YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Top White House Advisor: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next! | David Friedberg

Top White House Advisor: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next! | David Friedberg — Transcript

by The Diary Of A CEO · 27,781 words · 4,049 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?
0:06>> The answer is yes. I was appointed to
0:08President Trump's Council of Adviserss
0:10in Science and Technology. And one of
0:12the great lies is that the government
0:14will save you. But the more government
0:16has tried to create services for people
0:18and help bring them up the ladder, the
0:20more expensive those things get. [music]
0:2163% of Americans live paycheck to
0:24paycheck. People can't afford to pay
0:25their bills and it needs to be fixed.
0:27What will ultimately happen? So, all my
0:29politician friends are about to chop my
0:31head off about this, but
0:33>> David Freeberg, 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
0:40Daario, Elon, and Sam [music] end up
0:42having all the value in AI because in
0:44the next 10 years, there will be a
0:45billionaire that will emerge that has
0:47zero net worth today, downloaded open
0:49sourced AI, and built a company that
0:50made them a billionaire. And they're
0:51going to be someone that's going to come
0:52from nowhere. And there's going to be a
0:54lot of these sorts of stories.
0:55>> But this narrative that AI will take
0:56jobs [music] away, you don't believe it.
0:58So from data, from evidence over all
1:00periods of technological [music]
1:01revolution like this, we've never seen
1:03jobs decline. And the average person
1:05doesn't see it. But oh my god, the stuff
1:07we can do is unbelievable. Right now we
1:08have a billion people in [music] the
1:09world that are starving. We have
1:10hundreds of millions dying from curable
1:12disease. These are the sorts of things
1:13that are [music] going to get resolved
1:14because AI unleashes this capacity for
1:18human advancement and it's transforming
1:19every aspect of biology and our
1:21understanding of 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? The truth is
1:30>> this is super interesting to me. My team
1:32gave me this report to show me how many
1:34of you that watch this show subscribe.
1:35And some of you have told us according
1:37to this that you are unsubscribed from
1:39the channel randomly. So favor to ask
1:41all of you. Please could you check right
1:42now if you've hit the subscribe button
1:44if 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
1:50number. So, if there was one simple free
1:52thing that you could do to help us, my
1:54team, everyone here, to keep this show
1:56free, to keep it improving year over
1:58year and week over week, it is just to
2:00hit that subscribe button and to double
2:01check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
2:02ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If
2:05you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
2:06I'll make sure every single week, every
2:09single month, we fight harder and harder
2:10and harder and harder to bring you the
2:11guests and conversations that you want
2:12to hear. I've stayed true to that
2:14promise since the very beginning of the
2:15D of Sio, and I will not let you down.
2:18Please help us. Really appreciate it.
2:20Let's get on with the show. [music]
2:25David Freeberg, you're someone that
2:26graces lots of different subjects. If
2:28you were to sort of self-define who you
2:30are and what you do, now this is
2:34difficult because you've got to kind of
2:35put yourself in a label here. What would
2:36that label be? How would you
2:38self-categorize yourself?
2:39>> I would say I'm deeply curious about the
2:42world and the universe and how it works
2:44and why it works the way it does. And
2:46I'm a big believer in human agency to
2:49affect the universe around us. And
2:51that's kind of my core kind of driving
2:53motivation. A lot of the other stuff
2:55ancillary is about how do you enable
2:56that?
2:57>> And I think that that's sort of probably
2:59where I also spend some time is in the
3:02enablement of those things.
3:03>> Got a nice cute photo here of that kid
3:05that wanted to be Einstein.
3:07>> Yeah.
3:07>> And then as it relates to how that
3:08manifested into like a professional
3:10journey, what's your professional
3:11journey been for anyone that might not
3:12know? I started in college majoring in
3:15math and physics and then I changed my
3:17major to astrophysics and it was during
3:19the time I was in college is when
3:21the.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 million
3:30dollars in our junior year of college.
3:31That 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 decided
3:46to go work in Silicon Valley. I
3:48interviewed for jobs. I didn't get a lot
3:50of offers, but I played a lot of poker
3:52during uh my college days. It's how I
3:55was able to make money. I read all the
3:57strategy 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
4:04poker game. Took all my money that I
4:05made at the pool hall. I was making four
4:06bucks an hour, 425 an hour. And so I was
4:08like, I'm going to learn poker. So I
4:09learned it. That's how I made money. And
4:11I put that on my resume when I applied
4:12for jobs after college. And I got
4:14interviews with investment banks. And
4:15the investment banks were like, oh, we
4:17want to talk to a kid that knows how to
4:18play poker. Cuz this was before internet
4:20poker, before ESPN poker. So it was like
4:22an interesting thing. And so I ended up
4:24getting a job working in investment
4:25banking and then worked in on tech
4:27companies. So then I got to learn
4:29business, finance, accounting, mergers
4:30and acquisitions, all this sort of
4:32stuff. And then I ended up working at
4:33Google. I worked at Google when it was
4:35started when it was a just under a
4:36thousand employees and I left a couple
4:39years later started a business uh called
4:41the climate corporation and so I've been
4:42in Silicon Valley my whole career
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 it's
5:00software for farmers
5:01>> and today that software is now owned by
5:03Bayer which is the big kind of pharma/ag
5:06company. Uh it's used across 200 million
5:09acres every year. That's a pretty
5:11sizable amount of farmland that uses
5:12that software still. So yeah, it's it's
5:14done fairly well.
5:15>> So I'm 33 now. You were 33 when you sold
5:17that?
5:18>> I was 33.
5:19>> 33. A lot of money, 1.1 billion. And
5:22you've done lots of other things since
5:23then, which we can go into. But you've
5:25also, I think from March this year, you
5:27were appointed as an adviser to Donald
5:28Trump. Yeah, I was appointed to
5:30President Trump's Council of Adviserss
5:32in Science and Technology. And
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 on who is
5:42appointed to PCAST. In historical
5:45context, like Bill Clinton had a PCAST
5:47that was set up just for the internet.
5:48>> Pcast,
5:49>> president's council of adviserss in
5:50science and technology.
5:52>> And so, he set one up focused on the
5:54internet. And this current pcast under
5:56this administration is heavy in AI. So
5:58it's like Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Andre,
6:01Sergey Brin, that that's kind of the
6:02cohort that's on this advisory council,
6:05but it's always included folks that are
6:06involved in things like biotechnology,
6:09sciences, and to help guide science
6:11policy for the administration. So it
6:13involves having conversations with
6:14people in the administration on things
6:16that are happening in industry, things
6:17that are happening on the frontiers of
6:19science and technology to help guide
6:20some of the policy decisions that the
6:23administration is trying to create or
6:25enforce. And what is the most important
6:27subject of our time?
6:28>> AI. And right now the big question in
6:32the United States from a policy
6:34perspective seems to be the regulation
6:36of AI. What role should the government
6:40play in determining where AI goes, how
6:44it gets 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
6:53the same political party on whether or
6:55not for example to allow Chinese open-
6:57source models to be used by American
6:59businesses. You know these
7:01[clears throat] Chinese models are as
7:02good as or in many cases better than
7:05private 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.
7:13there 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 a token is kind
7:22of like 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 in
7:33industry and if so what does that do to
7:36American AI? What does that do to our
7:38capacity to compete?
7:41Is there security risk? Uh so there's a
7:43lot of this kind of debate underway. Uh
7:45and that I think is probably the hot
7:47topic dour. 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 on the one hand
8:00what's the enablement acceleration
8:03regulation of AI and on the other hand
8:06you know there's this question still on
8:08what is science today in an era of AI
8:11science is also changing and so there's
8:13this kind of I 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 I
8:20think it's important also to get kind of
8:22like a a backdrop of the economic state
8:26and like the social state of the nation
8:28because all of these things feed into
8:30these big questions on AI and they also
8:32inform everyone's biases on this subject
8:34because if you're at a different sort of
8:36socioeconomic position or if you're
8:38feeling a different thing your
8:39perspective on AI is going to be
8:40radically different. So if we started
8:42then first on like if we just focus on
8:44the United States which mean in some
8:45respects is a little bit of a proxy for
8:46the rest of the western world. Where is
8:49the United States at at this moment in
8:51time in terms of is it on the rise
8:53inequality? What are the what are the
8:55sort of pertinent factors here that help
8:57us understand the backdrop of this
8:58nation?
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
9:06number one the unaffordability crisis.
9:09>> What does that mean?
9:10>> 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 cost
9:19of things is rising faster than wages
9:22are increasing. So things feel less
9:24affordable to most Americans. And then
9:28there's this wealth inequality concern
9:31which I would say is both kind of a
9:34perception issue. There's definitely
9:36policy issues that has allowed it to
9:38happen and we can talk about those. But
9:40I think America is in this kind of
9:42crisis of classism, this crisis of us
9:47versus them. And it manifests in a lot
9:49of different ways. So, you know, you had
9:51Ray Dalio on, and if you think about Ray
9:53Dalio's kind of like cycle of empires,
9:55you know, this is this idea that there's
9:57been six empires in the last 500 years
9:59and the United States is on the decline
10:01and China's on the rise. And it can be
10:03measured across a number of different
10:04dimensions. One of which is this crisis
10:07of internal struggle which manifests
10:09often with external struggle, the Iran
10:12war. Like why can't we stop having
10:13external wars? Well, you know, a nation
10:15that's happy with itself generally
10:17doesn't go to war. A nation that's not
10:19happy generally does go to war. And so,
10:22um, a lot of this stuff gets tied up, I
10:24think, in this economic distress that
10:26the United States is feeling. My
10:28contention
10:30which may not be very popular is that
10:33the more government has tried to uh
10:36create services for people and help
10:38bring them up the ladder the more
10:39expensive those things get
10:41>> i.e. socialism
10:43>> 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 in US
10:49policy over the last half century but
10:51one of the great lies is that the
10:53government will save you the government
10:55will help you by giving you these
10:58essential services that you want more of
11:01education healthcare housing and as the
11:04government has entered into those
11:06markets because remember there are
11:07people making those things offering
11:08those services and there's someone
11:10paying for it so as the government
11:11enables more money to flow into those
11:13markets, the cost of those things has
11:15just gone up. And you can see how this
11:17plays out, for example, in education. So
11:19higher education, if you want to go to
11:20college in the United States, and I'll
11:22just give you a statistic. 30 years ago,
11:24administrative staff were like 10% of
11:26colleges. Today, they're like 60%. In
11:28just 30 years, give me a rational reason
11:31why we should have 6x the administrative
11:33staffing 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 a university on how
11:42well they do with their graduating
11:44students or the degree or the individual
11:46that's taking out the loan. The federal
11:48student 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.
11:58We'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
12:03higher 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, a
12:14university 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 because the
12:27government has provided unlimited
12:29funding to higher education through the
12:31federal student loan program. So, as a
12:33result, education has gotten so vastly
12:35expensive that everyone now looks at it
12:37and says, "We got to do something about
12:38this." And both parties seem to say,
12:40"Well, here's what the government's
12:41going to do to do more." And it's like
12:42putting fuel on the fire. So, the
12:43challenge right now is people are
12:45feeling 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 the facto leads to
12:56socialism. What is wrong with socialism?
12:59I would argue that the key measure of a
13:03country's success is how many people are
13:05transitioning from labor to capital each
13:07year.
13:08>> What does that mean?
13:08>> That means every year I'm working
13:10paycheck to paycheck. I'm collecting
13:11check. I I I I graduated college. I had
13:13$19,000 in debt. I went and worked. I
13:17got paid. I saved up. I paid down my
13:19debt. I was able to get out of it. Then
13:20I worked at Google. We had an IPO.
13:22Suddenly I had assets. I had stuff. I
13:25had money in the bank account. And it
13:27was like an incredible moment for me.
13:29And I said, I could live off that money.
13:31I don't need to live off a paycheck
13:33every month. I now have savings. I have
13:35assets. That is capital. And everyone
13:39talks about capital versus labor. But
13:42the 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
13:53up 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 own a have a bunch of debt and you
14:04got insurance payments to make and you
14:05still got to work every month to make
14:07those payments, you're not necessarily
14:09living the American dream yet. The
14:10American dream is being freed of that
14:12burden
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 like, let's say you have
14:19$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 dollar
14:25saved, you can make $100,000 a year and
14:27you can 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
14:41transition moment. It eliminates it
14:43because it says everyone has to be labor
14:44all the time for the rest of their
14:46lives. And then no one has freedom. And
14:47that's what America was founded on was
14:49this 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. But if
15:05everything's all about like give people
15:06more stuff and have the government do
15:08it, we're just going to keep raising the
15:09debt, making things more expensive,
15:11inflating the cost away, and it's
15:13inevitable that socialism will happen in
15:14America. It's absolutely inevitable. Do
15:16you think the US as an empire is in
15:18decline
15:19>> in terms of the power of the dollar in
15:23terms of prosperity of Americans? The
15:25average American or majority of
15:26Americans the answer is yes. But um the
15:30potential hasn't been deleted meaning
15:32decline is not inevitable to be very
15:35clear like we are not yet at a point
15:38where it's a runaway train. In the
15:40history of democracies, there's never
15:42been a place like America where an
15:44individual like myself, you know, moving
15:46here from South Africa, going to public
15:48college, 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
16:06just 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.
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
16:34dollars to the bank system to to buy the
16:36debt from the government. Remember, the
16:38Federal Reserve is separate from the
16:39government. So, the Federal Reserve can
16:41print dollars. They can send dollars to
16:42banks and now the banks can loan money
16:45out and it makes its way into the
16:46economy. Now, there's more dollars in
16:47the economy and that money was, you
16:50know, owed back to the government at
16:52some point, but the Federal Reserve may
16:53never get paid back. They may just keep
16:54adding and adding and adding and adding
16:56and they're just printing more and more
16:58dollars.
16:58>> Is that sustainable?
16:59>> No.
17:00>> So, so I I don't understand the force
17:01that's going to intervene to stop this
17:03sort 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 five years, we're
17:11going to face a wave of socialism. And
17:13after Donald Trump was elected, 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
17:26is deacto socialism when the government
17:28employs roughly 1/ half of the people of
17:30the United States. Right now, if you
17:32look at all the federal, state, local
17:34agencies, so the people that are
17:36employed, 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 is
17:45close to 50% of Americans. So, we're
17:47getting to a point where people are
17:48like, the only place I can go is more
17:50money from the government. And then
17:51eventually the government becomes the
17:53whole economy.
17:54>> If the outcome of socialism was the
17:55cause, capitalism,
17:56>> it's a great question. I think it was
17:58capitalism plus policies. Let's say you
18:00have a million dollars.
18:00>> Yeah. you're making, say, 10% a year.
18:04Next year you have $1.1 million. The
18:07next year you have $1.21 million or
18:10whatever. And you keep adding it up.
18:12That's called compounding. After a
18:14couple of years, your million dollars
18:15turns into $10 million.
18:17>> And you never have to sell shares along
18:18the way. You can just own the shares and
18:20whatever's going up. Your value just
18:21keeps going up. You've never paid taxes
18:23along the way. Boom, boom, boom, boom,
18:24boom. And suddenly, fast forward a
18:26couple years, instead of having a
18:27million, you've now got 10. That's
18:29capital compounding over time.
18:32Meanwhile, if you're working, every
18:35paycheck, taxes are taken out. Every
18:37time you get a check, every time you get
18:38more money, more capital, taxes are
18:40taken out. So, if you don't get capital,
18:43if you don't get enough savings to allow
18:45you to compound, you are never going to
18:47get there. So, from a tax policy
18:50perspective, labor working for your
18:52money should have never been taxed
18:54higher than earning returns on your
18:57capital. So you're saying tax the rich?
18:59>> I'm saying tax capital at a rate that's
19:02equivalent to labor.
19:03>> Wealth taxes.
19:05>> Wealth taxes are asset seizures.
19:06Definitely no. So one of the principles
19:09of the United States and the principle
19:10of what this country was founded on is
19:12private property rights. If you go back
19:14to England, right, like 500 years or
19:18like let's just do let's just talk
19:19Europe broadly. There were very few
19:21places where you as an individual
19:24citizen had rights to own private
19:25property. There were very few places
19:27where you could say I have this thing
19:28and it doesn't belong to the king or it
19:31doesn't belong to whatever the local
19:33lord is. Like everything was the
19:35property of the lords of the higher
19:37class of the upper class. It was endowed
19:39to them as vested to 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 this
19:48system where people didn't have rights
19:50to private property. Those who had kind
19:51of these systems above could decide who
19:54got what. So the United States was
19:55founded on one of the principles of
19:57private property for an individual that
19:58you you know I think when they were
20:00drafting the Declaration of Independence
20:01it was about life liberty and the
20:03pursuit of property and they later
20:04changed it to pursuit of happiness and
20:07the pursuit of property was really the
20:09measure of what you've accumulated as an
20:10individual. You now have a right to
20:12accumulate things. You now have a right
20:13to build value to build wealth to build
20:15a house and and have your family in your
20:17house and have all these things. That
20:19was a principle of the United States.
20:21I'm all for taxes when people transact.
20:24When 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. So that's what we do today.
20:37That's an income tax or a capital gains
20:40tax, like when you realize that gain.
20:41But if I go into your shares and I'm
20:43like, "Hey, I'm going to take 5% of your
20:44shares." What are you losing? Well, you
20:47can't use those shares to buy anything
20:48because if as soon as you try and buy
20:50something, you owe tax on those shares.
20:52So, by taking away your shares before
20:53you've actually transacted with them,
20:55before you've actually sold them, or
20:56taking away your private property, your
20:58home, or giving the government the right
20:59to come in your garage and audit
21:01everything you own, and say, "Hey, this
21:02year we're doing a 2% tax that is
21:05antithetical to what the United States
21:06was founded on, which was a founding
21:07principle of private property." Now, if
21:09your property goes up in value, and then
21:11you eventually turn it into some other
21:13property, that's a transaction. And
21:15that's when you get taxed. That's how
21:16the system's set up. So if we have an
21:18issue with people having too much
21:19wealth, that's the moment to increase
21:21the tax rate. That's capital gains tax,
21:23income tax on high earners. Those two
21:26things can get you 97% of the way there.
21:28And you're not really going to gain
21:29much. You know, separately, we can kind
21:31of talk about the numbers on this, but
21:32like tax the rich, all for it, but tax
21:36the rich when they transact, when they
21:37sell, when they when they have a capital
21:39gain, if they borrow against their
21:40assets. This is another thing that's
21:42that's wrong about our system today. If
21:44I'm very wealthy, I own a bunch of stock
21:46and I've never sold any of the stock. If
21:49I 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 a moment to pay a tax. And if we
22:07think that the rich aren't paying enough
22:08taxes, you can raise income tax or
22:10capital gains taxes to get them to pay
22:12more. This is what I was going to say,
22:13but you you arrived at it was most
22:15people that own stock in big companies
22:18will just borrow against their stock and
22:20they never pay a tax.
22:21>> I didn't know this until I was I'm going
22:23to say 26. And my company had gone
22:25public and the this bank in Europe
22:27approached me and said, "By the way,
22:29we'll give you 20% of whatever your your
22:32the value of the stock you have in my
22:34company called Ocean AG
22:36>> is a tax-free loan." I was like,
22:38"Explain this to me."
22:39So, you'll just send me millions of
22:41pounds and I don't have to pay tax.
22:42>> You don't have to sell your shares.
22:43>> You don't have to sell anything. I said,
22:45"Well, look at the rest of my
22:46portfolio." And I had some Facebook
22:47stock at the time. They're like, "We'll
22:48give you 50% to 60% loan to value on
22:51that. I.e., if you have a million
22:53dollars of Facebook stock, we will
22:54transfer you today 700 grand taxree and
22:58I can do without whatever I want." I
22:59thought, "Fucking hell, this is what the
23:00rich do."
23:01>> That's exactly right. And the truth is
23:04that no one talks about behind closed
23:06doors. Everyone knows that it needs to
23:07change,
23:08>> but no one wants to say it because
23:10>> I'm saying it.
23:11>> Yeah, it's
23:11>> got to change.
23:12>> What's interesting about that is say
23:13that I have 10 million of Facebook stock
23:15and I I take 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. That's what's unfair about
23:25the system because then when you have
23:26capital, you're accumulating more
23:28capital while labor, if you haven't made
23:30that cross that chasm from labor to
23:32capital, you're still here grinding
23:34every month, grinding every week, trying
23:35to pay your freaking bills, and then
23:37these guys have all these shenanigans
23:38that are going on. Yeah,
23:39>> it is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
23:42The answer though is not taking private
23:44property. As soon as you start taking
23:46private property, those gates are open.
23:48By the way, 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
23:58seven states that actually have a
23:59constitutional ban on private property
24:01tax like this. There's uh you know 43
24:04states where it's game on and we'll see
24:06how they play out in the courts as they
24:08try to pass these wealth taxes as well.
24:09But these are asset seizure taxes there.
24:11You you can have a wealth tax by raising
24:13capital gains, make high income or high
24:16asset people pay more taxes or whatever
24:18when they sell stuff or when they buy
24:19stuff. There's a lot of ways to tax
24:21wealth. But taking assets from people
24:25after they've paid their taxes or before
24:27they've paid their taxes is not the
24:29right 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
24:42want 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. And there's no limit to where
24:54this thing goes. And that is socialism.
24:56>> And what what does that do in terms of
24:58how talent moves
25:01>> and how people, you know, move to
25:03different places.
25:04>> I know billionaires.
25:07>> Yeah.
25:07>> Many of them have moved or are planning
25:09to move out of California. Yeah.
25:10>> Just on the threat of this.
25:12>> And [clears throat] people say, "F them.
25:13Good riddance. Get rid of them. You
25:16know, the top 1% of taxpayers in
25:18California pay the majority of taxes in
25:20the state. I think it's probably it's
25:22definitely north of 40%, but it's
25:24probably the majority.
25:25>> The top 1% of earners pay 40 to 50% of
25:28California's total personal income tax
25:30depending on stock market capital gains
25:32performance.
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. I don't think California wants
25:40that. [laughter]
25:41Those 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 and
25:59then their total tax revenue declined by
26:01more than they were making on the wealth
26:02tax because everyone left France. Then
26:04they stopped doing the wealth tax and
26:06everyone came back and the income came
26:08back. So, this is a wellstudied kind of
26:09case. So, I don't think that a wealth
26:11tax or an asset seizure tax is the
26:13solution. I think we've got to fix all
26:14the other stuff that we've talked about
26:16and we've got to fix the government
26:17spending problem. And if we can do those
26:19two things, then I think we can bring
26:21inflation down. We can bring the wealth
26:22inequality down and give more people the
26:24ability to make that transition. But I
26:26do think every politician should be
26:27talking about the focus on what percent
26:29of people in the United States every
26:30year are moving from labor to capital.
26:32How many people can say, "Hey, I've got
26:34enough cash to retire if I wanted to."
26:36That's what we want to try and get
26:37everyone towards. Not just convincing
26:39people, and this is one of the great
26:40lies, convincing everyone that the great
26:42American dream is to own a house. When
26:44owning a house for a lot of Americans
26:46ends up putting all your capital in one
26:48asset, and you've got to basically get
26:50the price of housing to go up every year
26:52to keep everyone moving up the ladder.
26:54So now, fast forward 30, 40, 50 years,
26:56young people can't afford to buy a house
26:58anymore because we've pushed the asset
26:59value up so much to try and make sure
27:01that everyone's got good good household
27:03wealth. We are told that I mean that's
27:04the sort 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>> Great lie. 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
27:18they 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 Erade or Robin Hood account and
27:25you can just own it on average will make
27:26you 10 11% a year. You just put your
27:29money in that you're making 10 11% a
27:30year and it can go up every year and you
27:31don't have to pay taxes. You don't have
27:32to pay property tax. You don't have to
27:33pay insurance. You don't have to deal
27:34with repairs and maintenance. All that
27:36sort of stuff. So, a lot of people would
27:38have been better off, depending on the
27:39markets that they're in. There's some
27:40markets that that ballooned, but a lot
27:42of people would have been better off
27:43over the last 30 years, actually owning
27:45the S&P 500 than owning their home and
27:48paying for the 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, I bought a house 20 years ago
27:58for this amount, and now it's worth
28:01this." And this is every single time
28:02that I see this this argument being made
28:04from financial advisors or investors,
28:06that is always the top comment is,
28:09"Well, I bought one and I did good."
28:11>> Yep. It actually indicates a problem,
28:14which is if your house went up in price
28:16so much, that house is much less
28:18affordable to a young person that's
28:19going to buy it next. And that's what we
28:22fundamentally done with this asset
28:23class, residential real estate. We've
28:26created a system whereby residential
28:28real estate prices go up so much and
28:30there's a whole bunch of policies around
28:32making this happen.
28:34>> Got a graph here showing all the things
28:35that 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
28:49America, which has the majority of
28:50wealth, and I'll give you the statistics
28:51in a minute, to grow their asset base,
28:54to accumulate more assets, to become
28:56wealthier. All the boomers, they're so
28:58wealthy because they owned all these
29:00houses. And now young people graduating
29:02college can't afford a house. It is a
29:04bad fact that a lot of people got very
29:07wealthy by owning a home because it
29:09means that the next generation is going
29:10to say, "I want socialism cuz I can't
29:12afford a home." That's the moment we're
29:14in. 40 million Americans graduated from
29:17colleges in the United States in the
29:18last 10 years. 45 million. So if you do
29:20the math on this, that's a large number
29:24of people that are now on average
29:26encumbered with some amount of student
29:28debt, facing a challenging job market.
29:32And then the only way to buy a home is
29:33you got 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
29:39Donnie." 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 you know less than $500 of
29:51savings and working paycheck to paycheck
29:53and can't pay 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 and
30:03also it's potentially not a good
30:04investment if they're trying to sort of
30:05cross that cousin and get over to the
30:07side where they have assets. What would
30:09what would your prescription be for
30:11them? 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. I would have
30:23never thought that being an Instagram
30:24influencer would be such a massive
30:26business or a Tik Tok influencer. I
30:28would have never thought that individual
30:30artists could publish online and make
30:32money without getting a record deal. I
30:34would have never thought that individual
30:35artists would be able to sell their work
30:37and make a living on eBay and Etsy. I
30:41would have never thought that crafts
30:42people would be able to find jobs
30:44through the internet. I 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,
30:54"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's
31:00solution wasn't the right solution, but
31:02human 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? I don't know if the government
31:13played much of a role in it. I think you
31:15played the role in it. I don't know. You
31:17tell me if I'm wrong. But I think that
31:19this is really important for a lot of
31:21people to observe firstly, which is the
31:22government isn't going to save
31:24individuals.
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, pay thousands
31:37of dollars, get health inspections done.
31:39There's a lot of government layers that
31:40stop me from doing that work. There's a
31:42lot of ways that the government actually
31:44inhibits people's agency and makes it
31:45harder for them to do the things that
31:47they want to do and progress. I think
31:48that's just fundamental for me, one of
31:50the observable 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 by those guys at the
32:00Hoover Institute where they talked about
32:02the success of China and a lot of
32:04people, you know, where China grew GDP
32:07per capita from like 3,000 to 30,000 or
32:09whatever it was and they're like, "Man,
32:11Chinese central planning is brilliant.
32:12They're so good at this." And these guys
32:14made the argument which I discounted at
32:16the time but I often think about
32:18nowadays that it was actually the agency
32:21of the individual choice, the
32:24entrepreneurship, the drive, the
32:26motivation of the population of the
32:29individuals in China, not central
32:31planning, but basically the government
32:32enabled free markets. They allowed
32:34people to work. They allowed people to
32:36trade. They allowed people to create
32:37value for each other to do something
32:39that someone else might want. They
32:40looked around and they said, "I think
32:42you want this." and they started making
32:43it and when the government loosened the
32:45shackles on individuals that population
32:47grew the economy and the government
32:49still has a big role in central planning
32:51in China but it was a really important
32:53point if you think about all the success
32:55that's come from the United States it's
32:56not a central message that the
32:57government said let's do this and then
32:58we're going to do this and we're going
32:59to do this it's individuals making their
33:01own choices you've seen what people want
33:03to learn what people want to watch what
33:05they're interested in and you give it to
33:07them you create value for them you
33:08deliver that value and you've you've
33:10earned something from that people are
33:12willing to pay for that. And I think
33:14that that's core to kind of where we can
33:16go from here. And I don't think we teach
33:17it in schools. I don't think we teach it
33:20as a value. We've lost that value of
33:22agency. The importance of the individual
33:25taking their own action. Every
33:26conversation we have in every frigin
33:29context is all about the freaking
33:31government. Government this, do this, do
33:32this, do this, do this. For me, what
33:35individuals can do is limitless. And
33:37that'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? And if
33:46you focus on figuring out something that
33:47you can do that someone else can value,
33:51then you do that over and over again,
33:52rinse and repeat. I think there's paths
33:55for people.
33:55>> So, couple of counter-arguments here.
33:57Yeah.
33:57>> So, we can stress test this thinking.
33:59Um, you pointed at me and said I was,
34:00you know, I started podcasts, I started
34:02businesses, those businesses grew. Um,
34:04and it was, you know, you were very
34:05generous in giving me probably more
34:07credit than I deserve there. But if I
34:09was to, if I was to rebuttal that, I
34:11would say, I was born in Africa. Would
34:13that have been possible in Africa? Would
34:15that have been possible in like Nigeria,
34:17where my mother's from, or would it been
34:19possible in Botswana where I was born?
34:22Is it the fact that I moved to the UK
34:24where I had this sort of foundation of
34:25stability because of the government
34:27where school was free for us? Healthcare
34:29is taken care of. So I never had to
34:31think about those things which allowed
34:33me at 18 years old to like not go to
34:35university, take a risk, drop out, be in
34:38that room. No. When I was sat in that
34:40room in Manchester, I actually at one
34:42point printed off the jobsekers
34:43allowance forms, 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 um is no longer a
34:51reliable way to feed myself.
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 or I could
35:06fill out this form, this job seekers
35:08allowance form and they would like pay
35:09me money that allowed me maybe at some
35:12deeper level to go and take that risk.
35:14And I never even realized the privilege
35:15of like, oh, there's like healthcare and
35:18there's laws and there's roads and
35:19there's like this Wi-Fi thing that
35:21allows me with this laptop in my room to
35:23like build this website that I built.
35:25Um, so that's the government's
35:26involvement in my success. They gave me
35:28this great foundation 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
35:34slope, 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 you need to give
35:39me a good foundation?
35:40>> That's right.
35:40>> And it's and it starts
35:41>> and the 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 that
35:50because if you do end up with 40 50% of
35:52Americans getting paid some check from
35:54the government, it becomes very hard to
35:55get off of that check. And then people
35:57vote for that check to get bigger and
35:58bigger.
35:59>> The other point I wanted to point out of
36:00maybe 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
36:08>> nature. Yeah. Nature, nurture, whatever
36:10it might be. Yeah. And I I said nature
36:13because yeah upbringing implies that our
36:15parents were great to us and that's what
36:16made us whatever. But also the opposite
36:18can be true if you think about someone
36:19like Elon Musk. You go his dad wasn't
36:21that nice to him. So not necessarily a
36:24lovely upbringing but the circumstances
36:25>> he was never without a meal and neither
36:27was I. And I mean you know those are
36:29important facts of privilege. the
36:31circumstances of the of our upbringing
36:33and maybe our nature, maybe our biology,
36:35maybe set us up to be the certain type
36:37of person where agency, however that's
36:39defined. And again, I I pause there
36:42because
36:42>> I think you're exactly right and I think
36:43that that's what education should be
36:45teaching that value that that's that's
36:48where I think this role of like what's
36:49the role of a public school? What's the
36:52role of this infrastructure that
36:53government's building around us? If it's
36:56teaching you that your next job is to
36:57come and work for the city or come and
36:59work for the state, it's not teaching
37:01you that you have agency. It's not
37:03telling you if you if it's telling you
37:05that the only path you're going to have
37:06coming out of this rural school is to go
37:08work in the military, it's not teaching
37:09you about your agency. And I'm not
37:11saying it's wrong to do civil service or
37:12to do military service. I think those
37:14are very important parts of what all of
37:15us should strive to do is to support the
37:18government that makes our society
37:19possible. But I think that this idea
37:22that we should all be proposed as like
37:24the government role, the government
37:25path, the government work is what we
37:28should all be stuck doing for the rest
37:29of our lives is the wrong setup.
37:31>> The opposite is though 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 as
37:44an individual as a leader you can choose
37:46your path. But the idea that you should
37:49be accessing 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
38:12vision AI has this lever in his big room
38:16where he goes like free market, not free
38:18market. Like he's just kind of like
38:19rolling it back and forth. When you have
38:22a free market, people push the frontier.
38:24They discover new things. They make new
38:26things that have never been done before.
38:27They create new value and the economy
38:30grows. The problem is it doesn't grow
38:32evenly initially. So like let's say that
38:34you came up with a goose that lays
38:36golden eggs and AI
38:38>> AI and 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
38:46goose makes two geese and three geese
38:47and four. It starts breeding and you
38:49start selling the goose. And it takes a
38:51number of years before everyone has a
38:53golden goose. During that time, you've
38:55raced ahead cuz you've got now dozens of
38:57geese making lots of golden eggs for
38:59you. And a lot of people are like, I
39:01want a golden goose. By the time they
39:02get a golden goose, you've now got a
39:03million golden geese. And it feels like
39:06inequality. But the truth is now
39:08everyone here has a golden goose. And if
39:10you told them 30 years ago you would
39:11have a golden goose, they'd be like, "No
39:12way. That'd be amazing." So every day
39:14they're making the golden goose, they're
39:15printing the money, they're buying stuff
39:16with it. That's the problem with
39:18progress, whether it's medicine. You
39:20know, a lot of medicines today are
39:22million dollars a dose for like CARTT
39:23therapies, for example. These can save
39:25you from cancer. Only 50,000 people in
39:27the 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, by the
39:46time that the golden geese get down to
39:49the sort of lower end of the
39:50socioeconomic ladder
39:52>> or def I would I would use the word
39:54diffuse. Yeah.
39:55>> Those those golden eggs or whatever, buy
39:57less
39:58>> because 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
40:05stuff 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
40:12high uh when you have four-year election
40:14cycles, politicians get in by offering
40:17you lots of free stuff. And that is the
40:19nature of the four-year election cycle.
40:21>> I always said the the kid that got
40:23elected 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. And at
40:29the end of the day, that's how the
40:30system grows. We don't talk about this
40:32fourear election thing enough as maybe
40:34as being a bit of a causal factor that's
40:36causing short termism amongst these
40:38leaders where they're all just spending
40:40more money to
40:41>> I cannot tell you how much it drives me
40:43nuts when I go to Washington DC and I go
40:44to Washington DC
40:46every couple weeks or whatever and I
40:49meet with Congress people senators and
40:52representatives literally all of them
40:54just talk about getting stuff for their
40:56constituents. Yeah, that's all that
40:57they're there to do. just get stuff for
41:00their people. That's their job and
41:02that's how they get elected. And the
41:04incentive is I'm going to get you
41:06something. Vote for me. Now, the
41:09founding fathers kind of had this idea
41:11that they would rotate into public
41:13service and rotate out and go back to
41:14private life. There's a lot of writings
41:16about this, you know, in the early days
41:18of the formation of this republic. And
41:20it was like, we should all go do our
41:21tour of duty. We should go in. There was
41:23never this belief that America would
41:25evolve to a world where you have career
41:27politicians. 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. And I'm sorry to all the
41:45politicians out there. I think the
41:47people that represent the people should
41:49have the best long-term interests of the
41:50people in mind because they should be
41:52constrained to serving for a limited
41:54period of time and then they go back to
41:56private life. That means that we should
41:58have term limits. So you should never be
42:00able to be elected more than two terms
42:02as a senator 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
42:09public office, maybe you shouldn't go
42:10transition to other public offices under
42:12those same limits because at the end of
42:14the 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 inflate, 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 eight years in government.
42:39I'm going to run the transportation
42:40division. I'm going to serve some nice
42:43benefits to my friend who runs Boeing
42:45and then when I step back in, I'm going
42:46to step in as the chair.
42:47>> That's a law to make sure that doesn't
42:48happen. And he goes to jail if that
42:50happens. That's a pretty easy fix. You
42:52can't buy stocks. You can't own stuff.
42:53You can't trade. I mean, there just so
42:55many obvious things. If you're going to
42:56go serve in government, you can't do
42:59stuff that you can do as a private
43:00citizen and you shouldn't be able to
43:02enrich yourself as a private citizen. If
43:03you do, you should go to jail. But we
43:04should also make sure that the incentive
43:06structure is set up right so that good
43:07people come and work in government and
43:09that we have good rotation between
43:10public and private life.
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 I mean this
43:18stuff inevitably happens cuz we we hand
43:20out lots of free things and we don't
43:22think about the long-term consequences.
43:23Has anyone fixed it globally? Is there
43:25any nation you look at as a model for a
43:27better
43:27>> you know a lot of people will point to
43:28Denmark they'll point to places like
43:31that and say hey these guys do a great
43:32job and you know there's a lot of public
43:34services and people pay high taxes but
43:36you know there's not a lot of great
43:38progress there's no entrepreneurial
43:40success coming out of those places what
43:43happens in America the freedoms that
43:45were afforded the individual agency and
43:46liberty and rights to private property
43:49creates an incentive structure that says
43:51go try and do crazy stuff that could
43:53work And 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
44:02CARTT 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
44:18incentives. And it works. So you can
44:21have great comfort for a great many
44:24people in Denmark and people will be
44:26very happy living there and they will
44:28have a good 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, you know, I'm looking at some of
44:42the stats here. They have higher
44:45societal trust in government, police
44:47institutions, and strangers. They have
44:49standard 37hour
44:51work weeks, 5 to six 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 a
45:16Denmark model. the vast majority maybe.
45:18>> And do you think the vast majority of
45:19this country actually would if there was
45:21two buttons and they had to press they'd
45:23press Denmark.
45:24>> One of the things that I think makes
45:26American culture different from Denmark
45:28is this idea of individual progress.
45:31So I think if you ask the majority of
45:33people, you can have that, but you don't
45:35get to progress. Meaning you don't get
45:37to earn more next year and you don't get
45:39to earn more next year. You don't have a
45:40shot at becoming a millionaire. You
45:42don't have a shot at building something
45:44great. You don't have a shot at buying a
45:46second home. You're limited. But you get
45:48that over 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. But you
45:56could have the world.
45:58You could make a million dollars. You
46:00could own a second home. You could buy a
46:01second car. You could pay off your kid's
46:03college tuition debt if you earn well.
46:07There's more options here. There's more
46:09guaranteed here.
46:10>> You think the 63% would pick? I think
46:13even within the 63% there would be some
46:16percent that would say this. But I do
46:18think this is why we're headed the way
46:20we're headed in the United States.
46:21People want more of a guarantee. The
46:23question is, do you want to maximize the
46:24number of people that are happy or do
46:27you want to maximize the number of
46:28people that are truly free? And by being
46:32truly free increases the rate of
46:34progress across the whole population.
46:36And that rate of progress may be
46:37asymmetric. It may be diffuse. Starts
46:39with some makes its way to others over
46:40time.
46:42I 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
46:48the 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. Again,
46:58I'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
47:17that, but 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 because again, that goes
47:24back to my own nature. It's just the way
47:26that I am. If you put me in a room, I'll
47:27try and create something and build
47:28something. But I I've come to learn with
47:30time that not everybody has that bias or
47:33those desires. Not everybody has that
47:34loerty trauma from their childhood of
47:36being the only black kid in all white
47:37area and thinking money was really
47:38important and it was freedom and it was
47:39selfish. Like not everybody has has
47:41that. So I I realized that when I design
47:44solutions, they shouldn't probably be
47:45designed for me. Yeah. You know, it's
47:47taken me a long time to get to that
47:48place cuz I kind of I was very much
47:50>> the challenge with America in this
47:53moment is can you give what you're
47:55describing the Denmark answer to enough
47:58Americans without taking away the
47:59liberty that the Americans that want to
48:01have 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,
48:10>> then you're sort of taking away the
48:11incentive for them to be in this bucket
48:13in America.
48:14>> And I'm seeing that.
48:15>> Yeah. 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
48:21solution, I think you lose a lot of
48:23this.
48:23>> Well, the UK is 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 least
48:32in high volume and they're coming to
48:34other 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. for this reason.
48:45>> Yeah.
48:46>> And I do think we might have a little
48:48bit of a we have a bit of a spending
48:49problem, it seems, but also I 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, do you think the productivity
48:56problem is related to the spending
48:57problem?
48:58>> Oh, yes, of course.
48:59>> Right. If you're collecting checks or
49:01getting services provided to you, the
49:03incentive to be more productive as an
49:06individual goes away. But also as a
49:08system, it becomes a lot harder to
49:10create economic incentives for
49:12productivity gains when tax rates are
49:14very high and you don't actually get to
49:15reap the benefits of the risk you take
49:16and and so on. That's the economic
49:18argument.
49:19>> Listen, I've been catfished by furniture
49:21my whole life where something has looked
49:22fantastic in the picture, whether it's a
49:24sofa or whatever it might be, and I
49:26order it and I get so excited and then
49:28it comes and it's something entirely
49:30different. the quality was significantly
49:33different to what it said or looked like
49:34online or the the texture was different
49:37or or it it didn't hold up in the same
49:39way. And so one of the things that I
49:41love about our sponsor Wayfair who have
49:43helped us fit out our green room which
49:44is in the room behind me is they have
49:46this system called Wayfair Verified.
49:49Wayfair Verified takes away all of that
49:50second guessing. Products are handetted
49:53by Wayfair specialists for quality so
49:55you can feel more confident when you
49:57found the thing that you love. So, if
50:00you're looking for furniture for your
50:01house, whatever it might be, any room of
50:03your house, go to wayfair.com to start
50:05your home refresh today, and make sure
50:07you use Wayfair Verified. It is amazing.
50:10Hello, I wasn't able to make that
50:12finance meeting. Can you tell me what I
50:15missed? What I have in front of me is
50:16Whisper Flow's new notetaker. And for
50:18me, it's been an absolute game changer.
50:20I spend most of my life sat in very,
50:21very long meetings with lots of
50:22different teams and lots of different
50:24departments. In any given week, I could
50:25have 40, 50 meetings and sometimes more.
50:28but also I sit in podcasts where lots of
50:30very interesting things get said and I
50:32need to focus on the conversation. What
50:34Whisper Flow's notetaker 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
50:42are that said what and I can ask it for
50:45things 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 broader context of
50:52everything that's happening in my life.
50:54And it's an incredible incredible
50:55superpower. I love the fact that so many
50:56of you come up to me in the street
50:57because you know I'm an investor in
50:58Whisper Flow and tell me how much it's
51:00changed your life. It is the worstkept
51:02secret in productivity. If you want to
51:04give it a go, head to
51:05whisperflow.ai/stephven
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. I mean, this kind
51:14of does tie into the subject of
51:17artificial intelligence and where it all
51:18fits in part because the narrative of
51:21artificial intelligence is that it's
51:22about to take our jobs. And you think
51:24about the that's why I wanted to start
51:26with the backdrop. Think about that
51:27backdrop of I'm already struggling. I'm
51:29I'm in the 63% and now you're telling me
51:31I'm going to lose this job
51:32that's paying me and I'm already living
51:34hand-to-mouth. And what's the offer? We
51:37might get UBI. We might be sent checks
51:39in the post at some point. Well,
51:40actually, I like my job. It's a
51:41community, a sense of purpose. It gives
51:43me something to do. And that's the
51:45narrative.
51:46>> Yes, that is the narrative.
51:48>> You don't believe the narrative.
51:50>> I believe what everyone's feeling. But
51:53this narrative that AI will take jobs
51:55away, 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
52:051963. So the main frames are what got
52:07put in the basement in the '60s and
52:09everyone like had to walk past the scary
52:11mainframe on the right. It's like
52:12blinking lights and buzzing and making
52:15sounds. And it's like the main frame is
52:16going to destroy all the accountant
52:18jobs, all the typing jobs, all these
52:20things that we all do that we get paid
52:22to do. And I like working in my office.
52:24I like my colleagues. I like coming in
52:25every day having lunch. That's a good
52:27life. This mainframe is going to ruin my
52:29life. And so there was this effort to
52:30legislate against these things at the
52:32time that didn't get through in
52:33Congress. And then in the 80s there was
52:35another wave on computing where it was
52:37like, hey, now we're all getting desktop
52:39computers. it's going to replace the
52:40workers and it's going to be a desktop
52:41computer and a worker and like 50 people
52:43disappear out 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
52:53always seen jobs go up and we've seen
52:55demand go up and therefore incomes rise
52:58when new technology enters the
52:59workforce. That's because the new
53:01technology makes an individual more
53:02productive so they can do more per hour
53:05with their time and as a result they can
53:07get paid more for doing that work. So
53:09imagine instead of having a painter
53:10painting a wall, what if he was in
53:12charge of the five robots that are
53:13painting the wall? Okay, great. Now he's
53:15going to get paid more because you can,
53:17you know, get so many more homes painted
53:18in a day. He's going to get paid more to
53:20do that work. People are going to be
53:21like, well, there's only so many homes.
53:23That's always the argument is you always
53:24think about the fixed pie argument that
53:26the pie doesn't grow. But what always
53:28happens is that the pi grows, the
53:31economy grows is the way to think about
53:33it. And so as automation or technology
53:36is used to give individuals more
53:38leverage to do more things with their
53:40time, then more things get done. People
53:42come up with these new product ideas
53:44with hey, we've got excess capital.
53:46Let's build new homes. Let's build a
53:47building.
53:48>> But who gets who benefits from the
53:49expansion of that pie?
53:51>> In all cases, it's been there's been
53:52deep economic value created for the
53:54entire workforce all the way down to the
53:56lowest level. It doesn't happen
53:58overnight. And that's where during that
54:00period of time when you see the new
54:01technology, oh the main frame's in the
54:04basement or the desktop computers on my
54:06uh my colleagueu's desk and you're like,
54:08"Oh my god, I'm going to lose my job."
54:10To the time that your company is growing
54:13considerably their revenue and giving
54:14everyone raises and everyone bonuses and
54:16adding more product lines and doing more
54:19stuff, you're like, "Oh man, okay, I
54:21feel better." And and I think that would
54:22be the argument from the 60s and 80s and
54:25even back in the industrial revolution.
54:26The question today is how does work
54:28change? Cuz remember in the industrial
54:31revolution, people moved from farms, 60%
54:33of labor was in farming. Today it's like
54:352%. Into factories and they got paid a
54:39lot more and they lived a better life.
54:40They actually were able to afford
54:41healthcare, yada yada yada. And the the
54:44the transition in any sort of like
54:46technological revolution is net
54:48beneficial for all parties involved. But
54:50there is a transition. So what's it
54:52going to look like? Are we all going to
54:54lose our jobs? AI is definitely
54:56different, but I don't think that AI is
54:59this world where humans are going to
55:02look around and be like, none of us have
55:04anything to do anymore. [laughter] Like,
55:06I don't believe in that narrative. And
55:08the 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
55:24Tik Tok 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, four
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 three and a half hours
55:54doing other things that create new value
55:56for my company.
55:56>> If we go back to the top of this um the
55:58robot painter analogy.
56:00>> 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 was saying the guy instead of
56:05painting on his own, he can now have
56:07five robots painting.
56:09>> 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
56:18god, like photographers are out of work
56:20because 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 circulation, they
56:37grew considerably as Photoshop came out
56:40because it allowed much more production
56:41on you know highv value photography. I
56:44think the reason why it feels different
56:46is because that's I mean the industrial
56:47revolution example is kind of like
56:49physical work moving to cognitive work
56:51that was cognitive work creating a new
56:53type of cognitive work the the Adobe
56:55analogy if AI takes the cognitive work
56:57and from what you said about robotics
56:59robotics takes a lot of the physical
57:00work what is this third type of work I
57:03think it's cognitive and physical it's
57:05it's it's no different than what we've
57:06seen in the past but it doesn't mean
57:08that there isn't an individual who's
57:10going to program the robot on what rooms
57:12to paint how to paint them how to do the
57:14detailing correct. The homeowner doesn't
57:16have the level of skill that the painter
57:17does, right? So the painter
57:19>> and I couldn't do that.
57:20>> Maybe at some point, I mean, you could
57:22make this argument on a continuum where
57:23eventually everything nothing exists,
57:26but 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
57:43spend 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
57:57this which is that AI and robotics
57:59enables individuals to do far more
58:02things than they ever could have
58:03contemplated and that's going to give
58:05everyone much more ability to realize
58:07their potential with their agency. I
58:09mean, even the podcast, I think a game
58:10is going to be significantly disrupted
58:13in some some part. We we ran 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 and
58:23uh it was just me reading out the
58:24stories of founders through history. So,
58:25I'd do I did like a Steve Jobs episode
58:27where it was my voice. AI had written
58:29the script. AI had synthesized my voice.
58:30So, I had no involvement. And the amount
58:32of people that got to the end was 40 to
58:3350% of an hour. uh and they knew it was
58:36AI because it said at the top this is an
58:37air podcast and so I thought okay there
58:39is a lot offormational part of what we
58:41me and you do where we're sharing just
58:43in pure play information that will be
58:45taken away however what I hear through
58:47listening to your answer about creators
58:49and art you're saying that there will be
58:51this human sort of irreplaceably human
58:53component yoga teachers yoga teachers
58:55aren't telling you yoga it's also
58:56community and gathering in real life and
58:58being there amongst other people
58:59>> I think the IRL job is going to explode
59:03and I think 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. I think there will be a
59:11premium on coffee shops. I'll pay $40
59:14for a latte because that human is making
59:16the latte and I get to go be with other
59:18humans. I get to go to a workout class
59:20with humans. I get to go spend time at a
59:22concert. I get to go spend time at
59:24dinners. I think this like event live
59:26space experiential part of our world
59:29that we kind of think about as luxury
59:30today, maybe it becomes more core. Like
59:33maybe it becomes more of how we spend
59:35our time. Maybe we spend 30 40% of our
59:37time, you know, in these sorts of spaces
59:40and automation is generating income for
59:42us and supporting us in, you know,
59:44whatever pursuit we're interested in in
59:46work and we spend far less time doing
59:48work and far more time paying a premium
59:50in the economy in the live space
59:52economy.
59:52>> It's hard, isn't it? Because we don't
59:53know what these jobs are.
59:54>> We just don't. And that's
59:56>> I mean imagine telling someone that
59:57worked in a factory in 1923
1:00:01that fast forward a hundred 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
1:00:12know if that would have been like grock
1:00:14fully.
1:00:14>> But the pace of disruption here seems to
1:00:16be different than like the industrial
1:00:18revolution. It's targeting 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 I
1:00:24like at my work everyone's using AI and
1:00:27everyone's just doing more and then they
1:00:28ask for more employees. You can kind of
1:00:30think about a business having two sides,
1:00:33revenue and costs. Revenue is I'm making
1:00:35stuff and people are paying me for the
1:00:37things I'm making or doing. Cost is how
1:00:40am I operating the business? Like what
1:00:42am I spending? And the argument has
1:00:43always been like, okay, you're going to
1:00:45lose customer service reps. You're going
1:00:47to lose all the cost side of the
1:00:49equation. No one ever says you're going
1:00:50to lose the revenue side. The truth is
1:00:52on the revenue side, what ends up
1:00:53happening is you create new products
1:00:55that you couldn't create before because
1:00:57of AI. The 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, new pl new synthetics that
1:01:09can be used to make microchips or be
1:01:11used for computing or be used for travel
1:01:14or for airplanes. The material science
1:01:16world has been challenged by its
1:01:18experimental cycle. You got to create an
1:01:20experiment, make a product, test it, do
1:01:22it all manually. It's all creative
1:01:24ideas. It's all human potential. AI can
1:01:26now screen through millions of material
1:01:29science ideas in a computer, print them
1:01:31out, test them, and you can automate
1:01:32that throughput. Therefore, that
1:01:33materials company can now have more
1:01:36revenue. They can make more products. Do
1:01:37you not think that maybe there's a
1:01:39possibility 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 because what you're
1:01:52saying I I can relate to. I can relate
1:01:53to the fact that AI has made me actually
1:01:55quite has probably made me more
1:01:57ambitious about hiring especially in the
1:01:58near term. I would caveat it by saying
1:02:00that there's a certain type of role that
1:02:03I'm now hiring much less and as
1:02:07especially when you think about entry-
1:02:08level roles, I have to pause a lot more
1:02:11now because a lot of the agents and some
1:02:13tooling can do some of those things that
1:02:14I would have otherwise hired for. But
1:02:16generally, I feel like I'm hiring as
1:02:17fast as I possibly can. But would you
1:02:20not say that for like the 21-year-old
1:02:22that's graduated from university or the
1:02:24Door Dash driver or those types of
1:02:27individuals where the the leap from
1:02:29where they currently are on a factory
1:02:31floor assembling uh a part or flipping
1:02:34packages, the 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. But what I'm saying is as new
1:02:43products are created, new revenue comes
1:02:45in, you you don't cut costs, you grow
1:02:47costs and you hire more people and you
1:02:50uplevel and you train people. That is
1:02:52what I'm seeing on the ground. You know,
1:02:53we just published I think one of the
1:02:55lowest unemployment rates in the US. And
1:02:57I think that this idea that your current
1:03:00job is going to get disrupted and you're
1:03:02going to lose your job. I don't think is
1:03:04how the enterprise transitions. the
1:03:06enterprise transitions, meaning
1:03:08companies, by doing more things and
1:03:11bringing people up the ladder, hiring
1:03:14more people. And that's just what I'm
1:03:15seeing on the ground. I I think that the
1:03:17there's a media narrative on like, oh my
1:03:18god, there was a layoff at so- and so
1:03:20company because it underlines what
1:03:22they've been promoting to everyone,
1:03:23which is AI is going to cause job loss.
1:03:25>> The interesting thing is it's it didn't
1:03:26come 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 I I listen to
1:03:32all in podcasts, by the way. It's one of
1:03:33my favorite podcasts. I don't think I've
1:03:34ever missed an episode. So, I I very
1:03:35much understand your perspective in all
1:03:37of your
1:03:37>> I had no idea you were a fan.
1:03:38>> No, no, I I've listened to
1:03:40>> 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, [laughter] it's good to
1:03:43meet you.
1:03:44>> No, no, no. I've I don't think I've ever
1:03:45missed an episode since the beginning.
1:03:47So, I I understand.
1:03:48>> You've been through You've heard all
1:03:49this.
1:03:49>> I've heard all of this. I've heard like
1:03:50Jason's opinion. Weirdly, I tend to side
1:03:52a little bit more with Jason on this
1:03:55because I think Jason I don't know why
1:03:57his arguments seem to present the most
1:03:58nuance and and also I would say when we
1:04:01think about different people's
1:04:02incentives. Yeah, you're right. often on
1:04:05that show that it's framed as a media
1:04:07narrative whereas it's actually all your
1:04:09friends.
1:04:10>> Yeah. No. So, first of all, none of them
1:04:12are my friends. But, um,
1:04:13>> he loves your friend.
1:04:14>> Okay. So, what I will say, look, I've
1:04:17said this on the show, I'll say it
1:04:18again. I think there is a deep arrogance
1:04:21in making these sorts of proclamations.
1:04:24>> Which proclamations?
1:04:25>> That we're not going to work anymore.
1:04:26>> Mhm. [clears throat]
1:04:27>> It effectively discounts the human. It's
1:04:30like what you do today is your limit.
1:04:33But I think that this idea that like
1:04:35these jobs will go away is sourced by
1:04:37people that are seeing the crazy stuff
1:04:39that they're doing and they're like, "Oh
1:04:40my god, this is amazing. I'm responsible
1:04:43for this. We are going to change the
1:04:45world. We are going to take all jobs and
1:04:47they're all going to sit in my
1:04:48computer." I don't think that that's
1:04:50what happens because I think that humans
1:04:52have a profound capacity for doing
1:04:55things that, you know, these
1:04:57technologists don't necessarily see. The
1:05:00great technologists see technology. They
1:05:02don't see people.
1:05:03>> Mhm.
1:05:04>> I think you have to see people meaning
1:05:06the the potential of people of
1:05:08individuals and you have to believe in
1:05:10that. They believe in technology. They
1:05:12engineer technology. But I I am not
1:05:14going to like be pessimistic about
1:05:16people. Like I think that people have
1:05:18capacity in any environment. I mean the
1:05:21amazing thing about humans is our
1:05:22adaptability. We can live in any
1:05:24climate. We can eat any kind of food. I
1:05:25mean that's all this like we can work
1:05:27all these different jobs. I mean we're
1:05:28amazing. Humans are amazing. And
1:05:32arguably many humans have been limited
1:05:34in their potential. And I think that AI
1:05:36enables more capacity for those
1:05:37individuals to realize more of their
1:05:39potential.
1:05:40>> Much of the conversation we've had about
1:05:41the US economy has centered around
1:05:43incentive structures leading to
1:05:44inevitable outcomes.
1:05:45>> You know, the older I've gotten, the
1:05:46more I just try and look at incentives.
1:05:48>> Yeah.
1:05:49>> To figure out behavior and also to
1:05:50figure out who to trust.
1:05:52So when I look at the incentives of the
1:05:54people that are building the AI
1:05:56companies, Andy Jasse has said that
1:05:58there's going to be fewer people doing
1:06:00some of the jobs that are being done
1:06:02today. Um then they cut, you know, tens
1:06:04of thousands of jobs. Mark Benov, who I
1:06:05know has been on your show, cut 4,000
1:06:07jobs and said, I need less heads because
1:06:09of AI. And I like, okay, maybe they're
1:06:11saying that because they want their
1:06:12share price to go up because it's a
1:06:13good, you know, we're going to reduce
1:06:14cost is a good narrative. But then I
1:06:16look at the other the AI CEOs, Dario,
1:06:19Elon, Sam Alman, and I go their
1:06:23incentives, I'd say other other than the
1:06:25exception of Elon, um, have just kind of
1:06:27changed with whatever's good for them at
1:06:29that moment oftent times. I I actually I
1:06:31think Daria might be the exception a
1:06:33little bit because he seems to be a bit
1:06:35more nuanced. If I go back through the
1:06:38quotes of these individuals, you have
1:06:41Sam Alman in February 2015 saying,
1:06:43"Development of supermachine
1:06:44intelligence is probably the greatest
1:06:45threat to the continued existence of
1:06:47humanity." You have Elon in 2014 saying,
1:06:50"With artificial intelligence, we are
1:06:52summoning the demon. It's far more
1:06:54dangerous than nukes. Mitigating the
1:06:57risk of extinction from AI should be a
1:06:58global priority alongside societal scale
1:07:01risks such as pandemics and nuclear
1:07:03wars." And that was signed by Sam Alman,
1:07:04Demis, Dario, Bill Gates amongst many
1:07:08hundreds of others. Sam Alman in the
1:07:10Senate in 2023. I think if this
1:07:12technology goes wrong, it can go very
1:07:14wrong. Open AI super intelligence
1:07:16letter. They wrote the disempowerment of
1:07:19humanity or even human extinction could
1:07:22be caused by super intelligence. Again,
1:07:23in the athletic sortman, jobs are
1:07:26definitely going to go away. Full stop.
1:07:30Barry Arma Day May 2025 he predicted a
1:07:33white collar blood bath half of entry
1:07:35level white collar jobs gone
1:07:36unemployment at 10 to 20% within 1 to
1:07:39five years 10 to 20% unemployment in 1
1:07:42to 5 years it's pretty high
1:07:44>> and Alman at the Federal Reserve in July
1:07:452025 said um whole job categories will
1:07:48disappear customer support first that
1:07:50one is quote totally totally gone and
1:07:53then suddenly the message changed before
1:07:55his sort of preipo discussions he said
1:07:56things could go pretty wrong and then he
1:07:58says that he now has changed his mind
1:08:00and he's delighted that he feels like he
1:08:02was wrong and suddenly he's talking
1:08:04about how open AAI and chatting will
1:08:06benefit all of humanity
1:08:07>> and that's their goal. Should we trust
1:08:09the same people that told us to be
1:08:11scared when they say don't be scared?
1:08:13>> First of all, I think there was a bunch
1:08:15of companies that said early on that
1:08:19they were like cutting all their
1:08:20customer service reps, which was the big
1:08:22company starts with a K.
1:08:23>> Cler, 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. So, I heard you guys talk
1:08:29about this on the Allen podcast, but
1:08:30I've actually called him live on this
1:08:31show.
1:08:31>> And did he rehire or like what did he
1:08:33do?
1:08:34>> He said that the miss the media just
1:08:35completely miscon
1:08:37>> He said he had 7,000 employees by the
1:08:39end of last summer. He said he had 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 I'm just repeating it. I heard it
1:08:52repeated on your show like
1:08:53>> but he said we are cutting because of
1:08:54AI.
1:08:55>> Yeah.
1:08:55>> And he's confirmed that he's doing that.
1:08:57He's DM'd me on on X. I've got the DM
1:08:59and live on this show he confirmed it to
1:09:01all one of our listeners.
1:09:01>> Is his business still growing?
1:09:03>> The 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,
1:09:12>> which it makes a lot of sense.
1:09:13>> Yes.
1:09:13>> And you could think about that analogy
1:09:15being in like another business where
1:09:17they would take that capital, invest in
1:09:19offering new products, new services, but
1:09:21then you need employees to offer those
1:09:23new products and new services. And so
1:09:25you do actually hire up and I think that
1:09:27is what I am actually seeing on the
1:09:29ground. And while he may have this acute
1:09:31restructuring he's doing on the ground I
1:09:33just see people hiring more because they
1:09:35can do more with AI. It's
1:09:38counterintuitive but if you're a
1:09:39business manager you can invest $10 and
1:09:42make one product a year or you can
1:09:44invest $20 and make five products a
1:09:46year. You're going to invest the $20 to
1:09:48make five products a year. You're going
1:09:50to spend more. And I think that's what
1:09:51AI does. as soon as you have the ability
1:09:53to get leverage on how much more
1:09:55productive people are, you'll put more
1:09:58capital towards hiring more people and
1:09:59scale up. I that's just what I'm seeing.
1:10:01And look, I could be wrong and all jobs
1:10:03go away in 5 years and we have 20%
1:10:05unemployment. I don't think that that's
1:10:07the case. I think that again like we can
1:10:09go back to this like where are people
1:10:11going to be spending their time? I do
1:10:13think that there's going to be a big
1:10:14growth in media. I think there's going
1:10:16to be a big growth in um and media
1:10:19encompassing everything, digital content
1:10:21creation, 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 play this interviews and um client
1:10:29has always mentioned because I think the
1:10:30media has said that you like double down
1:10:32on AI then you reversed because it
1:10:34didn't work out. So I know I spoke to
1:10:36you a while ago and we exchanged a
1:10:37couple of DMs about it but that was more
1:10:39than a it was almost a year ago now. So
1:10:41I just wanted to get an update on Cler's
1:10:43business AI agents and all of that if
1:10:45possible. This was 5 months ago. First
1:10:47and foremost, we were early on uh
1:10:49released um AI uh to support our
1:10:52customer service which had that uh
1:10:54initial uh benefit of uh more calls
1:10:58being dealt with by AI which customers
1:11:00liked because those calls or chat
1:11:01messages were much much faster and more
1:11:04qualitative. Then since then that has
1:11:06actually expanded slightly. Um what we
1:11:09did however try to communicate as well
1:11:11is that we believed in a world of where
1:11:13AI is cheap and available the value of
1:11:16human interaction will be regarded as
1:11:19higher. So the future of customer
1:11:21service VIP is a human. Um we have then
1:11:25hence doubled down on providing more of
1:11:27that but at the same time the efficiency
1:11:29gains within the company has continued.
1:11:32I mean we used to be about 6,000 people
1:11:35and and now we are less than 3,000 which
1:11:38is 2 3 years since we stopped recruiting
1:11:41and at same point of time our revenue
1:11:43has doubled right so
1:11:45>> no this is a startup just to be clear I
1:11:48I don't know if we can and again I'm not
1:11:51going to like sit here and concede or
1:11:52argue jobs aren't going to change but a
1:11:55startup that grew very quickly and then
1:11:57to cut heads is a pretty common
1:11:59phenomenon um so I don't know how much
1:12:01restructure ing he was doing in in his
1:12:03AIification of his business. That's
1:12:05totally fine and totally fair. But the
1:12:08question is what are the people that
1:12:09were doing customer service calls and
1:12:11sitting, you know, how many of them were
1:12:12actually fully occupied on the phone? I
1:12:14don't know.
1:12:15>> Like 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? And is
1:12:24whatever they doing now, is that
1:12:26defensible again from this spread of
1:12:29intelligence? Yeah,
1:12:30>> they could be Door Dash. I know. They
1:12:31could be lawyers, but they could also be
1:12:33doing Door Dash. And Dar sat here and
1:12:34said that the 9,000 people that are
1:12:36riders won't have jobs.
1:12:39>> The ones that are driving food around.
1:12:40Yeah. And drivers.
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
1:12:49>> What 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 that something else
1:12:54is?
1:12:55>> He loosely hypothesized [laughter] what
1:12:57it might be. It could be data labeling.
1:12:59Now, let me just go back because your
1:13:01whole point about like AI is going to
1:13:03destroy us all and these guys were
1:13:04making all these claims and then they
1:13:05all kind of backtracked. I think there's
1:13:07an important question to ask which is
1:13:08like should we stop AI development and
1:13:10can we meaning can we really affect what
1:13:13China does? Can we really affect what
1:13:15Europe does? Can we really affect what
1:13:16some lab in Indonesia does if they get a
1:13:18group of people together? The there are
1:13:20moments in human history when technology
1:13:23advances and it's not like you can just
1:13:24put the catapult away and be like let's
1:13:26like no one can develop the catapult
1:13:27anymore. Like once the catapult's out
1:13:29there, the catapult's out there. We're
1:13:31just there. So the the the question is
1:13:34like it's what is going to enable the
1:13:37most kind of productive path forward
1:13:39for, you know, US policy for US
1:13:41citizens? And China's asking themselves
1:13:44the same question. What's the most
1:13:45productive path forward, China policy
1:13:47for China citizens? China's answer, I
1:13:50think, is to make models free and
1:13:51ubiquitous, which by the way benefits a
1:13:53large part of the global economy, but it
1:13:56doesn't do very well with Sam Alman,
1:13:58Daario, Google, or others that have
1:14:00invested billions or hundreds of
1:14:02billions of dollars in model
1:14:03development. 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 is
1:14:13like what does the US do to navigate? If
1:14:15we stop data centers, those data centers
1:14:17are going to be built somewhere else.
1:14:18Mhm.
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
1:14:28data centers to exist in the US because
1:14:30they're going to create jobs and create
1:14:31economic value or do we want them to be
1:14:33built offshore? Do we want to have the
1:14:36AI models built in the US or do we want
1:14:38to have them built by China? Those are
1:14:40the I think the important policy
1:14:41decisions. The idea that you can slow or
1:14:43stop AI development, I unfortunately
1:14:46think at this moment it's too far too
1:14:48late. Like the AI is out there,
1:14:51the framing on is it bad or is it good
1:14:55um 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
1:15:05could 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 lists. 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
1:15:32think about the impact, the economy
1:15:33doesn't just shrink in terms of jobs.
1:15:35We're just not seeing it in the data.
1:15:37It's not happening. and and and when it
1:15:39does happen, I think that's a good time
1:15:42to have a conversation about AI taxes
1:15:43and all this sort of stuff.
1:15:45>> Let's ask that question. And what would
1:15:46have to happen? What what sort of metric
1:15:48or piece of evidence would be?
1:15:49>> Job loss.
1:15:50>> Job loss.
1:15:50>> Yeah. And wage growth, right? So, if
1:15:52wages are declining and um uh uh
1:15:55unemployment is climbing, that's a red
1:15:58flag. I mean, that's an alert moment and
1:16:00that's when we have to address this from
1:16:02policy. But it's very speculative right
1:16:04now. And if you get in the way and you
1:16:06stop it and you stop advancement or like
1:16:08the ability to create higher paying
1:16:10jobs, the ability to create new jobs and
1:16:12you turn it you turn all of that off,
1:16:14it's going to happen in China, it's
1:16:15going to happen in Europe, it's going to
1:16:17happen in South America and the US gets
1:16:19left behind. Maybe that's the decision
1:16:21that, you know, we decide to make. But I
1:16:24would argue that this kind of tracking
1:16:25of what's the consequence that we're
1:16:27worried about is the most important
1:16:28thing to be doing at the moment. You
1:16:30might have heard about the study that I
1:16:31think it was Stanford that did it and
1:16:32they 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
1:16:44significant 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
1:16:48decline. 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>> Yeah. So what are those changes that are
1:16:57happening? Now the question is if you
1:16:58dig into that and I do understand this
1:17:01like in in software engineering what's
1:17:03happening right now is young people are
1:17:05not getting hired. You can use AI to
1:17:07write a lot of code
1:17:08>> but 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. And so there's a fight for senior
1:17:18experienced software engineers and
1:17:20there's disinterest in junior software
1:17:22engineers because you're not just
1:17:23putting a junior software engineer in a
1:17:25seat to have them write their first line
1:17:26of code which is what you used to do.
1:17:28With AI you can turn one engineer into a
1:17:31hundred but the junior guy is not going
1:17:33to do that. The senior person is. So you
1:17:35want to hire more senior people and
1:17:36that'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 p 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>> So, 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 could you use that
1:18:06PA for in your life that you couldn't
1:18:08even contemplate using that PA for in
1:18:10the past?
1:18:10>> At the moment, it's real world stuff. I
1:18:13probably would have continued to hire
1:18:14more in that team,
1:18:16>> but now I don't need to because I've
1:18:18got, you know, this agent that does my
1:18:20scheduling can help me with my
1:18:21scheduling.
1:18:21>> What are you gonna do with the money you
1:18:22have? The extra money you have that
1:18:23you're not spending.
1:18:23>> This is a good point.
1:18:24>> And then that money you're investing.
1:18:26You'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 productive
1:18:34or non-productive asset. If it's
1:18:35productive, it's employing someone. It's
1:18:36doing stuff.
1:18:36>> I could I could theoretically go buy the
1:18:38S&P 500. And when you buy the S&P 500,
1:18:40that money goes to individuals that are
1:18:43now going to be able to employ more
1:18:44people. That capital finds a way to get
1:18:47spent. It goes into the economy. And
1:18:49that's my point. This is why economies
1:18:51grow when technology shows up. The
1:18:53leverage you got gave you more capital.
1:18:55You could either build a new product and
1:18:56hire more people to do it here or you
1:18:58could choose to go buy the S&P. But when
1:19:00you buy the S&P, that money ends up in
1:19:01other people's coffers, and they're
1:19:03using that money to hire people and do
1:19:04new stuff. there. At some point, the
1:19:06whole point of the economy is that money
1:19:08flows and that money is going to
1:19:10ultimately 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
1:19:15billionaires and the the most wealthy
1:19:16that are building the robots and that
1:19:18are
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
1:19:22Janet and Dave who might not know what
1:19:23that term means?
1:19:24>> So open source just means that the
1:19:26software is free for anyone to use. If
1:19:29you go back to the early days of the
1:19:31internet, Netscape made server software
1:19:33>> and Netscape [clears throat] made a
1:19:34browser. So in order to produce a
1:19:37website, you needed to pay for Netscape
1:19:39software and you installed it on a
1:19:41server and you pay Netscape a fee for
1:19:43that software and then you could create
1:19:45a website. 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 that
1:19:50navigator to browse the internet. So
1:19:53charge charge gatekeeper gatekeeper and
1:19:55guess what came along? The Mozilla
1:19:57Foundation made an open-source browser
1:19:59called Firefox. And the Apache
1:20:01Foundation came along and made an open-
1:20:03source web server. And now anyone could
1:20:06download Apache and make their own
1:20:07website and plug it into the internet
1:20:10and it would be available to everyone in
1:20:11the world for free. And anyone could
1:20:13download Firefox, go on their computer
1:20:16and browse the internet for free. Open
1:20:19source 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 openw weight
1:20:27models, open- source models are free. So
1:20:30now you don't have to go pay anthropic
1:20:32or claude or Gemini or chat GPT for AI.
1:20:36You can actually use this AI model for
1:20:39free and no one's making money off of
1:20:41you using it. There's no one getting
1:20:43paid. The only cost is the cost of
1:20:45finding a computer to run that model. So
1:20:48you could have your own computer, you
1:20:49could rent one, but that cost is coming
1:20:50down like crazy now, too. So this is the
1:20:52benefit of like this is why technology
1:20:54without government intervention is so
1:20:55amazing. It always gets cheaper and then
1:20:58everyone benefits.
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
1:21:11people are saying hey that's coming from
1:21:12China. We don't know if there's back
1:21:14doors. That's not how openweight models
1:21:16work by the way. So people that are
1:21:17technically deficient don't fully grock
1:21:19what the openweight model really is.
1:21:21It's not like some backdoor program that
1:21:23you're running. It's literally just a
1:21:25list of numbers in a in a in a docu.
1:21:27It's just, you know, trillions of
1:21:29numbers. That's all it is. And then some
1:21:31people 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
1:21:39bioweapon. You can use it to design a
1:21:42physical 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 a DNA printer and they
1:21:50could theoretically make a virus. That
1:21:52exists today. We haven't stopped DNA
1:21:54sequencing. We haven't stopped DNA
1:21:55printing. We don't have like constraints
1:21:58around it. Similarly, we haven't stopped
1:22:00people from buying guns. We haven't
1:22:02stopped people, you know, in the US. I
1:22:04mean, we can roll our eyes at this one.
1:22:06[laughter]
1:22:06>> That's a good one,
1:22:07>> right? Yeah. But but I mean look there
1:22:09there'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
1:22:28mitigated and that's where you build
1:22:29good defense systems and so on. So we've
1:22:31got all these technologies for
1:22:32monitoring, for cyber defense, for bio
1:22:34defense and all these sorts of things
1:22:35that are critical for you know
1:22:38especially in a post AI era like what
1:22:40are the big attack vectors so I think
1:22:42that's probably the way to think about
1:22:43this
1:22:43>> and that might help the sort of
1:22:45inevitable inequality golden goosees all
1:22:47collecting into insight. I I will bet
1:22:50you anything that in the next 10 years
1:22:51there will be a billionaire that will
1:22:53emerge that has absolutely zero net
1:22:56worth today downloaded open sourced AI
1:22:59and built a company that made them a
1:23:00billionaire 5 years from now 7 years
1:23:03from now and they're going to be someone
1:23:05that's going to come from nowhere and
1:23:06everyone's going to be like wow look at
1:23:07that and there's going to be a lot of
1:23:08these sorts of stories and that's what
1:23:10we saw with the internet
1:23:12>> this is something that I've made for you
1:23:14I realized that the diio audience are
1:23:16strivvers whether it's in business or
1:23:18health We all have big goals that we
1:23:20want to accomplish. And one of the
1:23:21things I've learned is that when you aim
1:23:23at the big big big goal, it can feel
1:23:26incredibly psychologically uncomfortable
1:23:29because it's kind of like being stood at
1:23:30the foot of Mount Everest and looking
1:23:32upwards. The way to accomplish your
1:23:34goals is by breaking them down into tiny
1:23:37small steps. And we call this in our
1:23:39team the 1%. And actually this
1:23:40philosophy is highly responsible for
1:23:43much of our success here. So, what we've
1:23:45done so that you at home can accomplish
1:23:47any big goal that you have is we've made
1:23:49these 1% diaries and we released these
1:23:52last year and they all sold out. So, I
1:23:54asked my team over and over again to
1:23:56bring the diaries back, but also to
1:23:57introduce some new colors and to make
1:23:59some minor tweaks to the diary. So, now
1:24:01we have a better range for you. So, if
1:24:05you have a big goal in mind and you need
1:24:07a framework and a process and some
1:24:09motivation, then I highly recommend you
1:24:11get one of these diaries before they all
1:24:13sell out once again. And you can get
1:24:15yours at the diary.com.
1:24:17And if you want the link, the link is in
1:24:18the description below. There should be a
1:24:21button just down below here. And if it
1:24:23says subscribed, you're already
1:24:24subscribed. If it says subscriber, that
1:24:27means you're not yet. And if you're not
1:24:28subscribed, please could you do us a
1:24:29favor and hit that button? It helps the
1:24:31show more than you know. And according
1:24:32to the algorithm, you're someone that
1:24:34watches our show, but you haven't yet
1:24:35hit that button. Thank you so much. So,
1:24:38when Elon says that working will be a
1:24:40choice, you think he's wrong.
1:24:42>> He's selling robots, but uh [laughter]
1:24:44like
1:24:46um I do think he's right in a sense. And
1:24:48what I mean by that is like think about
1:24:50how many hours a week you work. Do you
1:24:52have a sense?
1:24:53>> Just I work all the time when my fiance
1:24:55is not around cuz she's not around at
1:24:56the moment.
1:24:56>> You and I are similar in the sense. So
1:24:58like like every moment I can I work. But
1:25:00like we're more entrepreneurial. I would
1:25:02say that like um you know look at
1:25:05Denmark for example 37 hours a week.
1:25:07What was the average number of hours
1:25:08worked 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 100
1:25:10years ago in the US when you did farm
1:25:13labor and you were managing your own
1:25:15farm and that was your whole business or
1:25:16you worked in a factory. I mean there
1:25:18was 12-hour shifts. There was a lot more
1:25:21work per week being done. Going from 100
1:25:24hours a week to 80 to 60 to 40. I mean,
1:25:27that is part of the progress of humanity
1:25:29is that we're no longer encumbered by
1:25:31this labor category, being told what to
1:25:33do and how to do it and when to do it in
1:25:34order to get money to pay our bills. But
1:25:36we get to this world where we have more
1:25:38capital. That capital is also time. And
1:25:41I've now accumulated the ability to make
1:25:43a choice on what do I do with 40 hours
1:25:44of my uh my week.
1:25:46>> You know, we all have a hypothesis about
1:25:48how AI is going to play out. And I've
1:25:49heard many different hypotheses here.
1:25:51Which is the the part of your hypothesis
1:25:53like the principle within it that could
1:25:56quite easily be be a miscalculation and
1:25:58how could you be wrong?
1:26:00>> Mass unemployment.
1:26:01>> But but but where in your hypo your
1:26:03current hypothesis would you have been
1:26:05do you think is the weakest part of your
1:26:06sort of first principles that could
1:26:08result in that?
1:26:09>> The choice that people will make to go
1:26:11to higher paying jobs to different jobs
1:26:12that they see an opportunity and they
1:26:14make a choice to change cuz I think that
1:26:16that's the key to this whole thing. Like
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?
1:26:23>> So medallion is a a right to drive a cab
1:26:26in New York.
1:26:26>> Okay.
1:26:27>> So there was a limited number of them
1:26:28and so the medallions were restricted.
1:26:31The New York City said we'll only allow
1:26:33so 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 on
1:26:39medallions got up to 500 grand. And
1:26:40Cityroup was a big lender on medallions.
1:26:42So they would loan you 500 grand to go
1:26:44buy a medallion. Then Uber came along
1:26:46and this was one of the big battles
1:26:47around Uber at the time. You could get
1:26:49paid more and there's more rides with
1:26:53Uber. Uber grew the number of people
1:26:56taking car transportation around New
1:26:57York considerably. And when Uber demand
1:27:00shot up, a lot of these guys said, "I'm
1:27:01not going to be a cab driver anymore.
1:27:02I'm going to be an Uber driver. I can
1:27:03make more money as an Uber driver." And
1:27:05the number of Uber drivers grew. And
1:27:07look, there's a lot of regulation that's
1:27:08happened in New York since then with
1:27:09respect to Uber and whatnot. But
1:27:11everyone made the choice. They moved.
1:27:14They found the market found its way.
1:27:16Individuals said, "Oh my god, I can make
1:27:17more money doing that. I could pick my
1:27:19own hours. I don't have to rent the
1:27:20medallion."
1:27:21>> It's a very similar sidestep.
1:27:24>> Yes.
1:27:24>> And going from being a taxi driver to a
1:27:26taxi driver for a different firm using
1:27:27an app is is quite a is
1:27:29>> like so so I could sit here and
1:27:31pontificate all day with you on this and
1:27:32we we'd both be wrong, I'm sure, cuz I
1:27:35don't know what the the leap is going to
1:27:36be for an individual. I think we have to
1:27:38start to pull these stories out of the
1:27:39economy. What's going on? Palanteer put
1:27:42out this promotional video which I
1:27:43thought was quite good where they
1:27:44interviewed like a hospital
1:27:46administrator and she's like, "Well,
1:27:48I've got the AI doing all my paperwork
1:27:49so I get to spend more time with
1:27:50patients now." Sorry, it was a nurse,
1:27:52not an administrator. She was a nurse.
1:27:53So, she's like, "I normally spend like
1:27:54most of my time filling out paperwork on
1:27:56the computer, but Palanteer, the
1:27:57software takes care of all that for me.
1:27:59So, now I can spend more time doing
1:28:01rounds face to face with patients. It's
1:28:03a better job
1:28:04>> and it's better for her." And so she,
1:28:07you know, I think it it was a very
1:28:09poignant story about kind of what AI
1:28:11actually 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 counterargue back and forth
1:28:17about them all day long and probably
1:28:19both be wrong, but this is what I would
1:28:21kind of observe on the ground and 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 concerns still or the gap
1:28:35that I have in my head is like that how
1:28:36that transition looks especially at
1:28:38speed retraining you know you talked
1:28:40about the human agency point and do
1:28:42should we be preparing for such a
1:28:44transition cuz I do also believe that
1:28:46we'll we'll get to a providing there's
1:28:48no existential issues I do think we'll
1:28:50net out in a better place
1:28:51>> but the journey to that better place I
1:28:53still is just this big question mark
1:28:54>> I think that's right and I'm not trying
1:28:56to defend it and say it's going to be a
1:28:57clean smooth line I'm just trying to say
1:28:59like we are going to get to a better
1:29:00place you know we could argue all day
1:29:02long about displacement or dysfunction
1:29:04along the way. [gasps]
1:29:06Or 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
1:29:11life's better." I'm optimistic in that
1:29:13sense. I think you're right. We have to
1:29:14track it. And if people are out of work
1:29:16and can't find work and they're
1:29:17challenged in paying their bills, we
1:29:19have a freaking problem.
1:29:20>> And what's the solution to that problem?
1:29:21Is it UBI?
1:29:22>> Well, it'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 Mundan 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 great. But
1:29:38yeah, it'll be more more checks, more
1:29:40government employ. 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? No, you're getting paid $100,
1:29:51maybe you're creating $60 or $80 of
1:29:52value. But you know that's just there's
1:29:55going to be more government payments
1:29:56whether it takes the form of UBI
1:29:58government um uh jobs grow or some other
1:30:02sort of financial support.
1:30:04>> I mean that's the direction of travel at
1:30:05the moment.
1:30:06>> Yeah.
1:30:06>> All directions point to more socialistic
1:30:09>> Yeah.
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. And I
1:30:16feel sad for people that embrace it
1:30:17because I think that they don't realize
1:30:19that they're losing their freedom in
1:30:21that process too. I think they're losing
1:30:22their agency. But it's it's offering
1:30:24them a solution where there is
1:30:27>> there's no other solution being offered
1:30:28for them.
1:30:28>> But they feel there's no other solution
1:30:29being offered. That's right.
1:30:31>> But is is also logical to say if we talk
1:30:33about incentives that billionaires want
1:30:36to stay billionaires and billionaires
1:30:38aren't actually that um philanthropic in
1:30:40as they claim to be. And actually what
1:30:42billionaires are protecting are their
1:30:43interests. They want to remain free.
1:30:45>> I had a call with Roana about this.
1:30:47>> Can you give context on who he is for a
1:30:48moment? Roan is a congressman from
1:30:50California 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 in Silicon Valley is his
1:30:59district. California 17. He was asking
1:31:01me why are people so outraged at my
1:31:03support for a wealth tax.
1:31:04>> 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. And he's like, I don't
1:31:17get it. it's just 5% or 2% a year or 1%
1:31:19a year. Like, why do people care? And
1:31:22I'm like, Ro, it's the first time in
1:31:24American history
1:31:26that you're talking about taking
1:31:28something from someone after they've
1:31:30paid their taxes and it's now their
1:31:32private property and the government gets
1:31:34to decide how much of their private
1:31:36property they get to keep. It doesn't
1:31:37matter that it's 1% or 5% or they'll be
1:31:39fine and Bernie Sanders like the
1:31:40billionaires will be fine. It's
1:31:42fundamental to private property rights.
1:31:44It makes me feel like and and everyone
1:31:47can think about this. It's not just rich
1:31:50people. Anyone can think about what does
1:31:52it mean to list out everything you own
1:31:53and send it to the government every year
1:31:55and they decide what you get to keep.
1:31:57That's what it feels like to everyone.
1:31:59Also, financially, it doesn't solve a
1:32:00problem. And I'll just give you the
1:32:02statistics. Total net worth of people in
1:32:04the US is 183 trillion.
1:32:07Billionaires total net worth is 8
1:32:09trillion. And even if you take it from
1:32:11billionaire down to 50 millionaire, so
1:32:13people that have 50 million or more, the
1:32:15total assets, the total net worth is 23
1:32:17trillion. 160 trillion is everyone else.
1:32:21The problem is that the bottom 50% of
1:32:25Americans 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. That's where the net
1:32:36worth is in the United States. It's in
1:32:38that kind of population that people call
1:32:41boomers or Gen X or whatever, the bottom
1:32:4350% have nothing. And so if you taxed a
1:32:47100% of the billionaire's net worth,
1:32:49that's $8 trillion. That's one year of
1:32:52the government spending. One year. It
1:32:54doesn't stop fundamentally a wealth tax.
1:32:56Doesn't actually solve a fiscal problem.
1:32:58It creates a system where you're like,
1:33:00everyone feels better about taking money
1:33:01from the billionaires. Are the
1:33:02billionaires paying their fair share of
1:33:04taxes? This is 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
1:33:16you make money for services you provide.
1:33:18And every year, if you're wealthy in the
1:33:20United States, in California, I pay 53%
1:33:22tax. I pay like 14% in California plus
1:33:2539% federal.
1:33:27>> But you must try and avoid that.
1:33:29>> No, I just pay it.
1:33:30>> But But I mean, in terms of when I say
1:33:31avoid that, I mean you would rather take
1:33:33it like a capital gains tax, which is
1:33:34lower. California, there's no
1:33:36difference.
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. So, can we lower income tax in
1:33:46the United States and raise capital
1:33:47gains tax? Absolutely. Can we make
1:33:50income tax lower for people that are
1:33:51working for their money versus people
1:33:53that are earning gains on their capital
1:33:54assets? Absolutely. And we can solve the
1:33:56problem that way. But by taking their
1:33:58assets, even if you took a 100% of the
1:34:00billionaire's assets, that's one 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 a 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 four this whole
1:34:46thing we just talked about, the
1:34:47four-year election cycles, Elon went in,
1:34:48he tried to cut it, he 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
1:34:54like, "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." Yeah.
1:35:01>> And then I went and visited DC and I
1:35:03went 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 [laughter]
1:35:11just like everyone's doing it. And I'm
1:35:14like, this is the system. This is how
1:35:16it's set up. Holy
1:35:18>> We 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? I do
1:35:31and I think the reason is we've
1:35:33discovered the mechanism of aging which
1:35:35is the most fundamental of human
1:35:37diseases. We have 10 trillion cells in
1:35:39our body. Every one of those cells has
1:35:41our a copy of our DNA in the nucleus of
1:35:43the cell. That DNA segments of it are
1:35:46called a gene. AC and G make up the
1:35:50little nucleotides and you put a bunch
1:35:51of them together and that's a gene. What
1:35:53is a gene? Well, a copy of that comes
1:35:56over to a protein printer in the cell
1:35:58called the ribosome. And the act is the
1:36:01programming for which of 20 amino acids,
1:36:05three letters is one amino acid. That
1:36:07ribosome takes a segment of the DNA
1:36:08copied as RNA and it prints out amino
1:36:12acids and a sequence of amino acids from
1:36:15that gene which is defined by that gene
1:36:18makes a protein. So all a protein is is
1:36:20a is a chain of amino acids. As soon as
1:36:22it's done printing, those amino acids
1:36:25collapse into a threedimensional machine
1:36:28called a protein.
1:36:29>> So proteins are three-dimensional
1:36:30machines and they do crazy Like
1:36:33there is a protein in your mitochondria
1:36:35that 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 cell. It's an
1:36:45incredible machine. There's machines
1:36:47that carry oxygen from your lungs into
1:36:51your cells in your body to give them
1:36:52oxygen that they need to work. I mean,
1:36:54there are proteins that do all sorts of
1:36:56crazy stuff. So, all that genes are are
1:36:59the programming for making proteins in
1:37:01your cell. Now, your DNA is not a strand
1:37:03like this. It's actually kind of a small
1:37:06clustered thing. And there are little
1:37:08molecules that sit on top of the DNA
1:37:10that turn a gene on or off. So if the
1:37:13molecule is sitting on top of a certain
1:37:15gene 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 acetal markers. And
1:37:22>> I thought it's epigenetics. But maybe.
1:37:23>> So this is all epigenetics. Okay.
1:37:25>> So for a given cell there are genes that
1:37:27are on or off. The genes that are on
1:37:29those proteins are being made in that
1:37:31cell. And the genes that are off those
1:37:33proteins are not being made in that
1:37:34cell. And that's what makes all of our
1:37:36cells in our body different. Every one
1:37:39of our cells has the same DNA, but our
1:37:41eye cell and our brain cell and our
1:37:43heart cell and our skin cell just have
1:37:45different genes that are on or off.
1:37:47Okay? So, those markers that sit on the
1:37:48genes, those little switches, every time
1:37:51you drink a glass of alcohol or you go
1:37:53in the sun and get hit by the sunlight
1:37:55or smoke a cigarette or eat some bad
1:37:57food that's burnt, all of these things
1:38:00can cut DNA. And when DNA gets cut, your
1:38:03cell is really good at fixing it. Puts
1:38:05it right back together.
1:38:07happening millions of times a second in
1:38:09your body, literally all over your body
1:38:11and your DNA is breaking and your cell's
1:38:13fixing it. But every time your cell
1:38:15fixes it, there's a chance that that
1:38:17switch moves a little bit. And if the
1:38:19switch moves to the wrong place,
1:38:22suddenly that cell starts making the
1:38:25wrong protein or stops making the right
1:38:27protein. So statistically over time when
1:38:30you're a baby, everything is tuned
1:38:32great, 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,
1:38:42"Wait, my vision's kind of fading a
1:38:44little bit. I can't run as fast. I can't
1:38:46breathe 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
1:38:52switches 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
1:39:00and starts making the wrong protein and
1:39:02it 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
1:39:13as well and transmit the signal of the
1:39:14light and things get blurry. Your
1:39:16hearing starts to lose. You can't think
1:39:17as quickly. You can't respond as
1:39:19quickly. That's what aging is. Aging is
1:39:21the core human disease. And as
1:39:24epigenetics, which is where the switches
1:39:26are on a cell, start to get moved around
1:39:28to the wrong place and that tissue
1:39:30starts to misbehave, we get all these
1:39:32diseases that could be one of the core
1:39:35drivers of cancer.
1:39:37>> Why is aging so even across my body?
1:39:39Then
1:39:39>> because all these cells are suffering
1:39:41the same statistical effect of time as
1:39:44DNA breaks happen in every cell in your
1:39:46body. And as those DNA breaks happen,
1:39:48those switches are moving around the
1:39:50same rate in all parts of your body. And
1:39:52that's why parts of your body start to
1:39:53suffer kind of a it's like, "Oh my god,
1:39:55my hip hurts, my eye, my brain." Your
1:39:58young viewers may not appreciate this,
1:40:00but being 46, I'm starting to appreciate
1:40:02it. And it's becoming more of an issue
1:40:03now. In 2006, a guy named Shinya
1:40:06Yamanaka
1:40:08discovered four proteins that you could
1:40:11put into a cell or apply to a cell and
1:40:14it would basically take all the switches
1:40:16in that cell and move them to the place
1:40:19that a stem cell has, which is basically
1:40:20an embryo in a human. And now that cell
1:40:25operates like an embryionic cell. And
1:40:27you can take that embryo cell and you
1:40:29can put other proteins on to move the
1:40:32switches around even more to turn that
1:40:34stem cell into an eye cell, into a skin
1:40:37cell, into a heart cell, into a lung
1:40:39cell, into a brain cell. So we suddenly
1:40:41developed this technology in the mid
1:40:442000s to take any cell and turn it into
1:40:47a stem cell, redifferiated, it's called
1:40:50differentiation from one cell type to
1:40:52another. But then years later, another
1:40:55guy said, "Well, what if instead of
1:40:57putting a lot of that protein on the
1:40:58cell, we just put a little bit?" So they
1:41:00took the Yamanaka factors, which are
1:41:01just four proteins, and they put a micro
1:41:04dose of them on a couple cells, and the
1:41:07switches started to move around, but
1:41:08they didn't move back to being a stem
1:41:10cell. What happened is they moved back
1:41:12to being a young version of that cell
1:41:15type. So the eye cell basically became a
1:41:17young eye cell. The skin cell became a
1:41:20young skin cell. the heart cell became a
1:41:22young heart cell by putting a small dose
1:41:24of these proteins. So it turns out that
1:41:26these proteins kind of move the switches
1:41:28around. And if you put just a small
1:41:29amount of them on, you can move the
1:41:31switches just back to their right
1:41:32position. That's now called epigenetic
1:41:34reprogramming. That's this new area of
1:41:36science that seems to indicate and
1:41:37they've now done it in mice where the
1:41:39mice can live to the equivalent of 100
1:41:41plus years old. They've put it on the
1:41:43tissue of monkeys and gotten rid of the
1:41:45the wrinkles. We now have just David
1:41:47Sinclair just his one of his companies
1:41:49did the dosing in the retina to reverse
1:41:51blindness in people uh with a
1:41:53retinopathy. So this epigenetic
1:41:57reprogramming is an entirely new lane of
1:41:59medicine that says not just can we
1:42:02address all of the downstream effects of
1:42:04aging but can we go to the core? Can we
1:42:06reset aging in all these cells in the
1:42:08body? And the answer so far is yes. The
1:42:11risk is if you reset it too much it
1:42:13becomes an embryo and it turns into
1:42:15cancer. So that's what everyone's been
1:42:17working against in the last couple years
1:42:19is how do you put the right dose of the
1:42:21right proteins in the right cells to get
1:42:23them to reverse their age and become
1:42:25young again. And the path it's really
1:42:27just an engineering exercise at this
1:42:29point as opposed to a biological proof
1:42:30of concept. 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 about this work.
1:42:38It seems very likely that in the next
1:42:40couple of years, we're going to have
1:42:41more human therapy trials that are going
1:42:44to not just address the core of aging,
1:42:46but they'll start to put in like, you
1:42:47know, like they did with the ISEL, maybe
1:42:49reverse wrinkles, maybe improve uh
1:42:51cardiammyio, improve the uh heart
1:42:54tissue. So, I think there'll be a lot
1:42:55more of this sort of thing coming to
1:42:57market over the next few years.
1:42:59>> And AI is going to play a role, I
1:43:00assume, in accelerating this because you
1:43:02can perform I mean, you can
1:43:04theoretically make new discoveries, but
1:43:05you can run the tests faster, right?
1:43:06>> You know, just to help
1:43:09uh provide some context on like what
1:43:12goes on in a cell. You can kind of think
1:43:13about a cell uh has about 10 billion
1:43:16proteins interacting with each other,
1:43:18building things, breaking things,
1:43:20creating new molecules, creating new
1:43:21proteins, interacting, interacting. So
1:43:23the proteins are these machines, 10
1:43:25billion of them in a cell. So if you
1:43:28assume each protein is the size of a
1:43:29human, the cell would be the size of
1:43:31Manhattan. So now imagine a city the
1:43:34size of Manhattan with 500tory tall
1:43:37skyscrapers in the Manhattan skyline and
1:43:4010 billion people living in these
1:43:42buildings going back and forth building
1:43:44stuff together talking making babies and
1:43:46assume they just do this for 80 years
1:43:48all these humans interacting 10 billion
1:43:49humans in Manhattan for 80 years
1:43:52non-stop they don't sleep and they just
1:43:53keep working that entire set of
1:43:55interactions is 1 second in one cell
1:43:58that's how complicated biology is and we
1:44:01have 10 trillion cells in our body and
1:44:03those cells are all shooting out
1:44:05proteins and messages to each other all
1:44:06the time. To answer the question, AI
1:44:10allows us to build models to better
1:44:12understand what the heck is going on and
1:44:14to make predictions about proteins we
1:44:16could put into the cells that can affect
1:44:18the outcome of changing the epiggenome
1:44:21on that DNA without us having a
1:44:23deterministic understanding of what's
1:44:25going on. So with AI, I can come up with
1:44:27a million different ideas for a new
1:44:28protein. I can test it in silicone, how
1:44:30it would interact with other stuff,
1:44:32meaning on computers. I could see what
1:44:34happens. 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
1:44:40down. And I take that candidate list and
1:44:41I put it in a lab. And now the labs are
1:44:43being 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
1:44:53instead of being 1% is now like 75%. And
1:44:56so [clears throat] that's 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
1:45:12understanding 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 that
1:45:21okay 5 weeks later okay another good
1:45:23idea let's try that and that all gets
1:45:25reduced to silicon
1:45:26>> and are you using your own model? Are
1:45:27you training your own AI or are you
1:45:29using some of the publicly available
1:45:30frontier models?
1:45:31>> In my world we use both. So we take our
1:45:33own data and then we build our own
1:45:34predictive models from it and then
1:45:36separately we use offtheshelf 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, oh my god,
1:45:45the stuff we can do is unbelievable and
1:45:47it's mind-blowing and we're hiring more
1:45:49people because of it. So like it's not
1:45:51like AI got me to get rid of jobs. It's
1:45:53like the frontier has gotten so much
1:45:55wider. That's why I'm so optimistic
1:45:57about AI not destroying jobs because all
1:45:59I see is opportunity with uh new
1:46:01companies, new ideas, new pathways, new
1:46:03things, new breakthroughs in in
1:46:05sciences, in materials, in engineering,
1:46:08things that we could have never ever
1:46:09tackled, we can now tackle with AI.
1:46:13>> It is a persuasive argument. Okay. So,
1:46:15what are the great lies in America in
1:46:17your view?
1:46:18If you go to any college with any
1:46:20degree, you're going to have a great job
1:46:21waiting for you at the end.
1:46:22>> Okay? Number one,
1:46:24>> if you buy a home, you've achieved the
1:46:26American dream, and all of your assets
1:46:29should uh be in that home.
1:46:31>> Okay? [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 the truth about that lie. uh because
1:46:43all the money that went into social
1:46:44security went out to the government to
1:46:46pay bills and it wasn't actually kept in
1:46:48the trust and so as a result social
1:46:51security is going to go bankrupt. So
1:46:52social security was one of the great
1:46:54lies on you know you'll be safe and
1:46:57protected when you retire.
1:46:58>> Mhm. Those are three great lies. Is
1:47:00there any more that come to mind?
1:47:01>> I don't know about public pensions and
1:47:04the it's the same as the social security
1:47:06lie. When you put money into a pension
1:47:08plan and you're that's called a defined
1:47:11benefit plan, when you retire, you're
1:47:12going to get $1,000 a week or whatever
1:47:14it is and every every paycheck some
1:47:17money is taken out. And the idea is that
1:47:18the accountants and the investors will
1:47:20do a good job investing that money for
1:47:21you and you'll get your benefit at the
1:47:23end. If they don't do a good job, then
1:47:25the pension plan is bankrupt and you
1:47:27don't get your retirement check. And if
1:47:29they do too good a job or you put too
1:47:30much money in, then the pension plan is
1:47:32overfunded and you should be getting
1:47:34more money out than you're actually
1:47:35getting. M. So what companies realized
1:47:38was that pension plans are unfair. They
1:47:41either go bankrupt or they're
1:47:42overfunded. So that's when everyone
1:47:44moved to 401ks. And that middle class
1:47:46that we talked about earlier, those
1:47:47people that have $160 trillion of
1:47:49assets, the reason they have $160
1:47:51trillion of assets, it's because a lot
1:47:53of them had 401ks. Meanwhile, the bottom
1:47:5650% of people that are just relying on
1:47:58social security, they were making less
1:48:00than 3 and a half% a year on their
1:48:02money. So that's the great lie is that
1:48:04these defi these public retirement funds
1:48:08would take care of their people.
1:48:10>> Is there a fifth great lie that comes to
1:48:12mind?
1:48:13>> I actually don't have a great answer for
1:48:14you on healthcare. I think that there's
1:48:16a 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 because I do think
1:48:25it's probably the right thing to say in
1:48:27a civil society no one should be without
1:48:29healthcare.
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
1:48:37long probably six-hour conversation and
1:48:40it's very technical, I think, on what
1:48:41you have to do uh to make healthcare
1:48:44accessible. And it's definitely got to
1:48:45be a multi-tiered system.
1:48:47>> Mhm. I guess one of the things that I
1:48:48was curious to get your take on because
1:48:50I've not really heard you talk about
1:48:51this a lot on the All-In podcast is your
1:48:54view on everything that's going on with
1:48:55this bloody war and the situation there.
1:48:57I'm not sure if this is within your area
1:48:58of expertise, but it appears that the US
1:48:59is now stuck. It's a quandry. I read
1:49:02that Ray Dalio's piece a few weeks ago,
1:49:03which I thought was exactly right. The
1:49:06Chinese make their influence known
1:49:09in the same way that you would kind of
1:49:10read about it in Sunsu's Art of War. If
1:49:13you have to go to war, you've already
1:49:15lost. And that's a big difference
1:49:18between how the US behaves and how China
1:49:21behaves. If you look back on the track
1:49:23record of president's decisions as it
1:49:25relates to foreign policy in the United
1:49:26States over the last
1:49:27>> couple decades, there have not been a
1:49:30lot of good actions that have ended up
1:49:32in a good place.
1:49:33>> I think China has this capacity for
1:49:36influence without action, which is a
1:49:40really interesting model to observe. And
1:49:42the US has this kind of
1:49:45I don't want to say incentive, but when
1:49:47you go to a general and say, "Hey,
1:49:50should we go attack these guys?" the
1:49:51general spends the whole time training
1:49:52to attack the guys. So, you know, and
1:49:54then you have a national security
1:49:56council and you have advisers and all
1:49:57this sort of stuff, but there's a
1:49:59there's a priming uh in the US that I
1:50:02think maybe plays out in a way that
1:50:03maybe we take action when we shouldn't
1:50:04always be taking action.
1:50:06>> China's position there only possible
1:50:07because there is a dominant force that
1:50:09is running around trying to police
1:50:10everything. So, they can kind of chill
1:50:12and let the US go police all the the
1:50:14problems and wars. Their military
1:50:15capacity is pretty impressive, but it's
1:50:17untested at scale, I guess, is one
1:50:19argument you can make against that
1:50:21point. I mean, China's got a lot of
1:50:23economic gamesmanship that they do. You
1:50:25know, we'll give you cheap stuff. If we
1:50:28can get these things from you, uh, you
1:50:31know, we'll keep an eye on you if you
1:50:33need help. I mean, there's like a lot of
1:50:35stuff that doesn't require direct
1:50:37kinetic action that they can kind of get
1:50:38things done. In terms of the US's
1:50:40position in Iran right now, there is um
1:50:42it appears an a threat to oil in terms
1:50:45of like the price at the pump and the I
1:50:47think it's the US oil reserve is down to
1:50:49a couple of weeks.
1:50:50>> I want to say this on the order of 24
1:50:52million barrels in the SPR.
1:50:54>> So at the G7 summit in France, President
1:50:56Donald Trump addressed the precocious
1:50:58state of global oil inventories
1:51:00following supply disruption. He said,
1:51:03"We run out of reserves at about four
1:51:05weeks. You know, there are reserves all
1:51:08over the world and we would really run
1:51:10out and there'll be a time when you
1:51:13wouldn't be able to get it. It would be
1:51:15bedelum.
1:51:17>> Mhm. And this was just as I think this
1:51:20was the explanation as to why he signed
1:51:21that with Iran.
1:51:23>> Uhhuh. So I mean if this is true then
1:51:26something needs to happen. But again it
1:51:29doesn't appear that Iran have much of of
1:51:31an incentive now you've decapitated the
1:51:32leader for to do really anything. They
1:51:34can kind of wait out. Game theory is
1:51:35Iran knows that the US can't do much
1:51:37more.
1:51:37>> Yeah, we going to do drum roll bombs,
1:51:39>> right? And well, I mean, Iran's now
1:51:41threatened uh Arab uh neighbors with
1:51:46retaliation against their energy
1:51:47infrastructure, which would be
1:51:49devastating to Saudi, Qatar, UAE. So, at
1:51:52this point, it seems like a bit of a
1:51:54stalemate that the US can't act for fear
1:51:56of the retaliation and the impact it
1:51:57would have on America's actual allies in
1:51:59the region.
1:52:00>> What do you think happens here? Trump
1:52:02straight up news, Iran now have this
1:52:04sort of choke hold on the world it
1:52:05seems.
1:52:06>> I mean the biggest driver also is the
1:52:08election cycle we're in.
1:52:09>> The midterms
1:52:10>> the midterms. So going into November
1:52:12this war is deeply unpopular both sides
1:52:16>> and so trying to get rid of the war is
1:52:19the incentive at the moment.
1:52:22It's tough situation.
1:52:23>> You seem um hesitant. Yeah.
1:52:26>> No, I just I'm not a I'm not a great guy
1:52:27to appine on this. I just I don't know
1:52:30what to do. But just when you look at it
1:52:31from the outside, you see a president
1:52:33that says he's going to bomb, he's not
1:52:34going to bomb, he's calling it off, he's
1:52:35bombing, he's not bombing, he's calling
1:52:37it off, we've got a deal, there's no
1:52:38deal,
1:52:38>> and you're you're flopping around. And I
1:52:40think even that as a behavior to observe
1:52:42from the outside, you go, "Oh, okay."
1:52:44>> Um,
1:52:44>> well, let me ask you one question. It
1:52:45kind of makes him unpredictable, right?
1:52:48>> And 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
1:53:02guys 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
1:53:08someone 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 hear
1:53:15him say one thing and then he'll do
1:53:17something different later.
1:53:18>> I understand the merit of that argument.
1:53:20I in this situation, what I'm observing
1:53:22now is he's become predictable.
1:53:24>> Yeah. in in terms of
1:53:26>> in terms of not being able to do any
1:53:28like not not
1:53:29>> not taking action
1:53:30>> not taking action threat post it biggest
1:53:34strike coming since World War II call it
1:53:35off
1:53:35>> what would you do if you were him
1:53:37[laughter]
1:53:39what would I do uh there's only bad
1:53:42outcomes so it's which bad out honestly
1:53:44I think which bad outcome am I willing
1:53:45to accept the most
1:53:47>> and I guess for someone like Trump I
1:53:49don't know him but I I guess he's
1:53:50probably thinking which one would save
1:53:52the most face
1:53:53>> that's probably the right kind of you
1:53:56know objective function for him.
1:53:58>> I think the worst thing is all outcomes
1:53:59in my view lead to the straight of
1:54:01hormones being now basically a a tool of
1:54:04Iranian negotiation and it wasn't
1:54:06before.
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. Yeah. But it may create um
1:54:13alternatives. There's conversation about
1:54:15creating other pipelines out to Israel.
1:54:17Oh yeah.
1:54:17>> And so on. So maybe at the end of the
1:54:19day it creates incentive for other
1:54:21channels to be opened. uh TBD. I do
1:54:23think the um it's not just about the
1:54:26Iranian
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
1:54:32adviser, I would say that's probably
1:54:34what they're thinking about as the the
1:54:35core because it takes a long time to
1:54:36enrich uranium to use for nuclear fuel
1:54:39like this. So getting the enriched
1:54:41uranium is probably 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 in the
1:54:48course of how things are going
1:54:49>> for 28?
1:54:50>> Yeah.
1:54:50>> No, I think it's going to be AOC. You
1:54:52think it's going to be ARC?
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 think that's where people
1:55:02are at. They they want help. People feel
1:55:04desperate and they want a candidate that
1:55:06can promise to help make their life
1:55:09better. I think they're less concerned
1:55:11about, you know, freedom of movement,
1:55:12the kind of stuff we talked about. I
1:55:14think they're much more concerned about
1:55:15paying their bills and getting
1:55:17healthcare 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
1:55:22Buddhajed and uh
1:55:23>> Kamla
1:55:24>> Kamla
1:55:25>> Newsome
1:55:26>> Newsome I don't think Nuome's gonna 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. And I think Kamla
1:55:40is just like it it's just no one wants
1:55:42to take the risk. AOC is just like mom
1:55:46Donnie in the sense that she brings a
1:55:48very different voice, you know, and I
1:55:49think this DSA movement has real legs to
1:55:51it because I don't see a lot of young
1:55:53people speaking out against the DSA
1:55:54movement. I see a lot of old Democrats
1:55:57speaking out against the DSA movement.
1:55:58>> You see Kla Harris being perceived as
1:56:00more of a risk than AOC.
1:56:02>> Yeah.
1:56:02>> Because she's lost before and they've se
1:56:04>> Oh, okay. Yeah. Because she's lost
1:56:05before.
1:56:06>> Yeah. But look, what do I know? It's
1:56:08interesting to I've heard you I think
1:56:09I've heard you guys on the Allin podcast
1:56:10say before that you think in 2028 it
1:56:13will be a Democrat or a socialist that
1:56:15wins. So
1:56:17>> I mean there's a lot of runway between
1:56:18here and there.
1:56:20>> And look I mean I want to talk about the
1:56:22the profound frontiers in front of us
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
1:56:30golden age hypothesis that we're
1:56:33entering this golden age and people
1:56:35don't realize we're in it. that AI
1:56:38unleashes this capacity for human
1:56:40advancement. So the the the age reversal
1:56:44stuff. Right now we have a billion
1:56:45people in the world that are starving.
1:56:47We have hundreds of millions of people
1:56:48dying from curable disease. I think
1:56:51these are the sorts of things that are
1:56:52going to get resolved more quickly than
1:56:54we realize. I think that the
1:56:56productivity gains that are going to
1:56:57arise from AI are not just going to kind
1:56:59of, you know, be a battle on does the
1:57:02painter have a robot or not, but I think
1:57:05it's going to be about all this new
1:57:06stuff that's starting to be realized.
1:57:08Material science, it's going to have a
1:57:10profound revolution right now. Traveling
1:57:12to the moon, which might seem like a
1:57:13billionaire's fantasy, but ends up
1:57:16becoming kind of a real true industrial
1:57:19frontier that everyone's going to
1:57:20participate in. There's just
1:57:22extraordinary abundance that arises from
1:57:25the stuff. Not in the sense that, oh,
1:57:27we're just making everything that we've
1:57:28had in the past cheaper, but the stuff
1:57:30that's in front of us, the frontiers
1:57:32that all of the entrepreneurs want to
1:57:34pursue, that all of the dreamers see as
1:57:36the opportunity and the hope for
1:57:38tomorrow, 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 there's a light
1:57:47kind of rising off this horizon. And I
1:57:49feel very good about that. Maybe AOC
1:57:52gets elected. That's just my view on
1:57:53timing where we sit today
1:57:54sociopolitically. 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 profoundly optimistic.
1:58:05We kind of talked a lot about socialism
1:58:06and government spending and all this
1:58:07today, but my experience on the
1:58:10ground is just like holy And
1:58:14there's no stopping it. Like this this
1:58:16amaz these amazing breakthroughs are
1:58:17here. One of the things you learn when
1:58:19you hire lots of people is that um in
1:58:21every change or every announcement you
1:58:22make in your company or we've raised
1:58:24money or whatever it might be, there's
1:58:26an there's a second question which is
1:58:28what everyone all of your team members
1:58:29are actually asking. What does it mean
1:58:30for me?
1:58:31>> What does it mean for me?
1:58:32>> Mhm.
1:58:32>> And actually on the ground talking about
1:58:34being on the ground, it's the 63%. They
1:58:38can't they look up and they see a
1:58:40trillionaire, world's first
1:58:41trillionaire. They see AI
1:58:43>> Katy Perry with the flower out the
1:58:44window. They see a job displacement
1:58:46coming and then they go well listen
1:58:48can't can't pay the bills. So what's the
1:58:51mechanism 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>> 401ks 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>> and they can look on their phone and see
1:59:05how they're benefiting from
1:59:06>> I'll tell you everyone thinks that AI is
1:59:08going to accumulate to two or three
1:59:09companies. I don't think that's how it's
1:59:11going to play out. Everyone's using AI
1:59:13and everyone's using open source AI now.
1:59:15Meaning every company's going to benefit
1:59:16from AI, which means every company is
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 I I don't buy into the narrative
1:59:26that Dario, Elon, and Sam end up having
1:59:29all the value in AI. I think the Chinese
1:59:31blew that up. I think the open source
1:59:33stuff is the best thing to happen.
1:59:34>> Doesn't that mean there's going to be a
1:59:35bit of an e economic collapse here?
1:59:37>> Those data centers still need to exist
1:59:39to run the models. Are we in an AI
1:59:41bubble in that regard?
1:59:42>> If this this capex on AI, if the cost to
1:59:46uh run a Chinese model comes down by
1:59:49some number of fold over the cost to run
1:59:51a proprietary model, I'm going to run
1:59:54more models. I'm going to do it more.
1:59:55And as I do it more, I'm going to need
1:59:57more compute. I need more data centers.
1:59:59I need more thing to do that. So that's
2:00:02where she go. By the way, on the data
2:00:03center argument, I totally buy into
2:00:05people's concerns about data centers
2:00:06driving up the cost of energy. I the
2:00:09water thing is I think BS, but um the
2:00:12cost of energy thing, every data center
2:00:14should be on its own grid and every data
2:00:16center should make enough power not just
2:00:17to be on their own grid, but to pump
2:00:19energy back into the grid. If you set
2:00:20that as a standard for every data center
2:00:22project in the US going forward, you've
2:00:24solved the data center problem because
2:00:25now you're dropping the price of
2:00:26electricity for everyone in America and
2:00:28these data centers are all off the grid
2:00:29and then everyone can own those. They
2:00:31can all be in REITs and people can buy
2:00:32stock and and many of those are publicly
2:00:34traded so they should be in your 401k
2:00:37and everyone can 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 that you don't
2:00:49typically say out loud?
2:00:53Um, I think we should end the federal
2:00:55student loan program in the United
2:00:57States and I think education cost 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
2:01:18price will drop dramatically and more
2:01:20people will have access to higher
2:01:21quality education. I know it's
2:01:23counterintuitive, but that's what'll
2:01:25happen. It's sort of like, you know,
2:01:26Malay removed rent control in Argentina
2:01:29and rents declined. [laughter] like the
2:01:32the we've propped up the price of
2:01:33education in the US with the federal
2:01:35student loan program. And so the federal
2:01:37student loan program was replaced by a
2:01:39program that is accountable, meaning the
2:01:41person that's underwriting 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,
2:01:50the market will correct itself and
2:01:53people will end up getting a loan if
2:01:55they go to one get one degree versus
2:01:56another. So if you get another if you
2:01:58get a bad degree, you know, pick your
2:02:01basket weaving, you know, major, there's
2:02:03no loan available. But if you get a
2:02:06degree in something that might be useful
2:02:08and you're likely to get a job, there's
2:02:09a loan available.
2:02:10>> But for those people that can't get a
2:02:12loan 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
2:02:16>> else to do. So they might have to go
2:02:17work somewhere else.
2:02:18>> So the alternative was we put them in
2:02:19$200,000 of debt and then they didn't
2:02:21have a job afterwards. Is the
2:02:22counterargument also that the most
2:02:24privileged will get the best education
2:02:26and that privilege can be intellectual
2:02:28privilege or it can be financial
2:02:29privilege but there's there'll be a
2:02:30divide between okay 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
2:02:36still have scholarships and solve for
2:02:37that
2:02:37>> and education is with AI is changing as
2:02:40well
2:02:40>> but you know I'll just say like there's
2:02:42a lot of these universities that get
2:02:44accredited and they provide terrible
2:02:47education
2:02:47>> yeah it's true then just give you debt
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
2:02:59government 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
2:03:12loans. So, there's plenty of bank
2:03:13capital out there to fund student loans.
2:03:15So the student loan debt would suddenly
2:03:17become, hey, if you go to this crappy
2:03:19university, 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 used as
2:03:29an example. 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.
2:03:38>> 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 because I don't think
2:03:42you can reform federal student loans.
2:03:43It's just too complicated. But if you
2:03:45shut it down the and you know or you
2:03:47transition it over time and let the
2:03:48private market underwrite it, you'd have
2:03:51a better path.
2:03:52>> David, thank you. Thank you. Thank you
2:03:54to you and all your co-hosts on the
2:03:55All-In podcast. It's one of my favorite
2:03:56podcasts. So, I highly recommend
2:03:57everybody goes and listens to that. I I
2:03:59listen 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
2:04:05that amongst your very busy schedules.
2:04:06>> Well, thank you for having me
2:04:08>> and uh yeah, appreciate you coming here
2:04:09today and hopefully we can continue this
2:04:11conversation once uh we get more of
2:04:12these answers and the fog clears a
2:04:14little bit. 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 ends really where I'm at.
2:04:22>> Okay.
2:04:23>> Yeah.
2:04:23>> Anywhere else follow you on social
2:04:24media.
2:04:25>> Follow me on uh Twitter at Freedberg. I
2:04:26don't post very much, but that's it. I
2:04:29[laughter] mean, um that's where I'm at.
2:04:31>> Great. We'll see you then. 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.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Top White House Advisor: The US Empire Is Declining And Socialism Is Coming Next! | David Friedberg by The Diary Of A CEO, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 27,781 words across 4,049 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 translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

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, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.