Two days ago, Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath rocked social media after he dropped a teaser for the next episode of his popular WTF Podcast, which hinted at an interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Just a few hours ago, the nearly two-hour long conversation went down on Nikhil Kamath YouTube channel titled ‘Elon Musk: A Different Conversation w/ Nikhil Kamath’. At the time of writing, the video has received over 1,53,750 views, over 40,000 likes and over 3,850 comments. The description promised “a long conversation with Elon Musk about work, consciousness, family, money, AI and how the future might unfold”. Here are some of the things the two businessmen discussed: What makes a company worth investing in? Nikhil Kamath asked Elon Musk his philosophy on investing and what makes him think a company is a good long-term bet. For this, the world’s richest man felt it was important to ask yourself a few key questions. “If it’s long-term for a company, then you can say, like, “Do you like the products or services of that company? Do you like the product roadmap? Do they seem to make great products and are they likely to make great products in the future?” If that’s the case, then I’d say it’s probably a good company to invest in,” said Elon Musk. He added: “I think (also) you want to believe in the team as well. So, if you think, ‘Well, this is a talented and hard-working team, they’re making good products today, they seem to still be motivated to make things in the future.’ Then I’d say it’s a good company to invest in.” He feels it is the “right way to invest in stocks” despite daily market fluctuations. “Because a company is just a group of people put together to create products and services. So you have to say, “Well, how good are those products and services? Are they likely to continue to improve in the future?” If so, then you should buy the shares of that company and then not worry too much about the daily fluctuations,” said Elon Musk. What companies outside of his own would Elon Musk invest in? When asked about one company outside of his own, that he would own shares of “to achieve a capitalist goal and not an altruistic one”, Elon Musk tried to distance himself from investing. “I don’t really buy stocks. I’m not like an investor, I’m not looking for things to invest in. I’m just trying to build things. And then there happens to be stock from the company that I built. But I don’t think, ‘Should I invest in this company?’ I don’t have a portfolio or anything,” he said. On the broader industry, however, he has bet on artificial intelligence and robotics, singling out Google and Nvidia in particular. “AI and robotics are going to be very important. Google is going to be quite valuable in the future — they’ve laid the foundation for a tremendous amount of value creation from an AI standpoint. (And) Nvidia is clear at this point,” he said. Why these sectors? Elon Musk believes that companies involved in AI, robotics and perhaps space flight “overwhelmingly all the value”, adding: “Just the output of goods and services from AI and robotics is so high that it will dwarf everything else”. Should children still go to university? Nikhil Kamath who was recently under fire for his comments calling 25-year-olds pursuing MBAs “idiots”, also asked Elon Musk for his opinion on youth pursuing college degrees. To this the technocrat said his own children wanted to go to university. He said: “If you want to go to college for social reasons. Which I think is a reason to go – to be with people your own age in a learning environment. Will these skills be needed in the future? Probably not, because we’re going to be in like a post-work society. But I think, if something is of interest, it’s good to go and study it. You know, to study the arts and sciences.” When asked if the university in its current form is too generalized, especially given the changes ushered in by AI, Elon Musk felt that learning as much as possible is important. “I actually think it’s good to take a wide range of courses at college — if you go to college. I don’t think you have to go to college. But I think if you do, you just try to learn as much as you can about a wide range of subjects,” he said. Adds, “But like I said, AI and robotics is a supersonic tsunami. So, it’s really going to be the most radical change we’ve ever seen. When I’ve talked to my older kids, they’re pretty steeped in technology. And they agree that AI will probably make their skills redundant in the future, but they still want to go to college.” Evil AI a possibility? So how do we regulate AI? When asked about his concerns about AI, viewing it through a dystopian lens and worrying about where the world of AI is headed, Elon Musk felt that there is always danger when creating powerful technology. “There is some danger when you create powerful technology that it can be potentially destructive. There are a lot of AI dystopian novels and books, movies. So, it’s not that we’re guaranteed to have a positive future with AI. I think we have to make sure of that,” he explained. He added that the most important thing is to ensure that AI pursues truth, can appreciate beauty and can be curious. “In my opinion, it is very important that AI has the pursuit of truth as the most important thing. And I think some appreciation of beauty is important. Truth and beauty and curiosity. Those are the three most important things for AI,” he said. Why these three? According to Elon Musk, believing falsehoods can drive AI insane and lead to conclusions that are also bad. He cited Voltaire’s statement, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”, warning that this could potentially happen with AI. “If you simply do not have a strict adherence to the truth, and you only have AI learning based on the Internet, where there is a lot of propaganda, it will absorb a lot of lies. And then struggle to reason because these lies are not compatible with reality,” he added. On appreciating beauty and curiosity, Elon Musk added that these characteristics are important for AI to be useful in supporting humanity and working towards humanity’s prosperity and survival. “So, I think if AI values ​​truth, beauty and curiosity, you’re going to have a great future,” he believes. Elon Musk’s advice for entrepreneurs in India Nikhil Kamath also asked Elon Musk for a message to the young entrepreneurs in India who want to build. To whom his most important advice was: “Be a net contributor to society.” “It’s best to pursue providing useful products and services. If you do that, money will come as a natural consequence of that, instead of pursuing money directly. It sounds very obvious… but if someone is trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind very hard, accept that there is a significant chance of failure, but just be focused on being an output creator worth more than the value creator is. Make more than you take,” he finished. WATCH: Elon Musk’s full conversation with Nikhil Kamath here X