Peter was the person who told me this

really pithy

quote in a world that's changing so

quickly the biggest risk you can take is

not taking any risk this guy is a tough

nut to try to sort of explain changed

money with PayPal was the first outside

investor in Facebook uh back paler which

is I believe they helped find Osama Bin

Laden almost certainly the most

successful technology investor in the

world I don't think the future is fixed

I think what matters is a question of

agency what I think works really well

are sort of oneof A- kind companies how

do you get from Z to one what great

business is nobody building tell me

something that's true that nobody agrees

with you

on all right Peter welcome back it's

good to see

[Applause]

you

um you don't do this too often uh so we

do appreciate it U but when you do do it

you're always super candid and

appreciate that as well you fit right in

here um you're sitting this year's

political cycle out right politics well

no I mean I think this is a question we

all have which is you were very active

um you bet on Jed in a major way um he

delivered today it was a very impressive

uh discussion why aren't you involved

this this cycle where it's very

confounding to us because these are your

guys man how much time do we have

supposed talk about this for two hours

or something um um I I don't know look I

have a lot of conflicted thoughts on it

uh I I am still very strongly prot Trump

Pro uh Pro JD I've decided not to uh

donate any money politically but uh I'm

supporting them in every other way uh

every other way possible uh I you know

uh obviously uh you know I think uh I

think

there's my my pessimistic thought is

that uh Trump is is going to win and

probably will win by a big margin uh

he'll do better than the last time and

it'll still be really disappointing

because you know the elections are

always a relative Choice and then once

someone's president it's an absolute and

they you get evaluated you know do you

like Trump or Harris better and that

seems there seem to be a lot of reasons

you know and that one would be more

anti-h haris than anti-trump let's again

no one's Pro any of these people it's

all it's all negative right um and uh

but then after after they win there will

be a lot of buyers remorse and

disappointment that's sort of that's

sort of the arc that I I see of what's

going to happen and it's it's somewhat

under motivating um I don't know just to

describe describe it I I think you know

I think it's I think the odds are

slightly in favor of trump but it's

basically

5050 um my one contrarian view on the

election is that it's not going to be

close un you know most presidential

elections aren't and uh you know one

side just breaks you know 20 2016 2020

we super close but two-thirds of the

elections aren't and you know you can't

always line things up and figure it out

I think either the you know the comma

bubble will burst or you know maybe

maybe the Trump voters get really

demotivated and don't show up but I

think you know one side is is simply

going to collapse in the next uh in the

next two months and then you know if you

want to get involved you know with all

the headaches that come with being

involved if it makes a difference

counterfactually and if it's a really

close election everything makes a

difference if it's if it's not even

close I don't think it makes much of a

difference if if it is going to be close

by the way if it's if it's like going to

be a razor thin close election then um

then I'm pretty sure KLA will win

because um because they will cheat they

will fortify it they will steal the

ballots and so so uh so you know if we

if we can if we can if we can and so

then in the event in the event that it's

close I don't want to be involved in the

event that it's not close I don't need

to be involved and so that's sort of

that's sort of a straightforward analis

right there jumping off point much

cheating on a percentage basis do you

think happens every year how much and do

you think Trump actually careful with

the verb so you know um cheating

stealing that implies something happened

the dark night I think the verb you're

allowed to use is fortify okay yeah we

don't want get canell on YouTube ballot

harvesting I mean it was you know it's

all sort of there were all these rule

changes it was sort of done in plain

daylight and uh um but yeah I think I

think our elections are not they're not

perfectly clean otherwise we could

examine it we could have vigorous debate

about it well what would you change then

what what should change cuz we all want

everybody's votes to count we want it to

be clean um I'm I'm talking about the

audience here I know at a minimum you

you'd run them you'd try to run

elections the same way you do it in

every other Western democracy you have

one day voting you have practically no

absentee ballots um you have um and um

and it's you know it's it's it's it's

it's one day where everything happens

it's not this uh two two-month elongated

process that's what the way you do it in

every other country you you'd have you'd

have some somewhat stronger voter ID and

you know make sure that you know the

people who are voting have a right to

vote um make it a national holiday

that's that's basically that's basically

what you do in every other Western

democracy and it's it's it and it used

to be much more like that in the US I

mean it's it's it's meaningfully decayed

over the last 20 30 years you 20 30

years ago 30 40 years ago you you got

the results on the day of of the vote

and that sort of stopped happening a

while ago what would make you not

disappointed so Trump gets elected how

do you what's your counternarrative on

you know where a year or two years past

the election Trump is president what

what makes you say I'm surprisingly not

disappointed what takes place man it's

um you know it's I I I think there are

some extremely difficult problems that

it's it's it's really hard to know how

how to how how to solve them I wouldn't

know what to do but uh we have you know

we have an incre incredibly big deficit

and uh and yeah if you can if you can

find some way to meaningfully reduce the

deficit with no tax hikes and without

without GDP contraction well you you

would do it if you got a lot of GDP

growth maybe right but um if you could

if you could meaningfully reduce the

deficit with with um with no with no tax

hikes that would be that would be very

impressive you know I I think we're sort

of sleepwalking into Armageddon with uh

you know the Ukraine and um the conflict

and Gau are just sort of the warm-ups to

the China Taiwan war and uh and so if uh

if if Trump can find a way to head that

off that would be incredible if they

don't go to war in four years that that

would be that would be better than I

would expect possibly in relation to

Taiwan if Trump called you and asked

should we defend it or not in this acute

case

would you advise to let Taiwan be taken

by China in order to avoid a nuclear

Holocaust in World War II or would you

believe that we should defend it and

defend free countries like that well I I

I think um I think you're probably not

supposed to

say no no no if you no if you um you I I

I think look I think there's so many

ways our our policies are messed up but

probably you know the one the one thing

that's roughly correct on the Taiwan

policy is that uh uh we don't tell China

what we're going to do um and what we

tell them is we don't know what we'll do

and we'll figure it out when you do it

which is probably has the virtue of

being correct and uh and then I think if

you had yeah if you had a red line at

quoy Matsu the the island you know five

miles off the coast of China that's

unbelievable if you um if you um if you

say we want some guard rails and we

won't defend Taiwan then they'd get

invaded right away so I think I think I

think policy of um not say policy is and

maybe not even having a policy you know

in some ways is relatively the best I I

I think anything anything anything

precise you say that's going to just

lead to war right away but what do you

believe I um worth defending or not

worth starting the conflict democracy in

this tiny Island worth going to war over

or not according to Peter teal it's um

it's not worth uh it's not worth World

War III

um and I I still think it's it's uh

quite catastrophic if it uh if it gets

taken over by the Communists how does

the world those can both be true how

does the world

divide if we end up in a heightened

escalation is China Russia Iran friends

is that an Alli is that an axis that

forms you know think out the next decade

in kind of your base case and I don't

know what happens how the world I don't

know what happens militarily if there's

a China Taiwan Invasion I mean may maybe

we roll over maybe it

escalates you know all the way to

nuclear war probably it's it's you know

some very messy in between thing sort of

like what what you have in in the

Ukraine uh what what I think happens

economically is very straight forward I

think uh I think basically um you know

you have with Russia and Germany you had

one northstream Pipeline and we have the

equivalent of a 100 pipelines between

the US and China and they they all blow

up you I I met the tick tock CEO about

about a year ago and um you know I not

maybe I wouldn't have said this now but

what I told him and I felt was very

honest advice was you know you don't

need to worry about the us we're never

going to do anything about Tik Tok we're

too incompetent um but um but but if I

were in your place I would still get the

business out of China I would get the

computers out the people out I'd

completely decouple it from bike Dan

because um Tik Tok will be banned 24

hours after the Taiwan invasion

and if you think there's a 50/50 chance

this happens and that will destroy you

know 100% of the value of the Tik Tok

franchise what was his reaction

um you know uh he said that they had

done a lot of simulations and the bunch

of companies in World War I and World

War II that managed to sell things to

both sides he doesn't seem so bright to

me do you think he's um he no he donly

what your take on him he he didn't

disagree with my frame and so I always I

always find that flattering if someone

basically framing so he seemed he seemed

perfectly bright to me even

though lot of bright people I saw you

give this I saw you give a talk last

summer with Barry Weiss and you talked

about this decoupling should be

happening you weren't saying should you

were recommending that every industry

leader consider decoupling from China I

think your comment was it's like picking

up nickels in front of a freight train

you remember saying that the well I I I

think like it's it's there a lot of

different there lot of different ways in

which businesses are coupled to China

that were investors that tried investing

there are people who tried to compete

within China they people who built

factories in China for export um and um

you know there different parts of that

that worked to um to to varying degrees

but uh but yeah

my um my I I certainly would not try to

um to invest in a company that competed

domestically inside China I think that's

that's virtually impossible um I think

it's probably quite tricky even to

invest in Chinese Chinese businesses um

uh and uh and then and then there is

there is sort of this model of you know

building factories in China uh for uh

for export uh to the west and um it was

it was a very big Arbitrage these things

do work you know I me I visited the

foxcon factory nine years ago and it's

you know you have people get paid a

dollar and a half $2 an hour and they

work 12 hours a day and they live in a

dorm room with two bunk beds where uh

you know you get eight people in the

dorm room someone's sleeping in your bed

while you're working and vice versa and

uh and you sort of realize they're

really far behind us or they're really

far ahead of us and either way you know

it's it's not that straightforward to

just uh shift the um the iPhone

factories to the United States um so I I

sort of understand you know why a lot of

businesses ended up there and why why

this is the the arrangement that we have

but uh but yeah my my my intuition for

you know what is going to happen without

making any normative judgments at all is

it is going to decouple how inflationary

will that

be it presumably is it's presumably

pretty inflationary yeah that that's

that's probably the you know I I don't

know it's and you'd have to sort of look

at you know what the in elasticities of

all these goods are so that's true

what's the policy re probably not that

it may not be as inflationary as people

think because um people always model

trade in terms of uh pairwise in terms

of two countries so if you literally

have to move the people back to the US

that's that's insanely expensive I don't

you know I don't know how much would

cost people to build an

iPhone you just you just well I think

India is sort of too messed up but you

shift it to like Vietnam Mexico there

are you know there there 5 billion

people living in countries where the

incomes are lower than China and so um

and so you know probably the um the

negative sum trade policy we should have

with China is um you know we should just

shift it to other countries which is a

little bit bad for the US extremely bad

for China and let's say really good for

Vietnam that's kind of um and that's

kind of the the negative sum policy um

that uh that's going to manifest as this

sort of uh decoupling happens let's talk

about avoiding it for a second here

Trump seems to be extremely good with

dictators and authoritarians uh Kim

Jong-un seems like a big fan I mean that

in like as a compliment as a superpower

right like he doesn't have a problem

talking to them he connects with them

and they seem to like him so what would

be the path to him working with XI to

avoid this is there a path to avoid this

because we were sitting here last year

talking about this and it just seems

mindboggling that if everybody agrees

that this is going to happen happen that

we can't figure out a way to make it not

happen well it's it's not just up to us

so um yeah there's there's and so I

don't know it's it's obviously somewhat

of a black box we don't exactly we we I

I I feel we just have no clue what

people in in in China think but um but I

I I think it's sort of the the sense of

history is is strongly the sort of thus

trap idea that you have a rising power

against an existing power and it tends

to you know it's it's willham mean

Germany versus Britain before World War

I and you know it's um you know Athens

against Sparta the rising power against

the existing power you you tend to um

get conflict that's that's probably what

deep down I think is is really really

far in the China DNA so so I'd say maybe

maybe the first I don't know the meta

version would be the first the first

step avoiding the conflict would be we

have to we have to start by admitting

that China believes the conflict's

happening right and then if if if if

people like you are constantly saying um

well we just need to have some happy

talk right um that's that is a recipe

that's a recipe for world I'm not

advocating happy Jo necessarily

um I'm I get accused of being a bit more

hawkish obviously obviously um in in

general you know I don't know I I'm not

I'm not sure Trump should talked to the

North Korean dictator but yeah in

general um it's probably a good idea to

to try to um talk to people even if

they're they're really bad people most

of the time and uh and uh you know it's

it's certainly um a very odd Dynamic

with the US and and uh and Russia at

this point where um I I think it is

impossible for anybody in the Biden

Administration even to have a back

Channel communication with uh with

people like I I don't think Tucker

Carlson counts as an emissary from the

Biden Administration and if anybody gets

tuckered or I don't know what the verb

is who talks you know that's that's that

seems that seems worse than the

alternative can we um talk about

technology um you have this you you you

have a speech where you talk about some

of the misguided things we've done in

the past in the name of technology and

use like big data as an example of that

um what is

AI um oh man that's that's sort of a

big question I

um it's um yeah I I always I I always

had this riff where I I don't like the

buzzwords and um you know machine

learning learning Big Data cloud

computing you know I'm going to build a

mobile app bring the cloud to um you

know if you have sort of a concatenation

of buzzwords um you know my my first

instinct is just to run away as fast as

possible some really bad group think and

um and for many years I I my bias is

probably that AI was one of the worst of

all these buzzword it meant you know the

next generation of computers the last

generation of computers you know

anything in between so it's meant all

these all these very different things if

we if we roll the clock back to the

2010s you know the um probably the AI to

the extent you concretize I would say

the AI debate was maybe framed by by two

the two books the two canonical books

that framed it was there was the the

Bostrom book super intelligence 2014

where AI was going to be this super

human super duper intelligent um thing

and then um the anti- um Boston book was

the Kaiu Lee 2018 AI superpowers you can

think of the CCP rebuttal to Bostrom

where basically AI was going to be

surveillance Tech face recognition and

China was going to win because they had

no qualms about uh applying this

technology and um and then um if we now

think about what actually happened let's

say with the llms and and chat GPT it

was really neither of those two um and

it was this in between thing which was

actually what people would have defined

AI as for the previous 60 or 70 years

which is passing the touring test which

is you know this the somewhat fuzzy line

it's a computer that can pretend to be a

human um or that can fool you into

thinking it's a human and um and uh you

know even with the fuzziness of that

line you could say that pre chat GPT

wasn't passed and then chat GPT passed

it and that seems that seems very very

significant um and um and then obviously

leads to all these questions what does

it mean you know is it going to is it

going to complement people is it going

to substitute for people you know what

does it do to the labor market do you

get paid more paid less you know so

there all these all these questions but

uh it um it seems extremely it seems

extremely important um and um

and it's probably you know certainly the

the big picture questions which I think

Silicon Valley is always very bad at

talking about is like you know what does

it mean to be a human being right um

sort of the I don't know the stupid 2022

answer would be that humans differ from

all the other animals because we we're

good at languages if you're a

three-year-old or an 80-year old you

speak you communicate we tell each other

stories this this this is what makes us

different and so um so yeah I think

there's something about it that's uh

incredibly important and and very

disorienting you know the question I

always have as a I know the narrower

question I have as an investor is sort

of how do you make money with this stuff

and um how do you make money I it's um

it's pretty confusing and I think I I

don't know this is always where I'm

anchored on the late 90s is sort of the

formative period for me but uh I I I I

keep thinking that uh AI in 20123 2024

is like the internet in

1999 um it's it's really big it's going

to be very important it's going to

transform the world not you know in 6

months but in 20 years and then um there

are probably all kinds of incredibly uh

catastrophic approximations where you

know uh what businesses are going to

make money you know who's going to have

the Monopoly who's going to have pricing

power is um you know is is is is super

unclear um probably you know one one

layer deeper of analysis you know if

attention is all you need and if you're

you're not post economic you need to pay

attention to who's making money and in

AI it's basically one company is making

Nvidia is making over 100% of the

profits everybody else is collectively

losing money and so um and so there's

sort of a you have to do some sort of

you should do you should try to do some

sort of analysis you do you go long

Nvidia do you go short you know is it um

you know My Monopoly question is it a is

it a really durable Monopoly you know

and and then I it's it's hard for me to

know because I'm in Silicon Valley and I

haven't done anything we haven't done

anything in semiconductors for a long

time so I have no clue do you um if you

let's debz word the word Ai and say it's

a bunch of process automation let's just

say that's version 0.1 where brains that

are roughly the equivalent of a teenager

can do a lot of manual stuff what do you

have you thought about what it means for

you know 8 billion people in the world

if there's an extra billion that

necessarily couldn't work or like

whether that in political or economic

terms

I don't know the the the

um I I I don't know if this is the same

but this is you know the the history of

2050 years the Industrial Revolution

what was that it you know it adds to GDP

it frees people up to do more more

productive things um you know maybe

there's you know there was yeah there

was a I know there was a lite critique

in the 19th century of the factories

that people were going to be unemployed

and wouldn't have anything to do because

the machines would replace the people

you know maybe the Lites are right this

time around I'm I'm I'm probably I'm

probably pretty pretty skeptical of it

but uh but yeah it's it's it's extremely

confusing you know uh where where the

gains and and losses are there there

probably are um you know there there's

always sort of a hobby you can always

just use it on your hobby horses so I

don't know the you know my anti-

Hollywood or anti- university hobby

horse is that uh it seems to me that you

know the um the AI is quite good at the

woke stuff

and um it'll and and so you know if you

want to if you want to be a successful

actor you should be maybe a little bit

racist or a little bit sexist or just

really funny uh and you won't have any

risk of the AI replacing

you everybody else will get everybody

else will get replaced and then probably

I don't know

um I don't know uh Claudine gay the

plagiarizing Harvard University

president um you know the AI is going to

you know the AI will produce end amounts

of um of these sort of I don't even know

what to call them uh woke um papers and

um they they were all already sort of

plagiarizing one another they were

because they were always saying the same

thing over and over again they were

using their own version of is just going

to flood the Zone with with even more of

that and that you know I don't know

obviously they've been able to do it for

a long time and no one's noticed but uh

but I think I think at this point um

that it it doesn't seem promising from a

um compet compe Point obviously my hobby

horses so I'm I'm just maybe just

wishful thinking on my part what are the

areas of technology that um you're

curious about that your mind is like wow

this is really I have to learn more pay

attention you know I'm always I always

think uh you you want to instantiate it

more in companies than than um things or

you know you ask sort of like where is

where is innovation happening you um you

know it it it

in our society it doesn't have to be

this way but it's it's um it's mostly in

in um in a certain subset of relatively

small companies where we have these

relatively small teams of people that

are really pushing the envelope and

that's that's sort of you know that

that's sort of what I find you know

inspiring about about venture capital

and then you and then obviously you

don't just want Innovation you also want

it to sort it to it to um to translate

into into good businesses but that's

that's where it happens it it somehow it

doesn't happen in universities it

doesn't happen in government you know

there was a time it did I mean you know

somehow in this very very weird

different country that was the United

States in the 1940s you had you know

somehow the Army organized the

scientists and got them to produce a

nuclear bomb in Los Alamos in three and

a half years and you know the way the

New York Times editorialized after that

was you know it's it's you know it was

sort of an anti-libertarian write up it

was you know there were um you know

obvious Maybe you'd left the Primadonna

scientists to their own would have taken

them 50 years to build a bomb and uh the

Army could just tell them what to do and

this will should silence anybody who

doesn't believe the government can do

things and uh they don't write

editorials like that in the New York

Times anymore but I think um yeah but I

think that's sort of that that's that's

sort of where where when where when

should look I think it I think I think a

crazy amount of it still happens in the

United States you know there sort of you

know we've we've you know episodically

tried to all this investing we probably

tried to do tooo much investing in

Europe over the years it's always sort

of a junk it sort of it's a nice place

to go on vacation as an investor and um

and it's it's it is it is very it's it's

very and I don't have a great

explanation but it's a very strange

thing that uh so much of it is still the

US is somehow still the country where

people do new things Peter is that is

that a team organizational social

evolutionary problem in the United

States what is the root cause of the

failure to innovate in the United States

relative to the expectation going back

70 years 50 years Etc from you know the

the rocket shift and we're all going to

live yeah well this is always this is

always this always one of the big

picture and claims I have that we've

been in an era of relative Tech

stagnation the last 40 or 50 years or

the you know the tagline um that we

had they promis flying cars all we got

was 140 characters which is not an anti-

Twitter antix commentary even though the

the way the way I used to always qualify

it was that uh at least you know at

least it was at least a good company you

had you know 10,000 people who didn't

have to do very much work and could just

smoke marijuana all day very similar to

Europe and so I I think that actually

that part actually did get corrected but

um um but the um very but I think I I

think um like what went wrong because

you you point out that it's not a

technology Trend tracker that you think

about it's about people and teams that

innovate and drive to outcomes B on

their view of the world and and what's

gone wrong with our view of the world

and our ability to organize to achieve

the seemingly unachievable with very

rare exceptions obviously elon's here

later but yeah you know it's it's it's

it's overdetermined um the um the the

the rough frame I always have and again

it's not that there's been no innovation

there's been there's been a decent

amount of innovation in the world of

bits computers internet mobile internet

you know crypto AI so there sort of all

these um world of bits uh places where

there was you know a sign significant

but sort of somehow narrow cone of

progress but it was everything having to

do with atams that was slow this was

already the case When I Was An

undergraduate at Stanford in the late

80s in retrospect any applied

engineering field was a bad idea it was

a bad idea to become a chemical engineer

you know a mechanical engineer aeroastro

was terrible nuclear engineering

everyone KN I mean I no one did that you

know and um and and there's something

about yeah the world of Adams that um

you know from a Libertarian point of

view you'd say got regulated to death um

there probably uh you know there's

there's some there's some set of

arguments where um the lwh hanging fruit

got picked and got harder to find new

things to do although I always I always

think that was just a sort of baby

boomer excuse for for covering up for

the the failures of that generation um

and um and then um and then I think but

I think maybe maybe um maybe a very big

picture part of it was that uh at some

point in the 20th century the idea got

took hold that not all forms of

technological progress were simply good

and simply for the better and there's

you know there's something about the two

world wars and the you know the

development of nuclear weapons that uh

that that gradually pushed people into

this this more uh risk ofers society and

it didn't happen overnight but um you

know maybe a quarter century

you know after the nuclear bomb it's

like by Woodstock it happened by

Woodstock it happened yeah cuz that was

the same summer we landed on the moon

yeah Woodstock was three weeks after

that yeah that's that was the Tipping

Point progress stopped in the took over

sex can we shift gears just to the

domestic economy what what do you

think's happening in the domestic

economy and just say backdrop we've had

something like 14 straight months of

downward revisions to jobs the revisions

are supposed to be completely random but

somehow they've all been down um prob

doesn't mean anything um

there's also what's happening with with

the yield curve but I'll stop there what

what's your take on what's happening in

the

economy

um you know it's

it's man it's always hard hard to know

exactly yeah I I I suspect we're close

to a recession i' I've probably thought

this for a while uh it's it's being

stopped by really big government

spending so um you know in May of 2023

the projection for the deficit in 20

fiscal year 24 which is October of 23 to

September 24 was something like 1.5 1.6

trillion um the deficit is going to come

in about 400 billion higher and so um

which you know was a sort of a crazy

deficit was projected and it was way off

and then somehow um and so if if we had

not found another 400 billion um to add

to you know this this crazy deficit at

the top of the economics cycle you know

you're supposed to you're supposed to

increase deficits in a recession not at

the not at the top of the cycle um you

know think things would be probably very

shaky there's yeah there's there's

there's there's some way where um we

yeah we have a um too much debt not

enough sustainable growth um you know

again I always think it comes back to

you know Tech Innovation there probably

are other ways to grow an economy

without Tech um or intensive progress um

but I think they we we we don't have

those don't seem to be on offer and then

that's that's where it's very deeply

stuck if you if you wind back over the

last 50 years you there's always a

question why did people not realize that

this Tech stagnation had happened sooner

and I think there were two one-time

things people could do economically that

had nothing to do with science or tech

there was a 1980s Reagan Thatcher move

which was to massively cut taxes

deregulate allow lots of companies to

merge and combine and and it was sort of

a one-time way to make the economy a lot

bigger even though it had it was not

something that really had the sort of

compounding effect so it led to one

great decade and then there was um you

know and that was sort of the right-wing

capitalist move and then um in the 90s

there was sort of a Clinton Blair um

Center left thing which was sort of

Leaning into globalization and there was

a giant Global Arbitrage you could do

which also had you know a lot of

negative externalities that came with it

but um it sort of was a one-time move I

think both of those are are not on offer

you know I don't necessarily think you

should undo globalization I don't think

you should raise taxes like crazy but um

you can't you can't do more

globalization or more tax cuts here

that's not going to be the win and and

so I I think you have to somehow get

back to the future um we have time for a

couple more questions you um I think saw

that maybe this ivy league institutions

maybe weren't producing the best and

brightest or weren't exactly um hitting

their mandate um and you created the

teal fellows and you've been doing that

for a while and I meet them all because

they all have crazy ideas and they pitch

me for Angel investment what have you

learned getting people to quit school

giving them $100,000 and then how many

parents call you and get really upset

that their kids are quitting

school uh

it's well I I don't know I've I've I've

learned a lot I mean it's it's um

I don't know I I I I think I think the

universities are far worse than I even

thought when I started this thing um I

think um yeah it's um you know I I I I

did this uh I did this debate at Yale

last week um you know resolved higher

education's a bubble and um and uh you

sort of go through all the different

numbers and um the and then you know and

again I I was ful to word it in such a

way that I I didn't have to you know and

then people kept saying well what's your

alternative what should people do

instead and I said nope that's not was

not the debate I'm not you know I'm not

your guidance counselor I'm not your

career counselor I I don't know how to

solve your problems but um if

something's a bubble you know the first

thing you should do is probably not you

know lean into it in too crazy a way and

you know the student debt was 300

billion in 2000 it's uh it's basically

uh close to two trillion at this point

so it's just been the sort of runaway um

this runaway process and um and then if

you look at it by cohort if you

graduated from college in 1997 12 years

later um people still had student debt

but most of the people had sort of paid

it down um but the first by 2009 we

started the teal Fellowship in 2010 and

it you know it felt uh two by 2009 was

the first cohort where this really

stopped if you take the people graduated

from college in 2009 and you fast for

forward 12 years to

2021 the median person had more student

debt 12 years later than they graduated

with because it's actually just it's

just compounding faster and it was you

know partially partially the global

financial crisis the people had less

well-paying jobs they stayed in college

longer um and the colleges they it's

just sort of been this background thing

where it's it's decayed in these in

these really significant ways and um you

know again I I think it's on some level

um there are sort of a lot of um debates

in our society that are probably

dominated by sort of a boomer narrative

and maybe the Baby Boomers were the last

generation where College really worked

and you know they think well you know I

I worked my way through college and why

can't why can't um why can't you know an

18-year-old going to college do that

today and um and so I I I think the

bubble will will will be done once the

Boomers have exited stage left but does

the government to it would be good if we

figured something out before then you

know does does the government need to

stop underwriting the loans because it's

the lending I think the 90 plus perc of

the the the capital in the student loan

programs is funded by federal uh Federal

the federal government and there's if

you're an accredited University you can

take out a loan and go to it and

accreditation in in a in a in a rigid

kind of free market system you would

have an underwriter that says are you

going to be able to Gra graduate make

enough money to pay your loan off is

this a good school are you going to get

a good job and then the market would

figure out whether or not to give you a

loan would figure out what the rate

should be and so on but in this case the

government simply provides Capital to

support all this and as a result

everything's gotten more expensive and

the rigidity in the system that

basically qualifies schools and the

quality of those schools relative to the

earning potential over time is gone we

need the government to get out of

student loan business yeah but look the

the place where I'm I I know I'm sort of

some ways I'm rightwing some ways I'm

left wing on this so the place where I'm

leftwing is I do think a lot of the

students got ripped off and uh and so I

think there should be some kind of broad

um debt forgiveness at this point um who

should pick up the T but it's not just

the taxpayers it's the universities and

it's the the the the bond holders got it

the bond take a little bit out of those

ends the universities and um and then

obviously if you just make it the

taxpayers then um then you'll just then

the universities can just charge more

and more no incentive to reform what

whatsoever but uh had me you know it's

in 2005 uh it was under Bush 43 that the

bankruptcy laws got Rewritten in the US

where you cannot discharge student debt

even if you go bankrupt and if you

haven't paid it off by the time you're

65 your Social Security wages checks

will be garnished it's crazy so um so

you know I I I I do think um but should

we stop lending should the federal

government get out of the the student

lending business well if if if we if we

say that uh if we if we start if we

start with my place where you know a lot

of the student debt should be forgiven

and then and then and then reform the

then we'll see how many people are

willing to lend you know how how much

how many of the colleges can um pay for

all the student what's your sense if if

it was a totally free market system how

many colleges would shut down because

they wouldn't be able to S there's no

tuition

support it it probably would be a lot

smaller it it might it might you might

not have to shut them down because

there's you know a lot of them have

gotten extremely a blow it's like Bal

Mall's cost disease where you know I

don't know if I have no idea like a

place like UCLA it probably has you know

twice or three times as many bureaucrats

as they had 30 40 years ago so there's

sort of all there's sort of all these

sort of um parasitic people that have

sort of uh gradually approved and uh and

um and and so there's probably a lot of

would be a lot of rational ways to dial

this back but um but yeah um you know

maybe we're to a new

location if the only if the only way to

lose weight is to cut off your thumb

that's kind of a difficult way to go on

a DI he um Peter three of your

collaborators longtime collaborators

Elon Musk um Mark Zuckerberg and uh Sam

mman are arguably the three leading AI

language model um

leaders which one is going to win rank

in order and tell us a little bit about

each Peter said he would answer any

question I I I I I said I would take any

question I didn't say to answer any

question you said you would honestly you

said today you felt extremely honest and

candid Let's uh I I yeah but Ive already

been extremely honest and candid so I

think qu it's it's it's whoever I talked

to last okay they're they're all very

very convincing people so you know I cre

I I talk a little bit I talked to Elon a

while ago and and you know and it was it

was just um how ridiculous it was that

Sam Alman was getting away with turning

open AI from a nonprofit into a

for-profit that was such a scam if

everybody was allowed to do this

everybody would do this that it has to

be totally illegal what Sam's doing and

it shouldn't be allowed at all and that

seemed really really convincing in the

moment and then then sort of half an

hour later I I thought to myself but you

know actually um man it was it's been

such a horrifically mismanaged place at

open AI with this Preposterous nonprofit

board they had nobody would do this

again and so there actually isn't much

of a moral hazard from it so but yeah

who whoever whoever I talk to I find

very convincing in the

moment well will that spaces get

commoditized I mean do you see a path to

Monopoly there well again this is this

is again where you know you should you

know attention is all you need you need

to pay attention to who's making money

it's Nvidia it's it's the hardware the

chips layer and um and um and then

that's just it's just what we you know

it's not what we've done in tech for for

30 years you are they making 120% of the

profits they're they're make they're I

think everybody else is losing money

collectively yeah everyone else is just

spending money on on the computer so

it's it's one it's one company that's

making I mean maybe there's a few other

people are making some money I mean I

assume tsmc and asml but but uh but uh

yeah I think everyone else is

collectively losing money what do you

think of Zuckerberg's approach to say

I'm so far behind this isn't cour in my

business I'm going to open source it um

is that going to be the winning strategy

handicap that for

us um again I I I I I I I would say um

my again my my my big my my big

qualification is you know my my model is

AI feels like it does feel uncomfortably

close to the bubble of 1999 so I'm we

haven't invested that much in it um and

uh I I I'd want to have more clarity in

investing but uh but the the uh the

simple simplistic question is you know

who who's going to make money um you

know I think a year ago two years ago in

retrospect Nvidia would have been a good

buy you know I think at this point

everybody it's it's it's sort of too

obvious that they're making too much

money everyone's going to try to copy

them on on the chip side maybe that's

straightforward to do maybe it's not but

but that's you know I'd say probably um

you should you should if you if you want

to figure out the AI thing you you

should not be asking this question about

um you know meta or um open air or any

of these things you should really be

focusing on the Nvidia question the

chips question and the the fact that

we're not able to focus on that that

that tells us something about how we've

all been trained you know I think Nvidia

got started in 1993 yeah I believe that

was the last year where anybody in their

right mind would have studied electrical

engineering over computer science right

94 Netscape takes off and then yeah it's

probably a really bad idea to start a

Semiconductor Company even in '93 but

the benefit is there was going to be no

one would come after you no no talented

people started semiconductor companies

after 1993 because they all went into

you know into software score their

Monopoly

power um it's

I I I think it's quite strong because

this this this history that I just gave

you where none of us know anything about

chips um and then I think the you know I

think the risk it's always you know if

attention is all that you need um the

qualifier to that is you know when you

get started as an you know actress as a

startup as a as a company you need

attention then it's desirable to get

more and at some point attention becomes

the worst thing in the world and and

there was the one day where Nvidia had

the largest market cap in the world

earlier this year and I do think that

represented a phase transition once that

happened they probably had um more

attention than was good hey Peter as we

wrap here um your brain works in a

unique way you're an incredible

strategist you think you know very

differently than uh a lot of the folks

um that we get to talk to um with all of

this are you optimistic for the

future uh I I always man I always push

back in that question I I um I think I

think extreme optimism and extreme

pessimism are both really bad attitudes

and they're the somehow the same thing

you know extreme pessimism nothing you

can do extreme optimism the future will

take care of itself so if if you have to

have one it's probably you want to be

somewhere in between maybe mildly

optimistic mildly pessimistic but uh you

know I I believe in human agency and

that it's up to us and it's not you know

it's not some sort of winning a lottery

ticket or some astrological chart that's

going to decide things and I believe in

human agency and that's sort of an axis

that's very different from optimism or

pessimism what a great extreme optimism

extreme pessimism they're both excuses

for laziness what an amazing place to

end ladies and gentlemen give it up for

Peter J thank you thank you Peter come

on

now wow all right Peter ch