Elon Musk On How To Be Most Useful

TL;DR

The video argues that usefulness is determined by "utility delta" (improvement over current state) multiplied by number of people affected, and that both large-impact-on-few and small-impact-on-many are valuable due to similar "area under the curve." Most people should not get PhDs to be useful.

Key insights

• The metric for usefulness is the product of two factors: the improvement (utility delta) compared to current state-of-the-art, and the number of people affected.
• Large improvements affecting a small-to-moderate number of people are roughly as valuable as small improvements affecting a vast number of people, because the area under the curve is similar.
• A PhD is usually not the best way to be useful; the answer is "mostly not."