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

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

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4049 segments

0:00

It's inevitable that socialism will

0:01

happen in America, but I don't want to

0:02

lose my agency, my liberty, my freedom.

0:04

>> Do you think the US as an empire is in

0:06

decline?

0:06

>> The answer is yes. I was appointed to

0:08

President Trump's Council of Adviserss

0:10

in Science and Technology. And one of

0:12

the great lies is that the government

0:14

will save you. But the more government

0:16

has tried to create services for people

0:18

and help bring them up the ladder, the

0:20

more expensive those things get. [music]

0:21

63% of Americans live paycheck to

0:24

paycheck. People can't afford to pay

0:25

their bills and it needs to be fixed.

0:27

What will ultimately happen? So, all my

0:29

politician friends are about to chop my

0:31

head off about this, but

0:33

>> David Freeberg, what is the most

0:34

important subject of our time?

0:36

>> AI. We're entering this golden age, and

0:38

people don't realize we're in it. And I

0:39

don't buy into the narrative that

0:40

Daario, Elon, and Sam [music] end up

0:42

having all the value in AI because in

0:44

the next 10 years, there will be a

0:45

billionaire that will emerge that has

0:47

zero net worth today, downloaded open

0:49

sourced AI, and built a company that

0:50

made them a billionaire. And they're

0:51

going to be someone that's going to come

0:52

from nowhere. And there's going to be a

0:54

lot of these sorts of stories.

0:55

>> But this narrative that AI will take

0:56

jobs [music] away, you don't believe it.

0:58

So from data, from evidence over all

1:00

periods of technological [music]

1:01

revolution like this, we've never seen

1:03

jobs decline. And the average person

1:05

doesn't see it. But oh my god, the stuff

1:07

we can do is unbelievable. Right now we

1:08

have a billion people in [music] the

1:09

world that are starving. We have

1:10

hundreds of millions dying from curable

1:12

disease. These are the sorts of things

1:13

that are [music] going to get resolved

1:14

because AI unleashes this capacity for

1:18

human advancement and it's transforming

1:19

every aspect of biology and our

1:21

understanding of life sciences.

1:22

>> So I wanted to ask you, do you think

1:24

we're going to be able to live forever

1:25

soon? The truth is

1:30

>> this is super interesting to me. My team

1:32

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Please help us. Really appreciate it.

2:20

Let's get on with the show. [music]

2:25

David Freeberg, you're someone that

2:26

graces lots of different subjects. If

2:28

you were to sort of self-define who you

2:30

are and what you do, now this is

2:34

difficult because you've got to kind of

2:35

put yourself in a label here. What would

2:36

that label be? How would you

2:38

self-categorize yourself?

2:39

>> I would say I'm deeply curious about the

2:42

world and the universe and how it works

2:44

and why it works the way it does. And

2:46

I'm a big believer in human agency to

2:49

affect the universe around us. And

2:51

that's kind of my core kind of driving

2:53

motivation. A lot of the other stuff

2:55

ancillary is about how do you enable

2:56

that?

2:57

>> And I think that that's sort of probably

2:59

where I also spend some time is in the

3:02

enablement of those things.

3:03

>> Got a nice cute photo here of that kid

3:05

that wanted to be Einstein.

3:07

>> Yeah.

3:07

>> And then as it relates to how that

3:08

manifested into like a professional

3:10

journey, what's your professional

3:11

journey been for anyone that might not

3:12

know? I started in college majoring in

3:15

math and physics and then I changed my

3:17

major to astrophysics and it was during

3:19

the time I was in college is when

3:21

the.com boom happened in the heart of

3:22

Silicon Valley. There was a kid in my

3:24

dorm room who started a website selling

3:27

DVDs online and he sold it for a million

3:30

dollars in our junior year of college.

3:31

That was like an unbelievable

3:33

unfathomable amount of money. And so

3:35

there was this change that was happening

3:37

in the world. And I got enamored with

3:38

this idea of businesses and how do you

3:40

use businesses to change the world, not

3:42

just use scientific discovery as a

3:44

method to change the world. So I decided

3:46

to go work in Silicon Valley. I

3:48

interviewed for jobs. I didn't get a lot

3:50

of offers, but I played a lot of poker

3:52

during uh my college days. It's how I

3:55

was able to make money. I read all the

3:57

strategy books on playing poker. I

3:58

actually spent a year working in a pool

4:00

hall and the manager of the pool hall

4:01

and the bookie invited me to their home

4:04

poker game. Took all my money that I

4:05

made at the pool hall. I was making four

4:06

bucks an hour, 425 an hour. And so I was

4:08

like, I'm going to learn poker. So I

4:09

learned it. That's how I made money. And

4:11

I put that on my resume when I applied

4:12

for jobs after college. And I got

4:14

interviews with investment banks. And

4:15

the investment banks were like, oh, we

4:17

want to talk to a kid that knows how to

4:18

play poker. Cuz this was before internet

4:20

poker, before ESPN poker. So it was like

4:22

an interesting thing. And so I ended up

4:24

getting a job working in investment

4:25

banking and then worked in on tech

4:27

companies. So then I got to learn

4:29

business, finance, accounting, mergers

4:30

and acquisitions, all this sort of

4:32

stuff. And then I ended up working at

4:33

Google. I worked at Google when it was

4:35

started when it was a just under a

4:36

thousand employees and I left a couple

4:39

years later started a business uh called

4:41

the climate corporation and so I've been

4:42

in Silicon Valley my whole career

4:45

>> and that company you end up starting

4:47

does pretty well

4:48

>> the climate corporation

4:49

>> the climate corporation

4:50

>> that one we sold in 2013 so we sold it

4:53

for a little over a billion dollars

4:55

which was a great outcome for investors

4:57

and shareholders and today you know it's

5:00

software for farmers

5:01

>> and today that software is now owned by

5:03

Bayer which is the big kind of pharma/ag

5:06

company. Uh it's used across 200 million

5:09

acres every year. That's a pretty

5:11

sizable amount of farmland that uses

5:12

that software still. So yeah, it's it's

5:14

done fairly well.

5:15

>> So I'm 33 now. You were 33 when you sold

5:17

that?

5:18

>> I was 33.

5:19

>> 33. A lot of money, 1.1 billion. And

5:22

you've done lots of other things since

5:23

then, which we can go into. But you've

5:25

also, I think from March this year, you

5:27

were appointed as an adviser to Donald

5:28

Trump. Yeah, I was appointed to

5:30

President Trump's Council of Adviserss

5:32

in Science and Technology. And

5:33

>> what does that mean in reality?

5:35

>> So, if you look back in the last couple

5:37

administrations, there have been

5:39

different themes over time on who is

5:42

appointed to PCAST. In historical

5:45

context, like Bill Clinton had a PCAST

5:47

that was set up just for the internet.

5:48

>> Pcast,

5:49

>> president's council of adviserss in

5:50

science and technology.

5:52

>> And so, he set one up focused on the

5:54

internet. And this current pcast under

5:56

this administration is heavy in AI. So

5:58

it's like Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Andre,

6:01

Sergey Brin, that that's kind of the

6:02

cohort that's on this advisory council,

6:05

but it's always included folks that are

6:06

involved in things like biotechnology,

6:09

sciences, and to help guide science

6:11

policy for the administration. So it

6:13

involves having conversations with

6:14

people in the administration on things

6:16

that are happening in industry, things

6:17

that are happening on the frontiers of

6:19

science and technology to help guide

6:20

some of the policy decisions that the

6:23

administration is trying to create or

6:25

enforce. And what is the most important

6:27

subject of our time?

6:28

>> AI. And right now the big question in

6:32

the United States from a policy

6:34

perspective seems to be the regulation

6:36

of AI. What role should the government

6:40

play in determining where AI goes, how

6:44

it gets built, how it gets deployed, who

6:46

gets to use it, who owns it, where the

6:48

value lies. a lot of these factions that

6:51

emerge inside a government even today on

6:53

the same political party on whether or

6:55

not for example to allow Chinese open-

6:57

source models to be used by American

6:59

businesses. You know these

7:01

[clears throat] Chinese models are as

7:02

good as or in many cases better than

7:05

private American models and because

7:07

they're open weights you can download

7:08

them and run them on any computer you

7:10

want that works. A lot of companies want

7:12

to use those because they're cheap.

7:13

there you can pay effectively 50 cents

7:16

for a million tokens of output which is

7:18

a measure of how productive the model

7:21

is. You know this is a a token is kind

7:22

of like a word versus $50 from anthropic

7:25

which is a private model. So the

7:27

question is do we allow these Chinese

7:29

models to kind of become ubiquitous in

7:33

industry and if so what does that do to

7:36

American AI? What does that do to our

7:38

capacity to compete?

7:41

Is there security risk? Uh so there's a

7:43

lot of this kind of debate underway. Uh

7:45

and that I think is probably the hot

7:47

topic dour. I don't know if it's the hot

7:49

topic tomorrow, but today that's kind of

7:52

the big thing. But all of this this

7:53

administration I think from a science

7:55

and technology policy perspective will

7:57

probably be viewed as on the one hand

8:00

what's the enablement acceleration

8:03

regulation of AI and on the other hand

8:06

you know there's this question still on

8:08

what is science today in an era of AI

8:11

science is also changing and so there's

8:13

this kind of I think big shift underway

8:16

>> we'll go into those subjects

8:17

specifically the subjects on AI and

8:18

everything that it interfaces with but I

8:20

think it's important also to get kind of

8:22

like a a backdrop of the economic state

8:26

and like the social state of the nation

8:28

because all of these things feed into

8:30

these big questions on AI and they also

8:32

inform everyone's biases on this subject

8:34

because if you're at a different sort of

8:36

socioeconomic position or if you're

8:38

feeling a different thing your

8:39

perspective on AI is going to be

8:40

radically different. So if we started

8:42

then first on like if we just focus on

8:44

the United States which mean in some

8:45

respects is a little bit of a proxy for

8:46

the rest of the western world. Where is

8:49

the United States at at this moment in

8:51

time in terms of is it on the rise

8:53

inequality? What are the what are the

8:55

sort of pertinent factors here that help

8:57

us understand the backdrop of this

8:58

nation?

8:59

>> The biggest drivers for this nation at

9:01

the moment in terms of what public

9:03

policy and private markets will do is

9:06

number one the unaffordability crisis.

9:09

>> What does that mean?

9:10

>> 63% of Americans live paycheck to

9:12

paycheck. They don't have enough savings

9:14

to pay for a fiscal emergency in their

9:16

household. 63% of Americans and the cost

9:19

of things is rising faster than wages

9:22

are increasing. So things feel less

9:24

affordable to most Americans. And then

9:28

there's this wealth inequality concern

9:31

which I would say is both kind of a

9:34

perception issue. There's definitely

9:36

policy issues that has allowed it to

9:38

happen and we can talk about those. But

9:40

I think America is in this kind of

9:42

crisis of classism, this crisis of us

9:47

versus them. And it manifests in a lot

9:49

of different ways. So, you know, you had

9:51

Ray Dalio on, and if you think about Ray

9:53

Dalio's kind of like cycle of empires,

9:55

you know, this is this idea that there's

9:57

been six empires in the last 500 years

9:59

and the United States is on the decline

10:01

and China's on the rise. And it can be

10:03

measured across a number of different

10:04

dimensions. One of which is this crisis

10:07

of internal struggle which manifests

10:09

often with external struggle, the Iran

10:12

war. Like why can't we stop having

10:13

external wars? Well, you know, a nation

10:15

that's happy with itself generally

10:17

doesn't go to war. A nation that's not

10:19

happy generally does go to war. And so,

10:22

um, a lot of this stuff gets tied up, I

10:24

think, in this economic distress that

10:26

the United States is feeling. My

10:28

contention

10:30

which may not be very popular is that

10:33

the more government has tried to uh

10:36

create services for people and help

10:38

bring them up the ladder the more

10:39

expensive those things get

10:41

>> i.e. socialism

10:43

>> policy in the United States and this is

10:45

one of the great lies and I think

10:46

there's a series of great lies in US

10:49

policy over the last half century but

10:51

one of the great lies is that the

10:53

government will save you the government

10:55

will help you by giving you these

10:58

essential services that you want more of

11:01

education healthcare housing and as the

11:04

government has entered into those

11:06

markets because remember there are

11:07

people making those things offering

11:08

those services and there's someone

11:10

paying for it so as the government

11:11

enables more money to flow into those

11:13

markets, the cost of those things has

11:15

just gone up. And you can see how this

11:17

plays out, for example, in education. So

11:19

higher education, if you want to go to

11:20

college in the United States, and I'll

11:22

just give you a statistic. 30 years ago,

11:24

administrative staff were like 10% of

11:26

colleges. Today, they're like 60%. In

11:28

just 30 years, give me a rational reason

11:31

why we should have 6x the administrative

11:33

staffing at colleges and universities.

11:34

There isn't a good reason why. The real

11:37

reason is that because the federal

11:39

student loan program doesn't

11:40

discriminate against a university on how

11:42

well they do with their graduating

11:44

students or the degree or the individual

11:46

that's taking out the loan. The federal

11:48

student loan program has just allowed

11:49

more money to flow in to universities.

11:51

Now, if you're a university

11:52

administrator, there's no constraint on

11:54

how much you can charge for tuition. So,

11:56

hey, we'll raise tuition 5% this year.

11:58

We'll raise it 8%. We'll raise it 10%.

12:00

And we'll hire more people. And if

12:01

people hire more people, they get a

12:03

higher salary. If you think about the

12:04

individual, I don't get to make more

12:05

salary until I'm a manager. Now I want

12:07

to be a director. Now I want to be a

12:08

senior director and the organization

12:10

grows. That's very natural for any

12:12

organization whether it's a nonprofit, a

12:14

university or a private company. You

12:16

want to grow and people want to make

12:17

more money year after year. So they

12:19

because they can collect more money can

12:21

charge more for tuition. There isn't a

12:23

natural market force that says your

12:25

tuition is too high now because the

12:27

government has provided unlimited

12:29

funding to higher education through the

12:31

federal student loan program. So, as a

12:33

result, education has gotten so vastly

12:35

expensive that everyone now looks at it

12:37

and says, "We got to do something about

12:38

this." And both parties seem to say,

12:40

"Well, here's what the government's

12:41

going to do to do more." And it's like

12:42

putting fuel on the fire. So, the

12:43

challenge right now is people are

12:45

feeling left behind. There's massive

12:47

wealth inequality. Things are extremely

12:49

unaffordable. And the solution that's

12:52

being embraced is for the government to

12:54

do more, which the facto leads to

12:56

socialism. What is wrong with socialism?

12:59

I would argue that the key measure of a

13:03

country's success is how many people are

13:05

transitioning from labor to capital each

13:07

year.

13:08

>> What does that mean?

13:08

>> That means every year I'm working

13:10

paycheck to paycheck. I'm collecting

13:11

check. I I I I graduated college. I had

13:13

$19,000 in debt. I went and worked. I

13:17

got paid. I saved up. I paid down my

13:19

debt. I was able to get out of it. Then

13:20

I worked at Google. We had an IPO.

13:22

Suddenly I had assets. I had stuff. I

13:25

had money in the bank account. And it

13:27

was like an incredible moment for me.

13:29

And I said, I could live off that money.

13:31

I don't need to live off a paycheck

13:33

every month. I now have savings. I have

13:35

assets. That is capital. And everyone

13:39

talks about capital versus labor. But

13:42

the real advantage of America is

13:43

enabling people to go from labor to

13:45

capital. Every individual that works,

13:48

saves, invests, does whatever they need

13:51

to do to accumulate enough capital ends

13:53

up in the capital bucket. And then

13:54

you're no longer stuck needing to go

13:56

paycheck to paycheck to pay your bills.

13:58

That's the dream. That's the real

13:59

American dream. It's not just about

14:01

owning a house. If you own a house and

14:02

you own a have a bunch of debt and you

14:04

got insurance payments to make and you

14:05

still got to work every month to make

14:07

those payments, you're not necessarily

14:09

living the American dream yet. The

14:10

American dream is being freed of that

14:12

burden

14:13

>> because you can live off the interest of

14:15

your assets.

14:16

>> That's right. And so you're earning

14:17

income. You like, let's say you have

14:19

$100,000,

14:20

you know, saved and you can make 10% a

14:22

year on that. That's 10,000 bucks.

14:24

Suddenly, if you get to a million dollar

14:25

saved, you can make $100,000 a year and

14:27

you can live on that. That's economic

14:29

security. That's financial security.

14:31

That's what we should give to every

14:32

American is the ability to own assets

14:34

that give them freedom to choose what

14:36

they want to do in their life rather

14:37

than be stuck in work. And the problem

14:39

with socialism is it takes away that

14:41

transition moment. It eliminates it

14:43

because it says everyone has to be labor

14:44

all the time for the rest of their

14:46

lives. And then no one has freedom. And

14:47

that's what America was founded on was

14:49

this ability to find through freedom of

14:51

choice, through agency, the ability to

14:53

transition from labor to capital. And I

14:56

think our goal as a country should be

14:58

get 2% of Americans across that line

15:01

every year, then I think we'll be

15:02

successful going forward. But if

15:05

everything's all about like give people

15:06

more stuff and have the government do

15:08

it, we're just going to keep raising the

15:09

debt, making things more expensive,

15:11

inflating the cost away, and it's

15:13

inevitable that socialism will happen in

15:14

America. It's absolutely inevitable. Do

15:16

you think the US as an empire is in

15:18

decline

15:19

>> in terms of the power of the dollar in

15:23

terms of prosperity of Americans? The

15:25

average American or majority of

15:26

Americans the answer is yes. But um the

15:30

potential hasn't been deleted meaning

15:32

decline is not inevitable to be very

15:35

clear like we are not yet at a point

15:38

where it's a runaway train. In the

15:40

history of democracies, there's never

15:42

been a place like America where an

15:44

individual like myself, you know, moving

15:46

here from South Africa, going to public

15:48

college, graduating with debt, and then

15:50

being able to work my way out of the

15:51

debt and find myself in the position I'm

15:53

in today with no nepotism, with no

15:55

handouts, with I mean, you could argue

15:57

about privilege and all these other

15:58

sorts of things that I was vested over

16:00

my life. But like, it's an amazing place

16:02

that that sort of story can be told a

16:04

million times over, that there's not

16:06

just one or two people that this has

16:07

happened to, but there's millions of

16:08

people. The problem is it's all the

16:10

other hundreds of millions that didn't

16:11

get to live that opportunity. And if we

16:14

can fix that, America is not in decline.

16:16

America is a prosperous nation and has

16:19

centuries ahead of it.

16:20

>> When you look at this, you're talking

16:21

about runaway trains. When you look at

16:23

the national debt, though, it does look

16:24

very much like a runaway.

16:26

>> Want to know where inflation comes from?

16:27

That's where inflation comes from. By

16:29

printing more dollars to pay for that

16:30

debt, which is what happens, the Federal

16:32

Reserve buys the debt and they issue

16:34

dollars to the bank system to to buy the

16:36

debt from the government. Remember, the

16:38

Federal Reserve is separate from the

16:39

government. So, the Federal Reserve can

16:41

print dollars. They can send dollars to

16:42

banks and now the banks can loan money

16:45

out and it makes its way into the

16:46

economy. Now, there's more dollars in

16:47

the economy and that money was, you

16:50

know, owed back to the government at

16:52

some point, but the Federal Reserve may

16:53

never get paid back. They may just keep

16:54

adding and adding and adding and adding

16:56

and they're just printing more and more

16:58

dollars.

16:58

>> Is that sustainable?

16:59

>> No.

17:00

>> So, so I I don't understand the force

17:01

that's going to intervene to stop this

17:03

sort of compounding debt.

17:05

>> The outcome of this is socialism. That's

17:07

the moment we're in right now. That's

17:08

why we're seeing this wave of socialism.

17:09

I've been saying for five years, we're

17:11

going to face a wave of socialism. And

17:13

after Donald Trump was elected, my

17:15

prediction for the next year was that

17:17

the next wave in politics in America

17:19

will be socialism. And people thought I

17:20

was crazy. And I'm like, it is

17:21

absolutely inevitable. If you look at

17:23

this, this is where we're headed. It it

17:26

is deacto socialism when the government

17:28

employs roughly 1/ half of the people of

17:30

the United States. Right now, if you

17:32

look at all the federal, state, local

17:34

agencies, so the people that are

17:36

employed, the people that are

17:37

contractors of those agencies, and then

17:40

um the people that live off of uh some

17:42

sort of government pension or social

17:43

security system, the total amount is

17:45

close to 50% of Americans. So, we're

17:47

getting to a point where people are

17:48

like, the only place I can go is more

17:50

money from the government. And then

17:51

eventually the government becomes the

17:53

whole economy.

17:54

>> If the outcome of socialism was the

17:55

cause, capitalism,

17:56

>> it's a great question. I think it was

17:58

capitalism plus policies. Let's say you

18:00

have a million dollars.

18:00

>> Yeah. you're making, say, 10% a year.

18:04

Next year you have $1.1 million. The

18:07

next year you have $1.21 million or

18:10

whatever. And you keep adding it up.

18:12

That's called compounding. After a

18:14

couple of years, your million dollars

18:15

turns into $10 million.

18:17

>> And you never have to sell shares along

18:18

the way. You can just own the shares and

18:20

whatever's going up. Your value just

18:21

keeps going up. You've never paid taxes

18:23

along the way. Boom, boom, boom, boom,

18:24

boom. And suddenly, fast forward a

18:26

couple years, instead of having a

18:27

million, you've now got 10. That's

18:29

capital compounding over time.

18:32

Meanwhile, if you're working, every

18:35

paycheck, taxes are taken out. Every

18:37

time you get a check, every time you get

18:38

more money, more capital, taxes are

18:40

taken out. So, if you don't get capital,

18:43

if you don't get enough savings to allow

18:45

you to compound, you are never going to

18:47

get there. So, from a tax policy

18:50

perspective, labor working for your

18:52

money should have never been taxed

18:54

higher than earning returns on your

18:57

capital. So you're saying tax the rich?

18:59

>> I'm saying tax capital at a rate that's

19:02

equivalent to labor.

19:03

>> Wealth taxes.

19:05

>> Wealth taxes are asset seizures.

19:06

Definitely no. So one of the principles

19:09

of the United States and the principle

19:10

of what this country was founded on is

19:12

private property rights. If you go back

19:14

to England, right, like 500 years or

19:18

like let's just do let's just talk

19:19

Europe broadly. There were very few

19:21

places where you as an individual

19:24

citizen had rights to own private

19:25

property. There were very few places

19:27

where you could say I have this thing

19:28

and it doesn't belong to the king or it

19:31

doesn't belong to whatever the local

19:33

lord is. Like everything was the

19:35

property of the lords of the higher

19:37

class of the upper class. It was endowed

19:39

to them as vested to them by birthright

19:41

for centuries. Same in Asia, same in the

19:44

Middle East, same in Africa. I mean like

19:46

every nation started out with this

19:48

system where people didn't have rights

19:50

to private property. Those who had kind

19:51

of these systems above could decide who

19:54

got what. So the United States was

19:55

founded on one of the principles of

19:57

private property for an individual that

19:58

you you know I think when they were

20:00

drafting the Declaration of Independence

20:01

it was about life liberty and the

20:03

pursuit of property and they later

20:04

changed it to pursuit of happiness and

20:07

the pursuit of property was really the

20:09

measure of what you've accumulated as an

20:10

individual. You now have a right to

20:12

accumulate things. You now have a right

20:13

to build value to build wealth to build

20:15

a house and and have your family in your

20:17

house and have all these things. That

20:19

was a principle of the United States.

20:21

I'm all for taxes when people transact.

20:24

When they turn their stock that they've

20:25

held for a couple years into cash and

20:27

buy something with it, boom, tax. You

20:29

get taxed on that. If that's the right

20:30

model, that's when you should get taxed,

20:32

right? Then when you're able to turn

20:33

that asset that you own into another

20:35

asset. So that's what we do today.

20:37

That's an income tax or a capital gains

20:40

tax, like when you realize that gain.

20:41

But if I go into your shares and I'm

20:43

like, "Hey, I'm going to take 5% of your

20:44

shares." What are you losing? Well, you

20:47

can't use those shares to buy anything

20:48

because if as soon as you try and buy

20:50

something, you owe tax on those shares.

20:52

So, by taking away your shares before

20:53

you've actually transacted with them,

20:55

before you've actually sold them, or

20:56

taking away your private property, your

20:58

home, or giving the government the right

20:59

to come in your garage and audit

21:01

everything you own, and say, "Hey, this

21:02

year we're doing a 2% tax that is

21:05

antithetical to what the United States

21:06

was founded on, which was a founding

21:07

principle of private property." Now, if

21:09

your property goes up in value, and then

21:11

you eventually turn it into some other

21:13

property, that's a transaction. And

21:15

that's when you get taxed. That's how

21:16

the system's set up. So if we have an

21:18

issue with people having too much

21:19

wealth, that's the moment to increase

21:21

the tax rate. That's capital gains tax,

21:23

income tax on high earners. Those two

21:26

things can get you 97% of the way there.

21:28

And you're not really going to gain

21:29

much. You know, separately, we can kind

21:31

of talk about the numbers on this, but

21:32

like tax the rich, all for it, but tax

21:36

the rich when they transact, when they

21:37

sell, when they when they have a capital

21:39

gain, if they borrow against their

21:40

assets. This is another thing that's

21:42

that's wrong about our system today. If

21:44

I'm very wealthy, I own a bunch of stock

21:46

and I've never sold any of the stock. If

21:49

I borrow against my stock to go buy a

21:51

yacht, I don't pay taxes.

21:54

That should be a taxable event. We

21:55

should fix that. That's an easy fix in

21:57

the tax system. I'm not taking away your

21:59

private property, but as soon as you

22:01

borrow against that, it's effectively

22:02

like transacting on that property. So,

22:04

that's a moment to pay a tax. And if we

22:07

think that the rich aren't paying enough

22:08

taxes, you can raise income tax or

22:10

capital gains taxes to get them to pay

22:12

more. This is what I was going to say,

22:13

but you you arrived at it was most

22:15

people that own stock in big companies

22:18

will just borrow against their stock and

22:20

they never pay a tax.

22:21

>> I didn't know this until I was I'm going

22:23

to say 26. And my company had gone

22:25

public and the this bank in Europe

22:27

approached me and said, "By the way,

22:29

we'll give you 20% of whatever your your

22:32

the value of the stock you have in my

22:34

company called Ocean AG

22:36

>> is a tax-free loan." I was like,

22:38

"Explain this to me."

22:39

So, you'll just send me millions of

22:41

pounds 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

22:46

portfolio." And I had some Facebook

22:47

stock at the time. They're like, "We'll

22:48

give you 50% to 60% loan to value on

22:51

that. I.e., if you have a million

22:53

dollars of Facebook stock, we will

22:54

transfer you today 700 grand taxree and

22:58

I can do without whatever I want." I

22:59

thought, "Fucking hell, this is what the

23:00

rich do."

23:01

>> That's exactly right. And the truth is

23:04

that no one talks about behind closed

23:06

doors. Everyone knows that it needs to

23:07

change,

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

23:13

that I have 10 million of Facebook stock

23:15

and I I take a loan and they give me 5

23:17

million in cash. What a rich person then

23:19

does is they take that 5 million and

23:20

they go and buy other assets.

23:21

>> Exactly. Right.

23:22

>> And then they start acquiring more and

23:23

more assets. That's what's unfair about

23:25

the system because then when you have

23:26

capital, you're accumulating more

23:28

capital while labor, if you haven't made

23:30

that cross that chasm from labor to

23:32

capital, you're still here grinding

23:34

every month, grinding every week, trying

23:35

to pay your freaking bills, and then

23:37

these guys have all these shenanigans

23:38

that are going on. Yeah,

23:39

>> it is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

23:42

The answer though is not taking private

23:44

property. As soon as you start taking

23:46

private property, those gates are open.

23:48

By the way, it's not even going to be

23:49

constitutional in the United States. The

23:50

fifth amendment has this taker clause.

23:52

you know, it's not it's legally like not

23:54

going to win in federal court. It could

23:55

work in some states. Some states there's

23:58

seven states that actually have a

23:59

constitutional ban on private property

24:01

tax like this. There's uh you know 43

24:04

states where it's game on and we'll see

24:06

how they play out in the courts as they

24:08

try to pass these wealth taxes as well.

24:09

But these are asset seizure taxes there.

24:11

You you can have a wealth tax by raising

24:13

capital gains, make high income or high

24:16

asset people pay more taxes or whatever

24:18

when they sell stuff or when they buy

24:19

stuff. There's a lot of ways to tax

24:21

wealth. But taking assets from people

24:25

after they've paid their taxes or before

24:27

they've paid their taxes is not the

24:29

right way to do it.

24:30

>> What will ultimately happen?

24:31

>> So the ultimate outcome will be that 51%

24:34

of people will say, "Hey, give me all

24:36

the stuff that the 49% have." What would

24:38

stop them from doing that? Because

24:40

ultimately you can take as much as you

24:42

want from a minority of people and

24:44

distribute it to the majority. And that

24:46

minority starts out with a few

24:47

billionaires, then a couple more 50

24:49

millionaires, then a couple more 10

24:50

millionaires, then millionaires, then

24:52

100,000. And there's no limit to where

24:54

this thing goes. And that is socialism.

24:56

>> And what what does that do in terms of

24:58

how talent moves

25:01

>> and how people, you know, move to

25:03

different places.

25:04

>> I know billionaires.

25:07

>> Yeah.

25:07

>> Many of them have moved or are planning

25:09

to move out of California. Yeah.

25:10

>> Just on the threat of this.

25:12

>> And [clears throat] people say, "F them.

25:13

Good riddance. Get rid of them. You

25:16

know, the top 1% of taxpayers in

25:18

California pay the majority of taxes in

25:20

the state. I think it's probably it's

25:22

definitely north of 40%, but it's

25:24

probably the majority.

25:25

>> The top 1% of earners pay 40 to 50% of

25:28

California's total personal income tax

25:30

depending on stock market capital gains

25:32

performance.

25:32

>> There you go. So, that 1% are the people

25:35

I'm talking about that are leaving the

25:36

state because they see where this is

25:38

headed. I don't think California wants

25:40

that. [laughter]

25:41

Those are very productive people for the

25:43

state. They're people that create

25:45

companies that hire people that pay

25:47

well, go to fancy restaurants, pay for

25:50

cars. I mean, they support the economy.

25:51

It's not just the taxes, but they're a

25:53

big part of capital flowing through the

25:55

economy. We saw this happen in France.

25:57

You know, France had this wealth tax and

25:59

then their total tax revenue declined by

26:01

more than they were making on the wealth

26:02

tax because everyone left France. Then

26:04

they stopped doing the wealth tax and

26:06

everyone came back and the income came

26:08

back. So, this is a wellstudied kind of

26:09

case. So, I don't think that a wealth

26:11

tax or an asset seizure tax is the

26:13

solution. I think we've got to fix all

26:14

the other stuff that we've talked about

26:16

and we've got to fix the government

26:17

spending problem. And if we can do those

26:19

two things, then I think we can bring

26:21

inflation down. We can bring the wealth

26:22

inequality down and give more people the

26:24

ability to make that transition. But I

26:26

do think every politician should be

26:27

talking about the focus on what percent

26:29

of people in the United States every

26:30

year are moving from labor to capital.

26:32

How many people can say, "Hey, I've got

26:34

enough cash to retire if I wanted to."

26:36

That's what we want to try and get

26:37

everyone towards. Not just convincing

26:39

people, and this is one of the great

26:40

lies, convincing everyone that the great

26:42

American dream is to own a house. When

26:44

owning a house for a lot of Americans

26:46

ends up putting all your capital in one

26:48

asset, and you've got to basically get

26:50

the price of housing to go up every year

26:52

to keep everyone moving up the ladder.

26:54

So now, fast forward 30, 40, 50 years,

26:56

young people can't afford to buy a house

26:58

anymore because we've pushed the asset

26:59

value up so much to try and make sure

27:01

that everyone's got good good household

27:03

wealth. We are told that I mean that's

27:04

the sort of central idea once you leave

27:06

university is to figure out how quickly

27:08

you can get a mortgage or buy a house.

27:09

>> Great lie. It's one of the great lies.

27:11

And there's a lot of countries where

27:12

people have been able to accumulate

27:13

capital and jump that that ravine from

27:16

labor to capital much more quickly when

27:18

they don't buy a house because they can

27:19

invest in stuff. They can buy, you know,

27:21

the the S&P 500 which you can just buy

27:23

on an Erade or Robin Hood account and

27:25

you can just own it on average will make

27:26

you 10 11% a year. You just put your

27:29

money in that you're making 10 11% a

27:30

year and it can go up every year and you

27:31

don't have to pay taxes. You don't have

27:32

to pay property tax. You don't have to

27:33

pay insurance. You don't have to deal

27:34

with repairs and maintenance. All that

27:36

sort of stuff. So, a lot of people would

27:38

have been better off, depending on the

27:39

markets that they're in. There's some

27:40

markets that that ballooned, but a lot

27:42

of people would have been better off

27:43

over the last 30 years, actually owning

27:45

the S&P 500 than owning their home and

27:48

paying for the rent on a home.

27:49

>> One of the things I see in the comment

27:50

section whenever someone makes that

27:51

point is you'll have someone who bought

27:53

a house 20 years ago saying, "Well,

27:55

listen, I bought a house 20 years ago

27:58

for this amount, and now it's worth

28:01

this." And this is every single time

28:02

that I see this this argument being made

28:04

from financial advisors or investors,

28:06

that is always the top comment is,

28:09

"Well, I bought one and I did good."

28:11

>> Yep. It actually indicates a problem,

28:14

which is if your house went up in price

28:16

so much, that house is much less

28:18

affordable to a young person that's

28:19

going to buy it next. And that's what we

28:22

fundamentally done with this asset

28:23

class, residential real estate. We've

28:26

created a system whereby residential

28:28

real estate prices go up so much and

28:30

there's a whole bunch of policies around

28:32

making this happen.

28:34

>> Got a graph here showing all the things

28:35

that have gone up and you can see

28:36

housing is one of them.

28:37

>> Yeah. The stuff on the bottom the

28:38

government doesn't touch. The stuff on

28:40

the top the government touches. And so

28:41

the more the government's involved, the

28:43

more expensive these things get. But all

28:45

of the policy around residential real

28:46

estate has allowed the middle class in

28:49

America, which has the majority of

28:50

wealth, and I'll give you the statistics

28:51

in a minute, to grow their asset base,

28:54

to accumulate more assets, to become

28:56

wealthier. All the boomers, they're so

28:58

wealthy because they owned all these

29:00

houses. And now young people graduating

29:02

college can't afford a house. It is a

29:04

bad fact that a lot of people got very

29:07

wealthy by owning a home because it

29:09

means that the next generation is going

29:10

to say, "I want socialism cuz I can't

29:12

afford a home." That's the moment we're

29:14

in. 40 million Americans graduated from

29:17

colleges in the United States in the

29:18

last 10 years. 45 million. So if you do

29:20

the math on this, that's a large number

29:24

of people that are now on average

29:26

encumbered with some amount of student

29:28

debt, facing a challenging job market.

29:32

And then the only way to buy a home is

29:33

you got to come up with a million bucks.

29:35

And you know, it leads to this problem

29:37

where everyone's like, "Man, I need mom

29:39

Donnie." So what would you say then to

29:41

people that are in that 62% was it

29:43

>> 63

29:44

>> 63% of people

29:45

>> and that statistic changes year to year

29:46

but that's roughly the number 63% of

29:48

Americans you know less than $500 of

29:51

savings and working paycheck to paycheck

29:53

and can't pay for a fiscal emergency.

29:56

>> So for those people the the 63%

29:59

who you're telling them that buying a

30:01

house is now like unaffordable it's and

30:03

also it's potentially not a good

30:04

investment if they're trying to sort of

30:05

cross that cousin and get over to the

30:07

side where they have assets. What would

30:09

what would your prescription be for

30:11

them? What should they do?

30:12

>> Man, that's a great question. People

30:14

will challenge it, but I would have

30:17

never thought that podcasting would be

30:20

such a massive business. I would have

30:23

never thought that being an Instagram

30:24

influencer would be such a massive

30:26

business or a Tik Tok influencer. I

30:28

would have never thought that individual

30:30

artists could publish online and make

30:32

money without getting a record deal. I

30:34

would have never thought that individual

30:35

artists would be able to sell their work

30:37

and make a living on eBay and Etsy. I

30:41

would have never thought that crafts

30:42

people would be able to find jobs

30:44

through the internet. I I think the

30:45

internet has been this incredible

30:47

enabler of millions of new ways to work,

30:50

of new ways to earn an income. And a lot

30:52

of people will roll their eyes and say,

30:54

"But that's not what the system was

30:55

supposed to have set me up for. The

30:56

system failed us." Maybe the system did

30:58

fail you. And maybe the government's

31:00

solution wasn't the right solution, but

31:02

human agency is what got all these

31:03

people there. They all got to this

31:05

place. Did the government give you your

31:06

job as a podcaster? Did the government

31:08

teach you how to podcast and build this

31:10

incredible media empire that you've

31:11

built? I don't know if the government

31:13

played much of a role in it. I think you

31:15

played the role in it. I don't know. You

31:17

tell me if I'm wrong. But I think that

31:19

this is really important for a lot of

31:21

people to observe firstly, which is the

31:22

government isn't going to save

31:24

individuals.

31:25

The government's going to make things

31:26

harder for individuals to find their

31:28

path. If I have to go and start a barber

31:30

shop, I got to go get all these

31:32

cosmetology licenses. I got to go figure

31:34

out a way to go to school, pay thousands

31:37

of dollars, get health inspections done.

31:39

There's a lot of government layers that

31:40

stop me from doing that work. There's a

31:42

lot of ways that the government actually

31:44

inhibits people's agency and makes it

31:45

harder for them to do the things that

31:47

they want to do and progress. I think

31:48

that's just fundamental for me, one of

31:50

the observable truths. But I think the

31:52

second thing is I never discount human

31:54

agency. There was this great um podcast

31:57

done years ago by those guys at the

32:00

Hoover Institute where they talked about

32:02

the success of China and a lot of

32:04

people, you know, where China grew GDP

32:07

per capita from like 3,000 to 30,000 or

32:09

whatever it was and they're like, "Man,

32:11

Chinese central planning is brilliant.

32:12

They're so good at this." And these guys

32:14

made the argument which I discounted at

32:16

the time but I often think about

32:18

nowadays that it was actually the agency

32:21

of the individual choice, the

32:24

entrepreneurship, the drive, the

32:26

motivation of the population of the

32:29

individuals in China, not central

32:31

planning, but basically the government

32:32

enabled free markets. They allowed

32:34

people to work. They allowed people to

32:36

trade. They allowed people to create

32:37

value for each other to do something

32:39

that someone else might want. They

32:40

looked around and they said, "I think

32:42

you want this." and they started making

32:43

it and when the government loosened the

32:45

shackles on individuals that population

32:47

grew the economy and the government

32:49

still has a big role in central planning

32:51

in China but it was a really important

32:53

point if you think about all the success

32:55

that's come from the United States it's

32:56

not a central message that the

32:57

government said let's do this and then

32:58

we're going to do this and we're going

32:59

to do this it's individuals making their

33:01

own choices you've seen what people want

33:03

to learn what people want to watch what

33:05

they're interested in and you give it to

33:07

them you create value for them you

33:08

deliver that value and you've you've

33:10

earned something from that people are

33:12

willing to pay for that. And I think

33:14

that that's core to kind of where we can

33:16

go from here. And I don't think we teach

33:17

it in schools. I don't think we teach it

33:20

as a value. We've lost that value of

33:22

agency. The importance of the individual

33:25

taking their own action. Every

33:26

conversation we have in every frigin

33:29

context is all about the freaking

33:31

government. Government this, do this, do

33:32

this, do this, do this. For me, what

33:35

individuals can do is limitless. And

33:37

that's where I think we fall short.

33:38

Every day someone should ask themselves,

33:41

I tell my kids this, but what did you do

33:43

today that someone else valued? And if

33:46

you focus on figuring out something that

33:47

you can do that someone else can value,

33:51

then you do that over and over again,

33:52

rinse and repeat. I think there's paths

33:55

for people.

33:55

>> So, couple of counter-arguments here.

33:57

Yeah.

33:57

>> So, we can stress test this thinking.

33:59

Um, you pointed at me and said I was,

34:00

you know, I started podcasts, I started

34:02

businesses, those businesses grew. Um,

34:04

and it was, you know, you were very

34:05

generous in giving me probably more

34:07

credit than I deserve there. But if I

34:09

was to, if I was to rebuttal that, I

34:11

would say, I was born in Africa. Would

34:13

that have been possible in Africa? Would

34:15

that have been possible in like Nigeria,

34:17

where my mother's from, or would it been

34:19

possible in Botswana where I was born?

34:22

Is it the fact that I moved to the UK

34:24

where I had this sort of foundation of

34:25

stability because of the government

34:27

where school was free for us? Healthcare

34:29

is taken care of. So I never had to

34:31

think about those things which allowed

34:33

me at 18 years old to like not go to

34:35

university, take a risk, drop out, be in

34:38

that room. No. When I was sat in that

34:40

room in Manchester, I actually at one

34:42

point printed off the jobsekers

34:43

allowance forms, which are basically the

34:45

government will give me free money if I

34:47

if I get to the point where my

34:48

shoplifting of pizzas um is no longer a

34:51

reliable way to feed myself.

34:52

>> Yeah.

34:52

>> But I had that form on my desk and it

34:54

was there. And there's maybe something

34:55

psychological about knowing that I had

34:57

this sort of like underlying safety net

34:59

where I could rush back a 300 mile round

35:01

trip to my parents in Plymouth and I

35:03

could like live in the house or I could

35:06

fill out this form, this job seekers

35:08

allowance form and they would like pay

35:09

me money that allowed me maybe at some

35:12

deeper level to go and take that risk.

35:14

And I never even realized the privilege

35:15

of like, oh, there's like healthcare and

35:18

there's laws and there's roads and

35:19

there's like this Wi-Fi thing that

35:21

allows me with this laptop in my room to

35:23

like build this website that I built.

35:25

Um, so that's the government's

35:26

involvement in my success. They gave me

35:28

this great foundation of stability and

35:29

infrastructure.

35:30

>> Great. Great role for government to

35:31

play.

35:32

>> But the problem is that's a slippery

35:34

slope, right?

35:34

>> That's right.

35:35

>> And so there's balance here. There's

35:36

nuance of like personal agency, but then

35:38

also the government, do you need to give

35:39

me 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.

35:44

And that's the slippery slope that we

35:46

end up on. And that's where I worry

35:48

about our ability to come back from that

35:50

because if you do end up with 40 50% of

35:52

Americans getting paid some check from

35:54

the government, it becomes very hard to

35:55

get off of that check. And then people

35:57

vote for that check to get bigger and

35:58

bigger.

35:59

>> The other point I wanted to point out of

36:00

maybe a counterpoint is just like, and

36:02

you know this cuz I've heard you say

36:03

this before, but like there is a

36:04

privilege that we both have in terms of

36:07

our just

36:08

>> nature. Yeah. Nature, nurture, whatever

36:10

it might be. Yeah. And I I said nature

36:13

because yeah upbringing implies that our

36:15

parents were great to us and that's what

36:16

made us whatever. But also the opposite

36:18

can be true if you think about someone

36:19

like Elon Musk. You go his dad wasn't

36:21

that nice to him. So not necessarily a

36:24

lovely upbringing but the circumstances

36:25

>> he was never without a meal and neither

36:27

was I. And I mean you know those are

36:29

important facts of privilege. the

36:31

circumstances of the of our upbringing

36:33

and maybe our nature, maybe our biology,

36:35

maybe set us up to be the certain type

36:37

of person where agency, however that's

36:39

defined. And again, I I pause there

36:42

because

36:42

>> I think you're exactly right and I think

36:43

that that's what education should be

36:45

teaching that value that that's that's

36:48

where I think this role of like what's

36:49

the role of a public school? What's the

36:52

role of this infrastructure that

36:53

government's building around us? If it's

36:56

teaching you that your next job is to

36:57

come and work for the city or come and

36:59

work for the state, it's not teaching

37:01

you that you have agency. It's not

37:03

telling you if you if it's telling you

37:05

that the only path you're going to have

37:06

coming out of this rural school is to go

37:08

work in the military, it's not teaching

37:09

you about your agency. And I'm not

37:11

saying it's wrong to do civil service or

37:12

to do military service. I think those

37:14

are very important parts of what all of

37:15

us should strive to do is to support the

37:18

government that makes our society

37:19

possible. But I think that this idea

37:22

that we should all be proposed as like

37:24

the government role, the government

37:25

path, the government work is what we

37:28

should all be stuck doing for the rest

37:29

of our lives is the wrong setup.

37:31

>> The opposite is though also probably the

37:33

wrong setup which is that we should all

37:35

start a business or become a creator.

37:36

>> I think that's a mistake too. But I

37:38

think that this idea that you can find a

37:40

path where you can provide value to

37:42

someone as part of an organization as as

37:44

an individual as a leader you can choose

37:46

your path. But the idea that you should

37:49

be accessing your capacity that you can

37:50

create value for someone else should be

37:52

the objective.

37:53

>> Do you think there's always going to be

37:55

inequality?

37:56

>> Yes. I mean it's either inequality

37:59

or it's lack of progress. I think those

38:02

are the

38:02

>> that's the dance.

38:03

>> That's the dance. So China's very good

38:05

at this. If you watch their their

38:06

policy, they just recently shifted to a

38:08

free market policy. They literally just

38:10

have like a throttle. Uh, I always

38:12

vision AI has this lever in his big room

38:16

where he goes like free market, not free

38:18

market. Like he's just kind of like

38:19

rolling it back and forth. When you have

38:22

a free market, people push the frontier.

38:24

They discover new things. They make new

38:26

things that have never been done before.

38:27

They create new value and the economy

38:30

grows. The problem is it doesn't grow

38:32

evenly initially. So like let's say that

38:34

you came up with a goose that lays

38:36

golden eggs and AI

38:38

>> AI and you've got this technology

38:41

And this technology is making golden

38:43

eggs. And you're getting very wealthy

38:44

with these golden eggs. And then that

38:46

goose makes two geese and three geese

38:47

and four. It starts breeding and you

38:49

start selling the goose. And it takes a

38:51

number of years before everyone has a

38:53

golden goose. During that time, you've

38:55

raced ahead cuz you've got now dozens of

38:57

geese making lots of golden eggs for

38:59

you. And a lot of people are like, I

39:01

want a golden goose. By the time they

39:02

get a golden goose, you've now got a

39:03

million golden geese. And it feels like

39:06

inequality. But the truth is now

39:08

everyone here has a golden goose. And if

39:10

you told them 30 years ago you would

39:11

have a golden goose, they'd be like, "No

39:12

way. That'd be amazing." So every day

39:14

they're making the golden goose, they're

39:15

printing the money, they're buying stuff

39:16

with it. That's the problem with

39:18

progress, whether it's medicine. You

39:20

know, a lot of medicines today are

39:22

million dollars a dose for like CARTT

39:23

therapies, for example. These can save

39:25

you from cancer. Only 50,000 people in

39:27

the US can get them every year. And

39:28

there's hundreds of thousands of people

39:29

that die because they don't have access

39:31

to these therapies. So it's limited in

39:33

terms of its availability. There's

39:35

technology like AI. Not everyone has

39:37

access to it. Not everyone owns a piece

39:39

of a model, etc. Not everyone's using

39:41

it, and the people that are using it are

39:42

getting ahead faster than the people

39:43

behind.

39:44

>> In your golden goose analogy, by the

39:46

time that the golden geese get down to

39:49

the sort of lower end of the

39:50

socioeconomic ladder

39:52

>> or def I would I would use the word

39:54

diffuse. Yeah.

39:55

>> Those those golden eggs or whatever, buy

39:57

less

39:58

>> because something happens along the way.

40:00

>> That's right. So along the way, the

40:01

government says, "Let's give everyone

40:02

that. Let's give everyone access to more

40:05

stuff to make up for that difference."

40:06

and then things get more expensive.

40:08

>> Is this in part because when the nation

40:10

becomes prosperous because the GDP is

40:12

high uh when you have four-year election

40:14

cycles, politicians get in by offering

40:17

you lots of free stuff. And that is the

40:19

nature of the four-year election cycle.

40:21

>> I always said the the kid that got

40:23

elected president in middle school was

40:24

the kid who said he's going to make the

40:25

vending machines free. That's always

40:26

going to be true in any election. And at

40:29

the end of the day, that's how the

40:30

system grows. We don't talk about this

40:32

fourear election thing enough as maybe

40:34

as being a bit of a causal factor that's

40:36

causing short termism amongst these

40:38

leaders where they're all just spending

40:40

more money to

40:41

>> I cannot tell you how much it drives me

40:43

nuts when I go to Washington DC and I go

40:44

to Washington DC

40:46

every couple weeks or whatever and I

40:49

meet with Congress people senators and

40:52

representatives literally all of them

40:54

just talk about getting stuff for their

40:56

constituents. Yeah, that's all that

40:57

they're there to do. just get stuff for

41:00

their people. That's their job and

41:02

that's how they get elected. And the

41:04

incentive is I'm going to get you

41:06

something. Vote for me. Now, the

41:09

founding fathers kind of had this idea

41:11

that they would rotate into public

41:13

service and rotate out and go back to

41:14

private life. There's a lot of writings

41:16

about this, you know, in the early days

41:18

of the formation of this republic. And

41:20

it was like, we should all go do our

41:21

tour of duty. We should go in. There was

41:23

never this belief that America would

41:25

evolve to a world where you have career

41:27

politicians. People that are just

41:28

constantly trying to get elected and

41:30

their job is to be a politician. It's

41:32

just such a mind-numbingly crazy idea to

41:34

think about. And all my politician

41:35

friends are about to chop my head off

41:37

about this, but I think it's nuts. I

41:39

don't think a person should be a

41:41

politician. I don't think that job title

41:43

should exist. And I'm sorry to all the

41:45

politicians out there. I think the

41:47

people that represent the people should

41:49

have the best long-term interests of the

41:50

people in mind because they should be

41:52

constrained to serving for a limited

41:54

period of time and then they go back to

41:56

private life. That means that we should

41:58

have term limits. So you should never be

42:00

able to be elected more than two terms

42:02

as a senator or you know four terms as a

42:05

representative or whatever it is. And it

42:07

should be the case that if you're in one

42:09

public office, maybe you shouldn't go

42:10

transition to other public offices under

42:12

those same limits because at the end of

42:14

the day, you have created a system

42:16

whereby you've proven that you can get

42:17

stuff for people and your job is to go

42:18

get stuff for people and that causes the

42:20

government to inflate, be mismanaged,

42:24

you know, and then there's all the

42:25

waste, fraud, and abuse stuff that

42:26

happens along the way.

42:27

>> Everything is a trade-off, right? Even

42:29

in that example, if some people did 8

42:31

years in government and they know

42:34

they're going back to private life, they

42:35

could be dealing their friends. I'm

42:38

going to do eight years in government.

42:39

I'm going to run the transportation

42:40

division. I'm going to serve some nice

42:43

benefits to my friend who runs Boeing

42:45

and then when I step back in, I'm going

42:46

to step in as the chair.

42:47

>> That's a law to make sure that doesn't

42:48

happen. And he goes to jail if that

42:50

happens. That's a pretty easy fix. You

42:52

can't buy stocks. You can't own stuff.

42:53

You can't trade. I mean, there just so

42:55

many obvious things. If you're going to

42:56

go serve in government, you can't do

42:59

stuff that you can do as a private

43:00

citizen and you shouldn't be able to

43:02

enrich yourself as a private citizen. If

43:03

you do, you should go to jail. But we

43:04

should also make sure that the incentive

43:06

structure is set up right so that good

43:07

people come and work in government and

43:09

that we have good rotation between

43:10

public and private life.

43:12

>> It's a hard problem though, this problem

43:13

of how you fix this incentive structure

43:16

so that you don't just get I mean this

43:18

stuff inevitably happens cuz we we hand

43:20

out lots of free things and we don't

43:22

think about the long-term consequences.

43:23

Has anyone fixed it globally? Is there

43:25

any nation you look at as a model for a

43:27

better

43:27

>> you know a lot of people will point to

43:28

Denmark they'll point to places like

43:31

that and say hey these guys do a great

43:32

job and you know there's a lot of public

43:34

services and people pay high taxes but

43:36

you know there's not a lot of great

43:38

progress there's no entrepreneurial

43:40

success coming out of those places what

43:43

happens in America the freedoms that

43:45

were afforded the individual agency and

43:46

liberty and rights to private property

43:49

creates an incentive structure that says

43:51

go try and do crazy stuff that could

43:53

work And if it works, there's tremendous

43:56

return. So it's worth taking the risk.

43:58

And that level of risk is what pushes

44:00

the boundaries. It's what discovered

44:02

CARTT therapy, what discovered gene

44:04

editing that can lead to curing human

44:06

diseases. It's what's discovered new

44:08

advances in agriculture, new physics,

44:10

new engineering, AI. All of these things

44:13

came from this risk-taking system that

44:15

we've set up in the United States that's

44:16

built around these individual

44:18

incentives. And it works. So you can

44:21

have great comfort for a great many

44:24

people in Denmark and people will be

44:26

very happy living there and they will

44:28

have a good life, but you will not have

44:30

progress like you have in the United

44:31

States. And we push the frontier because

44:33

we create this incentive structure and

44:35

that's where progress comes from.

44:36

>> Would you say the vast majority would

44:38

choose to live in a place like Denmark

44:41

if it, you know, I'm looking at some of

44:42

the stats here. They have higher

44:45

societal trust in government, police

44:47

institutions, and strangers. They have

44:49

standard 37hour

44:51

work weeks, 5 to six weeks of paid

44:53

vacation and cultural emphasis on

44:54

balance. They have lower ceiling of

44:56

extreme wealth but a higher floor so

44:58

less poverty and financial ruin. And

45:00

according to global happiness metrics,

45:02

Denmark consistently ranks significantly

45:03

higher than the United States. Most

45:05

people would choose that, right?

45:07

>> Absolutely.

45:08

>> So central planning, it might stop a

45:10

few, you know, very high agency

45:12

ambitious people, but the vast majority

45:14

would theoretically be happier with a

45:16

Denmark model. the vast majority maybe.

45:18

>> And do you think the vast majority of

45:19

this country actually would if there was

45:21

two buttons and they had to press they'd

45:23

press Denmark.

45:24

>> One of the things that I think makes

45:26

American culture different from Denmark

45:28

is this idea of individual progress.

45:31

So I think if you ask the majority of

45:33

people, you can have that, but you don't

45:35

get to progress. Meaning you don't get

45:37

to earn more next year and you don't get

45:39

to earn more next year. You don't have a

45:40

shot at becoming a millionaire. You

45:42

don't have a shot at building something

45:44

great. You don't have a shot at buying a

45:46

second home. You're limited. But you get

45:48

that over here. You don't get anything

45:51

guaranteed to you or you get some stuff

45:52

guaranteed to you, but you don't get

45:53

much more guaranteed to you. But you

45:56

could have the world.

45:58

You could make a million dollars. You

46:00

could own a second home. You could buy a

46:01

second car. You could pay off your kid's

46:03

college tuition debt if you earn well.

46:07

There's more options here. There's more

46:09

guaranteed here.

46:10

>> You think the 63% would pick? I think

46:13

even within the 63% there would be some

46:16

percent that would say this. But I do

46:18

think this is why we're headed the way

46:20

we're headed in the United States.

46:21

People want more of a guarantee. The

46:23

question is, do you want to maximize the

46:24

number of people that are happy or do

46:27

you want to maximize the number of

46:28

people that are truly free? And by being

46:32

truly free increases the rate of

46:34

progress across the whole population.

46:36

And that rate of progress may be

46:37

asymmetric. It may be diffuse. Starts

46:39

with some makes its way to others over

46:40

time.

46:42

I think that that's what America's

46:44

chosen to be for the last 250 years. I'm

46:46

not sure we're choosing to be that for

46:48

the next 250 based on what's going on

46:49

across the country right now.

46:50

>> Maybe because people aren't happy and

46:52

actually maybe that was always the more

46:53

important thing versus progress.

46:56

>> Important in an aggregate way. Again,

46:58

I'll come back to the individual.

47:01

We choose to live in a society because

47:02

it gives us that foundation that you

47:04

described, that ability to have the

47:06

safety, the security to take risk, to

47:09

make our own decisions, and potentially

47:11

build a media empire as you have done.

47:14

And maybe you would have been happy in

47:15

the other context where you didn't have

47:17

that, but would you have reached your

47:19

potential as a human?

47:21

>> I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would

47:22

have been happy because again, that goes

47:24

back to my own nature. It's just the way

47:26

that I am. If you put me in a room, I'll

47:27

try and create something and build

47:28

something. But I I've come to learn with

47:30

time that not everybody has that bias or

47:33

those desires. Not everybody has that

47:34

loerty trauma from their childhood of

47:36

being the only black kid in all white

47:37

area and thinking money was really

47:38

important and it was freedom and it was

47:39

selfish. Like not everybody has has

47:41

that. So I I realized that when I design

47:44

solutions, they shouldn't probably be

47:45

designed for me. Yeah. You know, it's

47:47

taken me a long time to get to that

47:48

place cuz I kind of I was very much

47:50

>> the challenge with America in this

47:53

moment is can you give what you're

47:55

describing the Denmark answer to enough

47:58

Americans without taking away the

47:59

liberty that the Americans that want to

48:01

have that liberty have today. And I'm

48:04

not sure the answer is yes. As soon as

48:06

you start taking private property from

48:07

these people, the ones that are

48:08

successful in this bucket,

48:10

>> then you're sort of taking away the

48:11

incentive for them to be in this bucket

48:13

in America.

48:14

>> And I'm seeing that.

48:15

>> Yeah. I see people want to leave and so

48:17

you're not going to solve for everyone,

48:19

but if you solve for this Denmark

48:21

solution, I think you lose a lot of

48:23

this.

48:23

>> Well, the UK is quite an interesting

48:25

example here for this very reason. I

48:27

mean, one of the big subjects of

48:28

conversation in the UK is that the the

48:30

millionaires are all leaving or at least

48:32

in high volume and they're coming to

48:34

other places. If you look at the

48:35

millionaire access maps that they

48:36

publish often, they're going to Dubai or

48:38

they're coming to America. A lot of my

48:40

friends that are building technical

48:41

companies in particular have come over

48:43

to America.

48:44

>> Yeah. for this reason.

48:45

>> Yeah.

48:46

>> And I do think we might have a little

48:48

bit of a we have a bit of a spending

48:49

problem, it seems, but also I think we

48:50

might have a bit of a productivity

48:51

problem

48:52

>> in the UK.

48:53

>> In the UK.

48:54

>> Yeah.

48:54

>> Well, do you think the productivity

48:56

problem is related to the spending

48:57

problem?

48:58

>> Oh, yes, of course.

48:59

>> Right. If you're collecting checks or

49:01

getting services provided to you, the

49:03

incentive to be more productive as an

49:06

individual goes away. But also as a

49:08

system, it becomes a lot harder to

49:10

create economic incentives for

49:12

productivity gains when tax rates are

49:14

very high and you don't actually get to

49:15

reap the benefits of the risk you take

49:16

and and so on. That's the economic

49:18

argument.

49:19

>> Listen, I've been catfished by furniture

49:21

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Hello, I wasn't able to make that

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50:24

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51:14

of does tie into the subject of

51:17

artificial intelligence and where it all

51:18

fits in part because the narrative of

51:21

artificial intelligence is that it's

51:22

about to take our jobs. And you think

51:24

about the that's why I wanted to start

51:26

with the backdrop. Think about that

51:27

backdrop of I'm already struggling. I'm

51:29

I'm in the 63% and now you're telling me

51:31

I'm going to lose this job

51:32

that's paying me and I'm already living

51:34

hand-to-mouth. And what's the offer? We

51:37

might get UBI. We might be sent checks

51:39

in the post at some point. Well,

51:40

actually, I like my job. It's a

51:41

community, a sense of purpose. It gives

51:43

me something to do. And that's the

51:45

narrative.

51:46

>> Yes, that is the narrative.

51:48

>> You don't believe the narrative.

51:50

>> I believe what everyone's feeling. But

51:53

this narrative that AI will take jobs

51:55

away, you don't believe it.

51:57

>> I recently pulled up and you you guys

51:58

can go to archive.org.

52:00

There's a Newsweek article about

52:02

computers will take all the jobs from

52:05

1963. So the main frames are what got

52:07

put in the basement in the '60s and

52:09

everyone like had to walk past the scary

52:11

mainframe on the right. It's like

52:12

blinking lights and buzzing and making

52:15

sounds. And it's like the main frame is

52:16

going to destroy all the accountant

52:18

jobs, all the typing jobs, all these

52:20

things that we all do that we get paid

52:22

to do. And I like working in my office.

52:24

I like my colleagues. I like coming in

52:25

every day having lunch. That's a good

52:27

life. This mainframe is going to ruin my

52:29

life. And so there was this effort to

52:30

legislate against these things at the

52:32

time that didn't get through in

52:33

Congress. And then in the 80s there was

52:35

another wave on computing where it was

52:37

like, hey, now we're all getting desktop

52:39

computers. it's going to replace the

52:40

workers and it's going to be a desktop

52:41

computer and a worker and like 50 people

52:43

disappear out of the the workforce. So

52:45

empirically, meaning from data, from

52:47

evidence over all periods of

52:48

technological revolution like this,

52:50

we've never seen jobs decline. We've

52:53

always seen jobs go up and we've seen

52:55

demand go up and therefore incomes rise

52:58

when new technology enters the

52:59

workforce. That's because the new

53:01

technology makes an individual more

53:02

productive so they can do more per hour

53:05

with their time and as a result they can

53:07

get paid more for doing that work. So

53:09

imagine instead of having a painter

53:10

painting a wall, what if he was in

53:12

charge of the five robots that are

53:13

painting the wall? Okay, great. Now he's

53:15

going to get paid more because you can,

53:17

you know, get so many more homes painted

53:18

in a day. He's going to get paid more to

53:20

do that work. People are going to be

53:21

like, well, there's only so many homes.

53:23

That's always the argument is you always

53:24

think about the fixed pie argument that

53:26

the pie doesn't grow. But what always

53:28

happens is that the pi grows, the

53:31

economy grows is the way to think about

53:33

it. And so as automation or technology

53:36

is used to give individuals more

53:38

leverage to do more things with their

53:40

time, then more things get done. People

53:42

come up with these new product ideas

53:44

with hey, we've got excess capital.

53:46

Let's build new homes. Let's build a

53:47

building.

53:48

>> But who gets who benefits from the

53:49

expansion of that pie?

53:51

>> In all cases, it's been there's been

53:52

deep economic value created for the

53:54

entire workforce all the way down to the

53:56

lowest level. It doesn't happen

53:58

overnight. And that's where during that

54:00

period of time when you see the new

54:01

technology, oh the main frame's in the

54:04

basement or the desktop computers on my

54:06

uh my colleagueu's desk and you're like,

54:08

"Oh my god, I'm going to lose my job."

54:10

To the time that your company is growing

54:13

considerably their revenue and giving

54:14

everyone raises and everyone bonuses and

54:16

adding more product lines and doing more

54:19

stuff, you're like, "Oh man, okay, I

54:21

feel better." And and I think that would

54:22

be the argument from the 60s and 80s and

54:25

even back in the industrial revolution.

54:26

The question today is how does work

54:28

change? Cuz remember in the industrial

54:31

revolution, people moved from farms, 60%

54:33

of labor was in farming. Today it's like

54:35

2%. Into factories and they got paid a

54:39

lot more and they lived a better life.

54:40

They actually were able to afford

54:41

healthcare, yada yada yada. And the the

54:44

the transition in any sort of like

54:46

technological revolution is net

54:48

beneficial for all parties involved. But

54:50

there is a transition. So what's it

54:52

going to look like? Are we all going to

54:54

lose our jobs? AI is definitely

54:56

different, but I don't think that AI is

54:59

this world where humans are going to

55:02

look around and be like, none of us have

55:04

anything to do anymore. [laughter] Like,

55:06

I don't believe in that narrative. And

55:08

the reason is I already see

55:09

extraordinary creative things being done

55:11

with AI that were not possible years

55:14

ago. People are creating TV shows, one

55:16

person, that they would have needed a

55:18

staff of 20 people to do. and they can

55:20

use AI to create AI generated content

55:22

and put these shows out on on YouTube or

55:24

Tik Tok or Instagram. I mean, look, you

55:26

may not like how it looks today. There

55:28

may be a lot of AI slop out there, but

55:29

as this stuff gets better and better,

55:31

the creative output of people using AI

55:33

on creative channels where we're all

55:35

consuming media is only going to go up

55:37

and people are going to make money that

55:38

they weren't able to make before from

55:40

that output as other people consume it.

55:42

My ability to do work, I don't have to,

55:45

you know, think about my, you know, four

55:47

hours a day that I'm writing documents

55:49

today. I can get all that work done in

55:50

10 minutes or 15 minutes and then I can

55:52

spend the other three and a half hours

55:54

doing other things that create new value

55:56

for my company.

55:56

>> If we go back to the top of this um the

55:58

robot painter analogy.

56:00

>> Yes.

56:00

>> You said a guy might have had five

56:01

people painting, now they can have five

56:03

robots painting.

56:04

>> No, I was saying the guy instead of

56:05

painting on his own, he can now have

56:07

five robots painting.

56:09

>> Yeah.

56:09

>> And then he can now produce five times

56:11

as much with his time. Think about what

56:13

we saw with the desktop computer

56:14

revolution, right? Adobe Photoshop came

56:16

around and everyone was like, "Oh my

56:18

god, like photographers are out of work

56:20

because a big part of being a

56:21

photographer was all the post editing

56:23

and cleaning up of your and airbrushing

56:24

and all this sort of stuff." And they're

56:25

like, "That whole industry is destroyed

56:26

with Photoshop." What ended up happening

56:28

is a ton more media was created and

56:30

print media was created because

56:31

Photoshop created leverage to create

56:33

many more beautiful images and then all

56:34

these magazines took off and it like if

56:36

you look at magazine circulation, they

56:37

grew considerably as Photoshop came out

56:40

because it allowed much more production

56:41

on you know highv value photography. I

56:44

think the reason why it feels different

56:46

is because that's I mean the industrial

56:47

revolution example is kind of like

56:49

physical work moving to cognitive work

56:51

that was cognitive work creating a new

56:53

type of cognitive work the the Adobe

56:55

analogy if AI takes the cognitive work

56:57

and from what you said about robotics

56:59

robotics takes a lot of the physical

57:00

work what is this third type of work I

57:03

think it's cognitive and physical it's

57:05

it's it's no different than what we've

57:06

seen in the past but it doesn't mean

57:08

that there isn't an individual who's

57:10

going to program the robot on what rooms

57:12

to paint how to paint them how to do the

57:14

detailing correct. The homeowner doesn't

57:16

have the level of skill that the painter

57:17

does, right? So the painter

57:19

>> and I couldn't do that.

57:20

>> Maybe at some point, I mean, you could

57:22

make this argument on a continuum where

57:23

eventually everything nothing exists,

57:26

but along the way there are new things

57:27

that are emerging. Think about going

57:29

back 50 years. There was no yoga

57:31

instructor. There was no dog walker.

57:34

There was no Instagram influencer. There

57:35

was no podcaster. I mean there's a

57:37

million versions of new work that

57:39

emerged along the way as the internet

57:41

took hold and people could start to

57:43

spend their time or market themselves or

57:44

market their capabilities in other ways.

57:47

So I think it's a pessimistic view to

57:49

assume that robots replace all humans

57:51

and then humans have no logic, no

57:53

agency, no capacity for creative work

57:55

anymore. I have an optimistic view on

57:57

this which is that AI and robotics

57:59

enables individuals to do far more

58:02

things than they ever could have

58:03

contemplated and that's going to give

58:05

everyone much more ability to realize

58:07

their potential with their agency. I

58:09

mean, even the podcast, I think a game

58:10

is going to be significantly disrupted

58:13

in some some part. We we ran a test a

58:15

couple years ago to figure out if a

58:17

synthesized voice of me could have the

58:19

same average view duration um as me and

58:23

uh it was just me reading out the

58:24

stories of founders through history. So,

58:25

I'd do I did like a Steve Jobs episode

58:27

where it was my voice. AI had written

58:29

the script. AI had synthesized my voice.

58:30

So, I had no involvement. And the amount

58:32

of people that got to the end was 40 to

58:33

50% of an hour. uh and they knew it was

58:36

AI because it said at the top this is an

58:37

air podcast and so I thought okay there

58:39

is a lot offormational part of what we

58:41

me and you do where we're sharing just

58:43

in pure play information that will be

58:45

taken away however what I hear through

58:47

listening to your answer about creators

58:49

and art you're saying that there will be

58:51

this human sort of irreplaceably human

58:53

component yoga teachers yoga teachers

58:55

aren't telling you yoga it's also

58:56

community and gathering in real life and

58:58

being there amongst other people

58:59

>> I think the IRL job is going to explode

59:03

and I think it's going to be extremely

59:04

valuable I always had this view like,

59:06

oh, coffee shops will be automated. But

59:08

I actually think the opposite is

59:09

probably true. I think there will be a

59:11

premium on coffee shops. I'll pay $40

59:14

for a latte because that human is making

59:16

the latte and I get to go be with other

59:18

humans. I get to go to a workout class

59:20

with humans. I get to go spend time at a

59:22

concert. I get to go spend time at

59:24

dinners. I think this like event live

59:26

space experiential part of our world

59:29

that we kind of think about as luxury

59:30

today, maybe it becomes more core. Like

59:33

maybe it becomes more of how we spend

59:35

our time. Maybe we spend 30 40% of our

59:37

time, you know, in these sorts of spaces

59:40

and automation is generating income for

59:42

us and supporting us in, you know,

59:44

whatever pursuit we're interested in in

59:46

work and we spend far less time doing

59:48

work and far more time paying a premium

59:50

in the economy in the live space

59:52

economy.

59:52

>> It's hard, isn't it? Because we don't

59:53

know what these jobs are.

59:54

>> We just don't. And that's

59:56

>> I mean imagine telling someone that

59:57

worked in a factory in 1923

60:01

that fast forward a hundred years

60:03

there's going to be people making X

60:05

dollars as personal trainers

60:08

or there's someone that has a job dog

60:10

walking in their neighborhood. I don't

60:12

know if that would have been like grock

60:14

fully.

60:14

>> But the pace of disruption here seems to

60:16

be different than like the industrial

60:18

revolution. It's targeting cognitive

60:19

work. It's built on this platform called

60:21

the internet who which has this

60:22

>> I'm telling you I just don't see it. I I

60:24

like at my work everyone's using AI and

60:27

everyone's just doing more and then they

60:28

ask for more employees. You can kind of

60:30

think about a business having two sides,

60:33

revenue and costs. Revenue is I'm making

60:35

stuff and people are paying me for the

60:37

things I'm making or doing. Cost is how

60:40

am I operating the business? Like what

60:42

am I spending? And the argument has

60:43

always been like, okay, you're going to

60:45

lose customer service reps. You're going

60:47

to lose all the cost side of the

60:49

equation. No one ever says you're going

60:50

to lose the revenue side. The truth is

60:52

on the revenue side, what ends up

60:53

happening is you create new products

60:55

that you couldn't create before because

60:57

of AI. The technology enables so much

60:59

advancement in your business. Let's say

61:01

you're a material science company. This

61:02

is totally esoteric, but like let's say

61:04

your job as a company is to discover new

61:06

materials, new pl new synthetics that

61:09

can be used to make microchips or be

61:11

used for computing or be used for travel

61:14

or for airplanes. The material science

61:16

world has been challenged by its

61:18

experimental cycle. You got to create an

61:20

experiment, make a product, test it, do

61:22

it all manually. It's all creative

61:24

ideas. It's all human potential. AI can

61:26

now screen through millions of material

61:29

science ideas in a computer, print them

61:31

out, test them, and you can automate

61:32

that throughput. Therefore, that

61:33

materials company can now have more

61:36

revenue. They can make more products. Do

61:37

you not think that maybe there's a

61:39

possibility that people like me and you

61:41

exist in this particular band where

61:43

because we're both founders and we have

61:44

capital and we're thinking about how to

61:47

really push intelligence to create new

61:49

things that maybe we because what you're

61:52

saying I I can relate to. I can relate

61:53

to the fact that AI has made me actually

61:55

quite has probably made me more

61:57

ambitious about hiring especially in the

61:58

near term. I would caveat it by saying

62:00

that there's a certain type of role that

62:03

I'm now hiring much less and as

62:07

especially when you think about entry-

62:08

level roles, I have to pause a lot more

62:11

now because a lot of the agents and some

62:13

tooling can do some of those things that

62:14

I would have otherwise hired for. But

62:16

generally, I feel like I'm hiring as

62:17

fast as I possibly can. But would you

62:20

not say that for like the 21-year-old

62:22

that's graduated from university or the

62:24

Door Dash driver or those types of

62:27

individuals where the the leap from

62:29

where they currently are on a factory

62:31

floor assembling uh a part or flipping

62:34

packages, the leap from where they are

62:38

to this new world is so great that

62:41

there's going to be this messy middle.

62:42

>> Yeah. But what I'm saying is as new

62:43

products are created, new revenue comes

62:45

in, you you don't cut costs, you grow

62:47

costs and you hire more people and you

62:50

uplevel and you train people. That is

62:52

what I'm seeing on the ground. You know,

62:53

we just published I think one of the

62:55

lowest unemployment rates in the US. And

62:57

I think that this idea that your current

63:00

job is going to get disrupted and you're

63:02

going to lose your job. I don't think is

63:04

how the enterprise transitions. the

63:06

enterprise transitions, meaning

63:08

companies, by doing more things and

63:11

bringing people up the ladder, hiring

63:14

more people. And that's just what I'm

63:15

seeing on the ground. I I think that the

63:17

there's a media narrative on like, oh my

63:18

god, there was a layoff at so- and so

63:20

company because it underlines what

63:22

they've been promoting to everyone,

63:23

which is AI is going to cause job loss.

63:25

>> The interesting thing is it's it didn't

63:26

come from the media.

63:27

>> It came from the AI guys.

63:29

>> Yeah.

63:29

>> Yeah.

63:29

>> This is the the biggest I I listen to

63:32

all in podcasts, by the way. It's one of

63:33

my favorite podcasts. I don't think I've

63:34

ever missed an episode. So, I I very

63:35

much understand your perspective in all

63:37

of your

63:37

>> I had no idea you were a fan.

63:38

>> No, no, I I've listened to

63:40

>> I've gone on people's shows where

63:41

they're like, I don't know who you are,

63:42

and I'm like, [laughter] it's good to

63:43

meet you.

63:44

>> No, no, no. I've I don't think I've ever

63:45

missed an episode since the beginning.

63:47

So, I I understand.

63:48

>> You've been through You've heard all

63:49

this.

63:49

>> I've heard all of this. I've heard like

63:50

Jason's opinion. Weirdly, I tend to side

63:52

a little bit more with Jason on this

63:55

because I think Jason I don't know why

63:57

his arguments seem to present the most

63:58

nuance and and also I would say when we

64:01

think about different people's

64:02

incentives. Yeah, you're right. often on

64:05

that show that it's framed as a media

64:07

narrative whereas it's actually all your

64:09

friends.

64:10

>> Yeah. No. So, first of all, none of them

64:12

are my friends. But, um,

64:13

>> he loves your friend.

64:14

>> Okay. So, what I will say, look, I've

64:17

said this on the show, I'll say it

64:18

again. I think there is a deep arrogance

64:21

in making these sorts of proclamations.

64:24

>> Which proclamations?

64:25

>> That we're not going to work anymore.

64:26

>> Mhm. [clears throat]

64:27

>> It effectively discounts the human. It's

64:30

like what you do today is your limit.

64:33

But I think that this idea that like

64:35

these jobs will go away is sourced by

64:37

people that are seeing the crazy stuff

64:39

that they're doing and they're like, "Oh

64:40

my god, this is amazing. I'm responsible

64:43

for this. We are going to change the

64:45

world. We are going to take all jobs and

64:47

they're all going to sit in my

64:48

computer." I don't think that that's

64:50

what happens because I think that humans

64:52

have a profound capacity for doing

64:55

things that, you know, these

64:57

technologists don't necessarily see. The

65:00

great technologists see technology. They

65:02

don't see people.

65:03

>> Mhm.

65:04

>> I think you have to see people meaning

65:06

the the potential of people of

65:08

individuals and you have to believe in

65:10

that. They believe in technology. They

65:12

engineer technology. But I I am not

65:14

going to like be pessimistic about

65:16

people. Like I think that people have

65:18

capacity in any environment. I mean the

65:21

amazing thing about humans is our

65:22

adaptability. We can live in any

65:24

climate. We can eat any kind of food. I

65:25

mean that's all this like we can work

65:27

all these different jobs. I mean we're

65:28

amazing. Humans are amazing. And

65:32

arguably many humans have been limited

65:34

in their potential. And I think that AI

65:36

enables more capacity for those

65:37

individuals to realize more of their

65:39

potential.

65:40

>> Much of the conversation we've had about

65:41

the US economy has centered around

65:43

incentive structures leading to

65:44

inevitable outcomes.

65:45

>> You know, the older I've gotten, the

65:46

more I just try and look at incentives.

65:48

>> Yeah.

65:49

>> To figure out behavior and also to

65:50

figure out who to trust.

65:52

So when I look at the incentives of the

65:54

people that are building the AI

65:56

companies, Andy Jasse has said that

65:58

there's going to be fewer people doing

66:00

some of the jobs that are being done

66:02

today. Um then they cut, you know, tens

66:04

of thousands of jobs. Mark Benov, who I

66:05

know has been on your show, cut 4,000

66:07

jobs and said, I need less heads because

66:09

of AI. And I like, okay, maybe they're

66:11

saying that because they want their

66:12

share price to go up because it's a

66:13

good, you know, we're going to reduce

66:14

cost is a good narrative. But then I

66:16

look at the other the AI CEOs, Dario,

66:19

Elon, Sam Alman, and I go their

66:23

incentives, I'd say other other than the

66:25

exception of Elon, um, have just kind of

66:27

changed with whatever's good for them at

66:29

that moment oftent times. I I actually I

66:31

think Daria might be the exception a

66:33

little bit because he seems to be a bit

66:35

more nuanced. If I go back through the

66:38

quotes of these individuals, you have

66:41

Sam Alman in February 2015 saying,

66:43

"Development of supermachine

66:44

intelligence is probably the greatest

66:45

threat to the continued existence of

66:47

humanity." You have Elon in 2014 saying,

66:50

"With artificial intelligence, we are

66:52

summoning the demon. It's far more

66:54

dangerous than nukes. Mitigating the

66:57

risk of extinction from AI should be a

66:58

global priority alongside societal scale

67:01

risks such as pandemics and nuclear

67:03

wars." And that was signed by Sam Alman,

67:04

Demis, Dario, Bill Gates amongst many

67:08

hundreds of others. Sam Alman in the

67:10

Senate in 2023. I think if this

67:12

technology goes wrong, it can go very

67:14

wrong. Open AI super intelligence

67:16

letter. They wrote the disempowerment of

67:19

humanity or even human extinction could

67:22

be caused by super intelligence. Again,

67:23

in the athletic sortman, jobs are

67:26

definitely going to go away. Full stop.

67:30

Barry Arma Day May 2025 he predicted a

67:33

white collar blood bath half of entry

67:35

level white collar jobs gone

67:36

unemployment at 10 to 20% within 1 to

67:39

five years 10 to 20% unemployment in 1

67:42

to 5 years it's pretty high

67:44

>> and Alman at the Federal Reserve in July

67:45

2025 said um whole job categories will

67:48

disappear customer support first that

67:50

one is quote totally totally gone and

67:53

then suddenly the message changed before

67:55

his sort of preipo discussions he said

67:56

things could go pretty wrong and then he

67:58

says that he now has changed his mind

68:00

and he's delighted that he feels like he

68:02

was wrong and suddenly he's talking

68:04

about how open AAI and chatting will

68:06

benefit all of humanity

68:07

>> and that's their goal. Should we trust

68:09

the same people that told us to be

68:11

scared when they say don't be scared?

68:13

>> First of all, I think there was a bunch

68:15

of companies that said early on that

68:19

they were like cutting all their

68:20

customer service reps, which was the big

68:22

company starts with a K.

68:23

>> Cler, but I did call the founder.

68:25

>> And what did you find out?

68:26

>> He said that he's been misinterpreted in

68:28

the press. So, I heard you guys talk

68:29

about this on the Allen podcast, but

68:30

I've actually called him live on this

68:31

show.

68:31

>> And did he rehire or like what did he

68:33

do?

68:34

>> He said that the miss the media just

68:35

completely miscon

68:37

>> He said he had 7,000 employees by the

68:39

end of last summer. He said he had on

68:41

3,000, but the media framed it as I had

68:44

7,000 employees and then I tried to cut

68:46

some. I realized I couldn't and I went

68:47

back. That's not what happened. And it's

68:49

it just I see it on all these podcasts

68:50

and I'm just repeating it. I heard it

68:52

repeated on your show like

68:53

>> but he said we are cutting because of

68:54

AI.

68:55

>> Yeah.

68:55

>> And he's confirmed that he's doing that.

68:57

He's DM'd me on on X. I've got the DM

68:59

and live on this show he confirmed it to

69:01

all one of our listeners.

69:01

>> Is his business still growing?

69:03

>> The business is growing. What he did

69:05

say, and this is a point of nuance, is

69:06

with the cost savings, he's able to

69:08

offer better white glove services to his

69:10

highest ticket clients,

69:12

>> which it makes a lot of sense.

69:13

>> Yes.

69:13

>> And you could think about that analogy

69:15

being in like another business where

69:17

they would take that capital, invest in

69:19

offering new products, new services, but

69:21

then you need employees to offer those

69:23

new products and new services. And so

69:25

you do actually hire up and I think that

69:27

is what I am actually seeing on the

69:29

ground. And while he may have this acute

69:31

restructuring he's doing on the ground I

69:33

just see people hiring more because they

69:35

can do more with AI. It's

69:38

counterintuitive but if you're a

69:39

business manager you can invest $10 and

69:42

make one product a year or you can

69:44

invest $20 and make five products a

69:46

year. You're going to invest the $20 to

69:48

make five products a year. You're going

69:50

to spend more. And I think that's what

69:51

AI does. as soon as you have the ability

69:53

to get leverage on how much more

69:55

productive people are, you'll put more

69:58

capital towards hiring more people and

69:59

scale up. I that's just what I'm seeing.

70:01

And look, I could be wrong and all jobs

70:03

go away in 5 years and we have 20%

70:05

unemployment. I don't think that that's

70:07

the case. I think that again like we can

70:09

go back to this like where are people

70:11

going to be spending their time? I do

70:13

think that there's going to be a big

70:14

growth in media. I think there's going

70:16

to be a big growth in um and media

70:19

encompassing everything, digital content

70:21

creation, etc. I think there's going to

70:22

be a big growth in entrepreneurship and

70:24

I think there's going to be a big growth

70:25

in IRL stuff.

70:27

>> I'll play this interviews and um client

70:29

has always mentioned because I think the

70:30

media has said that you like double down

70:32

on AI then you reversed because it

70:34

didn't work out. So I know I spoke to

70:36

you a while ago and we exchanged a

70:37

couple of DMs about it but that was more

70:39

than a it was almost a year ago now. So

70:41

I just wanted to get an update on Cler's

70:43

business AI agents and all of that if

70:45

possible. This was 5 months ago. First

70:47

and foremost, we were early on uh

70:49

released um AI uh to support our

70:52

customer service which had that uh

70:54

initial uh benefit of uh more calls

70:58

being dealt with by AI which customers

71:00

liked because those calls or chat

71:01

messages were much much faster and more

71:04

qualitative. Then since then that has

71:06

actually expanded slightly. Um what we

71:09

did however try to communicate as well

71:11

is that we believed in a world of where

71:13

AI is cheap and available the value of

71:16

human interaction will be regarded as

71:19

higher. So the future of customer

71:21

service VIP is a human. Um we have then

71:25

hence doubled down on providing more of

71:27

that but at the same time the efficiency

71:29

gains within the company has continued.

71:32

I mean we used to be about 6,000 people

71:35

and and now we are less than 3,000 which

71:38

is 2 3 years since we stopped recruiting

71:41

and at same point of time our revenue

71:43

has doubled right so

71:45

>> no this is a startup just to be clear I

71:48

I don't know if we can and again I'm not

71:51

going to like sit here and concede or

71:52

argue jobs aren't going to change but a

71:55

startup that grew very quickly and then

71:57

to cut heads is a pretty common

71:59

phenomenon um so I don't know how much

72:01

restructure ing he was doing in in his

72:03

AIification of his business. That's

72:05

totally fine and totally fair. But the

72:08

question is what are the people that

72:09

were doing customer service calls and

72:11

sitting, you know, how many of them were

72:12

actually fully occupied on the phone? I

72:14

don't know.

72:15

>> Like were they on the phone for 4 hours

72:17

a day, 2 hours a day, or 8 hours a day?

72:19

Were they actually fully employed?

72:21

Really? Were they truly fully employed?

72:22

I don't know.

72:23

>> And what are they doing now? And is

72:24

whatever they doing now, is that

72:26

defensible again from this spread of

72:29

intelligence? Yeah,

72:30

>> they could be Door Dash. I know. They

72:31

could be lawyers, but they could also be

72:33

doing Door Dash. And Dar sat here and

72:34

said that the 9,000 people that are

72:36

riders won't have jobs.

72:39

>> The ones that are driving food around.

72:40

Yeah. And drivers.

72:42

>> Yeah.

72:42

>> That's obviously all their big

72:43

investments. I was with him the other

72:44

day and he was talking about their

72:45

autonomous vehicle investments.

72:47

>> Yeah.

72:47

>> And how I mean that's the big

72:49

>> What does he What does he think?

72:50

>> He thinks that those drivers will have

72:52

to go will do something else.

72:53

>> What does he think that something else

72:54

is?

72:55

>> He loosely hypothesized [laughter] what

72:57

it might be. It could be data labeling.

72:59

Now, let me just go back because your

73:01

whole point about like AI is going to

73:03

destroy us all and these guys were

73:04

making all these claims and then they

73:05

all kind of backtracked. I think there's

73:07

an important question to ask which is

73:08

like should we stop AI development and

73:10

can we meaning can we really affect what

73:13

China does? Can we really affect what

73:15

Europe does? Can we really affect what

73:16

some lab in Indonesia does if they get a

73:18

group of people together? The there are

73:20

moments in human history when technology

73:23

advances and it's not like you can just

73:24

put the catapult away and be like let's

73:26

like no one can develop the catapult

73:27

anymore. Like once the catapult's out

73:29

there, the catapult's out there. We're

73:31

just there. So the the the question is

73:34

like it's what is going to enable the

73:37

most kind of productive path forward

73:39

for, you know, US policy for US

73:41

citizens? And China's asking themselves

73:44

the same question. What's the most

73:45

productive path forward, China policy

73:47

for China citizens? China's answer, I

73:50

think, is to make models free and

73:51

ubiquitous, which by the way benefits a

73:53

large part of the global economy, but it

73:56

doesn't do very well with Sam Alman,

73:58

Daario, Google, or others that have

74:00

invested billions or hundreds of

74:02

billions of dollars in model

74:03

development. And now those those

74:04

investments that they've made have been

74:06

reduced to to rubble because China's got

74:08

a model that's as good or cheaper. So, I

74:11

think the more important question is

74:13

like what does the US do to navigate? If

74:15

we stop data centers, those data centers

74:17

are going to be built somewhere else.

74:18

Mhm.

74:18

>> They'll be built in Iceland. They'll be

74:19

built in China. They'll be built in

74:22

Indonesia. They'll be built in places

74:23

where you can get access to energy and

74:25

plug them into the internet. Now they're

74:26

on the internet. So, do we want those

74:28

data centers to exist in the US because

74:30

they're going to create jobs and create

74:31

economic value or do we want them to be

74:33

built offshore? Do we want to have the

74:36

AI models built in the US or do we want

74:38

to have them built by China? Those are

74:40

the I think the important policy

74:41

decisions. The idea that you can slow or

74:43

stop AI development, I unfortunately

74:46

think at this moment it's too far too

74:48

late. Like the AI is out there,

74:51

the framing on is it bad or is it good

74:55

um I think requires

74:57

a observation on what's going on on the

74:59

ground. And I do think there's a ton of

75:01

stories. I mean look at the number of

75:03

companies that are doing stuff that you

75:05

could never do before because of AI. I

75:07

mean just just to get into your point

75:09

about delivery. I mean, there are

75:10

delivery companies delivering robots on

75:12

the ground, robotic cars, drones. Those

75:16

companies aren't employee lists. There's

75:18

now 15,000 new jobs being created at the

75:20

factory that's making the the robots or

75:22

15,000 jobs to service the robots cuz

75:24

they're breaking down all the time or

75:26

15,000 jobs to get the food made that

75:29

goes into the robots or maybe that gets

75:31

automated. But like, as you kind of

75:32

think about the impact, the economy

75:33

doesn't just shrink in terms of jobs.

75:35

We're just not seeing it in the data.

75:37

It's not happening. and and and when it

75:39

does happen, I think that's a good time

75:42

to have a conversation about AI taxes

75:43

and all this sort of stuff.

75:45

>> Let's ask that question. And what would

75:46

have to happen? What what sort of metric

75:48

or piece of evidence would be?

75:49

>> Job loss.

75:50

>> Job loss.

75:50

>> Yeah. And wage growth, right? So, if

75:52

wages are declining and um uh uh

75:55

unemployment is climbing, that's a red

75:58

flag. I mean, that's an alert moment and

76:00

that's when we have to address this from

76:02

policy. But it's very speculative right

76:04

now. And if you get in the way and you

76:06

stop it and you stop advancement or like

76:08

the ability to create higher paying

76:10

jobs, the ability to create new jobs and

76:12

you turn it you turn all of that off,

76:14

it's going to happen in China, it's

76:15

going to happen in Europe, it's going to

76:17

happen in South America and the US gets

76:19

left behind. Maybe that's the decision

76:21

that, you know, we decide to make. But I

76:24

would argue that this kind of tracking

76:25

of what's the consequence that we're

76:27

worried about is the most important

76:28

thing to be doing at the moment. You

76:30

might have heard about the study that I

76:31

think it was Stanford that did it and

76:32

they showed that there was a 13%

76:34

relative decline in employment for

76:35

workers aged 22 to 25 in roles most

76:38

exposed to generative AI. Could it be

76:41

that by the time we start seeing

76:44

significant job loss, it's a little bit

76:45

too late to be having the conversation

76:47

because it could be quite a rapid

76:48

decline. If you think about the nature

76:49

of this technology and the adoption of

76:51

it.

76:51

>> No, no. I think what you're describing

76:52

is exactly the right time

76:54

>> when when we see the the first sign.

76:56

>> Yeah. So what are those changes that are

76:57

happening? Now the question is if you

76:58

dig into that and I do understand this

77:01

like in in software engineering what's

77:03

happening right now is young people are

77:05

not getting hired. You can use AI to

77:07

write a lot of code

77:08

>> but in order to be really good at using

77:11

AI to write a lot of code you got to

77:12

have experience writing code.

77:15

>> Yeah. And so there's a fight for senior

77:18

experienced software engineers and

77:20

there's disinterest in junior software

77:22

engineers because you're not just

77:23

putting a junior software engineer in a

77:25

seat to have them write their first line

77:26

of code which is what you used to do.

77:28

With AI you can turn one engineer into a

77:31

hundred but the junior guy is not going

77:33

to do that. The senior person is. So you

77:35

want to hire more senior people and

77:36

that's what's happening in software

77:37

across the board right now.

77:39

>> But more of the operational functions

77:41

that used to be done by people are also

77:43

just being done by software. So, if I

77:45

think about you might have had a p a PA

77:47

whose job was to respond to your emails

77:49

and check your emails and organize them

77:51

and put them in your Monday board. Now,

77:52

with agents, I have an agent that goes

77:54

across all of my inboxes every single

77:55

day, pulls everything into this central

77:57

system. And I would have I used to have

77:59

someone doing that kind of work. Now,

78:00

it's a software job. Now, it's Claude

78:01

doing it.

78:01

>> So, now the PA can use Claude to do it.

78:03

>> I I don't need the PA. I can just do it

78:05

myself.

78:05

>> Okay. What What else could you use that

78:06

PA for in your life that you couldn't

78:08

even contemplate using that PA for in

78:10

the past?

78:10

>> At the moment, it's real world stuff. I

78:13

probably would have continued to hire

78:14

more in that team,

78:16

>> but now I don't need to because I've

78:18

got, you know, this agent that does my

78:20

scheduling can help me with my

78:21

scheduling.

78:21

>> What are you gonna do with the money you

78:22

have? The extra money you have that

78:23

you're not spending.

78:23

>> This is a good point.

78:24

>> And then that money you're investing.

78:26

You're not going to just put that money

78:27

in the bank and leave it as cash. You're

78:28

going to invest it in something.

78:30

>> I could invest it in assets.

78:32

>> What's an asset? It's either productive

78:34

or non-productive asset. If it's

78:35

productive, it's employing someone. It's

78:36

doing stuff.

78:36

>> I could I could theoretically go buy the

78:38

S&P 500. And when you buy the S&P 500,

78:40

that money goes to individuals that are

78:43

now going to be able to employ more

78:44

people. That capital finds a way to get

78:47

spent. It goes into the economy. And

78:49

that's my point. This is why economies

78:51

grow when technology shows up. The

78:53

leverage you got gave you more capital.

78:55

You could either build a new product and

78:56

hire more people to do it here or you

78:58

could choose to go buy the S&P. But when

79:00

you buy the S&P, that money ends up in

79:01

other people's coffers, and they're

79:03

using that money to hire people and do

79:04

new stuff. there. At some point, the

79:06

whole point of the economy is that money

79:08

flows and that money is going to

79:10

ultimately flow into individuals that

79:11

are productive.

79:12

>> Do you not think a lot of it's going to

79:13

flow disproportionately into the

79:15

billionaires and the the most wealthy

79:16

that are building the robots and that

79:18

are

79:18

>> I am a huge advocate for open source for

79:20

this reason.

79:20

>> Open source. What does that mean for

79:22

Janet and Dave who might not know what

79:23

that term means?

79:24

>> So open source just means that the

79:26

software is free for anyone to use. If

79:29

you go back to the early days of the

79:31

internet, Netscape made server software

79:33

>> and Netscape [clears throat] made a

79:34

browser. So in order to produce a

79:37

website, you needed to pay for Netscape

79:39

software and you installed it on a

79:41

server and you pay Netscape a fee for

79:43

that software and then you could create

79:45

a website. Okay? And then if you want to

79:47

browse the internet, you got to pay for

79:48

Netscape Navigator and then you use that

79:50

navigator to browse the internet. So

79:53

charge charge gatekeeper gatekeeper and

79:55

guess what came along? The Mozilla

79:57

Foundation made an open-source browser

79:59

called Firefox. And the Apache

80:01

Foundation came along and made an open-

80:03

source web server. And now anyone could

80:06

download Apache and make their own

80:07

website and plug it into the internet

80:10

and it would be available to everyone in

80:11

the world for free. And anyone could

80:13

download Firefox, go on their computer

80:16

and browse the internet for free. Open

80:19

source then enabled all the

80:20

entrepreneurs that built websites that

80:22

made money to proliferate. They weren't

80:24

gatekept in the idea of AI openw weight

80:27

models, open- source models are free. So

80:30

now you don't have to go pay anthropic

80:32

or claude or Gemini or chat GPT for AI.

80:36

You can actually use this AI model for

80:39

free and no one's making money off of

80:41

you using it. There's no one getting

80:43

paid. The only cost is the cost of

80:45

finding a computer to run that model. So

80:48

you could have your own computer, you

80:49

could rent one, but that cost is coming

80:50

down like crazy now, too. So this is the

80:52

benefit of like this is why technology

80:54

without government intervention is so

80:55

amazing. It always gets cheaper and then

80:58

everyone benefits.

80:59

>> There could be a risk. Is that one of

81:00

the key arguments of the open source

81:02

idea which is if anybody can download

81:03

these AIs onto their computer they can

81:05

jailbreak them. They can use them as

81:08

>> so there's two things that people are

81:09

fighting about. Number one government

81:11

people are saying hey that's coming from

81:12

China. We don't know if there's back

81:14

doors. That's not how openweight models

81:16

work by the way. So people that are

81:17

technically deficient don't fully grock

81:19

what the openweight model really is.

81:21

It's not like some backdoor program that

81:23

you're running. It's literally just a

81:25

list of numbers in a in a in a docu.

81:27

It's just, you know, trillions of

81:29

numbers. That's all it is. And then some

81:31

people are arguing like, okay, so now

81:32

that AI is everywhere, everyone has

81:34

access to it. You can use it to design a

81:37

cyber weapon. You can use it to design a

81:39

bioweapon. You can use it to design a

81:42

physical weapon. There's all these

81:43

things that you can now do. You know,

81:44

the same is true with DNA printing and

81:46

DNA sequencing. Everyone can buy a DNA

81:48

sequencer and a DNA printer and they

81:50

could theoretically make a virus. That

81:52

exists today. We haven't stopped DNA

81:54

sequencing. We haven't stopped DNA

81:55

printing. We don't have like constraints

81:58

around it. Similarly, we haven't stopped

82:00

people from buying guns. We haven't

82:02

stopped people, you know, in the US. I

82:04

mean, we can roll our eyes at this one.

82:06

[laughter]

82:06

>> That's a good one,

82:07

>> right? Yeah. But but I mean look there

82:09

there's a very good argument to be made

82:10

that you could um say that any sort of

82:12

technology that theoretically could be

82:14

used to cause harm should be banned and

82:17

or the government should control it and

82:18

decide who gets access to it. And the

82:20

flip side is that if it's allowed to

82:23

proliferate there's far more benefit

82:25

than risk and the risk side needs to be

82:28

mitigated and that's where you build

82:29

good defense systems and so on. So we've

82:31

got all these technologies for

82:32

monitoring, for cyber defense, for bio

82:34

defense and all these sorts of things

82:35

that are critical for you know

82:38

especially in a post AI era like what

82:40

are the big attack vectors so I think

82:42

that's probably the way to think about

82:43

this

82:43

>> and that might help the sort of

82:45

inevitable inequality golden goosees all

82:47

collecting into insight. I I will bet

82:50

you anything that in the next 10 years

82:51

there will be a billionaire that will

82:53

emerge that has absolutely zero net

82:56

worth today downloaded open sourced AI

82:59

and built a company that made them a

83:00

billionaire 5 years from now 7 years

83:03

from now and they're going to be someone

83:05

that's going to come from nowhere and

83:06

everyone's going to be like wow look at

83:07

that and there's going to be a lot of

83:08

these sorts of stories and that's what

83:10

we saw with the internet

83:12

>> this is something that I've made for you

83:14

I realized that the diio audience are

83:16

strivvers whether it's in business or

83:18

health We all have big goals that we

83:20

want to accomplish. And one of the

83:21

things I've learned is that when you aim

83:23

at the big big big goal, it can feel

83:26

incredibly psychologically uncomfortable

83:29

because it's kind of like being stood at

83:30

the foot of Mount Everest and looking

83:32

upwards. The way to accomplish your

83:34

goals is by breaking them down into tiny

83:37

small steps. And we call this in our

83:39

team the 1%. And actually this

83:40

philosophy is highly responsible for

83:43

much of our success here. So, what we've

83:45

done so that you at home can accomplish

83:47

any big goal that you have is we've made

83:49

these 1% diaries and we released these

83:52

last year and they all sold out. So, I

83:54

asked my team over and over again to

83:56

bring the diaries back, but also to

83:57

introduce some new colors and to make

83:59

some minor tweaks to the diary. So, now

84:01

we have a better range for you. So, if

84:05

you have a big goal in mind and you need

84:07

a framework and a process and some

84:09

motivation, then I highly recommend you

84:11

get one of these diaries before they all

84:13

sell out once again. And you can get

84:15

yours at the diary.com.

84:17

And if you want the link, the link is in

84:18

the description below. There should be a

84:21

button just down below here. And if it

84:23

says subscribed, you're already

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subscribed. If it says subscriber, that

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means you're not yet. And if you're not

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subscribed, please could you do us a

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favor and hit that button? It helps the

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show more than you know. And according

84:32

to the algorithm, you're someone that

84:34

watches our show, but you haven't yet

84:35

hit that button. Thank you so much. So,

84:38

when Elon says that working will be a

84:40

choice, you think he's wrong.

84:42

>> He's selling robots, but uh [laughter]

84:44

like

84:46

um I do think he's right in a sense. And

84:48

what I mean by that is like think about

84:50

how many hours a week you work. Do you

84:52

have a sense?

84:53

>> Just I work all the time when my fiance

84:55

is not around cuz she's not around at

84:56

the moment.

84:56

>> You and I are similar in the sense. So

84:58

like like every moment I can I work. But

85:00

like we're more entrepreneurial. I would

85:02

say that like um you know look at

85:05

Denmark for example 37 hours a week.

85:07

What was the average number of hours

85:08

worked 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 100

85:10

years ago in the US when you did farm

85:13

labor and you were managing your own

85:15

farm and that was your whole business or

85:16

you worked in a factory. I mean there

85:18

was 12-hour shifts. There was a lot more

85:21

work per week being done. Going from 100

85:24

hours a week to 80 to 60 to 40. I mean,

85:27

that is part of the progress of humanity

85:29

is that we're no longer encumbered by

85:31

this labor category, being told what to

85:33

do and how to do it and when to do it in

85:34

order to get money to pay our bills. But

85:36

we get to this world where we have more

85:38

capital. That capital is also time. And

85:41

I've now accumulated the ability to make

85:43

a choice on what do I do with 40 hours

85:44

of my uh my week.

85:46

>> You know, we all have a hypothesis about

85:48

how AI is going to play out. And I've

85:49

heard many different hypotheses here.

85:51

Which is the the part of your hypothesis

85:53

like the principle within it that could

85:56

quite easily be be a miscalculation and

85:58

how could you be wrong?

86:00

>> Mass unemployment.

86:01

>> But but but where in your hypo your

86:03

current hypothesis would you have been

86:05

do you think is the weakest part of your

86:06

sort of first principles that could

86:08

result in that?

86:09

>> The choice that people will make to go

86:11

to higher paying jobs to different jobs

86:12

that they see an opportunity and they

86:14

make a choice to change cuz I think that

86:16

that's the key to this whole thing. Like

86:19

if you were a a taxi driver in New York

86:21

and you were paying rent on a medallion.

86:23

>> What's a medallion?

86:23

>> So medallion is a a right to drive a cab

86:26

in New York.

86:26

>> Okay.

86:27

>> So there was a limited number of them

86:28

and so the medallions were restricted.

86:31

The New York City said we'll only allow

86:33

so many cabs on the streets. So the

86:34

price of medallions went up and up and

86:36

up. So then New York cab drivers would

86:37

trade the medallions and the price on

86:39

medallions got up to 500 grand. And

86:40

Cityroup was a big lender on medallions.

86:42

So they would loan you 500 grand to go

86:44

buy a medallion. Then Uber came along

86:46

and this was one of the big battles

86:47

around Uber at the time. You could get

86:49

paid more and there's more rides with

86:53

Uber. Uber grew the number of people

86:56

taking car transportation around New

86:57

York considerably. And when Uber demand

87:00

shot up, a lot of these guys said, "I'm

87:01

not going to be a cab driver anymore.

87:02

I'm going to be an Uber driver. I can

87:03

make more money as an Uber driver." And

87:05

the number of Uber drivers grew. And

87:07

look, there's a lot of regulation that's

87:08

happened in New York since then with

87:09

respect to Uber and whatnot. But

87:11

everyone made the choice. They moved.

87:14

They found the market found its way.

87:16

Individuals said, "Oh my god, I can make

87:17

more money doing that. I could pick my

87:19

own hours. I don't have to rent the

87:20

medallion."

87:21

>> It's a very similar sidestep.

87:24

>> Yes.

87:24

>> And going from being a taxi driver to a

87:26

taxi driver for a different firm using

87:27

an app is is quite a is

87:29

>> like so so I could sit here and

87:31

pontificate all day with you on this and

87:32

we we'd both be wrong, I'm sure, cuz I

87:35

don't know what the the leap is going to

87:36

be for an individual. I think we have to

87:38

start to pull these stories out of the

87:39

economy. What's going on? Palanteer put

87:42

out this promotional video which I

87:43

thought was quite good where they

87:44

interviewed like a hospital

87:46

administrator and she's like, "Well,

87:48

I've got the AI doing all my paperwork

87:49

so I get to spend more time with

87:50

patients now." Sorry, it was a nurse,

87:52

not an administrator. She was a nurse.

87:53

So, she's like, "I normally spend like

87:54

most of my time filling out paperwork on

87:56

the computer, but Palanteer, the

87:57

software takes care of all that for me.

87:59

So, now I can spend more time doing

88:01

rounds face to face with patients. It's

88:03

a better job

88:04

>> and it's better for her." And so she,

88:07

you know, I think it it was a very

88:09

poignant story about kind of what AI

88:11

actually does on the ground. So, you

88:13

know, look, I mean, I think there's a

88:14

lot of these sorts of examples. We could

88:15

we could counterargue back and forth

88:17

about them all day long and probably

88:19

both be wrong, but this is what I would

88:21

kind of observe on the ground and what's

88:22

actually happening.

88:23

>> I think we agree on the fact that jobs

88:24

are going to get more human in every

88:26

sense of the word. That was your yoga

88:27

teacher example. That was the nurse that

88:28

can spend more time with her patients

88:30

and actually that will become even more

88:31

valuable. It'll become more scarce. I

88:33

think my my concerns still or the gap

88:35

that I have in my head is like that how

88:36

that transition looks especially at

88:38

speed retraining you know you talked

88:40

about the human agency point and do

88:42

should we be preparing for such a

88:44

transition cuz I do also believe that

88:46

we'll we'll get to a providing there's

88:48

no existential issues I do think we'll

88:50

net out in a better place

88:51

>> but the journey to that better place I

88:53

still is just this big question mark

88:54

>> I think that's right and I'm not trying

88:56

to defend it and say it's going to be a

88:57

clean smooth line I'm just trying to say

88:59

like we are going to get to a better

89:00

place you know we could argue all day

89:02

long about displacement or dysfunction

89:04

along the way. [gasps]

89:06

Or maybe a lot of people are smiling as

89:08

they jump to new jobs and try new stuff

89:09

out and they're like, "Oh my god, my

89:11

life's better." I'm optimistic in that

89:13

sense. I think you're right. We have to

89:14

track it. And if people are out of work

89:16

and can't find work and they're

89:17

challenged in paying their bills, we

89:19

have a freaking problem.

89:20

>> And what's the solution to that problem?

89:21

Is it UBI?

89:22

>> Well, it's going to be socialism.

89:24

>> So, in that in that messy middle, you

89:25

think we'll adopt socialism if that

89:27

messy middle does occur?

89:28

>> Yeah.

89:28

>> And what does that look like in reality?

89:30

Is it just giving money and free food?

89:32

And I saw the Mundan grocery stores.

89:34

>> Well, that's not going to work, but

89:35

that'll take time to not work. But in

89:36

the meantime, it'll look great. But

89:38

yeah, it'll be more more checks, more

89:40

government employ. It's like the

89:41

government creates jobs to pay people.

89:44

They're not productive jobs. Meaning, if

89:46

you get paid $100, do you create $120 of

89:48

value? No, you're getting paid $100,

89:51

maybe you're creating $60 or $80 of

89:52

value. But you know that's just there's

89:55

going to be more government payments

89:56

whether it takes the form of UBI

89:58

government um uh jobs grow or some other

90:02

sort of financial support.

90:04

>> I mean that's the direction of travel at

90:05

the moment.

90:06

>> Yeah.

90:06

>> All directions point to more socialistic

90:09

>> Yeah.

90:09

>> America. How do you feel about that?

90:11

>> I'm actually I don't want to lose my

90:12

agency. I don't want to lose my

90:14

capacity, my liberty, my freedom. And I

90:16

feel sad for people that embrace it

90:17

because I think that they don't realize

90:19

that they're losing their freedom in

90:21

that process too. I think they're losing

90:22

their agency. But it's it's offering

90:24

them a solution where there is

90:27

>> there's no other solution being offered

90:28

for them.

90:28

>> But they feel there's no other solution

90:29

being offered. That's right.

90:31

>> But is is also logical to say if we talk

90:33

about incentives that billionaires want

90:36

to stay billionaires and billionaires

90:38

aren't actually that um philanthropic in

90:40

as they claim to be. And actually what

90:42

billionaires are protecting are their

90:43

interests. They want to remain free.

90:45

>> I had a call with Roana about this.

90:47

>> Can you give context on who he is for a

90:48

moment? Roan is a congressman from

90:50

California who's been um he's he used to

90:52

be a moderate Democrat and he's kind of

90:54

pivoted to becoming a hard-left true

90:56

socialist in Silicon Valley is his

90:59

district. California 17. He was asking

91:01

me why are people so outraged at my

91:03

support for a wealth tax.

91:04

>> He means billionaires being outraged.

91:06

>> No, it's not billionaires. It's anyone

91:08

that has built something and created

91:10

value.

91:11

>> Yeah.

91:12

>> And it's just entrepreneurs, people that

91:14

have had success. And he's like, I don't

91:17

get it. it's just 5% or 2% a year or 1%

91:19

a year. Like, why do people care? And

91:22

I'm like, Ro, it's the first time in

91:24

American history

91:26

that you're talking about taking

91:28

something from someone after they've

91:30

paid their taxes and it's now their

91:32

private property and the government gets

91:34

to decide how much of their private

91:36

property they get to keep. It doesn't

91:37

matter that it's 1% or 5% or they'll be

91:39

fine and Bernie Sanders like the

91:40

billionaires will be fine. It's

91:42

fundamental to private property rights.

91:44

It makes me feel like and and everyone

91:47

can think about this. It's not just rich

91:50

people. Anyone can think about what does

91:52

it mean to list out everything you own

91:53

and send it to the government every year

91:55

and they decide what you get to keep.

91:57

That's what it feels like to everyone.

91:59

Also, financially, it doesn't solve a

92:00

problem. And I'll just give you the

92:02

statistics. Total net worth of people in

92:04

the US is 183 trillion.

92:07

Billionaires total net worth is 8

92:09

trillion. And even if you take it from

92:11

billionaire down to 50 millionaire, so

92:13

people that have 50 million or more, the

92:15

total assets, the total net worth is 23

92:17

trillion. 160 trillion is everyone else.

92:21

The problem is that the bottom 50% of

92:25

Americans only have 6 trillion.

92:28

And the middle, that kind of 50% up to

92:31

the 50 millionaire, you know, they've

92:33

got 160 trillion. That's where the net

92:36

worth is in the United States. It's in

92:38

that kind of population that people call

92:41

boomers or Gen X or whatever, the bottom

92:43

50% have nothing. And so if you taxed a

92:47

100% of the billionaire's net worth,

92:49

that's $8 trillion. That's one year of

92:52

the government spending. One year. It

92:54

doesn't stop fundamentally a wealth tax.

92:56

Doesn't actually solve a fiscal problem.

92:58

It creates a system where you're like,

93:00

everyone feels better about taking money

93:01

from the billionaires. Are the

93:02

billionaires paying their fair share of

93:04

taxes? This is the politician's trick.

93:06

The politician's trick is they say, "How

93:08

much tax did you pay as a percent of

93:10

your assets versus how much tax did you

93:12

pay as a percent of your income?" Your

93:14

income is when you sell stocks or when

93:16

you make money for services you provide.

93:18

And every year, if you're wealthy in the

93:20

United States, in California, I pay 53%

93:22

tax. I pay like 14% in California plus

93:25

39% federal.

93:27

>> But you must try and avoid that.

93:29

>> No, I just pay it.

93:30

>> But But I mean, in terms of when I say

93:31

avoid that, I mean you would rather take

93:33

it like a capital gains tax, which is

93:34

lower. California, there's no

93:36

difference.

93:36

>> Oh, there's no difference.

93:37

>> Yeah. In California, capital gains or

93:38

income is is the same, which by the way

93:40

should be the case at the federal level

93:41

if you want to solve this compounding

93:43

problem. So, can we lower income tax in

93:46

the United States and raise capital

93:47

gains tax? Absolutely. Can we make

93:50

income tax lower for people that are

93:51

working for their money versus people

93:53

that are earning gains on their capital

93:54

assets? Absolutely. And we can solve the

93:56

problem that way. But by taking their

93:58

assets, even if you took a 100% of the

94:00

billionaire's assets, that's one year of

94:02

spending. it doesn't actually solve a

94:04

fiscal problem. The tax rate is the

94:06

fiscal problem.

94:07

>> So for these people, the 63% that are,

94:09

you know, potentially championing

94:11

socialism because they need a solution

94:13

and it sounds like a solution. Make my

94:15

bills cheaper. What they don't hear

94:17

from, you know, other politicians is a

94:20

better solution. And this one sounds

94:21

great.

94:22

>> This is what's crazy to me. I don't get

94:23

why all the politicians are fighting

94:24

against a wealth tax or for a wealth tax

94:26

when there's like literally 15 other

94:28

things you could do to make this better.

94:30

Like this is crazy. make the capital

94:32

gains and income tax the same, cut

94:34

stupid spending at the federal level,

94:36

and all of a sudden things become more

94:37

affordable. People have more take-home

94:38

pay, they can afford more stuff.

94:40

>> But let's be honest, you're not going to

94:41

be able to cut the the spending at the

94:43

federal level. We they've tried that.

94:45

And because of this four this whole

94:46

thing we just talked about, the

94:47

four-year election cycles, Elon went in,

94:48

he tried to cut it, he bounced straight

94:50

back out.

94:50

>> Yeah. And I think that that to me was

94:52

the most depressing piece cuz I was

94:54

like, "Oh my god, Elon's going to go in,

94:55

he's going to blow up spending. We're

94:56

finally going to cut all the nonsense

94:58

out of the spending. And if Elon can't,

95:00

no human can." Yeah.

95:01

>> And then I went and visited DC and I

95:03

went to all these Congress meetings and

95:04

sat with senators and I was like, oh my

95:06

god, none of them want to cut it. Like

95:08

they're all on board with it. This isn't

95:10

even a party thing. This is [laughter]

95:11

just like everyone's doing it. And I'm

95:14

like, this is the system. This is how

95:16

it's set up. Holy

95:18

>> We we've had Brian um slightly change

95:20

direction, but linked to AI. Um I know

95:22

you you work in the life sciences. So I

95:24

wanted to ask you, do you think we're

95:25

going to be able to live forever soon or

95:27

at least extend life significantly

95:29

within the next couple of decades? I do

95:31

and I think the reason is we've

95:33

discovered the mechanism of aging which

95:35

is the most fundamental of human

95:37

diseases. We have 10 trillion cells in

95:39

our body. Every one of those cells has

95:41

our a copy of our DNA in the nucleus of

95:43

the cell. That DNA segments of it are

95:46

called a gene. AC and G make up the

95:50

little nucleotides and you put a bunch

95:51

of them together and that's a gene. What

95:53

is a gene? Well, a copy of that comes

95:56

over to a protein printer in the cell

95:58

called the ribosome. And the act is the

96:01

programming for which of 20 amino acids,

96:05

three letters is one amino acid. That

96:07

ribosome takes a segment of the DNA

96:08

copied as RNA and it prints out amino

96:12

acids and a sequence of amino acids from

96:15

that gene which is defined by that gene

96:18

makes a protein. So all a protein is is

96:20

a is a chain of amino acids. As soon as

96:22

it's done printing, those amino acids

96:25

collapse into a threedimensional machine

96:28

called a protein.

96:29

>> So proteins are three-dimensional

96:30

machines and they do crazy Like

96:33

there is a protein in your mitochondria

96:35

that spins 6,000 times a second as

96:37

hydrogen protons go through it and

96:39

that's what makes energy in your cells.

96:41

That's what makes ATP. It's literally

96:42

like a propeller, like a turbine in your

96:44

mitochondria in your cell. It's an

96:45

incredible machine. There's machines

96:47

that carry oxygen from your lungs into

96:51

your cells in your body to give them

96:52

oxygen that they need to work. I mean,

96:54

there are proteins that do all sorts of

96:56

crazy stuff. So, all that genes are are

96:59

the programming for making proteins in

97:01

your cell. Now, your DNA is not a strand

97:03

like this. It's actually kind of a small

97:06

clustered thing. And there are little

97:08

molecules that sit on top of the DNA

97:10

that turn a gene on or off. So if the

97:13

molecule is sitting on top of a certain

97:15

gene that gene is off

97:16

>> like a little switch

97:17

>> like a switch.

97:18

>> What's it called? Someone used the name

97:19

before.

97:19

>> Histones.

97:20

>> Histones. Okay.

97:21

>> Or acetal markers. And

97:22

>> I thought it's epigenetics. But maybe.

97:23

>> So this is all epigenetics. Okay.

97:25

>> So for a given cell there are genes that

97:27

are on or off. The genes that are on

97:29

those proteins are being made in that

97:31

cell. And the genes that are off those

97:33

proteins are not being made in that

97:34

cell. And that's what makes all of our

97:36

cells in our body different. Every one

97:39

of our cells has the same DNA, but our

97:41

eye cell and our brain cell and our

97:43

heart cell and our skin cell just have

97:45

different genes that are on or off.

97:47

Okay? So, those markers that sit on the

97:48

genes, those little switches, every time

97:51

you drink a glass of alcohol or you go

97:53

in the sun and get hit by the sunlight

97:55

or smoke a cigarette or eat some bad

97:57

food that's burnt, all of these things

98:00

can cut DNA. And when DNA gets cut, your

98:03

cell is really good at fixing it. Puts

98:05

it right back together.

98:07

happening millions of times a second in

98:09

your body, literally all over your body

98:11

and your DNA is breaking and your cell's

98:13

fixing it. But every time your cell

98:15

fixes it, there's a chance that that

98:17

switch moves a little bit. And if the

98:19

switch moves to the wrong place,

98:22

suddenly that cell starts making the

98:25

wrong protein or stops making the right

98:27

protein. So statistically over time when

98:30

you're a baby, everything is tuned

98:32

great, working right, all the right

98:33

proteins are being made in every cell.

98:35

You're young. Your skin is not wrinkly.

98:37

You can run. You can breathe. You can

98:38

see perfectly. As you're a young person,

98:40

suddenly you turn 30 and you're like,

98:42

"Wait, my vision's kind of fading a

98:44

little bit. I can't run as fast. I can't

98:46

breathe as deep. Oh my god, I'm getting

98:47

wrinkles around my eyes." 40, 50. What

98:50

happens as we get older is those

98:52

switches kind of move around to the

98:53

wrong places. And as those switches move

98:55

around, that cell stops making the right

98:58

protein

99:00

and starts making the wrong protein and

99:02

it becomes dysfunctional. And if that

99:04

happens in enough cells, then that

99:06

tissue starts to misbehave. You get

99:08

wrinkles. Your heart can't beat quite

99:10

right. Your retina doesn't pick up light

99:13

as well and transmit the signal of the

99:14

light and things get blurry. Your

99:16

hearing starts to lose. You can't think

99:17

as quickly. You can't respond as

99:19

quickly. That's what aging is. Aging is

99:21

the core human disease. And as

99:24

epigenetics, which is where the switches

99:26

are on a cell, start to get moved around

99:28

to the wrong place and that tissue

99:30

starts to misbehave, we get all these

99:32

diseases that could be one of the core

99:35

drivers of cancer.

99:37

>> Why is aging so even across my body?

99:39

Then

99:39

>> because all these cells are suffering

99:41

the same statistical effect of time as

99:44

DNA breaks happen in every cell in your

99:46

body. And as those DNA breaks happen,

99:48

those switches are moving around the

99:50

same rate in all parts of your body. And

99:52

that's why parts of your body start to

99:53

suffer kind of a it's like, "Oh my god,

99:55

my hip hurts, my eye, my brain." Your

99:58

young viewers may not appreciate this,

100:00

but being 46, I'm starting to appreciate

100:02

it. And it's becoming more of an issue

100:03

now. In 2006, a guy named Shinya

100:06

Yamanaka

100:08

discovered four proteins that you could

100:11

put into a cell or apply to a cell and

100:14

it would basically take all the switches

100:16

in that cell and move them to the place

100:19

that a stem cell has, which is basically

100:20

an embryo in a human. And now that cell

100:25

operates like an embryionic cell. And

100:27

you can take that embryo cell and you

100:29

can put other proteins on to move the

100:32

switches around even more to turn that

100:34

stem cell into an eye cell, into a skin

100:37

cell, into a heart cell, into a lung

100:39

cell, into a brain cell. So we suddenly

100:41

developed this technology in the mid

100:44

2000s to take any cell and turn it into

100:47

a stem cell, redifferiated, it's called

100:50

differentiation from one cell type to

100:52

another. But then years later, another

100:55

guy said, "Well, what if instead of

100:57

putting a lot of that protein on the

100:58

cell, we just put a little bit?" So they

101:00

took the Yamanaka factors, which are

101:01

just four proteins, and they put a micro

101:04

dose of them on a couple cells, and the

101:07

switches started to move around, but

101:08

they didn't move back to being a stem

101:10

cell. What happened is they moved back

101:12

to being a young version of that cell

101:15

type. So the eye cell basically became a

101:17

young eye cell. The skin cell became a

101:20

young skin cell. the heart cell became a

101:22

young heart cell by putting a small dose

101:24

of these proteins. So it turns out that

101:26

these proteins kind of move the switches

101:28

around. And if you put just a small

101:29

amount of them on, you can move the

101:31

switches just back to their right

101:32

position. That's now called epigenetic

101:34

reprogramming. That's this new area of

101:36

science that seems to indicate and

101:37

they've now done it in mice where the

101:39

mice can live to the equivalent of 100

101:41

plus years old. They've put it on the

101:43

tissue of monkeys and gotten rid of the

101:45

the wrinkles. We now have just David

101:47

Sinclair just his one of his companies

101:49

did the dosing in the retina to reverse

101:51

blindness in people uh with a

101:53

retinopathy. So this epigenetic

101:57

reprogramming is an entirely new lane of

101:59

medicine that says not just can we

102:02

address all of the downstream effects of

102:04

aging but can we go to the core? Can we

102:06

reset aging in all these cells in the

102:08

body? And the answer so far is yes. The

102:11

risk is if you reset it too much it

102:13

becomes an embryo and it turns into

102:15

cancer. So that's what everyone's been

102:17

working against in the last couple years

102:19

is how do you put the right dose of the

102:21

right proteins in the right cells to get

102:23

them to reverse their age and become

102:25

young again. And the path it's really

102:27

just an engineering exercise at this

102:29

point as opposed to a biological proof

102:30

of concept. The science is there, the

102:32

foundation is there. We're just doing

102:34

the engineering. So I am extremely

102:36

excited and optimistic about this work.

102:38

It seems very likely that in the next

102:40

couple of years, we're going to have

102:41

more human therapy trials that are going

102:44

to not just address the core of aging,

102:46

but they'll start to put in like, you

102:47

know, like they did with the ISEL, maybe

102:49

reverse wrinkles, maybe improve uh

102:51

cardiammyio, improve the uh heart

102:54

tissue. So, I think there'll be a lot

102:55

more of this sort of thing coming to

102:57

market over the next few years.

102:59

>> And AI is going to play a role, I

103:00

assume, in accelerating this because you

103:02

can perform I mean, you can

103:04

theoretically make new discoveries, but

103:05

you can run the tests faster, right?

103:06

>> You know, just to help

103:09

uh provide some context on like what

103:12

goes on in a cell. You can kind of think

103:13

about a cell uh has about 10 billion

103:16

proteins interacting with each other,

103:18

building things, breaking things,

103:20

creating new molecules, creating new

103:21

proteins, interacting, interacting. So

103:23

the proteins are these machines, 10

103:25

billion of them in a cell. So if you

103:28

assume each protein is the size of a

103:29

human, the cell would be the size of

103:31

Manhattan. So now imagine a city the

103:34

size of Manhattan with 500tory tall

103:37

skyscrapers in the Manhattan skyline and

103:40

10 billion people living in these

103:42

buildings going back and forth building

103:44

stuff together talking making babies and

103:46

assume they just do this for 80 years

103:48

all these humans interacting 10 billion

103:49

humans in Manhattan for 80 years

103:52

non-stop they don't sleep and they just

103:53

keep working that entire set of

103:55

interactions is 1 second in one cell

103:58

that's how complicated biology is and we

104:01

have 10 trillion cells in our body and

104:03

those cells are all shooting out

104:05

proteins and messages to each other all

104:06

the time. To answer the question, AI

104:10

allows us to build models to better

104:12

understand what the heck is going on and

104:14

to make predictions about proteins we

104:16

could put into the cells that can affect

104:18

the outcome of changing the epiggenome

104:21

on that DNA without us having a

104:23

deterministic understanding of what's

104:25

going on. So with AI, I can come up with

104:27

a million different ideas for a new

104:28

protein. I can test it in silicone, how

104:30

it would interact with other stuff,

104:32

meaning on computers. I could see what

104:34

happens. I could see if it actually has

104:35

the same sort of effect as the other

104:36

protein. Would it be more efficacious?

104:38

And then I reduce my candidate list

104:40

down. And I take that candidate list and

104:41

I put it in a lab. And now the labs are

104:43

being automated. And I can test it on

104:44

cells and see if it's actually reversing

104:46

aging. I can test it in models. And then

104:48

I take that candidate and now I've got a

104:50

probability of success in 10 years that

104:53

instead of being 1% is now like 75%. And

104:56

so [clears throat] that's the way AI

104:57

plays a role in life sciences discovery

104:59

and it's transforming not just

105:01

epigenetic reprogramming which is this

105:02

whole big avenue of medicine now but

105:04

it's transforming every aspect of

105:06

biology and our understanding of life

105:08

sciences where we can use AI to make

105:10

these simulations and have a better

105:12

understanding of what these complicated

105:14

incredibly immense interaction sets look

105:16

like or drive at the end state versus me

105:18

needing to kind of be a scientist being

105:20

like oh I got a good idea let's try that

105:21

okay 5 weeks later okay another good

105:23

idea let's try that and that all gets

105:25

reduced to silicon

105:26

>> and are you using your own model? Are

105:27

you training your own AI or are you

105:29

using some of the publicly available

105:30

frontier models?

105:31

>> In my world we use both. So we take our

105:33

own data and then we build our own

105:34

predictive models from it and then

105:36

separately we use offtheshelf life

105:38

sciences models and then we also use

105:39

some of the general models. So it's a

105:41

great combination. And to your questions

105:43

and talking about AI earlier, oh my god,

105:45

the stuff we can do is unbelievable and

105:47

it's mind-blowing and we're hiring more

105:49

people because of it. So like it's not

105:51

like AI got me to get rid of jobs. It's

105:53

like the frontier has gotten so much

105:55

wider. That's why I'm so optimistic

105:57

about AI not destroying jobs because all

105:59

I see is opportunity with uh new

106:01

companies, new ideas, new pathways, new

106:03

things, new breakthroughs in in

106:05

sciences, in materials, in engineering,

106:08

things that we could have never ever

106:09

tackled, we can now tackle with AI.

106:13

>> It is a persuasive argument. Okay. So,

106:15

what are the great lies in America in

106:17

your view?

106:18

If you go to any college with any

106:20

degree, you're going to have a great job

106:21

waiting for you at the end.

106:22

>> Okay? Number one,

106:24

>> if you buy a home, you've achieved the

106:26

American dream, and all of your assets

106:29

should uh be in that home.

106:31

>> Okay? [clears throat]

106:32

>> Social security will take care of you

106:34

when you get old and it's a fair system.

106:37

Everyone should have ownership in stocks

106:39

is the truth about that lie. uh because

106:43

all the money that went into social

106:44

security went out to the government to

106:46

pay bills and it wasn't actually kept in

106:48

the trust and so as a result social

106:51

security is going to go bankrupt. So

106:52

social security was one of the great

106:54

lies on you know you'll be safe and

106:57

protected when you retire.

106:58

>> Mhm. Those are three great lies. Is

107:00

there any more that come to mind?

107:01

>> I don't know about public pensions and

107:04

the it's the same as the social security

107:06

lie. When you put money into a pension

107:08

plan and you're that's called a defined

107:11

benefit plan, when you retire, you're

107:12

going to get $1,000 a week or whatever

107:14

it is and every every paycheck some

107:17

money is taken out. And the idea is that

107:18

the accountants and the investors will

107:20

do a good job investing that money for

107:21

you and you'll get your benefit at the

107:23

end. If they don't do a good job, then

107:25

the pension plan is bankrupt and you

107:27

don't get your retirement check. And if

107:29

they do too good a job or you put too

107:30

much money in, then the pension plan is

107:32

overfunded and you should be getting

107:34

more money out than you're actually

107:35

getting. M. So what companies realized

107:38

was that pension plans are unfair. They

107:41

either go bankrupt or they're

107:42

overfunded. So that's when everyone

107:44

moved to 401ks. And that middle class

107:46

that we talked about earlier, those

107:47

people that have $160 trillion of

107:49

assets, the reason they have $160

107:51

trillion of assets, it's because a lot

107:53

of them had 401ks. Meanwhile, the bottom

107:56

50% of people that are just relying on

107:58

social security, they were making less

108:00

than 3 and a half% a year on their

108:02

money. So that's the great lie is that

108:04

these defi these public retirement funds

108:08

would take care of their people.

108:10

>> Is there a fifth great lie that comes to

108:12

mind?

108:13

>> I actually don't have a great answer for

108:14

you on healthcare. I think that there's

108:16

a moral obligation on healthcare.

108:18

>> Mhm.

108:18

>> So I do buy into this in a in a civil

108:21

society. I could make the libertarian

108:23

argument but I won't because I do think

108:25

it's probably the right thing to say in

108:27

a civil society no one should be without

108:29

healthcare.

108:31

How do you make that work where the

108:33

government's paying bills and the costs

108:35

don't just go through the roof? That's a

108:37

long probably six-hour conversation and

108:40

it's very technical, I think, on what

108:41

you have to do uh to make healthcare

108:44

accessible. And it's definitely got to

108:45

be a multi-tiered system.

108:47

>> Mhm. I guess one of the things that I

108:48

was curious to get your take on because

108:50

I've not really heard you talk about

108:51

this a lot on the All-In podcast is your

108:54

view on everything that's going on with

108:55

this bloody war and the situation there.

108:57

I'm not sure if this is within your area

108:58

of expertise, but it appears that the US

108:59

is now stuck. It's a quandry. I read

109:02

that Ray Dalio's piece a few weeks ago,

109:03

which I thought was exactly right. The

109:06

Chinese make their influence known

109:09

in the same way that you would kind of

109:10

read about it in Sunsu's Art of War. If

109:13

you have to go to war, you've already

109:15

lost. And that's a big difference

109:18

between how the US behaves and how China

109:21

behaves. If you look back on the track

109:23

record of president's decisions as it

109:25

relates to foreign policy in the United

109:26

States over the last

109:27

>> couple decades, there have not been a

109:30

lot of good actions that have ended up

109:32

in a good place.

109:33

>> I think China has this capacity for

109:36

influence without action, which is a

109:40

really interesting model to observe. And

109:42

the US has this kind of

109:45

I don't want to say incentive, but when

109:47

you go to a general and say, "Hey,

109:50

should we go attack these guys?" the

109:51

general spends the whole time training

109:52

to attack the guys. So, you know, and

109:54

then you have a national security

109:56

council and you have advisers and all

109:57

this sort of stuff, but there's a

109:59

there's a priming uh in the US that I

110:02

think maybe plays out in a way that

110:03

maybe we take action when we shouldn't

110:04

always be taking action.

110:06

>> China's position there only possible

110:07

because there is a dominant force that

110:09

is running around trying to police

110:10

everything. So, they can kind of chill

110:12

and let the US go police all the the

110:14

problems and wars. Their military

110:15

capacity is pretty impressive, but it's

110:17

untested at scale, I guess, is one

110:19

argument you can make against that

110:21

point. I mean, China's got a lot of

110:23

economic gamesmanship that they do. You

110:25

know, we'll give you cheap stuff. If we

110:28

can get these things from you, uh, you

110:31

know, we'll keep an eye on you if you

110:33

need help. I mean, there's like a lot of

110:35

stuff that doesn't require direct

110:37

kinetic action that they can kind of get

110:38

things done. In terms of the US's

110:40

position in Iran right now, there is um

110:42

it appears an a threat to oil in terms

110:45

of like the price at the pump and the I

110:47

think it's the US oil reserve is down to

110:49

a couple of weeks.

110:50

>> I want to say this on the order of 24

110:52

million barrels in the SPR.

110:54

>> So at the G7 summit in France, President

110:56

Donald Trump addressed the precocious

110:58

state of global oil inventories

111:00

following supply disruption. He said,

111:03

"We run out of reserves at about four

111:05

weeks. You know, there are reserves all

111:08

over the world and we would really run

111:10

out and there'll be a time when you

111:13

wouldn't be able to get it. It would be

111:15

bedelum.

111:17

>> Mhm. And this was just as I think this

111:20

was the explanation as to why he signed

111:21

that with Iran.

111:23

>> Uhhuh. So I mean if this is true then

111:26

something needs to happen. But again it

111:29

doesn't appear that Iran have much of of

111:31

an incentive now you've decapitated the

111:32

leader for to do really anything. They

111:34

can kind of wait out. Game theory is

111:35

Iran knows that the US can't do much

111:37

more.

111:37

>> Yeah, we going to do drum roll bombs,

111:39

>> right? And well, I mean, Iran's now

111:41

threatened uh Arab uh neighbors with

111:46

retaliation against their energy

111:47

infrastructure, which would be

111:49

devastating to Saudi, Qatar, UAE. So, at

111:52

this point, it seems like a bit of a

111:54

stalemate that the US can't act for fear

111:56

of the retaliation and the impact it

111:57

would have on America's actual allies in

111:59

the region.

112:00

>> What do you think happens here? Trump

112:02

straight up news, Iran now have this

112:04

sort of choke hold on the world it

112:05

seems.

112:06

>> I mean the biggest driver also is the

112:08

election cycle we're in.

112:09

>> The midterms

112:10

>> the midterms. So going into November

112:12

this war is deeply unpopular both sides

112:16

>> and so trying to get rid of the war is

112:19

the incentive at the moment.

112:22

It's tough situation.

112:23

>> You seem um hesitant. Yeah.

112:26

>> No, I just I'm not a I'm not a great guy

112:27

to appine on this. I just I don't know

112:30

what to do. But just when you look at it

112:31

from the outside, you see a president

112:33

that says he's going to bomb, he's not

112:34

going to bomb, he's calling it off, he's

112:35

bombing, he's not bombing, he's calling

112:37

it off, we've got a deal, there's no

112:38

deal,

112:38

>> and you're you're flopping around. And I

112:40

think even that as a behavior to observe

112:42

from the outside, you go, "Oh, okay."

112:44

>> Um,

112:44

>> well, let me ask you one question. It

112:45

kind of makes him unpredictable, right?

112:48

>> And that unpredictability can can in

112:50

some cases be an advantage. I do think

112:52

people have made this case that the

112:53

president's unpredictability makes it

112:56

hard for people to have a clear path on

112:58

how to attack. Like my poker player

112:59

buddies, their whole poker strategy, the

113:02

guys who are the best in the world, who

113:03

I'm friends with, their whole strategy

113:04

is like create randomness in your

113:06

gamesmanship. So that it's very hard for

113:08

someone to exploit your gameplay. And um

113:11

you know, I just don't know if you know

113:12

what you're going to get with President

113:14

Trump. You can meet with him and hear

113:15

him say one thing and then he'll do

113:17

something different later.

113:18

>> I understand the merit of that argument.

113:20

I in this situation, what I'm observing

113:22

now is he's become predictable.

113:24

>> Yeah. in in terms of

113:26

>> in terms of not being able to do any

113:28

like not not

113:29

>> not taking action

113:30

>> not taking action threat post it biggest

113:34

strike coming since World War II call it

113:35

off

113:35

>> what would you do if you were him

113:37

[laughter]

113:39

what would I do uh there's only bad

113:42

outcomes so it's which bad out honestly

113:44

I think which bad outcome am I willing

113:45

to accept the most

113:47

>> and I guess for someone like Trump I

113:49

don't know him but I I guess he's

113:50

probably thinking which one would save

113:52

the most face

113:53

>> that's probably the right kind of you

113:56

know objective function for him.

113:58

>> I think the worst thing is all outcomes

113:59

in my view lead to the straight of

114:01

hormones being now basically a a tool of

114:04

Iranian negotiation and it wasn't

114:06

before.

114:06

>> New point of leverage.

114:07

>> Yeah. New point of leverage in that

114:08

region which is a powerful point of

114:09

leverage.

114:10

>> Yeah. Yeah. But it may create um

114:13

alternatives. There's conversation about

114:15

creating other pipelines out to Israel.

114:17

Oh yeah.

114:17

>> And so on. So maybe at the end of the

114:19

day it creates incentive for other

114:21

channels to be opened. uh TBD. I do

114:23

think the um it's not just about the

114:26

Iranian

114:27

program, but it's like where's all the

114:29

enriched uranium? That's probably if

114:31

you're kind of asking a military

114:32

adviser, I would say that's probably

114:34

what they're thinking about as the the

114:35

core because it takes a long time to

114:36

enrich uranium to use for nuclear fuel

114:39

like this. So getting the enriched

114:41

uranium is probably a key objective.

114:43

>> The next election 2028 for the president

114:45

presidential office. Do you think a

114:46

Republican's going to win on in the

114:48

course of how things are going

114:49

>> for 28?

114:50

>> Yeah.

114:50

>> No, I think it's going to be AOC. You

114:52

think it's going to be ARC?

114:53

>> Yeah.

114:54

>> Really?

114:54

>> At this point,

114:56

>> why?

114:57

>> It's all the stuff we've talked about. I

114:58

just think that that's the the state of

115:00

the nation. I think that's where people

115:02

are at. They they want help. People feel

115:04

desperate and they want a candidate that

115:06

can promise to help make their life

115:09

better. I think they're less concerned

115:11

about, you know, freedom of movement,

115:12

the kind of stuff we talked about. I

115:14

think they're much more concerned about

115:15

paying their bills and getting

115:17

healthcare and getting child care. And

115:19

>> you think she's going to run?

115:20

>> I think she'll run. I think she'll beat

115:22

Buddhajed and uh

115:23

>> Kamla

115:24

>> Kamla

115:25

>> Newsome

115:26

>> Newsome I don't think Nuome's gonna have

115:29

like a great

115:31

presence on a national stage. I think he

115:33

he he he he looks and acts the part but

115:37

it's going to be hard for him to sell

115:38

the rest of America. And I think Kamla

115:40

is just like it it's just no one wants

115:42

to take the risk. AOC is just like mom

115:46

Donnie in the sense that she brings a

115:48

very different voice, you know, and I

115:49

think this DSA movement has real legs to

115:51

it because I don't see a lot of young

115:53

people speaking out against the DSA

115:54

movement. I see a lot of old Democrats

115:57

speaking out against the DSA movement.

115:58

>> You see Kla Harris being perceived as

116:00

more of a risk than AOC.

116:02

>> Yeah.

116:02

>> Because she's lost before and they've se

116:04

>> Oh, okay. Yeah. Because she's lost

116:05

before.

116:06

>> Yeah. But look, what do I know? It's

116:08

interesting to I've heard you I think

116:09

I've heard you guys on the Allin podcast

116:10

say before that you think in 2028 it

116:13

will be a Democrat or a socialist that

116:15

wins. So

116:17

>> I mean there's a lot of runway between

116:18

here and there.

116:20

>> And look I mean I want to talk about the

116:22

the profound frontiers in front of us

116:25

because I think that there really is

116:27

this idea and you know there's a lot of

116:29

my friends who have this idea of this

116:30

golden age hypothesis that we're

116:33

entering this golden age and people

116:35

don't realize we're in it. that AI

116:38

unleashes this capacity for human

116:40

advancement. So the the the age reversal

116:44

stuff. Right now we have a billion

116:45

people in the world that are starving.

116:47

We have hundreds of millions of people

116:48

dying from curable disease. I think

116:51

these are the sorts of things that are

116:52

going to get resolved more quickly than

116:54

we realize. I think that the

116:56

productivity gains that are going to

116:57

arise from AI are not just going to kind

116:59

of, you know, be a battle on does the

117:02

painter have a robot or not, but I think

117:05

it's going to be about all this new

117:06

stuff that's starting to be realized.

117:08

Material science, it's going to have a

117:10

profound revolution right now. Traveling

117:12

to the moon, which might seem like a

117:13

billionaire's fantasy, but ends up

117:16

becoming kind of a real true industrial

117:19

frontier that everyone's going to

117:20

participate in. There's just

117:22

extraordinary abundance that arises from

117:25

the stuff. Not in the sense that, oh,

117:27

we're just making everything that we've

117:28

had in the past cheaper, but the stuff

117:30

that's in front of us, the frontiers

117:32

that all of the entrepreneurs want to

117:34

pursue, that all of the dreamers see as

117:36

the opportunity and the hope for

117:38

tomorrow, that all of the pragmatists

117:40

are kind of acknowledging is like legit

117:42

for the first time in our history.

117:45

That's where I think there's a light

117:47

kind of rising off this horizon. And I

117:49

feel very good about that. Maybe AOC

117:52

gets elected. That's just my view on

117:53

timing where we sit today

117:54

sociopolitically. But I do think that

117:56

the light is rising in a way that like

117:59

everyone's going to have a profound

118:00

change to their lives in the next couple

118:02

of years. So I am profoundly optimistic.

118:05

We kind of talked a lot about socialism

118:06

and government spending and all this

118:07

today, but my experience on the

118:10

ground is just like holy And

118:14

there's no stopping it. Like this this

118:16

amaz these amazing breakthroughs are

118:17

here. One of the things you learn when

118:19

you hire lots of people is that um in

118:21

every change or every announcement you

118:22

make in your company or we've raised

118:24

money or whatever it might be, there's

118:26

an there's a second question which is

118:28

what everyone all of your team members

118:29

are actually asking. What does it mean

118:30

for me?

118:31

>> What does it mean for me?

118:32

>> Mhm.

118:32

>> And actually on the ground talking about

118:34

being on the ground, it's the 63%. They

118:38

can't they look up and they see a

118:40

trillionaire, world's first

118:41

trillionaire. They see AI

118:43

>> Katy Perry with the flower out the

118:44

window. They see a job displacement

118:46

coming and then they go well listen

118:48

can't can't pay the bills. So what's the

118:51

mechanism for doing that right now for

118:52

helping the people on the ground to

118:55

benefit from the advances in this

118:56

technology? What would the mechanism be?

118:58

>> 401ks to own this stuff would would be

119:00

what we need to change from a public

119:01

policy perspective so that they all have

119:03

direct ownership in these things

119:04

>> and they can look on their phone and see

119:05

how they're benefiting from

119:06

>> I'll tell you everyone thinks that AI is

119:08

going to accumulate to two or three

119:09

companies. I don't think that's how it's

119:11

going to play out. Everyone's using AI

119:13

and everyone's using open source AI now.

119:15

Meaning every company's going to benefit

119:16

from AI, which means every company is

119:18

going to have more money to pay their

119:19

employees, hire more people, train them

119:22

up, do other things with them. So I'm

119:24

like I I don't buy into the narrative

119:26

that Dario, Elon, and Sam end up having

119:29

all the value in AI. I think the Chinese

119:31

blew that up. I think the open source

119:33

stuff is the best thing to happen.

119:34

>> Doesn't that mean there's going to be a

119:35

bit of an e economic collapse here?

119:37

>> Those data centers still need to exist

119:39

to run the models. Are we in an AI

119:41

bubble in that regard?

119:42

>> If this this capex on AI, if the cost to

119:46

uh run a Chinese model comes down by

119:49

some number of fold over the cost to run

119:51

a proprietary model, I'm going to run

119:54

more models. I'm going to do it more.

119:55

And as I do it more, I'm going to need

119:57

more compute. I need more data centers.

119:59

I need more thing to do that. So that's

120:02

where she go. By the way, on the data

120:03

center argument, I totally buy into

120:05

people's concerns about data centers

120:06

driving up the cost of energy. I the

120:09

water thing is I think BS, but um the

120:12

cost of energy thing, every data center

120:14

should be on its own grid and every data

120:16

center should make enough power not just

120:17

to be on their own grid, but to pump

120:19

energy back into the grid. If you set

120:20

that as a standard for every data center

120:22

project in the US going forward, you've

120:24

solved the data center problem because

120:25

now you're dropping the price of

120:26

electricity for everyone in America and

120:28

these data centers are all off the grid

120:29

and then everyone can own those. They

120:31

can all be in REITs and people can buy

120:32

stock and and many of those are publicly

120:34

traded so they should be in your 401k

120:37

and everyone can own a piece.

120:38

>> David, we have a closing tradition on

120:39

this podcast where the last guest leaves

120:40

a question for the next guest not

120:41

knowing who they're leaving it for. And

120:43

the question left for you is, what is

120:45

one idea you have that is uncomfortable

120:47

for people to hear that you don't

120:49

typically say out loud?

120:53

Um, I think we should end the federal

120:55

student loan program in the United

120:57

States and I think education cost will

120:59

come way down and the private market

121:01

will still provide all the student loans

121:02

that people need.

121:04

I think if the federal student loan

121:06

program because it doesn't discern

121:08

colleges, degrees,

121:11

individual performance, I think that by

121:13

ending that federal student loan

121:14

program, the quality of education in the

121:16

US will improve dramatically and the

121:18

price will drop dramatically and more

121:20

people will have access to higher

121:21

quality education. I know it's

121:23

counterintuitive, but that's what'll

121:25

happen. It's sort of like, you know,

121:26

Malay removed rent control in Argentina

121:29

and rents declined. [laughter] like the

121:32

the we've propped up the price of

121:33

education in the US with the federal

121:35

student loan program. And so the federal

121:37

student loan program was replaced by a

121:39

program that is accountable, meaning the

121:41

person that's underwriting the loan

121:43

knows that that loan has to perform,

121:44

meaning that that school has to be good

121:46

or that individual has to be doing a

121:48

good degree,

121:50

the market will correct itself and

121:53

people will end up getting a loan if

121:55

they go to one get one degree versus

121:56

another. So if you get another if you

121:58

get a bad degree, you know, pick your

122:01

basket weaving, you know, major, there's

122:03

no loan available. But if you get a

122:06

degree in something that might be useful

122:08

and you're likely to get a job, there's

122:09

a loan available.

122:10

>> But for those people that can't get a

122:12

loan because they want to do basket

122:13

weaving, they're going to have to go

122:14

find something

122:15

>> else to do

122:16

>> else to do. So they might have to go

122:17

work somewhere else.

122:18

>> So the alternative was we put them in

122:19

$200,000 of debt and then they didn't

122:21

have a job afterwards. Is the

122:22

counterargument also that the most

122:24

privileged will get the best education

122:26

and that privilege can be intellectual

122:28

privilege or it can be financial

122:29

privilege but there's there'll be a

122:30

divide between okay you guys are all

122:31

going to Harvard

122:32

>> you still have a scholarship system

122:34

scholarship system doesn't change you

122:36

still have scholarships and solve for

122:37

that

122:37

>> and education is with AI is changing as

122:40

well

122:40

>> but you know I'll just say like there's

122:42

a lot of these universities that get

122:44

accredited and they provide terrible

122:47

education

122:47

>> yeah it's true then just give you debt

122:49

>> and then they give you debt and so you

122:50

graduate with a degree from, you know,

122:54

whatever crappy university or college,

122:57

but you assumed that because the

122:59

government gave you the loan, you were

123:00

going to have a job at the end.

123:01

>> Yeah. It's a scam.

123:02

>> It's a scam. It's one of the great lies.

123:04

Imagine if it was all privately funded.

123:06

There's plenty of lenders. I mean, the

123:07

amount of money that's going into

123:09

student loans is actually a small

123:10

percentage of what's going into home

123:12

loans. So, there's plenty of bank

123:13

capital out there to fund student loans.

123:15

So the student loan debt would suddenly

123:17

become, hey, if you go to this crappy

123:19

university, we're not giving you

123:20

$200,000 of debt.

123:21

>> True. I see what you're saying. It would

123:23

also force people to pick things that

123:24

were linked to the employment market

123:27

versus say like basket weaving used as

123:29

an example. But maybe if you know, maybe

123:31

I'd be forced more into things that had

123:32

a higher guarantee of return because of

123:34

the private markets.

123:35

>> And it doesn't mean

123:36

>> it's a retraining mechanism in that

123:37

regard.

123:38

>> It is. And I think this is a great reset

123:40

that's needed if we got rid of the

123:41

federal student because I don't think

123:42

you can reform federal student loans.

123:43

It's just too complicated. But if you

123:45

shut it down the and you know or you

123:47

transition it over time and let the

123:48

private market underwrite it, you'd have

123:51

a better path.

123:52

>> David, thank you. Thank you. Thank you

123:54

to you and all your co-hosts on the

123:55

All-In podcast. It's one of my favorite

123:56

podcasts. So, I highly recommend

123:57

everybody goes and listens to that. I I

123:59

listen to it all the time and it really

124:00

helps me develop my own perspective on

124:02

the world. So, I really appreciate the

124:03

fact that you guys take the time to do

124:05

that amongst your very busy schedules.

124:06

>> Well, thank you for having me

124:08

>> and uh yeah, appreciate you coming here

124:09

today and hopefully we can continue this

124:11

conversation once uh we get more of

124:12

these answers and the fog clears a

124:14

little bit. Absolutely.

124:15

>> Thank you so much. And I'll link all of

124:16

your links below for people to go read

124:17

your stuff. Is there anywhere else in

124:18

particular people can get more of your

124:19

content?

124:20

>> All ends really where I'm at.

124:22

>> Okay.

124:23

>> Yeah.

124:23

>> Anywhere else follow you on social

124:24

media.

124:25

>> Follow me on uh Twitter at Freedberg. I

124:26

don't post very much, but that's it. I

124:29

[laughter] mean, um that's where I'm at.

124:31

>> Great. We'll see you then. Thank you.

124:32

>> Thank you, David. YouTube have this new

124:33

crazy algorithm where they know exactly

124:35

what video you would like to watch next

124:37

based on AI and all of your viewing

124:39

behavior. And the algorithm says that

124:42

this video is the perfect video for you.

124:45

It's different for everybody looking

124:46

right now.

Interactive Summary

This video features a deep dive into the state of the American economy, the role of government, the transformative power of AI, and the importance of individual agency. David Freeberg discusses his career journey, his role in the President's Council of Advisers in Science and Technology, and his perspective on how innovation and free markets can drive human advancement while criticizing the current trend toward government-led socialism. He addresses the fears regarding AI-driven job displacement, arguing that technology historically creates new opportunities and raises productivity, and explains how life sciences are entering a golden age of medical breakthroughs, particularly in epigenetic reprogramming.

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