He Bought The First Tesla Roadster 2 In 2013 - EP 42 Konstantin Othmer

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Are you actively considering making an electric flying car?

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:02)
Is this what you're hoping for?

**Elon Musk** (0:05)
Well, we'll have to see in the...

**SPEAKER_1** (0:07)
So when you do this, are you going to have a retractable wing?

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:12)
We should do this live, right?

**Ashlee Vance** (0:13)
Let's do it. It's just too... Here, I'll do a little intro, and then we'll do it, and I'll edit everything.

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:19)
Edit it down to nothing, yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:21)
All right, this is an emergency podcast. I ran in to an old friend, acquaintance, Konstantin Othmer.

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:45)
Othmer, yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:45)
Othmer. Konstantin, thank you for being in the hallways.

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:51)
Thank you for recognizing me. I think it's been 12 years. It has. About 12 years since I saw you.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:56)
Yeah, so I interviewed you when I was doing my biography on Elon.

**Konstantin Othmer** (0:59)
And did you do the Wired magazine?

**Ashlee Vance** (1:02)
No.

**Konstantin Othmer** (1:03)
Article about driving the Model S as a sidecar?

**Ashlee Vance** (1:06)
No, no, that was not me. That was not me.

**Konstantin Othmer** (1:07)
But we met somewhere before that.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:09)
Yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:09)
Well, and I covered one of your startups as well when you guys were doing the cloud card, right?

**SPEAKER_5** (1:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:16)
Yeah. Yeah. But you were a huge help. I remember I was doing the book.
And so this is terrible because I wrote an entire book about this. I want to get the history right. But it was you, Bruce Leek and Peter Barrett. You guys were all together when we hired. Well, before that for the book, didn't Elon Musk is an intern for all three?

**Konstantin Othmer** (1:39)
You're going way back. Yeah. So there's actually some pretty crazy stories about some of this. So yes, Bruce Leek and Peter were at a company called Rocket Science Games.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:48)
Which had an incredible roster of people. Tony Fadal, I think?

**Konstantin Othmer** (1:53)
Tony was not involved, Steve Blank.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:55)
Okay, right.

**Konstantin Othmer** (1:56)
It was like the rock stars of Silicon Valley that started this. It was a Sega gaming on CD-ROM. They were making basically cinema quality, like video movies as a game on Sega, which seemed like almost impossible. They got the best guys. Bruce, as you know, created QuickTime at Apple. Peter created the first codec for the first video compressor for QuickTime at Apple. And they started this company, Rocket Science Game, that was making these video game kind of things. If you remember, gosh, it goes back. It shows how old I am. Dragon's Lair. Do you remember that game?

**Ashlee Vance** (2:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Konstantin Othmer** (2:35)
But it wasn't really a video game, but it looked great. But it was kind of... So they were coming out with that for Sagas. And the company had just rocks. I mean, it's a good Silicon Valley lesson here. Like rock stars on every aspect of it. But when the games came out, it was like...

**Ashlee Vance** (2:49)
It was tough.

**Konstantin Othmer** (2:50)
Yeah, yeah. They weren't fun to play. But those guys were phenomenal.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:55)
And you guys were friends or you were an investor?

**Konstantin Othmer** (2:58)
I knew Bruce from Apple from well before that. And Peter Barrett was at Super Mac, which was producing stuff for Apple. I was in charge of the graphics system at Apple. I took it over from Bruce, quick draw, when Bruce went on to do Quick Time.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:12)
Okay, okay. But as I remember, so I got to know all three of you as a result of, well, so Elon was an intern at Rogan Games.

**Konstantin Othmer** (3:20)
This was a long time ago. That's 1993, 94

**Ashlee Vance** (3:23)
Yeah, so they were kind of his first boss, really. And then, so when I was doing the book, I got to know all three of you because you guys are friends and you were helping me with stories from back in the day when Elon was a pup and all that. And then this is why this is an emergency podcast as I was getting into. So my book came out in 2015 I was probably talking to you in like 13, 14

**Konstantin Othmer** (3:45)
2013 is when we had that conversation.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:47)
Okay. So.

**Konstantin Othmer** (3:48)
When you came by a cloud car.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:49)
Right. And then, and so Elon, so in the book, I write that you had the first order on the Tesla Roadster model too. So this is how far back this goes. So Tesla was already, tell me this. Okay, this is why.