"Wired.com: At the end of the day you're still zero for three; you have so far failed to put a rocket into orbit.
Musk: We haven't gotten into orbit, true, but we've made considerable progress. If it's an all-or-nothing proposition then we've failed. But it's not all or nothing. We must get to orbit eventually, and we will. It might take us one, two or three more tries, but we will. We will make it work.
Wired.com: How do you maintain your optimism?
Musk: Do I sound optimistic?
Wired.com: Yeah, you always do.
Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
Considering the next 2 launches where successful I think he had reasonable expectations at the time. As CEO your in a strange place of needing to be advertise and create a positive image without creating unrealistic expectations so people trust what you say in six months.
Their goals are:
- High price low volume car.
- Medium price medium volume car.
- Low price high volume car.
They seem to be on their way.
Also the article claims he said 'It's going to be tough.' He has always been pretty straightforward with that. Check out any of his interviews.
Check out his interview after Falcon 1 failed http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/musk_qa
An excerpt from that:
"Wired.com: At the end of the day you're still zero for three; you have so far failed to put a rocket into orbit.
Musk: We haven't gotten into orbit, true, but we've made considerable progress. If it's an all-or-nothing proposition then we've failed. But it's not all or nothing. We must get to orbit eventually, and we will. It might take us one, two or three more tries, but we will. We will make it work.
Wired.com: How do you maintain your optimism?
Musk: Do I sound optimistic?
Wired.com: Yeah, you always do.
Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."