what was your red pill moment was there

one specific thing or was it more of a

trickle of things it was both right it's

like it starts the wall starts crumbling

and then it comes down all at once so

for me it really

started early in 2013 I started reading

pirate wires and Mike salana and I

thought he was a little crazy at first

because he would write these articles

one he wrote was about how the Ukrainian

soldiers had swastikas on their helmets

and the New York times photographers

would ask them to take the swasa off for

photos and I said that can't be right

that can't be true and then four months

later it was in the New York Times

buried in the middle of the paper and I

kept seeing stories like that that that

he would be early on and so I just

started feeling uncomfortable and Queasy

about what was going on with mainstream

media and then in May of last year of 24

I read some article that talked about

Trump's speech in Charlottesville and

this has been well covered but but where

he said there was good people on both

sides and the article said it was

completely you know propaganda and not

what he actually not accurately

reflecting what he said that uh that he

denounced the Nazis a bunch of times in

his speech and so then I went and

watched that video and that was my red

pill moment I think it was for a lot of

people because it wasn't just the media

spinning it or politicians spinning it

that was like one of the pillars of why

you were supposed to hate Trump was that

speech and and then you

see Biden say that's why he had to run a

second time and you see Obama go to you

even see Biden bring it up again in the

beginning of the DNC and it's one of

their pillars and they clearly know that

they're misrepresenting things so for me

that was just that was beyond

uncomfortable I was just like okay now I

got to go back to First principles and

look at the primary data and listen only

to original speeches by people and I

just realized I couldn't trust

mainstream media so I was I became I

started questioning the Democrats as

soon as I started questioning the

Democrats I started getting a lot of

Shame and anger and hatred oh the other

thing that happened that was part of

this journey is that my chief of staff

parted ways with me after nine years in

April of last year and he was the main

person protecting me from myself on

Twitter and he was the one who would say

stay in your lane nobody wants to hear

what you think about politics or San

Francisco or anything other than you

know your area of products and investing

and with him gone I just started

tweeting whatever I felt and thought and

sometimes I got it wrong or it was a

little too emotional but first of all it

was really fun and then second of all I

found I got connected to this whole new

audience of people people who are these

kind of techno optimists I think you

guys probably talked about

it and that just brought me down this

path that eventually I came out two days

before the

election publicly for Trump um and it

was only because that's when I

completely got there and I was trying to

just be completely honest and authentic

with myself and on Twitter at the same

time and my daughters turned to me that

Sunday and they said you're you're going

to vote for Trump we know it and I said

yeah you're probably right and they said

well then you have to go say it on

Twitter and my daughter's like really in

this with me yeah so anyway and then it

was on the front page of the New York

Post on the day of the election that I

was uh this not that I'm such news but

maybe it was just was their news Peg um

that I was coming out for Trump and but

I'll get back to your re question but

what I love about my New York Times

about my New York friends is that they

did not give a f they were all pro comma

and they texted me and they're just like

oh that's kind of funny but it's one

thing I kind of love about New York they

didn't care back to your question on

Reed what I love about Reed was he was

already getting pings from people saying

what's going on with pinkis he's going

off the rails he's becoming a Trumper

you know it's you guys I'm sure have

gone down got a little bit of that too

about shamas in

freeberg yeah so like what's wrong with

him we got to bring him back into the

fold you know he's he's should we lock

him up is he crazy um and so Reed was

already getting these I had a lot of

anxiety about talking to Reed about it

and finally Reed and I got on

FaceTime and he just said I just want to

start by saying I'm team Mark and I said

I'm team Reed

and it gets out a little you know a but

well no Americans can get along even if

they disagree politically about a

candidate it's probably where we need to

get to especially you know now that

Trump's going to be in office in a

couple of days what was it like when for

Biden yeah okay well just to finish the

read part sorry but what what I love

about Reed is that we followed that with

a 4our dinner and he said I never

questioned your principles he said I

know you're a highly principled person

and I just want to understand which

principles it is and I'd like to

convince you to change your mind but

anyway

so hold on one second

so I you said something almost in

passing but I just want to double click

I think part of what Silicon Valley

actually gets wrong is that we don't

embrace the tism and what I mean by that

is everybody we're all a little socially

uncomfortable we awkward I wouldn't say

that we were the coolest people growing

up and there's this virent form of

blockers you called it Chief of Staff I

think that these folks can be very

detrimental which almost represent this

filter between your true self and

everybody else and there is this game

that's played about being a

gatekeeper I do think that executive

assistants are val valuable

administrative assistance are valuable

the reason I can say this is that my EA

went on maternity

leave I had and I experimented with a

chief of staff Etc and now I use Jason

service called Athena and I have a guy

that works with me in the

Philippines and it's about 3,000 a month

and I can honestly tell you this guy is

the single most effective administrative

support I've ever had and what there is

is all these opinions on what I can say

or do and I think that when you look at

a lot of these big companies if you look

at zuck's current transformation or what

you just spoke about there are all these

Interlopers that seem to get in the

middle of you and people's perception of

you I don't know if you have any

comments or reactions to that idea yeah

it's part of where I know you guys have

talked about Zuck coming out as Lisa's

based or his seemingly more authentic

self or sharing more about himself

and I can relate to it because I think

we all go through this this struggle as

you start to be more of a known person

inside your company outside your company

and you have people around you taking

the edges off and I think that we're now

in this time that I think we're having

authenticity is having a moment now

which is great for me because Reed said

to me I I've if you Google me you'll see

that there's lots and lots of bad things

written about me and a lot of it is my

high school quote was some people have

tacked and others tell the truth and

I've always been kind of just committed

to being honest even if it's nuanced and

it's not an easy sound bite and Reed

said to me early on you need to pick

what the easy narrative is or the Press

is going to make it up for you and he

was right and they did or my competitors

did so I think that now with long form

podcasts and there's just more and the

fact that we can kind of directly in a

lot of ways Elon was the first one to

directly defend himself you remember

when well he fired his do you remember

when he fired his whole PR team he fired

all those people there's just like

there's none of that infrastructure

between him and and everybody else but

do you remember when he would be on

Twitter all the time post PayPal trying

to correct the story

and just write long long diet tribes and

then and then when a New York Times

Reporter said something negative about a

Tesla he just went off for weeks about

them and and it seemed a little crazy

and deranged and then you started to see

that it worked like he actually and we

were told don't defend yourself if

something bad is written about you

you're going to prolong the press cycle

you're going to make the journalist

angry and so we've we're now Unshackled

I teach this class at Stanford and I

taught two backtack on Monday and I

looked around and I saw half the plard

said you know she her you know he him

his and I got a little Pang of like oh

do I have to watch one I'm say I'm like

no I don't I'm Unshackled I'm just gonna

this is just me and I'm gonna be Mark

unfiltered and it's the better version

of our so anyway I I'm glad that Zuck

feels like he can be he can present more

of his complete self out there now and I

think we can get into it later but I

have a lot of thoughts on how the

culture is going to kind of move more

towards base