Techonomy’s David Kirkpatrick was in Texas this week to interview super-magnate Elon Musk, the entrepreneurial marvel behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX. Their wide-ranging conversation was part of the opening keynote at this year’s Dell World, held Dec. 11-13 at the Austin Convention Center. Kicked off by Dell Founder and CEO Michael Dell, Thursday’s keynote delved into Tesla’s rapid but sometimes rocky evolution, from the electric car company’s early struggles to get financing to its current market capitalization of over $18 billion.
Kirkpatrick asked Musk about innovation and what people can do to push forward and succeed. Musk’s answer? “Just try.” Sometimes, he added, people are impeded by their own tendency to self-limit. “If you can get a group of really talented people together and unite them around a challenge and have them work together to the best of their abilities, then a company will achieve great things,” Musk said.
(Kirkpatrick’s interview with Musk begins at 50:30 in the above featured video.)