Billionaire Elon Musk had an extensive nearly two-hour long conversation with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath on his popular WTF Podcast, about “work, consciousness, family, money, AI and how the future might unfold”.

Here are top 5 moments from Musk’s interview:

The video, posted last night on Nikhil Kamath’s official YouTube channel titled ‘Elon Musk: A Different Conversation w/ Nikhil Kamath’ has so far amassed over 2,205,225 views, over 1,08,000 likes and almost 10,000 comments.

Making investment decisions? Here’s what Elon Musk recommends

When asked about his philosophy on investing, the world’s richest man advised looking into the products or services that a company offers, and deliberate if that is something you believe in. “Do you like the products or services of that company? Do you like the product roadmap? Does it seem like they make great products and they’re likely to make great products in the future? If that’s the case, then I would say that’s probably a good company to invest in,” Elon Musk said.

Also Read | What makes a company worth investing? Elon Musk list sectors with Nikhil Kamath

On stocks outside of his own that he believes are good investments, Elon Musk was big on artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and space flight companies as these are “overwhelmingly all the value” and “will dwarf everything else”.

He was clear that he does not invest and “just builds things” but is optimistic about Google and Nvidia. “AI and robotics are going to be very important. Google is going to be pretty valuable in the future — they’ve laid the groundwork for an immense amount of value creation from an AI standpoint. (And) Nvidia is obvious at this point,” he added.

What is Elon Musk’s prediction for the future?

Elon Musk’s big prediction is that over the next 10-20 years, human future will be “post-work” due to AI and robotics. What does this mean? Well, according to his vision, the future will not require human labour for survival.

“My prediction is that, in the future, working will be optional. People can play this back in 20 years and say it was wrong, but I think it will be correct. In less than 20 years, maybe even 10 or 15, advances in AI and robotics will bring us to a point where working is optional. Some people enjoy it, which is fine. But it is optional—that is how I see work in the future,” he feels.

Also Read | Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft top list of H-1B petition approvals for 1st timeTruth, beauty, curiosity — Elon Musk’s three-pronged solution to prevent ‘evil’ AI

Nikhil Kamath also quizzed Elon Musk on his dystopian view of AI and worry over where the tech could head in the future. To this, the world’s richest man was pragmatic noting, “There’s some danger when you create powerful technology that it can be potentially destructive. There’s many AI dystopian novels and books, movies. So, it’s not that we’re guaranteed to have a positive future with AI.”

He added that pursuing truth, appreciation of beauty and having curiosity “are the three most important things for AI”, so that AI does not absorb propaganda that leads to reasoning that is incompatible with reality, and so that AI wants to be helpful in supporting humanity and working towards humanity’s prosperity and continuance.

Also Read | Bitcoin sinks $88,000, crypto market cap drops below $3 trillion — What’s ahead?‘America has benefitted immensely from talented Indians’ feels Elon Musk

Kamath noted that for decades, the US attracted “really smart people,” including many Indian-origin professionals. Elon Musk strongly agreed, saying: “America has benefitted immensely from talented Indians that have come to America.”

When Kamath pointed out that this trend “seems to be changing now,” Musk reiterated: “America has been [an] immense beneficiary of talent from India.”

He also chose to step away from right politics, which claims that immigrants take away American jobs, “My direct observation is that there is always a scarcity of talented people… More talented people would be good.” But added that companies sometimes prefer cheaper foreign workers, feeding public resentment.

He also feels that there are flaws in the system, citing alleged misuse of the H-1B program, but was still pro-immigration. “Some outsourcing companies have kind of gamed the system. I am not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program. That would actually be very bad. We pay above average. We are just trying to get the most talented people in the world,” he said.

Also Read | Degree not enough, here’s Coursera CEO’s advice to his sons on AI taking jobsElon Musk’s message to young entrepreneurs — ‘Pursue contribution to society, not money’

Asked to share a message to the young entrepreneurs in India who want to build their own companies, Elon Musk was clear: “Be a net contributor to society.”

“It’s best to pursue providing useful products and services. If you do that, then money will come as a natural consequence of that, as opposed to pursuing money directly. It sounds very obvious… but, if somebody’s trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind super hard, accept that there’s some meaningful chance of failure, but just be focused on having the output be worth more than the input. That are you a value creator — that’s what really matters. Making more than you take,” he ended.

Also Read | New labour codes define ‘wages’: How it impacts basic salary, pension, gratuity

WATCH full video: Elon Musk: A Different Conversation with Nikhil Kamath