With ideas this big, the more competition, the better
Five years ago, in an interview with the CEO of Axel Springer, Amazon's founder and former CEO, Jeff Bezos, talked about his ambitions to send humans to Mars. "The solar system can easily support a trillion humans," Bezos said. "And if we had a trillion humans, we'd have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts...and unlimited, for all practical purposes, resources from solar power."
It's why Bezos has been selling $1 billion a year in Amazon shares to fund Blue Origin, his rocket company. The thing is, so far, the only thing Blue Origin has to show for the effort is a few very expensive joyrides to the lower edge of space.
Bezos isn't alone. Elon Musk has talked often, and as recently as this week, about his belief that the survival of humanity depends on us becoming a "multi-planetary species." It is, arguably, the reason he started SpaceX, which may just be his most important company right now.
Of course, Musk's SpaceX is a lot further along than Blue Origin. SpaceX won a contract for NASA's lunar lander back in 2019. It's launched hundreds of satellites, both for its own Starlink internet service, as well as for other customers. And, it has successfully carried astronauts to the International Space Station.
At The New York Times' DealBook Summit, host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Musk what he thought of the competition with Bezos and whether he will ever catch up.
"I hope he does," Musk responded. "I actually agree with a lot of Jeff's motivations."
Presumably, the motivation Musk is referring to is the dream of sending people to Mars. Both men have said that is their goal, though neither is anywhere near close. Musk has certainly advanced a lot further than Bezos, but it's interesting to hear him talk about how he views the competition.
After all, Musk isn't exactly known for his graciousness towards competitors. For that matter, he's not especially known for graciousness at all.
You can say plenty of things about Musk and how he runs his business, but this column isn't about that. That isn't to say you wouldn't be right, it's just that there's actually a valuable lesson here if you can look past the usual antics associated with pretty much everything Musk says and does.
In this case, it's a revealing insight because if Musk is serious about humans becoming multi-planetary, it's somewhat encouraging that he realizes that the more people putting resources towards the problem, the better. Musk has accomplished a lot with the companies he runs, and SpaceX is a real success story. Still, the problem of putting people on Mars is much bigger than any individual, or any single company.
Whether you believe Musk means it or not, I think there's something to be said for the idea that strong competition almost always results in better results for everyone. For example, competition pushes innovators to improve their ideas and build better things.
I don't know if Musk, or Bezos--for that matter--will ever send people to live on Mars. I would be very surprised if it happened in my lifetime. For that matter, I don't know if the companies they built will ever succeed in their mission. I am, however, certain that the only way it will happen is with a realization that the more people making progress the better.
Inc