Elon Musk: Everyone Told Me Starting SpaceX Was Crazy—But I Did It Anyway

Elon Musk: A lot of friends tried to talk me out of starting SpaceX.

”I had a lot of friends who tried to talk me out of starting a rocket company because they thought it was crazy. And one friend of mine made me watch a video of rockets blowing up.

And there were just lots of people that thought it was a really crazy idea. And there were some people that had tried to start rocket companies, not succeeded, and they tried to talk me out of it.

But the thing is that the premise for talking out of it was, we think you're going to lose the money that you invest. I was like, well that was my expectation anyway, so I don't really mind if I lose.

I mind, but, I mean, it's not like I was trying to figure out the rank-ordered best way to invest money, and on that basis, I chose space.

Real estate, invest in shoemaking, anything, and whoa, highest ROI. It wasn't the premise.

I just thought that it was important that humanity expand beyond Earth, and we weren't doing that. So maybe there was something I could do to spur that on.“

Khan Academy, April 23, 2013