原标题：【2.6万字完整实录】沃尔特·艾萨克森聊即将发布的埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）传记幕后
转载自丨郝晓茹的收藏夹(ID:haoxiaoru_blog)
写在前面
6月22日，周四。乔布斯传的作者、即将发布马斯克传的沃尔特·艾萨克森（Walter Isaacson）做客 The Best of Live Audio 的 Twitter Space 音频聊天室，接受了 50 分钟左右的采访，剧透了一些他在今年9月即将上市的埃隆·马斯克传记的幕后故事，也分享了一些怎么写传记的心得。
我先是看到国内一篇对这次对话内容的梳理，看完觉得还不过瘾，就把这期采访对应的播客节目（The BEST Podcast）找来听了一遍，感觉很多细节值得关注。
所以就在AI软件的帮助下，把音频节目的中英文完整实录整理了一份，不求精准，但求对自己、对感兴趣的人有点儿帮助。
官网：https://www.bestliveaudio.com/
Twitter：https://twitter.com/BestLiveAudio
官方播客下载：https://bestlivepodcast.podbean.com/
开始收听吧
还可以边听边看
This is the best podcast. B-E-S-T stands for Business, Entrepreneurship, Startups, and Technology. I'm your host, Adam Sokolic, and each week we talk live on social media platforms like Twitter Spaces so that you can stay up to date with the latest news and stories, learn the greatest tools and tactics, and gain some of the best opportunities to connect with new people. Special guests include top founders, CEOs, and experts, plus the audience is always full of fascinating people, even Elon Musk recently tuned in. All of our conversations are educating, entertaining, and engaging with the mission to help you succeed. So follow us on all your favorite social media platforms, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and of course, tune in live to the best podcast. Let's talk soon.
主持人：欢迎来到BEST播客。B-E-S-T代表商业、创业、初创公司和科技。我是主持人 Adam Soccolich，每周我们会在社交媒体平台上直播，比如Twitter Spaces（语音聊天室），这样你可以跟上最新的新闻故事，学习最好的工具和战术，并有机会与新的人建立联系。特别嘉宾包括顶级创始人、CEO和专家，观众中也总是有很多有趣的人，甚至最近埃隆·马斯克也加入进来。我们的对话都是教育性的、娱乐性的，致力于帮助你取得成功。所以请关注我们最喜欢的社交媒体平台，在听播客时订阅任何地方的播客，当然，也要收看最好的播客直播。我们马上开始。
This is a truly exciting conversation, and I'll get into the introduction and we'll get in started in just a moment. I wanna give people a heads up though. about halfway through, we are gonna get this open up for Q and A, so get your questions ready, go ahead, raise your hand if you're interested, and of course, show your love to Walter, click on his account and give him a follow. But Walter, I know you're a busy guy, it sounds like you're gonna be doing a lot of interviews. So are you ready to get started, you ready to dive in?
主持人：真正激动人心的对话就要来了，我马上就会进入主题，马上开始。我想给大家提个醒。到中间的时候，我们会开放问答环节，准备好你的问题吧，如果你感兴趣的话，举手示意一下，当然了，还要给沃尔特·艾萨克森（Walter Isaacson）点个赞，点击他的账户关注他。沃尔特，我知道你很忙，你好像要做很多采访。那你准备好了吗？你准备好开始了吗？
Actually, I'm doing you, but I'm not gonna do many interviews until the book comes out. I just love Twitter Spaces, and I always follow, I'm looking at all the people who've joined already, and most of whom I listen to. So this is not something I'm doing a lot of.
沃尔特：我很高兴来参加你的节目，但这本书出版之前我不会接受太多采访。我很喜欢Twitter Spaces（语音聊天室），我一直关注着所有已经加入的人，其中大多数我都听过。所以这不是我要经常做的事情。
I'm excited to be here with you, Walter, and to be diving in about your process and writing this great biography, Elon Musk. So let me just give you a nice little introduction for folks in the audience. If you know Walter, fantastic, but if you don't, Walter is writing this biography on Elon Musk. He's also the author of "Codebreaker," the Leonardo da Vinci biography, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin biographies, the innovators and many more. He's also the professor of history at Tulane. He's been the CEO of the Aspen Institute, the chairman of CNN, the editor of Time Magazine, truly impressed with all of that. And then of course you are writing this biography on Elon Musk. So folks, let's just start diving in. I wanna know more about your process, Walter, about this story. So to start, tell us how this whole idea of writing a biography about Elon Musk came about for you.
主持人：我很高兴能和你一起在这里，沃尔特，聊聊你的写作过程以及写《埃隆·马斯克传》这本书的经历。让我先向观众们介绍一下沃尔特·艾萨克森（Walter Isaacson）。如果你认识沃尔特·艾萨克森（Walter Isaacson）太棒了，如果你不认识沃尔特·艾萨克森（Walter Isaacson）的话，他正在写一本关于埃隆·马斯克的传记。他也是Codebreaker、《达芬奇传》、《乔布斯传》、《富兰克林传》等多本畅销书的作者。他还是杜兰大学的历史系教授。他是阿斯彭研究所的CEO、CNN的董事长、时代杂志的主编等等。我对这一切都非常印象深刻。然后你正在写一本关于埃隆·马斯克的传记。所以大家让我们开始吧。我想了解更多关于你的写作过程和这个故事的事情。首先告诉我们写这本关于埃隆·马斯克的传记的想法是怎么来的？
It was a mutual acquaintance of mine, Antonio Gracius, who was on his board. I had just done a book on Jennifer Doudna who helped invent the technology called CRISPR, which allows us to gene edit. And I was interested in finding another innovator, and he put me in touch with Musk. We talked for about an hour on the phone, and I said, "Look, if I do this book, I don't want to just have 10 interviews or 20 interviews. I want to be by your side for two and a half years. Every meeting, I want to just shadow you so I can see it in operation. And secondly, I don't want you to have any control over this book, and I don't want you to even read it in advance. And when he agreed to that, I said, well, here's a guy doing rocket ships, a guy doing batteries, bringing us into the era of electric vehicles. a true person pushing the boundaries of manufacturing innovation. I said, this sounds great. I said, OK, I think I'll do it. And at the end of the conversation, he said, oh, OK, do you mind if I tell a few people? I said, no, that would not be a problem. And I walked back down from where I was talking to him, and there were a group of people I knew were hanging out. And they said, oh, my god, oh, my god. And I said, what's that? We said, well, we keep getting email messages that you do in Elon Musk. And at the end of our conversation, tweeted out a tweet which you could probably find on Twitter saying if you're interested Walter Isaacson is doing my biography. So I guess that kind of locked me into it when I saw that tweet but it's been a really fascinating ride.
沃尔特：我们有个共同认识的人，安东尼奥·格拉修斯（Antonio Gracius），在他的公司董事会（特斯拉）上。我刚刚写了一本关于珍妮弗·道德纳（Jennifer Doudna）的书，她帮助发明了CRISPR这项技术，这使我们能够进行基因编辑。我对寻找另一位创新者非常感兴趣，他介绍我认识了马斯克。我们在电话里讲了大约一个小时，我说：“看，如果我写这本书，我不想只进行10次或20次采访。我想陪伴你两年半的时间。每个会议，我都想紧随你的身边，以便亲眼见证。其次，我不希望你对这本书有任何控制权，我也不希望你提前阅读。”当他同意后，我说，好的，这个人制造火箭、电池，将我们带入电动车时代，是一个真正推动制造创新边界的人。我说，这听起来很棒。我说，好吧，我想我会写这本书。在谈话结束时，他说，哦，好的，你介意我告诉一些人吗？我说，不，那没问题。我从与他交谈的地方走下来，有一群我认识的人在那里闲逛。他们说，哦，天啊，天啊。我问，怎么了？他们说，我们一直收到关于你和埃隆·马斯克的电子邮件。在我们的谈话结束时，他发出了一条推文，你可能在Twitter上找得到，上面写着：如果你们感兴趣的话，沃尔特·艾萨克森正在写我的传记。所以我想那条推文将我紧紧锁定在这个项目中，但这真是一段非常有趣的经历。
So before we dive into more of that work with Elon himself, I want to get kind of the whole story. Kind of before you have conversations with Elon, how do you generally think about writing a story, writing a biography like the ones that you've done before for Steve Jobs and things like that that have informed you for this one. But before you started talking with Elon, how did you start thinking or planning and researching ahead of time?
主持人：在我们深入了解更多关于与埃隆本人的合作之前我想先了解一下整个故事背景。在你与埃隆交谈之前你一般是怎么思考写一篇像你之前为史蒂夫·乔布斯等人写的那样的故事的？在你开始和埃隆交流之前你是如何提前计划和研究的呢？
Well, with a live subject like Musk, you start talking to all the people who've dealt with him and all around him. But in this case, I really dove right into it. As soon as he said, "Let's begin," I was down in Boca Chica near Brownsville, walking the lines where he was building the Starship for SpaceX and visiting Gigafactory that was being built in Austin, and hanging out in Hawthorne, California. So this one really began not by doing background research, but by just diving into the deep end of being with him all steps of the way. And one of the things he did that was very transparent, he said, I'm going to just tell everybody to talk to you. And I said, even your adversaries, your enemies, even the Martin Abba hearts you've had struggles with, even your former wives, he said, everybody. And so I think I talked to 250 people quite extensively for this book, but he was quite encouraging that everybody, including people he had fired or people he got along with.
沃尔特：嗯，对于像Musk这样的活生生的任务来说，你需要和所有接触过他的人以及周围的人都谈一谈。但这次我真的直接开始了。他说“开始吧”，我就去了博卡奇卡附近的布朗斯维尔(Bocas Chica)，沿着他为SpaceX建造Starship的道路走着；去参观在奥斯汀建造的Gigafactory；还去了加州霍索恩(Hawthorne)闲逛。所以这次不是通过背景调查开始的而是直接深入了解他的一切工作情况才开始的。他做的一件事情非常透明化就是他说：我会让大家来和你谈谈。我说即使是你对手、敌人甚至是曾经与之斗争过的Martin Eberhard（编者注：特斯拉创始人）甚至是你的前妻他都会让你见一面他说：每一个人都见一面。所以我认为我在这本书中采访了250个人而且他对每个人都鼓励得非常好包括那些被他开除的人或者跟他相处得很好的人。
So it seems like Walter, you pretty much have full access. It doesn't seem like there's any restrictions whatsoever and he's providing that to you, is that right?
主持人：所以看起来Walter你几乎可以无限制地接触到任何人。没有受到任何限制，而且他主动给你提供这些信息是这样吗？
Yeah, it's full access and he's made very few restraints. To be honest with you, the restraints are almost self-imposed ones, things that either involve children under the age of 18 that may be juicy but may not be relevant, some of the stuff is relevant, or sometimes financial forward-looking information. I just keep my mouth shut on that. But generally, he said, "Just use your good judgment."
沃尔特：是的，它是完全开放的，而且他做的限制很少。跟你说实话，限制几乎是自我施加的，这些东西要么涉及18岁以下的儿童，但可能不相关，有些东西是相关的，或者有时是金融前瞻性的信息。我只是在这方面闭口不谈。但一般来说，他说，"只要用你的良好判断力"。
What were some of the complexities? As you think back over the two, two and a half years of working with him and talking with him and all these people, I think he said 250 of them, were there one, two, three or so of the bigger complexities? What were those for you through this experience?
主持人：会遇到复杂的情况吗？当你回顾与他一起工作的两年或两年半时间，与他和所有这些人交谈，我想他说了250个，是否有一个、两个、三个或更大的复杂情况？通过这段经历，对你来说，哪些印象深刻？
You know, I always write about people who are smart, but being smart is a dime a dozen. It really matters as being innovative, being questioning, questioning every requirement, being rebellious, taking risks. And that's what a lot of great innovators starting with Leonardo da Vinci have in common. With Musk, he has an amazingly good engineering mind, but the difficulty, as anybody who's dealt with him knows, and he's self-aware enough to know, is he has a very dark streak to it. Street coming out of a very brutal childhood, a violent childhood, a childhood in which he had very strong psychological difficulties with his father. His father also has a very dark street to him, sometimes called Demon Mode by, that's what Claire Boucher Musk's friend calls it. And so watching him go into demon mode with a real lack of empathy, and you know, his brother Kimball is over-endowed with empathy, but I think that Elon is not either endowed or burdened with empathy, and so he can be a much tougher leader. So I tend to be kind of an easygoing, always want people around me to like me type, and watching somebody who did not care about anything except the mission, the mission of getting something done, that's what I have to weave into this book because there are light strands and brilliant strands with musk, but also dark strands. And as a biographer, you get to the complexity of normally in life, we can say, "Okay, we admire the good parts of the person and we don't like the dark strands in the person." The biographer has to try to figure out how are those strands woven together so you can't just pluck out the strands. Say, "I wish you wouldn't be so impulsive. I wish you wouldn't tweet nasty things." If you pluck out that strand, you'll lose the whole claw. That's what this biography is about.
沃尔特：你知道的，我总是写一些聪明的人，但聪明不过是十分之一。真正重要的是创新，质疑一切要求，反叛，以及敢于冒险。这是许多伟大创新者的共同点，从列奥纳多·达·芬奇开始。马斯克拥有惊人的工程思维，但有一点困难，任何和他打过交道的人都知道，而他也足够自觉，就是他有着非常黑暗的一面。这种黑暗来自于他非常残酷的童年，暴力的童年，他在童年中与父亲有着非常严重的心理困扰。他的父亲也有非常黑暗的一面，克莱尔·布彻尔·马斯克的朋友称之为"恶魔模式"。所以看着他没有任何同理心而进入恶魔模式，你知道，他的兄弟金博尔也非常富有同理心，但我认为埃隆既没有同理心的赋予，也没有负担，因此他会是一个更坚决的领导者。所以，我倾向于成为一个随和的人，总希望周围的人喜欢我，而看到一个人对除了使命以外的事情都不在乎，那就是我必须编织到这本书中的内容，因为马斯克身上有光明的部分和杰出的部分，但也有黑暗的部分。作为一位传记作者，你需要理解这个人的复杂性，在生活中我们可以说：“好的一面我们欣赏，黑暗的部分我们不喜欢”。而传记作者需要尝试弄清楚这些部分如何交织在一起，这样你就不能只挑出其中的部分。说：“我希望你不要如此冲动。我希望你不要在Twitter上发布恶意言论”。如果你挑出其中的部分，你就会失去整个利爪。这就是这本传记的内容所在。
Let's dive in a little bit more about your relationship with Elon. How did that evolve over time from the beginning towards the end? Of course, things probably changed amongst that. But also, what is your process for developing a relationship with a source or the figure that you're focusing on?
主持人：让我们再深入了解一下你与埃隆的关系。随着时间的推移，从开始到结束，这一点是如何演变的？当然，事情可能在这中间发生了变化。但同时，你与一个来源或你所关注的人物发展关系的过程是什么？
I try to stay in the background. I'm at a lot of things. Musk, as you know, lapses into silences sometimes where he's batch processing information. He's gotten over the past hour or two. And you learn not to fill the silences. You just sit there. And our relationship was one where I was an observer and a fly on the wall. I didn't go out drinking with him and I didn't try to be his buddy. But he was then more and more open as he saw that I was just going about the task of doing the book.
沃尔特：我试图保持在背景里。我在很多事情上都是如此。马斯克，如你所知，有时会陷入沉默，他正在批量处理信息。在过去的一两个小时里，他已经习惯了。而你要学会不要去填补这些沉默。你只是坐在那里。我们的关系就是：我是一个观察者和墙上的苍蝇。我没有和他一起出去喝酒，我也没有试图成为他的伙伴。但他后来越来越开放，因为他看到我只是在做这本书的任务。
Were there, it makes me think about it, he just mentioned going out to a bar at the same time as having a formal conversation with him. Were there times or ways of having these conversations that you found that were just better conversations? Maybe it was when it was you and him, it was one-on-one quiet, or maybe you're walking the floor of a Tesla factory. When were those moments of just pure connection almost? I can't imagine they were all perfect per se, but tell us a little bit more about that.
主持人：是否有他刚刚提到在与他进行正式谈话的同时，去了一个酒吧。是否有一些时间或方式，你发现这些对话是更好的对话？也许是当你和他，是一对一的安静对话，或者是你们在特斯拉工厂的地板上行走。那些纯粹的联系的时刻是什么时候？我无法想象每次对话都是完美的，但请告诉我们更多关于这一点。
Yeah. I mean, what happened is you develop a spidey sense sometimes of when does he want to talk and when not. And it could be three in the morning, or two in the morning by phone. He'll be around, he'll be texting each other, and he'll say, "You got a moment." And then we'll talk for an hour, maybe two hours. Sometimes it's walking. You know, one of the things that makes him really different from a Steve Jobs or anybody else is he doesn't just care about the product, he cares about the machine that makes the product, the factory. And so if you're walking in these big tents and Boca Chica without doing Starship, or if you're walking in Hawthorne or in Texas on the assembly lines, that's when he, if you just kind of let him think and process things, he might just start talking and telling stories. And then there'll be times, we'll just be sitting in the conference room between meetings, I'll be quiet, and suddenly he'll start recounting stories. And that was the fun part because he's a great storyteller with a real sense of humor when he's in a good mood. And he'll tell you about the, you know, 2018 when he was going in the meltdown mode or being on quash for the launching of the rockets in 2007 or 2008. And some of the tales of the surges when they had to put 5,000 Teslas out per week and nobody thought they could do it. He will recount those tales and then after a while you peel back enough layers. He starts talking about his childhood. He starts talking about his father. Things he hasn't really talked about before. And you realize that that's one of the keys, is peeling back that layer and letting him talk both about his childhood and his relationship to his father.
沃尔特：是的，我的意思是，发生的事情是你有时发展出一种“蜘蛛侠感应”，知道他什么时候想说话，什么时候不想。它可能是凌晨三点，或凌晨两点的电话。他会在附近，他会给对方发短信，然后他会说，"你有时间吗" 然后我们会谈一个小时，也许两个小时。有时是在散步。你知道，使他与史蒂夫-乔布斯或其他任何人真正不同的事情之一是，他不只是关心产品，他关心制造产品的机器，工厂。因此，如果你走在这些大帐篷和博卡奇卡，而不做星际飞船，或者如果你走在霍桑或德克萨斯的装配线上，这时他，如果你只是有点让他思考和处理事情，他可能只是开始说话和讲故事。然后有的时候，我们会在会议间隙坐在会议室里，我很安静，突然他就开始讲故事了。那是有趣的部分，因为他是一个伟大的讲故事的人，当他心情好的时候，有真正的幽默感。他会告诉你，你知道，2018年，当他进入崩溃模式或在2007年或2008年发射火箭的时候，他正处于戒备状态。还有一些关于激增的故事，当时他们必须每周推出5000辆特斯拉，没有人认为他们能做到。他将讲述这些故事，然后过了一会儿，你剥开足够多的层次。他开始谈起他的童年。他开始谈论他的父亲。他以前没有真正谈过的事情。你意识到这是关键之一，就是剥开那层皮，让他同时谈论他的童年和他与父亲的关系。
So it sounds like there's a lot of volatility just in regards to having a conversation. The one it's about his past and his childhood. And the next, it might be something pressing going on in this life. How do you handle the volatility going through following a person like Elon?
主持人：所以听起来，光是在进行对话方面就有很多不稳定的因素。这一次是关于他的过去和他的童年。而下一次，可能是在这一生中发生的一些紧迫的事情。你如何处理跟随像埃隆这样的人所经历的波动？
I think you just be patient when he wants to talk about the material qualities of Incanel and how it's going to work in valves and a Raptor engine redesign. and you're standing under a group of raptor engines being looking like a spaghetti push 'cause he hasn't simplified them yet, you just let him drill really deep into the material science and the engineering. And then when he kicks back and gets reflective and wants to talk about being beaten up on the playground and then you're connecting it a bit to owning the ultimate playground, which is what you and I are talking on right now and Twitter, and you try to have him connect what it was like having to endure what happened to him on the playground and his face being smashed against the steps and what his father did afterwards. And then you understand his feeling about bullying and other things, and you let it connect to current things. Like, why did you want to own the world's ultimate playground?
沃尔特：我认为，当他想谈论Incanel的材料质量以及它将如何在阀门和猛禽发动机的重新设计中发挥作用时，你只需保持耐心，你站在一群猛禽发动机下，看起来像一个意大利面条的推手，因为他还没有简化它们，你只是让他真正深入钻研材料科学和工程。然后当他踢了回来，开始反思，想谈谈在操场上被打的事，然后你在把它和拥有终极操场联系一下，也就是你和我现在正在谈论的东西和微博，你试着让他把在操场上不得不忍受发生在他身上的事和他的脸被砸在台阶上以及他父亲后来做了什么联系起来。然后你理解他对欺凌和其他事情的感受，你让它与当前的事情联系起来。比如，你为什么想拥有世界上的终极操场？
Ooh, and we'll dive into that in just a little bit, but it sounds like some of these, obviously, and the book has not come out, just like people in the audience know, it comes out in September, so we are a few months ahead. Truly exciting, go check it out. You can click on Walter's profile, and there's a link there if you wanna learn more.
主持人：哦，我们稍后会深入探讨这个问题，但听起来其中一些，显然，这本书还没有出来，就像观众中的人知道的那样，它在9月出来，所以我们领先几个月。真正令人兴奋的是，去看看吧。你可以点击沃尔特的个人资料，如果你想了解更多，那里有一个链接。
By the way, you can pre-order it. I don't wanna be too much of a shill here, but it's available now for pre-order, and there are links on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and you're into bookstores and on my Twitter.
沃尔特：顺便说一下，你可以预购它。我不想在这里做太多的推销，但它现在可以预购，在亚马逊、巴诺书店和你进入书店以及我的Twitter上都有链接。
That was a perfect, and I was gonna show up for you actually, Walter. By the way, for folks in the audience at the end, I'm gonna give away probably about five copies of the pre-order books if you are interested, send me a DM.
主持人：太棒了，我肯定会帮你吆喝的，沃尔特。顺便说一下，对于听到最后的观众，我将赠送大概五本预购书，如果你有兴趣，给我发个私信。
I'll sign some for you too, if you all figure that out.
沃尔特：我也会给你们签一些，如果你们搞定的话。
Ah, awesome, even better, look at that, thank you, Walter. So folks, if you're interested, first come, first serve, send me a DM, and I will send out five of those, gifting those to you guys. But let's keep going on, 'cause it sounds like you're gonna also learn a lot about Elon that you didn't know before. Tell us a story that was surprising to you, right? It doesn't have to be necessarily sad or happy or any of those necessarily emotions, but what was something that was unexpected going through this experience that really surprised you?
主持人：啊，太棒了，谢谢你，沃尔特。所以，伙计们，如果你们有兴趣，先到先得，给我发个私信，我就发五个，把这些东西送给你们。但让我们继续下去，因为听起来你也会了解到很多你以前不知道的关于伊隆的事情。告诉我们一个让你感到惊讶的故事，对吗？它不必一定是悲伤或快乐或任何这些必然的情绪，但在经历这段经历时，有什么事情是出乎意料的，真的让你感到惊讶？
I guess the way that the childhood and the father shaped personality and how that affected his understanding of risk, how that affected his, I mean, he's almost addicted to risk, Kimball says. Peter Thiel said most, you know, when I talked to him, he said most people he's worked with always try to avoid risk, you know, Elon Musk. Also, a desire for drama, both in his personal and in his professional life. He's somebody who feels most comfortable when he's ordered up a hurricane or a surge. All of that connects to events when he was young. And it's an important thing because America has lost the ability to take risks and do great manufacturing. And there's a dark quality to his desire to take risks. But means he shoots off rockets or has full self-driving that he's almost the head of his skis on. He, there are many incidents in the book where he does things like kind of ignore the FAA when he wants to shut up a Starship heavy test. But the question is, is our aversion to risk what keeps us from doing most things these days, like building high speed rail, and his addiction to risk, is that what allows him to be the only entity getting American astronauts into orbit?
沃尔特：童年和父亲塑造了他的个性，影响了他对风险的理解。金博尔（马斯克的弟弟）说，他几乎对风险上瘾。彼得·蒂尔说，大多数他合作过的人总是努力避免风险，但马斯克不同。他对戏剧性的渴望体现在他的个人和职业生活中。他是那种在制造飓风或高潮时感到最自在的人。所有这些都与他年轻时的经历有关。这很重要，因为美国已经失去了冒险并进行大规模制造的能力。他对冒险的渴望也带有一种黑暗品质。这使得他发射火箭，推出全自动驾驶等激进举措。在书中有许多事件，他会忽略联邦航空管理局的规定，比如在进行“星舰重型”测试时。但问题是，我们对风险的厌恶是否使我们远离如建设高速地道这样的事物，而他对冒险的上瘾，是不是让他成为唯一一个将美国宇航员送入轨道的机构？
Was there ever a moment for you, Walter, where you were following along with Elon, you were with him personally, and you were like, Oh, shh, fill in the blank with the word right there. But like he's going through something massive right now, and you are a fly on the wall experiencing that with him. And then obviously, you might talk about this in your book, but and so feel free to share and share what you may not want to. But now obviously the news would be public, so you'd be more open to sharing it.
主持人：在你与埃隆亲密相伴的时刻中，沃尔特，是否曾经有这样的时刻，让你心里默默咒骂说"哦，天呐"。就像他正在经历一些重大的事情，而你却是他身边的一个旁观者。显然，你可能在你的书中会谈到这个，所以可以自由分享，也可以选择不分享。不过现在显然这个新闻已经公开，所以你可能更倾向于分享了。
There were times, for example, when I was walking with him, once at Starbase, down in Boca Chica, once on a solar roof, We were climbing on top of the solar roof that was being installed. Another time it involved Tesla and creating something where you see him go dark. I mean, it's just the face, his whole demeanor. And it's because people aren't having a maniacal sense of urgency. And I saw that a lot of scenes, the first month at Twitter, where he would go dark because people didn't have that maniacal sense of urgency. And you knew what was going to happen. First of all, somebody was going to get leaned out. But secondly, he was going to order a surge. He was going to say, in 10 days, I want everybody to come to Boca Chica, and I want that rocket stacked on the launch pad. And the surges sometimes were meaningless. I mean, you know, they, you did a surge to Stack Starship 18 months before it was going to be ready, but it just extruded the shit out of the system. And it gave everybody that maniacal sense of urgency. That's one of his five or ten, five principles I talk about in the book. The other times like that, I'd be sitting in a room and he'd be with some poor finance person looking at the cost of components of a raptor engine. They go dark. And I'd know that he was just going to rip the person apart. And there are many scenes in the book where he does that with-I won't name the names now, but you'll see them in the book. They all go on the record with me-where he just is-it's uncomfortable for me to be sitting there at times, because he is just brutal about it. Somebody is fucked up. And the thing that I noticed is that once he finishes doing it, and it was never physical, and it was almost done in a flat monotone, but he would just really attack people. Then a few days later, if they had absorbed the lesson, he'd forget about it. It would be as if he went into becoming from Dr. Jettrel to Mr. Hyde, and then didn't even think that much remember that much of how tough he had been on people. And 80% of the time, it was really good. It was like Steve Jobs used to do, except for one order of magnitude larger. 80% of the time, it was good. But 20% of the time, it just made people afraid to give them bad news and that type of thing. So I try to show in the book those moments where he gets into intensity and how effective that can be, but also to some extent, how problematic.
沃尔特：例如，有一次我们在Starbase散步，当时在Boca Chica，另外一次是在一个太阳能屋顶上，我们正在攀爬正在安装的太阳能屋顶。还有一次涉及到特斯拉，他正在创造一些东西，你看到他变得沉默。我的意思是，他整个神态都不同了。因为人们没有急迫的疯狂感。在Twitter的头一个月，我经常看到这样的场景，他因为人们没有那种疯狂的紧迫感而变得沉默。你会知道接下来会发生什么。首先，肯定会有人被精简。但其次，他会下令进行冲刺。他会说，10天内，我要大家都到Boca Chica来，我要那枚火箭堆叠在发射台上。有时候这些冲刺是没有意义的。我的意思是，你知道，你先搭好发射台，而Starship实际上在18个月后才会准备好，但这却使整个系统更高效。它给了每个人急迫的感觉。这是我在书中谈到的他的五个或十个原则之一。还有一些类似的情况，我会坐在一个房间里，他和一些可怜的财务人员一起看猛禽发动机零部件的成本。他们也变得沉默。这时我会知道他就要把那个人撕得体无完肤。在书中有很多这样的场景，我现在不能透露名字，但你将会在书中看到。他们都在我的访谈中毫无保留地跟我说话，有时候我坐在那里确实感到不舒服，因为他对此非常残酷。有人已经搞砸了。我注意到的是，一旦他完成了这样的行为，它从来没有变成物理上的伤害，几乎都是以平淡的语调进行，但他确实会对人进行严厉的攻击。然后几天之后，如果他们吸取了教训，他会忘记了，好像他从Jettrel博士变成了海德先生，甚至没有记得他对人们多么严厉。80%的时间里，这样做是非常好的。就像史蒂夫·乔布斯曾经做的那样，只是规模大了一个数量级。80%的时间，都是好的。但20%的时间，这样做只会让人们害怕给他们带来坏消息之类的事情。所以我试图在书中展示他进入紧张状态的那些时刻，以及那种方式的有效性，但同时也在某种程度上明确了其中的问题所在。
When you are there with Elon, while you're trying to document the situation, how did you handle those situations? Maybe when there is something obviously very complex going on in Elon's world, part of you I can imagine wants to sit back and just document and take it all in. But is there also an aspect of trying to dig in and maybe get inside the minds of it?
主持人：当你和埃隆在一起，试图记录这些情况时，你是如何处理这些情况的？也许当埃隆的世界明显面临复杂局面时，我可以想象，你希望放松一下，只是记录下来并全盘接收。但也有一种努力深入了解，并试图进入他的内心世界的一面吗？
I definitely try to dig in. And in quite a few cases, I went back a year later and revisited the incident to see what the outcome was. I went back to see, I'll just use first names, Andy or Lucas or the person who was running solo roofs, for example, and say, "Okay, let's walk that back and see what happened." I also had to just be an observer. I never intervened, but sometimes I'd ask Gwynne shotwell and I'd be told, "The reason that young guy on finance screwed up is he just lost a child. His child died two weeks earlier." And I'd be tempted to go to Elon and say, "You lost a child yourself. an infant child died. And I'd have to wait and let the story play out instead of being like the Heisenberg principle where my observation of the story would affect the story. So sometimes I'd wait a month or two later and let it play out and then ask the question.
沃尔特：我肯定会深入了解。在很多情况下，我会在一年后回顾事件，看看结果如何。我会回去看看，只提名字（不带姓氏），比如安迪、卢卡斯或者单独负责屋顶的人，然后说：“好的，我们回顾一下，看看发生了什么。”我也必须只是一个观察者。我从不干预，但有时候我会问Gwynne shotwell （SpaceX总裁），然后听说：“这个年轻的财务人员出错的原因是他刚刚失去了一个孩子。他的孩子两周前去世了。” 我会有冲动去找埃隆说：“你自己也曾失去一个孩子。一个婴儿死了。” 但我必须等待，让故事发展而不是像海森堡原理（不确定性原理）一样，我的观察会影响到故事的发展。所以有时候我会等一个月或两个月，让故事进行然后再提问。
Walter, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes where while you're talking with him and you're documenting the process and you're thinking about it as a writer, I can imagine there's also instances when kind of like what you were just saying, someone in finance just lost a child like you did that now you're talking to him at a person to person level is that right.
主持人：Walter，在你与他交谈并记录这个过程时，我试着设身处地来理解你的感受，作为一名写作者，我可以想象，就像你刚才说的，有时候会遇到刚才提到的失去孩子的财务人员的情况……你会跟埃隆进行一对一的交流，是这样吗？
Yeah but I I try to make sure I'm there also as a reporter I'm talking to him person to person and sometimes I'll ask him exactly about it like what about the empathy whatever and as I said a moment ago I'm somebody who spends a lot of time caring that the people on this Twitter Spaces and people I'm having lunch with, that I try to be pleasing. And I noticed that Steve Jobs didn't do that. And he said, "You have the luxury," he was talking to me, "of wearing a velvet glove and always speaking in polite ways that try to please people." But for me, if somebody does something that sucks, I got to tell them it sucks. And if they're a B player, I got to tell them they're a B player. Otherwise, I screw up all of Apple just because I'm trying to be kind to the person in front of me. Exactly the same thing Elon Musk said. He said, "It's a form of egotism, meaning of my egotism, not his, that I want to be too empathetic as opposed to caring about the whole enterprise, caring about the mission." And so this is a complexity in the book, which is we always think a lack of empathy. And here's somebody who's, you know, talks about having Asperger's and being on the autism disorder spectrum. We talk about a lack of empathy as if it makes you a jackass or an asshole or a jerk. But we also have to figure out what is it due to an enterprise that somebody who's maniacally focused on the mission, and it's sometimes He's not a pretty sight, but he is the only person getting us into the era of electric vehicles. He is the only person shooting American astronauts into orbit. And that maniacal sense of urgency, I thought, was going to destroy Twitter. I was there night after night, where he fired 85% of the people, and I'm thinking, "Okay, whoa, let's see if it works tomorrow." And yet now Twitter Spaces is working, and Video is working, and Rewind is working. So you have to balance that maniacal sense, that lack of empathy, with also a sense of mission that might get things done. Claire, , you know, Grimes once said, "Demon mode, I just don't want to be around him when he's in demon mode. It's just so unpleasant." And then she paused and said, "But demon mode is the one that gets shit done."
沃尔特：是的，但我也尽力确保我在作为一位记者的同时也作为一个人与他交谈。有时候我会直接问他，比如关于共情的问题，就像我刚才说的那样，我是一个花很多时间在乎这些推特空间上的人，我与他们一起吃午餐，我努力讨人喜欢。但我注意到史蒂夫·乔布斯不是这样做的。他说：“你有奢侈的条件”，他是在对我说，“带着丝绒手套，总是以礼貌的方式与人交谈，试图取悦他人。”但对我来说，如果有人做了令人讨厌的事，我必须告诉他们那是讨厌的。如果他们是二流选手，我必须告诉他们他们是二流选手。否则，我会因为试图对面前的人友善而搞砸整个苹果公司。埃隆·马斯克也说了同样的话。他说：“这是一种自我的利己主义（egotism），我的利己主义，不是他的，是指我希望过分同理心，而不是关心整个企业，关心使命。” 所以这就是书中的复杂之处，我们总是认为缺乏共情。但是这里有一个人，他谈到自己患有亚斯伯格综合症和自闭症谱系障碍，我们认为缺乏共情的人是个混蛋、傻瓜或坏蛋。但我们也必须弄清楚，对于一个专注于使命的企业来说，这种缺乏共情的人对企业会产生什么影响。有时候，他不是一个很漂亮的形象，但他确实是将我们引入电动车时代的唯一人物。他是唯一将美国宇航员送入轨道的人。我曾经以为这种狂热的紧迫感会毁掉Twitter。我夜以继日地在那里，目睹他解雇了85%的人，心想：“好吧，看看明天会发生什么。” 但现在，Twitter Spaces正在运作，短视频功能也在运作，rewind功能也在运作。所以你必须在狂热的紧迫感和缺乏共情之间保持平衡，同时也要有完成使命的决心。Claire Boucher（Elon Musk 前女友）曾说过，“恶魔模式，当他进入恶魔模式时，我不想和他在一起。太令人不愉快了。” 然后她停顿了一下，说：“但是恶魔模式是能让事情完成的模式。”
Wow. That's powerful. I've also heard demon mode before, but let's go on that because you started touching on other folks that you've worked with. Obviously, have you written biographies on several influential figures like Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci? So what do you believe sets Elon Musk apart from these individuals? What are those differences in your opinion?
主持人：哇，太强了。我之前也听过“恶魔模式”，但咱们继续谈谈吧，因为你开始提到了其他你合作过的人。显然，你写了一些有关史蒂夫·乔布斯、阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦和列奥纳多·达·芬奇等多个有影响力人物的传记。那么你认为埃隆·马斯克与这些人有何不同？在你看来，这些差异是什么？
Well, let's take a difference from Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs loved design. But when he had designed something and thought the Chamfers on the iPhone or the Curves on the you know MacBook Air were beautiful, he almost just threw it over a wall to China and said, "Okay, you manufacture it." What Musk does is he makes sure his engineers and his designers and himself have desks right on the assembly line so they can watch every time something happens and a red light goes off on the assembly line and they walk to the red it's called and you have an iterative process where the designers know how it works with manufacturing. In the US, we've lost our ability to get a fingertip feel for manufacturing, which you need in order to have iterative innovation. By that, I mean constant innovation to say, "Here's how we can make something better. Here's how we can manufacture things better." That reminded me of, in some ways, the great engineer designers of the time. And it was a maxim of Leonardo da Vinci, which was that he always called himself the engineer and artist for the Duke of Milan, because he knew that the engineering and the making of things were integral to how, to making sure you knew how to design it. And so he reminds me of the great engineers who realize that beauty and technology and manufacturing have to be done hand in hand.
沃尔特：嗯，我们来看看和史蒂夫·乔布斯的不同之处。史蒂夫·乔布斯热爱设计。但当他设计好了某样东西，认为iPhone的倒角或MacBook Air的曲线非常漂亮时，他几乎只是把它扔给中国，然后说：“好了，由你们来生产吧。”而马斯克所做的是，他确保他的工程师、设计师以及他自己都在生产线上有工作台，这样他们可以看到每次发生的情况，当生产线上出现红灯时，他们会走到那里，这就是所谓的红灯召集。你们会进行迭代过程，设计师们会知道它是如何与制造工艺配合的。在美国，我们失去了对制造工艺的触觉，而正是这个触觉使我们能够进行迭代式创新。我指的是持续创新，不断寻找“如何使某样东西更好、如何更好地制造产品”的方法。这让我想起了那个时代伟大的工程设计师。对列奥纳多·达·芬奇来说，这是他的原则，他总是称自己为米兰公爵的工程师和艺术家，因为他知道工程和物品制造与设计密不可分。所以，马斯克让我想起了那些伟大的工程师，他们认识到美感、技术和制造必须紧密结合。
We're having this fantastic conversation with Walter Isaacson, the author of the upcoming biography called Elon Musk. So if you have questions about his writing process, about the stories inside, etc., go ahead raise your hand. I'll bring you up in just a few minutes. I have personally two more questions for you. And one of them was about the other folks beyond Elon that you had conversations with. I think you said you had over 250 other conversations. were one or two that stood out to you? Maybe it was a fantastic conversation or just truly insightful that you can share more stories about?
主持人：我们正在与即将出版的传记《埃隆·马斯克传》的作者沃尔特·艾萨克森进行这场精彩的对话。如果你对他的写作过程、书中的故事等有问题，请举手。我会在几分钟内给你一个机会。对于你之前谈到的和埃隆之外的其他人的对话，我个人还有两个问题。你说你跟250多个人进行了对话，其中有哪一两个让你印象深刻的？也许是一次非常棒的谈话，或者真正有见地的，你能分享更多的故事吗？
I do think that Maye Musk at the very beginning, his mother, said to me how exceptional Elon was. He said, "But the danger," she said, "she didn't compare it to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, but it's that same trope which is that Elon becomes his father." And And so she's been very insightful about that. Kimball is deeply understanding and sometimes has a contentious relationship. I mean, they were used to wrestle on the floor and bite each other during the early days of before PayPal and Zip2 when they were working together. I did spend a lot of time talking to both Claire Boucher, who is deeply, deeply insightful about Elon and very loving, likewise, Siobhan Zellis, as you know, as a manager at Neuralink and the mother of two children they share. And then there were just people he works with who truly get him. And it would give me pictures and stories and anecdotes. So everybody who's in the orbit of Elon is fascinated by Elon. So you just have to push a button and they talk.
沃尔特：我确实认为埃隆的母亲梅耶·马斯克在一开始就告诉我她的儿子有多么非凡。她说：“但危险的是”，她没有将其与卢克·天行者和达斯·维达相比，但是这就是同样的意思，那就是埃隆会变成他父亲的样子。“她对此非常有见解。（弟弟）金博尔也非常理解，有时候他们之间也存在一些争议性的关系。我是指，在PayPal和Zip2成立之前，他们一起工作的早期阶段，他们习惯了一起在地板上摔跤、相互撕咬。我确实花了很多时间与Claire Boucher（前女友）交谈，她对埃隆非常有深刻的见解并且深爱着他，同样地，我也与Shivon Zilis，你们知道，她是Neuralink的高管，也是他们所共同拥有的两个孩子的母亲。还有他一起工作的其他人真正了解他。他们会给我讲述图片、故事和趣闻轶事。所以，埃隆所在的任何圈子里的人都对他着迷。你只需要按下一个按钮，他们就会谈个不停。
Good, good, good. All right. And so I'm going to-
主持人：好的。我还想问下……
The other thing is, you know, watching how the personal interconnects with the engineering, even the politics. I mean, you know, his politics, as we've seen, has become very anti-woke. And that's changed some of his politics from when he was, you know, a donor to Barack Obama and a supporter of Biden. And you have to look at his own family, things that have happened, as everybody knows he had Xavier, one of his children, transitioned to be Jenna. And the way he's processed all of these things, I find that the people in his family are very insightful.
沃尔特：另一方面，观察个人生活与工程甚至政治之间的互动。我的意思是，你知道，他的政治观点，如我们所见，变得非常反对激进觉醒主义。这使得他的政治观点与他之前曾是巴拉克·奥巴马的捐赠人和拜登的支持者时有所不同。同时，你还必须关注他的家庭，就像大家都知道的，他的一个儿子Xavier Musk变性成了 Jenna。而他处理所有这些事情的方式……我发现他家人非常有洞察力。
Good, good. So my last question that I've had saved up this whole time is just, it sounds like Walter, You have such great conversations with Elon. Of course, there's so many different topics that you can dive into, and you've spoken with so many people. So I'm curious about your process of how to manage the distillation of all that information about Elon's many ventures, and his viewpoints and stories. How did you manage to do all that?
主持人：我的最后一个问题是，听起来沃尔特，你与埃隆进行了很多很棒的交谈。当然，有很多不同的话题可以深入探讨，而你也与很多人进行了对话。所以我很好奇你在处理埃隆的众多创业项目、观点和故事方面的提炼过程。你是如何做到这一切的呢？
Well, I warn you, the book is 620 pages. So distillation was incredibly difficult to get it down to 620, but I didn't distill it down to 280 characters or anything. What I do is I try to be a storyteller. I grew up here in Louisiana, and I had a mentor named Walker Percy. He said that two types of people come out of Louisiana, preachers and storytellers. He said, for heaven's sake, be a storyteller. The world's got too many preachers. Now, we all know people who have strong opinions that they're promulgating. many of them smart and good people. I try to just say, all right, I'm gonna tell you the story. I'm gonna make it a narrative. You're gonna walk down the line with him, you can see what he did to the finance guy, you're gonna see what happens when we get to the launch pad. I'm gonna just tell you the story. And I try to let the reader do the processing. And half the readers are gonna come out of this book and say, what an amazing genius. Another half are gonna say, okay, he was an amazing genius, but did he have to be such a Nassau or tough on these people? And I want the reader to process this and maybe take, you know, he has so many fans that are fanatic fans and say, okay, but here's some complexities. And likewise, he has amazing number of haters. I wanna say, okay, but here's some complexities because it's a human fabric.
沃尔特：好的，我提醒你，这本书有620页。因此，将其浓缩到620页真的非常困难，但我并没有将其浓缩到280个字符或其他什么。我只是试图成为一个讲故事的人。我在路易斯安那州长大，有一个导师叫做沃克·珀西。他说路易斯安那州出来两种人，传教士和讲故事的人。他说，求你了，做个讲故事的人吧。世界已经有太多的传教士了。我们都知道有些人有着强烈的意见，他们在宣扬。他们当中许多都是聪明而善良的人。我只是试着说，好吧，我要给你讲个故事。我会把它变成一个叙述。你会跟着他一起走，看看他对财务人员做了什么，你会看到我们到达发射台时发生了什么。我只是要给你讲个故事。然后，我会让读者去思考。半数读者可能会说，多么惊人的天才！另一半读者可能会说，他确实是个惊人的天才，但是他对这些人真的需要这么不客气吗？我希望读者能够深思熟虑，并且也许能够意识到，他有很多狂热追随者，但是这里面还有一些复杂性。同样地，他也有很多仇恨者。我想说的是，但是这其中也存在一些复杂性，因为这是人类的一部分。
I love that human fabric. great way to end on that one. All right, folks, now we're going to jump into the Q&A. I'm super excited about this. We're going to run for the next 20-25 minutes. So of course, if you're in the audience, go raise your hand. Or if you feel like it, you can also put your comment in the purple chat bubble in the bottom right. You can also send me a DM if you want. And quick reminder, I'm also going to be giving away five pre-ordered copies of this. If you're interested at the end, first come first serve, put your DMs or send me a DM and we will get that to you. Thank you. All right. Herbert, good to see you, my friend.
主持人：我喜欢这种人性的复杂，这是个很好的结尾。好了，各位，现在我们要开始问答环节了。我对此非常兴奋。接下来的20-25分钟都是问答。如果你在观众席上，请举手发言。或者如果你愿意，也可以在右下角的紫色聊天气泡中留下你的评论。如果你想的话，也可以给我发私信。快速提醒一下，我还会送出五本已经预订的书。如果你有兴趣，请在最后联系我，先到先得，给我发私信或者发我私信，我们会给你送过去。谢谢。好的，Herbert，很高兴见到你，朋友。
Hey, Adam. Yep. Thank you very much, Walter and Adam. Thank Thank you for doing this. Adam, you are a professional. Thank you for doing this space. You are the best of the best for holding these amazing spaces. You asked the best questions. Walter, I am a massive fan of yours forever. I've read six of your books. I've got several questions to ask you. If I can, I'll restrict it to two. I know Adam will get mad at me. So first is, you're doing this book on Elon Musk, but you've done books on Leonardo, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, where the, of course, my favorite, up to this point is Steve Jobs, where will Elon end up in history? And of course, your biography of Elon will play a part. You were saying earlier that it might affect kind of like the observer affecting history, but your books document history. Where is Elon gonna fall into that? I do have a second question. Maybe I'll reserve it.
提问者：嗨，亚当。没错。非常感谢你们，瓦尔特和亚当。谢谢你们做这场访谈。亚当，你是个专业主持。感谢你为这个领域做出贡献。你是最棒的人，能主办这样令人惊叹的活动。你提出了最好的问题。沃尔特，我永远是你的超级粉丝。我读过你的六本书。我有几个问题要问你。如果可以，我会限制在两个问题上。我知道这会让亚当生气。所以首先是，你正在写一本关于埃隆·马斯克的书，但你之前写过关于列奥纳多、本杰明·富兰克林、爱因斯坦，当然，迄今为止我最喜欢的是史蒂夫·乔布斯，埃隆将在历史上留下怎样的印记？当然，你的埃隆传记也会起到一定作用。你之前说过这可能像观察者影响历史，但你的书记录了历史。埃隆会在其中扮演什么样的角色呢？我还有第二个问题，也许我先保留着。
I do think that the most important thing is to keep the big picture in mind, which is when he started working with the people at Tesla, we weren't going into the era of electric vehicles. General Motors got rid of them in EV. Likewise, when SpaceX was starting, we We gave up on the space shuttle and we decided it was going to be decommissioned. So the big picture is that he has led us into these new eras. There are times when people are getting, you know, ringing their knickers about who deserves which blue checkmark or something. I think that will fade at a certain point and we'll be able to look at the bigger picture. That said, the personality will be a fascinating and complex one, not something where you can say, "This is a simple person."
沃尔特：我认为最重要的是保持全局意识，他开始与特斯拉团队合作时，我们还没有步入电动汽车时代。通用汽车已经放弃了电动汽车。同样，当SpaceX起步时，我们放弃了太空船计划并决定将其退役。所以，大局来看，他引领我们进入了这些新时代。有时候，人们会争论谁值得得到哪个蓝勾号（Twitter认证账户徽章）之类的事情，但这些争议会在某个时候渐渐消逝，我们能够看到更大的图景。然而，这个人的个性将会是迷人而复杂的，不是能简单定义为“一个简单的人”。
And Herbert, you can ask a follow-up. Go for it, man.
主持人：现在赫伯特，你可以问一个后续问题。问吧，哥们。
Yeah, good. So, where would his place be in history, though? And then the second question is, I think that a few know that you were the CEO of CNN, and So I'm just curious what you think about the kind of multimedia, mass media, and how they are treating Tesla, Elon Musk, and so forth.
主持人：是的，好的。那么他在历史中的地位会在哪里呢？然后第二个问题是，我想只有少数人知道你曾经是CNN的首席执行官，所以我很好奇你对多媒体、大众传媒以及它们对待特斯拉、埃隆·马斯克等的看法。
I think it's hard to make a broad brushstroke about the media. I think Elon Musk makes a mistake when he says the media is this, the media is that. They're extraordinarily good people who are doing a very good job covering Twitter, covering Tesla and they're covering it in a critical way. I flinch when he sometimes decides that the media or the mainstream media is this out of the other thing. Having been part of the mainstream media, I know it ain't just one thing. And I know that they're really smart, dedicated people who may have an opinions, but I think the beating up on the press maybe i'm too defensive about it is unnecessary
沃尔特：我认为对媒体做出笼统的评价很难。我认为埃隆·马斯克在说媒体是这样或那样时犯了一个错误。他们是非常出色的人，非常出色地报道推特、特斯拉等，并以批评的方式进行报道。当他有时决定媒体或主流媒体在某些方面不好时，我感到不安。作为主流媒体的一部分，我知道它不是唯一的一种。我知道他们是非常聪明、敬业的人，可能有一些观点，但我认为对媒体进行指责是不必要的，也许是我对此过于防御性。
Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Walter appreciate this.
主持人：谢谢你们，谢谢你们，非常感谢你们。
I guess you didn't feel you got an answer in the place. Yes,but i think it's close to what steve job. I would it'll be in the pantheon with the steve jobs also with the henry ford who you know had many flaws but also understood both design and manufacturing and in some ways he uh... uh... uh... yeah he reminds me of people who get things done and i think his place in history is probably greater current uh... innovator or leader i mean i don't see that Zuckerberg Bezos uh... i think he will go down more history
沃尔特：我猜你可能觉得没有得到一个确切的答案。是的，但我认为他的地位接近史蒂夫·乔布斯。我觉得他将和史蒂夫·乔布斯一起被视为英雄，并与亨利·福特一起被记录在殿堂中。亨利·福特有很多缺点，但他也理解设计和制造，在某种程度上，他让我想起那些实现目标的人。我认为他在历史上的地位可能超过了当前的创新者或领导者，我的意思是，我不认为扎克伯格、贝佐斯之类的人能够与他相比，我认为他将在历史中留下更深远的影响。
Thank you, Walter, I appreciate it.
提问者：谢谢你的回答，感谢。
Love it. Great questions, Herbert, as always. All right, let's keep rocking and rolling this fantastic conversation, folks. Keep raising your hands. There's plenty of people in this queue. I can't bring up everyone, so don't get mad at me and my DMs, but I'm trying to do the best that I can. Let's keep moving fast, though. We're going to go to Larry and then Austin and then Stephanie. So Larry, thanks for being so patient. What's on your mind?
主持人：好问题，好回答。好的，让我们继续这场精彩的对话吧，朋友们。继续举手发问吧，队列中还有很多人。我无法让每个人都发言，所以请不要对我发火或在私信中抱怨，但我会尽力而为。然而，让我们保持快速前进的节奏。我们将会先找Larry，然后是Austin和Stephanie。所以Larry，感谢你的耐心等待。请问你有什么问题或想法？
Thank you. Walter, great fan. Einstein is still my favorite book. I'm waiting for Elon to come out. But one observation and then a question. My observation is that I like an Elon much closer to Brunel than the great Da Vinci. And I wish you would look at Brunel's life, because I think he's underappreciated as one of the greatest engineers that ever lived. And my question is all about writing biographies on living people and whether that's a flawed precept, you know, on the very face of it and just wanted to get your view on that since you've done biographies on both living and past.
提问者：谢谢。沃尔特，我是你的忠实粉丝。《爱因斯坦》仍然是我最喜欢的一本书。我正在等待埃隆的传记出版。不过我有一个观察和一个问题。我的观察是，我更喜欢将埃隆与布鲁内尔相提并论，而非伟大的达·芬奇。我希望你能看看布鲁内尔的一生，因为我认为他是有史以来最伟大的工程师之一，但却被低估了。我的问题是关于对在世人物撰写传记的看法，我觉得这个前提可能有缺陷，你对此有何看法呢？毕竟你既写过在世人物的传记，也写过已故人物的传记。
Yeah, when I did Henry Kissinger and in dealing with a living person, especially, you know, one controversial, takes a lot of energy and I said okay next time I'm gonna do somebody who's been dead for 200 years. I did Ben Franklin and certainly after Steve Jobs I felt the same way and I said I'm gonna do somebody who's been dead 500 years and I went back and did Leonardo. But I do think it's important to write the first draft of history and the second draft of history. If you're not reporting on a living person you're not sitting next to him watching that person in operation. We learned that from Boswell and being with Dr. Johnson, which is, yeah, there's a downside. Maybe I just have to tell the story and people a century from now will say, "How did he go down in history?" Answer that first question. But it's important for those of us who have the chance, the opportunity to be alongside somebody who's living but making a difference to try to write at least the first draft of that story and to tell it straight. I mean, I try real hard to say you can make your own judgments here. I'm just going to try to get it exactly the way I saw it and let other people, maybe in future generations even, process it.
沃尔特：是的，在我写亨利·基辛格的时候，与一个在世的人打交道，尤其是一个充满争议的人，需要很多精力。我说好了，下次我要写一个已经去世200年的人。我写了本富兰克林的传记，然后又在史蒂夫·乔布斯之后有了同样的感觉，我说我要写一个已经去世500年的人，于是我回到过去写了达·芬奇的传记。但我认为重要的是要书写历史的第一稿和第二稿。如果你不报道一个在世的人，你就不能坐在他旁边观察他的行动。我们从博斯韦尔和与约翰逊医生在一起的经历中学到了这一点，是的，这也有不好的地方。也许我只需要讲述故事，让未来世纪的人们说，“他是如何在历史中留名的？”回答这个最初的问题。但对于我们这些有机会与正在改变世界的人并肩而行的人来说，尽管至少要试着写下这个故事的第一稿，并且坦诚地讲述。我的意思是，我努力地说，你们可以自己做出判断。我只是试着以我所见到的方式准确地呈现它，让其他人，甚至也许是将来的世代去思考。
Larry, thank you for asking your question. I want to make sure to get to as many folks as possible. So let's keep rocking and rolling. Austin, good to see you.
主持人：Larry，感谢你的提问。我希望尽可能回答更多人的问题。让我们继续保持活跃。Austin，很高兴见到你。
Hey, Walter, it's Austin. It's good to speak to you again. Hey, I'm a big fan.
提问者：嘿，沃尔特，我是奥斯汀，很高兴能跟你交流，我是你的忠实粉丝
People should go to Austin's site. He has great photographs.
沃尔特：大家应该去奥斯汀的网站看看。他拍了很多很棒的照片。
I appreciate that, thank you. But I was curious, listening to you talk earlier about sitting in and stuff, I was curious if you could speak a little bit on the process of writing something as big as this. It sounds like a lot of it is just like being there and being in the moment. But then, you know, after kind of going through a day or maybe a night, depending on, you know, what you on and his team are doing, you know, what do you kind of do? Do you have kind of like a summary of the day recap? Do you, you know, write stuff down as you're sitting there listening? You know, what's your process to kind of keep all the information together?
提问者：非常感谢，我很欣赏。但我很好奇，在你之前谈到参与其中的时候，你能谈一下像这样写一部大作的过程吗？听起来很大部分都需要亲身经历和置身其中。但是，你知道，在经历了一天或者一夜之后，根据你和他团队的工作情况，你会做些什么呢？你会总结一天的工作内容吗？你在听的过程中会记录一些东西吗？你是如何将所有的信息整理在一起的？
Yeah. I mean, I report every hour and every day and I keep a chronology and I have thousands of pages of notes that are in chronological order like all right 6 p.m. Twitter conference room looking at Spaces and what he's gonna do and I have all my notes that way and I organize them all chronologically there you know Every interview every scene and then I tend to try to organize a book logically. Some historians like to jump around, but for me, everything is narrative. One damn thing leads to another. And so if you're writing about that night, he plays Elden Ring all night long and then decides at 5.30 a.m. to make a bid for an offer for Twitter, you also have to then know how that affects two days later when he's down in Boca Chica, figuring out starship. So the book, my notes are chronological, and the book is chronological. And it may seem mundane, but open up the Bible. It's got the best lead sentence ever written, which is in the beginning comma. You gotta do it from the beginning and make it chronological.
沃尔特：是的。我每个小时、每一天都在进行报道，我保持一个时间顺序，我有成千上万页的笔记，按照时间顺序排列，比如说，晚上6点，在推特会议室观看Twitter Spaces和他将要做的事情，我的笔记都是按照这个方式整理的，我把它们都按照时间顺序整理好，每个采访、每个场景都记录其中。然后，我会尝试按照逻辑来组织一本书。有些历史学家喜欢跳来跳去，但对我来说，一切都是故事情节。一件事情引发另一件事情。所以，如果你正在写关于那个晚上的情节，他整晚都在玩《埃尔登之环》，然后在早上5点30分决定向推特提出竞标，你也必须知道这是如何影响两天后他在Boca Chica处理星舰的事务。我的笔记是按照时间顺序排列的，书也是按照时间顺序编排的。这样可能看起来很平凡，但打开《圣经》吧。它有史上写得最好的开场句，就是"起初，"。你必须从头开始，按照时间顺序编写。
And how much of the chronology of it makes sense, but how much of the information you're gathering is coming from being there in the moment and then also kind of looking at an outside perspective. Like how much of the book is kind of written in that sort of outside perspective of like, do you talk about what other people say about him?
提问者：其中多少时间顺序是有意义的，多少信息是你在当下亲身经历所得，又或者是从外部的视角观察所得？比如说，书中有多少是从那种外部视角来写的，会讲述其他人对他的评价？
Well, absolutely. If I go through a meeting or I'm going through a storage or I'm on top of a solar roof or something, I'll then go back to say, Brian Dow, who was then running solar rifts, who's on the roof with me. I'll say, okay, tomorrow I need to talk to you. And then a month later, I'll say I need to talk to you. And I'll say, okay, what happened right before? What was, how did this all come to pass? Give me the context of this. And that's why you end up with 200 or so interviews because I go back and say, recreate the scene for me. Now, here's a part of the question you didn't quite ask, but it's connected, which is I come on the scene three years ago, let's say. But I got to write about the amazing meltdowns and things happening in 2018. So I'm dealing with people, whether it's Santella or Omid Afshar or all these wonderful people, and saying, "What happened that morning? What happened that afternoon?" Because I wanted to feel in 2018 the same narrative style that it feels in 2021 when I just happened to be in the meetings. And then, I'm sorry to ramble on on this, a third issue I had to face, and y'all be the judge of this, is there are times when I'm in the book where I'm standing there, something's happening, and me being there is part of the story. I try very hard, and I made my wife read it a couple of times, to make sure I don't insert myself into the narrative unnecessarily. But also, I've got to be honest with the reader, if me being in a scene or at an event is integral to understanding my observation of it, I do have some first person in there.
沃尔特：没错。如果我参加了一次会议，或者我在仓库里翻找东西，或者我在屋顶上，我会回到与我一起在屋顶的布赖恩·道（当时负责太阳能屋顶）那里。我会告诉他，明天我需要和你谈谈。一个月后，我会说我需要和你谈谈。然后我会问，刚刚发生了什么？这一切是如何发生的？给我一个背景。这就是为什么会有大约200个采访，因为我会回过头去说，给我重现那个场景。现在，你没有完全问到的一个问题，但它是相关的，就是我三年前出现在这个场景中，比方说。但我需要写一些发生在2018年的惊人事件和事情的文章。所以，我和许多人打交道，无论是桑特拉还是Omead Afshar（特斯拉CEO办公室负责人），还有其他很多了不起的人，问他们“当天早上发生了什么？下午发生了什么？”因为我想在2018年感受到与我现在参加会议时一样的叙事风格。然后，很抱歉我又啰嗦了，我面临的第三个问题，由你们来判断，是有些时候我在书中站在那里，发生着一些事情，我的出现成为故事的一部分。我努力避免不必要地将自己插入叙事中，但同时，我必须对读者诚实，如果我的出现对于理解我对这个事件的观察至关重要，我确实会有一些第一人称的插入。
That's all amazing and thank you very much for your insight. I'm very excited to read this in September. Stephanie, you've been so patient. It's good to see you, my friend. How are you? What's on your mind?
主持人：这真是太棒了，非常感谢你的见解。我迫不及待想在九月读到这本书。斯蒂芬妮，你一直很耐心。很高兴见到你，朋友。你好吗？有什么想说的吗？
Hi, Adam. Thanks again for hosting an incredible Twitter space, Walter. It is such a pleasure to have you here talking about this book. While I had more of a question of reflection, you touched on this just a little bit from an author perspective. I would imagine it would be a fascinating time to write about Mr. Musk. We are living in a time of the lowest attention span we've ever had. The Goldfish has now beat us out, which means that we tend to, I see more people moving through the world in a very reactive way. I think in some ways, certainly in platforms, we've lost the ability to be thoughtful and step back, check our own biases and walk through those biases and then approach another human being through a different lens. And in the world today, without sort of in the background, and you had mentioned that you had your wife read this a couple of times, but I'm hoping we can get back to, and again, want to do reflections and author, of approaching human beings is what they are in all of their complexities and their excellence and their challenges and their failures, and meet up with someone who is historical, whether you appreciate him or not and get the most important and critical and interesting information out of someone at this stage when you are doing a piece of writing on somebody like this, you are reaching them in this chapter. This chapter will change and there will be an evolution of this. But how did you sort of level set this as such an accomplished author, understanding everything that's swirling around from someone who is really an engineer and thinks very differently than many people in the world? And as a result, some of his behaviors are different, his thoughts are different. How did you approach it?
提问者：嗨，亚当。再次感谢你主持了一个令人难以置信的Twitter Space，沃尔特。很高兴你能在这里谈论这本书。虽然我更多是有一个反思的问题，但你从作家的角度碰到了这个问题。我想象中，写马斯克先生的事情一定是一段令人着迷的时间。我们生活在一个注意力最为短暂的时代。现在，金鱼已经超过了我们，这意味着我们往往以一种非常反应性的方式行动。我认为，在某种程度上，特别是在社交平台上，我们失去了思考的能力，无法退后一步，审视自己的偏见，克服这些偏见，然后以不同的视角接近另一个人。在今天的世界中，背景有所不同，你提到你的妻子读过这本书几次，但我希望我们能回到，再次进行反思和作家，以真实地接触人类，理解他们的复杂性、优点、挑战和失败，并与一个历史人物会面，无论你是否欣赏他，从这个阶段开始获取关键和有趣的信息。当你写一篇关于这样一个人的文章时，你是在这一章中接触他们。这一章节将会发生变化，并且随着时间的推移会有发展。但是，作为一个经验丰富的作者，你是如何对待这个问题的呢？考虑到马斯克是一个真正的工程师，思维方式与世界上许多人很不同，因此一些他的行为和思想与众不同。你是如何应对的呢？
Well, his behaviors are definitely different, and that's where the first complexity comes in because he has a driven intensity that's different from most of us. And then you get to the flaws that come from that as well as the strengths that come from that. And what you said a moment ago, Stephanie, is so important is that we've lost the ability to understand people in their complexities. George Packer wrote a great book about Richard Holbrook, who was a complex person, and he showed how those complexities wove into the whole tapestry. Well, that's what I tried to do here, which is make you understand, you know, Shakespeare does it very well. Measure for measure is one of the best plays, because it's about how do we take a measure of a person? And in the end, one of the characters, a woman, I'm forgetting the name, says, "Even the best are molded by their faults." So what you have to do when you get to complexity is say, "Yes, these are the faults, but they're molded by the faults, and sometimes for that they are made the better for it." Shakespeare says it better than I do. And that is what you're talking about is us regaining the ability not to have hot takes on a person, but to have deeply layered takes on why this person has been so successful but also has these complexities.
沃尔特：他的行为确实与众不同，这就是第一个复杂性的来源，因为他有一种不同于我们大多数人的强烈推动力。然后你会看到由此产生的缺点，以及由此带来的优点。而你刚才说的，斯蒂芬妮，是非常重要的，我们已经失去了理解人们复杂性的能力。乔治·帕克写了一本关于理查德·霍尔布鲁克的伟大书籍，他是一个复杂的人，他展示了这些复杂性如何编织成整体的画卷。嗯，这就是我在这里尝试做的，让你理解，你知道，莎士比亚很擅长这样做。《一错再错》是他最好的戏剧之一，因为它讲述了我们如何对一个人进行评估。最后，一个女性角色，我忘记名字了，说：“即使是最好的人也会为自己的错误而被塑造。”所以当你面对复杂性时，你要说，“是的，这些是缺点，但他们是在缺点的作用下塑造成的，而有时正是因为这些缺点，他们变得更好。”莎士比亚比我说得更好。而你所谈的正是我们恢复的能力，不是对一个人脾气过度激动，而是对为什么这个人如此成功但又如此复杂有着深层次的理解。
Thank you, Walter. I appreciate that. Adam, thanks for having me.
提问者：谢谢你，沃尔特。感谢给我机会提问。
Yeah, absolutely. For folks, I'm also getting DMs, I'm getting a lot of messages as well. And so I do wanna share one that I absolutely love. It's from a woman in the audience and she asked it, she's curious how Walter approached deciding to wrap up and end this book when Elon's story is so far from over. Walk us through your minds on that one.
主持人：是的，绝对没错。对于大家，我也在收到私信，也收到了很多消息。所以我想分享一个我非常喜欢的。来自一位女观众的问题，她好奇沃尔特是如何决定结束这本书的，因为埃隆的故事还远未结束。让我们听听你们对此的想法。
That was really difficult. I've never, when I did Jennifer Doudna who did Chris, where I was thinking, okay, how is this gonna end? And then suddenly her RNA technology helps create vaccines that fight COVID and she wins a Nobel Prize. I said, "Great, we have a grand ending." With Musk, it's more difficult, but what happened at the beginning of this year is Starship had its first test launch. He decided to start an AI company, XAI. The Twitter situation, He took it over and it's all sorts of things in those chapters about what really happened behind the scenes at Twitter but that all happened and I thought that this was a good time to say okay Let's pause and take stock, but clearly there'll be other people or maybe me who will write You know revised edition paperbacks, but then write the next chapter in Elon's biography.
沃尔特：真的很困难。当我写詹妮弗·杜德纳（Jennifer Doudna）时，她做了 CRISPR，我在想，好吧，这个故事该怎么结束呢？然后突然间，她的RNA技术帮助创造了对抗COVID的疫苗，她获得了诺贝尔奖。我说：“太好了，我们有一个壮丽的结局。”对于马斯克来说，情况就更困难了，但是今年年初的事情是，Starship进行了首次测试发射。他决定创办了一个人工智能公司，X.AI。Twitter的情况，他接手了，这些章节中描述了Twitter幕后真实发生的事情，但所有这些都发生了，我觉得现在是一个好时机，让我们暂停一下，对所取得的成果进行评估，但显然还会有其他人，也可能是我，会写一些修订版的平装书，然后写下埃隆传记的下一篇章节。
I love that. I love that Walter. And so while we're talking about Twitter and obviously while we're on Twitter and Twitter Spaces, it's a huge passion of mine. What was your overall sense of as you have this behind the scenes perspective of Elon and everything that he went through? How did that change? How did it evolve from the moment you heard about it till today? And in a way, where do you see Twitter going in the future from Elon's perspective?
主持人：我喜欢这一点。在我们谈论Twitter的时候，当然是在Twitter和Twitter Spaces上，这是我的热情所在。你从幕后透视埃隆和他经历的一切之后，你对此有什么整体感受？从你第一次听说到现在，它是如何变化和发展的？从埃隆的角度来看，你认为Twitter未来将朝着什么方向发展？
I thought at the very beginning when we were in April and in Texas and he was acquiring the stock and then offered a board seat, I was with him, his brother with Antonio Graciaz, with many Ken Howry, many people talking to him. And I thought this is a really bad fit. He understands engineering, but he doesn't understand human emotions as well or and he kept saying Twitter is an engineering challenge. I said, no, it's a human relation. It's a social, human social media thing. It involves advertising. It involves connecting with people's thoughts and emotions. So I thought this is not suited for him. And I do think that he has stepped on many landmines because it's not his natural skill set to take a long time, be reflective, and understand how human emotions are gonna be affected by things. On the other hand, his transformation of the engineering surprised me. I mean, on Chris mas eve, for example, he and his cousins, Andrew and James, are flying back to Texas, and they take a U-turn on the plane to go to Sacramento and decide on the spur of the moment to pull out the service. It's an amazing scene in the book with Elon pulling up the tiles on the floor and clipping the cables when people say you can't move these servers. And I thought, okay, that means in January it's not going to work. And we did see things Super Bowl weekend where it was problematic. But watching the engineering, I was stunned by how assertive he was. And I was very glad when he, right after the Starship Monday, when they boarded the takeoff with about 14 seconds left, he flew to Miami, did an ad sales conference, meets Linda Yaccarino for the first time. And I watched this relationship evolve where he realizes she's got a feel for the stuff I don't, which is advertising and relationships on Twitter. And I said, okay, he's gonna work his way through this, just as he did on other things. But it hasn't been, it's been a slog through a jungle with a lot of demons coming out during the march.
沃尔特：当时在四月份的德克萨斯州，他在收购股票并提供董事会席位时，我和他在一起，他的兄弟安东尼奥·格拉西亚兹，还有许多其他人像肯·豪里等与他交谈。当时我认为这是一个非常不合适的选择。他了解工程学，但他对人类情感的理解不够，他总是说Twitter是个工程难题。我说，不，这是一个人际关系问题，是涉及广告、与人们思想和情感相连的社交媒体。所以我认为这不适合他。同时，我认为他踩了很多地雷，因为他并没有天生的技能来花费很长时间去反思，理解人类的情感会如何受到影响。另一方面，他在工程方面的转型让我感到惊讶。比如，在圣诞前夕，他和他的表兄弟安德鲁和詹姆斯坐飞机回德克萨斯州，然后猛地在飞机上改变主意，决定在一瞬间撤出该服务。在书中，埃隆撬起地板上的瓷砖，剪断电缆，当人们说这些服务器不能移动时，这是一个令人惊叹的场景。我当时就想，好吧，这就意味着一月份是不会成功的。超级碗周末我们确实看到了问题。但通过观察工程方面的事情，他的果断行动令我震惊。当他在“星舰星期一”发射飞船时，离起飞还有大约14秒的时候，他飞往迈阿密，参加了一个广告销售会议，第一次见到琳达·亚卡里诺（Linda Yaccarino)。我看着这段关系的发展，他意识到她懂得很多自己不懂的东西，比如广告和Twitter上的人际关系。我说，好吧，他会逐渐解决这个问题，就像他处理其他事情一样。但这并不容易，这是在一个充满妖魔的丛林中前行。
Ooh, that's an interesting perspective that you just hit on was, I never initially thought about that, but from a Linda perspective coming into this, and that would have been obviously after you were done with your book, and obviously it's going into publication and stuff like that, right?
主持人：哦，你刚才提到的观点非常有趣，我一开始从来没有想过，但是从琳达的角度来看，她参与其中的过程可能是在你完成书稿之后，当然是在进入出版阶段之前，对吧？
no no no no i was that i'm still hanging around with them this april while we're launching starship or he is hiring linda yacarino and i'm talking to her uh... in fact i'm still last night you know fiddling with things so i'm making simon to run the press fast.
沃尔特：不不不不，我在四月份还和他们一起忙碌着，当我们发射Starship或者是他在招聘琳达·亚卡里诺，我还和她交谈呢……事实上，昨晚我还在忙着处理一些事情，我正在让西蒙负责快点儿出来报道。
That's good to hear well can you tell us a little bit more about that because i feel like this world is so excited to hear more about linda but we don't know anything about her
主持人：很高兴听到这个消息，你能告诉我们更多吗？因为我觉得这个世界很想听到更多关于琳达的消息，但我们对她一无所知。
Well I come from her world and i've known her from way back i think she worked at or not i used to work at what was once called turner broadcasting which was part of time water to talk it won't go there uh... but she's a great person and she just has a spunky real feel for human emotions and how to have client relationships and elon whether it's with quinn shot well or many other people Elon is very good at figuring out who's the right partner to fill in some of the things I'm not going to want to do.
沃尔特：我来自她的年代，我从很久以前就认识她了，我记得她曾在前身为特纳广播公司的机构工作，后来这个公司被时代华纳收购，不过我们不必细说。她是一个了不起的人，她对人类情感以及与客户建立关系有着敏锐的洞察力。埃隆无论是与奎因·肖特威尔还是其他很多人，都非常擅长找到合适的合作伙伴来完成自己不愿意做的一些事情。
How do you think he's good at doing that? Is there something that you notice specifically that he does to figure that out?
主持人：你认为他是如何擅长这样做的？你是否注意到他有什么特别的做法来确定这一点？
He has a neural network for other people's talents, like for Gwen Shotwell. I have the scene on the runway where he's asking her to be the president of SpaceX. But the second layer of that, which took me a longer time to sort through, is you have to also have a self-awareness. And I was thinking Musk is not sometimes self-aware about some of his thoughts. But then I realized, oh yeah, he is. And it's an engineering problem for him. It's like what components are missing and what's the best way to add them. And Linda's going to be just super and fun at this job.
沃尔特：他对于他人的才能有一种神经网络，比如对于格温·肖特威尔。我还记得他在飞行跑道上那场景，他向她提出成为SpaceX总裁的要求。但是，在这之后，我花了更长时间来整理第二层次的东西，那就是你还必须要有自我意识。起初我认为马斯克有时候并不自知地思考一些问题。但后来我意识到，哦，是的，他是自知的。对他来说，这是一个工程问题。就像是什么组件缺失了，如何以最佳方式添加它们。琳达在这个工作中一定会非常棒而且有趣。
This has been a tremendous conversation. Walter, I'm sure we could talk all day long, not only about the book and all the stories, but we don't want to give out too much. Of course, we want people to be able to check out the book. So quick reminder, the book is launched September 12th, I believe, so in a couple months. But, Walter, this is truly a pleasure, and I hope we can do it again. Thank you so much for your time.
主持人：这真是一次非常精彩的对话。沃尔特，我相信我们可以整天聊下去，不仅关于这本书和其中的故事，但我们也不想透露太多。当然，我们希望人们能够去阅读这本书。所以，快速提醒一下，这本书将于9月12日发布，应该还有几个月的时间。沃尔特，真的很愉快，希望我们能再次聊天。非常感谢你抽出时间。
Adam, you're a very good moderator.
沃尔特：亚当，你是一个非常好的主持人。
I absolutely love hosting these conversations with great, fascinating thinkers and doers like Walter. There's many more to come, so I hope you'll stick around. I thank you for joining us and I hope you all have a great rest of the day. Take care, everyone.
主持人：我非常喜欢与像沃尔特这样出色、迷人的思想家和实干家进行这些对话。还有很多更精彩的对话即将呈现，希望你们能一直关注下去。感谢你们的加入，祝大家度过美好的一天。大家好好照顾自己，再见！
This is the best podcast. BEST stands for Business, Entrepreneurship, Startups, and Technology. I'm your host, Adam Sokolic, and each week we talk live on social media platforms like Twitter Spaces so that you can stay up to date with the latest news and stories, learn the greatest tools and tactics, and gain some of the best opportunities to connect with new people. Special guests include top founders, CEOs, and experts. Plus, the audience is always full of fascinating people, even Elon Musk recently tuned in. All of our conversations are educating, entertaining, and engaging with the mission to help you succeed. So follow us on all your favorite social media platforms, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and of course tune in live to the best podcast. Let's talk soon!
这里是 BEST 播客。BEST代表商业、创业、初创企业和技术。我是你们的主持人亚当-索科利奇，每周我们都会在Twitter Spaces等社交媒体平台上进行现场讨论，这样你们就可以了解最新的新闻和故事，学习最伟大的工具和战术，并获得一些与新朋友联系的最佳机会。特别嘉宾包括顶级创始人、CEO和专家。此外，听众总是充满了迷人的人，甚至埃隆·马斯克最近也在收听。我们所有的对话都具有教育性、娱乐性和参与性，其使命是帮助你取得成功。因此，在你喜欢的所有社交媒体平台上关注我们，在你收听播客的任何地方订阅，当然还有收听最好的播客直播。让我们下期见。