Late at night on August 3rd, Zhao Chen was alone in the office sorting out archived materials for the quarterly review.
The phone vibrated on the table, and the screen lit up with a string of United States numbers.
Zhao Chen glanced at the time - Beijing It was one o'clock in the morning, Fremont happened to be nine o'clock in the morning.
Elon Musk never calls at this time,
He usually holds morning engineering meetings during this period, and discusses the day's production schedule with a group of engineers around the production line whiteboard.
"Zhao."
The voice of Elon Musk came from the other end of the receiver,
In the background, there is the intermittent hum of power tools and the crisp sound of metal parts colliding.
Occasionally you can hear someone shouting the number of a certain part in Spanish.
He probably just came off the assembly line.
"Are you on the production line?"
"There is a tolerance issue with the folding mechanism of the rear seats of Model Y.
The engineering team started recalibrating last night and I watched it for a few hours. Just got down."
He paused, and the sound of power tools in the background gradually faded away.
Instead, there was a sound of footsteps and a door closing, and then it became quiet, probably after entering the office.
"I heard that you had a very pleasant meeting with Old Huang?"
"Yes, I stayed in Meeting Room in Old Huang for most of the day,
The whiteboard is filled with Data Center growth curve and computing power demand elasticity coefficient.
We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant Santa Clara in the evening. He drank sake and I drank genmaicha."
"What did Old Huang talk to you about at the Japanese food store?"
"Talk about Denny's restaurant in 1993, talk about NV1 architecture,
On the day of the CUDA press conference, he said, 'I don't know when revenue will be generated.'
Talk about him looking in the mirror every morning and saying, 'We are always only thirty days away from bankruptcy' - it's not a performance, it's a habit."
There was silence on the other end of the phone for several seconds.
Elon Musk When he spoke again, his tone was half a beat lower than before.
"It seems that you guys really had a deep conversation! I have known this person Old Huang for many years.
He's not the kind of person who would bring up what happened at Denny's easily.
I chatted with him for the first time about the early history of Nvidia,
It was at a dinner party at an industry summit, surrounded by investment bankers and Semiconductors analysts. He talked about architecture and ecology all night.
Later I asked him privately, Nvidia What was the most difficult time like?
He looked at me and said - 'I don't talk about this in public.' He didn't say another word.
You stayed at Santa Clara for less than a day, and he laid out everything from 1993 to 2006 in front of you."
His speaking speed suddenly slowed down, as if he was thinking while speaking, and every word was filtered.
"He is actually not telling you a story, he is telling you with actual actions - he has waited for more than 20 years and finally found a shareholder who does not need to explain."
Zhao Chen remembered Huang Renxun placing his chopsticks horizontally on the edge of the plate under the dim light of a Japanese food store.
The expression when you say "I'm not writing for ordinary readers, I'm writing for myself."
That expression is the same as Elon Musk squatting under Boca Chica and Raptor engine,
Holding a piece of Carbon Fiber Composite Material in his hand,
The expression is almost exactly the same when he says, "As long as the cost of failure is low enough, you can fail many times until you find the right path."
"The feeling when you go to see him is very similar to the feeling when you first met Starworm Prototype at Boca Chica -
You know the thing in front of you is just a rough prototype, but you know the person behind it has seen where it's going to end up."
"Yes."
Zhao Chen put the tea cup on the table, and the bottom of the cup hit the glass table with a light and clear crisp sound.
"The end point of the Data Center growth curve drawn by Old Huang,
The landing trajectory of the reusable rocket you drew has completely different starting points and destinations.
But the line you draw between the beginning and the end is the same thing - a future that not everyone can see."
"This is why I was willing to hand over Starship's financing lead to you to see."
Elon Musk's voice became extremely soft, as if he was talking to himself,
"I can see the place myself, but I need someone who can see the place without having to explain.
When you stand under Starworm Prototype at Boca Chica and look up at that Stainless Steel Water Tower, I know you can see it too.
Later, you and Old Huang deduced the AI Computing Power demand curve in front of the whiteboard, and he saw the same thing in you."
He paused, and the sound of the workshop radio could be heard faintly in the background, probably calling an engineer to return to the production line.
"Zhao, I told you something--
As long as you don't back down, sooner or later they will put all their bullets at your feet, and then it will be your turn to go.
Let me add something today: The map in your hand has never been your most valuable thing.
The most valuable thing you have is how quickly you get back up after every time you get knocked down.
Old Huang saw it, I saw it, your team saw it,
I also saw every number on your Henglong Investment Decision Committee quarterly review report."
Zhao Chen lifted Zisha Pot, and the circle of tea stains on the inside of the lid glowed warmly under the desk lamp.
He remembered when he first met Starworm Prototype at Boca Chica a long time ago,
The silver-gray giant like Stainless Steel Water Tower was hovering twenty meters in the air amid the billowing smoke.
It looks clumsy, rough, and could fall off at any time, but it stays there steadily, like a nail nailed in the sky.
Elon Musk was standing next to him, his work clothes stained with engine oil. He looked up at Starworm and said something - "It's flying."
"When is the next Starship test?"
"The first quarter of next year. The specific window depends on the FAA's approval progress and the vacuum version thrust curve of Raptor engine.
But the prototypes of the SN series are already piled in the warehouse of Boca Chica. Are you coming?"
"Go. I will take the senior executives of Era Vanguard and Henglong with me."
Elon Musk smiled on the other end of the phone. It was the kind of light and short smile that is only given after all the stress and fatigue of the day are temporarily relieved.
"Okay. This time you don't have to eat Texas barbecue on the Old Huang grill--
I bought a few pieces of ribs myself and placed a charcoal grill in the open space behind the Boca Chica base. You can grill them yourself.
Everything I bake always burns."
Zhao Chen hung up the phone, turned the phone over and placed it on the coffee table.
He picked up the tea cup and took a sip. The tea was already cold, so he didn't care.
A long time ago in Boca Chica, he asked Elon Musk what to do if Optimus didn't know what to do next.
Elon Musk said, then build a prototype that can help me find the next step.
Later he built himself a larger prototype--
It's not Optimus, it's the institutional framework of Henglong.
This framework can help him find the next step, and it can also help Henglong find the next step by himself in any extreme situation.
At this moment, the paranoid man on the Fremont assembly line who had just solved the problem of the tolerance of the seat folding mechanism,
Boca Chica Launch Site The stainless steel Starship prototype is piled in a high warehouse,
Silicon Valley The man in the leather jacket who looks at the mirror every morning in the triangular glass building and says, "We are only thirty days away from bankruptcy."
They are all standing side by side with him in their own ways.
They are taking completely different paths - rockets, chips, capital -
But the lines they draw between their respective starting points and ending points all point in the same direction.