I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
Elon MuskRead
Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Governments are more effective at funding foundational research than at driving rapid technological progress, which relies on commercial enterprise.
In this quote, Elon Musk suggests that while government funding is essential for supporting basic scientific research, the real acceleration of technology occurs when commercial companies take the lead. He emphasizes the importance of the private sector in transforming foundational discoveries into innovative products and services that can rapidly advance society.
Themes
GovernmentTechnologyInnovationCommercialResearch
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the role of government in tech advancement at a conference.
More from Elon Musk
All quotes →The United States is definitely ahead in culture of innovation. If someone wants to accomplish great things, there is no better place than the U.S.
Elon MuskRead
The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.
Elon MuskRead
The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we're not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced.
Elon MuskRead
Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
Elon MuskRead
I've actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don't mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
Elon MuskRead
Similar quotes
To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accommodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.
Ellen UllmanRead
Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware.
Richard StallmanRead
Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward.
Russell BakerRead
We did envision that some day the phone would be so small that you could hang it on your ear or even have it embedded under your skin.
Martin CooperRead
Marketers spend millions developing strategies to identify children's predilections and then capitalize on their vulnerabilities. Young people are fooled for a while, but then develop defense mechanisms, such as media-savvy attitudes or ironic dispositions. Then marketers research these defenses, develop new countermeasures, and on it goes.
Douglas RushkoffRead
In the face of technology, everything becomes a little atavistic.
Don DelilloRead