A founding member and longtime Chief Technology Officer at Tesla, the boyish-looking Straubel earned the laugh after he was asked by co-chair Amanda Lang when he realized that the trail-blazing electric car company was going to make it.
“I’ll let you know,” he replied. “I’m kind of joking, but kind of not. We never let ourselves get complacent like that.”
The heartfelt message came with Straubel’s parting words at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) a few minutes later.
“Follow your passions and choose really carefully the problems that matter to the world and matter to you personally,” he said, stressing that time is the most valuable commodity anyone has. “Don’t get stuck on a path of something you don’t love.”