2 HN users recommended this interview2 months2011–2012score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Shared as an early long-form Musk interview, notably for his answer about what motivates him.
A roughly 40-minute Mahalo mentor interview with Elon Musk, covering his background from Zip2 and PayPal to SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity, along with advice for entrepreneurs.
“His answer on motivation was striking to me” (HN, 2012)
It's pretty amazing that the (possibly) most accomplished human did a reddit AMA: [link] His answer on motivation was striking to me: [this video] My drive to get it done is somewhat disconnected from hope, enthusiasm or anything else. I just... I... I actually don't care about hope or enthusiasm... motivation. I just give it all I've got irrespective of what the circumstances may be. [...] Yeah... You just keep going and get it done.
A couple more Musk videos for those who might have missed them when they first came out: Bloomberg profile that gives a good overview of his companies: [link] Reddit AMA: [this video]
In his reddit IAMA he says the plan has always been for the 3rd-generation (post-S) car to be a high-volume, low-price car. Based on the time between the Roadster and S releases, it will probably be a few years before they get around to that. [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
3 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes