Most entrepreneurs have
some anxiety around the time their venture launches, but Elon Musk has more than most of them -- about a million pounds of dynamite’s worth. I mean that literally, not figuratively, because Musk
is CEO and founder of SpaceX, a startup that has an emphasis on up - up - and away! Like above the stratosphere away. You know, into space.
“It’s extremely
nerve-racking,” Musk told attendees during a keynote interview led by former Wired editor and 3D Robotics chairman and co-founder Chris Anderson at SXSW this afternoon.
“All your work is distilled into a few minutes, actually, the first few seconds following lift-off he,” he said, adding that if anything goes wrong, “the whole thing can come
down with a million pounds of TNT equivalent. That’s what I’m thinking [about].”
In fact, Musk, who is also the co-founder of the Telsa electric car
company, said SpaceX had three spaceships explode shortly after lift-off before it had a successful launch, giving a whole new meaning ot the concept of beta testing.