibly due to slight handicaps in childhood.
- Musk’s attention to detail and visualization skills led to small but significant improvements in manufacturing processes.
- Musk visualizes the manufacturing of the product, from the physics to the software, for end-to-end control.
- Musk puts designers next to assembly lines to visualize designs becoming physical objects.
- Musk believes in end-to-end control, like Steve Jobs’ Zen Garden in Kyoto.
- Musk moved Tesla’s manufacturing in-house to have better control over the process.
- Musk’s first principles approach involves getting rid of unnecessary things, like removing radar from self-driving cars in favor of vision-only.
- Elon Musk plans to build a Robo Taxi that is fully self-driving and does not require a steering wheel or pedals.
- Tesla is working on a $25,000 mass-market car with a steering wheel that can be used for the Robo Taxi platform.
- Full self-driving is now being done through artificial intelligence and machine learning, based on the best human drivers observed through Tesla’s cameras.
- Musk’s first principles approach involves confidently exploring a dark room, adjusting as needed, and being adventurous with iterative brain cycles.
- Taking risks requires a falcon rockets mindset of accepting failure and learning from mistakes.
- America was built by risk takers, but now there are more referees than risk takers.
- The holy grail of AI is artificial general intelligence, and real-world AI is the toughest part of achieving it.
- The Metaverse is becoming more realistic, raising questions about the importance of physical reality and the fundamental things that make life worth living.
- Elon Musk has a light-hearted but serious sense that this is all a bit of a game, and may have been influenced by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
- Elon Musk’s sense of humor has been influenced by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
- Silly and absurd activities are a relief valve for Musk.
- Musk has different modes, including dark demon mode and silly mode.
- Musk’s quote on SNL: “Did you also think I was going to be a chill normal dude?”
- Steve Jobs’ quote: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
- Musk’s craziness works in certain situations, such as shooting off the starship while attending an Edt sales conference and making Linda Yaccarino the CEO.
- Musk’s impulsiveness includes a drive, demons, and craziness that can be endearing or effing crazy.
- Society should celebrate the darker aspects of crazy because it all comes in one package.
- Steve Jobs and Elon Musk both believe that sometimes it’s necessary to be brutally honest and rough to achieve success.
- Jobs believed that being cruel was necessary to accomplish great things, and Musk has also been known to call people and ideas stupid.
- Jobs’ idea of A-Players sent a signal to encourage people to be all in.
- Jobs believed in having a team of A-players who were all-in and committed to the company’s vision.
- Instead of firing 85% of Twitter engineers, Jobs asked them to choose if they wanted to be all-in or not.
- Jobs believed in the value of intensity and urgency as operating principles, rather than psychological safety and mental health days off.
- Companies should know their team and build it accordingly, with different styles depending on their development stage.
- Jobs wanted Twitter to be more hardcore and intense, with a focus on new and innovative ideas, rather than being a polite playground for the elite.
- Elon Musk secretly bought shares of Twitter after selling all his houses.
- Musk was initially unsure about buying Twitter, but was convinced by his son and a friend.
- Musk wanted Twitter to focus on new and innovative ideas, rather than being a polite playground for the elite.
- The process of buying Twitter was a rocky period for Musk, with moments of uncertainty and excitement.
- Musk considered firing Parag and two others for cause after the deal closed to save money and prove a point.
- Elon Musk made drastic decisions to reduce staff by 85% after taking over Twitter.
- Musk flew to Sacramento on Christmas Eve to personally fire staff and prove a point.
- There was consideration to start a new social media company on the blockchain, but it was deemed too slow.
- Musk fired staff in three different rounds, causing concern among many involved.
- Musk’s algorithm involves questioning every requirement and deleting parties, and if 20% isn’t added back, it wasn’t enough.
- Hiring and managing great teams is crucial to the success of leaders like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs.
- According to Steve Jobs, the best thing he ever created was the team that made Apple’s products.
- Musk prioritizes excellence, trustworthiness, and drive when hiring.
- Musk has a spidey sense for identifying talented individuals and uses skip-level meetings to assess his teams.
- Musk’s algorithm involves questioning every requirement and deleting parties, and if 20% isn’t added back, it wasn’t enough.
- Musk has a talent for finding the right person and promoting them.
- Self-knowledge is important for thriving at Tesla.
- Trustworthiness is a difficult trait to obtain and maintain.
- Musk fired Brian Dow after a few months of running the solar roof division.
- Musk’s algorithm involves questioning every requirement and deleting parties, and if 20% isn’t added back, it wasn’t enough.
- Elon Musk’s algorithm involves questioning every requirement and deleting parties, and if 20% isn’t added back, it wasn’t enough.
- Musk’s focus on loyalty and commitment is evident in his management style at Twitter.
- Musk runs multiple companies and switches between tasks every couple of hours.
- Musk focuses intensely on a task for an hour and then takes a break before moving on to the next task.
- Musk’s release for stress is often playing Polytopia or firing off tweets.
- Musk single-tasks with extreme focus and urgency, which allows him to get a lot done.
- Musk’s sense of urgency is a driving force behind his success.
- Musk’s ability to intensely focus on one task enables him to find richness in the mundane.
- Musk’s hardcore intensity is inspiring, but he struggles to savor success and moments of quiet.
- Individuals can make a significant impact on history, as seen in Musk’s case.
- Einstein’s special relativity theory explains that time is relative, not just how we observe it.
- Musk’s innovation in electric vehicles has changed the industry and will make gasoline-powered cars seem outdated.
- Musk’s drive and pressure to succeed makes retirement seem unlikely.
- Musk thinks long-term, with projects that span over 100 years, such as colonizing Mars.
- Musk’s intense focus on the future, even during tense moments, shows his dedication to innovation and progress.
- Musk’s passion is robot taxis and building factories that can produce a million cars a year.
- Musk is always looking way into the future.
- Biographer Walter Isaacson focuses on understanding how the minds of creative and imaginative people work.
- Isaacson tells stories to convey his thoughts and ideas.
- Keeping a chronological narrative structure is crucial for showing how a person grows and evolves over time.
- Narrative is essential to understanding and forming our views of the world.
- The academy used to disdain imposing a narrative and making it into storytelling, but this is how we understand history.
- Observation and interviews are both important for understanding a subject, but it depends on the person.
- Access to Musk was unprecedented, and Isaacson tried to get out of the way of the story and let readers form their own judgments.
- Lesson one: People want to talk if you’re willing to just listen.
- Don’t ask leading questions, just ask what’s going on and what people think.
- Stay silent, even if they haven’t fully answered the question, and they’ll keep talking.
- You can never go wrong by staying silent if there’s nothing you have to say.
- If you actually are curious and you really want to know the answer to a question, then people can tell that you asked it because you want the answer.
- Genuine curiosity is key to having good conversations.
- One-on-one interactions allow for the possibility of revealing someone’s beautiful mind.
- Being genuinely interested in a variety of subjects can help with conversation.
- Disarming compliments can help break down walls in conversation.
- Breaking through agendas and narratives can be difficult, but it’s important to try.
- Building trust is key to getting people to open up.
- Disarming someone means taking down their shields and making them feel comfortable.
- Trust is often established after an interview, which can be sad.
- Being honest is a kind of being objective.
- It’s important to keep in mind who you’re writing for.
- Writing for the open-minded reader is key, not just to please the subject.
- Romantic relationships may not be essential to success, but they can be important to understanding great minds.
- Einstein’s first wife, Muleva, played a significant role in his work, but he did not treat her well.
- Anecdotes and stories are used to convey messages and make the writing more engaging.
- Reading biographies can be a valuable source of inspiration and understanding for young people.
- The unexamined life is not worth living, according to Plato and Socrates.
- Self-awareness and examining every motive is important to understanding why we do what we do.
- It’s important to learn what motivates you and ask if it’s really what you want.
- Remembering that we will all die someday can give us focus and meaning in life.
- Walter Isaacson is involved in helping the school system, youth empowerment programs, and innovation center at Tulane in New Orleans.
- New Orleans is a city of creativity from jazz to food to architecture.
- Walter believes in paying it forward by going back to where he began and trying to know it for the first time.
- Walter is a huge fan of the interviewer and flew to Austin for the podcast.
- Carl Jung’s quote “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious” is a favorite of the interviewer.
Summary
Inspiration to Solve Impossible Problems
Walter Isaacson’s new book on Elon Musk serves as an inspiration for young people to tackle the world’s hardest problems and build solutions, no matter how impossible they may seem. By exploring the lives of iconic figures like Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Da Vinci, Isaacson highlights the principles of striving for greatness in various fields.
The Influence of Childhood and Harnessing Demons
The podcast delves into Elon Musk’s difficult childhood and how it has influenced his risk-taking behavior and various personalities. Musk’s self-awareness of the demons in his head and his ability to harness them are key factors in his success. The importance of empathy, leadership, and having a big mission is also emphasized.
Innovation, Creativity, and Visualization
The discussion explores how being a misfit can inspire great achievements, as seen in the lives of Leonardo da Vinci and Jennifer Dowden. The power of visualization and out-of-the-box thinking is evident in the innovations of Einstein, Musk, Jobs, and DaVinci. Their ability to visualize solutions and control the end-to-end process has led to groundbreaking advancements in various industries.
Taking Risks, AI, and the Metaverse
Musk’s approach to taking risks, his focus on artificial general intelligence, and his vision for the Metaverse are discussed. The importance of urgency, iterative thinking, and learning from failures is highlighted. The podcast also explores the impact of Musk’s innovations in electric vehicles and his long-term goals, such as colonizing Mars.
Leadership, Team Building, and Management Styles
The conversation delves into the leadership styles of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, emphasizing the importance of hiring and managing great teams. Musk’s algorithm for questioning requirements and promoting excellence is highlighted, while Jobs’ focus on intensity and urgency is contrasted with psychological safety and mental health days off. The significance of trustworthiness, loyalty, and commitment in building successful teams is also discussed.
The Art of Conversation and Writing Biographies
The podcast explores the art of conversation, the importance of genuine curiosity, and the role of trust in getting people to open up. Walter Isaacson shares insights into his approach to writing biographies, emphasizing the value of storytelling and a chronological narrative structure. The significance of self-awareness, examining motives, and the impact of romantic relationships on great minds is also examined.
Conclusion
Through engaging conversations and insightful stories, “The Lex Fridman Podcast” episode with Walter Isaacson provides inspiration, knowledge, and a deeper understanding of the lives and principles of iconic figures. From harnessing demons and visual thinking to taking risks and building exceptional teams, the podcast offers valuable insights for individuals striving for greatness in their own lives.
