上周早上看自己Facebook的News Feed, 发现FB的同事们都在分享Elon Musk在Reddit上面的 AMA (Ask Me Anything) 的内容. 此活动在北美由来已久, 经常一些明星或者业界名人在脱口秀中参加此类型活动.
先介绍这次的主角 Elon Musk. 想必大部分人知道他是来自Tesla电动汽车, 我之前在 San Jose 的downtown去体验过Tesla的Roadster和Model S, 当时清楚地记得我站在Tesla简介的地盘和马达设计面前, 心想我一定是看到了未来汽车的影子! (于是回来当即买了Tesla的股票) 另外Tesla的内饰也极附科技感, 采用17大屏幕和定制过的Linux系统, 比当时我使用的iDrive和Mercedez的车载系统简直领先一个时代.
后来对于Elon Musk了解的加深来自于 “Paypal Mafia”, 当年在Paypal的一批早期员工纷纷出来创立自己的企业, 其中最具传奇色彩的就是 Elon Musk 了 (Peter Thiel 也在他最新的著作 Zero To One 中给了Elon和他的Tesla公司以高度的评价). 他从Paypal一个汇钱平台, 自己出来转型做电动汽车Tesla, 另外再加上火箭公司Space X, 还有一家太阳能光伏公司 SolarCity, 简直就是一个跨界的全能手. 尤其是Space X的火箭技术正在研究神奇的回收功能, 将火箭最终变成一架可以反复使用的”直升机”: SpaceX蚱蜢火箭第八跳
言归正传, 这次Musk的AMA在Reddit平台进行; 插一句: http://Reddit.com 的前CEO是 Yishan Wong. Yishan 是Facebook的Director, 也是 王淮Harry 前辈的Manager, 所以http://Reddit.com对于所有Facebooker或者geeks还有相当的归属感. AMA的原地址我附在最后, 有兴趣去读英文原版的朋友可以事后去看看. 整个AMA有500多个comments, 我从中挑出我觉得最有意思最启发性另外和创业相关的问答放到这里: (火箭的专业问题简单略去) 我的收集以英文为主, 有些必要的地方我加入一些翻译和我自己的解读.
1. I’m a teacher, and I always wonder what I can do to help my students achieve big things. What’s something your teachers did for you while you were in school that helped to encourage your ideas and thinking? Or, if they didn’t, what’s something they could have done better? thanks!
我是老师, 请问你从小能启发你思考的情景是什么? 我想用来教育我的学生们去做大事
Musk: The best teacher I ever had was my elementary school principal. Our math teacher quit for some reason and he decided to sub in himself for math and accelerate the syllabus by a year.
We had to work like the house was on fire for the first half of the lesson and do extra homework, but then we got to hear stories of when he was a soldier in WWII. If you didn’t do the work, you didn’t get to hear the stories. Everybody did the work.
Musk这里只是回忆自己小时候最喜欢的老师 — 自己的小学校长; 这个校长强行加速课程, 给大家布置很多作业. 为了让孩子们完成作业, 他用自己二战当兵的故事作为激励. 完成作业的孩子可以在教室听他讲亲身经历的二战故事. 于是所有人都完成了作业 😀
2. What daily habit do you believe has the largest positive impact on your life?
对你正面影响最大的习惯?
Musk: Showering
“洗澡”. 注: Musk不是说洗澡本身, 而是在洗澡过程中可以有一系列时间去思考人生, 或者某些人经常在洗澡时会迸发出创新的灵感.
3. Hi Elon, I’m already saving up for my Model 3. Can you share anything about the Model 3 that we don’t already know?
问Musk最新要出的 Tesla Model 3 如何
Musk: It won’t look like other cars
4. tl;dr: How do you learn so much so fast? Lots of people read books and talk to other smart people, but you’ve taken it to a whole new level.
It seems you have an extremely proficient understanding of aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, all various subdisciplines (avionics, power electronics, structural engineering, propulsion, energy storage, AI) ETC ETC nearly all things technical.
I know you’ve read a lot of books and you hire a lot of smart people and soak up what they know, but you have to acknowledge you seem to have found a way to pack more knowledge into your head than nearly anyone else alive. Do you have any advice on learning? How are you so good at it?
注: “tl;dr:” 代表 “too long; don’t read:” 老美的典型表达习惯, 不是乱码, 意思就是预警下面文字比较长. 问题就是 好奇为什么Musk能学会这么多跨行业的知识, 有什么学习上的经验吗?
Musk: “I do kinda feel like my head is full! My context switching penalty is high and my process isolation is not what it used to be.
Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying.
One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
Musk回答的核心:
a. 他的脑子现在已经很满, 而且知识切换代价也很高, 专注度也不如前;
b. 鼓励每个人多学; 其实每个人学习的能力比他想象的要高很多;
c. 最重要的建议: 知识的体系结构类似一棵树, 你要学习地快, 就必须把主干和粗线条先学习扎实, 因为后来的高级知识类似树叶, 需要有主干的支持才能挂靠牢固.
注: 最后一点我非常同意, 之前被GRE和托福单词的时候看过一篇介绍的文字, 说人类擅长得是联系型和思考型的记忆, 所以找到类似的实例或者将不熟悉问题转换成熟悉问题都是和Musk主张的知识挂靠有异曲同工之妙.
5. Hi Elon. A friend of mine is all paranoid about the computer singularity, and used your name as a source of his paranoia. Don’t you think it could all be a bunch of hype?
Awesome car/rocket/etc stuff you do! Huge fan!
询问关于奇点的看法. 具体看书: http://book.douban.com/subject/6855803/
Musk: “The timeframe is not immediate, but we should be concerned. There needs to be a lot more work on AI safety.
And, with all due respect to the Roomba dude, that is not a concern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2HU3LGdbo “
Musk觉得奇点不是马上的事情, 不过多少需要开始注意.
6. How much do you sleep per night, on average?
Musk: “I actually measured this with my phone! Almost exactly 6 hours on average.”
Wow~ 这样看来我平均睡8-9个小时算是比较长的了. Musk才6小时.
7. You seem to have had to deal with a tremendous amount of adversity in a few of your ventures. Do you have any advice for those dealing with seemingly insurmountable adversity?
这个问题来自一名在Fremont工作的Tesla装配工人. 问如何应对在创业中的多样化的知识学习, 以及如何应对无法克服的逆境?
Musk: “There is a great quote by Churchill: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.””
来自丘吉尔的话 (当然, 既然是翻译成中文, 我就引用阿杜的歌词): “是你让我懂得创业这东西, 4个字 — 坚持到底 , 哟~”
8.
1) What is your favorite airplane?
2) What is your favorite video game?
3) What is your favorite food?
4) If you consume alcohol, what is your favorite alcoholic drink?
Musk: “
1) SR-71
2) Hard to pick a favorite. I tend to like FPS with a story, like Bioshock, Fallout or Mass Effect, but was also a big fan of Civ and Warcraft.
3) French and BBQ
4) Whiskey “
Musk最喜欢的飞机: SR-71. 这是当年冷战时期, 洛克希德马丁公司建造的高空超音速侦察机, 代号”BlackBird”黑鸟. 1964年试飞, 1990年全部退役. 机长32.74米，机高5.64 米，最大起飞重量77.11吨，最大飞行速度3.2倍音速，侦察高度24000米，作战半径1930千米，航程4800千米。机载设备有天文导航装置、激光测距装置、电子对抗装置、合成孔径测视雷达、高分辨率照相机、红外和电子探测器等。
另外突然想到我之前在NYC大使馆签证的时候, 对面有一艘航母, 叫 Intrepid Museum. 我从小对飞机轮船坦克有兴趣, 所以还专门买票进去看过. 航母的甲板上就有一家 BlackBird (当然还有其他一些飞机, 比如超音速民航 协和飞机). 在纽约的朋友有兴趣可以去看看: http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/
[黑鸟在甲板的最上面]
Musk最喜欢的游戏: Bioshock, Fallout or Mass Effect , 另外还有Civ和Warcraft.
Musk最喜欢的食物和酒: 法餐和BBQ, 威士忌
9. Would you ever consider becoming a politician?
Musk: Unlikely
10. 最后来一个排名最高的问题:
Hi Elon! I’m asking three questions on behalf of the nearly 20,000-strong fan community /r/SpaceX. We consider these the best questions we’d like you to answer for us (trust me, there were hundreds more), so a response to each would be much appreciated!
-
Falcon Heavy. Some have speculated that at stage separation the Falcon Heavy center core is too far downrange and travelling too fast to be feasibly returned to the launch site. Could you go into some detail on whether you plan to use barge landings permanently for this core, expend it depending on the mission, or take the payload loss and boost back to the launch site?
-
Mars. Could you please clarify what the Mars Colonial Transporter actually is? Is it a crew module like Dragon, a launch vehicle like Falcon, or a mix of both? Does it have inflatable components? Is MCT just a codename?
-
Spacesuits. How does SpaceX plan to address the limitations and contribute to the advancement of current spacesuit technology to best serve humans enroute and on the surface of Mars? You mentioned in 2013 that there’d be an update to SpaceX’s “spacesuit project” soon – how is it coming along?
Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA! Also at some point, /r/SpaceX would love to have an AMA with someone such as Gwynne Shotwell, Steve Jurvetson, Hans Koenigsmann, or even yourself – so if we could organize something for the future that would be great! And finally, just in case your work and this AMA hasn’t already made you aware, you’re launching Falcon 9 in less than 12 hours (the 19th SpaceX launch & 14th F9 launch no less!), so here’s acountdown clock & website I built for you. Best of luck with Dragon & the landing! Regards, Lukas.
全部关于草蜢火箭,火星计划和太空服的. 有兴趣的大家可以自己看.
Musk: “
-
Yes, the Falcon Heavy center core is seriously hauling a** at stage separation. We can bring it back to the launch site, but the boost back penalty is significant. If we also have to the plane change for geo missions from Cape inclination (28.5 deg) to equatorial, then a downrange platform landing is needed.
-
The Mars transport system will be a completely new architecture. Am hoping to present that towards the end of this year. Good thing we didn’t do it sooner, as we have learned a huge amount from Falcon and Dragon.
-
Our spacesuit design is finally coming together and will also be unveiled later this year. We are putting a lot of effort into design esthetics, not just utility. It needs to both look like a 21st century spacesuit and work well. Really difficult to achieve both. “
先就到这里, 后来有兴趣的问答我再补上.
谢谢大家阅读我们的文字, 也希望对你们有所启发.
Reddit地址: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/
来源：知乎 www.zhihu.com
作者：覃超
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