#417 – Kimbal Musk: The Art of Cooking, Tesla, SpaceX, Zip2, and Family
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The following is a conversation with gambol mosque, a long time entrepreneur and chef and author of a new cookbook called the kitchen cookbook cooking for your community. You should check that out. IT is, in fact, the first cookbook i've ever owned already meets up from IT and its delicious.

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Growing up in south africa, you've said I was a violent place. What are some formative moments that you remember from that time?

So IT was, as I grew in, uh, party a IT more specifically the fall of a part, right? So IT was was the eighty I was a teenager in the eighties and um our community would would part of our social life Frankly, was the anti apartment protests. And to go be with why people, black people, kind of make mix you together the most formative, experienced prinkly how much I appreciate a place like amErica where we have value for human life.

So there was a country where human life was not valued IT was is a weird thing to come from that to hear where we we think it's so seriously if someone dies in a war or something like that. And um we just didn't take this seriously in that africa people died if we were killed. I saw someone killed in front of me with getting of a train.

And it's a very violent train known known for violence. We were stupid kids. We didn't really listen to our parents. We went on the training, the doors opened and I head people trying to get off the train. And in front of me, a two black people, one black, I just stabbed the knife in the side as other black as head. Ig, what the back and you just, I ve got to get off the train.

How do sixteen or seventeen .

and I get you off the train? And everyone is trying to get me to get off, because, you know, roll behind me. So I step off and I step into the pool of blood one foot, and then I just walk for about hundred paces, while the stickiness of the blood, just kind of for my sneakers, just on one foot to slug, leave a footprint behind me. And he just walk on. You.

just walk on that. The others and .

everyone work on an .

interesting point you make. Underlying the violence is a kind of philosophy. The human life is disposable. The individual life is disposable. I mean, many ideologies, you know, I gop, in the soviet union, the value of human life was lower there than in the united states. The value of the individual in the next states is really high yeah it's probably .

in index you can put .

together like yeah right actually proper nation that that's a really interesting way to put IT because violence is much easier on a mass scale, suffering causing suffering on a mass scale. Much easier when you don't value the human life.

I've heard this before, where, which I think I agree with, is when someone is killed, someone is that was taken from our lives. The the vacuum that IT crazes a social vacuum is extraordinary, painful and really is true. I mean, if someone in my community passes the way, very, very sad for me.

And when you go to be a place where where you will live, grow in a place where where that human life is not valued, there's there's something about the there's a little, little less of the social vacuum created because everyone is kind of expecting everyone to potentially be taken out at any moment. Madden is also a beauty to IT because there's a much more of a celebrity lebron ory element. When we make my cousin ruin, I we again, stupid because we shouldn't doing this.

But we go into the townships where all a lot of the violence would be happening. We really didn't see most of the violence there. IT was in these more of protest and so forth.

But, but the there is a joy that also comes from lura value. Human life is a real joy, like everyone is a well, I mean, it's beautiful as we we have dinner with black friends, know friends with their family. We are so per Young and and there was just a real joy to IT.

When you accept mortality, yes, you can really enjoy life.

Mean, I think this would be quite a nice inside. I've ever really put that way, but I think that's right. actually. I think you you just chill out of IT takes things little less .

seriously because life does end for everybody. You does. And if you just head on, accept that fact. Yeah you can just enjoy every single moment and let go of this attachment and just .

enjoy the more I do love that we will live longer and so but we should live longer with the with the goal of joy and the goal of happiness and peace um not some some form of misery that you choose to attach .

yourself to maximized joy maxie joy. That's right. There's a story that water asic and writes about where alonga beat up pretty bad and you were there and then you also had to watch your dad, he alone for an hour, calling him worthless.

All those kinds things. You said I was the worst memory of your life. What do you make of such cruelty? What do you remember from that time?

I mean, IT was horrible. Anything not coming back to the point of low value of human life. They tried to kill him. He wasn't wasn't IT was no holding back. I just watched someone, one, just one, but the bit that was a main person and then there was A A few others that appalled in they they just they try to kill him in front of me and we were eating sandwich on a on a staircase at at the school in out of staircases um I just they were not coming up to me and I just said to watch and I couldn't help as when the satis was difficult experiences. This was just for just .

like that life can end. Yeah, good. Thank you.

Yeah, I think so. I have I had a life, life near near death experience where I were almost died when I was two thousand ten. And I think I think that and I I broke my neck, and I I go in that way in a moment, but this was, this was different. This was a, this was, this comes back to the low value of human life part where if someone had killed my brother, if that person had beat him to death, which which he was trying to do, um IT life would have going on. You know, that's like an the same thought in the americans could maybe in some tough networks, but for the most part it's it's another thing .

yeah the mentality that the of the brutality yeah .

he makes you think .

of all the places, the world that .

that happening .

and and all the beautiful people that just disappear.

I always say of people who who have an opinion about amErica that no, this is a very bad country or or whatever and I say, look, please go try another country before you say that not to say that amErica can get Better but please go trying of the country because not having that perspective of having a perspective that that um I don't know that a to up on her shoulder about the country that they're in. Okay go go try another country and then come back and tell me pick any country IT doesn't have to be um uh internally some in very violent country, you could pick any country and and and you just realize that actually the the world doesn't think the same way that amErica thinks and you you're going to just to learn a perspective that I think a gives you a Better way to critique um where we live in america.

Yeah, it's humbling. He said that your dad was a roll. Costs of affection and then verbal abuse alter issac and courts barack obama, who said, someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or makeup for his father's mistakes. And I suppose that may explain my particular malis part that ring true for you.

Well, I thought you were gone to say was thought you were going to end descent was live up to my fathers expectations because what most people say. But then you said the second part, which is make up for his mistakes and I think that's actually that one is a dewin rings true for me.

He was really you could is the liberty but I don't i'm not connected to him but he's very um um he he taught me the phrase I used to have was he taught me what not to do so I still actually learned a lot but what kind of human not to be? What kind of actions are not to take? And so that kind of closer to living up to his mistakes but it's but um i've fought such a train rect that it's not really mistake. It's like intentional actions of what not to do. Okay, don't do that.

But there's still the trauma of that. You know IT has an effect on the human psychology can permit their time, so has a probably complex, a indirect affects on who you are. The good in a bad .

is critique that my friends give me, which is when they're talking to me. I can't just drift away. I just i'm still looking at them, still nodding, might even respond to their, to their, to them in their conversation, but maybe not there.

And and I realized that I actually never grow up up because my father would just verbal abuse, as is one way is said IT is abuse, but it's more just verbal area for you for hours and constantly saying, do you understand? But he want to make sure that I paying attention. So I trained myself to look like amp. Ign attention. But i'm not to disappear .

to some place.

disappear to some .

place wherever that is.

Yeah and and if I do that less and and less of a time.

but I but that path has been paved somewhere in your mind at childhood. So IT could be easy to walk down IT you need lower clothes growing up. You're still close. What did you learn from each other? How did you compliment each other?

Yes, I think we are. We are good. Compliment my, i've took him for for myself first. My, my strength is definitely on the social side. I love, I love the gathering place, and I love put people together in person.

And I love to have viBrant debates and conversation of betwen net forever, including fun parties and up where where I bring people together. And I really kind of want people to have fun and be, but be vulnerable and and not just like silly party, just, but actually like this, we will connect. But definitely for me, good party is people laugh and cry like I want to people, I want people have have an emotional connection, a burning men every year.

And that is no question. You will cry some point during burning men. No small talk.

No small talk. exactly. No small talk. You were told you, right? Unlike most parties, not parties, but most events. You go to our like clubs, these sort of nike clubs. And I never go to those. And my my joke is it's, why would I want to go to a place? Well, I pay IT a short, small talk in the dark.

So IT feels like the only reason I enjoy those places is the full third .

of exactly that.

So what are we doing? What is? What is this?

But I have to my complaint from my brother was just bringing joy and social connection. And he's truly is. He's an engineer genius. I work with him forever, and we do complement each other.

You just came up with a cookbook, by the way. Thank you for giving me my first cook book. I feel .

that I like.

I want to keep, keep me on the counter and it's gonna give me a legitimacy and anyone comes over. Alison, i'm basically a chef.

Now it's right exact.

When did you first fall in love with cooking?

I started cooking when I was seven years old. Um my mom uh is just she's when she's wonderful but SHE she's self admittedly ely A A bad cook. But but at the time I was IT was I think anyone with kids goes through this there.

Your kids just want like something that like to place pigey balin is Robert gal or something? And my mom would do Brown bread, plain yoga and boiled squash. No absolute, most disgusting things that a child could imagine eating.

And so I said, can I cook? And she's the ash. Do you want to cook? No problem. So I went to the grocery store, and I, I, the bagnet is a butcher, separated the grocery store and made to the butcher.

And I said, no, what can I cook? And he pulled out a chicken and he said, this is, this is the easiest recipe for you. Just put IT on a pen in an oven, a hot oven, because back then the others weren't necessarily like four hundred degrees or fifty whatever, and put IT in a hot oven for one hour and enjoy.

That was IT. And uh, so I I went home and actually I also brought some french fries es on that as well as i'm a kid, of course I want french fries. So the road chicken was french fries and the chicken came out and IT was just fantastic. IT was absolutely fantastic.

That's incredible. Yeah yeah. You didn't screw IT up first time.

First of I think that also kicks off the magic. And like you, if you screw IT up and you like a maybe this is not for me. yeah. So for me I really did did .

kick IT off started out alright.

exactly but I I telephoned for point, which was a disaster so I cooked the french fries but I didn't heat the oil first. So I just put the potato in the oil and I waited for to heat up and um I just was throwing up later that I can't, your body can't just that much because they sucks the oil then o and so that was a disaster. But but at the time I taste good.

The man, the real magic, which I also found was wonderful, was when I cooked, my brother, my sister, my mama, very, very busy, very intense, people would sit down and we would have a meal together. And I was like, well, this is powerful, a very powerful thing that I ve now got. Where in no other way could I have that connection with my family? I am probably, we stay connected to be very close sector, but not in know the way can we sit down and just talk about things or talk about whatever is on our mind or just to just not even talk, just to have just to be in in at the table together.

And i've done that now we throw my whole life, my kids, still for my family, and we will do gratitude at the beginning of our meal. And it's just, I think there would kept me cooking, would made my love of cooking. So great was was actually the fact that we would sit down here and be be present with each other. And i'm also just also horrible that too I I also get to be present.

What is that about food that like brings people together and not just together, but like really together where you're like paying attention, right? Like what is that? What what is what is IT food? Like what else does that? Sometimes maybe alcohol can do that, which is a kind of food.

I guess. Yeah but I think this is different because you use this standing when you're doing alcohol. You you the small talk on, yeah here's if you sit down and I see this in my restaurant in the kitchen and older where we we have every viewpoint or we go to denver b every viewpoint when one chicago, every viewpoint and the physical presence of someone being with right there, uh, is people are just they are they are just very different, absolutely different, what they are online.

I think we all know the difference between you you send an email to someone and they that they misunderstand the email, right? And you know, if I just to talk to the person, that would have been fine, but this isn't now happening at scale, you know, with all of these these this uh, pretty controlling whatever. And I I have i've i've said at at the bar and i've had a hard court trump supporter and and i'm just i'm just curious, just like to tell me what i'm not the term support, but but tell me more and and and it's actually draws the conversation because you're there for an hour or longer is not rush to get the answer.

And I think that's a big difference. Um i've had one time where just A A couple months ago um I had someone was sitting at the community table. We have community table in the restaurant and and he was I didn't know him too well but he asked me, did I know that nine eleven was a conspiracy and I didn't really happen.

IT didn't happen yeah .

and I was like, huh? So I I was at my love and I was for, I am, I was was, I was like that I was there physically, no doubt my mind, I didn't, but I didn't want to to interrupt his, his, what he had to say. So I didn't talk for five minutes, six minutes, seven minutes.

And again, you there for a while. So you're not rush to to jump in and and argue. And then I shared that I was there, and I think because I had been willing to listen to him, he was willing to listen to me. And he, I don't know if he changed his mind, doesn't change my mind. But but IT was actually a pretty cool compensation to kind of get into each other's mind.

But I think you connect on a different level, not on the level of like the conspiracy, but on the level of basic humanity. I that's what usually connect on. And then it's almost becomes interesting and fun that you can exchange ideas, even crazy ideas out there, ideas and kind of play with them yeah we humans are good .

at that yeah exactly I like i'd like to to play with them because what what you're not trying to do is shut the conversation down. You're also not trying to yeah exactly like you know let me just be nice while I totally disagree with this person um you can do that for a few minutes, can do there .

for two hours and there's something like about food that completely IT I don't know that must be a evolutionary IT makes us vulnerable in a way that even just standing there for promote ative time doesn't there's something about you know like what the animals gather to the water, whatever all right.

Like this kind of experience where you're just like, right let let's just access knowledge together than we need sustains yep and somehow they can have ground us to like which which just a match of the sentence of baps care, just kind like grateful to be alive, Frankly, and grateful to be consuming this thing which keeps us alive. And in that context, you can talk about all kinds of stuff. You can discuss.

flatter and enjoy. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is, is you do up like a chief uSonian style and related five, six people. Sometimes you can people will break off individual conversations so that actually when things break down. So that's when you kind of go back to small talk and i'm stuck next to come a small talk.

What you need to do to really create a great conversation is one conversation at the table and that's where um you know there be some some uh, simple questions that i'll say i'll save you know what's your middle me and you be amazed that the stories you get from that but it's about creating vulnerability yeah so they are like, I know ever asked me that before so then they become vulnerable and then then something as simple as what's the most fun thing you've done recently and what is the most fun thing you're looking forward to? And I have gotten into with those from prompts. I've gotten into our long discussions on god.

I've gotten into our own discussions on love. I got tarzan discussions on anger. It's actually amazing when people are just asked a question like, what's the most first thing you do on lately? Well, why would anger come a well, actually, they're in a vulval place. So will just .

to come out of them, do you get to see this?

You get to see this at .

the kitchen. And he said.

balder.

chicago in october is the goal. Well, I mean, speaking of characters and human beings, awesome is fascinating of I forget how long ago and a couple months ago, I was just sitting at a bar and some uh, the two people are talking and they were talking about marxism and IT turns out that their an arco communists, which is the thing and I got to .

the commercial like drugs.

Good question .

about I think I know some .

of those anyway, there are beautiful people. I think the local from Austin and you know I don't know the depth of their personal experience of the different kinds of common like systems, but IT was fascinating to listen to them and get to know them. And the humanity, the weirdness like the character is, is just, I mean I love IT.

One of the reasons I really love Austin, I decided to um be here, is just the the cliche thing of key boston. weird. I mean.

there's a lot of weird. I love you. I think that I talked to a lot of australians have been to here forever. And i'm like, men, you you got to hold us accountable. We're got to keep this place weird.

which makes the restaurant seem great because you have all these characters comment, it's great. So look forward to that. But you are saying, like you get to see humans in real life interact.

That's one of the beautiful things. Yeah, over food. In the book you write broca's a once said, the meaning of life is to find your gift.

The purpose of life is to give IT away. Then you wrote that you believe food is a gift we give ourselves three times a day. He explaining that .

the gift is actually, I think, is one of my most powerful life license. Is, is we we have to eat. So it's not not like you have a choice, you have to eat.

And so what I chose to do, I tried to make IT a gift to myself, each for each meal. And most of the time, the best gift is with friends, with, with family. So we have to cook some scramble days in the morning with my daughter.

Well, i've dinner with the our family. To me, it's a, it's a gift we give ourselves three times a day in at least. But for the most part, three times a day. Let's make IT a good one.

What makes IT a good one to you? like?

What makes you a good one? Well, first, definitely eating with with people. So that makes you a good ones for eating. Eating is a in a restaurant. IT doesn't be my restaurant. We have the energy of of people around you, energy of the town, people you don't know creates a little bit of vibe. You mention the the watering hole analogy of animals like shopping at the water, but they're an energy to that because they're also like looking around going, is am I just about to be eaten? So there's .

they're .

all in this together, red, but we need to have water. But there was still a little bit of attention as well in the background. And I think that's what restaurants do.

A very, very subbed version of that in a room with strangers. And yeah you're a little cluster. Okay you guys are connected in IT ah but you're in room of strangers and is just something that adds that energy to to the meal .

yeah you're a little bit wondering, like what does everyone else think .

about our little cluster, right? Like are we too loud? Just you also just people are random. So something really what could happen?

I am also, depending on your personality, if you're extra, maybe want to show off .

to get the cluster. You're right. Yeah, absolutely, totally right. Let me, you know, look at the couple head. I mean, actually i'll take my head off when I want to have a quiet meal and I can leave my head on and I are you aware of the i'm aware but the affected .

her lutely yeah one turns and then it's back to the watering hole because when you wear a couple head, you just might actually they've .

going to get to be first. Non.

I love you. I got to .

tell the story. So this is to talk to the, the, the craziness of being, of being in the restaurant world, where, you know, you sitting at a table and anything can happen in the restaurant. So this one time, as like fifteen years ago, the this guy comes up to us and says we would like to propose his wife with his girlfriend and and so we said, we will cool that.

We done this before. Make sure i'll set up six P M kind of reservation so SHE shows up and we we give a glass champagne to yeah we didn't obviously didn't want to spoil surprise. We just doing the weekend but he didn't then he doesn't arrive and they were like, um and now we were like, don't leave that. Can we get to another glasses ship and we do everything we can that was obviously earnest earlier, stuck in traffic or whatever. And h are coming through the back to the restaurant, which is you not allowed to come through the back to the restaurant, a marching band from the school of the university and like comes through the restaurant, you know, full on brass band the whole thing and and you know he gets down any proposal, it's it's, it's beautiful, sure but is also like, man, this is K, S. This is something and we would never said yes to this if he actually told us what .

he was going to do. Sometimes I like you have .

to do IT and apologize that toast to that kind of what the crazy thing that could happen. It's subbed, but it's, but it's still there.

So in two thousand four, you open the kitchen is an american, uh, B A restaurant. Whois IT like, what's IT like running a restaurant the good to bad and ugly. What was the easy? What's the fun and what's the hard?

I think I absolutely love about running the restaurant eating if IT running the restaurant is the the tangible reaction from from people. And um you you know you also kind of know when you created up and also know when you got a right. So even kind of we ready to say this, but even if the customers unhappy, you know what you gotta write wrong, it's not just about the future making, but it's about the person's psychological state. Yeah, and you'll you'll do something that you like, you know that that was not done well in their psychological state. Is this just a very happy place and they love IT and you're like an interesting you know like that's not how I would reacted to that dish yeah and in the other way round, you'd like I got that right and that that Price is like really .

unhappy today yeah and it's so hard to read humans because you have to if you got a right, then you can look a million different ways depending on the emotional role cause that humans living through. I have been some very low points, and i've gone to like a restaurant alone and just sitting there and be truly happy with just a zn aspect of IT and I was just a great like a great day or something like this and maybe to uh other people around me would look like i'm very unhappy just because within within my self day yeah within myself but i'm truly happy within that struggle so yeah it's interesting.

But you can kind of tell yeah you can tell. And what you mentioned being at the bar, one of the most gift, the most gifted bar tend is really understand that you know that goes beyond. But what's also great about the restaurant because beyond the one time experience that you walk in and have that experience is the goodbyes tenders that they remember you you're in a few months ago.

And this is kind of your thing. You might need a little time. And um other other people come in, they want a conversation yeah or other people come in and they're going through divorce and they just want to be sad for a moment. And it's like it's amazing what you learn in in the restaurant world to just be connected to humanity.

Yeah what is that about bars? That's a different experience. He said the that the table, the communal.

the table, is when you connect with people, learn about each other. But you can sometimes do that. You can talk left and right, but but you have the freedom always break, break free.

I you can say OK, i'm going to go back to my meal. So it's kind like that. It's like as a friend, you can turn on.

I know at any time because at the board, tenner knows that they're trained. Like if you want attention, i'm going to give IT to you. If you don't, i'm in the stairway. Um if you if you want to be shady, i'm be charity. If you want to be completing your head, i'll leave in your head.

But there's also strangers kind of next year that you there's a feeling with a bar that you kind of alone together .

yeah and you can reach out. Yeah you can add a conversation or .

you can choose .

not exactly really good. So wonderful. And I love gonna bar by myself. After work, I might have a question, might even not even have alcohol, just have something, and I just maybe have a snack or something before dinner and go home and have with a family.

And at that twenty minutes it's just a an amazing state change from daytime and night time. I went straight home. I'm like stolen my head and i'm just trying to trying to get grounded and i'm just i'm not as a pleasant of a person. So there's another powerful use of the bar, just like a transition time.

I mean, would be missed, not to mention the other use of the bar, which is like when you go through some shit in life and you just go, I mean, that sort of is decelerate thing. I've been someone so exactly .

the but like the .

bar makes the million college somehow like, uh, rich and beautiful and they gets you feel heard yeah you in the silence yes .

you feel heard you you like like I said, really like the people going through a divorce they don't know where else to go yeah um these these are mostly men, sometimes women to do a, but mostly man do this and women other of processing IT but they just they want a place to be sad. They want a place where they could feel comfortable talking about IT if they went there are certainly not going to go to too much detail, but they just want to say something yeah and the bar and is there for them .

yeah you don't know where to go. You know where to go and exactly the the bar yeah you're right like for man especially is a place to just go yeah and just, I don't know what is that .

I know what is that I still do IT myself where if I at home and I did, you know, have a work thing that I got to deal with, and I don't have kids and I don't have a my wife for family, I I don't often cook for myself. I really love going to a bar by myself. I have glass of red wine and I have, no, you don't have a daughter appetizer.

I just like the main meal, and I just taken the energy of the space with my restaurant, someone else, the restaurant. I just taken the energy. And is so much, much Better than being home and put turn the T.

V on. No, no, no, no, no. I I want to be out the restaurant. I want to feel the energy of the town. The other thing that restaurant teach me is the there is the front lines of of the economy was Better work for IT, just like front front lines of the energy of of of how things are going.

like of people's in general, like IT doesn't really mean part of town. But I could be the entire .

society exact so you you can go into a restaurant and i'll use a simple example and why is the restaurant empty? Ah there's a football game going on and that they there's such a large number people want to watch that game that the restaurant is quiet or might be like another world series or something and I wow that's so interesting you can actually watch you in amErica was american humanity can watch the move in their patterns just by being in the restaurant yeah ah and then another time you might be in the restaurant and he's just ging and on monday night, you know what what what is the energy that created this on a monday night and maybe even on a cold february monday at what is IT? And so if you can find out, but you can feel IT and it's it's my it's my front lines of humanity that I that I also just really love about the restaurant.

Yeah, I could be empty before empty bars. There's a magic to those too. Yeah, you could still feel that energy. I don't know.

I should prefer empty words and then ones just you in the bar time.

I mean, so my greatest experience is just the quiet bar, which is me in the bar Turner, and they're doing their thing and have seen so many. I've almost like through us moses somehow feel the stories that that bar tender seen this felt has heard yeah no, that kind of stuff. I mean that it's not to be sort of like spiritual boat, but this seems like it's in the walls or something like there's the history felt .

and in some of these bars are actually very old and it's wonderful like the man in europe like this. But this couple of the new year k city, few hundred years old and you you and there's so Operating nonstop for that long and may you feel IT yeah.

let me ask you some questions about ingredients. What's your favorite ite ingredient to cook with?

For me cooking is an north right. So be like asking me what's my favorite favorite int color to use doesn't so that IT there IT isn't like there isn't one. It's more like when there is one a really is one you know like these peaches on on the cover of this cookbook, those peaches that those were in August color to peaches IT just doesn't get any Better than that on .

that day at that moment that was but that .

only last for a week and then they don't take so great, yes, but dam will they so good in that moment? And you just can't stop wanting to use that ingredient.

They look really good. There is so good. What's your favorite of fruit? I love that and fruit.

What's your favorite fruit? I love a smooth ball. So I do out of barriers rasberries. But I, but I use fruit more in the form of a sumida than I eats fruit dead. Often I like, like an apple, or but a bit for most pet part, I prefer like the blended me.

I love the way you cash. You said like an apple.

My apple is pretty great .

for me is a problem I think probably Cherry number one, probably um what do they call me? Smith up is a great.

but try IT when sometimes comes to call out in Augusta. When you try those peaches IT is like heaven has arrived in your mouth is so ridiculously good.

But just for a week in all this.

for a week, if you can have all your life.

Ah, what about vegas, europe? That chef hugo, that you work with the cold kitchen with, touched the power of a good vegetable. yeah. What's the power of good vegetable?

So i've trained in new york. Er is a friendship f but IT wasn't very much ingredients focus wasn't very much uh sourcing focused. He came from the river cafe in london, which is one of the the og for the farm to table and are still going strong today.

And he he taught me the the value of getting to know farmers and getting to know vegetables from that farm versus vegetables from that form. And they're actually different. So a little different where where they grow.

A little different is the opposite of the industrial machine, where everyone needs to look exactly the same. And sometimes you'll get carrots that are ugly, informed, but there is much sweeter than the charts you get for other way purposes. So you make a care period out of that, and then you take cares there that are more typical in shape and size.

You might rose them for for dinner so that it's the appreciation for a vegetables in general. I probably would say characters as my favorite because I that was an example of one where I i've really had to learn how to use the, the, the, the different types of characters that come from around from all of our farms. And um it's fun, you know the fun ingredient. If you just went to the whole foods or just went to courses, you just got exactly the same here every time. Less fun to go to farmers market and see what you get and you you'll see they're quite different.

Yeah, Carry from his problem. Number one, I have uh, rigors detailed rankings for fruit and vegetable that we will get into. Why am the kind of person that would have like a Sparky for that, but almost just making fun of myself. I do love carrots. I wish they weren't so full of carbs, but I am .

just not anti carbs. You know I think the yeah I think they play a role you know like I am have a great friend who is an amazing doctor and um he did some test from enemy then and turns I have a good analogy and that's not okay uh what that means I shouldn't look this and like, okay, but I also have heavier and that that means I should not go out into nature so like, no, I think i'm going to go out into nature and maybe what i'll do on bread and passes elective true carbs, i'll just have IT when it's really good because when is really good?

It's really good and you don't want to miss that most of the time. Okay, find some cry me bread, whatever. Like, I can skip that point, but I find all of these dies are like no than another or super this super that I, I, I wonder if they are just like a like people are just looking something to hang on to. But these dies have been around forever. And if they work, then we would know that.

I think one of the biggest problems with diets is IT adds stress. When you do have that perfect posta, if you, if you have category yourself as a low car b eating person, you might be very stressed about enjoying this yeah, when you should just let go, let go.

This is your cheap day, whatever yeah and i've heard that and actually my friends who do that, that they're cheat day and I said them, i'm only going to hang with you on your cheap day. You're like one yeah.

I mean, I would say like for me, there's things that make me feel really good. But they're not rules. They are not. They're like go to favors speak like in terms of diet and so on, for example, of most of the eating once a day.

oh well.

for the longest time. But it's not a rule like it's it's completely flexible. And I most have been eating .

very low carb. You must be eating .

a lot food in that one. Real yes, because it's usually a very of meat heavy.

Everybody needs food.

Yeah, body needs food. So like two thousand calories, what you find out IT is like that dinner is like the most social time of the day.

Yeah, I think I have kids in the morning. If you have kids is for sure a morning experience. But if you don't, you're right.

Yeah but like you said, I I D V A you know i'm more afraid of missing the the perfect desert, the perfect breakfast, the perfect the well as the pizza all that yeah and then I don't think of IT is a cheap day.

I think it's um if you want me the day, you be like.

well, again, I want to make clear that's not one year day always and i'm like this very strict thing. Um it's you always have to be open to the experience, to the new experience. Otherwise you do miss out just a good side, have you like, I think if you want to be really safe, you should never leave your home.

Yes, we learned during covered. If you rap yourself in cotton wall in your basement, yes, you're not going to die from covet. You might die from a lot about the things of pure misery. yes.

Well, you might live forever.

we don't know. But IT certainly .

doesn't maximize the joy of whatever whatever makes life worth living. IT doesn't maximized that.

Yeah, exactly.

You wrote in the book that Anthony bergin was one your heroes. Can you speak to what inspired you about him?

Yeah, he read a book called kitchen confidential in the nineties, always cooking school at the time I was. So he romanticized the cooking in the restaurant. So well, he's writing is great.

He kind of got me into like, oh, that's cool. I I wanna do that was was was that was cool. So you know, got into cooking school, got more engaged in IT. And I and I was like this head, this formal feeling of, I wanted to experience what it's like to be in in the backfire when you're cking school, you are you are in the back that would had a restaurant we would serve people.

But it's not the same thing is actually being in a like a real restaurant is like you in a submarine with with your teammates and you got win tonight, like it's a real a real energy. And so that that was a big inspiration. I followed him of his source said that he he chose to in his life.

But I also had met with him a few times, not not like one on one of dining which met with him. And I just felt his love for for food. And truly, this love for food.

he gave the advice of, don't be afraid, get excited and cook with love.

Yeah, i've used that phrase, especially the cook with love. One, I mean, no, you know, one of the things about which we talked about earlier where you get quick tangible feedback from a customer meeting in the restaurant, I know when I didn't put love into that dish. I know when one of my line cooks did not put love into that part of the dish.

I know when that export person did not put love into looking on, double checking the this people putting IT on the table. I you just know and cook with love is when you do IT for your family. Now, actually, especially when you do IT for for your family, the food doesn't does not be perfect. But you're cooking with .

love is why you lost .

scammel eggs.

I do that. Is that in the campus scramble eggs? Yes, you promise to make me cambell.

It's a cooking school. You mentioned the french corner institute. I heard there was A A bit of a rough experience in parts.

I ve cooler. It's not a rough experience .

in that .

in a beautiful way. Yeah, exactly. It's not like a victim of IT.

It's roughly that they intentionally make IT rough. So the the school costs the same Prices. Harvard to go to, you show up.

You have to senate month program. You are a lot of drop out at any time. You don't get your money back. Twenty five people started, six people graduated, and the people who graduated, I graduated with a man that was, there were times around, I can handle this. I mean, I would literally say, my friends, oh, I got to go to cookies colombia to get screamed dead for the next six, seven hours. Yeah, and I had a little french chef who was my nemesis of this.

He still live in your head somewhere.

lives in my exactly, does you like five foot two or something and and I remember him screaming so much at me that he's like the short guy. I'm six, five. The spittle would land on my face.

nice. And I would just have to sit there, understand there, and take IT. IT was a very humbling experience. I did learn, know that this is intentionally a rough.

So I took a little bit of the edge over at one day when that same shift had come over to me. Instead, move over a little bit. And then I moved over, and he took my cares, whatever, and thought, just shopping everything and like perfectly.

And then he said that he can come back and then went over to someone else and started screaming at them, saying that, look, even cable can do this and you can do this. And I like the whole things like a psycho. K, so to take the edl, when I realized there was the, I was intentionally trying to break you down, and they do this currently in the army, have not been in the army, but they need, they need to break you down. Everything you know is worthless, so that then we can teach you, and you can come out with what what actually we want you to know.

Are there specific technical lessons you remember you learned from that sort of how to cut carrots or how to approach food, how to prepare food, how to think about food, how to Carry yourself in the kitchen.

all of those things um I think that the one of the most beautiful lessons, what works, actually scrambled legs, so that there are different layers of chefs. So there were master chefs. There are all very one people everywhere.

But a an sault. A was one of the chief like main, main guys. And he just passed away. Master chef, and everything kind of stopped when he would show up in the kitchen, and he would teach very few things.

And all of the other ships who would know the same ones that was screaming at us, just like was like the red sea parting, like they have total respect for this human. And he can do what every once. And the one of the things he wanted to teach was, how do you make an omelet, a french omelet? And it's really fundamentally the same thing, a sort scramble day that that you fold.

And the love that he put into the time with us. And of course he's a legend. There were moments like there are, wow, okay.

He also also, just like the other ship, didn't have any concern berating anyone. So he berated our master chefs, say, I don't trust these people to teach you how to make scramble eggs. So i'm gonna IT instead. I mean, can you speak like because.

you know, a lot of people hearing this to be like scrambled legs, why do you need to be a master shafter really?

Yeah, it's a little for me and and it's it's a it's a learning journey forever so so I make I I was made IT thousand whatever just like George dreams of .

sui kimbel dreams of scandal eggs pretty .

k so I I will wake up and be held accountable by my kids to make something something that happens every morning. And um is I I know all the steps, muscle memory level kind of steps I know and then i'll cook IT and it's very meditated for me because you have to focus so most of the soft scrambled dress by sorb ten fifteen minutes uh to get them to the that perfect softness.

And the versy that I got from, uh, a chef, chef alan, was was something that you do in ninety seconds. But IT requires total focus, if you like, look up every second. You're gonna miss. You're going to miss the the the perfect moment we have to stop, get those eggs of the pen, because once the pen ex will keep cooking. And so as this meditation, and it's sometimes you hit IT, but perfectly. But most times this could have been a little softer, could have a little firmer, could have a little more salt, could have little a pepper, uh, and so so what's really fun about the morning is my kids are kind of into IT. So they're so like we critique the eggs yeah.

every morning do they have a rating system?

More of a more like. And again, it's also come back to how people .

feel all I like .

my a little more good year or or yesterday I was this way a little bit more so little less less salt h salt is usually the one that is because um uh not all salt are are equal. So if you are used to working with a certain kind of assault in the year, you just forced for some ran attitude to use use some assault, you actually don't know how to use that. You really, you really want to have the same sult all the time.

They ever page on salt in book first you got to get .

to know yourself, you know you ve got to love yourself and you ve got to use IT over over over again ah and I will teach you, uh how to use that salt where by you your pap ilo t will tell you how sold you like things. But if you change IT up and you mix up the whole unch assaults, you now multiply your learning path. So for me, I my favorite saut is is coach assault.

And I like to use that all the time. And if if I ever change that, I might sprinkle a little bit of modern sault to crunchy, a sort of a flaky salt. But it's more for for that when you're like you to give you textures as well.

Salt exactly. You wouldn't use another scrambles, but the but if you switch out, your sales is a different weapon. And I need learn IT.

I like, I like cow. You know, usually there's wine canos. S you're saying you go back to have far to table when you talk about more carrots in that same rigor nuance, you have to consider the different farms involved for the carrots in that same way, you have to consider the different salts yeah .

was like and also not even a curious, also the same. It's the particular salt that you d like get to know IT get in a relationship with IT. It's like, great. You're going so .

much the in terms of the measured to process the amount you put of salty put in. Are you doing that like exactly are you doing IT by feel? So is by feel.

and that's where you get the relationship. So in fact, I have a in the book, in the cook book, I have Q R codes that people can scan because of what I struggles recipes. They don't they don't teach technique.

They can they can describe the technique, but they don't teach the technique. It's a technic is not a recipe. And so one of the one of the lessons is how do you salt a stake? And the answer is not, here's a teaspoon, and you do IT this way.

The answer is, use costa assets so you can see with your eyes because that little flicks how much sult is on your stake. And then taste, we cook IT and then taste IT. And now you think you need more, you need IT less.

okay. Now next time, put a little more on because you can see IT. And it's about learning the the the fact that you you want to be able to see how much salt is on the states, that you can then train yourself for the future, how much so to your sake.

yeah but then the stake and the sole kind of dance together depends on where the stake came from.

All the thickness of the stake will make a difference. But for the most part of you learn if if you're able to see IT, there is a table salt, for example, just disappears. You just can't see what you're putting on your stake. You can't .

really learn as result. I think you talk about rose chickens where your love of food which began.

what about stake? What so great.

So in in the in the school in the front school, he would add sauces in all this kind of stuff and orders when you realize .

like there's a beauty to the to the basic yeah like a good a neo strip from a good venture that that you know the there's a lot of discussion controversial how calls should be raised and we we very yeah different approach ages. We know how cathartes we go to the farm. We get to know the the venture.

We and sometimes you do want have them be finished on like we'll be grasped, ed, for the most proper. There is some sort of cool recipe of future giving them that will then make them taste Better. Um and sometimes this is actually prety good to have one hundred percent grass fed.

I have some amazing ranches that that show me that the flavors all there for the average person that you know might go whole user grows the store. I think the simplicity of of a good stake IT IT is important to get good sourcing battle. Just good.

What's your favorite conomo as new york shirt?

Proud new shop for me. yeah. New shirt yeah I like the fact that is lean, but if you want the fat, you can dive into that little strip of fat or you can leave me alone because you you don't want to that night. Um and it's a uh a great stake for adding something like if you want to, you could either do a pepper source or you could do a lot of ground pepper, which gives IT a peppery. It's not not source, but a peppy stake is a really good stake for OK cameras for for other things.

But the basic ingredients .

they're playing with assault and pepper, just prety matic, if SHE, I will say, is another one, garlic when you when you can want this is my favourite recipe for mistake is you you season IT precise little pepper you so take IT um in in all of barely barely anything and um you're getting a nice crisp like a golden darker Brown on both sides. Other other trick with don't touch IT you put one side when you're ready to turn to turn around, don't touch any other, any other time but at the end you take a David button and you crush up a cloth of garlic. You don't even chopper, you crush the globe and you you put the two of them in the in the pan and you just roll the stake around in the garlic.

And that's the one bold move. Bold move. What are you are since you're an awesome quite a bit opening a restaurant here? Anything about barbecue kind of the the texas way but I would say .

is an Austin way, which is which is an actually even often say a suburb austan way is I think that actually the the adventure of food is wonderful. Um I would absolutely say that that Austin is is one of the great food at cities of amErica and barbecue is one of is one of its gifts that that IT gives the city. But but you go to one and the other and you'll have a different approach.

And that's the part I love is where the real celebration of the artisan. So you might go to one and they have they have a style that they love, they'd be doing that for years. And then you're go to another and they have a style that they love and the'd doing IT for years.

And it's is not the super barbecue, but they're actually different and it's really beautiful to see that. And that's I think that's that's what food culture is like. IT just builds up over time by people who love this .

start of cooking. Well, I especially love the communal, like how they structure restaurants usually or I don't even want to call IT a restaurant because IT IT IT doesn't feel like a restaurant IT feels like a tapping.

some sort like Terry blacks like like a yes, messy as you like. It's a whole role of people give you your nap in, they know what .

you're getting into yeah and that's just woods everywhere and it's kind of has this field, this places been around forever? It's not changing. I knows the twenty four century with the internet, all this kind nonsense that you people are building, but really the soul about the same yes, it's been the same for generations. We're doing at the same that kind of feel if you want to escape the world in that way and then truly connect with people.

What are the other things that will happen in in the talent cost? And is they'll be a barbecue jar that is just legendary. And in out of that will come someone who wants to go to their own Barbie joint, and they'll take the learning from that bark dren.

They will open up a new one, but IT won't be the same as the other barbers you joined. Part of this is like, do, like, don't do to do the same thing. Like, do something.

what? What do you have to say? But also a part of IT is, if you're in the world of food as an art form, and you want to go open up another body, he joyed, you, you, you can want to prove yourself like, I deserve to have a barbecue.

Do IT in this town. I know this is one of the holy rills of Barbie. And and people will follow you like they're following a musician or are following an an artist, and they're excited to see what your version is and how well you can pull that off. It's like it's actually that's what I love. That's what I mean by like a city with a food culture that often has that .

there's also like a legend to certain places. Certain places are more than just the food they create its hike that could be a burden. They have to like live up to the legendary nature of the name.

A restaurant in balder kitchen is twenty years old. Um we're very well known, very well respected and we do have to live up to the name. I think that our restaurant lives up to its name in IT and not just the food is like you walking and you feel the restaurant and that that is also uh is something we we've just done naturally.

Um the space is one hundred and twenty year old building used to be a brothel. There was folk store like this was a mining town, right? So back in eighteen hundreds this was built late eighteen hundreds um um that to the process that was a thing.

And so there's an actual tunnel under and basement that goes to the local hotel that would be used for going back and fourth between the hotel and and rothel without people knowing. And the tunnel is now concrete up, but you can go about twenty thirty feet into the tunnel, but you're going to the end of the space. And it's actually an old space. So you feel like it's been there forever. Yeah.

in twenty ten you had a life threatening accident. Uh, that changed. We see life, the world also. We see food and cooking. Can you tell me the story of IT?

yeah. As for two thousand and ten, I was thirty seven. I had opened the restaurant um in two thousand four and I had loved the restaurant world, loved IT.

But I didn't really want to grow a restaurant company that wasn't my my goal and so I got went back into technology and I I had gone from something that I love to something that I like. For me, IT was like sucking soda every day. I just couldn't believe that I had gone from that had changed my life.

I'd gone back into technology. And now I do do work in technology and I do love you, but I found a Better relationship with IT. I was really, really unhappy.

And from the outside, I was a sort of sea of a hot start up performa side. I was just, just very unhappy. And I am was in Jackson hole, and I was doing these very aggressive snowed runs in a, at the time, pretty, pretty good at, great to snow water.

And I remember seeing themselves like, I got kids. I need to chill on this. And I think that was valentine states next day tours. Valentine day.

I'm just going, have a nice day with the family and in my my wife time and and we went to a children's run into the inner tube run and the tube are small, but everyone uses the same tube. So our six to five in the my six four years old and everyone uses the same as tube. I should have bit a message to me, not not to get on this thing.

But I went, got on IT and the first run and I went down, you going superfast three, five months an hour, and the tube hit the breaking mats and IT stopped IT look to just stop. Ward, where was just through me? I was my, my head was a facing down hill.

So that's created the wrong center gravity. So instead of breaking at just through me, I let them on my head. My head went into my chest, like compressions into my chest.

Don't like that. I ruptured my spine at c six and cy seven. And in like the blink of a second, I was paralysed. I was like, what? Just like impossible to impossible to comprehend. And they they take me put put a big thing on my halo on my head and they take me to the hospital, which is more medical clinic. And i'm just like was going on here.

Do you maybe your thoughts from the moment that happened to a the way to get the .

hospital I member being? So is a the things that should the doctor said caused the most damage was um I was thrown from the two and I and I heard this big crunch sound in my body and I knew that I was hurt but I didn't feel any pain just that that's also like why wouldn't you feel pain because you don't know paralyse, you don't fill pain and and i'm face down on on the snow and the snow is burning my face because you know, you can you can do that.

You need something and I found a way to turn myself around so that my face wouldn't be on the ground, but I know I couldn't move and that they said, actually cause more damage than, well, then I was. See, the accident created the opening once. Once you move your body, the blood goes into the spinal column or faster rate and that that is what caused my paralysis. Remember that and I um I remember going into the into the the the ambuLance um did you think .

you're onna die at that? I in those seconds minutes .

IT was a different feeling that that was is more. IT was more of a what is going on here? Okay, this was IT was more OK. I can't make sense of what's going on.

IT was a IT was IT was a moment I get to the hospital and they they did this mi and the doctor comes up to mean says look with with sami in um so so i'm now now in the hospital and i'm like I can move but also feeling any pain. I'm like it's very confusing. Your body looks like you can move in like luxe are moving my hand, like IT looks like you can do that and then IT just doesn't move IT.

There is no there's no feedback loop that is not moving. You program even think is moving but is not moving. It's like the worst, the most terrifying thing.

So the doctor says the way, the way broke your next was really that really, really angle that's so rare. But as a result, there is no twisting of of the spine. We think that we get the blood or respond column, and you should get somewhere.

Maybe all of you move IT back. And I was like, go, okay, I think I might be fine. I guess I made to fined. Then I realized that had tears streaming down the side of my face. And I was like, well, man, I have no idea what is going on.

So this kind of intense state of confusion, I wonder if if we are psychological defense mechanism of, like taking you away from the obvious possibility of death.

Yeah, IT was that for sure? All the all of the defenses were up. I else to described IT. But there was was denial. Yeah, there was, uh, this there is a curiosity of like why there no pain, but that that when they did actually repair me, to fixed me, there was three days later, the pain was indescribable. How much pain I was in, but there was no pain for three days.

The human bodies is fascinating wow. So they were able yeah so .

they did the surging but I had this I had this very clear voice in my head that um kind of determined that is going. I'm not religious, but I don't know how else to describe the voice and the voice is very clear. You're gonna work with kids and food.

Okay, where did that come from? I'm like taxi. I have a restaurant. And we were working with some kids in schools was like some helping at no local nonprofit is no, you just going to work on kids in food.

And my good friend and tony, my brother in the hospital, I was like, i'm to work on his son because they are like he's grazy. He's lost his mind. But but they no one. I'm just going to do that.

I need to say IT out loud and I remember resigning from my to my job as as see a from the hospital and um that was that that was which was clear that was a clear voice, wasn't for a moment, wasn't like a flash of lighter in thing that was only two weeks of clear voice of clarity. clarity. You exactly clarity. And no monkey brain, nothing. No monkey brain, just clarity.

So you're not a religious person, but you do call IT the voice of god. Who is that god? Do you think? Like who is that? where? Where do I come from?

Well, I done. I waska. And i've spoke to what the cool mother, ira, which is another version of god.

It's a, it's a divine presence. Maybe I think it's a Better way, he said. I've also had this debate in my head like, maybe it's just me. I'm talking to me and is my my a peaceful, uh, more kinder more let's caught up in the emotion of the depression of me. Maybe it's me, okay, maybe IT is, but it's there.

But who are you and how did business ago? What what does you mean you could be, you know so I like the depth of what the human mind even is, is a good, gigantic mystery consciousness, all of IT. Yeah, who are you so like, yeah, maybe it's you, but then maybe you need to build you.

We need to build the universe and the entire, like you are actually a fundamentally a part of the whole human society. So the piece, the piece of humans that you've interact with them all within you, and then maybe the history of the humans that came before also in there, and maybe the entity of life on earth is also in. And whatever the whatever brought life about on earth is in there. Someone, yeah, so that's all you. Yeah.

all of the the which is really true evolution is is literally is true that death, we all are photo ones from the sun, we fish, we all came from, came from that. I think this is one, you know, so one of the one of things I do is meditate. And this was been medicating for many, many years.

In what way I meditated as I, I sit in my, listen to my thoughts, and I probably just do that for fifty to twenty minutes and you just come comes the nervous system, and I I breathe and just be breathe through because it's been a stressful day and it's just a beautiful way I kind of do IT around. I mean, I said I used to do a squats at at the bar after work. Now I go meditate, for instance, look IT Better for my for my for my, for my health.

But meditation I was thought um was sam hairs actually told me this. I was not so much just about watching your thoughts but realizing that zero watcher, you're actually a watcher. You're not just like who who is the person watching that that you actually your thoughts are are floating through your mind but you are the watcher and that's that's interest.

okay. So what i'm going to learn that i'm going i'm going to be the watcher. And what I learned was i'm watching these stores go by and there's a consistent other presence in a mug.

What is that consistent other presence? It's not a thought that is not a it's not of not something I can kind of let IT float away and IT doesn't even want to float away. IT isn't. It's it's just a consistent other presence that I can watch and feel.

So you you are the watcher watching the feelings and thoughts, but there's also other president next to almost yes.

yeah, that's how I feel. And it's a beautiful presence. It's not not a presence that is trying to intervene. It's not a presence that is trying to tell you what to do. Just a beautiful presence.

And that might be the the thing part of the thing you met when you too, guy wasa.

I learned about mother I, where you have this experience talking to. Actually, I was said the closest thing to break in my neck. But that feeling was I was .

asking you go to the experience, you traveling to the amazon jg in a month, probably. Do I ask you for the first time OK? I need a preview unofficial .

struction menu? yes. So first of all, as many, many different ways to do that, right? So and I have done have done many, many different ways. There is a very western medicine approach.

We have a doctors that, uh, look after you during the day, you know what I ask, gone on on on a food tone and you're really are in a western medicine setting. And it's Frankly for me has been the most powerful experience. I feel the most comfortable because i'm part of western medicine in my upbringing.

The other extreme that they kind of in between would be very poly provand primary going to go very much um about you do in the community, you do IT with others and you you feel people go through their pain and they're processing. Um so I I know the whole gammit, but the the thing the thing that I found most powerful about IT profoundness powerful, I would say, but physical is non recreational. So no, no, no one should do this for a good time. This is not a good time. This is, this is a very almost .

traumatic, but in again.

a beautiful way you to say that but not it's not traumatic, it's profound. So it's more likely you don't have you, you, you, you, you, you really leave who you were behind and then you become the person you will be afterwards.

That's never an easy thing. Yes, exactly.

And sometimes. But what I recall this was arguing with bother I and saying, no, i'm i'm fine. Like, what are you talking about? I see me alone. And yeah.

how does that work out? Um but before twenty ten, the accident, the the two transformational experiences you had, you wore a very successful tech. C E O, maybe go back to the early days with the zip too. I ninety ninety four union on started up to tell me story that yeah so .

nine four we actually did road trip around U. S. To brainstorm about what what we wanted to do have .

to college with something.

So we went from silicon valley to to my brothers, uh, old like a really, really cool. And that's one of those very old P M. W.

Is not, not, not ones have from the six or seventies. But I would but the carin work IT would break down all the time. But we had Better blast.

You know, we just remember going through needles on the border of california zone, the town needles. So how test place in america. And the engine could was not cooling the way to put the heat on.

So we have the heat blasting to cool l the engine, keep the engine cool and keep the windows down, because that we can stand heat the car. But actually the outside he is harder than the inside. He's you, you're you're just in in a fairness yeah driving through so even I can't imagine doing a wow the day I was IT was was a wonderful would proteus. A few weeks I think three weeks.

maybe first time across .

amErica first like a road like that, I for sure. But I was really not a router for tourist sites. We we went to the weird as places and actually obviously didn't. We didn't go and we broke down in the weird as because that's that's when we stopped there during.

mean, any interesting people.

I remember we broke down on the bad lands of south, but an hour from rapid city and there's that road is empty. And so we actually slept in in the car because there one, there just no one rattly, no cellphones in those days. And eventually a trucker picked this up.

I was like, you you guys, the domus kids on the planet to was like twenty one, and he was maybe twenty two. And but but he was thought he was so nice to essence, so kind to essence, found us a mechanic and rapidity, and then found as a to rock. And yeah, you find, you find the most wonderful people when you're in a place of distress.

People, uh, people do want to take care of other people. I help you. Yeah.

I want to help. And especially you on a road trip, i've taken a lot because another days, and there's a part of people where they they really love that. They think part that wants to do that also wants to escape whatever the local, the struggles, just whatever the monday as the struggle of life are. A road trip is a kind of thing where you're like, you know what i'm going to get away from at all and i'm going to experience life in the full, the epic of jack archway of a seeing amErica in the people, not the just a human.

Yeah exactly. We this was not tourist related, we did, of course. But when we stopped mount rushmore at night, which you can see nothing, yeah, I thought there was hilarious. We couldn't see mount of as. So well, we we physically were here .

yeah photo of us in the dark. You could just say you went to the grand Candy and just visit different places when the car broke down out of IT. Uh, so yes, you took the road trip before a finding .

a zip tu yeah so so I had a experience in college running a house painting business that for me was my first uh, experience success. IT was very, very hard. IT was a franchise where where they teach you know students how to pay houses and and but I I was good at IT.

You know, I I built a team of thirty people, but then after about two years, and so I like I I had a taste of, hey, i'm not i'm not unable to do this. In fact, my my most vulnerable place. I remembers an entrepreneurs I I had, I had.

I just love the idea of wall street and finance was kind of a lurid by IT in late eighties in high school, there are lot of these books, liars, poker and others, that came out as, this is awesome. These people must be amazing. So I went to business school and now I busted my ass to get like a kick as summer job.

And I got a job in with the main banks. And I was in toronto, but I was like the original street, and I was so disappointed with the people that I was around. I was just a wow.

I totally misunderstood what what the banking world is. IT was very large bank. I'm sure if I gone to a more aggressive, maybe I would have had a Better experience.

When I say great for mining, someone was paying attention like this was just a um just people kind of showing up and not doing much yeah and and actually that's funny so this is a great for the best so one thousand ninety one nineteen two of the one of those summers up the the but the summer job was literally you go to the the they print out the sales for all, for all brokers, houses for all the whole company. Pilot paper, this maybe four, five feet tall and you have a pencil and you add things up using your pencil and a calculator. And I i'd known about lotus one, two, three, forever excells coming up.

And I like, hey, guys, you know, that is a different way. this. And they're like, don't talk to us the job yeah the pencil .

so I went to the .

head of the I just ask you those days you had the manila envelope where you can you just like the name of the person that you want this to go to and little go to them is like email like this but you there's no yeah there's no filter so if felt filter .

so I said I know .

I A little nice letter to the to the database administrator who I didn't really know and as said, would you be open to me, say hi and maybe I can get access to the file rather than print the time thing out? Use pencil and SHE could respond right away and we hit IT off. I mean, he was great and so she's like, of course, you can have these guys doing what they're doing.

So um if for the first couple of weeks that was the summer I I wrote I wrote code and load is one three that would can sound crazy. But you type in the date range, you type in the geography, you type in the, you know, which part of the bank you care about. And IT will literally just create A A news spaceship, and IT will just the micro o printed out. IT was like a magic trick for these guys. And .

incredible. No, no.

it's like sounding that that I mean, for me I would like guys, this is so obvious and um um so I did I could have done and and this job was used to take three or four months because it's really you doing this with a pencil and now I created this macro that you could not just not just do IT. You could do IT, you could tweet IT. And I want this this area of the world of this area of this month, that month, compete to that month.

You know, all the Normal things you could do with the sprecher. And the software was on a floppy discus. Here's a software and just put IT, put IT into your computer, or right now, now low open one to three and and IT just pops up with a little box that typing your dates and the whole little, I quote a little thing like that.

And what what I was sounded by was not not so much that there was a magic trick IT was the lack of appreciation for innovation. They just looked at the real like, that's nice. And I like you, just we going to have someone spend hundreds of hours doing something and now it's something .

you can do in a .

minute yeah that doesn't yeah like and so I was really disappointed with with the banking world. There was also in a good .

example though yeah and they also see the possibility where that goes.

But then then go back to business school and I I cancel all of my business class like possibly could I actually in business school so I couldn't cancel them all, all finance there like i'm i'm done with that industry. I'm not going back. So the vulnerable part for me was my whole families full of entrepreneurs.

And there was there as franchise to do house painting. And I genuinely was afraid that I wouldn't be good at IT as well. I really am afraid of failure. Easily avoid entrepreneurship. But if you whole families entrepreneurs, you go in and you aren't good, um I I was really afraid you're gonna .

have to face that failure every time you meet your .

family yes and it's it's our family are wonderful and everything but they but very much everyone's an entrepreneur and and of course not everyone's perfect. Not everyone doing is successful ly all the time, but when you when you're Young and you want to prove yourself, that really was putting my heart on my sleeve. I thought that the the business in this part of toronto and for the first, pay the houses in the summer, but you do all your sales pre before the summer for the in the way to APP April.

I was just not succeeding in as the I, I, my oh my god, i'm i'm just going to fail and I I remember that I looks like my my home nervous system was like i'm a failure and I member had this gentle manager who who you know he's like the people you seem like, you know what you're doing, why you not making these sales and so so we he actually went with me on a few sales schools and I was like as, oh, you, he he is great using this wrong, you're doing that wrong. You're doing this wrong and change those three things. And I was like a, like a water shade mind. Just all of a sudden I just follow the instructions, support the sky told me was an every single sale I would make was I can't believe that I IT was really my my um lack of humility to learn from someone else I was like, no, i'm approve that I can do this without your teachings and I I was gna fail said to you that .

humility is essential for the entrepreneur. Special 一样的。

I say if we we have an openness to learning, which does require humility, um you you you course correct. You help get other people to help you course correct. But IT IT does start with humility because if if you try to pretend you have all the answers, you don't.

So he went from that to finding zip too. Doesn't interesting time in the history of tech yeah but I mean, what was that like you mentioned, uh, the first people to look at a map, a, uh basically directions.

yeah. So mapping had been on the inner, but vector base mapping, they had not. So as the ability to zoom in or zoom out and is really data versus of an image that comes across.

And we we can't wait to this competitive nav tech. My brother and we just asked for the data and they still can value. They rote us on Epace l etter t hat w e h ad t o s ign s aid, here's all of our data we owe IT.

You don't own IT, but you can use that on the internet. And if you ever make any money on that, you have to call us because, yeah, alright, okay, that sounds great. So we put IT up on the internet, and back in those days, we might take sixty hundred, twenty seconds, actually give you an answer back.

But IT was amazing. The daughter or directions, ability to take a map and zoom in and zoom out. Um we use these things ten times a day now um IT was amazing.

We were the first two humans to see IT on the internet like this up didn't even exist to the world like the nav tech was building. IT for never love, for hurts never lost, which will come out a few years later. This was not something that people new existed. This was something we discovered that IT existed. Everyone, let's put IT on the .

internet and show the world what you feel like.

Like to see. Mac, you amazing IT was like, what like do you mean .

the amazing just that is cool, but also that you could see the future that this could transform.

I don't think, I don't think people understand before this moment, you could not be told your directions. You just could not like today, we live in this world where told our directions before this moment, you could not be told your directions and all of a sudden you could yeah, he wasn't like a little thing.

There's a just a bunch of things that we once we have, we take IT for granted, and that takes like a day for people. Trans one is like, okay, exactly.

exactly.

And it's when you see maybe when you're one of the first humans to see that thing, you're like.

holy, this is going to be used by everyone all the time forever.

So zip two was a success.

I was this was success, but IT was also a very hard company to build. And I mean, IT because the international those days was a boon time. We were being funded, but he couldn't make any money.

And so IT was actually really hard, the constant outside criticism that we aren't for real. This is not going to survive. This is not going.

And I started to feel that way with, like, well, and this is we are doing something that is great that people are using. And we were top one hundred website. Most of our work was to folk like the new york times.

We even even much buser than that. But the but the but there is just no money at IT even today got to google maps. There is no money in IT is just it's just the local search that that is needed for everyone.

And I just became IT add on to search. But even remember those days, you couldn't make money at search either. No one had figured out ed, where everything didn't realize how big of businesses was, but we all knew this was a thing and everyone was using IT.

but didn't quite know how to make money.

Make money when we got acquired. IT was a bitter sweet moment because compact, that own ultima wanted emerged. So that sort of regular search with with the best search engine at the time, preggers le, with the two, which would be the best local search, and that would be a yahoo killer.

And the the compact just wanted to make money by taking the company public, but they wouldn't give us any stock. They would just pay us, get return out, actually very wealthy, but because the hope internet bubble, but we we didn't know that at the time. And so as big as sweet because they they essentially wanted our company and we were welcome to stay.

But but you don't have to, right? And that feeling was prey. That was proof feeling. But in .

retrospect, IT opened the door to, he set .

set us up for an incredible put platform to go to beautiful things.

You've invested in extra com ah that eventually emerged paypal as a fascinating story there also fascinating of many levels, including the fact that the the current social media company, formally known as twitter, now called x there's a history has like a as arrive to IT like this kind of all hilarious and certain kind of way uh you invested in and help so a lot of the initial products for tesla.

yeah I still the border tesla. He says, twenty years now that amazing years .

yeah from the roadster, the initial roadster.

I the post business plan. So I didn't join as a founder. I join as a as founding board member. And so I actually I didn't write a business man that I got to read IT and I still have that I still have the support of history.

Did you see the future at that time, like the company that tested today? Could you possibly you can imagine that?

No, no. I I I certainly didn't what what I so and that was real for me personally. I was really upset that the general motors have killed the their EV car, the even movie call who killed the electric car. And I and I knew that the physics of of um of electrical is perfectly fine.

I mean, there is no reason why you you couldn't use a electrical driver around what what I would resonate with me with the with the business plan was a taken electric motor, which is really a high performance mode, and put IT in a sports car and set at a high Price as we had enter into the market. Where is what others have been doing? What his general motors had done is you put IT into a really cromme car, and you you sell IT as a commuter vehicle that doesn't really work that well and looks ugly as well.

They really did everything you could to make that thing as uggles is thin and and then I was ugger, okay, I get we're we're going to take a an appropriate technology and put IT in an appropriate car so that when you have because electric motor or that concentrate, you get incredible power, put you in a car that that looks like a sports car. No, so we so the the idea was put in the lowest lease we designed a bit. Um and um I even at that point, I like this is theoretically good, so i'm going to join and help build IT.

But I was not convinced that, that would work because because general has had done such a terrible job of making everyone think that these things are terrible. But but was curious, and the time that i've fell in love with the company in in his mission was I was driving in in a, in a was called a meal, where we we take a car and we take the engine out and we put put in a electric drive train and I drove. And you know, even the deports.

No, despite it's just like steam real, it's just like wires and everything around. And I remember this street, we were run in the bar called being street. And I have just stuck, no no, no traffic. So I just going drive this time of for IT so IT happens and IT was IT was a feeling I never experience before not guessing course have been a nurse a to them so you this is was like being shot out of a cannon. And okay, this is gonna real.

It's a very spaceship like feeling yeah.

it's like, so so I was like, okay, this is, this is gonna great. This going, this is going to be an interesting, we are going to create something interesting here. I think the real transformative thing for tesla was the the model three when we were able to get the Price down for um the world now .

and there was also one of the most chAllenging oh my god for us and you are that we were .

bored line bankrupt like two or three times that year means just everyone is hating on us about whether we get that done. The model three today is incredibly affordable car like a three hundred bux amount of kind of lease and three thousand years down. That's where you get the scale.

That's where you get people who and but it's a great car. It's even a Better model three now than IT was five years ago. We don't function the way car companies function, right? We we find some more like how an iphone company apple works. So our model today is this year is Better than last year, is like way Better. And it's and we just keep getting Better.

And the software is a fundamental part of the car, and the software keeps improving .

exactly and we can upload over the air.

which was one of the things that people don't often acknowledge is the over the year updates. Yes, like a revolutionary thing. It's not just the autopilot to me, it's like the other day updates is even bigger thing that on the autopilot like moment of history because you you basically turn the current .

to the iphone is actually my phone with wheel um but actually I talk about autopilot like right after the interview, i'm going to go test out the latest model three.

you going to get driven around by road.

I'm going to get driven around by the court, say I want to go to this barbecue joint, take me there and parking me there and i'm going to see how IT is. And this is our the the latest model three that we have our present production. Anyone can buy IT and it's super affordable and is like, okay um it's not you full of driving is is is a journey, right? It's it's not like there is a destination. It's a journey forever. So let's see where we are on the journey today.

And there's been a bit of a push pull between union in terms of levels of optimism about deadlines and saw on time lines about when we will arrive at the destination. Unlikely said is a journey yeah for you and there's a destination exactly and the destinations tomorrow, very yesterday. I think that .

that's a very, really good inside. I I actually live with this concept of a growth mindset. This is a fixed mindset and and it's A A philosopher tone where where fixed mines that is about the destination and growth. My site is about learning on the journey, and I think i'm a happier person because I take that learning on the journey approach. Where is this really frustrating if you're always IT has to be about the destination every time?

The nice thing about destination, at least for my personal perspective, is like a programmer engineer is like it's IT puts a little fire under you to get that done. Like if they're clear deadline of the destination.

you feel like I would say that I still do that, but I call those forcing functions here instead of destinations. sure. Because you are just forcing people have crank on on some coder cookbook or whatever because you have a date and and if you really and off sometimes this reason, I mean twenty versa, we want to get the cookbook out.

We have a reason. So we didn't make this up at of the air um and so yeah that does push e you. But just because we have the cook book doesn't mean it's a destination IT means IT was a forcing function to get IT out there. Now on the .

journey speaking of journey, I had to ask about space x uh I mean the journey that all the humanity seriously .

that is book about in a journey that is incredible .

um as an interesting moment in the history of humanity um that perhaps hopefully will become a multiple tary species. But space ecs also company you invest in space sex. You are side by side with you on through through through the highs and the lows through the lows in the highs. Uh so what were some memorable um chAllenges were some low points, sure, from the historic space ex.

One of the hardest times in space ex was we were in the mid pacific in quarreling and my brother had had sold pay pali done well financially. But in the rocket world that money goes away really quickly. And we're in this military base in quality land.

And think IT was the second rocket that blew up. sure. But uh we didn't have infinite resources. I certainly didn't have the resources, I mean up their support um bradly support.

But the uh so so every every rocket launch was do or die and the first one had blown up and so the second one I think IT was the second one uh blew up and IT was IT was so depressing IT was just like, uh and is no way to go. You're in the this no, there's no distraction. You're just you're on this military base.

You don't reseal ze. There's just we're all all together. And I had a i'd gotten to know, you know, for me, I am not part of the team and I am just there for emotional support or whatever because cool.

And so I got to know this couple of people locally as one guy who who had a mobile home and be the best view in the world, but it's just a mobile home next with good Peter grass next to IT. And I was just desperate to find food that wasn't from the capacity. Ia worst food you can imagine.

Yeah and and so he showed I had made him and he showed me this little, tiny little girls still had a few things that can tomatoes. And this is, again, you will, I know is nothing fresh. And I made this dish that was but kind of a version of a in italian restaurant. I just baked beans and to sweating unions and and tomatoes, and was a big pot of food because group people we didn't never table, and we just, but the big pot in middle we had a little paper places, took cope as we needed IT and IT was doing the gathering place of like food brings people together in the most difficulties and IT was one of my favour memories because I was able to bring my gift to this group of incredible people um that their hearts were broken you know and to sit there and share meal and feel the life kind of come back into us and but into the network actually having a good time.

What are fascinating contrast of rocket is kind of representing the peak accomplishment human beings as a society, and then returning to the thing that is the foundation of human society, which is that vulnerable connection .

that we mentioned, vulnerability here. You are most vulnerable place, actually. That's when you have some of your most beautiful meals.

Yeah, the descendants of apes gathers around .

the big beans after .

writing a rocket explode. Yeah, what gives you hope about this? The future of this whole thing we got going on, humanity.

If you look at how things have changed over the past fifty years. You can clearly say all well, poverty rates are gone down, infant mortalities gone down radically, all these things on a lot. So so if you you if you look at IT on a daily basis, you can tell that life is very dramatic. You know whether uh some some things blowing up on x or or from the newspaper or whatever, and you can really get caught up in to IT.

But if you look back over over the past few decades, things are getting Better and is and I mean, at the fundamental level, like are less people hungry or more of people they more is there there when there is war going on course but other less words yes um and so I think that I think if if we all just step back a little bit, it's is less about hope. It's more perspective and reflection and um and if if if if I do see a problem like in case of the obesity epic, I think I work really hard to help. I have non profit called big Green and we we work with one hundred and fifty nonprofits around the country to help americans grow food again, get connected to their food because I really believe growing food changes your life.

And so okay, let's let's go do that. So then so I you know, i'll help out where I think we ready to can make a difference. But but if you step back a little, things are actually getting Better. It's just a .

bumpy right. Yeah for those of us watching all of this, I think um I would love to see more celebrating of the people that are helping, the people that have found their way of people .

and celebrate to realize point. I have learned that you really want to celebrate your successes because even in the greatest humid things have just in the start of world where you you're constantly facing death, you know like you just why should you even exist to your customers want your product forever and and then something will happen. You look, well, we really nail that.

That's really great. We got a product release or because some good custos from something right? Everyone, we're gonna celebrate. And and actually everyone still like, no, no good, all these other problems, note, we're gonna celebrate and they will go back to the problems. But if you don't do that, then he just just building on this kind of, you never really get to celebrate .

and be grateful. Well, I think this is a good time to go celebrate the very fact that were alive today. We get to live and enjoy this incredible life, the two of us, and have this great conversation.

And we will get to celebrate over some scrambled legs. I'm going to hold to IT. tim. Thank you so much to talk.

Thank you very me. Thanks for .

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