Elon Musk describes starting a company as "eating glass and staring into the abyss," warning that the pain is real and running two companies at once is a mistake. He speaks candidly about the brutal realities of entrepreneurship.
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Well, I think it's very difficult to start companies and quite painful. I think that's important to bear in mind. I don't know if that's— that's probably not encouraging. But, I mean, there's a friend of mine who's got a good phrase for doing a startup. It's like eating glass and staring into the abyss. So, it's— if you go into it expecting it's going to be just fun, you will be disappointed. It's not. It's quite painful. It's much easier to get a job somewhere. Much, much easier. Much less stressful. You'll have more time for other things. But would you be happier? It depends on who you are. No, you. Would I be happier? Yeah. No, I wouldn't be. I'd be unhappier. But it's really like if you're sort of wired to do it, then you should do it, but not a Otherwise, it's not, you know, it's not going to optimize your leisure time or anything like that. It's going to be extremely difficult and stressful. So you must feel compelled to do it. Let me put it this way. If you need inspiring words, don't do it.
Actually, that is right. That's good inspiring words. And would you recommend doing 2 at a time?
No.
That's a terrible idea.
I really super don't recommend doing 2 at a time. It was not my intention to run 2 companies. As it turned out, I kind of didn't have much choice. You inherited one and started the other. Yeah. Well, it's— I mean, I sort of played a role in starting both. But my intention was not to— I was hoping that I would not have to run Tesla. And like in the case of SolarCity, I played a role in starting that. But Lyndon and Pete, who are co-founders, are really— they're so good that they don't need much help from me. Which is great. I was hoping that would be the case with Tesla, but unfortunately it was not. Right.
