YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → David Friedberg: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next!

David Friedberg: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next! — Transcript

by The Diary Of A CEO · 27,915 words · 4,362 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00It's inevitable that socialism will
0:01happen in America, but I don't want to
0:02lose my agency, my liberty, my freedom.
0:04>> Do you think the US as an empire is in
0:06decline? The answer is yes.
0:07>> I was appointed to President Trump's
0:09Council of Advisors in Science and
0:11Technology. And one of the great lies is
0:13that the government will save you. But
0:14the more government has tried to create
0:17services for people and help bring them
0:19up the ladder, the more expensive those
0:20things get.
0:21>> [music]
0:21>> 63% of Americans live paycheck to
0:24paycheck. People can't afford to pay
0:25their bills, and it needs to be fixed.
0:27>> What will ultimately happen?
0:29>> So, all my politician friends are about
0:30to chop my head off about this, but
0:33>> David Friedberg, what is the most
0:34important subject of our time?
0:36>> AI. We're entering this golden age, and
0:38people don't realize we're in it. And I
0:39don't buy into the narrative that Dario,
0:40Elon, and Sam [music] end up having all
0:42the value in AI. Because in the next 10
0:44years, there will be a billionaire that
0:45will emerge that had zero net worth
0:48today, downloaded open-sourced AI, and
0:49built a company that made them a
0:50billionaire. And they're going to be
0:51someone that's going to come from
0:52nowhere. And there's going to be a lot
0:54of these sorts of stories.
0:55>> But this narrative that AI will take
0:56jobs [music] away, you don't believe it.
0:58>> So, from data, from evidence, for all
1:00periods of technological revolution
1:01[music] like this, we've never seen jobs
1:03decline. And the average person doesn't
1:05see it. But oh my god, the stuff we can
1:07do is unbelievable. Right now, we have a
1:08billion people in the [music] world that
1:09are starving. We have hundreds of
1:10millions dying from curable disease.
1:12These are the sorts of things that are
1:13going [music] to get resolved because AI
1:15unleashes this capacity for human
1:18advancement, and it's transforming every
1:19aspect of biology and our understanding
1:22of life sciences.
1:22>> So, I wanted to ask you, do you think
1:24we're going to be able to live forever
1:25soon?
1:26>> The truth is
1:30>> This is super interesting to me. My team
1:32gave me this report to show me how many
1:33of you that watch this show subscribe.
1:35And some of you have told us, according
1:36to this, that you are unsubscribed from
1:38the channel randomly. So, favor to ask
1:40all of you, please could you check right
1:42now if you've hit the subscribe button.
1:43If you are a regular viewer of the show
1:45and you like what we do here. We're
1:46approaching quite a significant landmark
1:48on this show in terms of a subscriber
1:49number. So, if there was one simple,
1:52free thing that you could do to help us,
1:54my team, everyone here, to keep this
1:56show free, to keep it improving year
1:58over year and week over week, it is just
2:00to hit that subscribe button and to
2:01double check if you've hit it. Only
2:02thing I'll ever ask of you.
2:04Do we have a deal?
2:05If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll
2:05do. I'll make sure
2:08every single week, every single month,
2:09we fight harder and harder and harder
2:10and harder to bring you the guests and
2:11conversations that you want to hear.
2:13I've stayed true to that promise since
2:14the very beginning of The Diary of a
2:15CEO, and I will not let you down. Please
2:18help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get
2:20on with the show.
2:22>> [music]
2:25>> David Freeberg, you're someone that
2:26graces lots of different subjects. If
2:28you were to sort of self-define who you
2:30are
2:32and what you do. Now, this is difficult
2:34cuz you've got to kind of put yourself
2:35in a label here. What would that label
2:37be? How would you self-categorize
2:38yourself?
2:39>> I would say I'm
2:40deeply curious about the world and the
2:43universe and how it works and why it
2:44works the way it does. And I'm a big
2:46believer in human agency to affect the
2:49universe around us. And that's kind of
2:51my core kind of driving motivation. A
2:54lot of the other stuff ancillary is
2:55about how do you enable that?
2:57And I think that that's sort of probably
2:59where I also spend some time is in the
3:01enablement of those things.
3:03>> Got a nice cute photo here of that kid
3:05that wanted to be Einstein.
3:06>> Yeah.
3:07>> And then as it relates to how that
3:08manifested into like a professional
3:10journey,
3:10>> Yeah.
3:11>> what's your professional journey been
3:11for anyone that might not know?
3:13>> I started in college majoring in math
3:15and physics, and then I changed my major
3:17to astrophysics. And it was during the
3:19time I was in college is when the
3:21dot-com boom happened. In the heart of
3:22Silicon Valley, there was a kid in my
3:24dorm room who started a website selling
3:27DVDs online, and he sold it for a
3:29million dollars in our junior year of
3:30college. That was like an unbelievable,
3:33unfathomable amount of money. And so,
3:35there was this change that was happening
3:37in the world, and I got enamored with
3:38this idea of businesses and how do you
3:40use businesses to change the world, not
3:42just use scientific discovery as a
3:44method to change the world. So, I
3:46decided to go work in Silicon Valley. I
3:48interviewed for jobs. I didn't get a lot
3:49of offers,
3:50but I played a lot of poker during my
3:53college days.
3:55So, I was able to make money. I read all
3:56the strategy books on playing poker. I
3:58actually spent a year working in a pool
4:00hall and the manager of the pool hall
4:01and the bookie invited me to their home
4:03poker game, took all my money that I
4:05made at the pool hall. I was making four
4:06bucks an hour, 4.25 an hour. And so, I
4:08was like, I'm going to learn poker. So,
4:09I learned it. That's how I made money
4:10and I put that on my resume when I
4:12applied for jobs after college. And I
4:13got interviews with investment banks.
4:15And the investment banks were like, "Oh,
4:16we want to talk to a kid that knows how
4:18to play poker." Cuz this was before
4:19internet before ESPN poker. So, it was
4:22like an interesting thing. And so, I
4:23ended up getting a job working in
4:25investment banking and then worked in on
4:27tech companies. So, then I got to learn
4:28business, finance, accounting, mergers
4:30and acquisitions, all this sort of
4:31stuff.
4:32And then I ended up working at Google. I
4:34worked at Google when it was started
4:35when it was at just under 1,000
4:36employees.
4:38And I left a couple years later, started
4:39a business called the Climate
4:41Corporation. And so, I've been in
4:42Silicon Valley my whole
4:44career.
4:45>> And that company you end up starting
4:47does pretty well?
4:48>> The Climate Corporation?
4:49>> The Climate Corporation.
4:50>> That one we sold in 2013. So, we sold it
4:53for a little over a billion dollars,
4:55which was a great outcome for investors
4:57and shareholders. And today, you know,
4:59it's software for farmers. And today,
5:01that software is now owned by Bayer,
5:03which is the the big kind of pharma
5:05{slash} ag company.
5:07Uh it's used across 200 million acres
5:09every year. That's a pretty sizable
5:11amount of farmland that uses that
5:12software still. So, yeah, it's it's done
5:15fairly well.
5:15>> So, I'm 33 now. You were 33 when you
5:17sold that?
5:18>> I was 33.
5:19>> 33. A lot of money, billion dollars. And
5:22you've done lots of other things since
5:23then, which we can go into, but you've
5:24also I think from March this year, you
5:27were appointed as an advisor to Donald
5:28Trump.
5:29>> Yeah, I was appointed to President
5:30Trump's Council of Advisors in Science
5:32and Technology.
5:33>> What does that mean in reality?
5:35>> So, if you look back in the last couple
5:37administrations, there have been
5:39different themes over time
5:41on who is appointed to PCAST. In
5:44historical context, like Bill Clinton
5:46had a PCAST that was set up just for the
5:48internet.
5:48>> PCAST?
5:49>> President's Council of Advisors in
5:50Science and Technology. And so he set
5:52one up focused on the internet. And this
5:55current PCAST under this administration
5:57is heavy in AI. So it's like Mark
5:58Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen, Sergey
6:01Brin. That's kind of the cohort that's
6:03on this advisory council. But it's
6:05always included folks that are involved
6:07in things like biotechnology, sciences,
6:09and to help guide science policy for the
6:11administration. So it involves having
6:13conversations with people in the
6:14administration on things that are
6:16happening in industry, things that are
6:17happening on the frontiers of science
6:19and technology to help guide some of the
6:21policy decisions that the administration
6:23is trying to create or enforce.
6:26>> And what is the most important subject
6:27of our time?
6:28>> AI. And right now
6:31the big question in the United States
6:33from a policy perspective seems to be
6:36the regulation of AI. What role should
6:39the government play
6:41in determining where AI goes, how it
6:44gets built, how it gets deployed, who
6:46gets to use it, who owns it, where the
6:48value lies. A lot of these factions that
6:51emerge inside a government even today on
6:52the same political party
6:54on whether or not, for example, to allow
6:56Chinese open-source models to be used by
6:59American businesses. You know, these
7:01Chinese [clears throat] models are as
7:02good as or in many cases better than
7:04private American models. And because
7:07they're open weights, you can download
7:08them and run them on any computer you
7:10want that works. A lot of companies want
7:12to use those because they're cheap.
7:13They're You can pay effectively 50 cents
7:16for a million tokens of output, which is
7:18a measure of how productive the model
7:21is. You know, this is a token is kind of
7:22like a word versus $50 from Anthropic,
7:25which is a private model. So the
7:27question is, do we allow these Chinese
7:29models to kind of become ubiquitous
7:32in industry?
7:34And if so, what does that do to American
7:36AI? What does that do to our capacity to
7:39compete?
7:41Is there security risk? Uh so there's a
7:43lot of this kind of debate underway. And
7:45that I think is probably the hot topic
7:47du jour. I don't know if it's the hot
7:49topic tomorrow, but today that's kind of
7:52the big thing. But all of this this
7:53administration, I think from a science
7:55and technology policy perspective will
7:57probably be viewed as
7:59on the one hand, what's the
8:01enablement acceleration regulation of
8:04AI.
8:05>> Mhm.
8:05>> And on the other hand, you know, there's
8:07this question still on what is science?
8:10In an era of AI, science is also
8:12changing. And so there's this kind of
8:14I think big shift underway.
8:16>> We'll go into those subjects,
8:17specifically the subjects on AI and
8:18everything that it interfaces with, but
8:20I think it's important also to get kind
8:21of like a a backdrop of the economic
8:25state and like the social state of the
8:28nation because all of these things feed
8:29into these big questions on AI. And they
8:32also inform everyone's biases on the
8:33subject. Because if you're at a
8:35different sort of socio-economic
8:36position, or if you're feeling a
8:38different thing, your perspective on AI
8:39is going to be radically different. So,
8:41if we started then first on like if we
8:43just focus on the United States, which
8:45in some respects is a little bit of a
8:46proxy for the rest of the Western world,
8:48where is the United States at at this
8:50moment in time in terms of is it on the
8:52rise, inequality? What are the what are
8:55the sort of pattern and factors here
8:56that help us understand the backdrop of
8:58this nation?
8:59>> The biggest drivers for this nation at
9:01the moment in terms of what public
9:03policy and private markets will do is
9:05number one, the unaffordability crisis.
9:09>> What does that mean?
9:09>> 63% of Americans live paycheck to
9:12paycheck. They don't have enough savings
9:14to pay for a fiscal emergency in their
9:16household. 63% of Americans. And the
9:19cost of things is rising faster than
9:22wages are increasing. So, things feel
9:24less affordable
9:25to most Americans.
9:28And then there's this wealth inequality
9:30concern, which I would say is both kind
9:33of a perception issue. There's
9:36definitely policy issues that has
9:38allowed it to happen and we can talk
9:39about those, but I think America is in
9:41this kind of crisis of classism, this
9:45crisis of us versus them, and it
9:48manifests in a lot of different ways.
9:50So, you know, you had Ray Dalio on, and
9:52if you think about Ray Dalio's kind of
9:53like cycle of empires, you know, this is
9:56this idea that there's been six empires
9:58in the last 500 years, and the United
10:00States is on the decline and China's on
10:01the rise, and it can be measured across
10:03a number of different dimensions, one of
10:05which is this crisis of internal
10:07struggle, which manifests often with
10:10external struggle, the Iran war. Like,
10:12why can't we stop having external wars?
10:14Well, you know, a nation that's happy
10:16with itself generally doesn't go to war.
10:18A nation that's not happy generally does
10:20go to war. And so, um, a lot of this
10:23stuff gets tied up, I think, in this
10:24economic distress that the United States
10:26is feeling.
10:28My contention,
10:30which may not be very popular,
10:32is that the more government has tried to
10:35uh create services for people and help
10:37bring them up the ladder, the more
10:39expensive those things get.
10:41>> Are you socialism?
10:42>> Policy in the United States, and this is
10:45one of the great lies, and I think
10:46there's a series of great lies
10:49in US policy over the last half century,
10:51but one of the great lies is that the
10:53government will save you, the government
10:55will help you
10:56by giving you these essential services
10:59that you want more of.
11:01Education, health care, housing.
11:03And as the government has entered into
11:05those markets, because remember there
11:07are people making those things, offering
11:08those services, and there's someone
11:09paying for it. So, as the government
11:11enables more money to flow into those
11:13markets, the cost of those things has
11:14just gone up. And you can see how this
11:17plays out, for example, in education.
11:19So, higher education, if you want to go
11:20to college in the United States, and
11:22I'll just give you a statistic, 30 years
11:24ago, administrative staff were like 10%
11:26of colleges, today they're like 60% in
11:28just 30 years.
11:29Give Give a rational reason why we
11:31should have 6x the administrative
11:32staffing at colleges and universities.
11:34There isn't a good reason why. The real
11:37reason is that because the federal
11:39student loan program doesn't
11:40discriminate against the university on
11:42how well they do with their graduating
11:43students or the degree or the individual
11:46that's taking out the loan, the federal
11:47student loan program has just allowed
11:49more money to flow in to universities.
11:51Now, if you're a university
11:52administrator, there's no constraint on
11:54how much you can charge for tuition. So,
11:56hey, we'll raise tuition 5% this year.
11:57We'll raise it 8%. We'll raise it 10%
12:00and we'll hire more people. And if
12:01people hire more people, they get a
12:02higher salary. If you think about the
12:04individual, I don't get to make more
12:05salary until I'm a manager. Now, I want
12:07to be a director. Now, I want to be a
12:08senior director. And the organization
12:10grows. That's very natural for any
12:12organization, whether it's a nonprofit,
12:14a university, or a private company. You
12:16want to grow and people want to make
12:17more money year after year. So, they,
12:19because they can collect more money, can
12:21charge more for tuition. There isn't a
12:23natural market force that says your
12:25tuition is too high now.
12:27Because the government has provided
12:28unlimited funding to higher education
12:30through the federal student loan
12:31program. So, as a result, education has
12:33gotten so vastly expensive that everyone
12:36now looks at it and says we got to do
12:37something about this. And both parties
12:39seem to say, "Well, here's what the
12:40government's going to do to do more."
12:41And it's like putting fuel on the fire.
12:43So, the challenge right now is people
12:45are feeling left behind. There's massive
12:47wealth inequality. Things are extremely
12:49unaffordable. And the solution that's
12:52being embraced is for the government to
12:54do more, which de facto leads to
12:56socialism.
12:57What is wrong with socialism?
12:59I would argue that the key measure
13:02of a country's success is how many
13:05people are transitioning from labor to
13:06capital each year.
13:08>> What does that mean?
13:08>> That means every year I'm working
13:09paycheck to paycheck. I'm collecting
13:11check. I I
13:12I I graduated college at $19,000 in
13:14debt.
13:15I went and worked. I got paid. I saved
13:18up. I paid down my debt. I was able to
13:19get out of it. Then, I worked at Google.
13:21We had an IPO. Suddenly, I had assets. I
13:24had stuff. I had money in the bank
13:26account. And it was like an incredible
13:28moment for me. And I said I could live
13:30off that money. I don't need to live off
13:32a paycheck every month. I had now have
13:34savings. I have assets.
13:36That is capital.
13:38And everyone talks about capital versus
13:40labor.
13:41But the real advantage of America is
13:43enabling people to go from labor to
13:45capital. Every individual that works,
13:48saves, invests, does whatever they need
13:51to do to accumulate enough capital ends
13:52up in the capital bucket, and then
13:54you're no longer stuck needing to go
13:56paycheck to paycheck to pay your bills.
13:58That's the dream. That's the real
13:59American dream. It's not just about
14:01owning a house. If you own a house and
14:02you want to have a bunch of debt, and
14:04you got insurance payments to make, and
14:05you still got to work every month to
14:07make those payments, you're not
14:08necessarily living the American dream
14:10yet. The American dream is being free of
14:12that burden.
14:13>> Because you can live off the interest of
14:15your assets.
14:16>> That's right. And so you're earning
14:17income. You You like let's say you have
14:18$100,000,
14:20you know, saved, and you can make 10% a
14:22year on that. That's 10,000 bucks.
14:24Suddenly, if you get to a million
14:25dollars saved,
14:26you can make $100,000 a year, and you
14:27can live on that. That's economic
14:29security. That's financial security.
14:31That's what we should give to every
14:32American. Is the ability to own assets
14:34that give them freedom to choose what
14:36they want to do in their life, rather
14:37than be stuck in work. And the problem
14:39with socialism is it takes away that
14:40transition moment. It eliminates it,
14:43because it says everyone has to be labor
14:44all the time for the rest of their
14:45lives. And then no one has freedom. And
14:47that's what America was founded on was
14:48this ability to find through freedom of
14:51choice, through agency, the ability to
14:53transition from labor to capital. And I
14:56think our goal as a country should be
14:58get 2% of Americans across that line
15:01every year. Then I think we'll be
15:02successful going forward.
15:04But if everything's all about like give
15:06people more stuff, and have the
15:07government do it, we're just going to
15:09keep raising the debt, making things
15:10more expensive, inflating the cost away,
15:12and it's inevitable that socialism will
15:14happen in America. It's absolutely
15:15inevitable.
15:16>> Do you think the US as an empire is in
15:17decline?
15:19>> In terms of
15:21the power of the dollar, in terms of
15:23prosperity of Americans, at the average
15:25American, the majority of Americans, the
15:26answer is yes.
15:28But, um the potential hasn't been
15:31deleted.
15:32Meaning, decline is not inevitable.
15:35To be very clear, like that we are not
15:37yet
15:38at a point where it's a runaway train.
15:40In the history of democracies, there's
15:41never been a place like America where an
15:43individual like myself, you know, moving
15:45here from South Africa, going to public
15:47college, graduating with debt, and then
15:50being able to work my way out of the
15:51debt and find myself in the position I'm
15:53in today, with no nepotism, with no
15:55handouts, with I mean, you could argue
15:57about privilege and all these other
15:58sorts of things that I was vested over
16:00my life, but like it's an amazing place
16:02that that sort of story can be told a
16:04million times over. That there's not
16:05just one or two people that this has
16:07happened to, but there's millions of
16:08people. The problem is it's all the
16:10other hundreds of millions that didn't
16:11get to live that opportunity. And if we
16:14can fix that, America is not in decline.
16:16America is a prosperous nation and has
16:19centuries ahead of it.
16:20>> When you look at this, you're talking
16:21about runaway trains, when you look at
16:23the national debt though, it does look
16:24very much like a runaway train.
16:26>> Want to know where inflation comes from?
16:27That's where inflation comes from. By
16:29printing more dollars to pay for that
16:30debt, which is what happens. The Federal
16:32Reserve buys the debt and they issue
16:33dollars to the bank system
16:36to to buy the debt from the government.
16:37Remember, the Federal Reserve is
16:38separate from the government. The
16:40Federal Reserve can print dollars. They
16:41can send dollars to banks
16:43and now the banks can loan money out and
16:45it makes its way into the economy. Now,
16:46there's more dollars in the economy.
16:48And that money was, you know, owed back
16:51to the government at some point, but the
16:52Federal Reserve may never get paid back.
16:54They may just keep adding and adding and
16:55adding and adding.
16:56And they're just printing more and more
16:57dollars.
16:58>> sustainable?
16:59>> No.
17:00>> So, so I I I I don't understand the
17:01force that's going to intervene to stop
17:03this sort of compounding debt.
17:05>> The outcome of this is socialism. That's
17:07the moment we're in right now. That's
17:08why we're seeing this wave of socialism.
17:09I've been saying for 5 years, we're
17:11going to face a wave of socialism, and
17:13after Donald Trump was elected, uh my
17:15prediction for the next year was that
17:17the next wave in politics in America
17:19will be socialism and people thought I
17:20was crazy. And I'm like, it is
17:21absolutely inevitable if you look at
17:23this. This is where we're headed. It it
17:25it is de facto socialism when the
17:27government employs roughly one half of
17:30the people of the United States. Right
17:32now, if you look at all the federal,
17:33state, local agencies. So, the people
17:36that are employed, the people that are
17:37contractors of those agencies. And then
17:40um the people that live off of uh some
17:42sort of government pension or social
17:43security system, the total amount close
17:45to 50% of Americans. So, we're getting
17:47to a point where people are like, the
17:48only place I can go is more money from
17:50the government. And then eventually the
17:52government becomes the whole economy.
17:54>> If the outcome is socialism, was the
17:55cause capitalism?
17:56>> It's a great question. I think it was
17:57capitalism plus policies. Let's say you
18:00have a million dollars.
18:00>> Yeah.
18:01>> You're making, say, 10% a year.
18:04Next year you have 1.1 million.
18:07The next year you have 1.21 million
18:09dollars or whatever, and you keep adding
18:10it up.
18:11That's called compounding.
18:13After a couple of years, your million
18:15dollars turns into 10 million dollars.
18:17And you never have to sell shares along
18:18the way. You can just own the shares in
18:19whatever's going up. Your value just
18:21keeps going up. You've never paid taxes
18:23along the way. Boom boom boom boom boom.
18:25And suddenly fast forward a couple
18:26years, instead of having a million,
18:27you've now got 10.
18:28That's capital compounding over time.
18:32Meanwhile, if you're working,
18:34every paycheck taxes are taken out.
18:36Every time you get a check, every time
18:38you get more money, more capital, taxes
18:40are taken out. So, if you don't get
18:42capital, if you don't get enough savings
18:44to allow you to compound, you are never
18:47going to get there. So, from a tax
18:49policy perspective, labor, working for
18:52your money, should have never been taxed
18:54higher than earning returns on your
18:56capital.
18:57>> So, you're saying tax the rich?
18:59>> I'm saying tax capital
19:01at a rate that's equivalent to labor.
19:03>> Wealth taxes?
19:04>> Wealth taxes are asset seizures.
19:06Definitely no.
19:07So, one of the principles of the United
19:09States, and the the of what this country
19:11was founded on
19:12is private property rights. If you go
19:14back to England, right? Like 500 years.
19:18Or like let's just do let's just talk
19:19Europe broadly.
19:21There were very few places where you as
19:22an individual citizen had rights to own
19:25private property.
19:26There were very few places where you
19:27could say I have this thing and it
19:28doesn't belong to the king or it doesn't
19:31belong to whatever the local lord is.
19:33Like everything was the property of the
19:36lords, of the higher class, of the upper
19:38class. It was endowed to them as vested
19:40to them by birthright.
19:41For centuries. Same in Asia, same in the
19:44Middle East, same in Africa. I mean like
19:46every nation started out with the system
19:48where people didn't have rights to
19:50private property. Those who had kind of
19:51these systems above could decide who got
19:54what. So the United States was founded
19:56on one of the principles of private
19:57property for an individual that you you
19:58know, I think when they were drafting
20:00the Declaration of Independence it was
20:01about life, liberty, and the pursuit of
20:03property. And they later changed it to
20:05pursuit of happiness.
20:06And the pursuit of property was really
20:09the measure of what you've accumulated
20:10as an individual. You now have a right
20:11to accumulate things. You now have a
20:13right to build value, to build wealth,
20:14to build a house and and have your
20:16family in your house, and have all these
20:18things. That was a principle of the
20:19United States.
20:21I'm all for taxes when people transact,
20:23when they turn their stock that they've
20:25held for a couple years into cash and
20:27buy something with it. Boom, tax. You
20:29get taxed on that. If that's the right
20:30model, that's when you should get taxed.
20:32Right then, when you're able to turn
20:33that asset that you own into another
20:35asset.
20:36So that's what we do today. That's an
20:38income tax or a capital gains tax. Like
20:40when you realize that gain. But if I go
20:42into your shares and I'm like, "Hey, I'm
20:43going to take 5% of your shares." What
20:45are you losing? Well, you can't use
20:47those shares to buy anything cuz if as
20:49soon as you try and buy something you
20:50you owe tax on those shares. So by
20:52taking away your shares before you've
20:53actually transacted with them, before
20:55you've actually sold them, or taking
20:56away your private property, your home,
20:58or giving the government the right to
20:59come in your garage and audit everything
21:01you own and say, "Hey, this year we're
21:03doing a 2% tax." That is antithetical to
21:05what the United States was founded on,
21:07which was a founding principle of
21:08private property. Now, if your property
21:09goes up in value
21:11and then you eventually turn it into
21:12some other property, that's a
21:14transaction and that's when you get
21:15taxed. That's how the system's set up.
21:17So, if we have an issue with people
21:18having too much wealth, that's the
21:20moment to increase the tax rate. That's
21:22capital gains tax, income tax on high
21:24earners. Those two things can get you
21:2697% of the way there and you're not
21:28really going to gain much
21:30you know, separately we can kind of talk
21:31about the numbers on this, but like tax
21:33the the rich.
21:34All for it, but tax the rich when they
21:36transact, when they sell, when they when
21:38they have a capital gain, if they borrow
21:40against their assets. This is another
21:41thing that's that's wrong about our
21:42system today. If I'm very wealthy, I own
21:45a bunch of stock and I've never sold any
21:47of the stock.
21:48If I borrow against my stock to go buy a
21:51yacht, I don't pay taxes.
21:54That should be a taxable event. We
21:55should fix that. That's an easy fix in
21:57the tax system. I'm not taking away your
21:59private property, but as soon as you
22:01borrow against that, it's effectively
22:02like transacting on that property, so
22:04that's the moment to pay a tax. And if
22:06we think that the rich aren't paying
22:08enough taxes, you can raise income tax
22:09or capital gains taxes to get them to
22:11pay more.
22:12>> This is what I was going to say, but you
22:13you Yeah.
22:13>> Yeah.
22:14>> arrived at it was most people that own
22:16stock in big companies will just borrow
22:19against their stock and they never pay a
22:20tax.
22:21>> Fix that.
22:21>> I didn't know this until I was I'm going
22:23to say 26 and my company had gone public
22:25and the this bank in Europe approached
22:28me and said, "By the way, we'll give you
22:3020% of whatever your your the value of
22:33the stock you have in my company called
22:34Social Capital AG Mhm. is a tax-free
22:37loan." I was like, "Explain this to me
22:38again."
22:39So, you'll just send me millions of
22:41pounds and I don't have to pay tax.
22:42>> have to sell your shares.
22:43>> Don't have to sell anything. I said,
22:45"Well, look at the rest of my
22:45portfolio." And I had some Facebook
22:47stock at the time. They're like, "Well,
22:48we'll give you 50% to 60% loan to value
22:51on that. I E, if you have a million
22:53dollars of Facebook stock, we will
22:54transfer you today 700 grand tax-free."
22:57And I can do with that whatever I want.
22:59I thought, "Fucking hell, this is what
23:00the rich do."
23:01>> She's exactly right.
23:02And the truth is that no one talks about
23:05behind closed doors. Everyone knows that
23:07it needs to change.
23:08>> But no one wants to say it because
23:10>> I'm saying it.
23:11>> Yeah.
23:11>> Got to change.
23:12>> What's interesting about that is say
23:13that I have 10 million of Facebook stock
23:14and I I take a a loan and they give me 5
23:17million in cash. What a rich person then
23:19does is they take that 5 million and
23:20they go and buy other assets.
23:21>> Exactly right.
23:22>> And then they start acquiring more and
23:23more assets.
23:24>> That's what's unfair about the system
23:25because then when you have capital,
23:27you're accumulating more capital while
23:29labor, if you haven't made that cross
23:31that chasm from labor to capital, you're
23:33still here grinding every month,
23:34grinding every week, trying to pay your
23:35freaking bills. And then these guys have
23:37all these shenanigans that are going on.
23:39>> Yeah.
23:39>> It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
23:41The answer though is not taking private
23:44property.
23:45>> Yeah.
23:45>> The sooner you start taking private
23:46property, those gates are open. By the
23:48way, it's not even going to be
23:49constitutional in the United States. The
23:50Fifth Amendment has this taker clause,
23:52you know, it's not it's legally like not
23:54going to win in federal court. It could
23:55work in some states. Some states There's
23:57seven states that actually have a
23:58constitutional ban
24:00on private property tax like this.
24:02There's uh
24:03you know, 43 states where it's game on.
24:06And we'll see how they play out in the
24:07courts as they try to pass these wealth
24:09taxes as well. But these are asset
24:10seizure taxes. They're You you can have
24:12a wealth tax by raising capital gains,
24:14make high-income or high-asset people
24:16pay more taxes or whatever when they
24:18sell stuff or when they buy stuff.
24:20There's a lot of ways to tax wealth.
24:22But taking assets
24:24from people after they've paid their
24:25taxes or before they've paid their taxes
24:28is not the right way to do it.
24:30>> What will ultimately happen?
24:31>> So the ultimate outcome will be that 51%
24:34of people will say, "Hey, give me all
24:36the stuff that the 49% have." What would
24:38stop them from doing that? Because
24:40ultimately you can take as much as you
24:41want from a minority of people and
24:44distribute it to the majority, and that
24:46minority starts out with a few
24:47billionaires, then a couple more 50
24:49millionaires, then a couple more 10
24:50millionaires, then millionaires, then
24:52100,000-aires, and there's no limit to
24:54where this thing goes. And that is
24:55socialism.
24:56>> And what what does that do in terms of
24:58how talent moves
25:01and how people,
25:02you know, move to different places?
25:04>> I know billionaires.
25:07>> Yeah.
25:07>> Many of them have moved or planning to
25:09move out of California just on the
25:11threat of this.
25:12And people [clears throat] say, "F them.
25:13Good riddance. Get rid of them."
25:15You know, the top 1% of taxpayers in
25:17California pay the majority of taxes in
25:20the state.
25:21I think it's probably it's definitely
25:22north of 40%, but it's probably the
25:24majority.
25:25>> The top 1% of earners pay
25:2740 to 50% of California's total personal
25:29income tax depending on stock market
25:31capital gains performance.
25:32>> There you go. So, that 1% are the people
25:35I'm talking about that are leaving the
25:36state because they see where this is
25:38headed.
25:39I don't think California wants that.
25:41>> [laughter]
25:41>> Those are very productive people for the
25:43state. They're people that create
25:45companies that hire people, that pay
25:47well, go to fancy restaurants, pay for
25:50cars. I mean, they support the economy.
25:51It's not just the taxes, but they're a
25:53big part of capital flowing through the
25:55economy. We saw this happen in France.
25:57You know, France had this wealth tax,
25:59and then their total tax revenue
26:00declined by more than they were making
26:02on the wealth tax because everyone left
26:03France. Then they stopped doing the
26:05wealth tax and everyone came back and
26:06the income came back. So, this is a
26:08well-studied kind of case. So, I don't
26:10think that a wealth tax or an asset
26:12seizure tax is the solution. I think
26:14we've got to fix all the other stuff
26:15that we've talked about, and we've got
26:16to fix the government spending problem.
26:18And if we can do those two things, then
26:20I think we can bring inflation down, we
26:21can bring the wealth inequality down,
26:23and give more people the ability to make
26:25that transition. But I do think every
26:26politician should be talking about the
26:27focus on what percent of people in the
26:29United States every year are moving from
26:31labor to capital. How many people can
26:33say, "Hey, I've got enough cash to
26:34retire if I wanted to." That's what we
26:36want to try and get everyone towards,
26:38not just convincing people, and this is
26:40one of the great lies, convincing
26:41everyone that the great American dream
26:43is to own a house. When owning a house
26:45for a lot of Americans ends up putting
26:47all your capital in one asset, and
26:49you've got to basically get the price of
26:50housing to go up every year to keep
26:52everyone moving up the ladder. So now
26:54fast forward 30, 40, 50 years, young
26:56people can't afford to buy a house
26:57anymore because we've pushed the asset
26:59value up so much to try and make sure
27:01that everyone's got good good good
27:02household wealth.
27:03>> We are told that. I mean, that's the
27:05sort of central idea once you leave
27:06university is to figure out how quickly
27:08you can get a mortgage or buy a house.
27:09>> It's one of the great lies.
27:11And there's a lot of countries where
27:12people have been able to accumulate
27:13capital and jump that that ravine from
27:16labor to capital much more quickly when
27:17they don't buy a house because they can
27:19invest in stuff. They can buy, you know,
27:21the the S&P 500, which you can just buy
27:23on an E-Trade or Robinhood account and
27:24you can just own it. On average will
27:26make you 10, 11% a year.
27:28You just put your money in that, you're
27:29making 10, 11% a year and it can go up
27:30every year and you don't have to pay
27:31taxes, you don't have to pay property
27:32tax, you don't have to pay insurance,
27:34you don't have to deal with repairs and
27:35maintenance, all that sort of stuff. So
27:37a lot of people would have been better
27:39off depending on the markets that
27:40they're in. There's some markets that
27:41that ballooned, but a lot of people
27:42would have been better off over the last
27:4430 years actually owning the S&P 500
27:46than owning their home and paying for
27:48the rent on a home.
27:49>> One of the things I see in the comment
27:50section whenever someone makes that
27:51point is you'll have someone who bought
27:53a house 20 years ago saying, "Well,
27:55listen,
27:56I bought a house 20 years ago for this
27:58amount and now it's worth this." And
28:01this is every single time that I see
28:03this this argument being made from
28:04financial advisers or investors, that is
28:06always the top comment.
28:09Is, "Well, I bought one and I did good."
28:11Yep.
28:11>> It actually indicates a problem.
28:14Which is if your house went up in price
28:16so much, that house is much less
28:17affordable to a young person that's
28:19going to buy it next.
28:21And that's what we've fundamentally done
28:22with this asset class,
28:24residential real estate.
28:26We've created a system whereby
28:27residential real estate prices go up so
28:29much and there's a whole bunch of
28:31policies around making this happen.
28:33>> So got a graph here showing all the
28:35things that have gone up and you can see
28:36housing is one of them.
28:37>> Yeah, the stuff on the bottom the
28:38government doesn't touch. The stuff on
28:40the top the government touches. And so
28:41the more the government's involved, the
28:43more expensive these things get. But all
28:45of the policy around residential real
28:46estate has allowed the middle class in
28:48America, which has the majority of
28:50wealth, and I'll give you the statistics
28:51in a minute,
28:52to grow their asset base, to accumulate
28:55more assets, to become wealthier. All
28:57the boomers, they're so wealthy because
28:59they owned all these houses, and now
29:01young people graduating college can't
29:02afford a house. It is a bad fact
29:06that a lot of people got very wealthy by
29:07owning a home because it means that the
29:09next generation is going to say, "I want
29:11socialism cuz I can't afford a home."
29:13That's the moment we're in. 40 million
29:15Americans graduated from college in the
29:17United States in the last 10 years. 45
29:19million. So, if you do the math on this,
29:22that's a large number of people that are
29:24now, on average, encumbered with some
29:27amount of student debt,
29:29facing a challenging job market, and
29:32then the only way to buy a home is you
29:33got to come up with a million bucks.
29:35And, you know, it leads to this problem
29:37where everyone's like, "Man, I need mom
29:39and daddy."
29:39>> So, what would you say then to
29:41people that are in that 62% was it?
29:43>> 63.
29:44>> 63% of people
29:45>> And that statistic changes year to year,
29:46but that's roughly the number. 63% of
29:48Americans,
29:49you know, less than $500 of savings and
29:51working paycheck to paycheck and can't
29:54pay for a fiscal emergency.
29:56>> So, for those people, the the 63%
29:59who you're telling them that buying a
30:01house is now like unaffordable. It's
30:03potentially not a good investment. If
30:04they're trying to sort of cross that
30:06chasm get over to the side where they
30:07have assets, what would
30:10what would your prescription be for
30:10them? What should they do?
30:12>> Man, that's a great question. People
30:14will challenge it, but I would have
30:17never thought that podcasting would be
30:20such a massive business.
30:23I would have never thought that being an
30:24Instagram influencer would be such a
30:25massive business or TikTok influencer.
30:28I would have never thought that
30:29individual artists could publish online
30:32and make money without getting a record
30:33deal. I would have never thought that
30:35individual artists would be able to sell
30:36their work and make a living on eBay and
30:39Etsy.
30:41I would have never thought that
30:42craftspeople be able to find jobs
30:44through the internet. I think the
30:45internet has been this incredible
30:47enabler of millions of new ways to work,
30:50of new ways to earn an income. And a lot
30:52of people will roll their eyes and say,
30:53"But that's not what the system was
30:55supposed to have set me up for. The
30:56system failed us." Maybe the system did
30:58fail you. And maybe the government
31:00solution wasn't the right solution, but
31:01human agency is what got all these
31:03people there. They all got to this
31:05place. Did the government give you your
31:06job as a podcaster? Did the government
31:08teach you how to podcast and build this
31:10incredible media empire that you've
31:11built?
31:12I don't know if the government played
31:13much of a role in it. I think you played
31:15the role in it.
31:16I don't know. You tell me if I'm wrong.
31:19But I think that this is really
31:20important for a lot of people to observe
31:21firstly, which is the government isn't
31:23going to save individuals.
31:25The government's going to make things
31:26harder for individuals to find their
31:28path. If I have to go and start a barber
31:30shop, I got to go get all these
31:32cosmetology licenses. I got to go figure
31:34out a way to go to school,
31:36pay thousands of dollars, get health
31:37inspections done. There's a lot of
31:39government layers that stop me from
31:41doing that work. There's a lot of ways
31:43that the government actually inhibits
31:44people's agency and makes it harder for
31:45them to do the things that they want to
31:47do and progress. I think that's just a
31:49fundamental for me, one of the
31:51observable truths. But I think the
31:52second thing is I never discount human
31:54agency. There was this great um podcast
31:57done years ago
31:59by those guys at the Hoover Institute
32:01where they talked about the success of
32:02China.
32:04And a lot of people, you know, where
32:05China grew GDP per capita from like
32:073,000 to 30,000 or whatever it was. And
32:10they're like, "Man, Chinese central
32:11planning is brilliant. They're so good
32:13at this." And these guys made the
32:14argument, which I discounted at the
32:16time, but I often think about nowadays,
32:19that it was actually the agency of the
32:22individual choice,
32:23the entrepreneurship, the drive, the
32:26motivation
32:27of the population of the individuals in
32:29China, not central planning. But
32:31basically the government enabled free
32:33markets. They allowed people to work.
32:35They allowed people to trade. They
32:36allowed people to create value for each
32:38other, to do something that someone else
32:40might want. They looked around and they
32:41said, "I think you want this." and they
32:42started making it. And when the
32:44government loosened the shackles on
32:45individuals, that population grew the
32:47economy.
32:49And the government still has a big role
32:50in central planning in China, but it was
32:52a really important point. If you think
32:54about all the success that's come from
32:55the United States, it's not a central
32:57message that the government said, "Let's
32:58do this and then we're going to do this
32:59and we're going to do this." It's
33:00individuals making their own choices.
33:02You've seen what people want to learn,
33:04what people want to watch, what they're
33:05interested in, and you give it to them.
33:07You create value for them. You deliver
33:09that value and you've you've earned
33:10something from that. People are willing
33:12to pay for that. And I think that that's
33:14core to kind of where we can go from
33:16here, and I don't think we teach it in
33:17schools.
33:19I don't think we teach it as a value.
33:21We've lost that value of agency, the
33:23importance of the individual taking
33:25their own action. Every conversation we
33:27have in every freaking context is all
33:30about the freaking government.
33:31Government this, do this, do this, do
33:33this, do this for me.
33:35What individuals can do is limitless,
33:37and that's where I think we fall short.
33:38Every day someone should ask themselves,
33:41I tell my kids this, but what did you do
33:43today that someone else valued?
33:45And if you focus on figuring out
33:47something that you can do that someone
33:48else can value,
33:51and you do that over and over again,
33:52rinse and repeat,
33:54I think there's paths for people.
33:55>> So, a couple of counterarguments here.
33:57>> Yeah.
33:57>> There's so we can stress test this
33:58thinking. Um you pointed at me and said
34:00I was, you know, I started podcast,
34:01started businesses, those businesses
34:03grew, um and it was, you know, you were
34:05very generous in giving me probably more
34:07credit than I deserved there. But if I
34:09was to if I was to rebuttal that, I
34:10would say I was born in Africa. Would
34:13that have been possible in Africa? Would
34:15that have been possible in like Nigeria,
34:16where my mother's from, or would it have
34:19been possible in Botswana, where I was
34:21born? Is it the fact that I moved to the
34:23UK, where I had this sort of foundation
34:25of stability because of the government,
34:27where school was free for us, health
34:29care is taken care of, so I never had to
34:31think about those things, which allowed
34:32me at 18 years old to like not go to
34:35university,
34:36take a risk, drop out, be in that room.
34:39No, when I was sat in that room in
34:40Manchester, I actually at one point
34:42printed off the jobseeker's allowance
34:44forms, which are basically the
34:45government will give me free money if I
34:47if I get to the point where my
34:48shoplifting of pizzas
34:50um is no longer a reliable way to feed
34:51myself.
34:52>> Yeah.
34:52>> But I had that form on my desk, and it
34:54was there. And there's maybe something
34:55psychological about knowing that I had
34:57this sort of like underlying safety net
34:59where I could rush back a 300-mile round
35:01trip to my parents in Plymouth, and I
35:03could like live in the house,
35:05or I could fill out this form, this
35:07jobseeker's allowance form, and they
35:08would like pay me money.
35:10That allowed me maybe at some deeper
35:12level to go and take that risk. And I
35:14never even realized the privilege of
35:15like oh,
35:17there's like health care, and there's
35:18laws, and there's roads, and there's
35:19like this Wi-Fi thing that allows me
35:21with this laptop in my room to like
35:23build this website that I built. Um so,
35:25that's the government's involvement in
35:27my success. They give me this great
35:28foundation of stability and
35:29infrastructure.
35:30>> Great. Great role for government to
35:31play.
35:32>> But the problem is that's a slippery
35:33slope, right?
35:34>> That's right.
35:35>> And so, there's balance here. There's
35:36nuance of like personal agency, but then
35:38also the government do need to give me a
35:39good foundation.
35:40>> That's right.
35:40>> And it's and it starts
35:41>> government shouldn't employ you.
35:44And that's the slippery slope that we
35:46end up on. And that's where I worry
35:48about our ability to come back from
35:49that. Because if you do end up with 40,
35:5150% of Americans
35:53getting paid some check from the
35:54government, it becomes very hard to get
35:55off of that check. And then people vote
35:57for that check to get bigger and bigger.
35:59>> The other point I want to the point out
36:00of maybe a counterpoint is just like and
36:02you know this cuz I've heard you say
36:03this before, but like there is a
36:04privilege that we both have in terms of
36:07our just
36:08upbringing.
36:09>> Yeah. Nature, nurture, whatever it might
36:11be.
36:11>> Yeah. And I I said nature because
36:14your upbringing implies that our parents
36:15were great to us, and that's what made
36:17us whatever. But also the opposite can
36:18be true. If you think about someone like
36:19Elon Musk,
36:20you go his dad wasn't that nice to him.
36:22So, not necessarily a lovely upbringing,
36:24but the circumstances
36:25>> never without a meal, and neither was
36:27and I mean, you know, those are
36:29important facts of privilege.
36:30>> The circumstances of the
36:32of our upbringing, and maybe our nature,
36:34maybe our biology, maybe, set us up to
36:36be the certain type of person where
36:38agency, however that's defined,
36:41And again, I I pause there because
36:42>> you're exactly right, and I think that
36:44that's what education should be teaching
36:46that value. That that's that's where I
36:48think this role of like, what's the role
36:49of a public school?
36:51What's the role of this infrastructure
36:53the government's building around us?
36:55If it's teaching you that your next job
36:57is to come and work for the city, or
36:59come and work for the state,
37:01it's not teaching you that you have
37:02agency.
37:03It's not telling you if you if it's
37:04telling you that the only path you're
37:05going to have coming out of this rural
37:07school is to go work in the military,
37:08it's not teaching you about your agency.
37:10And I'm not saying it's wrong to do
37:11civil service or to do military service.
37:13I think those are very important parts
37:15of what all of us should strive to do is
37:16to support the government that makes our
37:18society possible.
37:20But, I think that this idea that we
37:22should all be proposed as like the
37:24government role, the government path,
37:26the government work, is what we should
37:28all be stuck doing for the rest of our
37:29lives is the wrong setup.
37:31>> The opposite is the also probably the
37:33wrong setup. Which is that we should all
37:35start a business or become a creator.
37:36>> I think that's a mistake, too. But, I
37:38think that this idea that you can find a
37:40path where you can provide value to
37:42someone as part of an organization, as
37:44as an individual, as a leader, you can
37:46choose your path.
37:48But, the idea that you should be
37:49accessing your capacity that you can
37:50create value for someone else should be
37:52the objective.
37:53>> Do you think there's always going to be
37:55inequality?
37:56>> Yes. I mean, it's either inequality
37:59or it's lack of progress. I think those
38:02are the
38:02>> That's the dance.
38:03>> That's the dance. So, China's very good
38:05at this. If you watch their their
38:06policy, they just recently shifted to a
38:08free market policy. They literally just
38:10have like a throttle. Uh I always vision
38:13Xi has this lever in his big room where
38:16he goes like, free market, you know, not
38:18free market. Like, he's just kind of
38:19like rolling it back and forth.
38:21When you have a free market, people push
38:23the frontier, they discover new things,
38:25they make new things that have never
38:26been done before, they create new value,
38:29and the economy grows. The problem is it
38:31doesn't grow evenly initially. So, like
38:34let's say that you came up with a goose
38:36that lays golden eggs, and AI. AI.
38:39And you've got this technology.
38:41And this technology is making golden
38:43eggs, and you're getting very wealthy
38:44with these golden eggs. And then that
38:45goose makes two geese and three geese
38:47and four It starts breeding, and you
38:49start selling the goose, and
38:51it takes a number of years before
38:52everyone has a golden goose.
38:54During that time, you've raced ahead,
38:56cuz you've got now dozens of geese
38:57making lots of golden eggs for you.
39:00And a lot of people are like, I want a
39:01golden goose. By the time they get a
39:02golden goose, you've now got a million
39:04golden geese.
39:05And it feels like inequality. But the
39:07truth is now all everyone here has a
39:09golden goose. And if you told them 30
39:10years ago you would have a golden goose,
39:11they'd be like, "No way, that'd be
39:12amazing." So, every day they're making
39:14the golden goose, they're printing the
39:15money, they're buying stuff with it.
39:17That's the problem with progress,
39:19whether it's uh medicine, you know, a
39:21lot of medicines today are million
39:22dollars a dose, for like CAR-T
39:23therapies, for example. These can save
39:25you from cancer. Only 50,000 people in
39:26the US can get them every year. And
39:28there's hundreds of thousands of people
39:29that die because they don't have access
39:31to these therapies. So, it's limited in
39:33terms of its availability. There's
39:35technology like AI. Not everyone has
39:37access to it, not everyone owns a piece
39:39of a model, etc. Not everyone's using
39:41it, and the people that are using it are
39:42getting ahead faster than the people
39:43behind.
39:44>> In your golden goose analogy,
39:46by the time that the golden geese get
39:49down to the sort of lower end of the
39:50socio-economic ladder,
39:52>> Or def- I would I would use the word
39:54diffuse, yeah.
39:55>> Tho- those those golden eggs, or
39:56whatever, buy less.
39:58Because something happens along the way.
40:00>> That's right. So, along the way the
40:01government says, "Let's give everyone
40:02that. Let's give everyone access to more
40:04stuff to make up for that difference."
40:06And then things get more expensive.
40:08>> Is this in part because when the nation
40:10becomes prosperous, because the GDP is
40:11high, uh when you have four-year
40:13election cycles, politicians
40:16get in by offering you lots of free
40:17stuff. And that is the nature of the
40:19four-year election cycle.
40:21>> I always said that the the kid that got
40:22elected president in middle school was
40:24the kid who said he's going to make the
40:25vending machines free. That's always
40:26going to be true in any election.
40:28And at the end of the day, that's how
40:30the system grows.
40:31>> We don't talk about this four-year
40:32election thing enough as maybe as being
40:34a bit of a causal factor that's causing
40:37short-termism amongst these leaders
40:38where they're all just spending more
40:40money to
40:41>> I can't I tell you how much it drives me
40:43nuts when I go to Washington, D.C. and I
40:44go to Washington, D.C.
40:46every couple weeks or whatever, and I
40:49meet with Congress people,
40:51senators and representatives. Literally
40:54all of them just talk about getting
40:55stuff for their constituents.
40:56>> Yeah.
40:57>> That's all that they're there to do.
40:59Just get stuff for their people. That's
41:01their job, and that's how they get
41:03elected. And the incentive is, "I'm
41:05going to get you something, vote for
41:07me."
41:08Now, the Founding Fathers kind of had
41:10this idea that they would rotate into
41:12public service and rotate out and go
41:14back to private life. There's a lot of
41:15writings about this, you know, in the
41:17early days of the formation of this
41:18republic. And it was like we should all
41:20go do our tour of duty. We should go in
41:23There was never this belief that America
41:25would evolve to a world where you have
41:26career politicians, people that are just
41:28constantly trying to get elected, and
41:30their job is to be a politician. It's
41:32just such a mind-numbingly crazy idea to
41:34think about, and all my politician
41:35friends are about to chop my head off
41:37about this. But I think it's nuts. I
41:39don't think a person should be a
41:41politician. I don't think that job title
41:43should exist.
41:44And I'm sorry to all the politicians out
41:45there. I think the people that represent
41:48the people should have the best
41:49long-term interest of the people in mind
41:51because they should be constrained to
41:53serving for a limited period of time,
41:55and then they go back to private life.
41:57That means that we should have term
41:58limits. So, you should never be able to
42:00be elected more than two terms as a
42:02senator or, you know, four terms as a
42:05representative or whatever it is. And it
42:07should be the case that if you're in one
42:08public office, maybe you shouldn't go
42:10transition to other public offices
42:12under those same limits because at the
42:14end of the day you have created a system
42:16whereby you've proven that you can get
42:17stuff for people and your job is to go
42:18get stuff for people and that causes the
42:20government to
42:22inflate, be mismanaged,
42:24you know, and then there's all the
42:25waste, fraud, and abuse stuff that
42:26happens along the way.
42:27>> Everything is a trade-off, right? Even
42:29in that example, if some people did 8
42:31years in government and they know
42:34they're going back to private life, they
42:35could be dealing their friends. I'm
42:38going to do 8 years in government. I'm
42:39going to run the transportation
42:40division. I'm going to
42:42serve some nice benefits to my friend
42:44who runs Boeing. And then when I step
42:46back in, I'm going to step in as the
42:47chair
42:47>> That's a law that makes sure that
42:48doesn't happen and he goes to jail if
42:49that happens. That's a pretty easy fix.
42:51You can't buy stocks. You can't own
42:53stocks. You can't trade. I mean, there's
42:54just so many obvious things. If you're
42:56going to go serve in government, you
42:58can't do stuff that you can do as a
43:00private citizen and you shouldn't be
43:01able to enrich yourself as a private
43:03citizen. And if you do, you should go to
43:03jail. But we should also make sure that
43:05the incentive structure is set up right
43:07so that good people come and work in
43:08government and that we have good
43:09rotation between public and private
43:11life.
43:12>> It's a hard problem though, this problem
43:13of how you fix this incentive structure
43:16so that you don't just get
43:18I mean, this stuff inevitably happens
43:20cuz we we hand out lots of free things
43:21and we don't think about the long-term
43:22consequences. Has anyone fixed it
43:24globally? Is there any nation you look
43:25at as a model for a better
43:27>> lot of people will point to Denmark.
43:29They'll point to places like that and
43:31say, "Hey, these guys do a great job and
43:33you know, there's a lot of public
43:34services and people pay high taxes, but
43:36you know,
43:37there's not a lot of great progress.
43:39There's no entrepreneurial success
43:40coming out of those places.
43:42What what happens in America, the
43:44freedoms that were afforded, the
43:45individual agency and liberty and rights
43:47to private property, creates an
43:49incentive structure that says go try and
43:52do crazy stuff that could work.
43:54And if it works, there's tremendous
43:56return so it's worth taking the risk.
43:58And that level of risk is what pushes
44:00the boundaries. It's what discovered
44:02CAR-T therapy, what discovered gene
44:04editing that can lead to curing human
44:06diseases. It's what's discovered new
44:08advances in agriculture, new physics,
44:10new engineering, AI. All of these things
44:13came from this risk-taking system that
44:15we've set up in the United States that's
44:16built around these individual
44:17incentives, and it works. So, you can
44:21have great comfort for great many people
44:25in Denmark, and people will be very
44:26happy living there, and they will have a
44:28good life, but you will not have
44:30progress like you have in the United
44:31States. And we push the frontier because
44:33we create this incentive structure, and
44:35that's where progress comes from.
44:36>> Would you say the vast majority would
44:38choose to live in a place like Denmark
44:41if it had You know, I'm looking at some
44:42of the stats here. They have higher
44:45societal trust in government, police
44:47institutions, and strangers. They have
44:49standard 37-hour
44:51work weeks, 5 to 6 weeks of paid
44:53vacation, and cultural emphasis on
44:54balance. They have lower ceiling of
44:56extreme wealth, but a higher floor, so
44:58less poverty and financial ruin. And
45:00according to global happiness metrics,
45:02Denmark consistently ranks significantly
45:03higher than the United States. Most
45:05people would choose that, right?
45:07>> Absolutely.
45:08>> So, central planning, it might stop a
45:10few, you know, very high-agency
45:12ambitious people, but the vast majority
45:14would theoretically be happier with the
45:16Denmark model.
45:17>> The vast majority, maybe.
45:18>> And do you think the vast majority in
45:19this country actually would if the there
45:20was two buttons and they had to press,
45:22they'd press Denmark?
45:24>> One of the things that I think makes
45:25American culture different from Denmark
45:28is this idea of individual progress.
45:31So, I think if you asked the majority of
45:32people, you can have that,
45:35but you don't get to progress. Meaning,
45:37you don't get to earn more next year,
45:38and you don't get to earn more next
45:39year. You don't have a shot at becoming
45:40a millionaire.
45:42You don't have a shot at building
45:43something great. You don't have a shot
45:45at buying a second home. You're limited,
45:47but you get that.
45:49Over here, you don't get anything
45:51guaranteed to you, or you get some stuff
45:52guaranteed to you, but you don't get
45:53much more guaranteed to you.
45:54But,
45:55you could have the world.
45:58You could make a million dollars.
45:59You could own a second home.
46:01You could buy a second car. You could
46:02pay off your kids college tuition debt
46:04if you
46:06earn well.
46:07There's more options here.
46:09There's more guaranteed here.
46:10>> You think the 63% would pick?
46:13>> I think even within the 63% there'd be
46:16some percent that would say this. But I
46:18do think this is why we're headed the
46:19way we're headed in the United States.
46:21People want more of a guarantee.
46:23The question is do you want to maximize
46:24the number of people that are happy
46:26or do you want to maximize the number of
46:28people that are truly free?
46:30And
46:31by being truly free increases the rate
46:33of progress across the whole population.
46:36And that rate of progress may be
46:37asymmetric, it may be diffuse. It starts
46:39with some, makes its way to others over
46:40time.
46:43I think that that's what America's
46:44chosen to be for the last 250 years. I'm
46:46not sure we're choosing to be that for
46:47the next 250 based on what's going on
46:49across the country right now.
46:50>> Maybe because people aren't happy. And
46:52actually maybe that was always the more
46:53important thing versus progress.
46:56>> Important in an aggregate way.
46:58Again, I'll come back to the individual.
47:01We choose to live in a society because
47:02it gives us that foundation that you
47:04described, that ability to have the
47:06safety, the security to take risk, to
47:09make our own decisions, and potentially
47:11build a media empire as you have done.
47:14And maybe you would have been happy in
47:15the other context where you didn't have
47:16that.
47:18But would you have reached your
47:19potential as a human?
47:21>> I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would
47:22have been happy
47:23because again that goes back to my own
47:24nature. It's just the way that I am. If
47:26you put me in a room I'll try and create
47:27something and build something, but I
47:29I've come to learn with time that not
47:31everybody has that bias or those
47:33desires. Not everybody has that low EQ
47:34trauma from their childhood of being the
47:36only black kid in a white area and
47:37thinking money was really important and
47:39it was freedom and it was self-esteem.
47:40Like not everybody has has that. So
47:42I
47:43I realized that when I design solutions
47:44they shouldn't probably be designed for
47:46me.
47:46>> Yeah.
47:47>> You know, it's taken me a long time to
47:48get to that place cuz I kind of I was
47:49very much
47:50>> the challenge with America
47:52in this moment is can you give
47:55what you're describing, the Denmark
47:56answer
47:58to enough Americans without taking away
47:59the liberty that the Americans that want
48:01to have that liberty have today. And I'm
48:04not sure the answer is yes. As soon as
48:06you start taking private property from
48:07these people, the ones that are
48:08successful in this bucket,
48:10then you're sort of taking away the
48:11incentive for them to be in this bucket
48:12in America. And I'm seeing that.
48:15>> Yeah.
48:15>> I see people want to leave. And so,
48:17you're not going to solve for everyone.
48:19But if you solve for this Denmark
48:20solution, I think you lose a lot of
48:23this.
48:23>> Well, the UK's quite an interesting
48:25example here for this very reason. I
48:27mean, one of the big subjects of
48:28conversation in the UK is that the the
48:30millionaires are all leaving, or at
48:32least in high volume, and they're coming
48:34to other places. If you look at the
48:35millionaire access maps that they
48:36publish often, they're going to Dubai or
48:38they're coming to America. A lot of my
48:40friends that are building technical
48:41companies in particular have come over
48:43to America
48:44>> Yeah.
48:44>> for this reason.
48:45>> Yeah.
48:46>> And I do think we might have a little
48:47bit of a We have a bit of a spending
48:49problem, it seems, but also think we
48:50might have a bit of a productivity
48:51problem.
48:52>> In the UK?
48:53>> In the UK.
48:54>> Yeah.
48:54>> Well,
48:55>> Do you think the productivity problem is
48:56related to the spending problem?
48:58>> Oh, yes, of course.
48:58>> Right. If you're collecting checks or
49:01getting services provided to you, the
49:03incentive to be more productive as an
49:05individual goes away, but also as a
49:07system,
49:09it becomes a lot harder to create
49:10economic incentives for productivity
49:12gains when tax rates are very high and
49:14you don't actually get to reap the
49:15benefits of the risk you take and and so
49:17on. That's the economic argument.
49:19>> Listen, I've been catfished by furniture
49:21my whole life, where something has
49:22looked fantastic in the picture, whether
49:24it's a sofa or whatever it might be, and
49:26I order it and I get so excited, and
49:28then it comes and it's something
49:29entirely different. The quality was
49:32significantly different to what it said
49:33or looks like online, or the the texture
49:36was different, or or it it didn't hold
49:38up in the same way. And so, one of the
49:41things that I love about our sponsor
49:42Wayfair, who have helped us fit out our
49:44green room, which is in the room behind
49:45me, is they have this system called
49:47Wayfair Verified. Wayfair Verified takes
49:50away all of that second guessing.
49:51Products are hand vetted by Wayfair
49:53specialists for quality, so you can feel
49:56more confident when you found the thing
49:58that you love. So, if you're looking for
50:00furniture for your house, whatever it
50:01might be, any room of your house, go to
50:04wayfair.com to start your home refresh
50:06today, and make sure you use Wayfair
50:08verified. It is amazing.
50:10Hello, I wasn't able to make that
50:12finance meeting. Can you tell me what I
50:14missed? What I have in front of me is
50:16WhisperFlow's new note taker, and for me
50:18it's been an absolute game changer. I
50:20spend most of my life sat in very, very
50:21long meetings with lots of different
50:22teams and lots of different departments.
50:24In any given week, I could have 40, 50
50:26meetings, and sometimes more. But also,
50:28I sit in podcasts where lots of very
50:30interesting things get said, and I need
50:32to focus on the conversation. What
50:34WhisperFlow's note taker does for me is
50:36it captures the entire context of
50:38everything that's happened throughout my
50:39entire week. It labels who the people
50:41are that said what, and I can ask it for
50:44things that I might have forgotten, for
50:46actions, things that I said I would do
50:48that I haven't yet done. It's building
50:50this sort of context of everything
50:52that's happening in my life, and it's an
50:54incredible, incredible superpower. I
50:56love the fact that so many of you come
50:57up to me in the street because you know
50:58I'm an investor in WhisperFlow, and tell
50:59me how much it's changed your life. It
51:01is the worst kept secret in
51:03productivity. If you want to give it a
51:04go, head to whisperflow.ai/steven
51:08to download it right now and give it a
51:09try. And once you try it, I think you'll
51:10realize why we let them sponsor this
51:11podcast. It's amazing.
51:13I mean, this kind of does tie into the
51:15subject of artificial intelligence and
51:18where it all fits. In part because the
51:20narrative of artificial intelligence is
51:22that it's about to take our jobs.
51:24And you think about that that's why I
51:25wanted to start with the backdrop. Think
51:26about that backdrop of I'm already
51:28struggling. I'm I'm in the 63% and now
51:30you're telling me I'm going to lose this
51:31job that's paying me. And and
51:33I'm already living hand to mouth. And
51:35what's the offer? We might get UBI. We
51:38might be sent checks in the post at some
51:39point. Well, actually, I like my job.
51:41It's a community, a sense of purpose. It
51:43gives me something to do. And that's the
51:45narrative.
51:45>> Yes.
51:46That is the narrative. You don't believe
51:48the narrative.
51:50>> I believe what everyone's feeling.
51:53>> But this narrative that AI will take
51:54jobs away.
51:55>> Yeah.
51:55>> You don't believe it.
51:57>> I recently pulled up and you you guys
51:58can go to archive.org.
52:00There's a Newsweek article about
52:02computers will take all the jobs from
52:041963. So the mainframes are what got put
52:07in the basement in the '60s. And
52:09everyone like had to walk past the scary
52:10mainframe on the right. It's like
52:12blinking lights and buzzing and making
52:15sounds. It's like the mainframe's going
52:16to destroy all the accountant jobs, all
52:18the typing jobs, all these things that
52:20we all do
52:21that we get paid to do. And I like
52:23working in my office. I like my
52:24colleagues. I like coming in every day,
52:25having lunch. That's a good life. This
52:27mainframe's going to ruin my life. And
52:29so there was this effort to legislate
52:31against these things at the time that
52:33didn't get through in Congress. And then
52:34in the '80s there was another wave on
52:36computing where it was like, "Hey, now
52:38we're all getting desktop computers.
52:39It's going to replace the workers and
52:40it's going to be a desktop computer and
52:41a worker and like 50 people disappear
52:43out of the the workforce." So
52:45empirically, meaning from data, from
52:47evidence, over all periods of
52:48technological revolution like this,
52:50we've never seen jobs decline. We've
52:52always seen jobs go up.
52:55And we've seen demand go up and
52:56therefore incomes rise when new
52:58technology enters the workforce. That's
53:00because the new technology makes an
53:01individual more productive so they can
53:04do more per hour with their time.
53:06And as a result, they can get paid more
53:07for doing that work. So imagine instead
53:09of having a painter painting a wall,
53:11what if he was in charge of the five
53:12robots that are painting the wall? Okay,
53:14great. Now he's going to get paid more
53:15because you can, you know, get so many
53:17more homes painted in a day. He's going
53:19to get paid more to do that work. People
53:21are going to be like, "Well, there's
53:22only so many homes." That's always the
53:23argument is you always think about the
53:25fixed pie argument that the pie doesn't
53:27grow. But what always happens is that
53:29the pie grows. The economy grows is the
53:32way to think about it. And so as
53:34automation
53:35or technology is used to give
53:37individuals more leverage to do more
53:39things with their time,
53:41then more things get done. People come
53:42up with these new product ideas. Well,
53:44hey, we've got excess capital. Let's
53:46build new homes. Let's build a building.
53:48>> But who gets Who benefits from the
53:49expansion of that pie?
53:50>> In all cases, it's been there's been
53:52deep economic value created for the
53:54entire workforce, all the way down to
53:56the lowest level. It doesn't happen
53:58overnight. And that's where during that
54:00period of time when you see the new
54:01technologies, oh, the mainframes in the
54:04basement or the desktop computers on my
54:06uh my colleague's desk, and you're like,
54:08oh my god, I'm going to lose my job. To
54:10the time that your company is growing
54:12considerably their revenue and giving
54:14everyone raises and everyone bonuses and
54:16adding more product lines and doing more
54:18stuff, you're like, oh man, okay, I feel
54:21better. And And I think that would be
54:22the argument from the '60s and '80s.
54:24And even back in the Industrial
54:26Revolution. But the question today is
54:28how does work change? Cuz remember, in
54:30the Industrial Revolution, people moved
54:32from farms, 60% of labor was in farming,
54:34today it's like 2%, into factories, and
54:38they got paid a lot more, and they lived
54:39a better life. They actually were able
54:41to afford healthcare, yada yada yada.
54:43And the the the transition in any sort
54:45of like technological revolution
54:48is net beneficial for all parties
54:50involved, but there is a transition.
54:52So, what's it going to look like? Are we
54:53all going to lose our jobs?
54:55AI's definitely different.
54:58But I don't think that AI is this world
55:00where
55:01humans are going to look around and be
55:03like, none of us have anything to do
55:04anymore.
55:05>> [laughter]
55:05>> Like, I don't believe in that narrative.
55:07And the reason is I already see
55:09extraordinary creative things being done
55:11with AI that were not possible years
55:14ago. People are creating TV shows, one
55:16person, that they would have needed a
55:18staff of 20 people to do, and they can
55:20use AI to create AI-generated content
55:22and put these shows out on on YouTube or
55:24TikTok or Instagram. I mean, look, you
55:26may not like how it looks today. There
55:28may be a lot of AI slop out there, but
55:29as this stuff gets better and better,
55:31the creative output of people using AI
55:33on creative channels, where we're all
55:35consuming media, is only going to go up.
55:37And people are going to make money that
55:38they weren't able to make before from
55:40that output as other people consume it.
55:42My ability to do work, I don't have to,
55:45you know, think about my, you know, 4
55:47hours a day that I'm writing documents
55:49today. I can get all that work done in
55:5010 minutes or 15 minutes, and then I can
55:52spend the other 3 and 1/2 hours doing
55:54other things that create new value for
55:56my company.
55:56>> If we get back to the top of this, the
55:58robot painter analogy.
55:59>> Yes.
56:00>> You said a guy might have had five
56:01people painting, now they can have five
56:03robots painting?
56:04>> No, I'm saying the guy instead of
56:05painting on his own, he can now have
56:07five robots painting.
56:08>> Yeah.
56:09>> And then he can now produce five times
56:11as much with his time. Think about what
56:13we saw with the desktop computer
56:14revolution, right? Adobe Photoshop came
56:16around, and everyone was like, "Oh my
56:17god, like photographers are out of
56:19work." Because a big part of being a
56:21photographer was all the post editing
56:23and cleaning up of your and airbrushing
56:24and all this sort of stuff. And they're
56:25like, "That whole industry is destroyed
56:26with Photoshop." What ended up happening
56:28is a ton more media was created and
56:30print media was created, because
56:31Photoshop created leverage to create
56:33many more beautiful images, and then all
56:34these magazines took off. And it like if
56:36you look at magazine they grew
56:37considerably as Photoshop came out,
56:40because it allowed much more production
56:41on,
56:42you know, high value photography.
56:44>> I think the reason why it feels
56:45different is because that's, I mean, the
56:47industrial revolution example is kind of
56:48like
56:49physical work moving to a cognitive
56:51work. That was cognitive work creating a
56:53new type of cognitive work, the the
56:55Adobe analogy. If AI takes the cognitive
56:57work, and from what you said about
56:58robotics, robotics takes a lot of the
57:00physical work, what is this third type
57:02of work?
57:03>> I think it's cognitive and physical.
57:04It's It's It's no different than what
57:06we've seen in the past, but it doesn't
57:07mean that there isn't an individual
57:09who's going to program the robot on what
57:12rooms to paint, how to paint them, how
57:13to do the detailing correct. The
57:15homeowner doesn't have the level of
57:16skill that the painter does, right? So,
57:18the painter's still
57:19>> And AI couldn't do that.
57:20>> Maybe at some point. I mean, you could
57:21make this argument on a continuum where
57:23eventually everything nothing exists,
57:25but along the way there are new things
57:27that are emerging. Think about going
57:29back 50 years. There was no yoga
57:31instructor. There was no dog walker.
57:34There was no Instagram influencer. There
57:35was no podcaster. I mean, there's a
57:37million versions of new work that
57:39emerged along the way as the internet
57:41took hold and people could start to
57:42spend their time or market themselves or
57:44market their capabilities in other ways.
57:47So, I think it's a pessimistic view to
57:49assume that robots replace all humans
57:51and then humans have no logic, no
57:53agency, no capacity for creative work
57:55anymore. I have an optimistic view on
57:56this, which is that AI and robotics
57:58enables individuals to do far more
58:02things than they ever could have
58:03contemplated, and that's going to give
58:04everyone much more ability to realize
58:07their potential with their agency.
58:08>> I mean, even the podcaster, I think game
58:10is going to be significantly disrupted
58:13in some some part. We we run a test a
58:15couple years ago to figure out if a
58:17synthesized voice of me could have the
58:19same average view duration um as me.
58:22And uh it was just me reading out the
58:24stories of founders through history. So,
58:25I do I did like a Steve Jobs episode
58:27where it's my voice, AI had written the
58:29script, AI had synthesized my voice, so
58:30I had no involvement. And the amount of
58:32people that got to the end was 40 to 50%
58:34of an hour.
58:35Uh and they knew it was AI cuz it said
58:37at the top this is an AI podcast. And
58:38so, I thought, okay, there is a lot of
58:39informational part of what we me and you
58:41do, where we're sharing just in pure
58:43play information that would be taken
58:45away. However, what I hear through
58:47listening to your answer about creators
58:49and art, you're saying that there will
58:51be this human sort of irreplaceably
58:52human component, yoga teachers. Yoga
58:54teachers aren't telling you yoga. It's
58:56also community and gathering in real
58:57life and being there amongst other
58:59people.
58:59>> the IRL
59:01job world is going to explode, and I
59:03think it's going to be extremely
59:04valuable. I always had this view like,
59:06oh, coffee shops will be automated, but
59:08I actually think the opposite is
59:09probably true.
59:10I think there will be a premium on
59:11coffee shops. I'll pay $40 for a latte
59:15because that human is making the latte,
59:17and I get to go be with other humans. I
59:19get to go to a workout class with
59:20humans. I get to go spend time at a
59:22concert. I get to go spend time at
59:24dinners. I think this like event
59:26live space experiential part of our
59:28world that we kind of think about as
59:30luxury today, maybe it becomes more
59:32core. Like, maybe it becomes more of how
59:35we spend our time. Maybe we spend 30,
59:3640% of our time,
59:38you know, in these sorts of spaces, and
59:40automation is generating income for us
59:42and supporting us in, you know, whatever
59:44pursuit we're interested in in work, and
59:47we spend far less time doing work and
59:49far more time paying a premium in the
59:51economy, in the live space economy.
59:52>> It's hard, isn't it, because we don't
59:53know what these jobs are.
59:54>> We just don't.
59:55>> And that's
59:56>> I mean, imagine telling someone that
59:57worked in a factory in 1923
1:00:01that fast forward 100 years,
1:00:03there's going to be people making X
1:00:05dollars as personal trainers.
1:00:08Or there's someone that has a job dog
1:00:10walking in their neighborhood. I don't
1:00:11know if that would have been like
1:00:13grocked fully.
1:00:14>> But the pace of disruption here seems to
1:00:16be different than like the industrial
1:00:18revolution. It targets in cognitive
1:00:19work, it's built on this platform called
1:00:21the internet who which has this
1:00:22>> I'm telling you, I just don't see it. I
1:00:23I like, at my work, everyone's using AI,
1:00:27and everyone's just doing more, and then
1:00:28they ask for more employees. You can
1:00:30kind of think about a business having
1:00:31two sides,
1:00:33revenue and costs. Revenue is I'm making
1:00:35stuff,
1:00:36and people are paying me for the things
1:00:37I'm making or doing.
1:00:39Cost is how am I operating the business,
1:00:41like, what am I spending? And the
1:00:43argument has always been like,
1:00:44"Okay, you're going to lose customer
1:00:46service reps. You're going to lose all
1:00:48the cost side of the equation." No one
1:00:50ever says you're going to lose the
1:00:50revenue side. The truth is, on the
1:00:52revenue side, what ends up happening is
1:00:54you create new products that you
1:00:55couldn't create before because of AI.
1:00:57The technology enables so much
1:00:59advancement in your business. Let's say
1:01:01you're a material science company. This
1:01:02is totally esoteric, but like, let's say
1:01:04your job as a company is to discover new
1:01:06materials,
1:01:08new plat- new synthetics that can be
1:01:09used to make microchips, or be used for
1:01:12computing, or be used for travel, or for
1:01:14airplanes. The material science world
1:01:16has been challenged by its experimental
1:01:19cycle. You got to create an experiment,
1:01:20make a product, test it, do it all
1:01:22manually. It's all creative ideas. It's
1:01:24all human potential. AI can now screen
1:01:27through millions of material science
1:01:29ideas in a computer, print them out,
1:01:31test them, and you can automate that
1:01:32throughput. Therefore, that materials
1:01:34company
1:01:35can now have more revenue. They can make
1:01:36more products.
1:01:37>> Do you not think that maybe there's a
1:01:38possibility that people like me and you
1:01:41exist in this particular band where
1:01:43because we're both founders and we have
1:01:44capital and we're thinking about how to
1:01:47really push intelligence to create new
1:01:49things that maybe we cuz what you're
1:01:52saying I I can relate to you. I can
1:01:53relate to the fact that AI has made me
1:01:54actually quite it's probably made me
1:01:56more ambitious about hiring, especially
1:01:58in the near term. I would caveat it by
1:02:00saying that there's a certain type of
1:02:02role
1:02:03that I'm now hiring much less
1:02:05and
1:02:06as especially when you think about
1:02:08entry-level roles, I have to pause a lot
1:02:11more now because a lot of the agents and
1:02:12some tooling can do some of those things
1:02:14that I would have otherwise hired for,
1:02:15but generally I feel like I'm hiring as
1:02:17fast as I possibly can.
1:02:19But would you not say that for like the
1:02:2121-year-old that's graduated from
1:02:22university or the DoorDash driver
1:02:26or that those types of individuals where
1:02:28the the leap from where they currently
1:02:30are on a factory floor assembling
1:02:33a part or flipping packages
1:02:35the leap from where they are
1:02:38to this new world is so great that
1:02:41there's going to be this messy middle.
1:02:42>> Yeah, what I'm saying is as new products
1:02:44are created, new revenue comes in. You
1:02:46don't cut costs, you grow costs.
1:02:48And you hire more people and you
1:02:50up-level and you train people.
1:02:52That is what I'm seeing on the ground.
1:02:53You know, we just published I think one
1:02:54of the lowest unemployment rates in the
1:02:56US and I think that this idea
1:02:59that your current job is going to get
1:03:01disrupted and you're going to lose your
1:03:02job I don't think it's how the
1:03:05enterprise transitions. The enterprise
1:03:07transitions, meaning companies
1:03:09by doing more things and bringing people
1:03:12up the ladder, hiring more people. And
1:03:14that's just what I'm seeing on the
1:03:15ground. I I think that the there's a
1:03:17media narrative on like, oh my god,
1:03:19there were the layoff at so-and-so
1:03:20company because it underlines what
1:03:21they've been promoting to everyone,
1:03:23which is AI's going to cause job loss.
1:03:25>> The The interesting thing is it's it
1:03:26didn't come from the media.
1:03:27>> It came from the AI guys.
1:03:29>> Yeah.
1:03:29>> Yeah.
1:03:29>> This is the the biggest crazy crazy
1:03:31I I listen to the All-in podcast, by the
1:03:33way, it's one of my favorite podcasts. I
1:03:34don't think I've ever missed an episode.
1:03:35So, I I very much understand your
1:03:36perspective and all of your
1:03:37>> I had no idea you were a fan.
1:03:38>> No, no, I do. I've listened to
1:03:39>> I've gone on people's shows where
1:03:41they're like, I don't know who you are
1:03:42and I'm like,
1:03:43>> [laughter]
1:03:43>> it's good to meet you.
1:03:44>> No, no, no. I've I don't think I've ever
1:03:45missed an episode since the beginning.
1:03:46So, I I I understand your perspective.
1:03:48>> You've heard all this.
1:03:49>> I've heard all of this and I've heard
1:03:50like Jason's opinion. Weirdly, I tend to
1:03:52side a little bit more with Jason on
1:03:54this because I think Jason I don't know
1:03:57why his arguments seem to present the
1:03:58most nuance and
1:03:59and also I would say when we think about
1:04:02different people's incentives, yeah,
1:04:03you're right.
1:04:04Often on that show that it's framed as a
1:04:06media narrative, whereas it's actually
1:04:09all your friends.
1:04:10>> Yeah, no. So, first of all, none of them
1:04:11are my friends, but
1:04:12>> Elon Elon's your friend.
1:04:14>> Okay. So, what I will say
1:04:17Like, I've said this on the show, I'll
1:04:18say it again. I think there's a deep
1:04:19arrogance
1:04:21in
1:04:22making these sorts of proclamations.
1:04:24>> Which proclamations?
1:04:25>> That we're not going to work anymore.
1:04:26>> Mhm.
1:04:27>> [clears throat]
1:04:27>> It effectively discounts the human.
1:04:30It's like
1:04:31what you do today is your limit. But, I
1:04:33think that this idea that like these
1:04:35jobs will go away is sourced by people
1:04:38that are seeing the crazy stuff that
1:04:39they're doing and they're like, oh my
1:04:40god, this is amazing. I'm responsible
1:04:43for this.
1:04:44We are going to change the world. We are
1:04:46going to take all jobs and they're all
1:04:47going to sit in my computer.
1:04:49I don't think that that's what happens
1:04:51because I think that humans have a
1:04:52profound capacity
1:04:54for doing things that, you know, these
1:04:56technologists don't necessarily see.
1:04:59The great technologists see technology,
1:05:01they don't see people.
1:05:03>> Mhm.
1:05:04>> I think you have to see people.
1:05:06Meaning, the the potential of people, of
1:05:08individuals.
1:05:09And you have to believe in that. They
1:05:11believe in technology, they engineer
1:05:12technology, but I I am not going to like
1:05:15be pessimistic about people.
1:05:17I think that people have capacity in any
1:05:20environment. I mean, the the amazing
1:05:21thing about humans is our adaptability.
1:05:23We can live in any climate, we can eat
1:05:24any kind of food. I mean, it's all this
1:05:26like we can work all these different
1:05:27jobs. I mean, we're amazing. Humans are
1:05:29amazing. And
1:05:32arguably, many humans have been limited
1:05:34in their potential. And I think that AI
1:05:35enables more capacity for those
1:05:37individuals to realize more of their
1:05:39potential.
1:05:40>> And much of the conversation we've had
1:05:41about the US economy has centered around
1:05:43incentive structures leading to
1:05:44inevitable outcomes.
1:05:45>> Yeah.
1:05:45>> You know, the older I've gotten, the
1:05:46more I just try to look at incentives.
1:05:48>> Yeah.
1:05:48>> And to figure out behavior, and also to
1:05:50figure out who to trust.
1:05:51>> Yeah.
1:05:52>> So, when I look at the incentives of the
1:05:54people that are building the AI
1:05:55companies, Andy Jassy has said that
1:05:58there's going to be fewer people doing
1:06:00some of the jobs that are being done
1:06:01today, um then they cut, you know, tens
1:06:03of thousands of jobs. Mark Benioff, who
1:06:05I know has been on your show, cut 4,000
1:06:07jobs and said I need less heads because
1:06:09of AI.
1:06:10And so I go, "Okay, maybe they're saying
1:06:11that because they want their share price
1:06:12to go up cuz it's a good, you know,
1:06:14we're going to reduce costs, it's a good
1:06:15narrative."
1:06:15>> Yep.
1:06:16>> But then I look at the other the AI
1:06:17CEOs, Dario, Elon, Sam Altman.
1:06:21And I go,
1:06:22their incentives,
1:06:24I'd say other other than the exception
1:06:25of Elon, um have just kind of changed
1:06:28with whatever's good for them at that
1:06:29moment often times. I actually I think
1:06:31Dario might be the exception a little
1:06:33bit
1:06:34because he seems to be a bit more
1:06:35nuanced.
1:06:36If I go back through the quotes of these
1:06:39individuals,
1:06:40you have Sam Altman in February 2015
1:06:43saying development of super machine
1:06:44intelligence is probably the greatest
1:06:45threat to the continued existence of
1:06:47humanity. You have Elon in 2014 saying
1:06:50with artificial intelligence, we are
1:06:51summoning the demon.
1:06:53It's far more dangerous than nukes.
1:06:56Mitigating the risk of extinction from
1:06:58AI should be a global priority alongside
1:07:00societal scale risks such as pandemics
1:07:02and nuclear wars. And that was signed by
1:07:04Sam Altman, Demis, Dario, Bill Gates
1:07:06amongst many
1:07:08hundreds of others. Sam Altman in the
1:07:10Senate in 2023, I think if this
1:07:12technology goes wrong, it can go very
1:07:14wrong.
1:07:15Open AI super intelligence letter they
1:07:17wrote.
1:07:18The disempowerment of humanity or even
1:07:20human extinction
1:07:21could be caused by super intelligence.
1:07:23Again in the athletic Sam Altman, jobs
1:07:26are definitely going to go away, full
1:07:29stop. Dario Amodei, May 2025, he
1:07:32predicted a white collar bloodbath, half
1:07:34of entry-level white collar jobs gone,
1:07:36unemployment at 10 to 20% within 1 to 5
1:07:39years.
1:07:40>> 10 to 20% unemployment in 1 to 5 years.
1:07:43It's pretty high.
1:07:44>> And Altman at the Federal Reserve in
1:07:45July 2025 said whole job categories will
1:07:48disappear, customer support first. That
1:07:50one is quote totally, totally gone.
1:07:53And then suddenly the message changed.
1:07:54Before his sort of pre-IPO discussions,
1:07:56he said things could go pretty wrong,
1:07:57and then he says that he now has changed
1:08:00his mind and he's delighted that he
1:08:01feels like he was wrong. And suddenly
1:08:03he's talking about how Open AI and
1:08:05ChatGPT will benefit all of humanity.
1:08:07>> Mhm.
1:08:07>> And that's their goal. Should we trust
1:08:09the same people that told us to be
1:08:10scared when they say don't be scared?
1:08:13>> First of all, I think
1:08:15there was a bunch of companies
1:08:17that said early on
1:08:19that they were like cutting all their
1:08:20customer service reps. Which was the big
1:08:22company starts with a K.
1:08:23>> Klarna. But I did call the founder.
1:08:25>> And what did you find out?
1:08:26>> He said that he's been misinterpreted in
1:08:28the press. I know you guys talked about
1:08:29this in the All-In podcast, but I've
1:08:30actually called him live on this show.
1:08:31And did he rehire
1:08:32>> rehire or like what did he do?
1:08:34>> He said that the the media just
1:08:35completely misconstrued what he said.
1:08:37>> later?
1:08:37>> He said he had 7,000 employees. By the
1:08:39end of last summer, he said he'd be on
1:08:413,000. But the media framed it as I had
1:08:447,000 employees and then I tried to cut
1:08:46some. I realized I couldn't and I went
1:08:47back. That's not what happened. And it's
1:08:49it just I see it on all these podcasts
1:08:50and they're just repeating it. I heard
1:08:51it repeat on your show like
1:08:53>> But he said we are cutting cuz of AI.
1:08:54>> Yeah.
1:08:55>> And he's confirmed that he's doing that.
1:08:57>> Yes. He's DM'd me on on X. I've got the
1:08:58DM. And live on On show he confirmed it
1:09:01to all of our listeners. Is his business
1:09:02still growing?
1:09:03The business is growing. What he did
1:09:05say, and this is a point of nuance, is
1:09:06with the cost savings, he's able to
1:09:08offer better white glove services to his
1:09:10highest ticket clients.
1:09:11>> Right.
1:09:12>> Which it makes a lot of sense.
1:09:13>> Yes.
1:09:13>> So you
1:09:13>> And and you could think about that
1:09:14analogy being in like another business
1:09:17where they would take that capital,
1:09:18invest in offering new products, new
1:09:20services, but then you need employees to
1:09:22offer those new products and new
1:09:23services. And so you do actually hire
1:09:26up. And I think that is what I am
1:09:28actually seeing on the ground. And while
1:09:29he may
1:09:31restructuring he's doing,
1:09:32on the ground, I just see people hiring
1:09:34more because they can do more with AI.
1:09:37It's counterintuitive, but if you're a
1:09:39business manager,
1:09:40you can invest $10 and make one product
1:09:43a year,
1:09:44or you can invest $20 and make five
1:09:45products a year. You're going to invest
1:09:47the $20 to make five products a year.
1:09:49You're going to spend more.
1:09:51And I think that's what AI does. As soon
1:09:52as you have the ability to get leverage
1:09:54on how much more productive people are,
1:09:57you'll put more capital towards hiring
1:09:59more people and scale up. I That's just
1:10:00what I'm seeing. And look, I could be
1:10:02wrong and all jobs go away in 5 years
1:10:04and we have 20% unemployment.
1:10:06I don't think that that's the case. I
1:10:08think that again, like we can go back to
1:10:10this like where people are going to be
1:10:11spending their time,
1:10:13I do think that there's going to be a
1:10:14big growth in media. I think there's
1:10:16going to be a big growth in uh media
1:10:18encompassing everything, digital content
1:10:20creation, etc. I think there's going to
1:10:22be a big growth in entrepreneurship. And
1:10:24I think there's going to be a big growth
1:10:25in IRL stuff.
1:10:27>> I'll say this in interviews and um
1:10:29Klarna is always mentioned because I
1:10:30think the media has said that you like
1:10:32doubled down on AI, then you reversed
1:10:33because it didn't work out. So I know I
1:10:35spoke to you a while ago and we
1:10:36exchanged a couple of DMs about it, but
1:10:38that was more than a It was almost a
1:10:39year ago now.
1:10:41So I just wanted to get an an update on
1:10:42Klarna's business, AI agents, and all of
1:10:45that if possible.
1:10:46>> This was 5 months ago.
1:10:47>> First and foremost, we were early on uh
1:10:49released um
1:10:50AI at support our customer service. We
1:10:53had that
1:10:54uh initial uh benefit of uh
1:10:57more calls being dealt with by AI, which
1:10:59customers liked because those calls or
1:11:01chat messages were much much faster and
1:11:03more qualitative. Then, since then, that
1:11:05has actually expanded slightly. Um what
1:11:09we did, however, try to communicate as
1:11:10well is that we believe in a world of
1:11:12where AI is cheap and available, the
1:11:15value of human interaction will be
1:11:18regarded as higher. So, the future of
1:11:20customer service VIP is a human. Um we
1:11:24have them and hence double down on
1:11:26providing more of that. But, at the same
1:11:28time, the efficiency gains within the
1:11:29company has continued. I mean, we used
1:11:33to be about 6,000 people, and and now we
1:11:36are less than 3,000, which is 2 3 years
1:11:39uh since we stopped recruiting. And at
1:11:41the same time, our revenue has doubled,
1:11:43right? So,
1:11:45>> Yeah.
1:11:46This is a startup, just to be clear. I I
1:11:48don't know if we can
1:11:50And and again, I'm not going to like sit
1:11:51here and concede or argue jobs aren't
1:11:53going to change. But, a startup that
1:11:55grew very quickly and then cut heads is
1:11:57a pretty common
1:11:59phenomenon.
1:12:00Um so, I don't know how much
1:12:01restructuring he was doing in in his
1:12:03AI-ification of his business. That's
1:12:04totally fine and totally fair.
1:12:07But, the question is, what are the
1:12:08people that were doing customer service
1:12:10calls and sitting, you know, how many of
1:12:12them were actually fully occupied on the
1:12:13phone? I don't know.
1:12:15Like, were they on the phone for 4 hours
1:12:17a day, 2 hours a day, or 8 hours a day?
1:12:19Were they actually fully employed?
1:12:21Really, were they truly fully employed?
1:12:22I don't know.
1:12:23>> And what are they doing now?
1:12:24>> Yeah.
1:12:24>> Whatever they're doing now, is that
1:12:26defensible again from the this sort of
1:12:28spread of intelligence? Yeah. Cuz they
1:12:30could be DoorDash I don't know, they
1:12:31could be lawyers, but they could also be
1:12:33doing DoorDash. And Dara sat here and
1:12:34said that the 9,000 people that are
1:12:36riders won't have jobs.
1:12:38>> Uh the ones that are driving food
1:12:40around.
1:12:40>> Yeah.
1:12:41>> And drivers.
1:12:41>> Yeah.
1:12:42>> Yeah.
1:12:42>> That's obviously all their big
1:12:43investments. I was with him the other
1:12:44day and he was talking about their
1:12:45autonomous vehicle investments.
1:12:47>> Yeah.
1:12:47>> And how I mean, that's the big plan.
1:12:49>> does he What does he think?
1:12:50>> He thinks that those drivers will have
1:12:52to go will do something else.
1:12:53>> What does he think think that something
1:12:54else is?
1:12:55>> He loosely hypothesized
1:12:57>> [laughter]
1:12:57>> what it might be. It could be data
1:12:58labeling.
1:12:59>> Now, let me just go back cuz your whole
1:13:01point about like AI's going to destroy
1:13:03us all and these guys were making all
1:13:04these claims and then they all kind of
1:13:05backtracked.
1:13:06I think there's an important question to
1:13:07ask, which is like should we stop AI
1:13:09development and can we?
1:13:11Meaning, can we really affect what China
1:13:13does? Can we really affect what Europe
1:13:15does? Can we really affect what some lab
1:13:17in Indonesia does if they get a group of
1:13:18people together?
1:13:20There are moments in human history when
1:13:22technology advances and it's not like
1:13:23you can just put the catapult away and
1:13:25be like let's like no one can develop
1:13:27the catapult anymore. Like once the
1:13:29catapult's out there, the catapult's out
1:13:30there. We're just there.
1:13:32So the the question is like it's
1:13:35what is going to enable the most kind of
1:13:37productive path forward for
1:13:39you know, US policy, for US citizens.
1:13:42And China's asking themselves the same
1:13:44question. What's the most productive
1:13:45path forward China policy for China
1:13:47citizens?
1:13:49China's answer I think is to make models
1:13:50free and ubiquitous. Which by the way
1:13:53benefits a large part of the global
1:13:54economy.
1:13:55But it doesn't do very well with Sam
1:13:58Altman, Dario, Google, or others that
1:14:00have invested billions or hundreds of
1:14:01billions of dollars in model
1:14:02development. And now those those
1:14:04investments that they've made have been
1:14:06reduced to to rubble because China's got
1:14:08a model that's as good or cheaper. So, I
1:14:11think the more important question
1:14:13is like what does the US do to navigate?
1:14:15If we stop data centers, those data
1:14:16centers are going to be built somewhere
1:14:17else.
1:14:18>> Mhm.
1:14:18>> They'll be built in Iceland. They'll be
1:14:19built in China. They'll be built in
1:14:22Indonesia. They'll be built in places
1:14:23where you can get access to energy and
1:14:25plug them into the internet. Now they're
1:14:26on the internet. So, do we want those
1:14:27data centers to exist in the US because
1:14:29they're going to create jobs and create
1:14:31economic value, or do we want them to be
1:14:33built offshore?
1:14:35Do we want to have the AI models built
1:14:37in the US or do we want to have them
1:14:38built by China? Those are the I think
1:14:40the important policy decisions. The idea
1:14:42that you can slow or stop AI
1:14:44development, I unfortunately think at
1:14:46this moment it's too far too late. Like
1:14:48the AI is out there.
1:14:51The framing on is it bad or is it good?
1:14:54Um, I think requires
1:14:57a observation on what's going on on the
1:14:59ground. And I do think there's a ton of
1:15:01stories. I mean, look at the number of
1:15:03companies that are doing stuff that you
1:15:04could never do before because of AI. I
1:15:07mean, just just to get into your point
1:15:09about delivery. I mean, there are
1:15:10delivery companies delivering robots on
1:15:12the ground, robotic cars, drones. Those
1:15:16companies aren't employee-less. There's
1:15:18now 15,000 new jobs being created at the
1:15:20factory that's making the the robots or
1:15:2215,000 jobs to service the robots cuz
1:15:24they're breaking down all the time or
1:15:2615,000 jobs to get the food made that
1:15:29goes into the robots or maybe that gets
1:15:31automated but like as you kind of think
1:15:32about the impact, the economy doesn't
1:15:33just shrink in terms of jobs. We're just
1:15:35not seeing it in the data. It's not
1:15:37happening.
1:15:38And and and when it does happen,
1:15:40I think that's a good time to have a
1:15:42conversation about AI taxes and all this
1:15:44sort of stuff.
1:15:45>> So let's let's ask that question. What
1:15:46would have to happen? What what sort of
1:15:48metrical piece of evidence would you
1:15:49>> Job loss.
1:15:49>> Job loss.
1:15:50>> Yeah. And wage growth, right? So if
1:15:52wages are declining
1:15:53and um uh uh unemployment is climbing,
1:15:57that's a red flag. I mean, that's an
1:15:59alert moment and that's when we have to
1:16:01address this from policy. But it's very
1:16:03speculative right now. And if you get in
1:16:05the way and you stop it and you stop
1:16:07advancement or like the ability to
1:16:09create higher-paying jobs, the ability
1:16:10to create new jobs, and you turn it you
1:16:12turn all of that off, it's going to
1:16:14happen in China. It's going to happen in
1:16:16Europe. It's going to happen in South
1:16:17America. And the US gets left behind.
1:16:20Maybe that's the decision that you know,
1:16:22we decide to make. But I would argue
1:16:24that this kind of tracking of what's the
1:16:26consequence that we're worried about is
1:16:27the most important thing to be doing at
1:16:28the moment.
1:16:29>> You might have heard about the study
1:16:30that I think it was Stanford that did it
1:16:32and they showed that there was a 13%
1:16:34relative decline in employment for
1:16:35workers aged 22 to 25 in roles most
1:16:38exposed to generative AI. Could it be
1:16:41that by the time we start seeing
1:16:43significant job loss, it's a little bit
1:16:45too late to be having the conversation
1:16:47because it could be quite a rapid
1:16:49decline. If you think about the nature
1:16:49of this technology and the adoption of
1:16:51it.
1:16:51>> No, no, I think what you're describing
1:16:52is exactly the right time.
1:16:54>> When when we see the the first sign
1:16:56>> what are those changes that are
1:16:57happening? Now, the question is if you
1:16:58dig into that
1:17:00and I do understand it's like in in
1:17:02software engineering what's happening
1:17:03right now is young people are not
1:17:05getting hired. You can use AI to write a
1:17:07lot of code.
1:17:08But in order to be really good at using
1:17:11AI to write a lot of code, you got to
1:17:12have experience writing code.
1:17:15>> Yeah.
1:17:15>> And so there's a fight for senior
1:17:17experienced software engineers
1:17:20and there's disinterest in junior
1:17:22software engineers because you're not
1:17:23just putting a junior software engineer
1:17:24in a seat to have them write their first
1:17:26line of code, which is what you used to
1:17:28do. With AI, you can turn one engineer
1:17:30into a hundred, but the junior guy's not
1:17:32going to do that. The senior person is.
1:17:34So, you want to hire more senior people
1:17:36and that's what's happening in software
1:17:37across the board right now.
1:17:39>> But more of the operational functions
1:17:41that used to be done by people are also
1:17:43just being done by software. So, if I
1:17:45think about you might have had a PA
1:17:47whose job was to respond to your emails
1:17:49and check your emails and organize them
1:17:51and put them in your Monday board. Now,
1:17:52with agents, I have an agent that goes
1:17:54across all of my inboxes every single
1:17:55day, pulls everything into this central
1:17:57system. And I would have I used to have
1:17:59someone doing that kind of work. Now,
1:18:00it's a software job. Now, it's Claude
1:18:01doing it.
1:18:01>> Now, the PA can use Claude to do it.
1:18:03>> I I don't need the PA. I can just do it
1:18:05myself.
1:18:05>> Okay. What what else can you use that PA
1:18:06for in your life that you couldn't even
1:18:08contemplate using that PA for in the
1:18:09past?
1:18:10>> At the moment, it's real world stuff. I
1:18:12probably would have continued to hire
1:18:14more in that team, uh-huh, but now I
1:18:16don't need to because I've got, you
1:18:18know, this agent that does my
1:18:20scheduling, can help me with my
1:18:21scheduling.
1:18:21>> you going to do with the money you have,
1:18:22the extra money you have that you're not
1:18:23spending?
1:18:23>> This is a good point.
1:18:24>> And then that money you're investing,
1:18:25you're not going to just put that money
1:18:27in the bank and leave it as cash. You're
1:18:28going to invest it in something.
1:18:30>> I could invest it in assets.
1:18:32>> What's an asset? It's either a
1:18:33productive or non-productive asset. If
1:18:34it's productive, it's employing someone,
1:18:36it's doing stuff.
1:18:36>> I could I could theoretically go buy the
1:18:38S&P 500.
1:18:39>> And when you buy the S&P 500, that money
1:18:41goes to
1:18:42individuals that are now going to be
1:18:43able to employ more people. That capital
1:18:45finds a way to get spent. It goes into
1:18:48the economy. And that's my point. This
1:18:50is why economies grow when technology
1:18:52shows up. The leverage you got gave you
1:18:54more capital. You could either build a
1:18:56new product and hire more people to do
1:18:57it here, or you could choose to go buy
1:18:59the S&P. But when you buy the S&P, that
1:19:00money ends up in other people's coffers,
1:19:02and they're using that money to hire
1:19:03people and do new stuff. There at some
1:19:06point the whole point of the economy is
1:19:07that money flows. And that money's going
1:19:09to ultimately flow into individuals that
1:19:11are productive.
1:19:12>> Do you not think a lot of it's going to
1:19:13flow disproportionately into the
1:19:14billionaires and the the the most
1:19:16wealthy that are building the robots and
1:19:18that are
1:19:18>> I am a huge advocate for open source for
1:19:20this reason.
1:19:20>> Open source, what does that mean for
1:19:21John and Dave who might not know what
1:19:23that term means?
1:19:24>> So open source just means it the
1:19:26software is free for anyone to use. If
1:19:29you go back to the early days of the
1:19:30internet, Netscape made server software.
1:19:33>> Mhm.
1:19:33>> And Netscape [clears throat] made a
1:19:34browser. So in order to produce a
1:19:36website, you needed to pay for
1:19:38Netscape's software.
1:19:40And you installed it on a server, and
1:19:41you pay Netscape a fee for that
1:19:43software, and then you could create a
1:19:45website. Okay? And then if you want to
1:19:47browse the internet, you got to pay for
1:19:48Netscape Navigator, and then you use
1:19:50that navigator to browse the internet.
1:19:52So charge chart, gatekeeper gatekeeper.
1:19:55And guess what came along?
1:19:56The Mozilla Foundation made an open
1:19:58source browser called Firefox. And the
1:20:01Apache Foundation came along and made an
1:20:02open source web server.
1:20:04And now anyone could download Apache and
1:20:07make their own website. And plug it into
1:20:09the internet, and it would be available
1:20:10to everyone in the world for free.
1:20:12And anyone could download Firefox,
1:20:15go on their computer, and browse the
1:20:16internet for free.
1:20:18Open source then enabled all the
1:20:20entrepreneurs that built websites that
1:20:22made money to proliferate. They weren't
1:20:24gatekept. In the idea of AI, open weight
1:20:27models, open source models are free.
1:20:30So now you don't have to go pay
1:20:31Anthropic or Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT
1:20:35for AI. You can actually use this AI
1:20:38model for free. And no one's making
1:20:40money off of you using it. There's no
1:20:42one getting paid. The only cost is the
1:20:45cost of finding a computer to run that
1:20:47model. So, you could have your own
1:20:48computer, you could rent one, but that
1:20:49cost is coming down like crazy now, too.
1:20:52So, this is the benefit of This is why
1:20:53technology without government
1:20:54intervention is so amazing. It always
1:20:56gets cheaper, and then everyone
1:20:58benefits.
1:20:59>> There could be a risk. Is that one of
1:21:00the key arguments of the open-source
1:21:02idea, which is if anybody can download
1:21:03these AIs onto their computer, they can
1:21:05jailbreak them, they can use them as
1:21:08>> So, there's two things that people are
1:21:09fighting about. Number one, government
1:21:10people are saying, "Hey, this is coming
1:21:12from China. We don't know if there's
1:21:14back doors." That's not how open-weight
1:21:15models work, by the way. So, people that
1:21:17are technically deficient don't fully
1:21:19grok what the open-weight model really
1:21:21is. It's not like some back door program
1:21:23that you're running. It's literally just
1:21:24a list of numbers in a in a in a
1:21:27document. It's a, you know, trillions of
1:21:29numbers. That's all it is. And then some
1:21:30people are arguing like, "Okay, so now
1:21:32that AI is everywhere, everyone has
1:21:34access to it. You can use it to design a
1:21:37cyber weapon. You can use it to design a
1:21:39bio weapon. You can use it to design a
1:21:41physical weapon." There's all these
1:21:43things that you can now do. You know,
1:21:44the same is true with DNA printing and
1:21:46DNA sequencing. Everyone can buy a DNA
1:21:48sequencer and DNA printer, and they
1:21:50could theoretically make a virus. That
1:21:51exists today.
1:21:53We haven't stopped DNA sequencing. We
1:21:55haven't stopped DNA printing. We don't
1:21:56have like constraints around it.
1:21:58Similarly, we haven't stopped people
1:22:00from buying guns. We haven't stopped
1:22:02people, you know, in the US. I mean, I
1:22:04don't think we can roll our eyes at this
1:22:05one.
1:22:06>> [laughter]
1:22:06>> That's a good one. That's a good one.
1:22:07>> Right. Yeah, but but I mean, look,
1:22:08there's a very good argument to be made
1:22:10that you could um say that any sort of
1:22:12technology that theoretically could be
1:22:14used to cause harm should be banned. And
1:22:17or the government should control it and
1:22:18decide who gets access to it. And the
1:22:20flip side is that if it's allowed to
1:22:23proliferate, there's far more benefit
1:22:25than risk, and the risk side needs to be
1:22:27mitigated, and that's where you build
1:22:29good defense systems and so on. So,
1:22:30we've got all these technologies for
1:22:32monitoring, for cyber defense, for bio
1:22:34defense, and all these sorts of things
1:22:35that
1:22:36are critical for, you know, especially
1:22:38in a post-AI era, like what are the big
1:22:40attack vectors? So, I think that's
1:22:42probably the way to think about this.
1:22:43>> And that might help the sort of
1:22:45inevitable inequality golden gooses will
1:22:47collecting into inside
1:22:49>> I will bet you anything that in the next
1:22:5110 years there will be a billionaire
1:22:53that will emerge that has absolutely
1:22:56zero net worth today, downloaded open
1:22:58source AI, and built a company that made
1:23:00them a billionaire 5 years from now, 7
1:23:02years from now.
1:23:04And they're going to be someone that's
1:23:05going to come from nowhere. And
1:23:06everyone's going to be like, "Wow, look
1:23:07at that." And there's going to be a lot
1:23:08of these sorts of stories. And that's
1:23:10what we saw with the internet.
1:23:12>> This is something that I've made for
1:23:14you. I've realized that the Diary of a
1:23:15CEO audience are strivers, whether it's
1:23:17in business or health. We all have big
1:23:19goals that we want to accomplish. And
1:23:21one of the things I've learned is that
1:23:23when you aim at the big, big, big goal,
1:23:25it can feel incredibly psychologically
1:23:28uncomfortable because it's kind of like
1:23:30being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
1:23:31and looking upwards. The way to
1:23:33accomplish your goals is by breaking
1:23:35them down into tiny, small steps, and we
1:23:38call this in our team the 1%. And
1:23:39actually, this philosophy is highly
1:23:42responsible for much of our success
1:23:43here. So, what we've done is that you at
1:23:46home can accomplish any big goal that
1:23:48you have is we've made these 1% Diaries,
1:23:51and we released these last year, and
1:23:52they all sold out. So, I asked my team
1:23:55over and over again to bring the Diaries
1:23:56back, but also to introduce some new
1:23:58colors and to make some minor tweaks to
1:23:59the Diaries. So, now we have a better
1:24:03range for you. So, if you have a big
1:24:05goal in mind and you need a framework
1:24:07and a process and some motivation, then
1:24:10I highly recommend you get one of these
1:24:11Diaries before they all sell out once
1:24:14again. And you can get yours at the
1:24:15diary.com.
1:24:17And if you want the link, the link is in
1:24:18the description below.
1:24:20There should be a button just down below
1:24:22here. And if it says subscribe, you're
1:24:24already subscribed. If it says subscribe
1:24:26bar, that means you're not yet. And if
1:24:28you're not subscribed, please could you
1:24:29do us a favor and hit that button. It
1:24:30helps to show more than you know. And
1:24:32according to the algorithm, you're
1:24:33someone that watches our show, but you
1:24:35haven't yet hit that button. Thank you
1:24:36so much.
1:24:37So, when Elon says that working will be
1:24:39a choice,
1:24:41you think he's wrong?
1:24:41>> He's selling robots, but uh
1:24:44>> [laughter]
1:24:44>> like
1:24:46um I do think he's right in a sense.
1:24:48And what I mean by that is like think
1:24:49about how many hours a week you work.
1:24:51Give us a sense.
1:24:53>> Just I work all the time when my fiance
1:24:55is not around. So, she's not around at
1:24:56the moment.
1:24:56>> I are similar in that sense. So, like
1:24:58like every moment I can I work. But like
1:25:00we're more entrepreneurial. I would say
1:25:02that like
1:25:04um you know, look at Denmark for
1:25:05example, 37 hours a week. What was the
1:25:07average number of hours worked 50 years
1:25:09ago, 60 years ago, 100 years ago? In the
1:25:11US, when you did farm labor and you were
1:25:14managing your own farm and that was your
1:25:15whole business or you worked in a
1:25:17factory, I mean, there was 12-hour
1:25:19shifts.
1:25:20There was a lot more work per week being
1:25:22done.
1:25:23Going from 100 hours a week to 80 to 60
1:25:26to 40, I mean, that is part of the
1:25:27progress of humanity. Is that we're no
1:25:30longer encumbered by this labor
1:25:31category, being told what to do and how
1:25:33to do it and when to do it in order to
1:25:34get money to pay our bills. But we get
1:25:37to this world where we have more
1:25:38capital.
1:25:39That capital is also time.
1:25:41And I've now accumulated the ability to
1:25:42make a choice on what do I do with 40
1:25:44hours of my
1:25:45my week.
1:25:46>> You know, we all have a hypothesis about
1:25:47how AI is going to play out. And I've
1:25:49heard many different hypotheses
1:25:50hypotheses here. Which is the the part
1:25:52of your hypothesis, like the principle
1:25:54within it, that could quite easily be a
1:25:57be a miscalculation. And how could you
1:25:59be wrong?
1:25:59>> Mass unemployment.
1:26:01>> But but where in your hypo- your current
1:26:03hypothesis would you have been Do you
1:26:05think it's the weakest part of your sort
1:26:06of first principles that could result in
1:26:08that?
1:26:09>> The choice that people will make to go
1:26:10to higher-paying jobs, to different
1:26:12jobs, that they see an opportunity and
1:26:13they make a choice to change.
1:26:15Cuz I think that that's the key to this
1:26:17whole thing.
1:26:18Like
1:26:19if you were a a taxi driver in New York
1:26:21and you were paying rent on a medallion.
1:26:23>> What's a medallion?
1:26:24>> So a medallion is a a right to drive a
1:26:26cab in New York.
1:26:26>> Okay.
1:26:27>> So there was a limited number of them.
1:26:29And so the medallions were restricted.
1:26:31The New York City said we'll only allow
1:26:32so many cabs on the streets. So the
1:26:34price of medallions went up and up and
1:26:36up. So then New York cab drivers would
1:26:37trade the medallions and the price of
1:26:39medallions got up to 500 grand. And
1:26:40Citigroup was a big lender on
1:26:42medallions. So they would loan you 500
1:26:43grand to go buy a medallion. Then Uber
1:26:45came along. And this was one of the big
1:26:47battles around Uber at the time.
1:26:49You could get paid more and there's more
1:26:51rides
1:26:52with Uber.
1:26:53Uber grew the number of people taking
1:26:56car transportation around New York
1:26:57considerably. And when Uber demand shot
1:27:00up, a lot of these guys said I'm not
1:27:01going to be a cab driver anymore. I'm
1:27:02going to go be an Uber driver. I can
1:27:03make more money as an Uber driver.
1:27:05And the number of Uber drivers grew and
1:27:06and look, there's a lot of regulation
1:27:08that's happened in New York since then
1:27:09with respect to Uber and whatnot.
1:27:11But everyone made the choice. They
1:27:13moved. They found the market found its
1:27:15way. Individuals said, "Oh my god, I can
1:27:17make more money doing that. I could pick
1:27:19my own hours. I don't have to rent the
1:27:20medallion."
1:27:21>> It's a very similar side step.
1:27:24>> Yes.
1:27:24>> Going from being a taxi driver to a taxi
1:27:26driver for a different firm using an app
1:27:27is is quite a is
1:27:29>> Like so I so I could sit here and
1:27:30pontificate all day with you on this and
1:27:32we we'd both be wrong, I'm sure. Cuz I
1:27:34don't know what the the leap is going to
1:27:36be for an individual. I think we have to
1:27:37start to pull these stories out of the
1:27:39economy, what's going on.
1:27:41Palantir put out this promotional video
1:27:43which I thought was quite good where
1:27:44they interviewed
1:27:45like a a hospital administrator and
1:27:47she's like, "Well, I've got the AI doing
1:27:48all my paperwork so I get to spend more
1:27:50time with patients now." Sorry, it was a
1:27:51nurse, not an administrator. She was a
1:27:52nurse. So she's like, "I normally spend
1:27:54like most of my time filling out
1:27:55paperwork on the computer, but Palantir
1:27:57the software takes care of all that for
1:27:58me. So now I can spend more time doing
1:28:01rounds face-to-face with patients. It's
1:28:03a better job. And it's better for her.
1:28:06And so she, you know, I think it it was
1:28:08a very poignant story about kind of what
1:28:10AI actually does on the ground. So, you
1:28:13know, look, I mean, I think there's a
1:28:14lot of these sorts of examples we could
1:28:15we could counter-argue back and forth
1:28:17about them all day long and probably
1:28:19both be wrong. But, this is what I would
1:28:20kind of observe on the ground of what's
1:28:22actually happening.
1:28:23>> I think we agree on the fact that jobs
1:28:24are going to get more human in every
1:28:26sense of the word. That was your yoga
1:28:27teacher example. That was the nurse that
1:28:28can spend more time with her patients.
1:28:30And actually, that will become even more
1:28:31valuable. It'll become more scarce. I
1:28:33think my my concern still or the the gap
1:28:35that I have in my head is like that how
1:28:36that transition looks.
1:28:37>> Mhm.
1:28:37>> Especially at speed.
1:28:39>> Mhm.
1:28:39>> Retraining, you know, you talked about
1:28:41the human agency point. And do should we
1:28:43be preparing for such a transition? Cuz
1:28:45I do also believe that we'll we'll we'll
1:28:46get to a providing there's no
1:28:48existential issues. I do think we'll net
1:28:50out in a better place.
1:28:51>> Mhm.
1:28:51>> But, the journey to that better place I
1:28:53still is just this big question mark.
1:28:54>> that's right. And I'm not trying to
1:28:56defend it and say it's going to be a
1:28:57clean smooth line. I'm just trying to
1:28:58say like we are going to get to a better
1:28:59place.
1:29:01You know, we could argue all day long
1:29:02about displacement or dysfunction along
1:29:04the way.
1:29:05>> [gasps]
1:29:06>> Or maybe a lot of people are smiling as
1:29:08they jump to new jobs and try new stuff
1:29:09out. And they're like, "Oh my god, my
1:29:10life's better."
1:29:12I'm optimistic in that sense. I think
1:29:13you're right, we have to track it. And
1:29:15if people are out of work and can't find
1:29:16work and they're challenged in paying
1:29:18their bills, we have a freaking problem.
1:29:20>> And what's the solution to that problem?
1:29:21Is it UBI?
1:29:22>> Well, that's going to be socialism.
1:29:24>> So, in that in that messy middle, you
1:29:25think we'll adopt socialism if that
1:29:27messy middle does occur?
1:29:28>> Yeah.
1:29:28>> And what does that look like in reality?
1:29:30Is it just giving money and free food?
1:29:32And I saw the Mamdani grocery stores.
1:29:34>> Well, that's not going to work, but
1:29:35that'll take time to not work. But, in
1:29:36the meantime, it'll look right.
1:29:38But, yeah, it'll be more more checks.
1:29:40More government employees. It's like the
1:29:41government creates jobs to pay people.
1:29:44They're not productive jobs, meaning if
1:29:46you get paid $100, do you create $120 of
1:29:48value?
1:29:49No, you're getting paid $100, maybe
1:29:51you're creating $60 or $80 of value.
1:29:54But, you know, that's just there's going
1:29:55to be more government payments, whether
1:29:57it takes the form of UBI, government um
1:30:00uh jobs grow,
1:30:02or some other sort of financial support.
1:30:04>> I mean, that's the direction of travel
1:30:05at the moment. Yeah. All directions
1:30:07point to more socialistic
1:30:09>> America. How do you feel about that?
1:30:11>> I'm actually I don't want to lose my
1:30:12agency. I don't want to lose my
1:30:14capacity, my liberty, my freedom.
1:30:16And I feel sad for people that embrace
1:30:17it because I think that they don't
1:30:18realize that they're losing their
1:30:19freedom
1:30:20in that process, too. I think they're
1:30:22losing their agency.
1:30:23>> But it's it's offering them a solution
1:30:25>> That's that's acute.
1:30:27>> There's no other solution being offered
1:30:28from
1:30:28>> feel there's no other solution being
1:30:29offered. That's right.
1:30:30>> But is is is it is it also logical to
1:30:32say if we talk about incentives that
1:30:35billionaires want to stay billionaires.
1:30:37And billionaires aren't actually that um
1:30:39philanthropic in that they as they claim
1:30:41to be. And actually what billionaires
1:30:42are protecting are their interests. They
1:30:43want to remain free.
1:30:45>> I had a call with Ro Khanna about this.
1:30:47>> Can you give context on who he is for
1:30:48me?
1:30:48>> Ro Khanna is a congressman from
1:30:49California who's been um he's he used to
1:30:52be a moderate Democrat and he's kind of
1:30:54pivoted to becoming a hard left true
1:30:56socialist.
1:30:57In Silicon Valley is his district,
1:30:59California 17. He was asking me why are
1:31:01people so outraged at my support for a
1:31:03wealth tax.
1:31:05>> He means billionaires being outraged.
1:31:06>> No, it's not billionaires. It's anyone
1:31:08that has built something and created
1:31:10value.
1:31:11>> Yeah.
1:31:12>> And it's just entrepreneurs, people that
1:31:14have had success.
1:31:16And he's like, I don't get it. It's just
1:31:185% or 2% a year or 1% a year. Like why
1:31:20do people care?
1:31:22And I'm like, Ro, it's the first time in
1:31:23American history
1:31:26that you're talking about taking
1:31:28something from someone after they've
1:31:30paid their taxes.
1:31:32And it's now their private property and
1:31:34the government gets to decide how much
1:31:35of their private property they get to
1:31:36keep. It doesn't matter that it's 1% or
1:31:385% or they'll be fine. And Bernie
1:31:40Sanders like the billionaires will be
1:31:41fine.
1:31:42It's fundamental to private property
1:31:44rights. It makes me feel
1:31:46like and and everyone can think about
1:31:48this. It's not just rich people. Anyone
1:31:51can think about what does it mean to
1:31:52list out everything you own and send it
1:31:54to the government every year and they
1:31:55decide what you get to keep.
1:31:57That's what it feels like to everyone.
1:31:58Also, financially, it doesn't solve a
1:32:00problem. I'll just give you the
1:32:01statistics. Total net worth of people in
1:32:04the US is 183 trillion.
1:32:07Billionaires total net worth is 8
1:32:09trillion.
1:32:10And even if you take it from billionaire
1:32:12down to 50 millionaire, so people that
1:32:13have 50 million or more, the total
1:32:15assets, the total net worth is 23
1:32:17trillion.
1:32:18160 trillion is everyone else.
1:32:21The problem is that the bottom 50%
1:32:25of Americans only have 6 trillion.
1:32:28And the middle, that kind of 50% up to
1:32:31the 50 millionaire, you know, they've
1:32:33got 160 trillion.
1:32:35That's where the net worth is in the
1:32:37United States. It's in that kind of
1:32:39population that people call boomers or
1:32:41Gen X or whatever. The bottom 50% have
1:32:44nothing. And so, if you taxed 100% of
1:32:48the billionaires net worth, that's 8
1:32:50trillion dollars. That's 1 year of the
1:32:52government spending.
1:32:531 year. It doesn't stop fundamentally a
1:32:55wealth tax. It doesn't actually solve a
1:32:57fiscal problem. It creates a system
1:32:59where you're like, everyone feels better
1:33:00about taking money from the
1:33:01billionaires. Are the billionaires
1:33:03paying their fair share of taxes? This
1:33:04is the politician's trick.
1:33:06The politician's trick is they say, how
1:33:08much tax did you pay as a percent of
1:33:10your assets versus how much tax did you
1:33:12pay as a percent of your income? Your
1:33:14income is when you sell stocks or when
1:33:15you make money for services you provide.
1:33:18And every year, if you're wealthy in the
1:33:19United States, in California, I pay 53%
1:33:22tax. I pay 14% California plus 39%
1:33:26federal.
1:33:27>> But you must try to avoid that.
1:33:29>> No, I just pay it.
1:33:30>> But I mean in terms of when I say avoid
1:33:31that, I mean you would rather take it
1:33:33like a capital gains tax, which is lower
1:33:34or something.
1:33:35>> there's no difference.
1:33:36>> Oh, there's no difference.
1:33:37>> Yeah, in California, capital gains or
1:33:38income is is the same. Which by the way
1:33:40should be the case at the federal level
1:33:41if you want to solve this compounding
1:33:43problem.
1:33:44So, can we lower income tax in the
1:33:46United States and raise capital gains
1:33:47tax? Absolutely. Can we make income tax
1:33:50lower for people that are working for
1:33:52their money versus people that are
1:33:53earning gains on their capital assets?
1:33:54Absolutely. And we can solve the problem
1:33:56that way. but by taking their assets,
1:33:58even if you took 100% of the
1:34:00billionaires assets, that's 1 year of
1:34:02spending. It doesn't actually solve a
1:34:04fiscal problem. The tax rate is the
1:34:06fiscal problem.
1:34:07>> So, for these people the 63% that are,
1:34:09you know, potentially championing
1:34:11socialism because they need a solution
1:34:13and it sounds like a solution. Make my
1:34:15bills cheaper. What they don't hear
1:34:17from, you know, other politicians is a
1:34:20better solution and this one sounds
1:34:21great.
1:34:22>> This is what's crazy to me. I don't get
1:34:23why all the politicians are fighting
1:34:24against a wealth tax or for wealth tax
1:34:26when there's like literally 15 other
1:34:28things you could do to make this better.
1:34:30Like this is crazy. Make the capital
1:34:32gains and income tax the same, cut
1:34:34stupid spending at the federal level,
1:34:36and all of a sudden things become more
1:34:37affordable, people have more take-home
1:34:38pay, they can afford more stuff.
1:34:40>> But let's be honest, you're not going to
1:34:41be able to cut the the spending at the
1:34:43federal level. We they've tried that.
1:34:45And because of this this whole thing we
1:34:46just talked about, the four-year
1:34:47election cycles, Elon went in and he
1:34:48tried to cut it, it bounced straight
1:34:50back out.
1:34:50>> Yeah. And I think that that to me was
1:34:52the most depressing piece cuz I was
1:34:53like, "Oh my god, Elon's going to go in,
1:34:55he's going to blow up spending, we're
1:34:56finally going to cut all the nonsense
1:34:58out of the spending, and if Elon can't,
1:35:00no human can."
1:35:01>> Yeah.
1:35:01>> And then I went and visited DC and I
1:35:02went to all these Congress meetings and
1:35:04sat with senators and I was like, "Oh my
1:35:06god, none of them want to cut it." Like
1:35:08they're all on board with it. This isn't
1:35:10even a party thing. This is just
1:35:11[laughter] like everyone's doing it.
1:35:14And I'm like, "This is the system. This
1:35:15is how it's set up. Holy shit."
1:35:18>> We uh we've had Brian um slightly change
1:35:20direction but linked to AI. Um I know
1:35:22you you work in the life sciences. So, I
1:35:24wanted to ask you, do you think we're
1:35:25going to be able to live forever soon or
1:35:27at least extend life significantly
1:35:29within the next couple of decades?
1:35:30>> I do. And I think the reason is we've
1:35:32discovered the mechanism of aging, which
1:35:35is the most fundamental of human
1:35:36diseases. We have 10 trillion cells in
1:35:38our body. Every one of those cells has
1:35:41our a copy of our DNA
1:35:43in the nucleus of the cell.
1:35:44That DNA, segments of it are called a
1:35:47gene.
1:35:48A, C, T, and G make up the little
1:35:50nucleotides and you put a bunch of them
1:35:51together and that's a gene.
1:35:53What is a gene? Well, a copy of that
1:35:56comes over to a protein printer in the
1:35:58cell called the ribosome.
1:36:00And the ACT and G is the programming for
1:36:02which of 20 amino acids, three letters
1:36:05is one amino acid. That ribosome takes a
1:36:07segment of the DNA copied as RNA
1:36:10and it prints out
1:36:12amino acids.
1:36:13And a sequence of amino acids from that
1:36:15gene, which is defined by that gene,
1:36:17makes a protein. So, all a protein is is
1:36:19a is a chain of amino acids.
1:36:22As soon as it's done printing,
1:36:24those amino acids collapse into a
1:36:26three-dimensional machine called a
1:36:28protein.
1:36:29So, proteins are three-dimensional
1:36:30machines and they do crazy Like,
1:36:33there is a protein in your mitochondria
1:36:34that spins 6,000 times a second as
1:36:37hydrogen protons go through it and
1:36:39that's what makes energy in your cells.
1:36:41That's what makes ATP. It's literally
1:36:42like a propeller, like a turbine in your
1:36:44mitochondria in your cells. It's an
1:36:45incredible machine. There's machines
1:36:47that carry oxygen
1:36:49from your lungs into your cells in your
1:36:51body to give them oxygen that they need
1:36:53to work. I mean, there are proteins that
1:36:55do all sorts of crazy stuff.
1:36:57So, all the genes are
1:36:59are the programming for making proteins
1:37:00in your cell.
1:37:01Now, your DNA is not a strand like this.
1:37:04It's actually kind of a small clustered
1:37:06thing and there are little molecules
1:37:08that sit on top of the DNA
1:37:10that turn a gene on or off.
1:37:13So, if the molecule is sitting on top of
1:37:15a certain gene, that gene is off.
1:37:16>> Like a little switch.
1:37:17>> Like a switch.
1:37:18>> What's it called? Someone used the name
1:37:19before.
1:37:19>> Histones.
1:37:20>> Histones, okay.
1:37:21>> Or acetyl markers. And so
1:37:22>> I thought it was epigenetics, but maybe
1:37:23I'm
1:37:23>> Yeah, so this is all epigenetics.
1:37:24>> Okay.
1:37:25>> So, for a given cell, there are genes
1:37:27that are on or off. The genes that are
1:37:29on, those proteins are being made in
1:37:30that cell. And the genes that are off,
1:37:33those proteins are not being made in
1:37:34that cell.
1:37:35And that's what makes all of our cells
1:37:37in our body different. Every one of our
1:37:39cells has the same DNA, but our eye cell
1:37:41and our brain cell and our heart cell
1:37:43and our skin cell
1:37:45just have different genes that are on or
1:37:46off. Okay, so those markers that sit on
1:37:48the genes, those little switches,
1:37:50every time you drink a glass of alcohol,
1:37:53or you go in the sun and get hit by the
1:37:54sunlight, or smoke a cigarette, or eat
1:37:57some bad food that's burnt, all of these
1:37:59things can cut DNA.
1:38:01And when DNA gets cut, your cell is
1:38:03really good at fixing it. Puts it right
1:38:05back together.
1:38:07Happening millions of times a second in
1:38:09your body, literally, all over your
1:38:10body.
1:38:11And your DNA's breaking, and your cell's
1:38:13fixing it. But every time your cell
1:38:15fixes it, there's a chance of that
1:38:17switch moves a little bit. And if the
1:38:19switch moves to the wrong place,
1:38:21suddenly, that cell starts making the
1:38:24wrong protein, or stops making the right
1:38:26protein.
1:38:27So, statistically, over time, when
1:38:30you're a baby, everything is tuned
1:38:31great, working right. All the right
1:38:33proteins are being made in every cell.
1:38:35You're young, your skin is not wrinkly,
1:38:37you can run, you can breathe, you can
1:38:38see perfectly. As you're a young person,
1:38:40suddenly you turn 30, and you're like,
1:38:42wait, my vision's kind of fading a
1:38:43little bit. I can't run as fast, I can't
1:38:45breathe as deep. Oh my god, I'm getting
1:38:47wrinkles around my eyes. 40, 50. What
1:38:50happens as we get older is those
1:38:51switches kind of move around to the
1:38:53wrong places. And as those switches move
1:38:55around, that cell stops making the right
1:38:58protein,
1:38:59and starts making the wrong protein, and
1:39:01it becomes dysfunctional. And if that
1:39:04happens in enough cells, then that
1:39:06tissue starts to misbehave. You get
1:39:08wrinkles. Your heart can't beat quite
1:39:10right. Your retina doesn't pick up light
1:39:12as well, and transmit the signal of the
1:39:14light. Things get blurry. Your hearing
1:39:16starts to lose. You can't think as
1:39:17quickly. You can't respond as quickly.
1:39:19That's what aging is. Aging is the core
1:39:22human disease. And as epigenetics, which
1:39:25is where the switches are on a cell,
1:39:27start to get moved around to the wrong
1:39:29place, and that tissue starts to
1:39:30misbehave, we get all these diseases.
1:39:33That could be one of the core drivers of
1:39:36cancer.
1:39:37>> Why is aging so even across my body
1:39:39then?
1:39:39>> Because all these cells are suffering
1:39:40the same statistical effect of time as
1:39:44DNA breaks happen in every cell in your
1:39:45body.
1:39:46And as those DNA breaks happen, those
1:39:48switches are moving around the same rate
1:39:50in all parts of your body. And that's
1:39:52why parts of your body start to suffer
1:39:54kind of a It's like, "Oh my god, my hip
1:39:56hurts, my eye, my brain." Your young
1:39:58viewers may not appreciate this, but
1:40:00being 46, I'm starting to appreciate it,
1:40:02and it's becoming more of an issue. Now,
1:40:03in 2006,
1:40:05a guy named Shinya Yamanaka
1:40:08discovered four proteins
1:40:11that you could put into a cell or apply
1:40:13to a cell,
1:40:14and it would basically take all the
1:40:16switches in that cell and move them to
1:40:18the place that a stem cell has, which is
1:40:20basically an embryo in a human.
1:40:23And now that cell operates like an
1:40:25embryonic cell.
1:40:27And you can take that embryo cell, and
1:40:29you can put other proteins on to move
1:40:31the switches around even more to turn
1:40:34that stem cell into an eye cell,
1:40:36into a skin cell, into a heart cell,
1:40:38into a lung cell, into a brain cell. So,
1:40:40we suddenly develop this technology in
1:40:43the mid-2000s
1:40:45to take any cell and turn it into a stem
1:40:48cell, redifferentiate it. It's called
1:40:50differentiation from one cell type to
1:40:52another.
1:40:53But then, years later,
1:40:55another guy said, "Well, what if instead
1:40:56of putting a lot of that protein on the
1:40:58cell, we just put a little bit?" So,
1:40:59they took the Yamanaka factors, which
1:41:01are just four proteins,
1:41:03and they put a microdose of them on a
1:41:04couple cells.
1:41:06And the switches started to move around,
1:41:08but they didn't move back to being a
1:41:09stem cell.
1:41:11What happened is they moved back to
1:41:12being a young version of that cell type.
1:41:15So, the eye cell basically became a
1:41:17young eye cell.
1:41:19The skin cell became a young skin cell.
1:41:21The heart cell became a young heart cell
1:41:23by putting a small dose of these
1:41:24proteins. So, it turns out that these
1:41:26proteins kind of move the switches
1:41:27around.
1:41:28And if you put just a small amount of
1:41:30them on, you can move the switches just
1:41:31back to the right position. That's now
1:41:33called epigenetic reprogramming. That's
1:41:35this new area of science that seems to
1:41:37indicate, and they've now done it in
1:41:38mice where the mice can live to the
1:41:40equivalent of a hundred plus years old.
1:41:42They've put it on the tissue of monkeys
1:41:44and gotten rid of the the wrinkles. We
1:41:46now have just David Sinclair just uh his
1:41:48one of his companies did the dosing in
1:41:50the retina to reverse blindness in
1:41:52people
1:41:53uh with a retinopathy.
1:41:55So, this epigenetic reprogramming is an
1:41:57entirely new lane of medicine
1:42:00that says not just can we address all of
1:42:02the downstream effects of aging, but can
1:42:05we go to the core? Can we reset aging in
1:42:07all these cells in the body? And the
1:42:09answer so far is yes. The risk is if you
1:42:12reset it too much, it becomes an embryo
1:42:14and it turns into cancer. So, that's
1:42:16what everyone's been working against in
1:42:17the last couple of years is how do you
1:42:19put the right dose of the right proteins
1:42:21in the right cells to get them to
1:42:23reverse their age and become young
1:42:25again. And the path it's really just an
1:42:27engineering exercise at this point as
1:42:29opposed to a biological proof of
1:42:30concept. The science is there, the
1:42:32foundation is there. We're just doing
1:42:34the engineering. So, I am extremely
1:42:36excited and optimistic
1:42:37about this work. It seems very likely
1:42:39that in the next couple of years we're
1:42:41going to have more human therapy trials
1:42:43that are going to not just address the
1:42:45core of aging, but they'll start to put
1:42:47in like, you know, like they did with
1:42:48the eye cell, maybe reverse wrinkles,
1:42:50maybe improve uh cardiomyocytes, improve
1:42:52the uh heart tissue. So, I think
1:42:55there'll be a lot more of this sort of
1:42:56thing
1:42:57coming to market over the next few
1:42:58years.
1:42:59>> And AI is going to play a role I assume
1:43:00in accelerating this because you can
1:43:02perform I mean you can theoretically
1:43:04make new discoveries, but you can run
1:43:05the tests faster, right? You know, just
1:43:07to uh help
1:43:09>> I I uh provide some context on like what
1:43:12goes on in a cell. You can kind of think
1:43:13about a cell
1:43:15uh has about 10 billion proteins
1:43:17interacting with each other, building
1:43:19things, breaking things, creating new
1:43:20molecules, creating new proteins,
1:43:22interacting, interacting. So, the
1:43:23proteins are these machines. 10 billion
1:43:25of them in a cell.
1:43:26So, if you assume each protein is the
1:43:29size of a human, the cell would be the
1:43:31size of Manhattan.
1:43:32So now imagine a city the size of
1:43:34Manhattan with 500 story tall
1:43:37skyscrapers in the Manhattan skyline
1:43:40and 10 billion people living in these
1:43:41buildings, going back and forth,
1:43:43building stuff together, talking, making
1:43:45babies, and assume they just do this for
1:43:4780 years. All these humans interacting,
1:43:4910 billion humans in Manhattan for 80
1:43:51years non-stop. They don't sleep. And
1:43:53they just keep working. That entire set
1:43:55of interactions is 1 second in one cell.
1:43:58That's how complicated biology is. And
1:44:01we have 10 trillion cells in our body.
1:44:03And those cells are all shooting out
1:44:04proteins and messages to each other all
1:44:06the time.
1:44:07To answer the question, AI allows us to
1:44:11build models to better understand what
1:44:13the heck is going on and to make
1:44:14predictions about proteins we could put
1:44:16into the cells that can affect the
1:44:18outcome of changing the epigenome on
1:44:21that DNA without us having a
1:44:23deterministic understanding of what's
1:44:24going on. So with AI I can come up with
1:44:26a million different ideas for a new
1:44:28protein. I can test it in silicon. How
1:44:30would it interact with other stuff?
1:44:31Meaning on computers. I could see what
1:44:33happens. I could see if it actually has
1:44:35the same sort of effect as the other
1:44:36protein. Would it be more efficacious?
1:44:38And then I reduce my candidate list
1:44:39down. And I take that candidate list and
1:44:41I put it in a lab. And now the labs are
1:44:42being automated. And I can test it on
1:44:44cells and see if it's actually reversing
1:44:46aging. I can test it in models. And then
1:44:48I take that candidate and now I've got a
1:44:50probability of success in 10 years that
1:44:52instead of being 1% is now like 75%.
1:44:56And so that's [clears throat] the way AI
1:44:57plays a role in life sciences discovery.
1:44:59And it's transforming not just
1:45:01epigenetic reprogramming, which is this
1:45:02whole big avenue of medicine now, but
1:45:04it's transforming every aspect of
1:45:06biology and our understanding of life
1:45:08sciences where we can use AI to make
1:45:10these simulations and have a better
1:45:11understanding of what these complicated,
1:45:14incredibly immense interaction sets look
1:45:16like or drive at the end state versus me
1:45:18needing to kind of be a scientist being
1:45:20like, "Oh, I got a good idea. Let's try
1:45:21that." Okay, 5 weeks later, "Okay, I got
1:45:23another good idea. Let's try that." And
1:45:24that all gets reduced to silicon.
1:45:26>> And are you using your own model? Are
1:45:27you training your own AI, or you using
1:45:29some of the publicly available frontier
1:45:30models?
1:45:31>> In my world, we use both. So, we take
1:45:33our own data and then we build our own
1:45:34predictive models from it. And then
1:45:36separately, we use off-the-shelf life
1:45:38sciences models, and then we also use
1:45:39some of the general models. So, it's a
1:45:41great combination. And to your questions
1:45:43and talking about AI earlier,
1:45:45oh my god, the stuff we can do is
1:45:46unbelievable and it's mind-blowing. And
1:45:48we're hiring more people because of it.
1:45:50And so, like, it's not like AI got me to
1:45:52get rid of jobs, it's like the frontier
1:45:54has gotten so much wider. That's why I'm
1:45:56so optimistic about AI not destroying
1:45:58jobs because all I see is opportunity
1:46:00with new companies, new ideas, new
1:46:02pathways, new things, new breakthroughs
1:46:04in in sciences, in materials, in
1:46:07engineering, things that we could have
1:46:08never ever tackled. We can now tackle
1:46:11with AI.
1:46:11>> Hm.
1:46:13It is a persuasive argument. Okay, so
1:46:15what are the great lies in America in
1:46:16your view?
1:46:18>> If you go to
1:46:19any college with any degree, you're
1:46:20going to have a great job waiting for
1:46:21you at the end.
1:46:22>> Okay, number one.
1:46:23>> If you buy a home, you've achieved the
1:46:25American dream and all of your assets
1:46:28should
1:46:30uh be in that home.
1:46:31>> Okay.
1:46:31>> [clears throat]
1:46:32>> Social Security will take care of you
1:46:34when you get old and it's a fair system.
1:46:37Everyone should have ownership in stocks
1:46:39is
1:46:41the truth about that lie.
1:46:43Uh because all the money that went into
1:46:44Social Security went out to the
1:46:45government to pay bills and it wasn't
1:46:48actually kept in the trust.
1:46:50And so, as a result, Social Security is
1:46:51going to go bankrupt. So, Social
1:46:52Security was one of the great lies
1:46:55on, you know, you'll be safe and
1:46:56protected when you retire.
1:46:58>> Mhm.
1:46:59Those are the three great lies. Is there
1:47:00any more that come to mind?
1:47:01>> I don't know about public pensions.
1:47:04And the it's the same as the Social
1:47:05Security lie.
1:47:06When you put money into a pension plan
1:47:09and you're it's that's called a defined
1:47:11benefit plan. When you retire, you're
1:47:12going to get a thousand dollars a week
1:47:13or whatever it is.
1:47:15And every every paycheck, somebody's
1:47:17taking out. And the idea is that the
1:47:18accountants and the investors will do a
1:47:20good job investing that money for you
1:47:22and you'll get your benefit at the end.
1:47:24If they don't do a good job, then the
1:47:25pension plan is bankrupt, and you don't
1:47:27get your retirement check.
1:47:28And if they do too good a job, or you
1:47:30put too much money in, then the pension
1:47:32plan is overfunded, and you should be
1:47:34getting more money out than you're
1:47:35actually getting.
1:47:36>> Mhm.
1:47:36>> So, what companies realized was that
1:47:38pension plans are unfair. They either go
1:47:41bankrupt, or they're overfunded. So,
1:47:43that's when everyone moved to 401(k)s.
1:47:45And that middle class that we talked
1:47:46about earlier, those people that have
1:47:48$160 trillion of assets, the reason they
1:47:50have $160 trillion of assets is because
1:47:53a lot of them had 401(k)s.
1:47:54>> Mhm.
1:47:55>> Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of people that
1:47:57are just relying on social security,
1:47:59they were making less than 3.5% a year
1:48:01on their money.
1:48:02So, that's the great lie, is that these
1:48:05these public retirement funds
1:48:08would take care of their people.
1:48:09>> Is there a fifth great lie
1:48:12that comes to mind?
1:48:13>> I actually don't have a great answer for
1:48:14you on healthcare. I think that there's
1:48:15a moral obligation on healthcare.
1:48:18>> Mhm.
1:48:18>> So, I do buy into this. In a In a civil
1:48:21society, I could make the libertarian
1:48:23argument, but I won't.
1:48:24Cuz I do think it's probably the right
1:48:26thing to say, in a civil society, no one
1:48:28should be without healthcare.
1:48:31How do you make that work where the
1:48:33government's paying bills, and the costs
1:48:35don't just go through the roof? That's a
1:48:36long, probably 6-hour conversation.
1:48:39And it's very technical, I think, on
1:48:41what you have to do
1:48:42uh to make healthcare accessible, and
1:48:45it's definitely got to be a multi-tiered
1:48:46system.
1:48:47>> Mhm. I guess one of the things that I
1:48:48was curious to get your take on, cuz
1:48:50I've not really heard you talk about
1:48:51this a lot on the All-In podcast, is
1:48:54your view on everything that's going on
1:48:55with this bloody war and the situation
1:48:56there. I'm not sure if this is within
1:48:57your area of expertise, but it appears
1:48:59that the US is now stuck.
1:49:00>> It's a quandary. I read that Ray Dalio's
1:49:02piece a few weeks ago, which I thought
1:49:04was exactly right.
1:49:05The Chinese make their influence known
1:49:09in the same way that you would kind of
1:49:10read about it in Sun Tzu's Art of War.
1:49:13If you have to go to war, you've already
1:49:15lost.
1:49:16And that's a big difference between how
1:49:19the US behaves and how China behaves. If
1:49:22you look back on the track record of
1:49:23presidents' decisions as it relates to
1:49:25foreign policy in the United States over
1:49:26the last
1:49:27couple decades,
1:49:29there've not been a lot of good actions
1:49:31that have ended up in a good place. I
1:49:33think China has this capacity for
1:49:36influence without action,
1:49:38which is a really interesting model to
1:49:40observe. And the US has this kind of
1:49:45I I don't want to say incentive, but
1:49:47when you go to a general
1:49:49and say, "Hey, should we go attack these
1:49:50guys?" The general spends the whole time
1:49:52training to attack the guys. So,
1:49:54you know, and then they you have a
1:49:55National Security Council and you have
1:49:56advisors and all this sort of stuff,
1:49:58but there's a there's a priming
1:50:00uh in the US that I think maybe plays
1:50:02out in a way that maybe we take action
1:50:04when we shouldn't always be taking
1:50:05action.
1:50:06>> China's position that only possible
1:50:07because there is a dominant force that
1:50:09is running around trying to please
1:50:10everything. So, they can kind of chill
1:50:12and let the US go police all the the
1:50:14problems in war.
1:50:15>> Their military capacity's pretty
1:50:16impressive, but it's untested at scale,
1:50:18I guess, is one argument you can make
1:50:20against that point. I mean, China's got
1:50:22a lot of economic gamesmanship that they
1:50:25do. You know, we'll give you cheap stuff
1:50:27if we can get these things from you.
1:50:30Uh you know, we'll we'll keep an eye on
1:50:32you if you need help. I mean, there's
1:50:34like a lot of stuff that doesn't require
1:50:36direct
1:50:37kinetic action that they can kind of get
1:50:38things done.
1:50:39>> In terms of the US's position in Iran
1:50:40right now, there is it appears a threat
1:50:43to oil
1:50:45in terms of like the price at the pump
1:50:46and the I think it's the US oil reserve
1:50:48is down to a couple of weeks.
1:50:50>> I want to say there's on the order of 24
1:50:52million barrels in the SPR.
1:50:54>> So, at the G7 summit in France,
1:50:56President Donald Trump addressed the
1:50:57precarious state of global oil
1:50:59inventories following supply disruption.
1:51:02He said, "We run out of reserves at
1:51:04about 4 weeks. You know, there are
1:51:07reserves all over the world and we would
1:51:09really run out and there'll be a time
1:51:13when you wouldn't be able to get it. It
1:51:14would be bedlam.
1:51:16>> Mhm.
1:51:18>> And this was just as I think this was
1:51:20the explanation as to why he signed that
1:51:21MOU with Iran.
1:51:23>> Mhm.
1:51:23>> So, I mean, if this is true,
1:51:26then something needs to happen.
1:51:28But again, it doesn't appear that Iran
1:51:30have much of of an incentive now you've
1:51:31decapitated the leader for to do really
1:51:33anything. They can kind of wait
1:51:34>> The game theory is Iran knows that the
1:51:36US can't do much more.
1:51:37>> Yeah. We going to drop more bombs?
1:51:39>> Right.
1:51:40And well, I mean, Iran's now threatened
1:51:42uh
1:51:43Arab uh neighbors with retaliation
1:51:46against their energy infrastructure,
1:51:48which would be devastating to Saudi,
1:51:50Qatar, UAE.
1:51:52So, at this point it seems like a bit of
1:51:53a stalemate that the US can't act for
1:51:55fear of the retaliation and the impact
1:51:57it would have on America's actual allies
1:51:59in the region.
1:52:00>> What do you think happens here? Trump
1:52:02straight-out fools me is Iran now have
1:52:03this sort of chokehold on the world, it
1:52:05seems.
1:52:06>> I mean, the biggest driver also is the
1:52:07election cycle we're in.
1:52:09>> The midterms?
1:52:10>> The midterms, so
1:52:11going into November, this war is deeply
1:52:13unpopular on both sides.
1:52:16And so, trying to get rid of the war is
1:52:19the incentive at the moment.
1:52:22It's a tough situation.
1:52:23>> You seem
1:52:24um hesitant here.
1:52:25>> No, I just I'm not a I'm not a great guy
1:52:27to
1:52:28opine on this. I just I don't know what
1:52:30to do.
1:52:30>> But just when you look at it from the
1:52:31outside, you see a president that says
1:52:33he's going to bomb, he's not going to
1:52:34bomb, he's calling it off, he's bombing,
1:52:36he's not bombing, he's calling it off.
1:52:37We've got a deal, there's no deal.
1:52:38>> Yeah.
1:52:38>> And you you're flopping around. And I
1:52:40think even that is a behavior to observe
1:52:41from the outside, you go, "Oh, okay."
1:52:44Um
1:52:44>> me ask you one question. It kind of
1:52:45makes him unpredictable, right?
1:52:48And that unpredictability can can in
1:52:50some cases be an advantage. I do think
1:52:52people have made this case that the
1:52:53president's unpredictability makes it
1:52:56hard for people to have a clear path on
1:52:58how to attack. Like my poker player
1:52:59buddies, their whole poker strategy, the
1:53:01guys who are the best in the world who
1:53:03I'm friends with, their whole strategy
1:53:04is like create randomness in your
1:53:06gamesmanship, so that it's very hard for
1:53:07someone to exploit your gameplay and um
1:53:11you know, I just don't know if you know
1:53:12what you're going to get with President
1:53:14Trump. You can meet with him and
1:53:15hear him say one thing and then he'll do
1:53:17something different later.
1:53:18>> I understand the merit of that argument.
1:53:20In this situation, what I'm observing
1:53:22now is he's become predictable.
1:53:24>> Yeah.
1:53:25In in terms of
1:53:26>> In terms of
1:53:27not being able to do any like not not
1:53:29>> not taking action.
1:53:30>> Not taking action. Right.
1:53:32Post it biggest strike coming since
1:53:34World War II call it off.
1:53:36>> What would you do if you were him?
1:53:37[laughter] hell.
1:53:39What would I do?
1:53:40>> Yeah.
1:53:40>> Uh
1:53:41there's only bad outcomes. So, it's
1:53:43which bad out Honestly, I think which
1:53:44bad outcome am I willing to accept the
1:53:46most? And I guess for someone like
1:53:48Trump, I don't know him, but I guess
1:53:50he's probably thinking which one would
1:53:51save the most face.
1:53:53>> That's probably
1:53:54the right kind of
1:53:56you know, objective function for him.
1:53:58>> I think the worst thing is all outcomes
1:53:59in my view lead to the Strait of Hormuz
1:54:01being now basically a a tool of Iranian
1:54:04negotiation and it wasn't before.
1:54:06>> New point of leverage.
1:54:07>> Yeah, new point of leverage in that
1:54:08region, which is a powerful point of
1:54:09leverage.
1:54:10>> Yeah.
1:54:10Yeah, but it may create um alternatives.
1:54:14There's conversation about creating
1:54:15other pipelines out to Israel and so on.
1:54:18So, maybe at the end of the day creates
1:54:20incentive for other channels to be
1:54:21opened.
1:54:22Uh TBD. I do think the um it's not just
1:54:25about the Iranian
1:54:27program, but it's like where's all the
1:54:29enriched uranium? That's probably if
1:54:31you're kind of asking a military
1:54:32advisor, I would say that's probably
1:54:33what they're thinking about is the the
1:54:35core cuz it takes a long time to enrich
1:54:36uranium
1:54:37to use for nuclear fuel like this.
1:54:40So, getting the enriched uranium is
1:54:41probably a key objective.
1:54:43>> The next election 2028 for the president
1:54:45presidential office. Do you think a
1:54:46Republican's going to win on the course
1:54:48of how things are going?
1:54:49>> For 2028?
1:54:50>> Yeah.
1:54:50>> No, I think it's going to be AOC.
1:54:52>> Do you think it's going to be AOC?
1:54:53>> Yeah.
1:54:54>> Really?
1:54:54>> At this point.
1:54:56>> Why?
1:54:57>> It's all the stuff we've talked about. I
1:54:58just think that that's the the state of
1:55:00the nation. I mean, that's where people
1:55:02are at. They they want help. People feel
1:55:04desperate and they want a candidate that
1:55:05can promise to help make their life
1:55:08better. I think they're less concerned
1:55:10about, you know, freedom of movement,
1:55:12that kind of stuff we talked about. I
1:55:14think they're much more concerned about
1:55:15paying their bills and getting health
1:55:17care and getting child care and
1:55:19>> You think she's going to run?
1:55:20>> I think she'll run. I think she'll beat
1:55:22Buttigieg and uh
1:55:23>> Kamala?
1:55:24>> Kamala
1:55:25>> Newsom?
1:55:26>> Newsom
1:55:27I don't think Newsom's going to have
1:55:29like a great
1:55:31presence on a national stage. I think he
1:55:33he he he he looks and acts the part, but
1:55:37it's going to be hard for him to sell
1:55:38the rest of America.
1:55:40And I think Kamala is just like it's
1:55:41it's just no one wants to take the risk.
1:55:44AOC is just like Mondaire Jones in the
1:55:46sense that she brings a very different
1:55:48voice, you know, and I think this DSA
1:55:50movement has real legs to it. Cuz I
1:55:52don't see a lot of young people speaking
1:55:53out against the DSA movement. I see a
1:55:55lot of old Democrats speaking out
1:55:57against the DSA movement.
1:55:58>> You see Kamala Harris being perceived as
1:56:00more of a risk than AOC?
1:56:01>> Yeah.
1:56:02Because she's lost before and they've
1:56:03seen the
1:56:04>> Oh, okay.
1:56:05>> Yeah, cuz she's lost before.
1:56:05>> Yeah.
1:56:06But I look, what do I know?
1:56:08>> It's interesting to you. I I've heard
1:56:09you I think I've heard you guys on the
1:56:10All-In podcast say before that you think
1:56:12in 2028 it will be a a Democrat or a
1:56:14socialist that wins. So
1:56:17>> I mean, there's a lot of runway between
1:56:18here and there.
1:56:19>> Mhm.
1:56:20>> And look, I mean, I want to talk about
1:56:22the the profound frontiers in front of
1:56:24us.
1:56:25Because I think that there really is
1:56:27this idea and you know, there's a lot of
1:56:29my friends who have this idea of this
1:56:31age
1:56:32hypothesis that we're entering this
1:56:34golden age and people don't realize
1:56:35we're in it. That
1:56:37AI unleashes this capacity for human
1:56:40advancement. So, the the the age
1:56:43reversal stuff. Right now, we have a
1:56:45billion people in the world that are
1:56:46starving. We have hundreds of millions
1:56:47of people dying from curable disease.
1:56:50I think these are the sorts of things
1:56:52that are going to get resolved more
1:56:54quickly than we realize.
1:56:55I think that the productivity gains that
1:56:57are going to arise from AI are not just
1:56:59going to kind of
1:57:00you know, be a battle on does the
1:57:02painter have a robot or not?
1:57:04But I think it's going to be about all
1:57:05this new stuff that's starting to be
1:57:08realized. Material science is going to
1:57:10have a profound revolution right now.
1:57:11Traveling to the moon, which might seem
1:57:13like a billionaire's fantasy, but ends
1:57:15up becoming kind of a real true
1:57:18industrial frontier that everyone's
1:57:20going to participate in.
1:57:21There's just extraordinary abundance
1:57:24that arises from the stuff. Not in the
1:57:27sense that oh, we're just making
1:57:28everything that we've had in the past
1:57:29cheaper.
1:57:30But the stuff that's in front of us, the
1:57:31frontiers that all of the entrepreneurs
1:57:33want to pursue, that all of the dreamers
1:57:36see as the opportunity and the hope for
1:57:37tomorrow, that all of the pragmatists
1:57:40are kind of acknowledging is like legit
1:57:42for the first time in our history.
1:57:45That's where I think
1:57:46there's a light kind of rising off this
1:57:48horizon. I feel very good about that.
1:57:51Maybe AOC gets elected. That's just my
1:57:52view on timing where we sit today. So,
1:57:54she'll politically. But I do think that
1:57:56the light is rising in a way that like
1:57:59everyone's going to have a profound
1:58:00change to their lives in the next couple
1:58:02of years. So, I am
1:58:03profoundly optimistic. We kind of talked
1:58:05a lot about socialism and government
1:58:07spending and all this today.
1:58:09But my experience on the ground is just
1:58:11like holy
1:58:13And there's no stopping it. Like this
1:58:15this these amazing breakthroughs are
1:58:17here.
1:58:18>> One of the things you learn when you
1:58:19highlight to people is that in every
1:58:21change or every announcement you make in
1:58:22your company or we've raised money or
1:58:24whatever it might be, there's an there's
1:58:26a second question, which is what
1:58:28everyone all of your team members are
1:58:29actually asking.
1:58:30>> What does it mean for me?
1:58:30>> What does it mean for me?
1:58:31>> Mhm.
1:58:32>> And actually on the ground, talking
1:58:34about being on the ground,
1:58:36it's the 63%.
1:58:37>> Yeah.
1:58:37>> They can't they all they look up and
1:58:39they see
1:58:40>> agree with you.
1:58:40>> trillionaire for world's first
1:58:41trillionaire. They see AI
1:58:43>> Katy Perry with the flower out the
1:58:44window.
1:58:44>> They see a job displacement coming and
1:58:47then they go, well, listen, can't
1:58:49compete the bills. So, what's the
1:58:50mechanism for doing that right now, for
1:58:52helping the people on the ground to
1:58:55benefit from the advances in this
1:58:56technology? What would the mechanism be?
1:58:58>> 401(k)s to own this stuff would would be
1:59:00what we need to change from a public
1:59:01policy perspective so that they all have
1:59:03direct ownership in these things.
1:59:04>> can look on their phone and see how
1:59:05they're benefiting from
1:59:07>> you, everyone thinks that AI is going to
1:59:08accumulate to two or three companies. I
1:59:10don't think that's how it's going to
1:59:11play out. Everyone's using AI and
1:59:13everyone's using open-source AI now.
1:59:15Meaning every company's going to benefit
1:59:16from AI, which means every company's
1:59:18going to have more money to pay their
1:59:19employees, hire more people, train them
1:59:22up, do other things with them. So, I'm
1:59:24like
1:59:25I don't buy into the narrative that
1:59:26Dario, Elon, and Sam end up having all
1:59:29the value in AI. I think the Chinese
1:59:31blew that up. I think the the
1:59:32open-source stuff is the best thing to
1:59:34happen.
1:59:34>> Doesn't that mean there's going to be a
1:59:35bit of an economic collapse here?
1:59:37>> Those data centers still need to exist
1:59:39to run the models.
1:59:40>> Will we all be in an AI bubble in that
1:59:41regard?
1:59:42>> No. If this this CAPEX on AI, if the
1:59:44cost to run a Chinese model
1:59:48comes down by some number of fold over
1:59:51the cost to run a proprietary model,
1:59:53I'm going to run more models. I'm going
1:59:54to do it more. And as I do it more, I'm
1:59:57going to need more compute. I need more
1:59:58data centers. I need more
2:00:00uh thing to do that. So, that's where
2:00:02you go. By the way, on the data center
2:00:03argument, I totally buy into people's
2:00:05concerns about data centers driving up
2:00:07the cost of energy.
2:00:08I the water thing is I think BS, but um
2:00:12the cost of energy thing, every data
2:00:14center should be on its own grid. And
2:00:15every data center should make enough
2:00:17power not just to be on their own grid,
2:00:18but to pump energy back into the grid.
2:00:20If you set that as a standard for every
2:00:21data center project in the US going
2:00:23forward, you've solved the data center
2:00:24problem cuz now you're dropping the
2:00:25price of electricity for everyone in
2:00:27America, and these data centers are all
2:00:29off the grid. And then everyone can own
2:00:30those. They can all be in REITs, and
2:00:31people can buy stock. And And many of
2:00:33those are publicly traded. So, they
2:00:35should be in your 401(k), and everyone
2:00:37can own a piece.
2:00:38>> David, we have a closing tradition on
2:00:39this podcast where the last guest leaves
2:00:40a question for the next guest not
2:00:41knowing who they're leaving it for. And
2:00:43the question left for you is, what is
2:00:45one idea you have that is uncomfortable
2:00:47for people to hear
2:00:49that you don't typically say out loud?
2:00:53>> Um, I think we should end the federal
2:00:55student loan program in the United
2:00:56States and I think education costs will
2:00:59come way down and the private market
2:01:01will still provide all the student loans
2:01:02that people need.
2:01:04I think if the federal student loan
2:01:06program, because it doesn't discern
2:01:08colleges, degrees,
2:01:11individual performance, I think that by
2:01:13ending that federal student loan
2:01:14program, the quality of education in the
2:01:16US will improve dramatically and the
2:01:17price will drop dramatically.
2:01:20And more people will have access to
2:01:21higher quality education. I know it's
2:01:23counterintuitive.
2:01:24But that's what will happen. It's sort
2:01:25of like, you know, Milei removed rent
2:01:27control
2:01:28in Argentina and rents declined.
2:01:30>> [laughter]
2:01:30>> Like the the we've propped up the price
2:01:33of education in the US with the federal
2:01:35student loan program. And so, if the
2:01:37federal student loan program was
2:01:38replaced by a program that is
2:01:39accountable, meaning the person that's
2:01:41underwriting the loan
2:01:43knows that that loan has to perform,
2:01:44meaning that that school has to be good
2:01:46or that individual has to be doing a
2:01:48good degree,
2:01:49the
2:01:50market will correct itself and people
2:01:53will end up
2:01:54getting a loan if they go to one get one
2:01:56degree versus another.
2:01:57So, if you get another if you get a bad
2:01:58degree,
2:02:00you know, pick your basket weaving, you
2:02:02know, major,
2:02:03there's no
2:02:04loan available. But if you get a degree
2:02:06in something that might be useful and
2:02:08you're likely to get a job, there's a
2:02:09loan available.
2:02:10>> But for those people that can't get a
2:02:11loan because they want to do basket
2:02:13weaving, they're going to have to go
2:02:14find something
2:02:15>> else to do.
2:02:15>> else to do. So, they might have to go
2:02:17work somewhere else doing something
2:02:18>> was we put them in $200,000 of debt and
2:02:20then they didn't have a job afterwards.
2:02:22>> Is the counterargument also that the
2:02:24most privileged will get the best
2:02:25education?
2:02:26And that privilege can be intellectual
2:02:27privilege or it can be financial
2:02:28privilege. But there's there'll be a
2:02:30divide between like you guys are all
2:02:31going to Harvard.
2:02:32>> You still have a scholarship system.
2:02:34Scholarship system doesn't change. You
2:02:35still have scholarships and solve for
2:02:37that.
2:02:37>> And education is
2:02:39with AI is changing as well.
2:02:41>> You know, I'll just say like there's a
2:02:42lot of these universities that get
2:02:43accredited
2:02:45and they provide terrible education.
2:02:47>> Yeah, it's true. And they just give you
2:02:48debt.
2:02:49>> And then they give you debt. And so you
2:02:50graduate with a degree from, you know,
2:02:54whatever crappy university or college,
2:02:57but you assumed that because the
2:02:58government gave you the loan, you were
2:03:00going to have a job at the end.
2:03:01>> Yeah, it's a scam.
2:03:02>> It's a scam. It's one of the great lies.
2:03:04Imagine if it was all privately funded.
2:03:06There's plenty of lenders. I mean, the
2:03:07amount of money that's going into
2:03:09student loans is actually a small
2:03:10percentage of what's going into home
2:03:11loans. So there's plenty of bank capital
2:03:13out there to fund student loans.
2:03:15So the student loan debt would suddenly
2:03:17become, hey, if you go to this crappy
2:03:18university, we're not giving you
2:03:20$200,000 of debt.
2:03:21>> True. I see what you're saying. It would
2:03:23also force people to pick things that
2:03:24were linked to the employment market
2:03:27versus, say like basket weaving uses an
2:03:29example. But maybe if, you know, maybe
2:03:31I'd be forced more into things that had
2:03:32a higher guarantee of return because of
2:03:34the private markets.
2:03:35>> And it doesn't mean
2:03:36>> It's a retraining mechanism in that
2:03:37regard.
2:03:37>> It is. And I think this is a great reset
2:03:40that's needed. If we got rid of the
2:03:41federal student Cuz I don't think you
2:03:42can reform federal student loans. It's
2:03:43just too complicated. But if you shut it
2:03:45down, the and, you know, or you
2:03:47transition it over time and let the
2:03:48private market underwrite it,
2:03:50you'd have a better path.
2:03:52>> David, thank you. Thank you. Thank you
2:03:54to you and your co-host on the All-In
2:03:55podcast. It's one of my favorite
2:03:56podcasts, so I highly recommend
2:03:57everybody goes and listens to that. I I
2:03:58listen to it all the time and it really
2:04:00helps me develop my own perspective on
2:04:02the world. So I really appreciate the
2:04:03fact that you guys take the time to do
2:04:04that amongst your very busy schedule.
2:04:06>> you for having me.
2:04:07>> And uh yeah, appreciate you coming here
2:04:09today. And uh hopefully we can continue
2:04:10this conversation once uh we get more of
2:04:12these answers and the fog clears a
2:04:14little bit.
2:04:14>> Absolutely.
2:04:15>> Thank you so much. And I'll link all of
2:04:16your links below for people to go read
2:04:17your stuff. Is there anywhere else in
2:04:18particular people can get more of your
2:04:19content?
2:04:20>> All-In is really where I'm at.
2:04:22>> Okay.
2:04:22>> Any Yeah.
2:04:23>> Anywhere else follow you on social
2:04:24media?
2:04:25>> Follow me on Twitter at Friedberg. I
2:04:26don't post very much, but that's it. I
2:04:28mean, [laughter]
2:04:29um that's where I'm at.
2:04:30>> Great. We'll see you then.
2:04:31>> Thank you.
2:04:32>> Thank you, David. YouTube have this new
2:04:33crazy algorithm where they know exactly
2:04:35what video you would like to watch next
2:04:37based on AI and all of your viewing
2:04:39behavior and the algorithm says that
2:04:42this video is the perfect video for you.
2:04:45It's different for everybody looking
2:04:46right now. Check this video out. I bet
2:04:48you you might love it.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of David Friedberg: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next! by The Diary Of A CEO, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 27,915 words across 4,362 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.