Elon Musk Shares Best Advice With AI Engineers, Do This…

During a recent interview at the Y Combinator AI Startup School, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk discussed his time in Washington D.C. and why he almost didn't get his start creating companies on his own.

"I never wanted to start a company, I just wanted to be part of building the internet," Musk said, as reported by Mashable.

Speaking remotely at a Y Combinator event, the future X owner recalled trying to get a job at Netscape, the company that created the first web browser.

Musk said he’d hang out in the company's lobby, but was too shy to talk to anyone. While he "didn't intend to start a startup," he did write software and would eventually launch Zip2. Compaq acquired Zip2 in 1999 for $305 million.

Musk also co-founded PayPal, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Also in 2002, Musk founded SpaceX — another topic during his virtual interview. The billionaire said he tried to negotiate with Russia to buy ICBMs in 2001. After negotiations were unsuccessful, he decided to build his own rocket.

Musk also offered some advice to the crowd of AI engineers: "Try to be as useful as possible!" He also advised listeners to rationalize their ego and "do whatever it takes to succeed."

"Don't aspire to glory. Aspire to work," he added.

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Moving on From Washington D.C.: Musk was also asked about his recent time in Washington D.C. with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

"DC was an interesting side quest, but gotta get back to the main quest, building technology," Musk said.

Musk said he's used to working with math and software when building rockets and cars.

"I'm used to being in like a maximally truth-seeking environment, and that's definitely not politics,” he said. “I'm glad to be back in technology."  

Musk also used an analogy to highlight the coming impact of artificial intelligence.

"Imagine you're cleaning a beach which has a few needles, trash, and is dirty. And there's a 1000-foot tsunami, which is AI, that's about to hit. You're not going to focus on cleaning the beach."

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