Twelve years ago, Musk was put on the spot with an awkward question.
Twelve years later, he sent a car into space!
Today I came across Musk’s announcement of the new Roadster, and it reminded me of an old video from a 2014 interview on CCTV’s Dialogue.
Watching it again really brought back a lot of feelings.
Back then, Musk sat down for an interview alongside Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing.
The host, Chen Weihong, asked how many customers the two companies had.
Musk said Tesla had just over 30,000 customers.
Yang Yuanqing then said Lenovo sold 115 million devices in a single fiscal year.
One had just over 30,000; the other, 115 million.
Everyone in the room burst out laughing.
Back then, Musk was sitting next to the head of a global PC giant. In terms of sales and customer base, there was simply no comparison.
What’s even more interesting is that the host asked Musk why he didn’t get celebrities to help promote the company.
Musk said Tesla didn’t lack demand at all—it lacked production capacity.
It wasn’t that the cars couldn’t be sold; it was that they couldn’t be built fast enough.
Looking back now, those words carry a lot of weight.
That was 2014.
Tesla was still nowhere near as influential as it is today, and electric cars hadn’t gone mainstream.
Who could have imagined that 12 years later, Tesla would be a company worth about $1.43 trillion?
And the Roadster Musk showed off today can actually lift off the ground for a short time.
Although mass production is still a long way off, I was genuinely moved when I saw that moment.
Because when you really think about it, what all has Musk been through along the way?
Building cars, facing skepticism.
Building rockets, failing again and again.
Struggling to ramp up Model 3 production, with the factory nearly pushing him to the breaking point.
Repeated product delays, repeated financial pressures, and repeated ridicule from the market.
How many people once said Tesla wouldn’t survive?
And how many thought SpaceX had no chance of succeeding?
But he simply refused to give up.
More than a decade ago, he was still explaining to the world why electric cars were worth pursuing.
More than a decade later, he’s already exploring how to make cars fly.
Of course, Lenovo is still the world’s top PC seller today, and that deserves respect.
But seeing those two standing side by side back then really made me realize something:
How many products someone sells today and how much they can change the world in the future may be two different things.
After all these years investing, I’ve come to believe more and more that the things with real value are often the least understood in their early stages.
Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it has no value.
The person you think is crazy today may be creating the next era.
Of course, Elon Musk isn’t a perfect person.
But someone who can withstand more than a decade of doubt and repeatedly make things happen that others thought impossible truly deserves respect, in my opinion.
The world has never been short of smart people. What it lacks are people who dare to stake their lives on a dream, even knowing they’ll fail time and time again.
Watching that interview from 12 years ago again now fills me with so many emotions.
You can laugh at where someone is today, but never be too quick to laugh at where they might go tomorrow.