Episode 056 Peter Diamandis

Summary

• Peter Diamandis is a worldrenowned visionary and has been named one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine
• He has made a career out of doing the seemingly impossible and is an expert in thinking big
• He has started 17 companies, most of them in the space technology, space arena
• He founded the International Space University and Singularity University
• He created the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10 million prize that had 26 teams around the world spend $100 million building spaceships to try and win it
• He started Zero G, which has flown 15,000 people into zerog
• He started Space Adventures, which takes people to the space station privately
• He started Planetary Resources, which is identifying asteroids that come close to Earth without hitting us and are worth the most in terms of resources
• He started Human Longevity, which is building the largest genome sequencing facility on the planet
• Exponential thinking is a doubling of something yearonyearonyear, which can lead to a billion times bigger in 30 doublings
• Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit has been roughly doubling for the same cost every 18 months.
• Computational power has increased exponentially over the last 50 years, with the average $1,000 computer in 2023 having the same computational power as the entire human race.
• Exponential technologies include cloud computing, sensors and networks, 3D printing, synthetic biology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
• Passion and curiosity are the most important attributes to tap into these technologies.
• Entrepreneurs can crowdsource to find people with the skills they need to make their ideas happen.
• Technology can be defined as a tool used to solve a problem, such as better questions to ask oneself.
• Entrepreneurs should focus on solving grand challenges and billionperson problems.
• Companies should disrupt themselves before they get disrupted by others.
• Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO of CocaCola, encourages CEOs to disrupt themselves and to find the smartest 20somethings in their company to figure out how to take down the company.
• Peter Diamandis talks about the common strategies of successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos.
• These entrepreneurs have a willingness to dream big and take moonshots, experiment, and start with a clean sheet of paper.
• Elon Musk was born in South Africa, moved to Canada, and went to Wharton. He started programming at a young age and was convinced that the Internet, energy, and space were the three big important things for humanity.
• Larry Page said to ask if you are working on something that can change the world.
• Jeff Bezos talks about the importance of experimentation and having a thick skin.
• Elon Musk's first success was Zip2, which was acquired.
• He then went on to create X.com, which merged into PayPal, and used the money to fund SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity.
• In 2008, all three of these companies were on the verge of bankruptcy, but he used all of his money to keep them alive and went into debt.
• By the end of 2008, he had secured a contract from NASA, financing capital for Tesla, and SolarCity started growing, leading to the success of all three companies.
• Elon's success is attributed to his passion and purpose, and his belief that these companies needed to exist.
• Jeff Bezos was also successful, but his approach was more analytical. He borrowed money from his parents to start Amazon in his family garage.
• Peter Diamandis relies on his business partners to tell him when he's wrong, and believes that if 99% of people doubt your ideas, you're either wrong or about to make history.
• Peter Diamandis is a fan of both crowdfunding and incentive competitions.
• Crowdfunding is projected to reach $15 billion in 2015 and $100 billion by 2020.
• Peter has run two crowdfunding campaigns and has a chapter on crowdfunding in his book.
• Crowdfunding allows entrepreneurs to test the market, build a community, and get capital without dilution.
• Peter's morning routine includes stretching and repeating his purpose and mindset in the shower.
• Peter believes that the quality of life is a function of who you spend it with and looks for friends with passion, curiosity, and purpose.
• Peter Diamandis believes that it is important to surround yourself with people who will help you up your game, make you feel great, and who you can dream big dreams with.
• He has had to drift away from some friends who are selfdefeatist and negative in their mindsets.
• He believes that humans have an operating system that is fixed by biology and that we can build apps on top of it.
• He suggests Tony Robbins' Date with Destiny and Landmark Education's Landmark Forum as two resources to help people become aware of their operating system.
• He founded the XPRIZE Foundation to incentivize the development of a private spaceship that could carry three adults into space.
• He now works on launching incentive prizes for the world's biggest problems.
• He created the HeroX platform to help people design, fund, and solve prizes.
• He believes that there is no problem we cannot solve and that it is an amazing time to be an entrepreneur.
• Main Points:
• The XPRIZE was created to increase the energy density of lithium ion batteries by 300 percent.
• The XPRIZE is also working on a carbon capture XPRIZE to capture 80 percent of carbon coming out of natural gas or coal smokestacks.
• Peter Diamandis discussed the possibility of using a postagesize shutter to titrate the amount of solar flux hitting the Earth.
• The concept of supercredibility was discussed, which is the idea of announcing a project above the line of credibility to gain attention.
• Peter Diamandis discussed how he convinced the head of NASA to join him on stage for the XPRIZE launch event.
• Peter Diamandis discussed the story of Stone Soup and how it is an important lesson for entrepreneurs.
• He discussed his experience with BlastOff! and the Google Lunar XPRIZE.
• He suggested that people identify their passion by looking at what they wanted to do as a child and what they would do with $1 billion to improve the world.
• He advised his 20yearold self to believe in his inner dream of opening up space and to focus on that.
• He also suggested people check out boldbook.com for information about his book, Bold, and additional bonuses.
• Peter Diamandis is excited about the mission of creating a world of abundance.
• Bonuses related to his book are available until February 6th.
• People can follow his work on Twitter @peterdiamandis.
• Training videos will be available through March.
• Peter believes it is the most exciting time ever to be alive.