Kind: captions
Language: en
I mean look we're adding a trillion
dollars to the national debt every 100
days right now and it's now passing the
size of the defense department budget
and it's compounding and it's pretty
soon it's going to be adding a trillion
dollars every 90 days and then it's
going to be adding a trillion dollars
every 80 days and then it's going to be
a trillion dollars every 70 days and
then if this doesn't get fixed at some
point we enter a hyperinflationary
spiral and we become Argentina or Brazil
and the following is a conversation with
Mark andreon his second time on the
podcast Mark is a Visionary Tech leader
investor who fundamentally shaped the
development of the internet and the tech
industry in general over the past 30
years he's the co-creator of Mosaic the
first widely used web browser co-founder
of Netscape co-founder of the legendary
Silicon Valley venture capital firm
andreon Horwitz and is one of the most
influential voices in the tech world
including at the intersection of
technology and
politics this is Freedman podcast to
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in the description and now dear friends
here's Mark and
Reon all right let's start with
optimism if you were to imagine the best
possible one to two years 2025 26 for
tech for big Tech and small Tech what
would it be what would it look like lay
out your vision for the best possible
scenario trajectory for America the
Roaring 20s the roaring
20s I mean look couple things it is
remarkable over the last several years
with all of the issues including you
know every not just everything in
politics but also Co and every other
thing that's happened it's really
amazing the United States just kept
growing if you just look at economic
growth charts the US just kept growing
and very significantly many other
countries stopped growing so Canada
stopped growing the UK has stopped
growing Germany has stopped growing and
you know some of those countries may be
actually going backwards at this point
and there's a very long discussion to be
had about what's wrong with those
countries and there's of course plenty
of things that are wrong with our
country but um the US is just Flatout
primed for growth um and I think that's
a consequence of many factors um you
know some of which were are lucky and
some of which through hard work and so
the lucky part is just you know number
one you know we just have like
incredible physical security by being
our own continent um you know we have
incredible natural resources right
there's there's there's this running
joke now that like whenever it looks
like the us is going to run out of some
like Rare Earth material you know some
farmer in North Dakota like kicks over a
hay bale and finds like a $2 trillion
deposit right I mean we're just like
blessed you know with with with
geography and with natural resources um
energy you know we can be energy
independent anytime we want um this last
Administration decided they didn't want
to be they wanted to turn off American
Energy this new Administration has
declared that they have a goal of
turning it on in a dramatic way there's
no question we can be energy independent
we can be a giant net energy exporter
it's purely a question of choice um and
I think the the new Administration is
going to do that um and so we and oh and
then I would say two other things one is
um you know we we are the beneficiaries
and you know you're an example of this
for a beneficiary for the beneficiary of
you know 50 100 200 years of like the
basically most aggressive driven
smartest people in the world most
capable people you know moving to the US
and raising their kids here um and so we
just have you know by far the most
dynamic you know we're by far the most
dynamic population most aggressive um
you know we're the most aggressive set
of characters in certainly any in any
Western Country and have been for a long
time and certainly are today um and then
finally I would just say look we are
overwhelmingly the advanced technology
leader um you know we we have our issues
and we have a a particular issue with
manufacturing which we could talk about
but for you know anything in software
anything in AI anything in um you know
all these you know Advanced biotch all
these Advanced areas of Technology like
we're we're by far the leader again in
part because many of the best scientists
and engineers in those fields you know
you know come to the US um and so we we
we just we have all of the preconditions
for a uh for just a monster um boom you
know I could see economic growth going
way up I could see productivity growth
going way up rate of Technology adoption
going way up and then we could we can do
a global tour if you like but like
basically all of our competitors have
like profound issues and you know we
could kind of go through them one by one
but the the competitive landscape just
is it's like it's it's remarkable how U
how how much better positioned we are
for growth what about the humans
themselves almost a philosophical
questions you know I travel across the
world and there's something about the
American Spirit the entrepreneurial
Spirit that's uniquely intense in
America I don't know what that is uh
I've talked to Saga who claims it might
be the Scots Irish blood that runs
through uh the history of America what
is it you at the heart of Silicon Valley
is there something in the water why is
there's this entrepreneurial Spirit yeah
so is this a family show or am I allowed
to swear you you can say whatever the
fuck you want okay so the T the great TV
show succession the show of course that
with which you were intended to root for
exactly zero of the characters yes the
best line from succession was in the
final episode of the first season when
the whole family is over in uh Logan Roy
and Cal homeland of Scotland and they're
at this Castle you know for some wedding
and Logan is just like completely
miserable after having to you know
because he's been in New York for 50
years he's totally miserable being back
in in um in Scotland and he gets in some
argument with somebody and he's like my
he says finally just says my God I
cannot wait to get out of here and go
back to America where we can fuck
without
condoms uh was that a metaphor or okay
exactly right and so no but it's exactly
the thing and then everybody instantly
knows what like everybody watching that
instantly starts laughing cuz you know
what it means which is it's exactly this
I think there's like an ethnographic you
know way of it there's a bunch of books
on like all like you said the Scots
Irish like all the different derivations
of all the different ethnic groups that
have come to the US over the course of
the last 400 years right but it's and
what we have is this sort of
amalgamation of like you know the you
know the the Northeast you know Yankees
who were like super tough and hardcore
yeah the Scots Irish are super
aggressive you know we've got the you
know the southerners and the Texans uh
you know and the and you know the sort
of you know whole kind of Blended you
know kind of Anglo Hispanic thing with
you know super incredibly tough strong
driven you know capable character
you know the Texas Rangers um you know
we've got the yeah we've got the
California you know we've got the you
know the wild we've got the incredibly
you know inventive hippies but we also
have the hardcore Engineers we've got
you know the best you know rocket
scientists in the world we've got the
best you know artists in the world you
know creative professionals you know the
best movies um and so yeah there there
there is you know the the the the you
know say all of our problems I think are
basically you know in my view to some
extent you know attempts to basically
sand all that off and make everything
basically boring and mediocre but there
is something in the National spirit that
basically keeps bouncing back and it and
and basically what we discover over time
is we we basically just need people to
stand up at a certain point and say you
know it's time to you know it's time to
build it's time to grow you know it's
time to do things um and so and there's
something in the American Spirit that
just like Worth right back to life and I
and I've seen it before I actually saw
you know I I saw it as a kid here in the
in the early 80s um you know because the
the the 70s were like horribly
depressing right in the in the US like
it was they were a nightmare on many
fronts and in a lot of ways the last
decade to me has felt a lot like the'
70s just being mired in misery um and
just this self-defeating you know
negative attitude and everybody's upset
about everything and you know and then
by the way like energy crisis and
hostage crisis and Foreign Wars and just
demoralization right um you know the low
point for in the 70s was you know Jimmy
Carter who just passed away he went on
TV and he gave this speech known as the
Malay speech and it was like the weakest
possible trying to like Rouse people
back to a sense of like passion
completely failed and you know we had
the you know the hostages in you know
Iran for I think 440 days and every
night on the Nightly News it was you
know lines around the block energy
crisis depression inflation and then you
know Reagan came in and you know Reagan
was a very controversial character at
the time and you know he came in and
he's like yep nope it's morning in
America and we're The Shining City on
the hill and we're going to do it and he
did it and we did it and the national
Spirit came roaring back and you know
roared really hard for a full decade and
I and I think that's exactly what I
think you know we'll see but I think
that's what could happen here and I just
did a super long podcast on Milton
Friedman with Jennifer Burns who's this
incredible professor at Stanford and he
was part of the Reagan so some there's a
bunch of components to that one of which
is economic yes and one of which maybe
you can put a word on it of not to be
romantic or anything but Freedom uh
individual Freedom economic freedom
political freedom and just in general
individualism yeah that's right yeah you
know America has this incredible streak
of individualism you know individualism
in America probably PE I think between
roughly call it the end of the Civil War
1865 through to probably call it 1931 or
something um you know and there was this
like incredible r i mean that period you
know we now know that period is the
Second Industrial Revolution and it's
when the United States basically assumed
Global Leadership and basically took
took over technological and economic
leadership from from England um and then
you know that that led to you know
ultimately then therefore being able to
you know not only industrialize the
world but also win World War II and then
win the Cold War um and yeah you know
there's a massive industrial you know
massive individualistic streak um by the
way you know Milton fre Milton fredman's
old videos are all on YouTube they are
every bit as compelling and inspiring
yeah um as they uh as they were then um
you know he's he's a singular figure and
many of us you know have you know I
never knew him but um he was at actually
at Stanford for many years at the Hoover
institution but uh I never met him but I
know a lot of people who worked with him
and you know that you know he was he was
a singular figure but his his all all of
his lessons you know live on or fully
available um but I would also say it's
not just individualism and this is you
know one of this is one of the big
things it's like playing out in a lot of
our culture and kind of political fights
right now which is you know basically
this feeling you know certainly that I
have and I share with a lot of people
which is it it's not enough for America
to just be an economic zone um and it's
not enough for us to just be individuals
and it's not enough to just have line go
up and it's not enough to just have
economic success there are deeper
questions uh at play and and and also
you know there there there's more to a
country uh than just that and and you
know quite quite frankly a lot of it is
intangible um a lot of it is you know
involves Spirit um and passion and you
know I said we we have more of it than
anybody else um but um you know we we
have to choose to want it the way I look
at it is like all of our problems are
self-inflicted like they're you know
decline is a choice you know all of our
problems are basically demoralization
campaigns you know basically people
telling us people in positions of
authority telling us that we should you
know we shouldn't you know stand out we
shouldn't be adventurous we shouldn't be
exciting we shouldn't be exploratory you
know we shouldn't you know this that and
the other thing and we should feel bad
about everything that we do and I think
we've lived through a decade where
that's been the prevailing theme and I I
think I think quite honestly as of
November I think people are done with it
if we could go on a tangent of a tangent
since we're talking about individualism
and that's not all that it takes you've
mentioned in the past the book the
ancient city yes by if I can only
pronounce the name French historian
num I don't know that was amazing okay
all right from the 19th century anyway
you said this is an important book to
understand who we are and where we come
from so what that book does it's
actually quite a striking book um so
that book is written by this guy um as
a I'm let let Lex do the pronunciations
the foreign language pronunciations for
the day um he was a professor Classics
um at uh the sbon in um in uh Paris you
know the top university uh at um in the
in the actually in the 1860s so actually
R around after the US Civil War and he
was a Sant of a particular kind which is
he and you can see this in the book as
he had apparently read and you know sort
of absorbed and memorized every possible
scrap of Greek and and Roman literature
um and so it's like a walk like index on
basically Greek and Roman everything we
know about Greek and Roman culture and
that's significant the reason this
matters is because basically none of
that has changed right and so he he he
had access to the exact same R materials
that we have we have access to and so
there you know we've learned nothing and
then specifically what he did is he
talked about the Greeks and the Romans
but specifically what he did is he went
back further he reconstructed the people
who came before the Greeks and the
Romans and what their life and Society
was like and these were the people who
were now known as the as the
indo-europeans and these were you may
heard to these these are the people who
came down from the steps and so they
they they came out of what's now like
Eastern Europe like around sort of the
outskirts of what's now Russia um and
then they sort of swept through uh
Europe they ultimately took over all of
Europe by the way you know almost many
of the ethnicities in the Americas the
hundreds of years that follow you know
are Indo European and so like you know
they were this basically this Warrior
basically class that like came down and
swept through and and um and you know
essentially um you know populated much
of the world um and there's a whole
interesting Saga there but what he does
and then they basically they from there
came basically what we know is the
Greeks and the Romans were kind of
Evolutions off of that um and so what he
reconstructs is sort of what like was
like what life was like at least in the
West for people in their kind of
original social State and the
significance of that is the original
social state is this is living in the
state of the absolute imperative for
survival with absolutely no technology
right like no modern systems no nothing
right you've got the clothes in your
back you've got your you know you you've
got whatever you can build with your
bare hands right this is you know
predates basically all concepts of of of
Technologies we understand them today
and so these are people under like
maximum levels of physical survival
pressure and so what what social p did
they evolve to be able to do that and
then the social pattern basically was as
follows um is a a three-part social
structure family um tribe and city um
and um zero concept of individual rights
um and essentially no concept of
individualism and so you were not an
individual you were a member of your
family and then a set of families would
aggregate into a tribe and then a set of
tribes would aggregate into a um into a
city um and then the morality was
completely it was actually what n talks
n talks about the morality was entirely
Master morality not slave morality and
so in their morality anything that was
strong was good and anything that was
weak was bad and it's very clear why
that is right it's because strong equals
good equals survive weak equals bad
equals die and that led to what became
known later as the Master Slave
dialectic which is you it more important
for you to live on your feet as a master
even at the risk of dying or are you
willing to um you know live as a slave
on your knees in order to not die and
this is sort of the the derivation of
that moral framework Christianity later
inverted that moral framework but you
know the the original framework lasted
for you know many many thousands of
years no conserv individualism the head
of the family had total life and death
control over the over over the family
the head of the tribe same thing head of
the city same thing and then you were
morally obligated to kill members of the
of the other cities on on contact right
right you were morally required to like
if you didn't do it you were a bad
person um and then the form of the
society was basically maximum fascism
combined with maximum communism right
and so it was maximum fascism in the
form of this like absolute top- down
control where the head of the family
tribe or city could kill other members
of the community at any time with no
repercussions at all so maximum
hierarchy but combined with maximum
communism which is no market economy and
so everything gets shared right and and
sort of the point of being in one of
these collectives is that it's a
collective and and and you know and
people are sharing and of course that
limited how big they could get because
you know the problem with Communism is
it doesn't scale right it works at the
level of a family it's much harder to
make it work at the level of a country
impossible maximum fascism maximum
communism and then and then it was all
int intricately uh tied into their relig
religion and their their religion was it
was in two parts it was uh veneration of
ancestors um and it was veneration of
Nature and the veneration of ancestors
is extremely important because it was
basically like basically the ancestors
were the people who got you to where you
were the ancestors were the people who
had everything to teach you right and
then it was veneration of nature because
of course nature is the thing that's
trying to kill you um and then you had
your ancestor every family tribe or city
had their ancestor gods and then they
had their um they had their nature Gods
okay so fast forward to today like we
live in a world that is like radically
different but and the book takes you
through kind of what happened from that
through the Greeks and Romans through
the Christianity and so the but but it's
very helpful to kind of think in these
terms because the conventional view of
the progress through time is that we are
you know the cliche is the Arc of the
moral Universe you know benro Justice
right or so-called wig history which is
you know that the Arc of progress is
positive right and so we we you know
what you hear all the time what you're
taught in school and everything is you
know every year that goes by we get
better and better and more and more
moral and more and more Pur and a better
version of of ourselves our Indo
ancestors would say oh no like you
people have like Fallen to shit like you
people took all of the principles of
basically your civilization and you have
deluded them down to the point where
they barely even matter you know and
you're having you know children out of
wedlock and you're you know you
regularly encounter people of other
cities and you don't try to kill them
and like how crazy is that and and they
would basically consider us to be living
like an incredibly diluted version of
this sort of Highly religious highly
cult-like right highly organized highly
fascist fascist communist Society I
can't resist no
that as a consequence of basically going
through all the transitions we've been
through going all the way through
Christianity coming out the other end of
Christianity nature declares God is dead
we're in a secular society you know that
still has you know tinges of
Christianity but you know largely Prides
itself on no longer being religious in
that way um you know we being the sort
of most fully evolved modern secular you
know expert scientists and so forth have
basically re-evolved or Fallen back on
the exact same religious structure uh
that the indo-europeans had uh
specifically ancestor worship which is
identity politics um and nature worship
which is
environmentalism um and so we have
actually like worked our way all the way
back to their cult religions without
realizing it and and and it just goes to
show that like you know in some ways we
have fallen far from the far from the
family tree but in some in some cases
we're exactly the same you kind of
described this Progressive idea of
wokeism and so on as uh worshiping
ancestors identity politics is
worshiping ancestors right it's it's
it's tagging newborn infants with either
you know or responsibilities or you know
levels of condemnation based on who
their ancestors were the Indo Europeans
would have recognized it on
site we somehow think it's like super
socially Progressive yeah and it is not
I mean I would say obviously not you
know get get nuanced which is where I
think you're headed which is look like
is the idea that you can like completely
reinvent Society every generation and
have no regard whatsoever for what came
before you that seems like a really bad
idea right that's like the cambodians
with year zero under P pot and you know
death you know follows it's obviously
the Soviets tried that
um you know the the you know the the
utopian fantasists who think that they
can just rip up everything they came
before and create something new in The
Human Condition in human society have a
very bad history of of causing you know
enormous destruction so on the one hand
it's like okay there there is like a
deeply important role for tradition and
and and the way I think about that is
it's the process of evolutionary
learning right which is what what
tradition ought to be is the distilled
wisdom of all and and you know this is
how IND Europeans thought about it
should be the distilled wisdom of
everybody who came before you right all
those important and Powerful learned um
and that's that's why I think it's
fascinating to go back and study how
these people lived is cuz that's that's
part of the history and you know part of
the learning that got us to where we are
today having said that there are many
cultures around the world that are you
know mired in Tradition to the point of
not being able to progress um and in
fact you might even say globally that's
the default Human Condition which is you
know a lot of people are in Societies in
which you know there's like absolute
seniority by age you know kids are
completely you know like in the US like
for some reason we decided kids are in
charge of everything right and like you
know they're the trend setters and
they're allowed to like set all the
agendas and like settle the politics and
settle the culture and maybe that's a
little bit crazy but like in a lot of
other cultures kids have no voice at all
no role at all because it's the old
people who are in charge of everything
you know they
gerres and it's all a bunch of
80-year-olds running everything which by
the way we have a little bit of that too
right um and so I I would say is like
there's a down there's there's a real
downside you know full traditionalism is
communitarianism you know it's ethnic
particularism um you know it's ethnic
chauvinism it's um you know this
incredible level of of resistance to
change um you know that's I mean it just
doesn't get you anywhere like it it may
be good and fine at the level of
individual tribe but it's a societ
society living in the modern world you
can't evolve you can't you can't Advance
you can't participate in all the good
things that you know that that have
happened and so you know I think
probably this is one of those things
where extremeness on either side is
probably a bad idea um and I but you
know but but this needs to be approached
in a sophisticated and Nuance
way so the beautiful picture you painted
of the Roaring
20s how can the Trump Administration
play A Part and making that future
happen yeah so look a big part of this
is getting the government boot off the
neck of the American economy the
American Technology industry the
American people um you know and then
again this is a replay of what happened
in the 60s and 70s which is you know for
what started out looking like you know
I'm sure good and virtuous purposes you
know we we ended up both then and now
with this you know what I what I
describe as sort of a form of soft
authoritarianism you know the good news
is it's not like a military dictatorship
it's not like you know you get thrown
into Lu Bianca you know for the most
part it's not coming at four in the
morning you're not getting dragged off
to a cell so it's not hard
authoritarianism but it is soft
authoritarianism and so it's this you
know incredible suppressive blanket of
Regulation rules you know this concept
of a ocracy right what's required to get
anything done you know you need to get
40 people to sign off on anything any
one of them can veto it you know a lot
of how now political system works um and
then you know just this general idea of
you know progress is bad and technology
is bad and capitalism is bad and
building businesses is bad and success
is bad um you know tall poppy syndrome
you know basically anybody who sticks
their head up you know deserves to get
it you know chopped off anybody who's
wrong about anything deserves to get
condemned forever you know just this
this very kind of you know grinding you
know repression and then coupled with
specific government actions such as
censorship regimes right and Deb banking
right um and you know Draconian you know
deliberately kneecapping you know
critical American Industries um and then
you know congratulating yourselves in
the back for doing it or you know having
these horrible social policies like
let's let all the criminals out of jail
and see what happens right um and so
like we we've just been through this
period I you know I call it a
demoralization campaign like we've just
been through this period where you know
whether it started that way or not it
ended up basically being this
comprehensive message that says you're
terrible and if you try to do anything
you're terrible and fuck you um and the
Biden Administration reached kind of the
full Pinnacle of that in in in our time
they they got really bad on on many
fronts at the same time um and so just
like relieving that um and getting kind
of back to IR reasonably you know kind
of optimistic destructive um you know
progrowth frame of mind um there's just
there's so much pent up energy and
potential in the American system that
that alone is going to I think cause you
know growth and and and and and spirit
to take off and then there's a lot of
things proactively that yeah and then
there's a lot of things proactively that
could be done so how do you Rel that to
what degree has the thing you describ
ideologically permeated government and
permeated big companies disclaimer first
which is I don't want to predict
anything on any of this stuff because
I've learned the hard way that I can't
prct predict politics or Washington at
all um but I would just say that the the
plans and intentions are clear and the
Staffing supports it um and all the
conversations are consistent um with the
new Administration and that they plan to
take you know very rapid action on a lot
of these fronts very quickly they're
going to do as much as they can through
executive orders and then they're going
to do legislation and and Regulatory
changes for the rest and so they're
they're going to move I think quickly on
a whole bunch of stuff you can already
feel I think a shift of the national
Spirit or at least let's put it this way
I feel it for sure in in Silicon Valley
like it it you I mean we we you know we
just saw a great example of this with
what you know with what Mark Zuckerberg
is doing um you know obviously I'm I'm
involved with with his company but you
know we we just saw it kind of in public
the scope of and speed of the changes
you know are are reflective of of sort
of this of a lot of these shifts but I
would say that that same conversation
those same kinds of things are happening
throughout the industry right and so the
the tech industry itself whether people
were Pro Trump or antitrump like there's
just like a giant Vibe shift mood shift
that's like kicked in already and then I
was with a group of Hollywood people
about two weeks ago um and they were
still you know people who at least at
least vocally were still very antitrump
but I said you know has anything changed
since since November 6 and they they
immediately said oh it's completely
different um it feels like the Isis Tha
um you know woke us over um you know
they said that all kinds of projects are
going to be able to get made now they
couldn't before that you know
Hollywood's going to start making
comedies again you know like it it they
were just like it's like it's like a
just like an incredible immediate uh
environmental change and I'm as I talk
to people kind of throughout you know
certainly throughout the economy people
who run businesses I I hear that all the
time which is just this this last 10
years of misery is just over I mean the
one that I'm watching that's really
funny I mean Facebook's getting a lot
meta is getting a lot of attention but
the other funny one is Black Rock which
I'm not which you know and I don't know
him but I've watched for a long time and
so you know the Larry fin who's the CEO
of Black Rock was like first in as a
major you know investment CEO on like
every dumb social Trend and Rule set
like every all right I'm going for it
every
retarded every retarded thing you can
imagine yeah every ESG and every like
every possible saddling companies with
every aspect of just the these crazed
ideological positions and you know he
was coming in he literally was like had
AG aggregated together trillions of
dollars of of of of of of shareholdings
that he did not that were you know that
were his his customers rights and he you
know seized their voting control of
their shares and was using it to force
all these companies to do all of this
like crazy ideological stuff and he was
like the tyho Mary of all this stuff in
Corporate America and and he in the last
year has been like backpedaling from
that stuff like as fast as he possibly
can and I saw just an example last week
he pulled out of the whatever the
corporate Net Zero Alliance you know he
pulled out of the crazy energy energy
energy stuff and so like you know he's
backing away as fast as he can he's
doing remember the Richard prior um
backwards walk Richard PRI had this way
where he could he could back out of a
room while looking like he was walking
forward um and so um you know even
they're doing that um and just the whole
thing I mean I if you saw the court
recently ruled that NASDAQ had these
crazy board of directors composition
rules one of the funniest moments in my
life is when my friend Peter teal and I
were on the the The Meta board
and these NASDAQ rules came down
mandated diversity on corporate boards
um and so we sat around the table and
had to figure out you know which of us
counted as diverse and the um very
professional Attorneys at at meta
explained with a 100% complete um
straight face that Peter teal counts as
diverse uh by virtue of being
LGBT and and this is a guy who literally
wrote a book called The diversity myth
yeah um and he literally looked like he
swallowed alive
goldfish um and and that and this was
imposed I mean this was like so
incredibly offensive to that like it
just like it was just absolutely
appalling and I felt terrible for him
but the look in his face was very funny
um and it was imposed by NASDAQ you know
your Stock Exchange imposing the stuff
on you and then the court whatever the
court court of appeals just nuked that
you know so like the these things
basically are being like ripped down one
by one and and and what's on the other
side of it is basically you know finally
being able to get back to you know
everything that you know everybody
always wanted to do which is like run
their companies have great products
happy customers you know like succeed
like succeed achieve outperform um and
you know work with the best and the
brightest and not and not be made to
feel bad about it and I I think that's
happening in many areas of American
society it's great to hear that Peter
teal is fundamentally A diversity higher
well so it was very you know there was a
moment so so Peter you know Peter of
course um you know is is uh you know is
publicly gay has been for a long time
you know but you know there are other
men on the board right and you know
we're sitting there and we're all
looking at it and we're like all right
like okay LGBT and we just we keep
coming back to the B right um and it's
like
you know it's like all right you know
I'm willing to do a lot for this company
but it's all about sacrifice for
diversity well yeah and then it's like
okay like is there a test like you know
um so oh yeah exactly how do you prove
it the questions that got asked you know
what are you willing to do yeah and I
I've become very good at asking um uh
lawyers uh completely absurd questions
with a totally straight face and do they
answer with a straight face law
sometimes okay I think In fairness they
have trouble telling when I'm joking so
you mentioned the the Hollywood folks
maybe people in Silicon Valley and Vibe
shift maybe you can speak to um
preference falsification what do they
actually believe how many of them
actually hate Trump what like what
percent of them are uh feeling this Vibe
shift and are interested in uh creating
the Roaring 20s in the way they've
described so first we should maybe talk
po population so there's like all of
Silicon Valley um and and the way to
just measure that is just look at voting
records right and and and what that
shows consistently Silicon Valley is
just a you know at least historically my
entire time there has been
overwhelmingly majority just straight up
Democrat um uh the other way to look at
that is political donation records and
again you know the political donations
in the valley you know range from 90 to
99% you know to one side um and so you
know we'll we'll I just bring it up
because like we'll see what happens with
the voting and with donations going
forward um I we maybe talk about the
fire later but I can tell you there is a
very big question of what's happening in
Los Angeles right now um I don't want to
get into the fire but like it's
catastrophic and you know there was
already a rightward shift in the big
cities in California and I think a lot
of people in LA are really thinking
about things right now as they're trying
to you know literally save their houses
and save their families um but you know
even in San Francisco there was a big
right there was a big shift to the right
in the voting um in um in 24 so we'll
see where we'll see where that goes but
you know you observe that by just
looking at looking at the numbers over
time um the part that I'm more focused
on is you know and I don't know how to
exactly describe this but it's like the
top thousand or the top 10,000 people
right um and um you know I don't have a
list but like it's the you know it's all
the top Founders top CEOs top Executives
top Engineers top VCS you know and then
kind of into the ranks um you know the
people who kind of build and run the
companies um and there there you know I
don't have numbers but I have a much
more tactile feel you know for for for
what's happening um so I the big thing I
I have now come to believe is that the
idea that people have beliefs is mostly
wrong um I think that most people just
go along um and I think even most high
status people just go along and I think
maybe the most high status people are
the most prone to just go along because
they're the most focused on status um
and the way I would describe that is um
you know one of the great forbidden
philosophers of our time is the uni
bomber uh Ted kazinski and amidst his
madness he had this extremely
interesting articulation you know he was
a he was a he was an insane lunatic
murderer but he was also you know at
Harvard Super Genius um not that those
are in Conflict
um but shot fired yeah but uh he it was
a very bright guy and he he did this
whole thing um where he talked about
basically he he was very right-wing and
talked about leftism a lot um and he had
this great concept that's just stuck in
my mind ever since I read it which is
see this concept just called over social
overs
socialization um and so you know most
people are social most people are
socialized like most people are you know
we live in a society most people learn
how to be part of a society they give
some different to society there's
something about modern Western Elites
where they're over socialized um and
they're just like overly oriented
towards what other people like
themselves you know think um and believe
and you can get a real sense of that if
you have a little bit of an outside
perspective which I just do I think as a
consequence of where I grew up um like
even before I had the views that I have
today there was always just this weird
thing where it's like why does every
dinner party have the exact same
conversation why does everybody agree on
every single issue why is that agreement
precisely what was in the New York Times
today um why are these positions not the
same as they were 5 years
ago right um but why does everybody like
Snap into agreement every step of the
way and that was true when I came to
Silicon Valley and it's just as true
today 30 years later and so I I think
most people are just literally take I
think they're taking their cues from
it's some combination the press the
universities the big foundations so it's
like basically it's like the New York
Times Harvard the Ford foundation and
you know I don't know um you know a few
CEOs um and a few public figures and you
know maybe you know maybe the president
if your parties in power and like
whatever that is everybody just
everybody who's sort of good and proper
and Elite and good standing and in
charge of things and a sort of correct
member of you know let's call it Coastal
American society everybody just believes
those things and then you know the two
interesting things about that is number
one there's no Divergence among the the
organs of power right so Harvard and Ne
believe the exact same thing the New
York Times The Washington Post believe
the exact same thing the Ford foundation
and the Rockefeller Foundation believe
the exact same thing Google and you know
whatever you know Microsoft believe the
exact same thing um but those things
change over time but there's never
conflict in the moment right um and so
you know the New York Times And The
Washington Post agreed on exactly
everything in 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
and 2020 despite the fact that the
specifics changed radically the the lock
step was What mattered um and so I I
think basically we we in the valley
we're on the tail end of that in the
same way Hollywood's on the tail end of
that and the same way New York's on the
ta end that the same way the media's on
the tail end that it's it's like some
sort of collective H mind thing and I
just go through that to say like I don't
think most people in my Orbit or you
know let's say the top 10,000 people in
the valley or the top 10,000 people in
La I don't think they're sitting there
thinking basically I have rocks I mean
they probably think they have rockle
beliefs but they don't actually have
like some inner core of rockle beliefs
and then they kind of watch reality
change around them and try to figure out
how to keep their beliefs like correct I
don't think that's what happens I think
what happens is they conform to the
belief system around them and and I
think most of the time they're not even
aware that they're basically part of a
herd is it possible that the surface
chatter of dinner parties underneath
that there is a turmoil of ideas and
thoughts and beliefs that's going on but
you're just talking to people really
close to you or in your own mind and the
socialization happens at the dinner
parties like uh when you go outside the
inner circle of one 2 3 four people who
you really trust then you start to
conform but inside there inside the mind
there is an actual belief or a struggle
attention with the New York Times or
with
the uh for the listener there's a
there's a slow smile that overtook Mark
Andre's face so look I'll just tell you
what I think which is at at at the
dinner parties and at the conferences no
there's none of that um it's what what
there is is that all of the heretical
conversations anything that challenges
the status quo um any heretical ideas
and any new idea you know is a heretical
idea um any deviation it's either just a
one-onone face to face it's it's like a
whisper Network it's like a real life
social network there's a secret
handshake which is like okay you meet
somebody and you like know each other a
little bit but like not well and like
you're both trying to figure out if you
can like talk to the other person openly
or whether you have to like be fully
conformist it's a joke oh yeah humor
somebody cracks a joke right somebody
cracks a joke y if the other person
laughs the conversation is on yeah yeah
if the other person doesn't laugh back
slowly away from the scene
yeah I didn't mean anything by it yeah
right by the way it doesn't have to be
like a super offensive joke it just has
to be a joke that's just up against the
edge of one of the use the S bankman
freed term one of the shth you know it
has to be up against one of the things
um of um you know one of the things that
you're absolutely required to believe to
be the dinner parties and then and then
at that point what happens is you have a
peer-to-peer Network right you have you
have you have a a onetoone connection
with somebody and then you you have your
you have your your your little
conspiracy of thought thought
criminality um and then you have your
you probably been through this you have
your network of thought criminals and
then they have their network of thought
criminals and then you have this like
delicate mating dance as to whether you
should bring the thought criminals
together M right um and the dance the
fundamental uh mechanism of the dance is
humor yeah is humor like CU right well
of course memes yeah well for two for
two reasons number one number one humor
is a way to have deniability right humor
is a way to discuss serious things
without without without with having
deniability oh I'm sorry it was just a
joke right so so that's part of it which
is one of the reasons why comedians can
get away with saying things the rest of
us can't is you know they can always
fall back on oh yeah I was just going
for the laugh but the other key thing
about humor right is that is that
laughter is
involuntary right like you either laugh
or you don't and and it's not like a
conscious decision whether you're going
to laugh and everybody can tell when
somebody's fake laughing right and this
every professional comedian knows this
right the laughter is the clue that
you're onto something truthful like
people don't laugh at like made up
bullshit stories they laugh cuz like
you're revealing something that they
either have not been allowed to think
about or have not been allowed to talk
about right or is off limits and all of
a sudden it's like the ice breaks and
it's like oh yeah that's the thing and
it's funny and like I laugh and then and
then of course this is why of course
live comedy is so powerful as cuz you're
all doing that at the same time so you
start to have right the safety of you
know the safety of numbers and so so the
comedians have like the all there no no
surprise to me like for example Joe has
been as successful as he has because
they have they have this hack that the
you know the rest of us who are not
professional comedians don't have but
but you have your in-person version of
it yeah and then you got the question of
whether the whether you can sort of join
the networks together and then you've
probably been to this is you know then
at some point there's like a different
there's like the alt dinner party uh the
ther middle dinner party and you get six
or eight people together and you join
the networks and those are like the
happiest Mo at least in the last decade
those are like the happiest moments of
everybody's lives cuz they're just like
everybody's just ecstatic cuz they're
like I don't have to worry about getting
yelled at and shamed like for every
third sentence that comes out of my
mouth and we can actually talk about
real things um so so that's the live
version of it and then the and then of
course the other side of it is the you
know the group chat the group chat
phenomenon um right and then this and
then basically the same thing played out
you know until until Elon bought X and
until substack took off um you know
which were really the two big
breakthroughs in free speech online the
same Dynamic played on online which is
you had absolute Conformity on the
social networks like literally enforced
by the social networks themselves
through censorship and and then also
through cancellation campaigns and
mobbing and shaming right and and but
then you had but but then group chats
grew up to be the equivalent of s do
right anybody who grew up in the Soviet
Union under you know communism know you
know they had the hard version of this
right it's like how do you know who you
could talk to and then how do you
distribute information and you know like
you know again that was the hard
authoritarian version of this and then
we've been living through this weird
mutant you know soft authoritarian
version but with you know with some of
the same patterns and what's app allows
you to scale it make it more efficient
to uh to build on these uh groups of
heretical ideas bonded by humor yeah
exactly well and this is the thing and
well this is kind of the running joke
about group the running running kind of
thing about group chats it's not even a
joke it's true it's like it's like every
group chat if you noticed this like
every this principle of group chats
every group chat ends up being about
memes and humor and the goal of the game
the game of the group chat is to get as
close to the line of being actually
objectionable yeah as as you can get
without actually tripping it right and
like literally every group chat that I
have been in for the last decade even if
it starts some other direction what ends
up happening is it becomes the Absolute
Comedy Fest where but it's walking they
walk right up the line and they're
constantly testing and every once in a
while somebody will trip the line and
people will freak out and it's like oh
too soon okay you know we got to wait
till next year to talk about that you
know they they walk it back and so it's
that same thing and yeah and then group
chats is a technological phenomenon it
was amazing to see because basically it
was number one it was you know obviously
the rise of smartphones then it was the
rise of the of the the new messaging
services
um then it was the rise specifically of
I would say combination of What's Happen
signal and the reason for that is those
were the two the two big systems that
did the full encryption um so you
actually had you actually felt safe and
then the real breakthrough I think was
disappearing messages uh which hit
signal probably four or five years ago
and hit WhatsApp three or four years ago
and then the combination of um the
combination of encryption and um uh and
disappearing messages I think really
unleash it well then there's the fight
then there's the fight over the the the
length of the disappearing mess mes
right and so it's like you know I often
get behind my my thing so I set to 7day
you know disa messages and my friends
who you know are like no that's way too
much risk yeah it's got to be a day and
then every once in a while somebody will
set it to five minutes before they send
something like particularly inflammatory
yeah 100% well what I mean one of the
things that bothers me about what's up
the choices between 24 hours and you
know 7 days one day or seven days and I
I have to have an existential crisis
deciding yes whether I can last for
seven days with what I'm about to say
yeah exactly now of course what's
happening right now is the big thaw
right and so the VIP shift so what's
happening on the other on the other side
of of the election is you know Elon on
Twitter two years ago and now Mark with
Facebook and Instagram and by the way
with the continued growth of substack
and with other you know new platforms
that are emerging you know like I I
think it may be you know I don't know
that everything just shifts back into
public but like a tremendous amount of
the uh a tremendous amount of the
verboten um uh conversations you know
can now Shi back in into public view um
and I mean quite frankly and this is one
of those things you know quite frankly
even if I was opposed to what those know
people are saying and I'm sure I am in
some cases um you know I I would argue
it's still like net better for society
that those things happen in public
instead private um you know do do you
really want like yeah like don't you
want to know yeah um and and so and and
then it's just look it's just I think
clearly much healthier to live in a
society in which people are not
literally scared of what they're saying
I mean to to push back to come back to
this idea that we were talking about I
do believe that people have beliefs and
thoughts that are heretical like a lot
of people I wonder what fraction of
people have that to me this is the
preference falsification is really
interesting what is the landscape of
ideas that human civilization has in
private as compared to what's out in
public cuz like that the the the
dynamical system that is the difference
between those two is fascinating like
there's throughout history the the fall
of Communism in multiple regimes
throughout Europe is really interesting
because everybody was following you know
the line until not but you better for
sure privately there was a huge number
of boiling conversations happening where
like this is this the bureaucracy of
Communism the corruption of Communism
all of that was really bothering people
more and more and more and more and all
of a sudden there's a trigger that
allows the vibe shift to happen so to me
like the the interesting question here
is what is the landscape of private
thoughts and ideas and conversations
that are happening under the surface of
uh of of Americans especially my
question is how much dormant energy is
there for this Roaring 20s where people
are like no more bullshit let's get shit
done yeah so let's go through the we'll
go through the theory of preference
falsification just just by the way
amazing the books on this is fascinating
yeah yeah so this is this is exactly
this is one of the UL time great books
incredibly about 20 30y old book but
it's very it's completely modern and
current in what it talks about as well
well is very deeply historically
informed um so it's called private
truths public lies and it's written
by a social science Professor named Ur
Kuran um at I think Duke um and it's
it's definitive work on this and so he
he has this concept he calls preference
falsification and so preference
falsification is two things preference
falsification and you get it from the
title of the book private truth public
lies so preference falsification is when
you believe something and you can't say
it or and this is very important you
don't believe something and you must say
it
right um and and and and and the
commonality there is in both cases
you're lying you you believe you believe
something internally and then and then
you're lying about it in public um and
so the the thing you know and and
there's sort of two two classic forms of
it there's the I you know for example
there's the I believe communism is
rotten but I can't say it version of it
um but then there's also the the the
famous Parable the real life example but
um the thing that vaslav hav talks about
in the other good book on this topic
which is the power of the powerless um
you know who is an anti-communist
resistance F who ultimately became the
you know the the president of
Czechoslovakia after the fall of the
wall but he wrote this book and he he
describes the other side of this which
is um workers of the World Unite right
and so he he describes what he calls the
parable of the green grer which is your
green grer in Prague in 1985 um and for
the last 70 years it has been or 50
years it's been absolutely mandatory to
have a sign in the window of your story
this says workers of the World Unite
right um and it's 1985 it is like
crystal clear that the world the workers
of the world are not going to unite like
like of all the things that could happen
in the world that is not going to happen
the commies have been at that for 70
years it is not happening but that
slogan had better be in your window
every morning because if it's not in
your window every morning you are not a
good communist the secret police are
going to come by and they're they're
going to get you um and so the first
thing you do when you get to the stories
you put that slogan in the window and
you make sure that it stays in the
window all day long and but he says the
thing is every single person the green
grer knows the slogan is fake he knows
it's a lie every single person walking
past the slogan knows that it's a lie
every single person walking past the
story knows that the green grosser is
only putting it up there because he has
to lie in public um and the green
grosser has to go through the
humiliation of knowing that everybody
knows that he's caving into the system
and lying in public and so it it it
turns into demoralization campaign it it
it's it's not just ideological
enforcement in fact it's not ideological
enforcement anymore because everybody
knows it's fake the authorities know
it's fake everybody knows it's fake it's
not that they're enforcing the actual
ideology of the world's workers of the
world uniting it's that they are
enforcing compliance right and
compliance with the regime man fuck you
you will comply right uh and so so
anyway that that that's the other side
of that and and of course we have lived
in the last decade through a lot of both
of those um I think anybody listening to
this could name a series of slogans that
we've all been forced to chant for the
last decade that everybody knows at this
point are just like simply not true I
I'll let the audience you know speculate
on those on their own group chats
um send Mark your memes online as well
please yes yes exactly but okay so
anyway so it's the two sides of that
right so it's it's it's it's it's
private TR it's public lies um so then
what preference falsification does is it
talks about extending that from the idea
of the individual experiencing that to
the idea of the entire Society
experiencing that right and this gets to
your percent's question which is like
okay what happens in a society in which
people are forced to lie in public about
what they truly believe what happens
number one is that individually they're
lying in public and that's bad but the
other thing that happens is they no
longer have an accurate gauge at all or
any way to estimate how many people
agree with them and and this is how you
and again this this this literally is
like how you get something like like the
Communist system which is like okay it
you you you you end up in a situation in
which 80 or 90 or 99% of society can
actually all be thinking individually I
really don't buy this anymore and if
anybody would just stand up and say it I
would be willing to go along with it but
I'm not going to be the first one to put
my head on the chopping block but you
have no because of the suppression
censorship you have no way of knowing
how many other people agree with you and
if the people if the people agree with
you are 10% of the population and you
become part of a movement you're going
to get
killed if 90% of the people agree with
you you're going to win the revolution
right and so the the question of like
what the percentage actually is is like
a really critical question and then and
then basically in any sort of
authoritarian system you can you can't
like run a survey right to get an
accurate result and so you actually
can't know until you put it to the test
and then what he describes in the book
is it's always put to the test in the
same way and this is exactly what's
happened for the last two years like
100% of exactly what's happened it's
like straight out of this book which is
somebody Elon sticks his hand up and
says the workers of the world are not
going to unite yeah right or the emperor
is actually wearing no clothes right you
know that famous Parable right um so one
person stands up and does it and and
literally that person is standing there
by themselves and everybody else in the
audience is like ooh I wonder what's
going to happen to that guy right but
again nobody knows Elon doesn't know the
first guy doesn't know other people
don't know like which way is this going
to go and it may be that that's a
minority position and that's a way to
get yourself killed or it may be that
that's the majority position and that
and you are now the leader of a
revolution and then basically of course
what happens is okay the first guy does
that doesn't get killed the second guy
does well a lot of the time that guy
does get killed but when the guy doesn't
get killed then a second guy pops his
head up says the same thing all right
now you've got two two leads to four
four leads to eight eight leads to 16
and then as we saw with the fall of the
Berlin Wall this is what happened in
Russia and Eastern Europe in ' 89 you
when it when it goes it can go right and
then it rips and then what happens is
very very quickly if it if it turns out
that you had a large percentage of the
population that actually believe a
different thing it turns out all of a
sudden everybody has this giant Epiphany
that says oh I'm actually part of the
majority and at that point like you were
on the freight trainer Revolution right
like it is rolling right now the other
part of this is the distinction between
the role of the elites and the masses um
and here and here the best book is
called the True Believer which is the
the Eric Hofer book um and so the the
Nuance you have to put on this is the
the the elites play a giant role in this
because the the elites do idea formation
and communication but the elites by
definition are a small minority and so
there's also this giant role played by
the masses and the masses are not
necessarily thinking these things
through in the same intellectualized
formal way that the elites are but they
are for sure experiencing these things
in their daily lives and they for sure
have at least very strong emotional
views on them and so when you when you
really get the revolution it's when you
get the elites lined up with or or or or
a new either the current Elites change
or the new set of Elites a new set of
counter Elites um basically come along
and say no there's actually a different
and better way to live and then the PE
the people basically decide to follow
the you know to follow the counter Elite
so that that that's the other dimension
to it and of course that part is also
happening right now um and again case
study number one of that would be Elon
and his you know he turns out you know
truly massive
following and he has done that over and
over in different Industries not just
saying crazy shit online but saying
crazy shit in the in the realm of space
in the realm of atomous driving in the
realm of AI just over and over and over
again turns out saying crazy shit is one
of the ways to do a revolution to
actually make progress yeah and it's
like well and but then there's the test
is it crazy shit or is it the truth yeah
right and and and you know and this is
where you know many there are many
specific things about elon's genius but
one of the one of the really core ones
is an absolute dedication to the truth
um and so when Elon says something it s
like crazy shit but in his mind it's
true now is he always right no sometimes
the Rockets crash like you know
sometimes he's wrong with he's human
he's like anybody else he's not right
all the time but at least my my through
line with him both in what he says in
public and what he says in private which
by the way are the exact same things he
he does not do this he doesn't lie in
public about what he believes in private
or at least he doesn't do that anymore
like he's 100% consistent in my in my
experience by the way there's two guys
who are 100% consistent like that that I
know um Elan and
Trump yeah whatever you think think of
them yeah what they say in private is
100% identical to what they say in
public like they are completely
transparent they're completely honest in
that way right which is like again it's
not like they're perfect people but
they're honest in that way and and it
makes them potentially both as they have
been very powerful leaders of these
movements because they're both willing
to stand up and say the thing that if
it's true it turns out to be the thing
in many cases that you know many or most
or almost everyone else actually
believes but nobody was actually willing
to say out loud and so that they can
actually catalyze these shifts and I I
mean I think this framework is exactly
why Trump took over the Republican party
is I think Trump up there on stage with
all these other kind of conventional
Republicans and he started saying things
out loud that it turned out the Bas
really was they were either already
believing or they were prone to believe
um and he was the only one who was
saying them and so the ma again Elite
masses he was the elite the voters of
the ma masses and the voters decided you
know no no more bushes like we're going
this other direction that's the
mechanism of social change like what we
just described as like the actual
mechanism of social change it is
fascinating to me that we have been
living through exactly this we've been
living through ex everything exactly
what Tean describes everything that VAV
hav described we you know black squares
an Instagram like the whole thing right
all of it um uh and we've been living
through the um you know the True
Believer Elites masses you know thing
with you know with a set of like
basically incredibly corrupt Elites
wondering why they don't have the Lo
masses anymore and a set of New Elites
that are running away with things and so
like we're living through this like
incredible applied case study um of
these ideas and you know if there's a
moral of the story it is you know I
think fairly obvious which is it's is a
really bad idea for a society to wedge
itself into a position in which most
people don't believe the fundamental
precepts of what they're told they have
to do you know to be to be good people
like that that is just not not a good
state to be in so one of the ways to
avoid that in the future maybe is to
keep the Delta between what's set in
private and what's set in public small
yeah it's like well this is sort of the
the siren song of censorship is we can
keep people from saying things which
means we can keep people from thinking
things yeah and you know by the way that
may work for a while right like you know
I mean again the hard form that Soviet
you know Soviet Union owning a mograph
pre photocopy there mograph machines
that were used to make sist underground
newspapers which is the the mechanism of
written communication of of radical
ideas radical ideas um ownership of a
mograph machine was punishable by death
um right so that that's the hard version
right you know the soft version is
somebody clicks a button in Washington
and you are erased from the
internet right like which you know good
news you're still alive bad news is you
know Shame about not being able to get a
job you know too bad your family now you
know they hates you and won't talk to
you but you know what or whatever the
you know whatever the version of
cancellation has been
um and so so so like does that work like
maybe it works for a while like it
worked for the Soviet Union for a while
you know in its way especially when it
was coupled with you know official state
power but when it unwinds it can unwind
with like incredible speed and ferocity
because to your point there's all this
bottled up energy now your question was
like what are the percentages like what
what's the breakdown and so my my rough
guess just based on what I've seen in my
world is it's something like 20
6020 um it's like you've got 20% like
True Believers in whatever ever is you
know the current thing you know you got
20 you 20% of people who are just like
True Believers of whatever they they're
you know whatever's in the like I said
whatever's the New York Times Harvard
professors and the Ford Foundation like
just they just believe by maybe it's 10
maybe it's five but let's say generously
it's it's 20 so so you know 20% kind of
full-on revolutionaries um um and then
you've got let's call it 20% on the
other side that are like no I'm not on
board with this this is this is crazy
I'm not I'm not signing up for this but
you know you know their view of
themselves as they're in a small
minority and in fact they start out in a
small minority CU what happens is the
60% go with the first 20% not the second
20% so you've got this large middle of
people and it's not that there's
anything like it's not the people in the
middle are not smart or anything like
that it's that they just have like
normal lives and they're just trying to
get by and they're just trying to go to
work each day and do a good job and be a
good person and raise their kids and you
know have a little bit of time to watch
the game um and they're just not engaged
in the cut and thrust of you know
political activism or any of this stuff
is just not their thing but then but
that's where the over socialization
comes in it's just like okay by default
the 60% will go along with the 20% of
the radical revolutionaries at least for
a while and then the counter Elite is in
this other 20% and over time they build
up a theory and network and ability to
resist um and a new set of
Representatives and a new set of ideas
and then at some point there's a contest
and then and then and then and then
right and then the question is what
happens in the middle what happens in
the 60% and and it and it's kind of my
point it's not even really does the 60%
change their beliefs as much as it like
okay what what is the thing that that
60% now decides to basically fall into
step with and I think that 60 in the
valley that 60% for the last decade
decided to be woke um and you know
extremely I would
say on edge on a lot of things and I you
know that 60% is pivoting in real time
they're they're just done they've just
had it and I would love to see where
that pivot goes cuz there's internal
battles happening right now right so
this is the other thing okay so there's
two two forms of internal there's two
forms of things and teer CR teer has
actually talked about this professor CR
has talked about this so so one is he
said he said this is the kind of unwind
where what you're going to have is
you're now going to have people in the
other direction you're going to have
people who claim that they supported
Trump all along who actually
didn't right right so it's going to
swing the other way and by the way
Trump's not the only part of this but
you know he's just a convenient short
hand for you know for for a lot of this
um but you know whatever it is you'll
you'll have people who will say well I
never supported Dei right or I never
supported ESG or I never thought we
should have canceled that person right
where of course they were fullon a part
of the mob like you know kind of at that
moment and so anyway so you'll have
preference falsification happening in
the other direction and and his
prediction I think basically is you'll
end up with the same quote problem on
the on the other side now will that
happen here I don't know you know how
far is American society willing to go
any of these things I don't know but
like there is some some question there
um and then and then the other part of
it is okay now you have this you know
Elite that is used to being in power for
the last decade and and by the way many
of those people are still in power and
they're in very you know important
positions and the New York Times is
still the New York Times and Harvard is
still hared and like those people
haven't changed like at all right um and
they you know they bureaucrats and the
government and you know senior
Democratic you know politicians and so
forth and and they're sitting there you
know right now feeling like reality has
just smacked them hard in the face
because they lost the election so badly
but they're now going into a and
specifically the Democratic party is
going into a civil war right and and and
and and that form of the Civil War is
completely predictable and it's exactly
what's happening which is half of them
are saying we need to go back to the
center we need to deradicalize because
we've lost the people we've lost that
the people in the middle and so we need
to go back to the middle in order to be
able to get 50% plus one in an election
right and then the other half of them
are saying no we weren't true to our
principles we were too weak we were too
soft you know we must become more
revolutionary we must double down and we
must you know celebrate you know murders
in the street of health insurance
Executives and that's and that that
right now is like a real fight if I can
tell you a little personal story that
breaks my heart a little bit there's uh
there's a professor historian I won't
say who who I admire deeply love his
work he's a kind of a heretical thinker
and we were talking about having a
podcast or doing a podcast and he
eventually said that you know what at
this time given your guest
list I just don't want the headache of
being in the faculty meetings in my
particular institution and I ask who are
the particular figures in this guest
list he said
Trump and the second one he said that
you announced your interest to talk to
Vladimir Putin so I just don't want the
headache now I I fully believe
he uh it would surprise a lot of people
if I said who it is but you know this is
a person who's not bothered by the uh
the guest list and I should also say
that 80 plus% of the guest list is
leftwing okay uh nevertheless he just
doesn't want the headache and that
speaks to the the thing that you've kind
of mentioned that you just don't don't
want the headache you just want to just
have a pleasant morning with some coffee
and talk to your fellow professors and I
think a lot of people are feeling that
in universities and in other context in
tech
companies and I wonder if that shifts
how quickly that shifts and there the
percentages you mentioned 20 6020
matters and the and the the contents of
the private groups matters and the
Dynamics of how that shifts matters cuz
it's very possible nothing really
changes you universities and in major
tech companies or just there's a kind of
um excitement right now for
potential Revolution and these new ideas
this new Vibes to reverberate through
these companies universities but it's
possible the the the wall will hold yeah
so he's a friend of yours I respect that
you don't want to name him I also
respect you don't want to beat on him so
I would like to beat on him on your
behalf um does he have tenure yes
you should use it so this is the thing
right this is the ultimate indictment of
the corruption and the rot at the heart
of our education system at the heart of
these universities and it's by the way
it's like across the board it's like all
the all the top universities It's like
because the the siren song for right
what it's been for 70 years whatever the
tenure system peerreview system tenure
system um which is like yeah you work
your butt off as an academic to get a
professorship and then to get tenure
because then you can say what you
actually think right then you can do
your work in your research and your
speaking and your teaching without fear
of being fired right without fear of
being canceled um like academic freedom
I mean think of the term academic
freedom and then think of what these
people have done to it like it's gone
like that entire thing was fake and is
completely rotten and these people are
completely completely giving up the
entire moral foundation of the system
that's been built for them which by the
way is paid for virtually 100% by
taxpayer
money what's the what's the inkling of
Hope in this like what this particular
person and others who hear this what can
give them strength inspiration and
courage um that the population at large
is going to realize the corruption in
their industry and it's going to
withdraw all the funding it's okay it's
a
desperation no no no no no think about
what happens next okay so let's go let's
go through it so the the the
universities the the universities are
funded by four primary sources of
federal funding the big one is the
federal student loan program which is
you know in the many trillions of
dollars at this point and and only
spiraling you know way faster than than
inflation um that's number one number
two is federal research funding which is
also very large and you probably know
that um um when a scientist at
University gets a research Grant the
university rakes as much as 70% of the
money uh for Central uses yeah uh number
three is tax exemption at the operating
level which is based on the idea that
these are nonprofit institutions as
opposed to let's say political
institutions um and then number four is
tax exemptions at the endowment level um
you know which is the financial buffer
that these places have um hypothet
anybody who's been close to a university
budget will basically see that what
would happen if you withdrew those
sources of federal taxpayer money and
then for the state schools the state
money they they all instantly go
bankrupt and then you could
rebuild then you could rebuild because
the problem right now you know like the
folks at University of Austin are like
mounting a very Valiant effort and I
hope that they and I'm I'm cheering for
them but the problem is you're you're
now inserting suppose suppose you and I
want to start a new University and we
want to hire all the free thinking
professors and we want to have the place
that fixes all this practically speaking
we can't do it because we can't get
access to that money I give you the most
direct reason we can't get access to
that money uh we can't get access to
federal student funding do you know how
universities are accredited uh for the
purpose of getting access to federal
student funding federal student
loans they're accredited by the
government but not directly indirectly
they're not accredited by the Department
of Education and instead what happens is
the Department of Education accredits
accreditation bureaus that are
nonprofits that do the accreditation
guess what the composition of the
accreditation bureaus is the existing
universities they are in complete
control the incumbents are in complete
control as to who gets um as to who gets
access to fell student loan money guess
how enthusiastic they are about
accrediting a new
University right and so we have a
government funded and supported cartel
um that has gone I mean it's just
obvious now it's just gone sideways in
basically any possible way it could go
sideways including I mean literally as
you know students getting beaten up in
the on campus for being you know the
wrong religion I just they're just wrong
in every possible way at this point um
and and they're it's all in the federal
text pair back um and there is no way I
mean I my opinion there is no way to fix
these things without without replacing
them um and and there's no way to
replace them without letting them fail
and by the way it's like everything else
in life I mean in a sense this is like
the most obvious conclusion of all time
which is what happens in in the business
world when a company does a bad job is
they go bankrupt and another another
company takes its place right and that
that's how you get progress um and of
course below that is what happens is
this is the process of evolution right
what why does anything ever get better
because things are tested and tried and
then you you know the things that the
things that are good survive and so
these places have cut themselves off
they've been allowed to cut themselves
off from both From Evolution at the
institutional level and evolution at the
individual level as shown by the the the
the just widespread abuse of tenure um
and so we've just stalled out we we
built we built an aifi system an aifi
centralized system we're surprised by
the
results they are not fixable in their
current form I disagree with you on that
I have maybe it's grounded and hope that
I believe you can revolutionize a system
from within because I do believe
Stanford and MIT are important oh but
that logic doesn't follow at all that's
underpants gnome logic underpants gnome
can you explain Underpants NOS logic so
I just started watching a key Touchstone
of American culture with my 9-year-old
which of course is South Park yes and
there is wow and there is if which by
the way is a little aggressive for a
9-year-old very aggressive but but he
likes it so he's learning all kinds of
new words and all kinds of new ideas but
yeah go I I told him I said you're going
to hear words on here that you are not
allowed to use
right and I said do you know how we have
an agreement that we never lie to
Mommy I I said not using a word that you
learn in here uh does not count as L mhm
wow keep and keep that in mind orwellian
redefinition of lying but yes go ahead
of course in the very opening episode in
the first in the first 30 seconds one of
the one of the kids calls the other kid
a dildo right we're We're Off to the
Races y Daddy what's a dildo um
yep you know sorry sorry son I don't
know yeah um so um uh the underpant so
famous episode of South Park The
Underpants Gnomes and so the The
Underpants GN so there's there there's
this rat all the kids basically realize
that their underpants are quite missing
from their dresser drawers somebody
stealing the Underpants and it's just
like well who on Earth would steal the
underpant the Underpants and it turns
out it's the Underpants Gnomes and it
turns out the Underpants Gnomes that
come to town and they've got this little
underground warrant of tunnels and
storage places for all the Underpants
and so they go out at night they steal
the Underpants and the kids discover
that you know the Underpants Gnomes and
they're you know what what are you doing
like what what's what's the point of
this and so the Underpants Gnomes
present their their master plan which is
a three-part plan which is step one uh
collect Underpants step three profit
yeah step two question
mark yeah so you just you just proposed
The underpant Gnome yeah which is very
common in politics so the form of this
in politics is we must do something yeah
this is something therefore we must do
this but there's no causal logic chain
in there at all to expect that that's
actually going to succeed because
there's no reason to believe that it is
yeah it's the same thing but this is
what I hear all the time and I'll I will
let you talk as the host of the show in
a moment but uh but the but I hear this
all the time I hear this I have friends
who are on these boards right um very
involved in these places and I hear this
all the time which is like oh these are
very important we must fix them and so
therefore they are
fixable there's no logic chain there at
all if there's that pressure that you
described in terms of cutting funding
then you have the leverage to fire a lot
of the administration and have new
leadership that steps up that that uh
aligns with this Vision that things
really need to change at the heads of
universities and they put students and
faculty primary fire a lot of the
administration and realign and
reinvigorate this idea of freedom of
thought and intellectual freedom I mean
I don't because there is already a
framework of of great institutions
that's there and the way they talk about
what it means to be a great institution
is aligned with this very idea that
you're talking about it's this meaning
like intellectual Freedom the idea of
tenure right the on the surface it's
aligned underneath is become corrupted
if we say free speech and academic
freedom often enough sooner later these
tendered professors will get Brave wait
do you think the universities are
fundamentally broken okay so how do you
fix it how do you have institutions for
educating
20-year-olds and institutions that
host uh researchers that have the
freedom to do epic shit like research
type shit that's outside the Scopes of
R&D departments and inside companies so
how do you create an institution like
that how do you create a good restaurant
when the one down the street sucks all
right you uh invent something new you
open a new restaurant
yeah like how often in your life if you
experienced a restaurant that's just
absolutely horrible and it's poisoning
all of its customers and the food tastes
terrible and then three years later you
go back and it's
fantastic Charlie Munger actually had
the great the best comment on this great
investor Charlie M the great comment he
was once asked he's like you know you
know General Electric was going through
all these challenges and he was asked at
a Q&A he said how would you fix the
culture of General Electric and he said
fix the culture at General Electric he
said I couldn't even fix the culture at
a restaurant
like it's insane like obviously you
can't do it nobody in business thinks
you can do that
like it's impossible like it's not it's
now now look having said all that I
should also Express this because I have
a lot of friends to work at these places
and and um and and are involved in
various attempts to fix these I hope
that I'm wrong I would love to be wrong
I would love for the I would love for
the underpants gnome step two to be
something clear and straightforward that
they can figure out how to do I would
love to love to fix it I'd love to see
them come back to their spoken
principles I I think that'd be great I'd
love to see the professors with tenure
get bravery
um I would love to see I mean it would
be fantastic um you know my partner and
I have done like a lot of public
speaking on this topic it's it's been
intended to not just be harsh but also
be like okay like these these challenges
have to be confronted directly by the
way let me also say something positive
you know especially post October 7th
there are a bunch of very smart people
who are major donors and board members
of these institutions like Mark Rowan
you know who are really coming in trying
to you know I think legitimately trying
trying to fix these places I have a
friend on the executive committee at one
of the top technical universities he's
working over time to try to do this
man I hope they can figure it out um but
I I but the counter question would just
be like do you see it actually happening
at a single one of these
places I'm a person that believes in
leadership if you have the right
leadership right the whole system can be
changed so here's a question for your
friend who have tenure at one of these
places which is who runs his university
I think you know you know who I think
runs it yeah whoever the fuck says they
run it that's what great leadership is
like a president has that power
president of university has leverage cuz
they can mouth off like Elon can can
they fire the professors they can fire
them through being vocal publicly yes
can they fire the professors what are
you talking about legally no they cannot
fire the professors then we know who
runs the university the professors yeah
the professors the professors and the
students the professors and the feral
students and they're of course in a
radicalization feedback cycle driving
each other crazy students the feral
students yeah the feral students yeah
the feral students what happens when
you're put in charge of of your
bureaucracy where the where the thing
that the bureaucracy knows is that they
can Outlast you
the thing that the tendered professors
at all these places know is it doesn't
matter who the president is because they
can Outlast them because they cannot get
fired by the way it's the same thing the
bureaucrats in the government know it's
the same thing that the the bureaucrats
in the Department of Education know they
know the exact same thing they they
cannot last you it's I mean it's the
whole thing that it's the resistance
like they can be the resistance they can
just sit there and resist which is what
they do they're not firable that's
definitely a crisis that needs to be
solved that's a huge problem and I also
don't like that I'm defending Academia
here I I agree with you that the
situation dire and uh but I just think
that institutions are important and I
should also add context since you've
been grilling me a little bit you were
using restaurants as an analogy and
earlier offline in this conversation you
said that Dairy Queen is a great
restaurant so let's say der Queen is a
great Let The Listener take I said da
Queen is the best restaurant the best
restaurant there you go so everything
Mark adri is saying today I don't want
you should go order a blizzard one one
day you should walk down there and order
a blizzard yeah they can get like 4,000
in a cup they can and they're delicious
amazing they are ftic they'll put
they'll put anything in there you want
all right okay so but anyway let me just
close by saying look I I My Friends
University system I would just say look
like I this is the challenge like I
would just I would just pose this is the
challenge like to me like this is having
had a lot of these conversations like
this is the bar in my view this is the
conversation that actually has to happen
this is the bar that actually has to be
hit these problems need to be confronted
directly because I think there's just I
think there's been way too much I mean
I'm actually worri kind of on the other
side there's too much happy talk in
these conversations mhm I think the
taxpayers do not understand this level
of Crisis and I think if the taxpayers
come to understand it I think the
funding evaporates and so I I think the
the fuse is going through you know no
fault of any of ours but like the fuse
is going and there's some window of time
here uh to fix this and address it and
justify the money because that just
normal taxpayers sitting in normal towns
in normal jobs are not going to tolerate
this for for that much longer You'
mentioned censorship a few times let us
if we can go deep into the darkness of
the past and how censorship mechanism
was used so you are a good person to
speak about the history of this because
you were there on the ground floor in uh
2013 is Facebook I
heard that uh you were there when they
invented or maybe uh uh developed the
term hate speech in the context of
censorship of on social media so uh take
me to through that history if you can
the use of uh ship so I was there on the
ground floor in
1993 there's multiple floors to this
building apparently there are yeah so I
got the first ask to implement
censorship on the internet um which was
in the web browser that is FAS yeah yeah
19 actually 1992 uh I was asked
Implement a nudity filter did you have
the courage to speak up back then I I
didn't have any problem speaking up back
then um I was making $625 an hour um I
did not have a lot to lose um no I was
asked at the time and then look I you
know legitimate you know in some sense a
legitimate request which is working on a
research project actually funded by the
federal government at a public
university so you know I don't think my
boss was like any way out of line but it
was like yeah like this this web browser
thing is great but like could it just
make sure to not have any photos of
naked people that show up but if you
think about this for a second as a
technologist like had an issue which is
this was like pre-image net right and so
I had a brief period where I tried to
imagine an algorithm um that I refer to
as the breast detection
algorithm um that I was going to have to
design and then apparently a variety of
other apparently body parts people are
also sensitive about yeah and um and
then I I politely declined to do this
for for just the the technical
difficulties of it well number one I I
actually didn't know how to do it but
number two is just like no I'm not I'm
not building I'm just not building a
censorship engine like I'm a you know
I'm just not doing it um and and in
those days it was you know in those days
the internet generally was you know free
fire zone for everything it was actually
interesting as sort of pre 93 the
internet was such a specific Niche
Community like it was like the million
kind of highest IQ nerds in the world um
and so it actually like didn't really
have a lot of you know issues the people
were like super interested in talking
about like astrophysics and not very
interested in you know even politics at
that at that time so there really was
not an issue there but um yeah I didn't
I didn't want to start the process um so
I think the way to think about this so
first of all um you know yeah so I was
involved in this at Facebook every step
by the way I've been involved in this at
Facebook every step by the way I joined
the board there in 2007 so I saw I've
seen everything in the last you know
almost 20 years um every step of the way
but also I've been involved in most of
the other companies over time so I was
an angel investor Twitter knew them
really well um we were the founding
investor in substack I'm part of the
Elon takeover of Twitter with X I was an
angel at LinkedIn so I I've been in
these we were the funer of Pinterest we
were one of the one of the main
investors there rdit um as well and I
was having these conversations with all
these guys all the way through so as
much talk specifically about Facebook
but I can just tell you like the general
pattern and for quite a while it was
kind of all the same across these
companies um yeah so so basically the
way to think about this the the true
kind of nuanced view of this is that
there is ially speaking no internet
service that can have zero censorship um
and and by the way that also mirrors
there is no country that actually has
limited Free Speech either the US First
Amendment actually has 12 or 13 formal
carve outs from the Supreme Court over
time you know so incitement to violence
and terrorist Recruitment and child
abuse and so you know child pornography
and so forth they're like they're not
covered by the First Amendment um and
just practically speaking if you and I
are going to start an Internet company
and have a service we can't have that
stuff either right because it's illegal
or it will just clearly you know destroy
the whole thing so you you're always
going to have a censorship engine I mean
hopefully it's not actually in the
browser but like you're going to have it
for sure at the level of an of an
Internet service and but then what
happens is now you have now you have a
machine right now now you have a system
where you can put in a rules saying we
allow this we don't allow that you have
enforcement you have consequences right
um and once that system is in place like
it becomes the ring of power right which
is like okay now anybody in that company
or anybody associ with that company or
anybody who wants to pressure that
company will just start to say okay you
should use that machine for more than
just terrorist Recruitment and child
pornography you should use it for
XYZ um and basically that transition
happened call it 2012 2013 is is when
there was this like very very kind of
Rapid pivot I think the kickoff to it
for some reason was this it was the
beginning of the second Obama term um I
think it also coincided with the sort of
arrival of the first kind of super woke
kids into these into these schools um
you know that kind of you know it's the
kids that were in school between like
you know for the Iraq War and then the
global financial crisis and like they
came out like super radicalized they
came into these companies they
immediately started mounting these
social Crusades to ban and censor uh
lots of things and then you know quite
frankly the Democratic party figured
this out um and they figured out that
these companies were you know very
subject to being controlled and they and
the you know the executive teams and
Boards of directors are almost all
Democrats and you know there tremendous
circulation a lot of Obama people from
the first term actually came and worked
in these companies and a lot of FBI
people and other you know law
enforcement intelligence people came in
and worked and they're all Dem you know
they were all democrats for that set um
and so they just you know the the the
ring of power was lying on the table it
had been built and they you know picked
it up and put it on and then they just
ran and the original discussions were
basically always on two topics it was
hate speech and misinformation uh hate
speech was the original one um and the
hate speech conversation started exactly
like you'd expect which is we can't have
the n-word and which the answer is fair
enough let's not have the nword okay now
we've set up
precedent right and then the and and
Jordan Peterson has talked lot about
this the definition of hate speech ended
up being things that make people
uncomfortable right so we can't have
things that make you know people
uncomfortable I of course you know
people like me that are disagreeable
raise our hands and say well that idea
right there makes me uncomfortable but
of course that doesn't count as hate
speech right so you know the ring of
power is on one hand and not not not on
the other hand um and then basically
that began this slide where it ended up
being that you know completely an
this a point Mark has been making
recently like completely anod comments
that are completely legitimate on
television or on the senate floor all of
a sudden our hap can't be set online so
that you know the ring of power was
wielded in grossly irresponsible ways we
could talk about all the stuff that
happened there and then the other one
was misinformation and that wasn't as
there was a little bit of that early on
but of course that really kicked in with
with Trump um so so the hate speech stop
the hate speech stuff predated Trump by
like 3 or four years um the
misinformation stuff was basically a it
was a little bit later and it was a
consequence of the Russia gate hoax um
and then that was you know a ring of
power that was even more powerful right
because you know hate speech is like
okay at some point if some if something
offensive or not like at least you can
have a question as to whether that's the
case but the problem with misinformation
is like is it the truth or not you know
you know what do we know from 800 years
or whatever Western Civilization it's
that you know there's only a few
entities that can determine the truth on
every topic you know there's God you
know there's the king we don't have
those anymore and the rest of us are all
imperfect and flawed and so the idea
that any group of experts is going to
sit around the table and decide on the
truth is you know deeply anti-western
and deeply authoritarian and somehow the
misinformation kind of crusade went from
the Russia gate hoax into just
full-blown we're going to use that
weapon for whatever we want up and then
and then of course then then the
culminating moment on that that really
was the straw that broke the camel's
back was um we're going to censor all
theories that the covid virus might have
been manufactured in a lab as
misinformation and and and and and
inside these companies like that was the
point where people for the first time
this is like what three years ago if for
the first time they were
like that was when it sunk in we it's
just like okay this has spun completely
out of control anyway that that that's
how we got to where we are and then
basically that spell lasted that that
that complex existed and got expanded
basically from call it 2013 to
2023 I think basically two things broke
it um one is substack and so and I'm
super proud of those guys cuz they
started from scratch and declared right
up front that they were going to be a
a free speech platform um and they came
under intense pressure um including from
the Press um and you know they tried to
just beat them to the ground and kill
them an intense pressure by the way from
you know let's say certain of the
platform companies um you know basically
threatening them um and they stood up to
it and you know sitting here today they
have the widest spectrum of of speech
and and and conversation you know
anywhere on planet Earth and they've
done a great job and it's worked by the
way it's great uh and then obviously
Elon uh you know with X was the you know
the hammer blow um and then I the third
one now was what ring at Facebook mhm
and there's also like singular moments I
think You' spoken about this which uh
like John Stewart going on Steven coar
and talking about the lab League theory
yes I just there's certain moments that
just kind of shake everybody up the
right person the right time just it's a
wakeup call so that there and I will
tell you like and I should say John
Stewart attacked me recently so I'm not
that thrilled about him but I would say
I was a long run fan of John Stewart I
watched probably every episode of The
Daily Show when he was on it um you for
probably 20 years but he did a very
important public service and it was that
appearance on the Cobar show and I don't
know how broadly this is you know at the
time it was in the news briefly but I
don't know how if people remember this
but I will tell you in in the rooms
where people discuss what is
misinformation and these policies that
was a very big moment that was probably
actually the key catalyzing moment and I
think he exhibited I would say
conspicuous bravery and had a big impact
with that um and and yeah what what for
people who don't recall what he did and
this was in the full blown like you
Absolut you know you absolutely must
lock down for 2 years you absolutely
must keep all the schools closed you
absolutely must have everybody work from
home you absolutely must wear a mask
like the whole thing um and one of those
was you absolutely must believe that um
Co was completely natural you must
believe that and not believing that
means you're a fascist nazi Trump
supporter Mega evil Q andon person right
and that was like uniform and that was
enforced by the social media companies
um and and and like I said that that was
the peak and and John Stewart went on
the coar show and I I don't know if they
planned it or not cuz coar looked
shocked I don't know how much of it was
a bit but he went on there and he he
just had one of these like the Emperors
wearing no clothes things where he said
it's just not plausible that you had the
co super virus appear 300 yards down the
street from the Wuhan Institute of of
lethal Corona
viruses um like it's just not plausible
that that that certainly that you could
just rule that out and then there was
another key moment actually the more
serious version was I think the author
Nicholson Baker wrote a big piece for
New York Magazine uh Nicholson Baker is
like one of our great novelist writers
um of our time and he wrote the piece
and he did the complete undressing of it
um and that was the first I think that
was the first legit there had been like
alt you know Renegade there had been you
know people running around saying this
but getting censored all over the place
that was the first one that was like in
the mainstream press where he and he
talked to all the Heretics and he just
like laid the whole thing out and and
that was a moment and I remember let's
say a board meeting at one of these
companies after that where basically you
know everybody looked around the table
and was like all right like I guess
we're
not we don't need to censor that anymore
and you know and then of course what
immediately follows from that is well
wait a minute why were we censoring that
in the first place and okay like and
then you know the downstream not that
day but the downstream conversations
were like okay if if if we made such a
giant in retrospect if we all made such
a giant Collective mistake censoring
that then what does that say about the
rest of our regime and I think that was
the thread in the sweater that started
to unravel it I should say it again I do
think that John Stewart appearance and
the statement he made was a courageous
act uh agree and I think we need to have
more that of that in the world and like
you said Elon
everything he did with acts is is is a
series of courageous acts and I think
what um Zuck what Mark Zucker did on
Rogan a few days ago is a courageous act
can you just speak to that he has become
I think an outstanding Communicator
right um and he's you know somebody who
came in for a lot of criticism earlier
in his career on that front and I think
he's you know he's one of these guys who
can sit down and talk for three hours
and and make complete sense and and you
know as as you do with with all of all
of your episodes like when somebody sits
and talks for three hours like you
really get a sense of somebody because
it's it's really hard to to be
artificial for that long and you know
he's he's not done that repeatedly he's
really good at it and then look I I
again I would maybe put him in the third
category now with um certainly after
that appearance uh I would say um I
would put him up there now with you know
kind of el Trump in the sense of the
public the the public and the private
are not synchronized I guess I'd say
that like he he he said on that show
what he really believes he said all the
same things that he says in private like
I don't think there's really any any
discrepancy anymore um I would say he
has always taken upon himself a level of
obligation responsibility to running a
company the size of meta and running
services that are that large um and I
think you know his conception of what
he's doing which I think is correct is
he's running services that are bigger
than any country right he's running you
know over three billion people use of
services um and so and then you know the
company has you know many tens of
thousands of of employees and many
investors and it's a public company and
he thinks very deeply and seriously
about his
responsibilities um and so you know he
has not felt like he has had let's just
say the complete flexibility that Elon
has had um and you know people could
argue that one way or the other but you
know he's he's you know yeah he's he's
you know he talked about a lot he's he's
evolved a lot a lot of it was he learned
a lot and by the way I'm going to put
myself right back up there like I'm not
claiming any huge foresight or heroism
on any of this like I've also learn
learned a lot like like I my views on
things are very different than they were
10 years ago on lots of topics and so um
you know I I've been on a Learning
Journey he's been on a Learning Journey
um he is a really really good learner um
he assimilates information you know as
good as or better than anybody else I
know um the other thing I guess I would
just say is he talked on that show about
something very important which is when
you're in a role where you're running a
company like that there are a set of
decisions that you get to make and and
you deserve to be criticized for those
decisions and so forth and it's valid um
but you are under tremendous external
pressure um as well and and by the way
you're under tremendous internal
pressure you've got your employees
coming at you you you've got your
Executives in some cases coming at you
you've got your board in some cases
coming at you um you've got your
shareholders coming at you so you you've
got your internal pressures but you also
have the Press coming at you you've got
Academia coming at you you've got the
entire nonprofit complex coming activist
complex coming at you and then really
critically you know he talked about in
Rogan um and these companies all went
through this in this last especially
five years you had the government coming
at you um and you know that's the really
you know stinky end of the pool um where
you know the government was in my view
you know illegally exerting um you know
just in flagrant violation of the First
Amendment and federal laws on on speech
and coercion and uh and conspiracy uh
forcing these companies to uh engage in
activities um you know then again in
some cases they may have wanted to do
but in other cases they clearly didn't
want to do and felt like they had to do
and the level of
pressure like I say like I've known
every CEO Twitter um they they've all
had the exact same experience which when
they were in the job it was just daily
beatings like it's just getting punched
in the face every single day con
and you know Mark is very good at
getting physically punched to the face
getting better and better yeah and he is
and he you know and he's very good at
you know taking a punch and he has taken
many many punches so I would encourage
people to have a level of sympathy for
these are not Kings these These are
people who operate with like I would say
extraordinary levels of external
pressure I think if I had been in his
job for the last decade I would be a
little puddle on the floor um and so it
it it says I think a lot about him that
he has you know risen to this occasion
the way that he has and by the way
should also say you know the the
cynicism of course is immediately out
and you know it's a it's you know
legitimate thing for people to say but
you know it's like oh you're only doing
this because of trump or you know
whatever and it's just like no like he
has been thinking about and working on
these things and trying to figure them
out for a very long time and so I I
think what you saw are legitimate deeply
held beliefs not some you know you know
sort of just in the- moment thing that
could change at any time so what do you
think it's like to be him and uh other
leaders of companies to be you and
withstand internal pressure and external
pressure
what's that life like is it deeply
lonely that's a great question so
leaders are lonely to start with and and
this is one of those things where almost
nobody has sympathy right nobody feels
sorry for a CEO right like it's not a
thing right um and you know again
legitimately so like CEOs get paid a lot
like the whole thing there's a lot of
great things about it so it's not like
they should be out there asking for a
lot of sympathy but it is the case that
they are human beings um and it is the
case that it is a lonely job and the
reason it's a lonely job um is because
your words carry tremendous weight um
and you are dealing with extremely
complicated issues and you're under a
tremendous amount of emotional you know
personal emotional stress um and you
know you often end up not being able to
sleep well and you end up not being able
to like keep up an exercise routine and
all those things and you know you come
under family stress because you're
working all the time or my partner Ben
you know was he was CEO of our last
company before we started the Venture
firm he he said you know the problem he
had like with with his family life was
he would even when he was home at night
he wasn't home because he was in his
head trying to solve all the business
problems and so he was like supposed to
be like having dinner with his kids and
he was physically there but he wasn't
mentally there so you know you kind of
get you get that a lot but the key thing
is like you can't talk to people right
so you can't I mean you can talk to your
spouse and your kids but like they don't
understand that they're not working in
your company they don't understand they
have the context to really help you you
if you talk to your Executives they all
have agendas right and so they're all
they're all and they can't resist like
it's just human nature and and and so
you you can't necessarily rely on what
they say it's very hard in most
companies to talk to your board because
they can fire you right now now Mark has
the situation because he has control and
turns out he can talk to his board and
Mark talks to us about many things that
he does that most CEOs won't talk to
their boards about because we literally
because we can't fire him um but the
general a general C including all the
CEOs of Twitter that that none of them
had control and so they they could all
get fired so um you can't talk to the
board members they're going to fire you
you can't talk to the shareholders
because they they'll just like dump your
stock right like okay so who's the so so
the so every once in a while what you
find is basically the the best case
scenario they have is they can talk to
other CEOs um and there's these little
organizations where they kind of pair up
and do that and so they may we get a
little bit out of that but but even
that's Frau with Peril because can you
really talk about confidential
information with another CEO insider
trading risk um and so it's just a very
it's just a very lonely and isolating
thing to start with um and then you you
and then on top of that you apply
pressure um right and that's where it
gets painful and then maybe I'll just
spend a moment on this internal external
pressure thing um my general experience
with companies is that they can
withstand most forms of external
pressure as long as they retain internal
coherence MH right so as long as the
internal team um is really bonded
together and supporting each other um
most forms of external pressure you can
withstand and by that I mean investors
dump your stock you lose your biggest
customers you know whatever negative
article you know negative headline you
know um you can you can withstand all
that and basically in fact many of those
forms of pressure can be bonding
experiences for the team where they
where they where they come out stronger
um what you 100% cannot withstand is the
internal crack and what I always look
for in high pressure corporate
situations now is the moment when the
internal team cracks because I know the
minute that happens we're in a different
regime like it's like the you know the
solid is turned into liquid like we're
in a different regime and like the whole
thing could unravel in the next week
because then people turn I mean this I
gu this is what's happening in Los
Angeles right now the the the the mayor
and and the fire chief turned on each
other and that's it that government is
dysfunctional it is never going to get
put back together again it is over it is
not going to work ever again and that's
what happens inside companies um and so
so so somebody like Mark is under like
profound internal pressure and external
pressure at the same time now he's been
very good at maintaining the coherence
of his executive team but he has had
over the years a lot of activist
employees um as a lot of these companies
have had and so that's been continuous
pressure and then the final thing I'd
say is I said that companies can
withstand most forms of external
pressure but not all and the special of
the not all one is government pressure
um is that when your government comes
for you
like yeah any CEO who thinks that
they're bigger than their government um
has that notion beaten out of them in
short order can you just Linger on that
because it
is uh maybe educating and deeply
disturbing you've spoken about it before
but worth speaking about again this
government pressure so you think they've
crossed a line into essentially criminal
levels of pressure flagrant
criminality felonies like obvious
and I can I can actually cite the laws
but yes absolute criminality can you
explain how those possible to happen and
maybe on a hopeful note how we can avoid
that happening again so to start with is
a lot of this now is in the public
record um which is good because it needs
to be in the public record and so
there's there's three forms of things
that are in the public record that
people can look at so one is the Twitter
files um right which Elon put out with
the set of journalists when he took over
and I will just tell you the Twitter
files are 100% represent of what I've
seen at every other one of these
companies and so you can just see what
happened in Twitter and you can just
assume that that happened in in these
other companies um you know for the most
part and certainly in terms of the kind
of pressure that they got so that's
that's number one that stuff you can
just read it and you should if you
haven't um the second is um Mark
referenced this in the Rogan podcast
there's a congressman Jim Jordan who has
a committee Congressional committee
called the weaponization committee and
they in the last you know whatever three
years have done a fullscale
investigation of this and Facebook
produced a lot of documents into that
investigation and those have many of
those have now been made public and you
can download those reports and there's
like i' like 2,000 Pages worth of
material on that and that's essentially
the Facebook version of the Twitter
files just arrived at with a different
mechanism um and then third is Mark
himself talking about this on on on on
Rogan so I'll you know just defer to his
comments there but yeah basically what
what those three forms of information
show you is basically the government you
know over time um and then culminating
in 2020 2021 you know in the last four
years just decided that the First
Amendment didn't apply to them um and
they just decided that um federal laws
around free speech and around
conspiracies to take away the rights of
citizens just don't apply um and they
just decided that they can just
arbitrarily pressure um uh just like
literally arbitrarily call up companies
and threaten and Bully um and yell and
scream and and you know threaten
repercussions and force people to force
them to censor um and you know there's
this old thing of like well the first
amendment only applies to you know the
government it doesn't apply to companies
it's like well there's actually a little
bit of nuance to that first of all
definitely applies to the
government like 100% the first amendment
applies to the government by the way so
does the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth
Amendment including the right to Due
Process also applies to the government
there was no due process at all to any
of the censorship regime that was put in
place there was no due process put in
place by the way for Deb banking either
those are just as serious violations as
the as the Free Speech violations and so
this is just like flagrant flagrant
unconstitutional behavior and then there
are specific Federal statutes um there's
it's 18241 and
18242 and one of them applies to federal
employees government employees and the
other one uh applies to private actors
um around what's called deprivation of
Rights um and conspiracy to deprive
rights and it is not legal according to
the United States criminal code for
government employees or in a conspiracy
private entities to take away
constitutional rights and interestingly
some of those constitutional rights are
enumerated for example in the First
Amendment freedom of speech and then
some of those rights actually do not
need to be
enumerated it is if the government takes
away right that you have they don't need
to be specifically enumerated rights in
the constitution in order to still be a
felony the Constitution does not very
specifically does not say you only have
the rights that it gives you it says you
have all the rights that have not been
previously defined as being taken away
from you right and so debank qualifies
as a right you know right to access to
the financial system is every bit
something that's subject to these laws
as as as free speech um and so yeah this
is happen and then I'll just add one
final thing which is we've talked about
two parties so far talked about the
government employees um and then we've
talked about the company
the government employees for sure have
misbehaved um the companies there's a
very interesting question there as to
whether they are victims or perpetrators
or both um you know they will defend
they will argue and I believe they have
a good case that they are victims not
perpetrators right they are the
downstream subjects of pressure not the
ca you know not the cause of pressure
but there's a big swath of people who
are in the middle and specifically the
ones that are funded by the government
that I think are in possibly pretty big
trouble and that's all of these third
party um censorship bureaus um I mean
the one that is sort of is most obvious
is the so-called Stanford internet
Observatory um that got booted up there
over the last several years and they
basically were funded by the federal
government to be third party censorship
operations and they're private sector
actors but acting with Federal funding
and so it puts them in this very
interesting spot where there could be
you know very obvious Theory under which
they're basically acting as agents of
the government um and so I think they're
also very Exposed on this and have
behaved in just flagrantly illegal ways
so fundamentally govern
should not do any kind of pressure even
soft pressure on companies to censor
can't not allowed it really is
disturbing I mean probably
started
soft lightly slowly and then escalates
as the the old will to power will
instruct them to do CU you get you get I
mean yeah that's why that's why there's
protection cuz you can't put a check on
power for govern
right there are so many ways that they
can get you like there are so many ways
they can come at you and get you and you
know the thing here to think about is a
lot of times when people think about
government action they think about
legislation right because you so when I
was a kid we got trained how does
government work there was this famous
animated short u the thing we got shown
was just the cartoon of how a bill
becomes a law it's like this you know
fancy little Bill sneak along and goes
this I'm just the bill yeah exactly like
it's like all right number one that's
not how it works at all like that that
doesn't actually happen we could talk
about that but but but even beyond that
mostly what we're dealing with is not
legislation when we talk about
government power these days mostly it's
not legislation U mostly it's either
regulation which is basically the
equivalent of legislation but having not
gone through the legislative process
which is a very big open legal issue and
one of the things that the doge is very
focused on most most government rules
are not legislated they're regulated um
and that that and there's tons and tons
of regulations that these companies are
so this is another cliche you'll hear a
lot which is oh private companies can do
whatever they want it's like oh no they
can't they're subject to tens of
thousands of regulations that they have
to comply with
um and the the hammer that comes down
when you don't comply with regulations
is profound like they can completely
wreck your company with no abil no
ability for you to do anything about it
so so so regulation is a big part of the
way the power gets exercised and then
there's what's called just Flatout
administrative power the term that
you'll hear and administrative power is
just literally the government telling
you calling you and telling you what to
do here's an example how this works so
Facebook had this whole program a few
years back to do a global cryptocurrency
for payments called Libra and they built
the entire system and it was this highs
scale you know sort of new
cryptocurrency and they were going to
build in every product and there were
going to be 3 billion people who could
transact with Libra and they went to the
government and they went to the all
these different try to figure out how to
make it so it's like fully compliant
with anti-money laundering and all these
you know controls and everything and
they had the whole thing ready to go two
senators wrote letters to the big Banks
um saying we're not telling you that you
can't work with Facebook on this but if
you do you should know that every aspect
of your business is going to come under
greatly increased level of regulatory
scrutiny which is of course the exact
equivalent of it sure is a nice Corner
Restaurant you have here it would be a
shame if you know somebody tossed a
Molotov cocktail through the window and
burned it down tonight right and so that
letter like what is that letter like
it's not a law it's not even a
regulation it's just like straight
direct state power and and then and then
it culminates in literally calls from
the White House where they're just like
flat out telling you what to do which is
of course what a king gets to do but not
what a president gets to do um and and
so anyway so this so so what these
companies experienced was they
experienced the full panoply of this but
it was it was the level of intensity was
in that order it was actually
legislation was the least important part
regulation was more important
administrative power was more important
and then just like flat out demands and
flat out threats were ultimately the
most important how do you fix it well
first of all like you have to elect
people who don't do it so like as with
all these things ultimately the fault
lies with the voters um and so you know
you have to decide you don't want to
live in that regime I have no idea what
part of this recent election map to the
censorship regime I do know a lot of
people on the right got very angry about
the censorship but you know I think it
probably at least helped with enthusiasm
on that side
um you know maybe some people in the
left will now not want their you know
Democratic nominees to be S pro
censorship um so the the voters
definitely you know get a vote um number
one number two I think you need
transparency you need to know what
happened we know some of what happened
um Peter teal has written in the Ft just
now saying we just need like broad after
what we've been through in the last
decade we need broad-based Truth and
Reconciliation uh you know efforts to
really get to the rout of things um so
maybe that's part of it we need
investigations for sure ultimately we
need prosecutions like we we need
ultimately we need people to go to jail
um because we need to set object lessons
that say that you don't get to do this
and on those last two I would say that
that those are both up to the new
Administration and I don't want to speak
for them and I I don't want to predict
what they're going to do but they have
they for sure have the ability to do
both of those things and you know we'll
we'll see where they take it yeah it's
truly disturbing I don't think anybody
wants this kind of overreach of power
for government including perhaps people
that were participating it it's like
this dark moment momentum of power they
you just get caught up in it and that's
the reason there's that kind of
protection nobody wants that so I Ed the
metaphor of the ring of power and for
people who don't catch the reference
that's Lord Lord of the Rings and the
thing with the ring of power and Lord of
the Rings it's the ring the gollum has
in the beginning and it turns you
invisible and it turns out it like
unlocks all this like f and power it's
the most powerful thing in the world is
the key to everything and basically the
the the moral lesson of BL of the Rings
which was you know written by a guy who
thought very deeply about these things
is yeah the ring of power is inherently
corrupting the characters at one point
they're like andolf just put on the ring
and like fix this right and he's like he
like he will not put the ring on even to
like end the war um because he knows
that it will corrupt him and then you
know the charact as it starts the
character of Gollum is the result of you
know a normal character who ultimately
becomes you know this incredibly corrupt
and deranged version of himself and so I
mean I think you I think you said
something actually quite profound there
which is the ring of power is infinitely
tempting you know the censorship machine
is infinitely tempting if if you have it
like you are going to use it it's
overwhelmingly tempting because it's so
powerful and then it will corrupt you
and yeah I I don't know whether any of
these people feel any of this today they
should I don't know if they do um but
yeah you go out five or 10 years later
you know you would hope that you would
realize that your soul has been corroded
and you probably started out thinking
that you were a patriot and you were
trying to defend democracy and you ended
up being you know extremely
authoritarian and anti-democratic and
anti-western can I ask you a a tough
question here
staying on the ring of power Elon is
quickly becoming the most powerful human
on
earth uh I'm not sure about that you
don't you don't think he is well he
doesn't have the nukes so
nukes yeah there's different definitions
and perspectives on power right how can
he and or Donald
Trump uh avoid corrupting aspects of
this power I mean I think the danger is
there with power it's just it's flat out
there I I would say with Elon I mean we
you know we'll see I would say with Elon
and I would say by the way
overwhelmingly I would say so far so
good I'm extremely extremely thrilled by
what he's done on almost every front um
for like you know the last 30 years but
including all this stuff recently like I
think he's he's been a real hero on a
lot of topics where we needed to see
heroism but look I I would say I guess
the sort of case that he has this level
of power is some combination of the
money and the the and the proximity to
the president um and obviously both of
those are you know are instruments of
power the counter argument to that is I
do think a lot of how Elon is causing
change in the world right now I mean
there's there's the companies he's
running directly where I think he's
doing very well um and we're investors
and multiple of them and doing very well
um uh but I think like a lot of the
stuff that gets people mad at him is
like it's the social and political stuff
and it's you know it's his statements
and then it's the down Downstream
effects of his statements so like for
example it's you know for the last
couple weeks it's been him you know kind
of weighing in on this rape gang Scandal
you know this rape organized child rape
thing in the UK um
and you know it's it's you know it's
actually it's a preference Cascade it's
one of these things where people KN knew
there was a problem they weren't willing
to talk about it it kind of got
suppressed um and then um Elon brought
it up and then all of a sudden there's
now in the UK this like massive
explosion of basically open conversation
about it for the first time and you know
it's like this catalyzing all of a
sudden everybody's kind of woken up and
being like Oh my God you know this is
really bad and and and there will be now
you know I'm pretty sure pretty pretty
clearly big changes as a result so and
Elon was you know he played the role of
the boy who said the emperor has no
clothes right but but but here's the
thing here's my point like he said it
about something that was true right and
so had he said it about something that
was false you know he would get no
credit for it he wouldn't deserve any
credit for it but he said something that
was true and by the way everybody over
there instantly they were like oh yeah
he's right right like nobody like nobody
seriously said they're just arguing the
details now so so number one it's like
okay he says true things and so it's
like okay how far put it this way like
how worried are we about somebody
becoming corrupt by virtue of their
power being that they get to speak the
truth and I guess I would say especially
in the last decade of what we've been
through where everybody's been lying all
the time about everything I'd say I
think we should run this experiment as
hard as we can to get people to tell the
truth and so uh I don't feel that bad
about that and then the money side you
know this rapidly gets into the money
and politics question and the money in
politics question is this very
interesting question because um it seems
like there's a clear-cut case that the
more money in politics the worse things
are and the more corrupted the system is
um that was a very popular topic of
public convers up until 2016 um when
Hillary outspent Trump 3 to1 and lost
you'll notice that money and politics
has all almost vanished as a topic um in
the last eight years and and once again
Trump spent far you know K rised and
spent 1.5 billion on top of what Biden
spent so they were they were at I don't
know something like three three billion
total and Trump I think spent again like
a third or a fourth of that um and so
the money in politics kind of topic has
kind of vanished from the popular
conversation the last eight years it has
come back a little bit now that Elon is
spending
you know but but again like it's like
okay he's spending but the data would
seem to indicate in the last at least
the last eight years that money doesn't
win the political battles it's actually
like the voters actually have a voice
and they actually exercise it and they
don't just listen to ads and so again
there I would say like yeah clearly
there's some power there but I don't
know if it's like I don't know if it's
some like I don't know if it's some
weapon that he can just like turn on and
and use in a definitive way and I don't
know if there's parallels there but I
could also say just on a human level he
has a good heart and I interact with a
lot of powerful people and that's not
always the case so that's a good thing
there if we if we can draw parallels to
The Hobbit or
whatever who gets to put on the ring
froto froto yeah yeah I mean maybe one
of the lessons of Lord of the Rings
right is even even froto would have been
you know even froto would have been
corrupted right but you know
nevertheless you had somebody who could
do what it took at the at the time the
thing that I find just so amazing about
the Elon phenomenon and all the
critiques is um you know the one thing
that everybody in our society's agrees
on because of our sort of our our
postchristian egalitarian so you know we
live in sort of this post secularized
Christian context in the west now and
it's we you know we we consider
Christianity kind of you know backwards
but we still believe essentially all the
same things we just address them up in
in in sort of fake science um um so the
one thing that we're all told we're all
taught from from ear is that the best
people in the world are the people who
care about all of humanity right U and
we venerate you know all of our figures
are people who care about all of you
know Jesus cared about all Humanity
Gandhi cared about all Humanity Martin
Luther King cared about all Humanity
like un the person who cares the most
about everybody and and with Elon you
have a guy who literally like is he's
lit he he talks about this constantly
and he talks about exactly the same in
private is literally he is operating on
behalf of all of humanity to try to get
us to you know he goes through to get us
to be multiplanetary civilization so
that we can survive a strike on any one
planet so that we can extend the light
of human consciousness into the world
and you know into the universe and have
it persist you know in the good of the
whole thing and like literally the
critique is yeah we want you you care
about all of humanity but not like
that yeah all the critics all the all
the surface Tor all the critics will be
forgotten yeah I think that's yeah
that's clear you said that uh we always
end up being ruled by the elites of some
kind can you explain this law this idea
so this comes from a Italian political
philosopher from about 100 years ago
named Robert I'm G to mangle the let you
pronounce the Italian uh M Michelle's
um or Michaels um and then it was I
learned about it through a famous book
on on politics probably the best book on
politics written in the 20th century
called the mack of Ellens by this guy
James Burnham um who has had a big
impact on me but um in the mack of
Ellens he resurrects what he calls this
sort of Italian realist School of of
political philosophy from the from the
tens and 20s um and these were people to
be clear this was not like a musini
thing these were people who were trying
to understand the actual mechanics of
how politics actually works so to get to
the actual sort of mechanical substance
of like how the political machine
operates and um this guy Michelle's had
this concept he he ended up with called
the iron law of oligarchy um and so what
the iron law of oligarchy and I mean
take a step back to say what he meant by
oligarchy because it has multiple
meanings so basically in classic
political Theory there's basically three
forms of government at core there's
democracy which is Rule of the many
there's oligarchy which is Rule of the
few um and there's monarchy which is
Rule of the one and you can just use
that as a general framework of any
government you're going to be under is
going to be one of those just mechanical
observation without even saying which
one's good or bad just a structural
observation um and so the question that
Michelle's asked was like is there such
a thing as democracy like is there
actually such a thing as democracy is is
there ever actually like direct direct
government and what he did was he
mounted this sort of incredible
historical uh exploration of whether
democracies had ever existed in the
world and the answer basically is almost
never and we could talk about that but
the other thing he did was he he sought
out the most democratic uh private
organization in the world that he could
find at that point which he concluded
was some basically communist German Auto
Workers Union that was like wholly
devoted to the workers of the world
uniting you know back when that was like
the hot thing and he went in there and
he's like okay this is the organization
out of all organizations on planet Earth
that must be operating as a as as a
direct democracy and he went in there
and he's like oh nope there's a
leadership class you know there's like
six guys at the top and they control
everything then they lead the rest of
the membership along you know by the
nose which is of course the story of
every Union the story of every Union is
always the story of you know there's
there's a Jimmy Hof and there you know
kind of running the thing um you know
just saw that with the doc Workers Union
right like you know there's a guy um and
he's in charge and by the way the number
two is his son right like that's not
like you know an accident right so the
iron law of oligarchy basically says
democracy is fake um there's always a
ruling class there's always a ruling
Elite structurally and he said the
reason for that is because the masses
can't organize right what what's the
fundamental problem whether the masses
25,000 people in Union or 250 million
people in a country the masses can't
organize the majority cannot organize
only a minority can or organize um and
to be effective in politics you must
organize um and therefore every
political structure in human history has
been some form of a small organized
Elite ruling a large and dispersed
majority every single one um the Greeks
and the florentines had brief
experiments in direct democracy and they
were total disasters uh in Florence I
forget the name of it it was called like
the workers Revolt or something like
that there was like a 2-year period um
where they basically experimented with
direct during the Renaissance and it was
a complete disaster and they never tried
it again in the state of California we
have our own experiment on this which is
the proposition system which is an
overlay on top of the legislature and it
you know anybody who looks at it for two
seconds concludes it's been a complete
disaster it's just a catastrophe um and
it's caused enormous damage to the state
and so basically the the the basically
the presumption that we are in a
democracy is just sort of by definition
fake now good news for the US it turns
out the founders understood this and so
of course they didn't give us a direct
democracy they gave us a representative
democracy right and so they they they
built the oligarchy into the system in
the form of Congress and the and the
executive branch and the judicial branch
um but but so anyway so as a consequence
democracy is always and everywhere fake
there is always a ruling Elite um and
and basically the the the lesson of the
macallans is you can deny that if you
want but you're fooling yourself um the
way to actually think about how to make
a system work and maintain any sort of
shred of Freedom um is to actually
understand that that is actually what's
happening and uh lucky for us the
vanders saw this and figured out a way
to given that there's going to be a
ruling Elite how to create a balance of
power among that Elite yes so it doesn't
get out of hand and it was very clever
right and you know some of this was
based on earlier experiments some of
this by the way you know they these
these were very very smart people right
and so they they knew tremendous amounts
of like Greek and Roman history they
knew the Renaissance history you know
they The Federalist Papers they argued
this a great length you can read it all
um you know they they they they ran like
a one of the best seminars in world
history trying to figure this out um and
they through all this and yeah and so
they they thought through it very
carefully but just I'll give you an
example which continues to be a Hot
Topic so you know one way they did it is
through the three branches of government
right executive legislative and judicial
um sort of balance of powers but the
other way they did it was they sort of
echoing what had been done earlier I
think in the UK Parliament um uh they
created the two different bodies of the
legislature right and so the you know
the house and the Senate and as you know
the the house is a portion on the basis
of population and the Senate is not
right the small states have just as many
senators as the big States um and then
they made the deliberate decision to
have the house get reelected every 2
years to make it very responsive to the
will of the people and they made the
decision to have the Senate get
re-elected every six years so that it
had more buffer from the passions of the
moment um but what's interesting is they
didn't choose one or the other right
they did them both and then to get
legislation passed you have to get
through both of them and so they they
built in like a second layer of checks
and balances and then there's a thousand
observations we could make about like
how well the system is working today and
like how much does it live up to the
ideal and how how much are we actually
complying with the Constitution and
there's lots of you know there's lots of
open questions there but you know this
system has survived for coming on 250
years with a country that has been
spectacularly successful that I don't
think at least you know I don't think
any of us would trade this system for
any other one and so it's yeah one of
the great alltime achievements yeah it's
incredible and we should say they were
all pretty young relative to our current
they were set of leaders many in their
20s at the time and like super Geniuses
this is one of those things where it's
just like all right something happened
where there was a group of people where
you know no body ever tested their IQs
but like these are Einstein of politics
yeah an amazing thing but anyway I I I
just I go through all that which is they
were very keen students of the actual
mechanical practice of democracy not
fixated on what was desirable they were
incredibly focused on what would
actually work which is you know I think
the the way to think about these things
they were engineers of sort not the
fuzzy Humanity students of sort they
were shape rotators not word cells I
remember that wow that Meme came and
went I think were Center to them you're
Center to a lot of memes I was you're
you're the meme dealer and the meme
popularizer that Meme I get some credit
for and then the current thing is the
other one I get some credit for I don't
know that I invented either one but um I
I popularized them take credit and run
with
it uh if we can just Linger on the meave
alance it's a it's a study of power and
power dynamics like you mentioned
looking at the actual reality of the
Machinery of power from everything
you've seen now in government but also
in companies what are some interesting
things you can sort of continue to say
about the Dynamics of power the jostling
for power that happens inside these
institutions yeah so it a lot of it you
know we we already talked about this a
bit with the universities which is you
can apply a mellan style lens to the
it's why I posed the question to you
that I did which is okay who runs the
university the trustees the
administration the students or the
faculty and and you know the answer the
true answer is some combination of the
three or of the four plus the ERS by the
way plus the government plus the Press
Etc right and so there you know there's
there's a mechanical interpretation of
that I mean companies operate under the
exact same you know set of questions who
runs a company you know the CEO but like
the CEO runs the company basically up to
the day that either the shareholders or
the management team Revolt if the
shareholders Revolt it's very hard for
the CEO to stay in the seat if the
management team revolts it's very hard
for the CEO to stay in the seat by the
way if the employees Revolt it's also
hard to stay in the seat by the way if
the New York Times comes at you it's
also very hard to stay in the seat if
the Senate comes at you it's very hard
to stay in the seat so you know like a a
a a reductionist version of this that is
a good shorthand is who can get who
fired you know so so who has more power
you know the the newspaper columnist who
makes you know $200,000 a year or the
CEO who makes you know $200 million a
year and it's like well I know for sure
that the columnists can get the CEO
fired I've seen that happen before I
have yet to see a CEO get a columnist
fired did anyone ever get fired from the
bill Amman assault on journalism so Bill
Bill like really showed the bullshit
that happens in journalism no because
what happens is they they they wear it
with a I mean they and I would say to
their credit they wear it as a badge of
honor and then to their shame they wear
it as a badge of honor right which is if
you know if they're doing the right
thing then they are justifiably pring
themselves for standing up under
pressure but it also means that they
can't respond to legitimate criticism
and you know they're obviously terrible
at that now um as I recall he went
straight to the CEO of the a Springer M
that owns Insider and I you know and I I
happen to know the CEO and I think he's
quite a good CEO but like I like well
there is a good example is the CEO of
Axel Springer run his own company right
like well there's a fasc okay so there's
a fascinating thing playing out right
now got to dwell on these fires um but
um it's a you see pressure reveals
things right and so if you been watching
what's happening with the LA times
recently so so this guy biotech
entrepreneur buys the LA Times like
whatever eight years ago um it is just
like the most radical social
revolutionary thing you can Poss imagine
it endorses every crazy leftwing radical
you can imagine it endorses Karen bass
it endorses Gavin Newsome it's just like
an Litany of all the people who you know
currently burning the city to the ground
it's just like endorsed every single bad
person every step of the way um he's
owned it the entire time you know he put
his foot down right before for the first
time I think put his foot down right
before the November election and said
we're not we we're getting he said we're
going to get out of this thing where we
just always endorse a Democrat we said
we're not endorsing I think he said
we're not endorsing for the for the
presidency and like the paper flipped
out right it's like our billionaire
backer who and I don't know what he
spends but like he must be burning $50
or $100 million a year out of his pocket
to keep this thing running he paid 500
million for it which is amazing U Back
when people still thought these things
were businesses um and then he's
probably burned another 500 million over
the last decade keeping it running and
he burns probably another 50 100 million
a year to do this and the journalists at
the LA Times hate him with the fury of a
thousand Sons like they just like
absolutely freaking despise him and they
have been like attacking him and you
know the ones can get jobs elsewhere
quit and do it and the rest just stay
and say the worst you know most horrible
things about him and they want to
constantly run these stories attacking
him um and so he has had this reaction
that a lot of people in la la are having
right now to to this fire and this just
like incredibly Vivid collapse of
leadership and all these people that he
had his paper head endorsed are just
disastrous um and he he's on this tour
he's basically just he's decided he's
he's decided to be the the boy who says
the emperor has no clothes but he's
doing it to his own newspaper very smart
guy he's not a press tour and he's
basically saying yeah we we yes we did
all that and we endorsed all these
people and it was a huge mistake and
we're going to completely change and his
paper is you know in a complete internal
Revolt but I go through it which is okay
now we have a very interesting question
which is who runs the La
times because for the last eight years
it hasn't been
him it's been the
reporters now for the first time the
owner is showing up saying oh no I'm
actually in charge and the reporters are
saying no you're not and like like it is
freaking on and so again if the the
Mel's mindset on this is like okay how
is power actually exercised here can can
can a guy who's like even super rich and
super powerful who even owns his own
newspaper can he stand up to a full
scale assault not only by his own
reporters but by every other journalism
Outlet who also now thinks he's the
Antichrist and he is trying to exercise
Power by speaking out publicly and so
that's the game of power there and
firing people and you know he has
removed people and he has set new rules
I mean he he is he is now I think at
long I think he's saying he's now at
long last actually exercising
prerogatives of owner of a business
which just decide on the policies and
Staffing of the business there are
certain other owners of these
Publications that are doing similar
things right now um he's the one I don't
know so he's the one I can talk about um
but there are others that are going
through the same thing right now um and
I think it's a really interesting open
question like you know in a fight
between the employees and the employer
like it's not crystal clear that the
employer wins that one and just to stay
on journalism for a second we mentioned
Bill lman I just want to say put him in
the category we mentioned before of a
really courageous person I don't think
I've ever seen anybody so
Fearless in going
after you know in following what he
believes in publicly that's courage that
that that several things he's done
publicly has been really inspiring just
being courageous what do you think is
like the most impressive example where
he went after a journalist whose whole
incentive is to like I mean it's uh it's
like sticking your like kicking the
beehive or whatever you know what's
going to
follow and do that I mean that's why
it's difficult to challenge journalistic
organizations because they're going to
you know there's just so many mechanisms
they use including like writing articles
and get cited by Wikipedia then drive
the narrative and then they can get you
fired all this kind of stuff Bill Amman
like a bad mfer just just tweets these
essays and just goes after them uh
legally and also in the public and just
I I don't know that was truly inspiring
there's not many people like that out uh
in public and I hopefully that inspires
not just me but many others to be like
to be courageous themselves did you know
of him before he started doing this in
public I knew of ner his his wife she's
just brilliant researcher and scientist
and so I I admire her look up to her
think she's amazing well the reason I
ask if you knew about Bill is because a
lot of people had not heard of him
before especially like before October
7th and before some of the campaigns
he's been running sens in public but um
and with Harvard and so forth but um he
was very well known in the in the
investment world before before that so
uh he was a famous um he's a so-called
activ activist investor for you know
very very successful and very widely
respected for probably 30 years before
before before now and and I bring that
up because it it turns out they weren't
for the most part battles that happen in
kind of full public view they weren't
National stories but in the business and
investing world the activist investor is
a very it's like in the movie Taken it's
a very specific set of skills um
yeah on how to like really take control
of situations um and how to wreck the
people who you're going up against um
and um just and there's lot there's been
controversy over the years on this topic
and there's too much detail to go into
but the the defense of activist
investing which I think is valid is um
you know these are the guys who
basically go in and take stakes in
companies that are being poorly managed
or under optimized and and and and then
generally what that means is at least
the theory is that means the existing
management has become entrenched and
lazy mediocre you know whatever not
you're responding to the needs of the
shareholders often not responding to the
customers um and the activists basically
go in with a minority position and then
they rally support among other investors
who are not activists um and then they
basically show up and they force change
um but they are the aggressive version
of this um and I've been on the I've
been involved in companies that have
been on the receiving end of these oh um
where it is amazing how much somebody
like that can exert pressure on
situations even when they don't have
formal control so so it's another it
would be another chess p on the
mechanical Board of kind of how power
gets exercised and basically what
happens is the effective analysts a
large amount of the time they end up
taking they end up taking over control
of companies even though they never own
more than like 5% of the stock and so
anyway so it turns out with bills it's
such a fascinating case because he has
that like complete skill set um and he
has now decided to bring it to bear in
areas that are not just companies and
two interesting things for that one is
you know some of these places you know
and some of these battles are still
ongoing but number one like a lot of
people who run universities or
newspapers are not used to being up
against somebody like this um and by the
way also now with infinitely Deep
Pockets and lots of experience in
courtrooms and all the things that kind
of go with that um but the other is
through example he is teaching a lot of
the rest of us the activist Playbook
like in real time and so the Liam need
skill set is getting more broadly
diffused um just by being able to watch
and learn from him so I think he I think
he's having a you know I would put him
up there with Elon in terms of somebody
who's really affecting how all this is
playing out but even skill set aside
just courage and yes including by the
way C courage to go outside of his own
Zone yeah right um you know because like
he has I'll give you an example like my
my firm vure Capital firm we have LPS
there are things that I feel like I
can't do or say because I feel like I
would be bringing you know I would be
bringing embarrassment or other
consequences to rlps he has investors
also where he worries about that um and
so his so a couple things one is his
willingness to go out a bit and risk his
relationship with his own investors but
I will tell you the other thing which is
his investors I know this for a fact his
investors have been remarkably
supportive of him doing that because as
it turns out a lot of them actually
agree with him um and
so he's it's the same thing he does in
his activism campaigns he is able to be
the tip of the spear on something that
actually a lot more people agree with
yeah it turns out if you have truth
behind you it it helps and just again
you know how I started is a lot of
people are just fed up you've been
spending a bunch of time in Mar Lago and
Palm Beach helping the new
Administration in many ways including uh
interviewing people whom I join so uh
what's the general sense about the
talent about the people who are coming
in into the new
Administration so I should start by
saying I'm not a member of the new
Administration um I'm not I'm not in the
room I'm not like in the room when a lot
of these people are being selected I
believe you said unpaid intern I am an
unpaid intern uh so I'm I'm I'm a
volunteer and you know when helpful but
I'm not I I'm not making the decisions
nor am I in a position to you know speak
for the administration so I don't want
to say anything that would cause people
to think I'm doing that this a very
unusual situation right where you had an
incumbent president and then you had a
four-year Gap where he's out of office
and then you have him coming back right
um and as you'll recall there was a fair
amount of controversy over the end of
the first term oh yeah the fear the
specific concern was um you know the
first Trump Administration they you know
they they will all say this is like they
didn't come in with a team right so they
you know they didn't come in with a team
and most of the sort of institutional
base of the Republican Party were Bush
Republicans and they were and many of
them had become never trumpers and so
they had a hard time putting the team
together and then by the way they had a
hard time getting people confirmed and
so if you talk to the people who were
there in the first term it took them two
to three years to kind of even get
government in place and then they
basically only had the government in
place for um you know for basically like
18 months and then Co hit you know and
then sort of aftermath and everything
and all the all the drama and headlines
and everything and so the the concern
you know including from some very smart
people in the last two years has been
boy if Trump gets a second term is he
going to be able to get a team that is
as good as the team he had last time or
a team that is actually not as good
because maybe people got burned out
maybe they're more cynical now maybe
they're not willing to go through the
drama by the way a lot of people on in
the first term came under like you know
their own withering legal assaults and
you know some of them went to prison and
like you know a lot of lot of stuff
happened uh lots of Investigations lots
of legal fees um lots of bad press um
lots of debank by the way a lot of the
officials in the first Trump term got
debanked um including the president's
wife and son yeah I heard you tell that
story that's insane that's just insane
in the wake of the first term yes we we
now take out spouses and children with
our ring of power um and so there there
was like this legitimate question as to
like whether okay what what will the
team for the second term look like and
at least what I've seen and what you're
seeing the the appointments is it looks
much much better U first of all it just
looks better than the first term and not
because the people in the first term
were not necessarily good but just you
you just have this like influx of like
incredibly capable people that have
shown up that want to be part of this um
and you just didn't have that the first
time um and so they they're just drawing
on a much deeper richer talent pool than
they had the first time and and they're
drawing on people who know what the game
is like they're drawing on people now
who know what is going to happen and
they're still willing to do it um and so
they're going to get I think you know
some of the best people from the first
term but they're bringing in a lot of
people who they couldn't get uh the
first time around um and then second is
there's a bunch of people including
people in the first term where they're
just 10 years older um and so they went
through the first term and they just
learned how everything works um or there
young people who just had a different
point of view and now they're 10 years
older and they're ready to go serve in
government um and so there's a
generational shift happening and
actually one of the interesting things
about the team that's forming up is it's
remarkably young some of the cabinet
members and then many of the second and
third level people people are like in
their 30s and 40s you know which is a
big change from the jocy that you know
we've been under for the last 30 years
um and so I think the caliber has been
outstanding you know we could sit here
and list tons and tons of people but
like you know the people who are running
you know it's everything from the people
who are running all the different
departments at HHS it's the people
running you know the the number two at
the Pentagon is Steve heinberg who's
just like an incredible Legend of
private Equity incredible capable guy um
we've got uh two actually two of my
partners are going in who I both think
are amazing yeah like many many parts of
the government the people are like
really impressive well I think one of
the concerns is is actually
that um given the human being of Donald
Trump that there would be more tendency
towards let's say favoritism versus
meritocracy that there's kind of circles
of sick of fancy that form and if you're
be able to uh be
loyal and never oppose and just be uh
basically suck up to the president that
you'll get a position so that's one of
the concerns and I think you're in a
good position to speak to the degree
that's happening
versus uh hiring based on Merit and just
getting great teams yeah so look I just
start by saying any leader at that level
by the way any CEO there's always some
risk of that right so there there's
always some you know it's just it's like
a natural reality Wars around around
powerful leaders and so there's always
some risk to that of course the good
powerful leaders are you know very aware
of that and Trump this point in his life
I think is highly aware of that at least
in my interactions with him like he he
he definitely seems very aware of that
so um so so that's one thing I would
just say that I think the way to look at
that I mean look like I said I don't
want to predict what's going to happen
once this whole thing starts unfolding
but um I I would just say again the
caliber of the people who are showing up
and getting the jobs and then the fact
that these are some of the most
accomplished people in the business
World um and in the medical field um I I
just you know Jay bataria coming in run
NIH when so I was actually in the I was
actually I was part of the interview
team for a lot of the h CH folks um Jay
is amazing oh I was so I was so happy to
see that so I literally got this is
story I got to the the the transition
office for one of the days of the HS
interviews and I was on one of the
interview teams and they gave us I
didn't know who the candidates were and
they gave us the sheet in the beginning
and I go on the sheet and I saw Jay's
name and I like I almost physically fell
it on my chair yeah right and I was just
like you know and I have I haveen to
know I have to noj and I like respect
him enormously and then he proved
himself under this like talk about a guy
who proved himself under extraordinary
pressure uh over the last 5 years and
then so radical under the pressure he
maintained balance and thoughtfulness
and depth I mean incredible very serious
very analytical very applied and and and
and yes 100% tested Under Pressure came
out like the more people look back at
what he said and did and you know he's
not you know none of us are perfect but
like
overwhelmingly like overwhelmingly
insightful throughout that whole period
um and you know we you know we would all
be much better off today had he been in
charge of the response um and and so
just like an incredibly capable guy and
and look and then he learned from all
that right he he learned a lot in the
last 5 years um and so the idea that
somebody like that could be had of NIH
as compared to the people we've had is
just like breathtakingly it's just a
gigantic upgrade um you know and then
Marty Macker coming in to run FDA exact
same thing um the guy coming to run a
CDC exact same thing um um um I mean
I've been spending time with Dr Oz um so
um you know I'm not like again I'm not
like I'm not on these teams I'm not in
the room but like I've been spending
enough time trying to help that like his
level of insight into into the
Healthcare System like it's like
astounding and it comes from being a guy
who's been like in the middle of the
whole thing and been talking to people
about this stuff and working on it and
serving as a doctor himself and in
medical systems for you know his entire
life and it's just like you know he's
like a walking encyclopedia on these
things and so and you know very Dynamic
you know very charismatic very smart
organized effective um so you know to
have somebody like that in there and so
anyway there just I have like 30 of
these stories now across all these
different um all these different
positions and so I and then I just I'd
be quite honest you do the compare and
contrast to the last four years and it's
not even these people are not in the
same ballpark they're just like wildly
better um and so you know
pound-for-pound is may be the best team
in the white house since you know I
don't even know maybe the 90s maybe
the maybe the
30s maybe the 50s you know maybe
Eisenhower had a team like this or
something but um it it's it's there's a
lot of really good people in there now
yeah the potential for change is
certainly extremely high well can you
speak to Doge
what's the most wildly successful next
two years for Doge can you imagine maybe
also can you think about the trajectory
that's the most likely and uh what kind
of challenges would it be facing yeah so
and start by saying again I'm not
disclaimer I have to disclaim I'm not on
Doge I'm not a member of Doge we we
should say there's about 10 lawyers in
the room they're staring no I'm just
kidding both the angels and the Devils
on my shoulder so yeah so I'm not
speaking for Doge I'm not in charge of
Doge um those guys are doing it I'm not
doing it but I am you know again I'm I'm
volunteering to help as much as I can um
and I'm 100% supportive um yeah so look
I I I think the way to think I mean the
basic outlines are in public right which
is it's a it's a Time limited you know
basically commission um uh it's not a
formal government agency um it's a you
know time limited
18month um it'll it'll in terms of
implementation it will advise the
executive branch right and so the the
the implementation will happen through
the the house um the president has total
attitude on what he wants to what he
wants to implement um and then basically
what I think about it is three kind of
streams you know kind of Target sets and
they're related but different so money
uh people and
regulations um and so you know the
headline number they you know put us the
$2 trillion dollar number and there's
already you know disputes over over that
whatever and there's a whole question
there but then there's the people thing
and the people think is interesting
because you get into these very um kind
of um fascinating questions um and I've
been doing this I I won't do this for
you as a pop quiz but I do this for
people in government as a pop quiz and I
can stump them every time which is a how
many federal agencies are there and the
answer is somewhere between 450 and 520
and nobody's quite sure and then the
other is how many people work for the
federal government um and the answer is
you know something on the order I forget
but like four million full-time
employees and maybe up to 20 million
contractors and nobody's quite sure and
so there's a large people component to
this um and then by the way there's a
related component to that which is how
many of them are actually in the office
and the answer is not many most of the
federal buildings are still empty right
and so and then there's questions of
like are people you know working from
home or are we actually working from
home so there's the people Dimension and
of course the money and the people are
connected and then there's the third
which is the regulation thing right and
I I described earlier how basically our
system of government is much more now
based on regulations than legislation
right most of the rules that we all live
under are not from a bill that went
through Congress they're from an agency
that that created a regulation that
turns out to be very very important so
one is Elon have already described we
want to do the Doge wants to do
broad-based regulatory relief and Trump
has talked about this and basically get
the government off people's backs and
Liberate the American people to be able
to do things again um so that's part of
it but there's also something else
that's happened which is very
interesting which was there were a set
of Supreme Court decisions about two
years ago um that went directly after
the idea that the executive branch can
create Regulatory Agencies and issue
regulations and enforce those
regulations without corresponding
Congressional legislation um and most of
the federal government that exists today
including most of the Departments and
most of the rules and most of the money
and most of the people most of it is not
enforcing laws the Congress passed most
of it is is regulation and the Supreme
Court basically said large Parts you
know large to maybe all of that
regulation that did not directly result
from a bill that went through Congress
the way that the cartoon said that it
should um that may not actually be legal
now the previous White house of course
was super in favor of big government
they had no desire to they did nothing
based on this they they didn't you know
pull anything back in but the new regime
if they choose to could say look the the
thing that we're doing here is not you
know challenging the laws we're actually
complying with the Supreme Court
decision that basically says we have to
unwind a lot of this and we have to
unwind the regulations which are no
longer legal constitutional we have to
unwind the spend and we have to unwind
the people um and and so and that's how
you get from basically you connect the
thread from the regulation part back to
the money part back to the people part
um they have work going on all three of
these threads they have I would say
incredibly creative ideas on how to deal
with this um I'm I I know lots of former
government people who 100% of them are
super cynical on this topic and they're
like this is impossible this could never
possibly work and I'm like well I can't
tell you what the secret plans are but
like like blow my mind like and all
three of those like they they have ideas
that are like really quite amazing as
you'd expect from you know from from the
people involved and so um over the
course of the next few months you know
that'll start to become
visible and then the final thing I would
say is um this is going to be very
different than than attempts like there
have been other programs like this in
the past um the Clinton Gore
administration had one and then their
brothers before that Reagan had one um
the the difference is this time there
social
media um and so there has never been
like it's interesting one of the reasons
people in Washington are so cynical is
because they know all the bullshit like
they know all the bad spending and all
the bad rules and all the like you know
I mean look we're adding a trillion
dollars to the national debt every 100
days right now and that's compounding
and it's now passing the size of the
defense department budget and it's
compounding and it's pretty soon it's
going to be adding a trillion dollars
every 90 days and then it's going to be
adding a trillion dollars every 80 days
and then it's going to be trillion
dollars every 70 days and then if this
doesn't get fixed at some point we enter
a hyperinflationary spiral and we become
Argentina or Brazil
and K right and so like everybody in DC
knows that something has to be done and
then everybody in DC knows for a fact
that it's impossible to do
anything right they know all the
problems and they also know the sheer
impossibility of fixing it but I think
what they're not taking into account
what the critics are not taking into
account is these guys can do this in the
full light of day and they can do it on
social media they can completely bypass
the Press they can completely bypass the
cynicism they can expose any element of
you know unconstitutional or you know
Silly government spending they can run
Victory laps every single day on what
they're doing they can they can bring
the people into the process and again if
you think about it this goes back to our
mellan structure which is if you think
about again you've got democracy
oligarchy monarchy rule of the many rule
of the few rule of the one you could
think about what's happening here as a
little bit of a sandwich right which is
you have you have we don't have a
monarch but we have a president rule of
the one with some power and then we have
the people who can't organize but they
can be informed and they can be aware
and they can express themselves through
voting and polling right and so there's
a sandwich happening right now is a way
to think about it which is you've got
basically monarch monarchy you got rule
of one combining with rule of many right
rule of many is they do get to vote
right the people do get to vote
basically and then essentially Congress
as and the sort of permanent
bureaucratic class in Washington as the
oligarchy in the middle and so the White
House plus the people um I think have
the power to do all kinds of things here
and I and I think that that would be the
way I would watch it the
transparency I mean Elon just uh by who
he is in is incentivized to be
transparent and show the bullshit in the
system and to celebrate the victories so
it's going to be so exciting I mean
honestly just makes government more
exciting which is a win for everybody
these people are spending our money yeah
these people have enormous contempt for
the taxpayer okay here's the thing you
hear in Washington here's one of the
things so the first thing you hear is
this is impossible they'll be able to do
nothing and then I walk them through
this and they're like they start to get
it starts to Dawn on them that this is a
new kind of thing and then they're like
well it doesn't matter because all the
money is in entitlements and the debt
and the military and so like yeah you've
got like this silly fake whatever you
know NPR funding or whatever and like it
just it's a rounding ER and it doesn't
matter and you look it up in the budget
and it's like whatever $500 million or5
billion or it's or it's the the the the
it's the charging stations that don't
exist it's the $40 billion of charging
stations and they build eight charging
stations or it's the it's the broadband
internet plan that delivered Broadband
to nobody right and cost you $30 billion
like so these boondoggles and what
everybody in Washington says is that $30
billion is a rounding area on the
federal budget it doesn't matter who
cares if they if they if they make it go
away and of course any taxpayer is like
what
theu what do you mean it's $30 billion
yeah right and then then the experts are
like and the Press is in on this too
then the experts are like well it
doesn't it doesn't matter because it's
rounding area no no it's $30 billion and
if you're this Cavalier about $30
billion imagine how Cavalier you are
about the 3 trillion yeah okay then
there's the okay $30 billion is $30
billion a lot of the federal budget in
percentage no it's not but $30 billion
divided by 30 do the math $30 billion
divided by let's say 300 million
taxpayers right like what's that Ma math
expert $100 $100 per taxpayer per year
okay so $100 to an ordinary person
working hard every day to make money and
provide for their kids $100 is a meal
out it's a trip to the amusement park
it's the ability to you know buy
additional educational materials it's
the ability to have a babysitter to be
able to have a romantic relationship
with your wife it's there's like a
hundred things that that person can do
with $100 that they're not doing because
it's going to some bullshit program that
is being basically where the money is
being looted out in the form of just
like ridiculous ridiculousness in CFT
and so the idea that that $3 billion
program is not something that is like a
very important thing to go after is just
like the level of contempt for the
taxpayer is just off the charts and then
that's just one of those programs and
there's like a hundred of those programs
and they're all just like that like it's
not like any of the stuff is running
well like the one thing we know is that
none of this stuff is running well like
we know that for sure
right and like we know these people
aren't showing up to work and like we
know that all this crazy stuff is
happening right um like you know the the
do you remember elon's story of the um
do you remember elon's story of what got
the Amish to turn out to vote in
Pennsylvania oh okay so like
Pennsylvania okay so Pennsylvania is
like a wonderful State great history it
has these cities like Philadelphia that
have descended like other cities into
just like complete chaos violence
Madness and death right and the federal
government has just like let it happen
it's incredibly violent places and so
the Biden Administration decided that
the big pressing law enforcement thing
that they needed to do Pennsylvania was
that they needed to start raiding Amish
farms to prevent them from selling raw
milk with armed raids right and it turns
out it really pissed off the A and it
turns out they weren't willing to drive
to the polling places because they don't
have cars but if you came and got them
they would go and they would vote and
that's one of the reasons why Trump W
anyway so like the law enforcement
agencies are off working on like crazy
things like the system's not working and
so you you add up pick $130 billion
programs all right now you're okay math
major 100 times 100 $10,000 $10,000 okay
$10,000 per taxpayer per year and but
but it's also not just about money
that's really obviously money is a
hugely important thing but it's the
Cavalier attitude yes that then in sort
of in the ripple effect of
that it makes it so nobody wants to work
in government and be productive it makes
it so the corruption can it breeds
corruption it breeds laziness it breeds
secrecy cuz you don't want to be
transparent about having done nothing
all year all this kind of stuff and you
want to reverse that so it would be
exciting for the future to work at
government to because the the amazing
thing if you were to steal man
government is you can do shit at scale
you have money and you can directly
impact people's lives in a positive uh
sense at scale that's it's super
exciting as long as there's no
bureaucracy that slows you down or not
huge amount of bureaucracy that slows
you down significantly yeah so uh here's
here's the TR this blew my mind because
I was you know once you look into once
you open the hellmouth of looking into
the federal budget you learn all kinds
of things um so there is a term of Art
in government called
impoundment and so you you if you're
like me you've learned this the hard way
when your car has been impounded the
government meaning of impoundment the
federal budget meaning is a is a
different meaning um empowerment is as
follows the Constitution uh requires
Congress to authorize money to be spent
by the executive branch right so the the
the Executive Branch goes to Congress
says we need money X Congress does their
thing they come back and they say you
can have money y the money is
appropriated from Congress the executive
branch spends it on the military or
whatever they spend it on or on roads to
Nowhere charging stations to Nowhere or
whatever um the and what's in the
constitution is the the Congress
appropriates the money um over the last
60 years um there has been an additional
interpretation of Appropriations applied
by the courts um and by the system um
which is the Branch not only needs
Congress to appropriate x amount of
money the executive branch is not
allowed topend yeah I'm aware of this
I'm aware of this and so there's this
thing that happens in Washington at the
end of every fiscal year which is
September 30th and it's the it's the
great budget flush and any remaining
money that's in the system that they
don't know how to productively spend
they deliberately spend it
unproductively yep to the tune of
hundreds and hundreds of billions of
dollars a president that doesn't want to
spend the money canot spend it yeah like
okay a that's not what's in the
Constitution um and there's actually
quite a good Wikipedia page that goes
through the the great debate on this has
played out in the legal world over the
last 60 years and like basically if you
look at this with anything resembling I
think an open mind you're like all right
this is not what the founders meant um
and then number two again we go back to
this thing of contempt like can you
imagine showing up and running the
government like that and thinking that
you're doing the right thing and not
going home at night and thinking that
you've sold your soul right like it's
just like I actually think sort of
headed into a really good point which is
it's even unfair to the people who have
to execute this yeah right because it
makes them it makes them bad people and
they didn't they didn't start out
wanting to be bad people and so there is
stuff like this like yeah everywhere
everywhere and so we'll see how far
these guys get I'm I am extremely
encouraged what I've what I've seen so
far it seems like a lot of people try to
slow them down but yeah I hope they get
far yeah another difficult topic
immigration what's your take on the uh
let's say heated H1B Visa debate that's
going on online and legal immigration in
general yeah to start by saying I am not
involved in any aspect of government
policy on this I not planning to be this
is not an issue that I'm working on or
that I'm going to work on I'm we're not
this is not part of the agenda of what
the firm is doing so my firm is doing so
like I'm not I'm not in I'm not in this
in the new Administration or the
government I'm not planning to be so
purely just personal opinion so I would
say I would describe I have as a complex
or nuanced hopefully nuanced view on on
this issue that's maybe a little bit
different than what a lot of my peers
um and I think and I kind of thought
about this you know I didn't say
anything about it all the way through
the big kind of debate over Christmas
but I thought about it a lot and read
everything um I think what I realized is
that I just have a very different
perspective on some of these things and
the reason is because of the combination
of where I came from and then where I
end ended up um and so um let's start
with this I where I ended up Silicon
Valley so um and I have made the pro
skilled High skill immigration argument
many many times the H1B argument many
times in past lives I've been in DC many
times arguing with prior administrations
about this always on the side of trying
to get more h-1bs and trying to get more
High skilled immigration um and you know
I think that argument is very strong and
very solid and very um you know has paid
off for the US in some in many many ways
and we can go through it but I think
it's the argument everybody already
knows right it's like the stock you take
any silicon value person you press the
button and they tell you why we need to
brain drain the world to get more h1p
right so everybody kind of gets that
argument so it's basically just to
summarize it's a mechanism by which you
can get super smart people from the rest
of the world import them in keep them
here to uh increase the productivity of
the U us companies yeah and and then and
then and then it's not just good for the
them and it's not just good for Silicon
Valley or the tech industry it's good
for the country because they then create
new companies and create new
technologies and create new industries
that then create many more jobs for
Americans native born Americans than
would have previously existed and so
you've got a it's a positive sum
flywheel thing where everybody wins like
everybody wins there are no trade-offs
it's all absolutely glorious in all
directions you cannot possibly there
cannot possibly be a moral right
argument against it under any
circumstances anybody who argues against
it is obviously doing so from a position
of racism is probably a fascist and a
Nazi right right I mean right that's the
thing and like I said I've made that
argument many times I'm very comfortable
with that argument and then I'd also say
look I I I would say number one I
believe a lot of it I'll talk about the
parts I don't believe but I believe a
lot of it and then the other part is
look I I benefit every day I I I always
describe it as I work in in the United
Nations like I my own firm and our
Founders and our companies and the
industry um and my friends um you know
are just this like amazing you know
panoply cornicopia of people from all
over the world um and you know I just
I've worked I don't at this point where
people from it's got to be I don't know
80 countries or something um and
hopefully over time it'll be you know
the rest as well and you know it's just
it's been amazing and they've done many
of the most important things in my
industry and it's it's been really
remarkable so so that's all good um and
then you know there's just the practical
of the argument which is we are the we
are the main place these people get
educated anyway right they the the best
and the brightest tend to come here to
get educated and so you know this is the
old kind of Mitt Romney staple a green
card to every you know at least you know
maybe not every University degree but
every technical degree maybe the
sociologists we could quibble about but
you know the roboticist for sure for
sure for sure we can all agree that at
least I W you over on something today
well no I'm I'm exaggerating for effect
so and I lost you I had you for a second
I hav I haven't gotten to the other side
of the argument yet okay thank you so
surely we can all
agree that uh we need to staple a green
card the roller coaster is going up the
roller coaster is rationing slowly up so
um yeah so surely we can all agree that
the roboticist should all get green
cards and again like there's a lot of
Merit to that obviously like look we
want the US to be the world leader in
robotics what's step one to being the
world leader in robotics is have all the
great robotics people right like you
know very unlike the Underpants noome
it's like a very straightforward formula
right yeah all right that's all well and
good all right but it gets a little bit
more complicated um because um there is
a kind of argument that's sort of right
underneath that that you also hear from
you know these same people and I have
made this argument myself many times
which is we need to do this because we
don't have enough people in the US who
can do it otherwise right we have all
these unfilled jobs we've got all these
you know all these companies that
wouldn't exist we don't have enough good
Founders we don't have enough Engineers
we don't have enough scientists or or
then the next version of the argument
below that is our education system is
not good enough to generate those people
um and which is a weird argument by the
way because like our education system is
good enough for foreigners to be able to
come here preferentially and like a very
large number of cases but somehow not
good enough to educate our own native
born people so there's like a weird
these little cracks in the Matrix that
you can kind of stick your fingernail
into and kind of wonder about and we'll
come back to that one but like at least
yes our education system has its flaws
and then and then underneath that is the
is the argument that you know VC made um
you know which is you know we have a
cultural rot in the country and you know
native born people in the country aren't
you know don't work hard enough and
spend too much time watching TV and Tik
Tok and don't spend enough time studying
differential you know equations um and
again it's like all right like you know
yeah there's a fair amount to that like
there's a lot of American culture that
um is um you know there's a lot of
frivolity there's a lot of you know look
I mean we have well documented social
issues in many fronts many things that
cut against having a culture of just
like straightforward high achievement
and and effort and
striving anyway like you know those are
the basic arguments um but then I have
this kind of other side of my you know
kind of personality and thought process
which is well I grew up in a small
farming town in rural Wisconsin the
rural Midwest and you know it's
interesting there's not a lot of people
who make it from Ral Wisconsin to you
know
Hightech um and so it's like all right
why is that exactly right and and I know
I'm an aberration like I I was the only
one from anybody I ever knew who ever
did this right I know what an aberration
I am and I know exactly how that
aberration happened and it's a very
unusual you know set of steps um
including you know many that were just
luck um but like it there is in no sense
a talent flow from Earl Wisconson into
high-tech like not at all um there is
also like in no sense a talent flow from
the rest of the Midwest into Hightech
there is no Talent flow from the south
into high-tech there is no flow from the
Sun Belt into Hightech there is no flow
from you know the Deep South in the
Hightech like just like literally it's
like the blank there's this whole
section of the country that just where
the people just like for some reason
don't end up in Tech now that's a little
bit strange because these are the people
who put a man on the moon these are the
people who built the World War II war
machine these are the people at least
their ancestors are the people who built
the Industrial Revolution and built the
railroads and built the telephone
Network telephone Network and built you
know Logistics and transportation in the
auto I mean the Auto industry was built
in Cleveland and Detroit and so at least
these people's parents and grandparents
and great-grandparents somehow had the
wherewithal to like build all of this
like amazing things invent all these
things and then there's many many many
many stories in the history of American
invention and Innovation and capitalism
where you had people who grew up in the
middle of nowhere Pho Farnsworth who
invented the television and just like
you know tons and tons of others endless
stories like this now you have a look a
puzzle right and a conundrum which is
like okay like what is happening on the
blank spot of the map and then of course
you also can't help noticing that the
blank spot on the map the Midwest the
South you've also just defined Trump
country the Trump voter base right it's
like oh that's interesting like how how
did that happen right and so either you
really really really have to believe the
very very strong version of like the
vvec thesis or something where you have
to believe that like that basically
culture the whole sort of civilization
in the middle of the country and the
south of the country is so like deeply
flawed either inherently flawed or
culturally flawed such that for whatever
reason they are not able to do the
things that they're you know parents and
Grandparents were able to do and that
their peers are able to do or something
else is happening would you care to
guess on what else is happening mean
what affirmative action affirmative
action okay this is very think about
this is very entertaining right what are
the three things that we know about
affirmative action it is absolutely 100%
necessary but however it cannot explain
the success of any one
individual right nor does it have any
victims at all I they could explain
maybe disproportionate but like it it
surely doesn't explain why you're
probably the only person in silon Valley
from Wisconsin what educational
institution the last 60 years has wanted
Farm boys from Wisconsin but what
institution rejected farmboys from
Wisconsin all of them all of them of
course okay so we know this we know this
the reason we know this is because of
the Harvard and UNC Court Supreme Court
cases so so this was like three years
ago these were these were big court
cases and you know that because the idea
of affirmative action has been litigated
for many many many years and through
many court cases and the Supreme Court
repeatedly in the past had upheld that
it was a completely legitimate thing to
do and a lot of these and there's
basically two categories of affirmative
action that like really matter right the
one is um the admissions into
educational institutions and then the
other is jobs right getting hired like
those are the two biggest areas the
education one is like super potent has
been a super potent political issue for
a very long time for all you know people
have written and talked about this for
many decades I don't I don't need to go
through it there's many arguments for
why it's important there's many
arguments as to how it could backfire
it's been this thing but the Supreme
Court upheld it for a very long time um
the most the most recent ruling I don't
I'm not a lawyer I don't have the exact
reference in my head but there was a
case in 2003 that said that um Senor
deoc Conor famously wrote that um you
know it although it had been 30 years of
affirmative action and although it was
not working remotely as it had had been
intended um uh she said that you know
well basically we need to try it for
another 25 years but she said basically
as a message to Future Supreme Court
Justices if it hasn't resolved basic
basically the issues it's intended to
resolve within 25 years then we should
probably call it off by the way we're
coming up on the 25 years let a couple
years away uh the Supreme Court just uh
had these cases it was a Harvard case
and I think a University of North
Carolina case and what's interesting
about those cases is the the lawyers in
those cases put a tremendous amount of
evidence into the record of how the
admissions decisions actually happen um
at Harvard and happen at UNCC and it is
like every bit as cartoonishly garish
and racist as you could possibly imagine
because it's a ring of power and if
you're an admissions officer at a
private university or an administrator
you have unlimited power to do what you
want and you can justify any of it under
any of these rules or systems um and up
until these cases it had been a black
box where you didn't have to explain
yourself and show your work and and what
the Harvard and USC cases did is they
basically required showing the work and
so they and there was like all kinds of
like phenomenal detail I mean number one
there were text messages in there that
will just curl your hair of people of
students being spoken of and just like
crude racial stereotypes that would just
make you want to jump out the window
it's horrible stuff but also um there
was statistical information and of
course the big statistical kicker to the
whole thing is that at top institutions
it's common for different different
ethnic groups to have different cut offs
for sat uh that are as wide as 400
points um right so different groups so
so so a specifically Asians need to
perform at 400 sat points higher than
other ethnicities in order to actually
get admitted into these I mean this not
even about I mean white people are a
part of this but like Asians are like a
very big part of this and actually the
the Harvard case was actually brought by
an activist on behalf of actually the
Asian students who are being turned away
um and it it's basically I mean it's the
cliche now in in in the valley and in
the medical community which is like if
you want a Super Genius you hire an
Asian from Harvard because they are
guaranteed to be freaking Einstein
because if they weren't they were never
getting admitted right almost all the
qualified as get turned away um so
they've been running this it's very very
very explicit very very clear program um
this of course has been a third rail of
things that people are not supposed to
discuss under any circumstances um the
thing that has really changed the tenor
on this is I think two things number one
those Supreme Court cases the Supreme
Court ruled that they can no longer do
that I will tell you I don't believe
there's a single education institution
in America that is conforming with the
Supreme Court ruling um I think they're
all flagrantly ignoring it and we could
talk about that mostly giv a momentum
probably or what they are trying to make
the world a better place they are trying
to solve all these social problems they
are trying to have diverse student
populations they are trying to live up
to the expectations of their donors they
are trying to make their faculty happy
they are trying to um have their friends
and family think that they're good
people right they're trying to have the
Press write nice things about
them like it's nearly impossible for
them and and you know to be clear like
nobody has been fired from an admissions
office for you know 25 years of Prior
what we now the Supreme Court now is
rulle to be illegality um and so they're
all the same people under the exact same
pressures um and so um like I you know
the numbers are moving a little bit but
like I don't think I don't know anybody
in the system who thinks that they're
complying with the Supreme Court like
who's in charge in the rank ordering of
who rules who the universities rule the
Supreme Court way more than the Supreme
Court rules the universities right well
another example of that is I think it's
is that every sitting member of the
Supreme Court right now went to either
Harvard or Yale right like the the level
of incestuous here is like is any anyway
so so there's that and so so this has
been running for a very long time so one
is the harbard and UNC cases kind of
gave up the game number one or at least
show showed what the mechanism was uh
and then number two the other thing is
obviously the the aftermath of October
7th right um and what we discovered was
happening with Jewish applicants um and
what was happening at all the top
institutions for Jewish applicants was
they were being managed down they being
actively managed down as a percentage of
the of of the base um and um let's see I
I've heard reports of like extremely
explicit um basically plans to manage to
manage the Jewish admissions down to
their representative percentage of the
US population which is 2% and you know
there's a whole backstory here which is
100 years ago Jews were not admitted
into a lot of these institutions and
then there was a big campaign to get
them in once they could get in they
immediately became 30% of these
institutions because there's so many
smart talented Jews so it went from 0%
to 30% and then the most recent
generation of leadership has been trying
to get it down to 2% and a lot of Jewish
people at least a lot of Jewish people I
know sort of they kind of knew this was
happening but they discovered it the
hard way uh after October 7th right and
so all of a sudden so so basically the
the Supreme Court case meant that you
could address this in terms of the Asian
victims the October 7th meant that you
could address it in terms of the Jewish
victims and for sure both of those
groups are being systematically excluded
right and then of course um there's the
thing that you basically can't talk
about which is all the white people are
being
excluded and then it turns out it's also
happening to black people and this is
the thing that like blew my freaking
mind when I found out about it so um I
just assumed that like this was great
news for like American blacks because
like you know obviously if you know
whites Asians and Jews are being
excluded then you know the whole point
of this in the beginning was to get the
black population up and so this must be
great for American blacks so then I
discovered this New York Times article
from 2004 um called U blacks are being
admitted into top schools at greater
numbers but which
ones uh oh and again by the way this is
in the New York Times this is not in
like you know whatever National Review
this is New York Times uh 2004 and the
two authorities that were quoted in the
story are Henry Lewis Gates who's the
dean of the African-American studies you
know community in the United States
super brilliant guy and then lonni guir
who was a she was a potential Supreme
Court uh appointee under I think uh she
was close friend of Hillary Clinton and
there was for a long time she was on the
short list for Supreme Court so one of
the top you know jurists lawyers in the
country both both black um was sort of
legendarily successful in their in their
in the academic and legal worlds um and
black um and they are quoted as the
authorities in this story and the story
that they tell
it's actually very it's amazing um and
by the way it's happening today in uh
education institutions and it's
happening in companies and you can see
it all over the place and the government
um which is um at least at that time the
number was half of the black admits into
a place like Harvard were not American
Born blacks they were foreign born
blacks um specifically U uh Northern
African of generally Nigerian um or West
Indian um right um and by the way many
Nigerians and Northern Africans have
come to the US and have been very
successful nigerian-americans is a group
like way outperform they're you know
just a super smart cohort of people and
then West Indian blacks in the US are
incredibly successful um most recently
by the way kamla Harris as well as colen
Powell like just two sort of examples of
that and so basically what Henry Lewis
Gates and L guer said in the story is
Harvard is basically struggling to
either whatever it was identify a
recruit make successful whatever it was
American Born native blacks and so
therefore they were using High skill
immigra High skill immigration as an
escape hatch to go get blacks from other
countries um and then and then this was
2004 when you could discuss such things
um obviously that is a topic that nobody
has discussed since it has sailed on all
of the Dei programs of the last 20 years
have had this exact characteristic um
there's large numbers of black people in
America who are fully aware of this and
are like it's obviously not us that are
getting these slots where we're
obviously we're literally competing with
people who are being imported and and
you know if you believe in the basis
formative action you were trying to make
up for historical Injustice of American
black slavery and so the idea that you
import somebody from you know Nigeria
that never experienced that um you know
is like tremendously insulting to to to
Black Americans anyway so you can see
where I'm heading with this we have been
in a 60-year social engineer engineering
experiment to exclude native born people
from the educational slots and jobs that
high skill immigration has been funing
foreigners into right and so it turns
out it's not a victim free thing there
there's like 100% there's victims
because why there's only so many for
sure there's only so many education
slots and then for sure there's only so
many of these jobs right you know Google
only hires so many you know whatever
level seven Engineers right and so so so
so that's the other side of it right and
so you're a farm boy in Wisconsin right
or a you know black American whose
ancestors arrived here you know on a
slave ship 300 years ago in Louisiana or
a you know Cambodian immigrant in you
know the Bronx um and your kid or a
Jewish immigrant or you know from very
successful Jewish Family um and you know
your entire you know for three
generations you and your parents and
grandparents went to Harvard and what
all of those groups know is the system
that has been created is not for them
right it's designed specifically to
exclude them and then what happens is
all of these tech people show up in
public and say yeah let's bring in more
foreigners right and so so anyway so the
the the short version of it is you can't
anymore I don't think just have the the
the um the the the quote high skill
immigration conversation for either
education or for um uh or for employment
without also having the Dei conversation
um and then underneath and then Dei is
just another word for formative action
so it's it's the affirmative action
conversation and you you need to
actually deal with this at substance and
to see what's actually happening to
people you needed to join these topics
and and and I think it is much harder to
make the moral claim for high school
immigration given the the the extent to
which Dei took over both the education
hiring uh education process and the and
the hiring process okay so first of all
that was brilliantly laid out the Nuance
of it
so just to understand it's not so much a
criticism of H1B High skilled
immigration it's that there needs to be
more people saying yay we need more
American Born hires so I spent the
entire Christmas holiday reading every
message on this and not saying anything
and what I was which you know me well
enough to know that's a serious level of
yeah that very Zen yes thank you thank
you no it wasn't there was tremendous
rage on the other side of it but we I
suppressed
it so um
I was waiting for the dog that didn't
bark right and the dog that didn't bark
was I did not and tell me if you saw one
I did not see a single example of
somebody pounding the table for more
High School immigration who was also
pounding the table to go get more smart
kids who are already here uh into these
educational institutions and into these
jobs I didn't see I didn't see a single
one that's true I I I think I agree with
that there's there really was a divide
but it was like literally it was like
the proponents of high skill immigr and
again this was me for a very long time I
mean I kind of took myself by surprise
on this because I was on you know I I I
I had the much say simpler version of
this story for very like I said I I've
been in Washington many times under past
presidents lobbing for this by the way
never made any progress which we could
talk about like it never actually worked
um but um you know I I've been on the
other side of this one but I was
literally sitting there being like all
right which of these like super Geniuses
um who you know many of whom by the way
are very you know successful High skill
immigrants or children of high skill
immigrants you know which of these super
Geniuses are going to like say actually
we have this like incredible Talent
Source here in the country which again
to be clear I'm I'm not talking about
white people I'm talking about native
born Americans whites Asians Jews blacks
for sure for sure for sure those four
groups but also yes white people yeah
and and also white people people that
are making the case for American Born
hires are usually not also supporting
H1B this it's an extreme divide and
those people that making that case are
often not making it in a way that's
like uh making it in quite a radical way
let's put it this but you have this
interesting thing you have a split
between the sides that I've noticed
which is one side has all of the experts
right right and and I'm using scare for
people listening to audio I'm making
quotes in the air with my fingers as
vigorously as I can one side has all the
certified experts the other side just
has a bunch of people who are like they
know that something is wrong and they
don't quite know how to explain it and
what was so unusual about the Harvard
UNCC cases by the way in front of
Supreme Court is they actually had
sophisticated lawyers for the first time
in a long time actually put all this
evidence together and actually put it in
the public record
they actually had experts which is just
which is just really rare generally what
you get is you get because if you don't
have experts what do you have you know
something is wrong and you have but you
have primarily an emotional response you
feel it but can you put it you know can
you put it in the words and tables and
charts you know that that a certified
expert can and no you can't like that's
not you know that's not who you are that
doesn't mean that you're wrong and it
also doesn't mean that you have less of
a moral stance um yeah and so it's just
like all right now by the way look I
think there's there I think there are
ways to square the circle I think
there's a way to have ourc can e it too
like I I think there'd be many ways to
resolve this um I think again I think
the way to do it is to look at these
these these issues combined look at at
Dei combined with um High School
immigration it so happens the Dei um is
under much more scrutiny today than it
has been for probably 20 years
affirmative action is um the Supreme
Court did just rule that it is not legal
um for universities to do that they are
still doing it but they should stop um
and then there are more and more you've
seen more companies now also dishing
their Dei programs um in part that's
happening for a bunch of reasons but
it's happening in part because a lot of
corporate lawyers will tell you that the
Supreme Court rulings and education
either already apply to businesses or it
just is a clear foreshadowing the
Supreme Court will rule on new cases
that will ban in businesses and so so so
there there is a moment here to be able
to look at this um on both sides um let
me add one more Nuance to it though that
makes it even more complicated yeah so
the cliche is we're going to brain drain
the world right you've heard that we're
going to we're going to take all the
smart people from all over the world
we're going to bring them here we're
going to educate them and we're going to
keep them and then they're going to
raise our families here create
businesses here create jobs here right
in the cliche that's a super positive
thing yeah okay so what happens to the
rest of the world they lose
well how fungible are
people how many highly ambitious highly
conscientious highly energetic High
achieving high IQ super geniuses are
there in the world and if there's a lot
that's great but if there just aren't
that many and they all come here and
they all aren't where they would be
otherwise what happens to all those
other
places so it's almost impossible for us
here to have that conversation in part
because we become incredibly
uncomfortable as a society talking about
the fact that people aren't just simply
all the same um just a whole thing we
could talk about but um also we we are
purely the beneficiary of this effect
right we are brain draining the world
not the other way around there's only
four so if you look at the flow of high
skill immigration over time there's only
four permanent sinks of high skill
immigration places people go it's the US
Canada the UK and Australia it's the
it's Australia it's the four it's four
of the five five eyes it's the major
anglosphere countries and so for those
countries this there this seems like a
no lose proposition it's all the other
countries that basically what what we
what we for countri has been doing is
draining all the smart people out it's
actually much easier for people in
Europe to talk about this I've
discovered um because the euro is
whatever you know 28 countries and
within the Euro Zone the high skill
people over time have been migrating to
originally the UK but also specifically
I think it's the Netherlands um Germany
and France but specifically they've been
migrating out of the peripheral Eurozone
countries and the the the one where this
really hit the fan was in Greece right
so you know Greece falls into chaos
disaster and then you know you're
running the government in Greece and
you're trying to figure out how to put
an economic development plan
together all of your smart young kids
have left like what are you going to do
right um by the way this is a potential
I know you care a lot about Ukraine this
is a potential crisis for Ukraine not
because in part because of this because
we enthusiastically recruit ukrainians
of course and so we've been drain brain
draining Ukraine for a long time but
also of course you know War does tend to
cause people to to migrate out and so
you know when it comes time for Ukraine
to rebuild as a peaceful country is it
going to have the talent base even that
it had five years ago is like a very big
and important question by the way Russia
like we have brainin a lot of really
smart people out of Russia lot of them
are here right over the last you know 30
years um and so there's this thing it's
actually really funny if you think about
it like the one thing that we know to be
the height of absolute evil that the
West ever did was colonization and
resource extraction right so we know the
height of absolute evil was when the
Portuguese and the English and you know
everybody else went and had these
colonies and then went in and we you
know took all the oil or we took all the
diamonds or we took all the whatever
lithium or whatever it is right well for
some reason we realize that that's a
deeply evil thing to do when it's a
physical resource when it's a
non-conscious physical matter um for
some reason we think it's completely
morally acceptable to do it with human
capital in fact we think it's glorious
and beautiful and wonderful and you know
the great flowering of of of peace and
Harmony and and moral justice of our
time to do it and we don't think for one
second what we're doing to the countries
that we're pulling all these people out
of and I I this is one of these things
like I don't know like maybe we're just
going to live in this delusional State
forever and we'll just keep doing it and
it'll keep benefiting us and we just
won't care what happens but like I I
think there may come this is one of
these this is like one of these
submarines under 10t under the water
line like I think it's just a matter of
time until people suddenly realize oh my
God what are we doing CU like we need
the rest of the world to succeed too
right like we need these other countries
to like flourish like we don't want to
be the only successful country in the
middle of just like complete chaos and
disaster and we just extract and we
extract and we extract and we don't
think twice about it well this is so
deeply profound actually so what is the
cost of winning quote unquote if these
countries are drained in terms of human
capital on the on the level of
geopolitics what does that lead to even
if we talk about wars and conflict and
all of this we actually want them to be
strong in the way we understand strong
not just in every way so that
cooperation and competition Can Build a
Better World for all of humanity it's
interesting I I've been this is one of
those uh truths where you just speak and
it resonates and I didn't even think
about it yeah exactly so this is you
were sitting in during the holiday
season just boiling over so all that
said yeah there's still to you some good
to the H1B okay so then you get this
other okay so then there's come all the
way around there's another Nuance so
there's another Nuance there's another
Nuance which is mostly the valley we
don't use H1 BS anymore mostly we use
all ones so there's a se you may there's
a separate class of V so and and the o1
is like this it turns out that the 01 is
the Super Genius Visa mhm so the o1 is
the basically our our founder like when
we have like a when we have somebody
from anywhere in the world and they've
like invented a breakr new technology
and they want to come to the US to start
a company they come in through an 01
Visa um and and and that actually is
like a it's a fairly High bar it's a
high acceptance rate but it's like a
pretty high bar and they they do a lot
of work and they there's like a you have
to put real work into it really really
prove your case um mostly what's
happened with the H1B Visa program um is
that it has gone to basically two
categories of employers one is the
basically a small set of big tech
companies that higher in volume which is
exactly the companies that you would
think um and then the other is it goes
to these what they call kind of the
Mills um the Consulting Mills right and
so there's these set of companies with
names I don't want to pick on companies
but you know names like cognizant that
you know hire basically have in their
business model uh is primarily Indian
bring in primarily Indians um in in
large numbers um and you know they often
have you know offices next to company-
Owned housing and they'll have you know
organizations that are you know they'll
have you know organizations that are
literally thousands of Indians you know
living and working in the US and they do
basically um call it mid tier like uh IT
consulting so you know these folks
they're making good good good good wages
but they're making 60 or 80 or $100,000
a year not the you know 300,000 that
you'd make in the valley um and so like
in practice the startups basic like
little Tech as we call it or the startup
World mainly doesn't use h-1bs at this
point and and mainly can't because the
system is kind of rigged in a way that
we really can't um and then and then and
then again you get to the sort of under
morality here which is it's like well
you know Amazon like Amazon's a and like
I love Amazon but like they're a big
powerful company you know they've got
you know more money than God they've got
resources they've got a long-term
planning Horizon they do big you know
profound things over you know decades at
a time um you know they could you know
or any of these other companies could
launch massively effective programs to
go recruit the best and brightest from
all throughout the the country and you
know you'll notice they don't do that
you know they bring in you know 10,000
20,000 H bees a year um and so you've
got a question there um and then these
Mills like there's lots of questions
around them and whether they should you
know whether that's even a ethical way
you know I don't want to say they're
unethical but there's questions around
like exactly what what the trade-offs
are there um and so you know this this
yeah and this is like a Pandora's Box
that really you know nobody really
wanted to be opened um you know to to to
play Devil's Advocate on all this in
terms of like National immigration
issues you know none of this is like a
top end issue just because the numbers
are small um right and so you know I
don't think you know the Administration
has said like this is not like a
priority of theirs for right now um but
I guess what I would say is like there
is actually a lot of complexity of
nuance here um I have a lot of friend
like I said I have a lot of friends and
colleagues who are you know came over on
h-1bs or1s green cards many are now
citizens and you know every single one
one of them was not every single one a
lot of them were enthusiastic to you
know defend the honor of immigrants
throughout this whole period and they
said to me it's like well Mark how can
we you know how can we how can we more
clearly Express you know the importance
of high school immigration to the US and
I was like um I think you can do it by
advocating for also developing ative
porn
Talent like do you want to inflame the
issue or do you want to diffuse the
issue MH right and I I think I think the
answer is to diffuse the issue uh let me
give you one
more positive scenario which and then
I'll also beat up on the University some
more um do you do you know about the
National Merit Scholarship system have
you heard about this um not really G so
there's a system that was created during
the Cold War um called the National
Merit Scholars and um it is a basically
um it was created I for in the 1950s or
60s when it was when people in
government actually wanted to identify
the best and the brightest as heretical
an idea as that sounds today um and so
it's basically a national talent search
for basically IQ um it its goal is to
identify basically the top 0.5% of the
IQ um uh in the country by the way
completely regardless of other
characteristics so there's no race
gender any other aspect to it it's just
going frustrated intelligence um it uses
the first the pat um which is the
Preparatory sat that you take um and
then the SAT uh so it uses those scores
that that is the scoring it's a straight
Pat sat scoring system um so they use
the SAT as a proxy for IQ which it is um
uh they run this every year they
identify they they it's like a they get
down to like 1% of the population of the
kids 18y olds any given year who scor
highest on the p and then they get down
to they further qualify down to the 0.5%
that also replicate on the SAT um and
then it's like the scholarship amount is
like $2500
right so it's like it was a lot of money
50 years ago not as much today but it's
a national system being run literally to
find the best and the brightest how many
of our great and powerful universities
use this as a scouting system like our
universities all have sports teams they
all have National scouting uh they have
full-time Scouts who go out and they go
to Every high school and they try to
find all the great basketball players
and bring them into the NCAA into all
these leagues um how many of our great
and powerful and enlightened
universities use the National Merit
system to go do a talent search for the
smartest kids and just bring them in let
me guess very few zero
zero as you say it that's brilliant
there should be that same level of
scouting for talent internally go get
the smartest ones give you one more
kicker on this topic if you're not if I
haven't beaten it to death um you know
the SAT has
changed um so the SAT used to be a
highly accurate proxy for IQ um that
caused a bunch of problems people really
don't like the whole idea of IQ um and
so the SAT has been actively managed
over the last 50 years by the college
board that runs it and it has been
essentially like everything else it's
been dumb down um and so the the in in
two ways um number one it's been dumbed
down where uh an 800 from 40 years ago
does not mean what an 800 means today um
and 800 40 years ago it was almost
impossible to get an 800 uh today
there's today there's so many 800s that
you could stock the entire ivy league
with 800s right um and so so so so it's
been deliberately dumbed down um and
then two is they have they have tried to
pull out a lot of what's called The g-
Loading and so they they've tried to
detach it from being an IQ proxy because
IQ is such an inflammatory concept and
and the consequence of that is and this
is sort of perverse they've made it more
coachable right so the it the SAT 40
years ago coaching didn't really work
and more recently it has really started
to work and one of the things you see is
that the Asian Spike you see this like
giant leap upward in Asian performance
over the last decade and I I think
looking at the data I think a lot of
that is because it's more coachable now
and and the Asians do the most coaching
um so there's a bunch of issues with
this and so the coaching thing is really
difficult because the coaching thing is
a subsidy then to the kids whose parents
can afford coaching right and I don't
know about you but where I grew up there
was no sat coaching so there's like an
issue there I didn't even know what the
SAT was until the day I took it much
less that there was coaching much less
that it could work so much less we could
afford it so so number one there's
issues there but the other issue there
is think about what's happened by the
dumbing down 800 no longer captures all
the smart 800 is too crude of a it's
like the AI benchmarking problem it's
it's the same problem they have an AI
benchmarking right now 800 is too low of
a
threshold there are too many kids
scoring 800 because what you want is you
want whatever if it's going to be
100,000 kids I don't know what it is
it's going to be 50,000 kids a year
scoring 800 you also then want kids to
be able to score 900 and 1,000 and 1100
and 1200 and you want to ultimately get
to you know this you'd like to ident
ultimately identify the top 100 kids and
make sure that you get them in MIT and
the resolution of the test has been
reduced so that it actually is not
useful for doing that and again I I
would say this is like part of the
generalized corruption that's taken
place throughout this entire system
where we we we have been heading in the
reverse direction from wanting to
actually go get the best and brightest
and actually put them in the places um
where they should be and then just the
final comment would be the great thing
about standardized testing and the
National Merit system is it's like I
said it's completely race blind it's
gender blind it's blind on every other
characteristic it's only done on test
scores you know and you can make an
argument about whether that's good or
bad but it is you know for sure um you
know it's the closest that we had to get
to Merit um it was the thing that they
did when they thought they needed Merit
to win the Cold War and of course we
could we could choose to do that anytime
we want and and I just say I find it
like incredibly striking um and an
enormous moral indictment of the current
system that there are no universities
that do this today so back to the
immigration thing just real quick it's
like okay we aren't even trying to go
get the smart kids out of the center and
South and and even if they think that
they can get into these places they get
turned down and the same thing for the
smart Asians and the same thing for the
smart Jews and the same thing for the
smart black people and like it it just
like it's just like I don't know
how like I I don't know how that's moral
like I I don't get it at all as you said
about the 800 so I took the SAT and ACT
many times and I've always gotten
perfect on math
800 it's just and I'm not that I'm not
special like it it it it doesn't
identify genius I think you want to
search for genius and you want to create
measures that find Genius of all
different kinds speaking of diversity
and I guess we should reiterate and say
over and over and
over uh defend immigrants yes but say we
should hire more and more native born
well you asked me in the beginning like
what what would what what's the most
optimistic forecast right that we could
have and the most optimistic forecast
would be my God what if we did
both
like so that's the reasonable the
rational the smart thing to say here in
fact we don't have to have a war well it
would diffuse it would diffuse the
entire issue yeah if everybody in the
center and the south of the country and
every Jewish Family Asian family black
family knew they were getting a fair
shake like it would diffuse the
issue like how about diffusing the issue
like what a crazy radical sorry I don't
mean to really get out of my skis here
but I think your profile on X States
it's time to build it feels like 25 2025
is a good year to
build so uh I wanted to ask your
device and
maybe uh for a device for anybody who's
trying to build so who's trying to build
something useful in the
world maybe launch a startup or maybe
just launch apps Services whatever ship
software products so maybe by way of a
device how do you actually get to
shipping so I mean a big part of the
answer I think is we're in the middle of
a legit Revolution and I know you've
been talking about this on your show but
like AI coding I mean this is the
biggest earthquake to hit software in
certainly My Life um maybe since the
invention of software um and I'm sure
you know we're involved in various of
these companies but you know these these
tools um you know from a variety of
companies are um like absolutely
revolutionary and and and they're
getting better at Leaps and Bounds right
every day and you you know all this but
like the thing with coding like there
there's like open questions of whether
AI can get better at like I don't know
understanding philosophy or whatever
creative writing or whatever but like
for sure we can make it much better at
coding right because you can validate
the results of coding um and so you know
there's all these methods of you know
synthetic data and self trining and
reinforcement learning that for sure you
can do with with coding and so everybody
I know who works in the field says AI
coding is going to get to be
phenomenally good and it's it's already
great and you you can I mean anybody
wants to see this just go on YouTube and
look at AI coding demos you know little
little kids making apps in 10 minutes
working with an AI coding system and so
I think it's the golden I mean I think
this is an area where it's clearly the
Golden Age the tool set is extraordinary
you know in in a day as as a coder for
sure in a day you can retrain yourself
um you know start using these things get
a huge boost in productivity as a non-
coder you can learn much more quickly
than you could before that's that's
actually a tricky one in terms of
learning as a non- coder to build stuff
it's still I feel like you still need to
learn how to code it it becomes a
superpower it helps you be much more
productive like you could legitimately
be a oneperson
uh company and get quite far I agree
with that up to a point so the um I
think for sure for quite a long time the
people who are good at coding are going
to be the best at actually having AI
code things um because they're going to
understand what I mean very basic
they're going to understand what's
happening right and they're going to be
be able to evaluate the work and they're
going to be able to you know literally
like manage AIS better um like even if
they're not literally handwriting the
code they're just going to have a much
better sense of what's going on so I
definitely think like 100% my 9-year-old
is like doing all kinds of coding
classes and he'll keep doing that for
certainly through 18 after that um and
so like for sure that's the case um but
but look having said that one of the
things you can do with an AI is say
teach me how to
code right um and so and you know
there's there's a whole bunch of um you
know I'll name names you know khad like
there's a whole bunch of whole bunch of
work that they're doing at KH Academy
for free and then you know we have this
company repet uh which is was originally
specifically built for kids for coding
um that is has AI built in that's just
absolutely extraordinary now um and then
you know there's a variety of other of
other systems like this um and uh yeah
that that mean the AI is going to be
able to teach you to code the AI by the
way is as you know spectacularly good at
explaining code right um and so you know
the tools have these features now where
you can quote talk to the codebase and
so you can like literally like ask the
codebase questions about itself um and
you can also just do the simple form
which is you can copy and paste code
into chat GPD and just ask it to explain
it what's going on rewrite it improve it
make recommendations and so there
there's yeah there's dozens of ways to
to do this by the way you can also so I
mean even more broadly than code like
okay you want to make a video game okay
now you can do AI art generation sound
generation dialogue generation voice
generation right and so all of a sudden
like you don't need designers you know
you don't need um you know voice actors
you know so yeah so there's just like
unlimited and and then you know big is
you know big part of coding is so-called
glue you know it's it's interfacing into
other systems so it's interfacing into
you know stripe to take payments or
something like that and you know AI is
fantastic at writing gluc code um so
really really good at making sure that
you can plug everything together really
good at helping you figure out how to
deploy um you know it'll even write a
business plan for you um so it's just
this it's like everything happening with
AI right now it's just it's like this
latent superpower and there's this
incredible spectrum of people who have
really figured out massive performance
increases productivity increases with it
already there's other people who aren't
even aware it's happening and there's
some gearing to whether you're a coder
or not but I think there are lots of
non-coders that are off the races and I
think there are lots of professional
coders who are still
like you know the blacksmiths were not
necessarily in favor of you know the car
business um so uh there's the old
William Gibson quote the future is here
it's just not evenly distributed yet and
this is maybe the most potent version of
that that I've ever
seen yeah there's uh you know the old
meme with the uh with the bell curve the
the people on both extreme say AI coding
is the future um it's very common the
programmers to say know if you're any
good of a programmer you're not going to
be using it just that's just not true I
consider myself reasonably good
programmer and I my productivity has
been just skyrocketed the joy of
programming skyro rocketed is every
aspect of programming is more
efficient uh more productive more fun
all that kind of stuff I would also say
code is you know code has code has of
anything in like industrial society code
is has the highest elasticity which is
to say the easier it is to make it the
more get get the more of it gets made
like I think effectively there's
unlimited demand for code like in other
words like there's always some other
idea for a thing that you can do a
feature that you can add or a thing that
you can optimize um and so and so like
overwhelmingly you know the amount of
code that exists in the world is a
fraction of even the ideas we have today
and then we come up with new ideas all
the time um and so I I think that
like you know I was I was in late 80s
early 90s when sort of automated coding
systems started to come out expert
systems big deal in those days and there
were all these there was a famous book
called The Decline and fall of the
American programmer you know that
predicted that these new coding systems
were going to mean we wouldn't have
programmers in the future and of course
the number of programming jobs exploded
by like a factor of 100 like my guess
will be we'll have more my guess is
we'll have more coding jobs probably by
like an order of magnitude 10 years from
now that will be different there'll be
different jobs they'll involve
orchestrating AI um but um there will be
we will be creating so much more
software that that the whole industry
will just explode in size are you seeing
the size of companies decree grease in
terms of startups what's the Landscapes
of little Tech all we're seeing right
now is the AI hiring boom of all
time for the big tech and and little
Tech everybody's trying to hire as many
Engineers as they can to build AI
systems it's just it's 100% I mean there
there's a handful of company you know
there's a little bit there's there's
customer service you know there we have
some companies and others I think it's
Clara that's publicizing a lot of this
um in Europe um uh where um you know you
know there are jobs that can be
optimized um and jobs they can be
automated but um like for engineering
jobs like it's just an explosion of
hiring um that at least so far there's
no trace of any sort of diminishing
effect um now having said that I am
looking forward to the day I I am
waiting for the first company to walk in
saying yes um like the more radical form
of it but so basically the companies
that we see are basically one of two
kinds we we see the companies that are
basically sometimes use weak form strong
form so the the weak form companies
sometimes use the term it's the the
sixth bullet point um AI is the sixth
bullet point on whatever they're doing
sure right in on the slide right so
they've got the you know whatever dot
dot dot do Dot and then AI the six thing
and the reason AI the six thing is
because they had already previously
written the slide before the AI
Revolution started and so they just
added the six bullet point on the slide
which is how you're getting all these
products that have like the AI button up
in the corner right the little sparkly
button y right um and all of a sudden
Gmail is offering to summarize your
email which I'm like I don't need that
like I need I need you to answer my
email not summarize it like what the
hell okay so we see those and that's
fine that's like I don't know putting
sugar on the cake or something um but
then we see the strong form which is the
companies that are building from scratch
for AI right and they're they're
building it I actually just met with a
company that is building literally an AI
email system as an example so just oh
nice I I can't wait yeah they're going
to completely right so the very obvious
idea very smart team um you know it's
going to be great you know and then you
know notion just uh you know another not
one of our companies but just came out
with a product so so now companies are
going to basically come through sweep
through and they're going do basically
AI first versions of basically
everything and those are like companies
built you know AI is the first bullet
point it's the strong form of the
argument yeah cursor is an example of
that they basically said okay we're
going to re rebuild the thing with AI as
the first citizen what if we knew from
scratch that we could build on this and
and and again this is like this is part
of the Full Employment Act for startups
and BCS is it just like if if a if a
technology transformation is
sufficiently powerful then you actually
need to start the product development
process over from scratch because you
need to reconceptualize product and and
then usually what that means is you need
a new company because most incumbents
just just won't do that um and so yeah
so that that's underway across many
categories um what I'm waiting for is
the company where it's like no our or
chart is redesigned as a result of AI
right so I'm looking I'm waiting for the
company where it's like no we're going
to have like you know and and the cliche
Here's a thought experiment right the
cliche would be we're going to have like
the human executive team and then we're
going to have the AIS be the workers
right so we'll have a VP of engineering
supervising 100 instances of of coding
of coding agents right okay maybe right
by the way or maybe um maybe the VP of
engineering should be the AI maybe
supervising human coders who are
supervising AIS right because one of the
things that AI should be pretty good at
is managing because it's like not you
know it's like a process driven it's the
kind of thing that AI is actually pretty
good at right performance evaluation
coaching um and so should it be an AI
executive team um and then you know and
then of course the ultimate question
which is AI
CEO right um and then you know and then
there's and then maybe the most
futuristic version of it would be an
actual AI agent that actually goes fully
autonomous yeah what if you really set
one of these things loose and let it let
it basically build itself a business um
and so I will say like we're not yet
seeing those and I think there's a
little bit of the systems aren't quite
ready for that yet um and then I think
it's a little bit of you really do need
at that point like a Founder who's
really willing to break all the rules um
and really willing to take the swing and
and and those people exist and so I'm
sure we'll see that and some of it is as
as you know with all the startups this
is the execution the the idea that you
have a AI first email client this seems
like an obvious idea but actually
creating one executing and then taking
on Gmail is really is really difficult I
mean Gmail it's it's it's fascinating to
see Google can't do it because because
why because momentum because it's hard
to re-engineer the entirety of the
system feels like Google's perfectly
positioned to to do it same with like
you have perplex
uh which I love like Google could
technically take on perplexity and do it
much better but they haven't not yet so
it's fascinating why that is for large
companies I mean that that is an
advantage for little Tech they can be
agile yeah that's right they can move
fast yeah little companies can break
glass in a way big companies can't right
this is sort of the big breakthrough
that Klay Christians had had in the
innovators dilemma which is sometimes
when big companies don't do things it's
because they're screwing up and that
certainly happens but a lot of times
they don't do things because it would
break too much class it would
specifically it would it would it would
interfere with their existing customers
um and their existing businesses and
they just simply won't do that and by
the way responsibly they shouldn't do
that um right um and so they just get
this clay Christian this big thing is
they they often don't adapt because they
are well-run not because they're poorly
run but they're optimizing machines
they're they're they're optimizing
against existing business and and and
and as as you kind of just said this is
like a permanent State of Affairs for
large organizations like every once in a
while one breaks the pattern and
actually does it but for the most part
like this is a very predictable form of
human behavior and this fundamentally is
why startups
exist it feels like 2025 is when the
race for dominance and AI will uh see
some winners like it's a big year so who
do you think wins the race open AI meta
Google xai who do you think wins the AI
race I would say I'm I'm not going to
predict I'm going to say there's
questions all over the place um and then
we have we have this category question
we call the trillion dollar question
which is like literally depending on how
it's answered people make or lose a
trillion dollars and I think there's
like I don't know five or six trillion
dollar questions right now that are
hanging out there which isn't an usually
large number yeah and I just you know
I'll just hit a few of them and we can
talk about them so one is Big models
versus small models um another is open
models versus closed models another is
whether you can use synthetic data or
Not Another is Chain of Thought how far
can you push that and reinforcement
learning and then another one is
political trillion dollar questions um
you policy questions which you know the
US and the EU have both been flunking
dramatically and the US hopefully is
about to really succeed at um yeah and
then there's probably another you know
half dozen big important questions after
that and so these are all just like say
this is an industry that's in flux in a
way that I even more dramatic I think
than the ones I've seen before um and
look the most example most obvious
example the flux is sitting here three
sitting here in the summer you know
sitting here less than three years ago
sitting here in December of 22 we would
have said that open AI is just running
away with everything um and sitting here
today it's like you know there's at
least six you know worldclass God model
companies and teams that are by the way
generating remarkably similar results
that's actually been one of the most
shocking things to me is like it turns
out that once you know that it's
possible to build one incredibly smart
Turing test passing large language model
which was a complete shock and surprise
uh to the world um it turns out within
you know a year you can have five more
um there's also a money component thing
to it which is um to get the money to
scale one of these things into the
billions of dollars there's basically
Bally right now only two sources of
money that will do that for you one is
um the hyperscalers giving you the money
which you turn around and round trip
back to them um or you know foreign
sovereigns you know other you know
country Sovereign Sovereign wealth funds
which can be you know difficult in some
cases to for companies to access um so
there's a there's another this's maybe
another trillion dollar question is the
financing question here's one uh so Sam
mman has been public about the fact that
he wants to transition open AI from
being a nonprofit to being a for-profit
m um the way that that is legally done
is that um there is a way to do it there
is a way in US law to do it um the IRS
and and other legal entities uh
government entities scrutinize this very
carefully because the US takes
Foundation nonprofit law very seriously
because of the tax exemption um and so
the way that historically the way that
you do it is you start a for-profit and
then you you raise money with the
for-profit to buy the assets of the
nonprofit at fair market value um and
you know the last financing round at
openai was you know 150 some billion
dollars and so logically the if if if
the flip is going to happen the
for-profit has to go raise $150 billion
out of the shoot to buy the assets you
know raising 150 billion is a challenge
um so you know is that even possible if
that is possible then open AI maybe is
Off to the Races as a for-profit company
if not you know you know I don't know
and then you know obviously the Elon
lawsuit so so just because they're the
market leader today you know there's big
important questions there you know
Microsoft has this kind of LoveHate
relationship with them where does that
go Apple's you know lagging badly behind
but you know they're very good at
catching up Amazon you know is primarily
hyperskill but they now have their own
models and then there's the other
questions like you laid out brilliantly
briefly and brilliantly open versus
closed Big versus little models
synthetic data that's a huge huge
question and then test time compute with
uh Chain of Thought the RO of that this
fasc and these are I think it's fair to
say trillion dollar questions yeah these
were big like look you know it's this
it's like okay here's a trillion dollar
question which is kind of embedded in
that which is just hallucinations right
like so if you are trying to use these
tools creatively you're thrilled because
they can draw new images and they can
make new music and they can do all this
incredible stuff right they're creative
the flip side of that is if you need
them to be correct they can't be
creative and that's you know the term
hallucination and these things do
hallucinate and um you know there have
been you know court cases already where
lawyers have submitted legal briefs that
contain madeup Court citations case
citations that the judge is like wait a
minute this doesn't exist and the very
next question is did you write this
yourself
and the lawyer goes
uh I mean that's why Elon with grock uh
yes looking for truth I mean that's a
open technical question how close can
you get to truth with llms yeah that's
right and and I I my my sense U is this
very contentious Topic at the industry
my sense is if to the extent that there
is a domain in which there is a
definitive and checkable improvable
answer and you might say math satisfies
that coding satisfies that and maybe
some other fields then you should be
able to generate synthetic data you
should be able to do Chain of Thought
reasoning you should be able to do
reinforcement learning and you should be
able to ultimately you know eliminate
hallucinations um for but by the way
that's a trillion dollar question right
there as to whether that's true um but
then but then there's question of like
okay is that going to work in the more
General domain like so for example one
possibility is these things are going to
get be truly super human at like math
and coding but at like
discussing philosophy they're going to
just they're basically as smart as
they're ever going to be um and they're
going to be kind of you know say midwit
red student level um and and the theory
there would just be they're already out
of training data like they they they
literally if you know you talk to these
people like liter literally the big
models the big models are like within a
factor of two acts of consuming all the
human generated training data to the
point that some of these big companies
are literally hiring people like doctors
and lawyers to sit and write your
training data by hand and so does this
mean that like you have to if you want
your model better philosophy you have to
go hire like a thousand philosophers and
have them write new content then is
anybody going to do that and so you know
maybe maybe these things are topping out
in certain ways and they're going to
LEAP way ahead in other ways and so
anyway so we just don't you know I guess
this this is maybe my main conclusion is
I I don't any of these anybody tell you
anybody telling you these big sweeping
conclusions you know this whole super
you know all of these abstract
generalized super intelligence AGI stuff
like it you know maybe it's the engineer
in me but like no like that's not the
that's not the that's too abstract like
it it's got to actually work um and then
by the way it has to actually have to be
able to pay for it um I mean this is a
problem right now with you know the big
models the big models that are like
really good at coding a map they're like
actually very expensive to run you know
they're quite slow um another trillion
dollar question future chips um which I
know youve talked a lot about um another
trillion dollar question um yeah I mean
all the global issue oh another trillion
dollar question
censorship right like and and and and um
and all the is they say all the human
feedback training
process exactly what are you training
these things to do what are they allowed
to talk
about how long do they give you these
how how they give these incredibly
preachy moral
lectures how here's a here's a here's a
good here's a trillion dollar question
how many other countries want their
country to run its education system
Healthcare System news system political
system on the basis of an AI that's been
trained according to the most extreme
leftwing California
politics um right because that's kind of
what they have on offer right now and I
think the answer to that is not very
many so there's like massive open
questions there about like what you know
and by the way like what morality of
these things going to get trained on as
a and that one we're cracking wide open
with uh what's been happening over the
past few months censorship on every
level of these companies and just the
very idea what truth means and what it
means to be expand the Overton window of
llms or the Overton window of human
discourse so what what I experienced you
going back to how we started what I
experienced was all right social media
censorship regime from Hell de banking
right at like large L scale um and then
the war on the crypto industry trying to
kill it and then basically declared
intent to do the same thing to AI um and
to put AI under the same kind of
censorship and control regime as as as
social media and the banks and I and I
think this election tipped in in America
I think this election tipped us from a
timeline in which things were going to
get really bad on that front uh to a
timeline in which I think things are
going to be quite good but look those
same questions also apply outside the US
and you know the EU is doing their thing
they're being extremely draconian
and they're trying to lock in a
political censorship regime on AI right
now that's so harsh that even American
AI companies are not even willing to
launch new products in the EU right
now like that's not going to last but
like what what happens there right and
what what are the trade-offs you know
what levels of censorship are American
companies going to have to sign up for
if they want to operate in the EU or is
the EU still capable of generating its
own AI companies or have we brain
drained
them so that they can't so big questions
uh quick question so you're very active
on X a very unique
character um flamboyant exciting bold uh
you post a lot I think there's a meme I
don't remember it exactly but that Elon
posted something like uh inside Elon
there are two wolves one is uh please be
kind or more positive and the other one
is I think uh you know doing the uh take
a big step back and fuck yourself in the
face guy
how many wolves are inside your mind
when you're tweeting to be clear a
reference from the comedy classic Tropic
Thunder Tropic Thunder yeah legendary
movie Yes
um any Zoomers listening to this who
haven't seen that movie go watch it
immediately yeah there's nothing
offensive about it nothing offensive
about it at all
um so Tom Cruz is greatest
performance um so um yeah yeah no look
should start by saying like I'm not
supposed to be tweeting at all so oh
yeah yes yes yes so but you know so how
do you approach that like how do you
approach what to tweet I mean I don't I
look so it's it's a it's a um it it I
don't I don't well enough um it's mostly
an exercise and frustration um look
there's a glory to it and there's
there's there's an issue with it and the
glory of it is like you know
instantaneous Global Communication you
know x x in particular is like the you
know the Town Square on all these you
know social issues political issues
everything else current events um but I
mean look there's no question the format
the format of at least the original
tweet is you know prone to be
inflammatory you know I'm I'm I'm the
guy who at one point the entire nation
of India hated me um because I once
tweeted something it turned out that is
still politically sensitive um in the
entire continent um I stayed up all
night that night as as I became front
page headline and leading television
news in each time zone in India for a
single tweet so like the single tweet
out of context is a very dangerous thing
um
obviously X now has the the middle
ground where they you know they they now
have the longer form essays um and so um
you know probably the most productive
thing I can do is is longer form um is
is longer form things um you're not
going to do it though are you I do I do
from time to time I do I should I should
do more of them and then yeah I mean
look but and yeah and then obviously X
is X is doing great and then uh like I
said like substack you know has become
the center for a lot you know a lot of
the I think the best kind of you know
deeply thought through you know
certainly intellectual content um you
know tons of current events uh stuff
there as well um and then um yeah so and
then there's a bunch of other you know a
bunch of new systems that are very
exciting so I think one of the things we
can look forward to in the next four
years is number one just like a massive
reinvigoration of social media as a
consequence of the changes that are
happening right now U I'm very excited
to see the con to see what's going to
happen with that and then um I it's
happened onx but it's now going to
happen on other
platforms and then um the other is um
crypto's going to come you know crypto's
going to come right back to life um and
actually that's very exciting actually
that's worth noting is that's another
trillion dollar question on AI which is
um
in a world of pervasive Ai and
especially in a world of AI agents in
Imagine a world of billions or trillions
of AI agents running around they need an
economy um and crypto in our view
happens to be the ideal economic system
for that right because it's a
programmable money it's a very easy way
to plug in and do that and there's this
transaction processing system that can
that can do that and so I think the
crypto AI intersection you know is
potentially very a very very big deal um
and so when that was that was going to
be impossible under the prior regime and
I think under the new regime hopefully
it'll be something we can do uh almost
for fun let me ask uh a friend of yours
Yan laon what are your top 10 favorite
things about Yan
Lon he's uh I think he's
a he's a brilliant guy I think he's
important to the world I think you guys
disagree on a lot of things U but I
personally like vigorous disagreement I
as a person in the stands like to watch
the gladi go at it and no he's a super
genius I mean look I would say we super
close but you casual casual friends I
worked with him at meta you know he's
the chief scientist at meta for a long
time and is still you know works with us
and and um you know and as obviously as
a legendary figure in the field and one
of the main people responsible for
what's happening um my serious
observation would be that it's it's it's
the thing I keep I've talked to him
about for a long time and I keep trying
to read and follow everything he does is
he's probably he is the I think see if
you agree with this he is the smartest
and most credible critic of llms is the
path RI
um and um he's not you know there's
certain I would say troll like
characters who are just like crap on
everything but like Ian has like very
deeply thought through basically um
theories as to why LMS are an
evolutionary dead end um and um and I
actually like um I I try to do this
thing where I try to model you know I
try to have a mental model of like the
two different sides of a serious
argument so I I've tried to like
internalize that argument as much as I
can which is difficult because like
we're investing it behind LMS as
aggressively as we can and so if he's
right like that could be a big problem
but like we should also know that um and
then I sort of use his ideas to
challenge all the bullish people you
know to really kind of test their level
of knowledge so I like to kind of Grill
people like I'm not like I'm not you
know I'm I was not you know I was got my
CS degree 35 years ago so I'm not like
deep in the technology but like if if to
the extent I can understand Yan's points
I can use them to um you know to really
surface a lot of the questions for the
people who are more bullish um and
that's been I think very very productive
um yeah so yeah just it's very striking
that you have somebody who is like that
Central in the space who is actually
like a full-on a full-on skeptic and and
you know and again as you this could go
different ways he could end up being
very wrong he could end up being totally
right or it could be that he will
provoke the evolution of these systems
to be much better than they would have
been yeah he could be both right and
wrong first of all I do I do agree with
that he's one of the most legit and uh
rigorous and deep critics of the llm
path to AGI you know his basic Notions
is that there needs AI needs to have
some
physical understanding of the physical
world and that's very difficult to
achieve with LM so there and that that
is a really good way to challenge the
limitations of llms and so on he's also
been a vocal and a huge proponent of
Open Source which is a whole another
which you have been as well which is
very useful yeah and that's been just
fascinating to watch and anti-er anti-
dumer yeah yeah he's he's very anti he
embodies he also has many wolves yes he
does yes he does yes he does he does so
it's been really really fun to watch the
other two okay here's my other Wolf
coming out yeah the other two of the
three Godfathers of AI are like radicals
like like full-on left you know far left
you know like they I would say like
either marxists or borderline marxists
um and they're like I think quite
extreme in their social political views
and I think that feeds into their
Doris um and I think you know they they
they are lobbying for like Draconian
government I think what would be
ruinously destructive government
legislation um in regulation and so it's
it's actually super helpful super super
helpful to have y on as a Counterpoint
to those two another fun question uh our
mutual friend Andrew huberman first
maybe what do you love most about Andrew
and second what score on a SC scale of 1
to 10 do you think he would give you on
your approach to health oh three
physical three you think you score that
high huh okay exactly 10 that's good
exactly well so he he did he convinced
me to stop drinking alcohol um which was
a big successfully well it was like my f
other than my family it was my favorite
thing in the world yeah and so it was a
major major reduction like having like a
glass of scotch at night was like a
major like it was like the thing I would
do to relax and so he has profoundly
negatively impacted my emotional health
um I uh I blame him for making me much
less happy as a person but much much
much healthier yeah uh physically
healthier so that that I I I credit him
with that I'm glad I did that um but
then his sleep stuff like yeah I'm not
doing any of that yeah I have no
interest in his sleep shit like no this
whole light natural light no we're not
doing you're too hardcore for I don't
see say I don't see any I don't see any
natural light in here it's all covered
it's all horrible and I'm very happy I
would be very happy living and working
here because I'm totally happy without
natural light in darkness yes that must
be a metaphor for something yes it's a
test look it's a test of manhood as to
whether you can have a blue screen in
your face for three hours and then go
right to sleep like I don't understand
why you should want to take
shortcuts um I now understand what they
mean by toxic
masculinity all
right so uh let's see you're
exceptionally Successful by most
measures but what to you is the
definition of
success I would probably say it is a
combination of two things I think it is
um
contribution um so you know have you
done something that mattered ultimately
um and
um and you know specifically matter to
people um and then the other thing is I
think happiness is either overrated or
almost a complete myth um and in fact
interesting Thomas Jefferson did not
mean happiness the way that we
understand it when he said Pursuit of
Happiness in the Declaration of
Independence he meant it more of the the
Greek meaning um which is closer to
satisfaction U or fulfillment um and so
I think happiness is so I think about
happiness as the first the first ice
cream cone makes you super happy the
first mile of the walk in the park and
during sunset makes you super happy the
first kiss makes you super happy the
thousandth ice cream
cone not so much um the thousandth mile
of the walk through the park um the
thousandth kiss can still be good but
maybe just not right in a
row um right and so happiness is this
very fleeting concept um and the people
who aner on happiness seem to go off the
rails pretty often s of the deep sense
of having
been I know how to put it
useful so that's a good place to arrive
at in life yes I think so yeah I mean
like can you sit can yeah you know who
was it who said that all this the source
of all the ills in the world is man's
inability to sit in a room by himself
doing
nothing um but like if you're sitting in
room by yourself and you're like all
right or you know 4 in the morning it's
like all right have I like you know have
I lived up to my expectation of
myself like if you have you know the
people I know who feel that way are are
pretty centered um and um you know
generally seem very um I don't know how
to put it pleased with you know
proud um calm at
peace um the people who are um you know
sensation Seekers um you know some of
the sensation by the way some you know
there's there's certain entrepreneurs
for example who are like in every form
of EXT extreme sport and they get you
know huge satisfaction out of that um or
you know there sensation seeking in sort
of useful and productive ways you know
Larry Ellison was always like that
Zuckerberg was like that and then you
know there's a lot of entrepreneurs who
end up you know
drugs you know like sexual you know
sexual escapades that seem like they'll
be fun at first and then backfire yeah
but at the end of the day if you're able
to be at
peace by yourself in a room at 4:00 a.m.
yeah and I would even say happy but I
know I understand Thomas Jefferson
didn't mean it the way the way maybe I
mean it but I can be happy by myself at
4:00 a.m. with a blue screen that's good
exactly staring at C sir
exactly as a small tangent a quick shout
out to an amazing interview you did with
Barry Weiss and just to her in general
Barry Weiss of uh the Free Press she has
a podcast called honestly with Barry
Weiss she's great people should go
listen you were asked if you believe in
God one of the joys see we're talked
about happiness one of the things that
makes me happy is making you
uncomfortable thank you so this this
question is designed for many of the
questions today have designed for that
you were asked if you believe in God and
you said after a pause you're not sure
so it felt like the
pause the uncertainty there was uh uh
some kind of ongoing search for wisdom
and meaning uh are you in fact searching
for wisdom and meaning I guess I put it
this way there's a lot to just
understand about people that I feel like
I'm only starting to
understand um and that certainly a
simpler concept than God so um that's
what I've spent a lot of the last you
know 15 years trying to figure out I
feel like I spent my first like whatever
30 years figuring out machines and then
now I'm spending 30 years figuring out
people which turns out to be quite a bit
more complicated um and then I don't
know maybe Gods the last 30 years or
something
um uh and then you know look I mean just
you know like like Elon is just like
okay the known universe is like very you
know complicated and you know mystifying
I mean every time I you know pull up in
astronomy you I get super in astronomy
and it's like you know you know Daddy
how many galaxies are there in the
universe and you know what's how many
galaxies are there in the
universe 100 billion okay like
how yeah like yeah like how is that
freaking possible like what like like
it's just it's such a staggering concept
that I I actually wanted to show you a
tweet that blew my mind from Elon from a
while back he said uh Elon said uh as a
friend called it this is the ultimate
skill tree this is a wall of
galaxies a billion light years across
yeah so these are all galaxies yeah like
what the like how was it that big like
how the hell and like you know I can
read the textbook and this and that and
the whatever 8 billion years and the big
bang and the whole thing and then it's
just like all right wow and then it's
like all right the Big Bang all right
like what was what was before the Big
Bang you think we'll ever we humans will
ever colonize like a Galaxy and maybe
even go beyond sure I mean yeah I mean
in the fullness of time yeah so you have
that kind of optimism you have that kind
of hope that extends across thousand in
the fullness of time I mean yeah I mean
yeah you know all the all the problem
all the challenges with it that I do but
like yeah why not I mean again in the
fullness of time it'll it'll take a long
time you don't think we'll destroy
ourselves no I doubt it I doubt it and
you know fortunately we have Elon giving
us giving us the the backup plan so so I
don't know like I grew up you know Ro
Midwest sort of just like conventionally
kind of protestant Christian um it never
made that much sense to me got trained
as an engineer and a scientist I'm like
oh that definitely doesn't make sense
I'm like I know I'll spend my life as an
empirical you know rationalist and I'll
figure everything out and then you know
and then again you walk up against these
things you know you you bump up against
these things and you're just like all
right I like okay I guess there's a
scientific explanation for this but like
wow um and then there's like all right
where did that come from um right and
then how how far back can you go on the
causality Chain um yeah and then yeah I
mean then even even just you know
experiences that we all have on Earth
it's it's hard to it's hard to
rationally explain at all and then you
know so yeah I guess I just say I'm kind
of radically open-minded um at peace
with the fact that I'll probably never
know um the other thing though that's
happened and maybe the more more
practical answer to the question is um I
think I have a much better understanding
now of the role that religion plays in
society that I didn't have when I was
younger um and my partner Ben has a
great I think he quotes his father on
this he's like if if a man does not have
a real religion he makes up a fake one
uh um and the fake ones go very very
badly um and
so there's this CL it's actually really
funny there's this class of intellectual
there's this class of intellectual that
has what appears to be a very
patronizing point of view which is yes I
am an atheist but it's very important
that the people believe in
something right U and Marx had like the
negative view on that which is religion
is the op of the masses but there's a
lot of like right-wing intellectuals who
are themselves I think pretty atheist or
agnostic that are like it's deeply
important that the people be Christian
or or something like that um and on the
one hand it's like wow that's arrogant
presumptive but on the other hand you
know maybe it's right because you know
what have we learned in the last 100
years is in the absence of a real
religion people will make up fake
ones um there's this writer this's this
political philosopher who's super
interesting on this named Eric vogelin
and he wrote this he wrote in the sort
of mid mid part of the century mid late
part of the 20th century he's like born
in I think like 1900 and like died in
like ' 85 so he saw the complete run of
Communism and uh and
Nazism um and himself you know fled the
I think he fled Europe and and you know
the whole thing um and um you know his
his sort of big conclusion was basically
that both communism and Nazism fascism
were were basically religions were were
but like in the Deep Way of religions
like they were you know we call them
political religions but they they were
like actual religions and you know they
were the they were what n have
forecasted when he said you know God is
dead we've killed him and we won't wash
the blood of our hands for a thousand
years right um is we will come up with
new religions that will just cause just
mass murder and death
um and like you read his stuff now and
you're like yep that happened right and
then of course as fully you know Elite
moderns of course we couldn't possibly
be doing that for ourselves right now
but of course we are and you know I
would argue that Eric vogan for sure
would argue that the last 10 years you
know we have been in a religious frenzy
you know that that woke has been a
fullscale religious frenzy um and has
had all of the characteristics of her
religion including everything from
patron saints to Holy texts to you know
sin it said yeah wokness say that every
aspect of a wokness say that every I
think is that every single aspect of an
actual religion other than
Redemption right which is maybe like the
most dangerous religion you could ever
come up with is the one where there's no
forgiveness right and so I think if V
and were alive I think he would have
zeroed right in on that would have said
that um and you know we just like sailed
right off I mentioned earlier like we we
somehow rediscovered the religions of
the indo-europeans we all into identity
politics and
environmentalism like I don't think
that's an accident
so so anyway like there there's
something very deep going on in the
human psyche um on religion that is not
dismissible and needs to be taken
seriously even if one struggles with the
the um specifics of it I think I speak
for a lot of people that it's been a
real joy and for me an honor to get to
watch
you uh seek to understand the human
psyche as you described you're in that
30-year part of your life
life um and it's been an honor to talk
with you today thank you Mark thank you
Alex is that it that's only only how
long is that four hours with uh Mark
Andrew it's like 40 hours of actual
content so I I I'll accept being one of
the short ones oh for for The Listener
Mark looks like he's ready to go for 20
more
hours and I need a nap thank you Mark
thank you Lex thanks for listening to
this conversation with Mark and dreon to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
let me leave you with some words from
thas
Soul it takes considerable knowledge
just to realize the extent of your own
ignorance thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time