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Traction is part of it. It proves you made a product that has value to other human beings, and isn't that the real goal of doing anything in humanity? It goes further, though. If you are going to hang out in the famous coffee shops in San Francisco, do you have your story really tight? Are you a nice person? Are you proposing something that people really want? Traction is one way of proving that, but when Siri was launched in my house, it didn't have any traction. I knew it was important from the first try, and the same with the many companies I've helped launch. Maybe the real goal is to ship something and take a chance. I've heard of people getting funded this way by accident, or serendipity, or whatever you want to call it. So it does happen. Every once in a while, I meet somebody at a coffee shop who didn't have any clue who I was. I saw them working on something, asked them about it, and every once in a while something like that happens. I was the first to see Slack. Uber was invented right in front of me in a Paris snowstorm. I had the first ride in the first Tesla; back then, Elon Musk had no buyers, but I still wanted one. Insta360 launched their camera company in my house. Matic Robots launched in my house two years ago. Even yesterday, I saw a new company showing me something. They don't have any traction, well, they have a little, but that's not why I was there. I like it that people believe they can change the world by going to a coffee shop. You certainly can increase your luck, but luck only takes you so far. Either your product grabs somebody around the neck and says, "This is going to be your future," or it doesn't. Every once in a while, you meet an entrepreneur who lived on farms to learn how to farm so that they could build a farming robot. Or worked in a retail store to understand how people buy consumer electronics and what kinds of things they wanted. Or who, for 15 years, worked building autonomous vehicles when all their friends and family told them they'd never buy that. I did the consumer research, visiting every state except Alaska, visiting 80 countries. Usually, the best stuff I've seen in my life had no traction. I was the 79th user of Instagram. I reported more bugs on Acrobat 1.0 than any other human. I saw value in a lot of things that didn't have traction. The guys who started this website didn't have that much traction. They certainly didn't have traction that first weekend, but you put it up and you see if people are interested. Eric Ries goes further: he said you should put up a website with just a link to your product and see if anybody will click it without doing all the work. That requires a certain amount of storytelling. Elon sold me a Model 3 before I even saw the Model 3. Why? Because he built cool shit, and I believed he would do it again. And I'm fully bought into Optimus. Why? Because he builds cool shit, and I believe he'll do it again. If you asked me to put down $1,000 tonight on one without seeing it, without knowing what it does, and without understanding the price or anything, I would. Maybe that's the whole point: make cool shit, and every once in a while you'll find somebody who cares about cool shit. It does help to tell other people about the cool shit, though. There are a lot of people hanging out in those coffee shops beyond just venture capitalists. I like hanging out in the coffee shops, meeting people who are trying to change the world. Hanging out together is a lot of fun. It's the job of a change agent to change people, and you can get a lot of practice in on that in a coffee shop talking to people. Yeah, you're right: don't get too transactional or stalkerish. But there's another side of that coin, which is pride, enthusiasm, passion. If you build something cool, why not take it to the coffee shop and show it around? Showing your thing to other people makes your thing better.

Great speech.

I feel sorry for people who don’t have an autonomous car. And I am very aware most don’t have one yet. My eight year old Tesla just passed 172,000 miles yesterday after it got another update in the morning. A major improvement. I have been having the “I love to drive” argument lately. Even with very smart people. A Stanford Fellow last weekend. People have no idea how much driving manually sucks compared to AI driving. And AI will continue to improve. It is the real luxury. I wouldn’t trade it for three Ferraris. I wouldn’t trade it for the million-dollar car @sama drives around. Waymo knows that even the most hardened haters change after three rides. Yesterday I drove a lot. Today again. Autonomy is a life changer. @rwang0’s enterprise conference in Half Moon Bay is extraordinary. But it is over a very dangerous road that has claimed many lives. Had dinner with @RichieEtwaru at the opening dinner (met AI leaders from many major companies, Costco, Siemens, kinds of companies). Now home. To repeat the process later again. Ritchie is showing everyone a new kind of celebrity in the morning. He gave me a peek and he competes with the virtual being company that I visited yesterday (which is worth watching). Think everyone will be blown away. Ray has a Cybertruck. Autonomy was the unofficial theme. The corporate types are automating their businesses, or thinking how to. I wish I had a magic wand to bring everyone into the future. It isn’t just safer. It is way smoother than any human can drive. And I feel sorry that so many have absolutely no idea. But that is changing rapidly as more get rides and that makes me happy because they make the roads safer for everyone.

A lot of people I know are going to China. I delayed my own trip until next year.