ELON MUSK

In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic - being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.

I'm a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

If we're going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation.

I was born in Africa. I came to California because it's really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don't see a viable competitor.

I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I'm really good at email.

I'm reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States - for the century, at least.

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems... It's got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

You need to live in a dome initially, but over time you could terraform Mars to look like Earth and eventually walk around outside without anything on... So it's a fixer-upper of a planet.

I'm trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

I usually describe myself as an engineer; that's basically what I've been doing since I was a kid.

Automotive franchise laws were put in place decades ago to prevent a manufacturer from unfairly opening stores in direct competition with an existing franchise dealer that had already invested time, money and effort to open and promote their business.

I've been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I'm getting really tired of Disneyland.

My opinion is it's a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will.

You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases.

People should pursue what they're passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us.

I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.

I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.

Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson.