Make dreams come true

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Today, after five test flights, SpaceX managed to launch Starship and get it back on earth. Musk managed to build the most successful space company when everybody predicted failure. He made the impossible possible. And he did it despite numerous critics, derogatory remarks and smear campaigns.

The history of Tesla and SpaceX shows that often, our imagination is what limits us. Nobody believed in reusable rockets until SpaceX made it happen¹. Same for electric cars (Tesla) or brain interfaces (Neuralink). What Musk showed us is that we should be bold, take risks, and work relentlessly to make our dreams come true.

1. I worked at the European Space Agency around 2010 and jokes on Musk were common and the majority thought SpaceX was a toy project.