00:00:00
I think the greatest brand destruction
00:00:01
over the last 18 months is the US brand
00:00:04
abroad and AI. So with America, Trump
00:00:06
has been convinced that this was his
00:00:08
defining moment of being known as the
00:00:09
president that liberated the Middle
00:00:11
East. But I think the Trump
00:00:12
administration will be known for
00:00:13
criminal corruption and incompetence.
00:00:15
And that incompetence is bubbling up.
00:00:17
And then the second greatest fall is AI.
00:00:20
And also Sam Alman who's gone to the
00:00:22
dark side. And I'm an AI optimist. But
00:00:24
here's what we fail to understand. These
00:00:26
techs, they do not have our best
00:00:28
interests at heart. Scott, I often come
00:00:30
to you to help myself form my opinions
00:00:32
on some of the most sort of
00:00:33
consequential issues going on in the
00:00:34
world. And when I look at some of the
00:00:36
quotes from the CEOs of these AI
00:00:37
companies, I've got one here from Elon
00:00:38
that says, "AI and robots will replace
00:00:40
all jobs." What's your view here? I
00:00:42
think it's mostly the catastrophizing is
00:00:44
nothing more than thinly veiled attempt
00:00:46
to say my technology is so devastating
00:00:48
that it's going to shift society and you
00:00:50
should invest at this crazy valuation.
00:00:52
And the data doesn't reflect that
00:00:54
there's some big exogenous meteor coming
00:00:56
for the employment market. But I believe
00:00:58
it's actually going to create more jobs
00:01:00
than it destroys. But the scary thing
00:01:01
for me is that because of AI and because
00:01:04
of these frictionless relationships that
00:01:06
people are engaging in online. I think a
00:01:08
lot of young people are losing the
00:01:09
ability to endure rejection. But I think
00:01:11
a more important technology in terms of
00:01:13
how it's going to change the world and
00:01:14
what will create more shareholder value
00:01:15
is not AI. It's really
00:01:20
>> This is super interesting to me. My team
00:01:22
given me this report to show me how many
00:01:23
of you that watch this show subscribe.
00:01:25
And some of you have told us according
00:01:26
to this that you are unsubscribed from
00:01:28
the channel randomly. So favor to ask
00:01:30
all of you please could you check right
00:01:32
now if you've hit the subscribe button
00:01:34
if you are a regular viewer of the show
00:01:35
and you like what we do here. We're
00:01:36
approaching quite a significant landmark
00:01:38
on this show in terms of a subscriber
00:01:40
number. So if there was one simple free
00:01:42
thing that you could do to help us, my
00:01:44
team, everyone here to keep this show
00:01:46
free, to keep it improving year over
00:01:48
year and week over week, it is just to
00:01:50
hit that subscribe button and to double
00:01:51
check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
00:01:52
ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If
00:01:55
you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:01:56
I'll make sure every single week, every
00:01:59
single month, we fight harder and harder
00:02:00
and harder and harder to bring you the
00:02:01
guests and conversations that you want
00:02:02
to hear. I've stayed true to that
00:02:04
promise since the very beginning of the
00:02:05
D of Sio, and I will not let you down.
00:02:08
Please help us. Really appreciate it.
00:02:10
Let's get on with the show.
00:02:18
Scott, welcome back. I um I often come
00:02:22
to you to help myself form my opinions
00:02:24
on some of the most sort of
00:02:25
consequential issues going on in the
00:02:27
world because I I find you always have a
00:02:29
very interesting perspective and one of
00:02:31
the things that's been front of mind for
00:02:33
me and I think the audience as well is
00:02:35
this subject of artificial intelligence.
00:02:38
It's moving incredibly quickly. It feels
00:02:39
like a moving target. And I think I saw
00:02:41
some stats the other day that said the
00:02:44
subject of artificial intelligence is
00:02:45
less popular as like an industry than
00:02:48
even ICE in the United States. Mhm.
00:02:50
>> In part because the big CEOs of these
00:02:53
companies are saying that our jobs and
00:02:54
our way of life is going to be
00:02:56
fundamentally disrupted and people don't
00:02:58
feel like they have a say in that. We
00:02:59
didn't choose this.
00:03:01
>> What's your perspective on everything
00:03:02
that's going on?
00:03:03
>> There have been few brands that have
00:03:05
fallen further faster in the last 18
00:03:06
months than two brands. The United
00:03:08
States brand abroad. We used to be the
00:03:10
enforcer of the operating system to keep
00:03:12
rogue nations in check. The US is now
00:03:14
that rogue nation. So the US brand
00:03:17
abroad for the first time in history
00:03:19
more people feel that China is a force
00:03:21
of good in the world than the US. That's
00:03:23
never happened before. So the brand US
00:03:25
has fallen furthest fastest. The second
00:03:28
greatest fall is AI. Your view of AI is
00:03:33
directly correlated to your wealth. The
00:03:35
only cohort that has a positive rating
00:03:38
of AI is people making over $200,000.
00:03:41
Because generally speaking, wealthy
00:03:44
people look at AI as something that's
00:03:46
fueling their portfolios and uh wealthy
00:03:49
people are the biggest users of AI. So
00:03:52
they see it as a positive. They see it
00:03:53
as innovation. They see it as the S&P
00:03:55
going up. But if you're
00:03:58
an average middle class person, what you
00:04:00
may see is that your electricity bills
00:04:02
have gone up and you don't even have
00:04:04
access to invest in these companies. And
00:04:07
you see some statements from people Sam
00:04:10
Alman saying, "Stop complaining about
00:04:12
energy costs. Think about the amount of
00:04:14
energy it takes to raise a child." So
00:04:16
they haven't really managed the brand
00:04:18
well. In the last 18 months, it's gone
00:04:20
from something kind of scary, but we can
00:04:22
be optimistic and a wealth creator to
00:04:24
something that's very scary and
00:04:26
something that's a wealth creator for
00:04:27
the wealthiest already. The brand in the
00:04:29
last 18 months has had tremendous,
00:04:32
tremendous erosion. When I look at some
00:04:35
of the quotes from the CEOs of these AI
00:04:36
companies, I've got one here from Elon
00:04:37
that says, "AI and robots will replace
00:04:39
all jobs. Working will be optional, like
00:04:41
growing your own vegetables instead of
00:04:43
buying them from a store. The challenge
00:04:44
will be fulfillment. How do you derive
00:04:46
fulfillment and meaning in life?" And
00:04:48
Sam Molman said, "By the end of 2028,
00:04:50
more of the world's intellectual
00:04:52
capacity could reside inside data
00:04:54
centers than outside them." And when I
00:04:57
went through Sam's blog several times, I
00:04:59
mean, he's talking about a fairly
00:05:00
dystopian future. And many of the CEOs
00:05:02
are I mean even Amadea Enthropic talks a
00:05:05
lot about you know his his bare case for
00:05:07
AI and the job disruption that will
00:05:09
follow and so I think I'm trying to get
00:05:12
clarity for myself really on like what
00:05:14
what is the truth what's marketing and
00:05:16
what's the truth and I want to add
00:05:18
another point which is I hire a lot of
00:05:19
people
00:05:20
>> and I'm already finding that our
00:05:21
framework specifically for entry-level
00:05:23
roles
00:05:24
>> y
00:05:25
>> has has quite radically changed and so I
00:05:27
didn't believe this stuff like a lot of
00:05:29
people told me about oh Sam Alman these
00:05:30
guys they're doing marketing to make
00:05:31
their company seem powerful. But then
00:05:33
when I noticed a change in my own
00:05:34
behavior when I'm sifting through these
00:05:36
CVs, yeah, I thought, "Oh, maybe things
00:05:39
are going to change." I think it's
00:05:41
mostly [ __ ] and catastrophizing and
00:05:43
a means of fundraising. Every technology
00:05:45
in history goes through a similar arc.
00:05:47
There's some catastrophizing, there's
00:05:49
some job loss, that increase in
00:05:52
productivity results in additional
00:05:53
margin, new business opportunities, and
00:05:56
employment growth. I don't see any
00:05:58
reason why this would be any different.
00:06:00
And I think that catastrophizing and
00:06:02
talking about this massive destruction
00:06:04
in jobs is a way of saying or justifying
00:06:06
the massive investments these companies
00:06:08
want enterprises to make in their
00:06:10
companies. Because if you look at the
00:06:11
amount of capital they have committed
00:06:13
and the valuations of these companies,
00:06:15
one of two things needs to happen in the
00:06:17
next 5 years at least in the US. There
00:06:18
either needs to be a trillion dollars in
00:06:20
incremental revenue from new products
00:06:22
from companies that have licensed AI. So
00:06:24
L'Oreal does a big site license with say
00:06:26
open AI. Does it come up with new
00:06:28
products? It's like how does it justify
00:06:30
that investment? We're not seeing a lot
00:06:31
of AI moisturizer or cars that are built
00:06:34
by AI. I mean, there's AI has hit
00:06:37
industrialized robots at Amazon, but
00:06:39
there's not a lot you would call new
00:06:40
AIdriven or AI products. AI plays a role
00:06:43
in the background, but it's very hard
00:06:46
for companies right now to point to
00:06:48
incremental growth or revenues from AI.
00:06:50
So, in order to justify these
00:06:52
valuations, then they have to say, all
00:06:54
right, there's going to be massive cost
00:06:56
savings or efficiencies. And there's
00:06:57
some examples. I think Meta Meta has
00:07:00
just announced new layoffs because of
00:07:02
efficiencies they're getting with AI
00:07:03
targeting. So, one of two things needs
00:07:05
to happen in the next three three years.
00:07:07
Either these companies valuations need
00:07:09
to be cut by 50 or 70%. Or you need a
00:07:12
massive destruction in the labor market
00:07:14
that creates tons of efficiencies that
00:07:16
their customers can then flow to the
00:07:18
bottom line. And I think what the CEOs
00:07:20
are saying is that there's going to be
00:07:21
massive efficiencies. I also think that
00:07:23
you sound more interesting and it makes
00:07:25
your technology sound more seinal when
00:07:28
you say it's changing the world and we
00:07:30
don't know how to control it. And quite
00:07:32
frankly, I find it a little bit
00:07:33
obnoxious
00:07:34
that some of the founders in key figures
00:07:36
in AI catastrophize just about the time
00:07:39
they take a secondary and peace out to
00:07:41
the Kotazura. That's not helpful. I'm
00:07:42
I'm Dr. Frankenstein and I've created
00:07:44
this monster, but I don't know how to
00:07:46
deal with it. So, I'm going to go peace
00:07:47
out to Sanrope. That's just not very
00:07:49
helpful. They always talk about the
00:07:51
peril. It's like, well, what do you mean
00:07:52
by that? So, the first the first big
00:07:55
fear catastrophizing is just this
00:07:57
unprecedented job destruction. They've
00:07:59
been talking about that for three years,
00:08:01
but let's look at the data. The
00:08:03
unemployment rate in the US is 4 and a
00:08:04
half%. Among youth, it's 8.8%.
00:08:08
That is slightly below the historical
00:08:10
average. The number of new business
00:08:13
permits or new businesses started per
00:08:15
capita in the United States has doubled
00:08:17
in the last 10 years. And we hear about,
00:08:20
well, what about Meta? They announced
00:08:21
they were laying off I think eight or
00:08:22
10,000 people yesterday. 2019 to 2025
00:08:26
they went from 16,000 people to 80. So
00:08:29
even if they go back to 60,000 it takes
00:08:31
them back to it takes them back about 24
00:08:33
months. So I don't doubt that there'll
00:08:36
be a real dip or a severe V down in
00:08:39
certain industries, customer service,
00:08:41
probably the legal field. But I believe
00:08:44
over the medium and the long term it's
00:08:45
actually going to create more jobs than
00:08:47
it destroys. And I don't I think some of
00:08:49
the catastrophizing is nothing more than
00:08:51
thinly veiled attempt to say my
00:08:53
technology is so devastating that it's
00:08:56
going to shift society and you should
00:08:57
invest at this crazy valuation. Could
00:09:00
you be wrong? Oh 100 I'm wrong all the
00:09:02
time, Stephen. No, but I mean like
00:09:04
what's the what's what would have to be
00:09:05
the case for you to find out that you
00:09:07
were wrong in terms of how you've
00:09:08
reasoned up from the first principles of
00:09:10
your thinking there?
00:09:11
>> Job destruction, layoffs.
00:09:13
>> But what would you have misunderstood
00:09:14
for that to be the case? like what what
00:09:16
did you miss would you have uh
00:09:17
misestimated for that to be the case?
00:09:20
>> Ground zero for the job that was going
00:09:21
to go go away was radiologists. You
00:09:24
could scan billions of images and
00:09:26
radiologists
00:09:28
kid mama don't let your your daughter
00:09:30
grow up to be a radiologist cuz that
00:09:32
job's going away. The new job listings
00:09:34
for radiologists in 2026 is up because
00:09:37
what it ends up is that while scanning
00:09:40
the image is important, it's a small
00:09:42
part of the job. The value out of a
00:09:43
radiologist is diagnosing the illness
00:09:45
and then coming up with a treatment
00:09:46
plan. And that's as important as ever.
00:09:49
The number of coders, job listings for
00:09:51
coders yearon year is up 11%. So people
00:09:54
who understand how to use these
00:09:56
technologies and come up with different
00:09:57
prompts or different means of vibe
00:09:59
coding that demand has gone up because
00:10:02
now AI can be applied to almost any
00:10:04
startup. Where I will be wrong is if
00:10:06
there is sustained job destruction and
00:10:08
the new jobs created and new businesses
00:10:11
and the employment those jobs create
00:10:12
doesn't keep up with new jobs. And there
00:10:15
is a scenario you don't need 100%
00:10:17
unemployment like Musk is predicting. At
00:10:20
20% unemployment the French had a
00:10:22
revolution in Weimar Germany turned very
00:10:24
ugly. At 20% unemployment especially
00:10:26
among youth especially young men tend to
00:10:28
get very angry and take to the streets.
00:10:31
So you could see a V that's so severe
00:10:33
even if there's a job recovery if it
00:10:35
hits 20% unemployment that could cause
00:10:37
real uh civil unrest. But I just look at
00:10:41
the data. I look at the employment
00:10:42
numbers. If you didn't know there was
00:10:45
this seminal technology that very smart
00:10:47
people were predict predicting a job
00:10:49
apocalypse around and you just looked at
00:10:50
the data, you wouldn't know there's
00:10:52
anything going on there. the the data
00:10:55
doesn't reflect that there's some big
00:10:57
exogenous meteor meteor coming for the
00:11:00
employment market. Is there a case that
00:11:02
this technology because it's you know
00:11:04
built on the internet so it has inherent
00:11:07
rapid distribution every day anthropic
00:11:09
release a model chat release something
00:11:11
it spreads across the world very quickly
00:11:13
and everybody's updating their
00:11:14
technology at the speed of light unlike
00:11:16
the industrial revolution where you had
00:11:17
to build infrastructure and physical
00:11:18
infrastructure is there a case that
00:11:20
because of the speed of this technology
00:11:22
and the proliferation of it that it will
00:11:24
be unlike the revolutions of the past
00:11:26
>> right that's the fear that the V is so
00:11:29
severe
00:11:30
>> and so vicious that we don't have time
00:11:32
to recover and even if there is more
00:11:33
jobs on the other side that there's too
00:11:35
much civil unrest around around the V.
00:11:38
But so far the V doesn't be decelerating
00:11:41
or diving as quickly as people had
00:11:43
predicted. I was kind of reminiscing on
00:11:45
the way over here. I moved here almost
00:11:48
four years ago. The first thing I did I
00:11:50
got off a plane at night and I went to
00:11:52
this amazing party at Annabelle's this
00:11:54
Brazilian party with all these hot
00:11:55
people everywhere and I thought I love
00:11:57
London. And the next morning I woke up
00:12:00
feeling pretty hung over and my team
00:12:02
said, "You have this podcast with this
00:12:04
young guy." And I said, "Cancel, I'm
00:12:06
hung over." And they said, they said,
00:12:08
"No, he's really up and coming. He'll
00:12:11
like him. He's a nice kid." And I came
00:12:13
into this little place in Shortitch or
00:12:15
wherever with all these like cool coffee
00:12:17
houses. I had no idea who you were. And
00:12:20
within two years, you were [ __ ]
00:12:22
everywhere. It was like I'm in the
00:12:24
airport and I see your banner on your
00:12:26
book. And then I get on the plane and
00:12:27
the safety video has you in it. I'm
00:12:29
like, make him stop. And my point is
00:12:33
where I'm going with this is this place
00:12:35
is like uh I mean it feels like the
00:12:38
Google Plex. You're hiring like crazy.
00:12:41
You're one of the most technically
00:12:43
sophisticated people I know in media and
00:12:46
yet you're hiring a bunch of organic
00:12:49
things, walking around and eating and
00:12:51
and going out and drinking and having
00:12:53
kids. So you're you're the example. Old
00:12:56
media is going to lose jobs, but you're
00:12:59
creating how many people have you hired
00:13:01
in the last 24 months
00:13:03
>> across all of our companies? About I'd
00:13:04
say about 220.
00:13:06
>> Okay. And those are high-paying jobs.
00:13:08
Those are young people probably making
00:13:10
six figures plus. That's a lot of
00:13:12
employment. So is the BBC or is the
00:13:15
Daily Mail or whatever laying off
00:13:16
people? Yeah. But I'm not sure they're
00:13:17
laying off people faster than you're
00:13:19
hiring them.
00:13:19
>> Yeah. And what I found is that we're
00:13:21
hiring a different type of uh person and
00:13:23
AI fluency is becoming increasingly
00:13:25
important. I say the other thing is the
00:13:28
only thing I noticed was 60 days ago I'm
00:13:30
I consider myself to be head of
00:13:31
recruitment. We have a recruitment team
00:13:32
downstairs and I own a recruitment
00:13:34
business. But as I go through that inbox
00:13:36
people that I otherwise
00:13:38
two months ago ago would have been you
00:13:41
know jumping to hire, I'm now pausing
00:13:44
because there's new technology that's
00:13:46
been launched by these companies in
00:13:48
America. That means there's alternative
00:13:50
solutions and that's what's giving me
00:13:51
pause. People do need to consider ways
00:13:55
that they can upskill themselves with
00:13:56
these technologies.
00:13:57
>> The labor market is definitely reshaping
00:13:59
and it might reshape faster, but I'm not
00:14:01
sure it's going to be the apocalypse.
00:14:02
There'll be winners and losers. For
00:14:03
example,
00:14:05
for the last 30 or 40 years, the
00:14:06
unemployment rate among college grads
00:14:08
has been lower than non-ol grads. It's
00:14:11
shifted this year. The unemployment rate
00:14:13
among non-ol grads because of the boom
00:14:15
in vocational work is now lower than the
00:14:17
unemployment rate among college grads.
00:14:19
>> Mhm.
00:14:20
>> And if you think about it, you're like,
00:14:21
okay, well, that's bad for new college
00:14:23
grads. But at the same time, all of
00:14:24
these data centers need carpenters,
00:14:28
welders, plumbers. So, there's been
00:14:30
booms in other parts of the employment
00:14:32
market. But yeah, the employment
00:14:33
market's absolutely reshaping. But when
00:14:36
I graduated from business school, a lot
00:14:38
of it, quite frankly, is your generation
00:14:40
is spoiled. What do I mean by that? When
00:14:42
I graduated from Berkeley in 1992, 40%
00:14:44
of us had a job on graduation day.
00:14:46
Meaning 60% did not have a job. I would
00:14:49
bet that kids in my class at Stern, I
00:14:52
bet 40% of them were starting their own
00:14:54
business
00:14:55
>> because with AI when I graduated, there
00:14:58
were two there were two entrepreneurs in
00:14:59
my class and the second person was my
00:15:01
co-founder. We were the only business
00:15:03
started in the high school of business
00:15:05
from 1992. I would bet there's going to
00:15:07
be 30 to 50 businesses that are started
00:15:10
on graduation day. There's kids dropping
00:15:13
out of their second year of business
00:15:14
school to start businesses because they
00:15:15
just raised $10 million in a series A.
00:15:18
Now, you have to have certain skills, a
00:15:20
certain type of personality, a certain
00:15:22
facility with technology. I'm actually
00:15:24
quite excited about this. We're starting
00:15:26
to see an uptick in productivity, which
00:15:28
should result in incremental um
00:15:30
profitability. Will some people be on
00:15:32
the wrong side of the trade? Absolutely.
00:15:34
Do we need to do a better job of
00:15:36
providing more unemployment, more
00:15:38
retraining? Denmark spends 2% of GDP on
00:15:40
retraining and vocational training. We
00:15:42
spent 2% in the US. So, we're not good
00:15:45
at retraining. We're really bad at it,
00:15:47
actually. We're not good at taking care
00:15:49
of the people on the wrong side. But as
00:15:51
a global in terms of global employment,
00:15:53
I just don't I think that
00:15:54
catastrophizing is is dressed up
00:15:57
fundraising.
00:15:58
>> What do you think about what Elon's
00:16:00
doing with um Optimus? Because if you
00:16:02
bring those two forces together, you got
00:16:04
Optimus robots, these humanoid robots
00:16:06
where he says there'll be I mean some of
00:16:08
the quotes that he said, I mean it might
00:16:10
be marketing, but he's predicting that
00:16:12
you won't need to be a surgeon because
00:16:14
there'll be so many Optimus robots that
00:16:15
are more advanced than any surgeon on
00:16:17
earth. So Optimus robots will be doing
00:16:19
surgery. Um, and if you combine
00:16:21
intelligence with sort of physical um,
00:16:25
physical power that comes from these
00:16:27
robots, it does beg the question where
00:16:29
human skills remain outside of the
00:16:32
relational stuff and Maslo serving Maslo
00:16:34
Maslo's hierarchy of needs. That's the
00:16:36
one of the things I contend with. I'm
00:16:37
like, you're seeing in China especially
00:16:40
how robots are really changing
00:16:42
production lines. And I saw this video
00:16:45
the other day of I think it was in India
00:16:46
or Bangladesh where they had their
00:16:49
factory workers have cameras on their
00:16:50
heads.
00:16:51
>> Yeah.
00:16:51
>> So that they could film their hands
00:16:53
because they're they're intent on
00:16:54
replacing them with robots.
00:16:55
>> Yeah.
00:16:56
>> This combination of intelligence plus
00:16:58
robotics feels like
00:17:01
>> it's two tsunamis at the same time.
00:17:03
>> I think that's right. But let's use the
00:17:04
surgeon as an example. I think the robot
00:17:07
in the context of surgery will be not a
00:17:09
replacement but a supplement. and that
00:17:11
is there'll be a large class of surgeons
00:17:13
who know how to weaponize robotics to be
00:17:15
better surgeons and quite frankly do two
00:17:17
surgeries a day instead of one. I think
00:17:20
most brain surgeries take four or six
00:17:21
hours using robotics and precision
00:17:24
instruments. A great neurosurgeon will
00:17:26
be able to increase the productivity and
00:17:28
the accuracy of their surgeries. My big
00:17:31
tech stock pick of 25 was Alphabet cuz
00:17:33
it was trading at a P of 17. I just saw
00:17:35
it as being ridiculously cheap cuz
00:17:37
everyone thought OpenAI was going to put
00:17:38
it out of business. My big tech stock
00:17:39
pick for 26 is Amazon because I think
00:17:42
where robotics really hit the rubber
00:17:44
meets the road in terms of shareholder
00:17:46
value is the collision of AI and
00:17:48
industrialized robots and there are
00:17:50
400,000 um industrialized robots in the
00:17:54
US and there's a million at Amazon. So
00:17:57
million Amazon has two and a half times
00:17:59
the number of industrialized robots as
00:18:02
the rest of the nation combined. But the
00:18:04
notion that we're going to have someone
00:18:05
in our house bringing our tea a robot, I
00:18:07
don't buy that at all. I think that
00:18:10
automated robotics, the collision of
00:18:11
advanced manufacturing in China and
00:18:13
using AI with robotics will yield
00:18:16
tremendous advantage. Amazon is saying
00:18:18
they're going to double their largest
00:18:20
business, which is their retail business
00:18:21
by 2032 without an incremental hire
00:18:24
using robotics, industrialized robots.
00:18:26
And they were early. They made an
00:18:28
acquisition 1015 years ago of a robotics
00:18:30
company called KA. But the notion that
00:18:33
there's going to be a robot bringing me
00:18:35
my tea here. Oh, that's [ __ ] The
00:18:37
scary thing for me that I'd want to know
00:18:38
more about is weaponized uh
00:18:41
industrialized robots as warriors
00:18:43
because I wonder, you know, there's just
00:18:45
you can go some weird places, but again,
00:18:47
I think AI and robotics, yes, this
00:18:50
notion that we're going to have robots
00:18:53
serving us our food or in our house, I
00:18:55
don't I don't see that. It's interesting
00:18:57
because well I guess one could argue
00:18:59
that we we already have robots in our
00:19:01
houses but they just don't move. So the
00:19:03
quite the leap really is would you allow
00:19:04
a robot to move through your house?
00:19:05
Because I mean a Hoover is a robot. A
00:19:07
fridge is kind of like a robot
00:19:08
especially the smart fridge is you one
00:19:10
could say a TV is a robot a smart TV but
00:19:12
the the difference is they don't move
00:19:14
through our house or would we allow the
00:19:16
Hoover to move itself and then once we
00:19:18
allow that would we allow it to
00:19:19
potentially bring us something?
00:19:20
>> Yeah, I get it. I just don't the the
00:19:22
stuff I've seen on actual application of
00:19:24
these robots and keep in mind these
00:19:26
individuals the job of the CEO now is it
00:19:29
used to be to underpromise and overd
00:19:30
deliver. Now it's to overpromise and
00:19:32
underdel and create a vision that
00:19:34
creates cheap capital so you can pull
00:19:36
the future forward. My understanding is
00:19:37
three years ago we had a million
00:19:38
autonomous Tesla taxis on the road and
00:19:40
that did not happen. In 2016 Mus said or
00:19:44
2017 there was going to be autonomous
00:19:46
was two years away driving. So their job
00:19:49
is to predict a very exciting future. I
00:19:50
also think Musk in particular is very
00:19:53
good at saying look over here as he
00:19:55
stuffs a rabbit into a hat. I mean Tesla
00:19:57
is an automobile company so he's got to
00:19:59
create a stories to justify its 155
00:20:02
times earnings when most automobile
00:20:04
companies trade at 10 or 15. So it's
00:20:07
robots it's space it's connectivity with
00:20:10
AI and autonomous and robots. It's
00:20:13
constantly look over here because I
00:20:14
think it's very difficult to justify the
00:20:16
valuations he's raising money at. So,
00:20:18
and to be clear, he as much as anybody
00:20:21
is able to pull that vision forward.
00:20:22
He's launched 90% of the rockets sent
00:20:24
into space have been by SpaceX, but this
00:20:27
is a company that's trading that has $16
00:20:30
billion in revenue with 8 billion in
00:20:32
profits and it's going to go out in its
00:20:34
IPO at a projected valuation of 90 to
00:20:37
110 times revenues. When Google went
00:20:39
public, it went out at 10 times revenues
00:20:41
and it was growing 10 times as fast. So,
00:20:43
what is this? The key attribute of an
00:20:45
innovator right now is storytelling. And
00:20:48
that is to make sure the promise is way
00:20:50
ahead of the performance such you can
00:20:51
access cheap capital and pull the future
00:20:53
forward. But a lot of this stuff I find
00:20:56
is a lot of jazz hands. He's always he's
00:20:59
you know he's often known for being
00:21:00
wrong about his timelines. But he does
00:21:02
seem to deliver magic to the world.
00:21:04
>> The best product in my mind, the two the
00:21:07
two products that have changed my life
00:21:09
from a technology standpoint, most
00:21:10
underrated product is AirPods.
00:21:13
If AirPods alone, you know, Tim Cook
00:21:15
just stepped down were its own product.
00:21:17
It'd be a Fortune50 company. I think
00:21:19
it's I don't even think it's technology.
00:21:21
I think it's the most profitable
00:21:23
ubiquitous piece of jewelry in history.
00:21:24
I just walk around with them in my ears
00:21:26
now, right? And then the best product I
00:21:29
think of the last few years has been
00:21:30
Starlink.
00:21:31
>> That's amazing.
00:21:32
>> I just think it's absolutely I've done
00:21:34
podcasts from planes. I can talk to my
00:21:37
sons on FaceTime. That product is, you
00:21:41
know, all airlines are flying the same
00:21:42
tin can, same routes, same bad food, a
00:21:46
real point of differentiation for them
00:21:47
and also in maritime. I think Starlink
00:21:50
is the best tech product. So, power to
00:21:52
him. When they go public, is it an is
00:21:55
SpaceX an amazing company or is it
00:21:57
overvalued? The answer is yes. Two can
00:21:59
be true at the same time.
00:22:01
>> What do you think of Tesla? Because for
00:22:03
me it's magic. I don't think people in
00:22:05
Britain realize this or other parts of
00:22:06
the world, but for me the first time I
00:22:08
got in the Tesla that I I got in LA and
00:22:11
pressed the location and took my hands
00:22:13
off the wheel. All I had to do is
00:22:15
occasionally look look forward, which
00:22:17
they're removing now. And it took me 3
00:22:19
and a half hours to Joshua Tree without
00:22:21
any intervention.
00:22:23
>> And the safety record in it is is safer
00:22:25
than if I had driven myself there.
00:22:27
>> It's just magic to me. And then when I
00:22:29
watched this, the space rockets come
00:22:30
down and be caught with the chopsticks.
00:22:32
Incredible.
00:22:32
>> How this is just magic.
00:22:33
>> Incredible.
00:22:34
>> And so when when he I've got to be
00:22:35
honest, when he says that these Optimus
00:22:37
robots are going to be I I go, do you
00:22:39
know what
00:22:40
>> he's delivered a lot of magic in the
00:22:42
past that no one would have thought
00:22:43
possible. Can you even imagine 10 years
00:22:44
ago him saying that what people would
00:22:47
have said if he said, "We're going to
00:22:48
launch this massive sort of 70ft
00:22:50
skyscraper into the air and then we're
00:22:52
going to catch it on chopsticks."
00:22:53
Staggering. Incredible.
00:22:54
>> And then we're going to relaunch it
00:22:55
again and then we're going to catch it
00:22:56
again.
00:22:56
>> You would have gone impossible.
00:22:59
>> Edison of our generation. But you asked
00:23:01
about Tesla.
00:23:03
Uh, I bought a Tesla. Incredible
00:23:05
product, far superior to anything on the
00:23:07
market. He deserves credit for inspiring
00:23:09
the EV race, which will be good for the
00:23:11
environment. But the reality is
00:23:13
everyone's caught up. The fastest
00:23:15
growing automobile company in history is
00:23:17
BYD. BY company
00:23:19
>> BYYD is basically an 80% of a Tesla.
00:23:21
Some people would say 100% of a Tesla
00:23:23
for 40% of the price. If there weren't
00:23:25
ter if there wasn't a ridiculous tariff
00:23:27
war right now BYYD I think would be the
00:23:29
number one EV in the United States it's
00:23:31
eating Tesla's launch in addition what I
00:23:34
think is going to happen about Tesla
00:23:36
credit where it's due change the market
00:23:38
inspired the EV race good for good for
00:23:40
the planet but when you look at its
00:23:42
valuation right now I think what you're
00:23:43
going to see is when SpaceX goes public
00:23:45
there's a lot of money in the market
00:23:47
that wants to get some of that Musk RZ
00:23:51
what you were talking about this guy is
00:23:54
incredible I I don't care how expensive
00:23:55
it is. I want to invest behind Elon
00:23:57
Musk. I get it. That money is about to
00:24:00
come out of Tesla, which people are
00:24:02
finally figuring out is just a great car
00:24:04
company that should be trading at 30
00:24:05
times earnings, not 150. And it's going
00:24:08
to go into SpaceX. So, I think the
00:24:10
boost, the retail surge in SpaceX you're
00:24:13
going to see, and the valuation they're
00:24:15
planning to go out at is just
00:24:16
extraordinary. Some of that is going to
00:24:18
come at the cost of Tesla. I just I
00:24:20
think people are waking up to the fact
00:24:22
that Tesla's a great auto company. It
00:24:24
should be trading at about a fifth of
00:24:25
the valuation it is. Now
00:24:27
>> on that point, what jobs do you think
00:24:28
will be impacted by AI? I've heard you
00:24:30
talk about logistics and transport. Um I
00:24:34
think London have just announced that
00:24:35
Whimo and Tesla's full self-driving
00:24:37
technology are on the way. They've
00:24:38
greenlighted Whimo, for example.
00:24:40
>> I'd hate to be a truck driver. To me, a
00:24:42
long haul truck driver is the first
00:24:44
place. Trucks can drive between 10:00
00:24:46
p.m. and 4:00 a.m. when there's no
00:24:49
traffic on the road. I don't think it's
00:24:50
a very good job. What's interesting
00:24:51
about or one of the things interesting
00:24:53
about truck drivers, it's the biggest
00:24:54
employer of non- high school grads in
00:24:56
America of non- high school graduate
00:24:58
males. It's the biggest employer. It's
00:25:00
actually one of the two or three I think
00:25:01
biggest jobs by number of people in the
00:25:03
United States. I would think within 10
00:25:05
years we're going to have very few long
00:25:06
haul truckers. Obviously, customer
00:25:08
service, it feels like that will likely
00:25:10
go away.
00:25:11
>> Yeah. But where I see job destruction in
00:25:13
my world is that I used to anytime I got
00:25:17
an agreement from anybody, an advertiser
00:25:18
for a contract, an employment agreement,
00:25:21
whatever it is, I'd send it to my lawyer
00:25:22
and say, "Can you review this?" And
00:25:24
because the bills, there's latency in
00:25:26
the bills, it probably cost somewhere
00:25:28
between 400 bucks and 2,000 to review
00:25:30
every contract, right? Because I'm I'm a
00:25:33
narcissist and I think I signal by
00:25:35
having a name brand law firm. And so
00:25:36
they hire some kid at 120 or 80 to 120
00:25:39
bucks an hour and they charge me 4 to
00:25:41
500. Right now I say to the person in
00:25:43
charge of that project and they say,
00:25:46
"Well, I'm sending it the contract
00:25:47
review to our lawyer." I'm like, "No,
00:25:48
no, no, no. Put it put the agreement.
00:25:51
Describe what we're looking for. Ask
00:25:53
Claude or uh Chat GPT to pretend it's a
00:25:56
$1,200 lawyer, an hour lawyer,
00:26:00
employment lawyer or contract lawyer,
00:26:01
and ask them to review this document,
00:26:03
redline it, and do the same thing at
00:26:04
another LLM." and then you make those
00:26:07
changes. Congratulations, you are now a
00:26:09
senior associate at a law firm. I
00:26:11
probably spend a hundred or $300,000 a
00:26:14
year on legal fees across my
00:26:16
organization. I think I'll cut that
00:26:18
easily by a third this year. So, that's
00:26:20
one way I see it.
00:26:21
>> But I have a podcast company, not nearly
00:26:23
the industrial behemoth this thing is,
00:26:26
but I keep asking everybody, how do we
00:26:30
use AI to do this? And I find that
00:26:32
they're getting better at it and it
00:26:34
enhances our work, but we're still
00:26:37
hiring. Again, I think it's a
00:26:39
supplement. And if you want to protect
00:26:40
against AI, it's pretty easy. I've said
00:26:43
this for a while. AI is not going to
00:26:44
take your job. Someone who understands
00:26:45
AI is going to take your job. So, what I
00:26:47
tell people is have a second screen. And
00:26:49
that is always have a second screen open
00:26:51
that has nothing but AI on it, LLMs. And
00:26:54
anything you get digitally,
00:26:55
>> port it into your AI screen and start
00:26:58
playing with it. Do you know that quote
00:26:59
is so interesting because I've heard
00:27:00
that quote a lot that AI won't take your
00:27:01
job someone that understands AI will
00:27:03
take your job and I as you said it then
00:27:05
I thought you know I was thinking about
00:27:06
different um roles in my team and my
00:27:09
open roles that we haven't hired for and
00:27:11
I thought
00:27:12
>> someone with AI will take your job but
00:27:14
they won't just take one job
00:27:16
they'll take five of those jobs and so
00:27:18
if you think about an analyst
00:27:19
>> right
00:27:20
>> we've got Molly downstairs analyst for
00:27:22
my investment fund we were well intent
00:27:23
on hiring maybe five analysts for my
00:27:26
second fund we only need Molly now
00:27:28
because Molly's He's got two agents that
00:27:29
she works with in two two Mac minis and
00:27:32
she's got a a setup that screens the
00:27:34
inbound interest and also goes
00:27:36
proactively into the market looking for
00:27:37
new opportunities and pulls them back
00:27:38
into her runs them through a framework
00:27:40
scores them prepares them for the IC. So
00:27:43
Molly enabled by AI, she's probably
00:27:45
taken out five jobs. And this is I think
00:27:47
even with the law example, that that
00:27:50
lawyer that's using these models um
00:27:52
probably doesn't need to have five
00:27:53
junior lawyers now um if they're really
00:27:56
really competent with and if you think
00:27:57
about an executive assistant.
00:27:59
>> Mhm.
00:28:00
>> So with executive assistants, we might
00:28:02
for our executives would have hired
00:28:03
maybe probably 10 um EAS in total. Mhm.
00:28:06
>> Now, you really need one that has is
00:28:09
powered by a to do all the travel, one
00:28:10
that does all of the scheduling, and
00:28:12
then one that meets people at the door.
00:28:14
>> So, you need three versus potentially
00:28:15
10. And this is kind of what I'm saying.
00:28:18
Um, in most roles, but not all of them.
00:28:20
There are still some roles when I looked
00:28:21
at the rogue chart where I go, actually,
00:28:23
you know, this sales, a lot of the sales
00:28:25
we do from a media perspective are take
00:28:27
someone for lunch, whine and dine, call
00:28:29
them, relationships, pitch the deck.
00:28:31
>> Those kinds of things seem to be
00:28:33
completely un uh untouched. But let's
00:28:36
continue down that path. You no longer
00:28:38
need five mollies than you'd want.
00:28:40
>> Yeah.
00:28:40
>> That creates additional EBIT margin.
00:28:42
Creates a more profitable diary of a CEO
00:28:44
empire means you can raise more money
00:28:46
and then you go buy more podcasts or
00:28:48
invest in them who hire more people. So,
00:28:50
>> and it creates a faster cycle of money
00:28:52
and new ideas and when we were walking
00:28:54
in here, you're talking about acquiring
00:28:56
podcasting and you're getting into CPG
00:28:58
and you're getting into different forms
00:29:00
of media and you're driving growth and
00:29:01
innovation. Will some people be on the
00:29:03
wrong end of it? My mom was a secretary.
00:29:06
She started as a typist. Typus went
00:29:08
away. She oversaw the the the
00:29:10
secretarial typist pool at a law school
00:29:12
downtown and I worked in the mail room
00:29:13
in high school. But my mom realized that
00:29:16
the hard part of her job was interacting
00:29:18
with the senior level executive and she
00:29:20
became an executive assistant and she
00:29:22
never made a lot of money but she made
00:29:24
good money. Realizing the typing was the
00:29:26
easy part of her job. The hard part was
00:29:27
managing some dude's life. Right.
00:29:30
>> So accounting should go away. But what
00:29:33
you're saying is there's actually more
00:29:34
accountants this year than there was
00:29:35
last year because accountants, the smart
00:29:37
ones, are moving into wealth management
00:29:38
and tax optimization, which keeps
00:29:40
getting more and more complicated. So
00:29:43
yeah, do you have an onus to update your
00:29:45
skills to understand new? I remember
00:29:46
when I first moved to New York and they
00:29:48
hired an assistant for me and she came
00:29:50
in and said, "Oh, I don't use
00:29:51
computers." And I'm like, "Well, you
00:29:53
can't work here." So it's like it to say
00:29:56
you're not going to learn AI or at least
00:29:57
the basics on how to use it. It's like
00:29:59
being in 1998 and saying, "Well, I don't
00:30:01
use PCs." Mhm.
00:30:03
>> So I don't Yeah, you got to update your
00:30:05
skills. The cycle times decreasing. A
00:30:07
lot of people will find themselves on
00:30:08
the wrong side of the trade. I have to
00:30:11
force myself to use AI. I don't, you
00:30:12
know, I'm the part of your brain around
00:30:15
understanding new technologies begins to
00:30:17
die, right? I can no longer perceive a
00:30:20
calendar. I can't tell you what I have
00:30:21
next. For some reason, I used to be able
00:30:23
to do fant I could do a Scotsman accent,
00:30:26
Stephen, like no one's business a few
00:30:27
years ago. That part of my brain has
00:30:29
died. And when I try to do an accent, it
00:30:31
sounds like a dead language that twins
00:30:33
speak to each other and it offends
00:30:34
everybody. There's parts of your brain
00:30:36
that die. And the part that where you
00:30:38
can understand new technologies or at
00:30:40
least have the will to learn them starts
00:30:41
to go away as you get older. I have to
00:30:44
force myself to play with these new
00:30:46
technologies. Everyone who wants to make
00:30:48
more money or wants to hold on to their
00:30:50
job should have the same onus to learn
00:30:52
these new skills.
00:30:53
>> On that individual level, there's people
00:30:54
listening now that that want to make
00:30:56
sure that they have the skills, their
00:30:57
kids have the skills of the future,
00:30:58
right? What are some of those important
00:31:00
skills? I mean, you've got kids. What do
00:31:01
you What would you say to them?
00:31:02
>> I get asked that all the time. What is
00:31:04
the skill? So, the honest answer is I
00:31:07
have a view, but nobody knows. Do you
00:31:08
realize 10 years ago in private schools,
00:31:10
the biggest incremental investments in
00:31:12
curriculum were two things? Computer
00:31:14
science and Mandarin.
00:31:16
>> How's that worked out? Like, thank God
00:31:19
my kid knows Mandarin. I mean, said
00:31:21
nobody right now, but they thought it
00:31:23
was going to be computer science. And
00:31:25
you could argue that hasn't worked out
00:31:26
as well as everyone thought. I would say
00:31:28
that the enduring skill is storytelling
00:31:31
and that is that your ability to look at
00:31:33
data, create a narrative arc and then
00:31:34
communicate that story in a compelling
00:31:36
way via all the different mediums
00:31:38
>> whether it's podcasting I think you have
00:31:40
to write well to be a great storyteller
00:31:42
but if you think about the most
00:31:43
successful people in the world at the
00:31:45
end of the day they're usually
00:31:46
storytellers the great CEOs I read Jeff
00:31:49
Bezos's 1997 letter to shareholders
00:31:52
where he focused on those three
00:31:53
principles and I'm like take my money
00:31:55
right I see even a guy like Alex Karp at
00:31:58
Palunteer walking around doing a live
00:32:00
earnings call on his phone. It's very
00:32:03
compelling. Um Jensen Hang, you know,
00:32:06
when he does these giant Buffett-like
00:32:08
stadiums where he gets up and he's like
00:32:10
a rockstar. That's storytelling.
00:32:12
Technology is, I think, going to create
00:32:14
a equalization among the product.
00:32:17
Reverse engineering created parity among
00:32:19
manufactured products. I think most
00:32:21
technology are technologies are going to
00:32:22
converge and we're seeing that
00:32:23
convergence in AI models. So I think the
00:32:26
point of differentiation is
00:32:27
relationships, right? Do I want to work
00:32:29
with this person? Do I know about their
00:32:31
kids? Do I like them? At the end of the
00:32:32
day, I have three different law firms
00:32:35
pitching me business, three different
00:32:36
investment banks, three different CRM
00:32:39
companies. Who do I have the best
00:32:41
relationship with and who do I want to
00:32:42
work with? So storytelling, it sounds
00:32:45
very p, but the ability to establish
00:32:47
strong relationships with other sentient
00:32:49
beings. I still believe that everything
00:32:51
reverse engineers to biology. I think a
00:32:53
certain fundamental understanding of the
00:32:56
sciences, those seem to be pretty
00:32:58
enduring. You know, my my oldest said he
00:33:00
wanted to be a marine biologist. I'm
00:33:02
like, who are you kidding? You got
00:33:03
seasick. I mean, at 18, what you want
00:33:06
it? You want them to be smart, good
00:33:08
people, aggressive, support them
00:33:10
becoming their own person, which I've
00:33:12
had trouble with. I want them to be mini
00:33:13
me. And then helping them find something
00:33:17
they're great at. But telling your kid,
00:33:19
"No, you need to go into this because
00:33:20
this is where the future's going." Nope,
00:33:22
we don't know. I We have We know the
00:33:25
basics. I would want my kid to be able
00:33:26
to write well, to be able to look
00:33:28
someone in the eye, to be competitive.
00:33:30
You know, I I encourage them to play
00:33:32
sports, to do chores, which they do none
00:33:34
of. But other than that, I don't know.
00:33:39
What do you think are going to be the
00:33:40
skills of the future? I think it's
00:33:41
really difficult to know.
00:33:42
>> I think what you said about
00:33:43
relationships is really important. You
00:33:44
said storytelling, and I think
00:33:45
storytelling is a proxy of of sales and
00:33:48
persuasion. And whether that's
00:33:50
persuading an investor to believe in you
00:33:52
or people to come and work for you or
00:33:53
customers to come and buy your thing. So
00:33:55
I think I think storytelling and sales
00:33:58
is is going to be an enduring skill. The
00:34:01
skill that is the biggest threat that
00:34:03
people are young people are losing
00:34:04
especially young men and this is a skill
00:34:06
and it's hugely underrated
00:34:08
is the ability to endure rejection.
00:34:11
And because of AI and because of these
00:34:13
frictionless relationships that people
00:34:15
are engaging in online, I think a lot of
00:34:18
young people, especially young men, are
00:34:20
losing the perseverance, endurance,
00:34:23
willingness to hear no. Whether it's
00:34:26
expressing friendship, whether it's
00:34:27
applying for a job you're not qualified
00:34:29
for, whether it's approaching someone
00:34:31
and expressing romantic interest, I
00:34:32
think a lot of young people, especially
00:34:33
young men, I think they can have a
00:34:35
frictionless relationship online and are
00:34:37
they're losing this sense of resilience
00:34:39
and aggressiveness. Uh, so I think that
00:34:42
skill when I mentor young men, the first
00:34:45
skill I try to reinccorporate back into
00:34:46
their life is what I call no. And that
00:34:48
is I need you to go out. I need you to
00:34:50
go put yourself in the agency of
00:34:52
strangers, whether it's a church group,
00:34:53
a sports league, a riding class, and I
00:34:56
want you to make an overture, an
00:34:58
expression of friendship. Hey, do you
00:34:59
want to grab the Arsenal game or watch
00:35:00
come over my house and watch it? And
00:35:02
then most of these kids, when you ask
00:35:04
them what they want, they usually want
00:35:05
two things. The men I mentor, they want
00:35:07
to move out of their parents house and
00:35:08
they want a girlfriend. And so once we
00:35:10
do the friend approach, then I say,
00:35:13
"Okay, find someone you may be
00:35:14
potentially interested in. Ask them out
00:35:15
for coffee." And this is the goal. The
00:35:17
goal is no. Because what's going to
00:35:19
happen is you might get a no. Probably
00:35:21
going to get a no. And then I'm going to
00:35:22
call you the next day and I'm going to
00:35:23
say, "Are you okay?" And the answer is
00:35:25
going to be yes. Is he or she okay? The
00:35:27
person who said no. Yeah, they're fine.
00:35:29
Because
00:35:31
And I'm I'm boasting. The secret to my
00:35:33
success is rejection. I ran for
00:35:36
sophomore, junior, and senior class
00:35:37
president of my high school. I lost all
00:35:39
three times and based on my track
00:35:40
record, I decided to run for senior body
00:35:42
or student body president where I went
00:35:43
on to get this lose. Never bothered me.
00:35:47
I mean, I mourned and I moved on. Every
00:35:49
entrepreneur, how many nos have you
00:35:50
gotten?
00:35:51
>> Oh, [ __ ] hell. Yeah, more so than
00:35:52
anybody.
00:35:53
>> I mean, so the any person you look at
00:35:55
and think that person has made more
00:35:57
money than I would have thought or any
00:35:58
person who's hanging out with someone
00:36:00
much higher character and hotter than
00:36:02
them has one thing in common. They
00:36:03
either have very rich parents or more
00:36:05
likely.
00:36:06
>> They're they're comfortable with no. So,
00:36:09
and unfortunately, I think young people,
00:36:11
especially young men, are becoming less
00:36:12
and less resilient to know. Apply for
00:36:16
jobs you're not qualified for. Apply to
00:36:18
graduate programs you shouldn't get
00:36:20
into. Approach people who you perceive
00:36:21
as being cooler and hotter than you. And
00:36:23
express friendship and romantic
00:36:24
interest. That is the key. You want to
00:36:26
punch above your weight class, get out a
00:36:28
big spoon and get ready to eat [ __ ]
00:36:30
That is the only thing that is common
00:36:32
across all great entrepreneurs who are
00:36:34
self-made is they have the ability to
00:36:36
mourn and move on.
00:36:38
>> I've been thinking about this a lot
00:36:39
lately. It was inspired by listening to
00:36:41
Adam Newman on that podcast a couple of
00:36:43
uh a couple of weeks ago. He did one
00:36:44
with um Rick Rubin I think it was and
00:36:47
and in it he tells the story of sitting
00:36:48
in the back of the cab with Massa who's
00:36:50
the the owner of SoftBank and ask he was
00:36:54
going to ask him to give him $300
00:36:55
million and Massa turns to him and says
00:36:57
you're just not ambitious enough. And he
00:36:59
says by the time that 23minute cab drive
00:37:02
had finished, Massa had offered him 4
00:37:04
billion and he had signed a little
00:37:05
napkin thing that Massa had in the back
00:37:07
of the cab. And that story and other
00:37:09
stories like it have inspired have made
00:37:11
me realize that like some of the game in
00:37:13
life and success is what I now call
00:37:15
selling yourself long and most of us go
00:37:18
through our lives selling ourselves
00:37:19
short. And I think in part because we
00:37:21
don't see ourselves on an exponential
00:37:22
curve. We see ourselves as a fixed
00:37:24
state. This is who I am. This is what
00:37:25
I'm worth. But you've almost got to like
00:37:27
factor in your own expon exponential
00:37:29
improvement. If you take you from 21 to
00:37:31
now, how your intelligence and wisdom
00:37:33
and connections have all compounded. But
00:37:36
you would have sold yourself at the
00:37:38
value of you at 21 years old. So I'm now
00:37:40
I actually now think in every season of
00:37:42
my life I've sold myself short. When I
00:37:44
was 18 years old, my I sold 20% of my
00:37:46
company for 5K, $5,000.
00:37:49
And then I thought that was I couldn't
00:37:50
believe it. I was celebrating in my room
00:37:51
at the time. I was stealing Chicago Town
00:37:53
pizzas to feed myself. And then a couple
00:37:54
of years later, I sold another 30% of
00:37:56
that company uh 30% of my company for
00:37:58
300k and I thought I'd hit the
00:38:00
euromillions,
00:38:01
>> right?
00:38:01
>> That company ran up and was on the stock
00:38:03
market for many hundreds of millions
00:38:04
many years later. I thought, God, I've
00:38:05
sold myself short my whole life. So
00:38:07
assume I'm doing the same now. And if I
00:38:10
if I assume that, how
00:38:13
how what would I say? What would I what
00:38:15
what opportunities would I go for? And I
00:38:18
think that app for me that apply should
00:38:19
apply to everybody. I think it's
00:38:21
self-fulfilling.
00:38:22
>> Yeah. I there's something about
00:38:23
imagining where you want to be in 5
00:38:25
years outrageously in the reverse
00:38:26
engineering back. But the moment you
00:38:28
took that 300K, you really needed it. I
00:38:30
mean that was so it's a function of your
00:38:33
opportunity set and what's actually the
00:38:35
market says to you. Uh I think pricing
00:38:37
is a signal. I struggle with pricing and
00:38:40
what I tell whenever we're writing a
00:38:42
proposal or okay whatever I get back I'm
00:38:45
like okay increase the pricing 30 or 50%
00:38:48
more because pricing is a signal and
00:38:50
it's you can always take the price down
00:38:52
and the client the person will always
00:38:53
will always come back and ask for the
00:38:55
price down but I mean quite frankly and
00:38:57
this is sexist I think men are better at
00:39:00
imagining an unrealistic self and women
00:39:02
are more measured
00:39:04
>> and I think that's one of the things
00:39:05
that has held back women as
00:39:07
entrepreneurs and the fact that not as
00:39:08
much capital has been available to them
00:39:10
because the people allocating capital
00:39:11
have been white dudes from Stanford or
00:39:13
Harvard. 40% of VCs are from two schools
00:39:15
of I think it was Charlie Munger who
00:39:17
said someone who has a crazy vision of
00:39:21
their own potential
00:39:23
that's stupid and obnoxious.
00:39:25
His attitude was never bet against that
00:39:27
person because occasionally they're
00:39:28
right. And so for we talked about Musk
00:39:32
for a guy to think I'm going to raise so
00:39:34
much money and command technology that I
00:39:36
can be responsible for 90% of launches
00:39:39
and control 70% of the Earth's low orbit
00:39:44
satellites.
00:39:45
That's pretty arrogant. So yeah, I agree
00:39:48
with you and you know it. Let me put it
00:39:50
this way. If you're going to air to the
00:39:52
upside because the market will bring you
00:39:54
back on its own.
00:39:57
>> That's so true. Um Sam Salman has been
00:39:59
in all the news lately in part because
00:40:01
of this article that the New Yorker did,
00:40:02
two reporters there, Ronan Faroh and
00:40:05
Andrew Morren.
00:40:07
>> Um which was this article and then he
00:40:08
responded with with this blog post here
00:40:11
two years ago. I thought Sam had a
00:40:13
really good brand
00:40:15
>> cuz he was out in Congress. He was
00:40:17
saying this tech, you know, he was
00:40:18
asking for regulation. It seemed it has
00:40:20
turned unbelievably quickly,
00:40:22
unbelievably fast. Well, we've said this
00:40:24
before, he's a proxy for all of AI. I
00:40:26
think the greatest brand destruction
00:40:28
other than the US over the last 18
00:40:30
months has been AI and also Sam Alman.
00:40:33
But we keep falling into this trap over
00:40:35
and over and that is something happened
00:40:37
through the 70s, 80s and 90s and that is
00:40:40
America used its heroes used to be
00:40:42
athletes, government officials and
00:40:45
actors and then there was a dramatic
00:40:48
decline in um attendance to religious
00:40:51
institutions but people still have
00:40:53
really big questions and want sort of an
00:40:55
authority or a godlike figure. The
00:40:57
closest thing we have to religion is
00:40:59
technology. Most people don't understand
00:41:00
it. It has a mystical feel to it. I have
00:41:02
no idea how my phone works. I can ask it
00:41:04
anything and it comes back with a
00:41:06
relatively authoritative answer that I
00:41:07
trust. Similar if I was talking or
00:41:09
praying. Like most of the time when
00:41:10
we're on AI, we're kind of praying.
00:41:12
We're we're sending a question into the
00:41:14
echo to a being thinking it's smarter
00:41:16
than us and it's going to come back with
00:41:18
an empathetic, loving, correct answer.
00:41:20
So the new Jesus Christ was born in the
00:41:23
'9s and that was Steve Jobs. And he was
00:41:26
taken from us early like Jesus Christ.
00:41:28
The idolatry of innovators has
00:41:29
absolutely gone crazy. And the new Jesus
00:41:33
Christ, if you will, are these tax CEOs.
00:41:36
And here's what we fail to understand.
00:41:38
They do not have our best interests at
00:41:39
heart. They are not concerned with our
00:41:42
emotional well-being. They are not going
00:41:43
to comfort us when we're older. They are
00:41:45
there, and they play a key component in
00:41:47
capitalism to do anything that is
00:41:49
required to get their earnings up 1 cent
00:41:51
per share every day. and they will make
00:41:54
incremental decisions that justify the
00:41:56
harming and self harm of teen girls.
00:41:58
Cheryl Samberg, the weaponization of our
00:42:02
platforms to make our the coarsening of
00:42:05
our discourse, Mark Zuckerberg,
00:42:08
I mean, the radicalization of young men,
00:42:11
uh, the people running YouTube,
00:42:13
they we keep thinking that the newest
00:42:16
tech CEO is going to save us, that this
00:42:19
guy cares. Sam Alman was the gay son we
00:42:22
all wanted. Like super nice, super
00:42:24
friendly, hush voices, well senator. I'm
00:42:28
worried about that as well. Right. These
00:42:31
guys would sleep with their cousin for a
00:42:34
nickel. That's their job. Their job is
00:42:36
to increase earnings. They're not here
00:42:38
to save us. We're supposed to elect
00:42:41
people who put in guard rails for them.
00:42:43
So everyone is saying or asking me, can
00:42:45
we trust Sam Alman? I'm like, no. And we
00:42:48
shouldn't have to. We should have
00:42:49
regulators putting in guard rails on AI.
00:42:52
We should be testing these things.
00:42:53
Government agencies should be testing
00:42:55
these things. We should be ensuring that
00:42:57
these technologies are not used to
00:42:59
surveil Americans, right? That we would
00:43:02
still have cartoons like characters on
00:43:05
cigarettes marketing to 12y olds if we
00:43:08
hadn't put in place regulation. And the
00:43:11
tobacco executives would claim that they
00:43:13
weren't marketing to young people. Ford
00:43:15
would still be pouring mercury into the
00:43:17
river if we didn't have an EPA and
00:43:18
regulation. So Sam is doing exactly what
00:43:21
he's supposed to be doing. The latest
00:43:23
hero that's going to save us is Dario
00:43:24
Amod. We've decided he's the good guy.
00:43:27
Now the villain's journey in tech is the
00:43:29
same. Some compelling person we think is
00:43:33
a wonderful guy and it's almost always a
00:43:35
guy, occasionally a woman. You know, we
00:43:38
need to do better gender balance. That
00:43:40
was Cheryl Samberg in the workplace. And
00:43:42
then we find out that they are doing
00:43:44
their job and that is doing anything
00:43:46
they can legally to increase shareholder
00:43:47
value regardless of whether it prevents
00:43:49
a tragedy of the commons or not. And
00:43:51
then we get angry at them. The journey
00:43:53
from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader
00:43:55
gets shorter and shorter, but they all
00:43:57
follow the same path. And then 18 months
00:44:00
later, we realize that they would too
00:44:02
will do will say and do whatever they
00:44:04
can to try and delay and opuscate
00:44:05
regulation. And that sometimes when we
00:44:08
don't have a government with a lack of
00:44:09
domain expertise, with a lack of
00:44:11
insight, with people who are a cross
00:44:13
between the land of the dead and the
00:44:15
golden girls and don't understand these
00:44:16
technologies, that when these
00:44:18
technologies are allowed to run just
00:44:21
free with no regulation, they do bad
00:44:24
things. So Sam Alman is the latest
00:44:26
person we've discovered as Darth Vader,
00:44:28
who's gone to the dark side. It happens
00:44:30
with all of them because they're doing
00:44:32
their job. We as citizens aren't doing
00:44:34
our job. and that is we're not putting
00:44:35
in place elected officials that regulate
00:44:36
these companies. So yeah, can we trust
00:44:39
Sam Alman? No. But we shouldn't need to
00:44:41
trust him. We should be able to trust
00:44:42
that we have smart elected officials
00:44:44
that will regulate these companies.
00:44:45
>> Did you see this article he wrote in
00:44:47
response to being having a Molotov
00:44:49
cocktail thrown at his house?
00:44:50
>> I read this article without reading it.
00:44:52
So there's been death threats on his
00:44:53
life. And let me be clear, there's
00:44:56
absolutely no justification whatsoever
00:44:59
for this. And it needs to be I don't
00:45:01
even like it when people yell at JD
00:45:02
Vance when he's skiing with his family.
00:45:04
One of the we don't want to be that
00:45:06
nation or we don't in the west we have a
00:45:07
if you're operating with the confines of
00:45:09
the law which Sam is he deserves to live
00:45:11
in peace. It is sad. Do you realize in
00:45:13
the US now there's no more people
00:45:14
working in private security than there
00:45:16
are cops really because there's always
00:45:19
going to be a number of people who are
00:45:22
likely I don't know about the
00:45:23
perpetrator here who are mentally ill
00:45:25
and who will find an excuse essentially
00:45:29
the the makeup usually of these
00:45:31
perpetrators or these these these
00:45:32
criminal actors is they're usually young
00:45:35
men looking to restore their social
00:45:37
capital through what they perceive as a
00:45:39
historic act of violence against a
00:45:40
famous person. This has gone on for a
00:45:43
long time. He's now famous. I don't
00:45:45
think it's fair. I've seen some people
00:45:47
try to equate AI's dangers as if these
00:45:51
acts of violence are somehow justified.
00:45:54
They're not. There's no justification
00:45:56
for a healthcare executive being
00:45:57
executed in the streets. There's no
00:45:58
justification for violence against Sam
00:46:01
or attempted violence against Sam and
00:46:03
his family. I think it's young men with
00:46:05
a lack of opportunity, mental illness,
00:46:06
and unfortunately access to firearms
00:46:08
everywhere. But it's always happened. I
00:46:10
don't make the connection that somehow
00:46:12
it's more justified. I think famous
00:46:13
people, one in three presidents has been
00:46:15
shot at.
00:46:16
>> Crazy, isn't it?
00:46:16
>> So, the more famous you get, quite
00:46:18
frankly, the more personal risk there is
00:46:20
because someone is going to decide that
00:46:21
taking you out for whatever reason is
00:46:23
going to restore their social capital.
00:46:25
Um, actually, if you look at
00:46:27
assassination attempts and violence, the
00:46:30
it's actually gone down. But these
00:46:32
stories are cinematic and very
00:46:33
interesting and they get a lot of
00:46:35
attention. But I think it's a shame we
00:46:36
live in a society where especially in
00:46:38
the west where they have to endure that
00:46:40
kind of risk. The one of the really most
00:46:42
lovely moments I've seen, I don't know
00:46:43
if I don't know if it was the Danish or
00:46:45
the Norwegian prime minister who stepped
00:46:47
down, they applauded and he got on a
00:46:48
bike and rode home.
00:46:50
>> I thought you can't do that in the US.
00:46:52
You know, Obama's kids still have Secret
00:46:54
Service protection.
00:46:55
>> So there's definitely something I I
00:46:58
quite frankly blame it on big tech that
00:47:00
tries to convince people that this
00:47:02
person is their enemy and this person is
00:47:04
evil. Sam's not evil. I don't I don't
00:47:06
know him personally. I sat next to him
00:47:08
at this party I went to, but he's doing
00:47:10
his job. Quite frankly, we're not doing
00:47:12
ours.
00:47:12
>> Do you think he's a nihilist? And I
00:47:15
don't really know the definition of the
00:47:16
word nihilist, but I guess it's someone
00:47:17
who believes that life is essentially
00:47:18
meaningless.
00:47:20
>> I think there's a nihilist vein running
00:47:22
through big tech where a lot of them
00:47:24
have go bags.
00:47:26
They have a plan for if [ __ ] gets real.
00:47:29
If there's a zombie apocalypse or
00:47:30
there's a revolution or there's a
00:47:32
massive pandemic, they have definitive
00:47:36
plans and they've spent tens of millions
00:47:37
of dollars. They meet their pilots at uh
00:47:40
Oakland airport. They get on their
00:47:42
Gulfream 650. They fly to New Zealand to
00:47:45
Auckland and they have a bunker built
00:47:46
out.
00:47:47
>> Is this true?
00:47:48
>> Oh, there's a lot of them.
00:47:49
>> Really?
00:47:49
>> There's a lot of goat plans amongst the
00:47:51
wealthy. And sometimes it's not as
00:47:53
dramatic. Sometimes it's just a home
00:47:55
nuclear attack, cyber attack,
00:47:57
revolution, but there I would say
00:48:00
amongst billionaires, I would bet
00:48:01
conservatively one in three have some
00:48:03
sort of go plan. And that's nihilist.
00:48:07
And also I to a certain extent I think
00:48:09
wanting to be an interplanetary species
00:48:11
is a little bit nihilist.
00:48:12
>> Also, you know, if they're saying that
00:48:15
in the future people aren't going to
00:48:16
have jobs and there's robotics and
00:48:18
there's this AGI, this super
00:48:19
intelligence which is going to be
00:48:20
smarter than everybody. Um, and even if
00:48:23
there was a 1% chance, a 1% chance that
00:48:27
these doomer predictions around AI could
00:48:29
come true, I would I would stop. A 1%
00:48:32
chance of humanity um sort of
00:48:34
self-imploding or destroying itself.
00:48:37
Wouldn't a rational person stop?
00:48:39
>> Well, okay, you're Oenheimer. It's going
00:48:41
to take 3 million American deaths to
00:48:44
invade Japan. Japan will not surrender.
00:48:48
And you're you're been charged with
00:48:49
splitting the atom. there was much more
00:48:51
than a 1% chance that our ability to
00:48:53
split the atom and then show and then
00:48:55
show we would use it against a civilian
00:48:56
population would result in the end of
00:48:58
the world should he have stopped
00:49:00
development of it. So a lot of
00:49:02
scientists nuclear scientists killed
00:49:04
themselves. They committed suicide
00:49:05
because they were convinced once we'd
00:49:06
split the atom and used it against
00:49:07
civilians it was the end of the world.
00:49:09
It was just a matter of time before we
00:49:10
all all using nuclear devices. So I
00:49:13
don't I think you keep moving forward
00:49:16
and nihilism where nihilism impacts
00:49:17
these people. Let me go back to the go
00:49:19
bag. I talked to one of these people. He
00:49:21
outlined his plan for me. Right.
00:49:23
>> He's a billionaire.
00:49:24
>> Yeah. Outlined his plan. His plan B if
00:49:27
things get really ugly, right?
00:49:29
And my view was, "Okay, boss, let's play
00:49:31
this out. Something happens. There's an
00:49:33
event. It's too dangerous to stay here.
00:49:36
You meet your pilots at the airport. I
00:49:38
mean, [ __ ] really gets real. People
00:49:40
scouring for food. People become feral.
00:49:43
Like, you don't think your pilots are
00:49:44
going to kill you and [ __ ] your wife?
00:49:47
Like what what do you think's going to
00:49:49
happen? You don't think the people in
00:49:51
New Zealand are going to be like let's
00:49:52
go take the rich guys [ __ ] Like it
00:49:56
strikes me that these are such mil
00:49:58
misallocated
00:50:00
efforts and capital that if you're
00:50:03
really focused on your own future,
00:50:04
whether you're wealthy or not wealthy,
00:50:07
that your resources and your talent
00:50:09
should be allocated towards trying to
00:50:11
make this place a little bit more
00:50:12
habitable, not trying to colonize Mars,
00:50:15
not having a go bag. And this is part of
00:50:17
the problem with the 0.1%. There are 900
00:50:20
billionaires in the United States and I
00:50:23
would imagine 300 of them 300 of them
00:50:24
give money. They're responsible for 20%
00:50:27
of all political donations. And that 20%
00:50:29
number is misleading because they can be
00:50:31
more strategic. So unions are big
00:50:33
givers, but they just give money to
00:50:35
whoever's pro- union. So it's not that
00:50:37
strategic. Billionaires can allocate
00:50:39
capital to a specific issue, really ramp
00:50:41
it up. So they have a disproportionate
00:50:43
amount of control over our elected
00:50:46
population. And the problem is the 0.1%
00:50:48
are not invested in the health of
00:50:50
America. Why? They don't have to put up
00:50:53
with TSA lines. They fly private. They
00:50:56
don't have to put up with shitty
00:50:57
healthcare. They have concierge medicine
00:51:00
and access to the best medicine in the
00:51:01
world. They don't have to put up with
00:51:03
40% of third graders can't read or
00:51:05
write. Their kids go to amazing schools
00:51:06
that spend on average $75,000 a year on
00:51:10
their kid versus 15,000 at a public
00:51:12
school, 10,000 at a public school in a
00:51:14
low-inccome area. They don't need
00:51:16
police. They have dormant security.
00:51:18
Where I live in Soho, there's no
00:51:19
homeless. As far as I can tell, there's
00:51:21
no crime. There's no cops. There's
00:51:23
cameras everywhere and dormant
00:51:24
everywhere. My point is, they are no
00:51:26
longer invested in the well-being of
00:51:29
America. They've totally dissociated
00:51:32
from the investments required to make
00:51:35
America a better place because they're
00:51:37
sequestered from it. They're no longer
00:51:38
invested in the well-being of America.
00:51:40
And what I find strange about this
00:51:41
nihilism is that these individuals think
00:51:44
that they are no longer as invested in
00:51:46
the well-being or the safety of the
00:51:49
world. I think that's very unhealthy.
00:51:51
>> These are some of the most concerning
00:51:53
conversations I've had. So, like one of
00:51:54
the things that happens when you have a
00:51:55
podcast and you, you know, interesting
00:51:57
people come on and you start hanging
00:51:58
around with more interesting people and
00:51:59
more powerful people is you get a world,
00:52:01
you get little peaks into new worlds
00:52:03
that you didn't know existed. You kind
00:52:04
of get to see behind certain curtains.
00:52:06
And I remember having a particular
00:52:07
conversation in um in London at a
00:52:10
kitchen table where someone was
00:52:12
describing one of these AI CEOs to me
00:52:15
and basically making the case that they
00:52:17
believe there's a roughly 10% chance I
00:52:20
think they said seven if I'm not
00:52:21
misunderstanding percent chance that
00:52:23
it's um that it will result in the end
00:52:25
of the world some sort of catastrophic
00:52:28
event. But they really didn't care
00:52:29
because
00:52:31
they think that being the person that
00:52:33
summoned this new intelligence amongst
00:52:37
us was probably more consequential than
00:52:41
whatever happens. And like if I wasn't
00:52:43
privy to, again, hearing this secondhand
00:52:46
from someone I know who knows this
00:52:49
person extremely well, I know he knows
00:52:50
him extremely well cuz they hang out.
00:52:52
Him telling me that, I would have
00:52:54
wouldn't have believed this. I would
00:52:55
have thought that's nonsense. I would
00:52:56
have thought to myself, you know, they
00:52:57
must be kind because they have kids and
00:52:59
they're, you know, but actually now I I
00:53:01
very much believe what you're saying
00:53:02
about this nihilism where I don't
00:53:04
actually believe they give a [ __ ] Some
00:53:06
of them I actually don't believe some of
00:53:08
them give a [ __ ] I actually think some
00:53:10
of them are playing a game and they're
00:53:11
playing a video game with with our
00:53:13
futures
00:53:14
or they the incentives. Look, in the
00:53:17
United States, when I was growing up, my
00:53:20
dad's boss had a slightly bigger house
00:53:22
and he drove a Cadillac and we drove a
00:53:24
Grand Torino, but we were members of the
00:53:26
same country club and his house was a
00:53:28
5-minute drive away.
00:53:29
>> And maybe my dad's boss got to fly
00:53:31
business class and we flew coach. The
00:53:34
delta in having money, having a decent,
00:53:37
you know, having a middle class life and
00:53:39
an upper class was like this. Now the
00:53:41
delta is this. Let's look at air
00:53:45
transportation. Flying on Spirit
00:53:46
Airlines is a humiliating, dangerous
00:53:48
experience. United Airlines, economy,
00:53:51
economy, comfort, economy, plus business
00:53:54
class, first class. Oh, wait, that's not
00:53:56
enough. Let's go to private. There's
00:53:57
charter. There's fractional. There's a
00:53:59
cessence nitation. There's a Bombardier
00:54:01
Challenger 300. There's a global 650.
00:54:03
Now there's a new G7. The delta in your
00:54:07
life, in your healthcare. My mom was
00:54:09
very sick when I was very young. And
00:54:11
when I think about how humiliating it
00:54:13
was for the two of us having her to
00:54:15
endure cancer when we were underinsured,
00:54:18
>> it was a devastating, traumatic,
00:54:20
humiliating experience.
00:54:22
>> Now, if I need I take Lunesto when I
00:54:26
travel cuz I have trouble sleeping. I
00:54:27
have a medical concierge company. They
00:54:29
get me the drug delivered within two
00:54:32
hours to my house. I have NAD
00:54:35
treatments. They arrange for someone to
00:54:37
come to my house when it's convenient
00:54:38
for me and do it in my my living room. I
00:54:41
can text my doctor. I have a medical kit
00:54:44
with all these things in it. If I'm
00:54:45
abroad, I can text my doctor and say,
00:54:47
"My son's not feeling well." They
00:54:49
FaceTime me. I open the kit. They can
00:54:51
tell me exactly what to do. The the
00:54:53
healthc care I am receiving right now, I
00:54:56
have my blood taken every 3 months. They
00:54:58
send it to some bond layer in Norway
00:55:00
with PhDs who can tell me that I have
00:55:03
less than a 7% chance of any cancers as
00:55:06
evidenced by a lack of whatever it is
00:55:08
antibodies, the cancer cells. The health
00:55:10
care now for the point for the 1% is
00:55:13
dramatic. And it's all the same thing.
00:55:15
The bottom 99% of Western societies are
00:55:18
essentially being optimized and
00:55:19
monetized to make the life of the 1%
00:55:23
just unbelievable.
00:55:25
The life you can lead in the 1% is so
00:55:28
dramatic and so incredible. Broader
00:55:30
selections set of mates. Your kids have
00:55:31
better health care, better educational
00:55:33
opportunities, you have influence,
00:55:35
people want to know you. So the the
00:55:38
incentives to not be rich but to be very
00:55:40
rich are so incredible. And the way you
00:55:43
get very rich is through stock options
00:55:44
typically in technology that I think the
00:55:47
incentives are so great that people will
00:55:48
make incremental decisions and ignore
00:55:51
the fact that oh one in 18 girls who are
00:55:54
self harming in the UK site Instagram as
00:55:56
a reason for that. Well, let's find
00:55:59
research that maybe create some doubts
00:56:01
because once I become a billionaire,
00:56:03
I'll be a better person. and they're
00:56:05
getting so much criticism and so much
00:56:07
[ __ ] posting and it's so competitive and
00:56:10
there's fewer and fewer winners that
00:56:12
become much bigger, right? It used to be
00:56:14
five companies won and got hundreds of
00:56:16
millions of dollars. Now one company
00:56:18
wins and gets tens of billions. So you
00:56:20
can see how incrementally this path to
00:56:23
Darth Vader is pretty tempting. So I I
00:56:27
think these I think they just get caught
00:56:29
up in they get caught up in this
00:56:33
competition and they lose all sight.
00:56:34
Also my uh co-host on the pivot podcast
00:56:38
said something that was illuminating to
00:56:39
me during co I was walking down the
00:56:42
street with my sister and a homeless
00:56:44
person kind of stirred. There was a lot
00:56:45
of homeless people because they to the
00:56:47
homeless shelters turned out everybody
00:56:48
and she jumped out of her skin and I
00:56:51
said well that was a bit of an
00:56:53
overreaction. He's not going to hurt us.
00:56:55
And she said, "You know, you're 6'2",
00:56:57
190. Easy for you to say. You
00:57:00
understand? She women walk around in a
00:57:02
constant state of fear. And that fear is
00:57:04
rational. And it really struck me. And
00:57:06
then Cara said, "These guys don't
00:57:09
understand anything about victimization
00:57:11
because they've never been victims.
00:57:13
They're traditionally white males who
00:57:15
have grown up in upper income households
00:57:17
and they've never really understood what
00:57:18
it's like to be a victim. So they don't
00:57:20
put in place the safeguards. It's so
00:57:22
competitive that it's just easier for
00:57:24
them to give money, some strategic money
00:57:26
to key people and ensure that they're
00:57:28
not regulated such that they can get to
00:57:30
be billionaires because all the
00:57:31
incentives are do whatever is required
00:57:34
to win. Sam Alman isn't going to be
00:57:35
remembered for being a good or a bad
00:57:37
guy. He's going to be remembered for the
00:57:39
guy who either was the number one AI
00:57:42
company or blew it. That's what he's
00:57:44
going to be remembered for. And right
00:57:45
now he's blowing it, it appears, right?
00:57:47
But people are going to look back and
00:57:49
say, "Well, he didn't get public.
00:57:52
Anthropic ended up being at worth more.
00:57:54
It was kind of a disappointment
00:57:56
financially, but he was a good guy."
00:57:58
That's not what he's going for. And
00:58:00
quite frankly, that's not what our
00:58:01
society rewards.
00:58:03
Whenever I talk to new founders, they
00:58:05
all carry the same belief that the
00:58:06
biggest threat to their small business
00:58:07
is having a bad product. It's not. The
00:58:10
biggest threat they face is hiring the
00:58:12
wrong person for their small team.
00:58:13
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00:58:16
growth and rapidly infect company
00:58:18
culture. And I get it. When you're
00:58:20
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00:58:21
your company, but you don't have 40
00:58:23
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00:58:25
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01:00:03
I think your assessment of AI in terms
01:00:06
of it creating more opportunity than it
01:00:08
destroys is accurate. I also think that
01:00:11
in the near term and all of our lives
01:00:13
are going to be quite quite different. I
01:00:16
spend a lot of time on this podcast. We
01:00:17
talk we've spoken to a lot of the big
01:00:18
CEOs from AI companies and tried to pass
01:00:20
through this and I've never really
01:00:21
gotten to a solid a solid conclusion of
01:00:24
what the future looks like. But um do
01:00:25
you have a a a case for the future where
01:00:28
this technology is the first that
01:00:29
actually delivers on the promise of
01:00:30
making us more human? There's talk about
01:00:33
loneliness. There's talk, you know,
01:00:34
algorithms are going to get get more
01:00:36
attentive. But I have this like thesis
01:00:37
that potentially, you know, social
01:00:39
networking say it's going to connect us
01:00:40
and make us more human. That's kind of
01:00:42
the narrative of all these tools. But
01:00:43
maybe this technology renders us only
01:00:45
useful for that which humans can do,
01:00:47
which is the relationships thing you
01:00:48
were talking about and connection and
01:00:50
being out touching grass with our
01:00:51
friends and family. Is there a utopia
01:00:53
>> just with social media has some real
01:00:55
upsides? I would argue at this point
01:00:57
meta is actually a net negative. It's I
01:00:59
think done so much damage.
01:01:01
>> But with AI, there's a lot of upsides. A
01:01:04
really encouraging piece of data I saw
01:01:06
is that when you spend time on social
01:01:07
media, it takes you to the extremes. The
01:01:10
algorithms see money and more Nissan ads
01:01:13
in figuring out if you're conservative
01:01:15
or liberal and then demonizing the other
01:01:17
side and tickling your sensors. Right.
01:01:18
>> Yeah. I'll get served a video of Ted
01:01:22
Cruz or Victor Orban looking like an ass
01:01:24
because that I'm a progressive and that
01:01:26
makes me happy. And then they elevate
01:01:28
content of some progressive of AOC
01:01:31
calling out somebody and I start to hate
01:01:33
the other side. What they're finding
01:01:35
with AI is it's actually people who
01:01:36
spend more time in AI, it's actually
01:01:38
moderating their views because AI is
01:01:40
about uh taking the medium or the
01:01:42
average of every piece of data. Also, do
01:01:45
you notice how nice AI is?
01:01:47
>> Yeah,
01:01:47
>> great question, Stephen. You know, no
01:01:49
matter what you say or how stupid it is,
01:01:51
it won't say, "That's a really stupid
01:01:52
idea, Stephen." It'll say, "I can
01:01:54
understand why you're asking this
01:01:55
question." And generally speaking,
01:01:57
because it looks for the median of
01:01:58
things, it looks for the average. What
01:01:59
is the most often used seventh word
01:02:02
after these six words are strung
01:02:03
together?
01:02:04
>> Mh.
01:02:04
>> That it's pushing people towards the
01:02:06
middle. It's actually having a
01:02:07
moderating effect, which I find very
01:02:09
encouraging. I think old people in
01:02:11
senior care who maybe have lost family
01:02:13
members or don't have a lot of
01:02:15
relationships in their life, I can see
01:02:18
AI characters playing a big role in
01:02:20
their life. I believe for a long time
01:02:23
that the biggest danger of AI is not
01:02:28
weapons, it's not income inequality. We
01:02:30
voted for income inequality or
01:02:32
contamination of our elections. I mean,
01:02:34
all of these things are big issues. The
01:02:36
biggest downside of AI in my view is
01:02:39
loneliness. And that is, and we talk
01:02:41
about this a lot, AI is convincing
01:02:44
people they can have a reasonable
01:02:45
faximile of life on a screen with an
01:02:47
algorithm. Why go through the effort of
01:02:48
having friends when you have Discord and
01:02:50
Reddit? Why go through the hassle of
01:02:52
getting a job when you can make money on
01:02:54
Coinbase or Robin Hood supposedly? And
01:02:56
why would you go through the effort of
01:02:58
trying to have a romantic relationship
01:03:00
when you have lifelike synthetic porn?
01:03:02
And the young male brain, I think, is
01:03:04
especially susceptible to this. Men aged
01:03:06
20 to 30 are spending less time outdoors
01:03:07
in prison inmates. 42% of men 18 to 24
01:03:11
and we talked about this on your last
01:03:12
show have never asked a woman out in
01:03:14
person. So people are starting to
01:03:16
believe they can have a reasonable
01:03:17
faximile of life. And what they need to
01:03:19
know is that 40% of the S&P our economy
01:03:22
is trying to sequester you from the most
01:03:24
important and rewarding thing in your
01:03:26
life and that is your relationships. So
01:03:28
my prediction for America is we will
01:03:30
never be as prosperous. incredible
01:03:32
prosperity, incredible economic growth,
01:03:35
and massive loneliness, depression,
01:03:37
anxiety, and obesity.
01:03:38
>> I wanted to get your POV as well on all
01:03:40
this war stuff that's going on over in
01:03:42
the Middle East. What you thought Trump
01:03:44
was trying to do and actually what
01:03:46
happened because, you know, he's he's
01:03:47
talking about, oh, no, we said it would
01:03:49
be 6 weeks, it's 5 and a half weeks,
01:03:51
everything's going to plan. We're we're
01:03:53
winning the war. And I you're good at
01:03:56
seeing through things. What what
01:03:57
actually happened in your view here? I
01:03:59
think that he was talked into by some of
01:04:02
his security adviserss and Netanyahu
01:04:03
that his legacy could be restoring or
01:04:06
making the Middle East more peaceful and
01:04:08
being the the president that that
01:04:11
severely diminished the capacity of what
01:04:14
has been arguably the number one um
01:04:17
source of terror in the region and maybe
01:04:19
even around the world for a long time.
01:04:21
that this was his defining moment as a
01:04:23
president to go in that they were
01:04:24
weakened, they were hobbled and we had
01:04:26
the military assets and the intelligence
01:04:28
to go in and topple the regime and he
01:04:30
would be known as the president that
01:04:31
liberated the Middle East. I think he
01:04:33
bought into that
01:04:34
>> off the back of Venezuela.
01:04:36
>> Well,
01:04:37
>> which was a kind of a success.
01:04:38
>> Not kind of. That was arguably one of
01:04:40
the greatest military operations in
01:04:42
history, but it was a military
01:04:43
operation. It wasn't a war. I mean,
01:04:45
supposedly his guards didn't know what
01:04:48
happened. and all of a sudden they were
01:04:49
on the floor throwing up because there
01:04:50
was some sort of crazy radiation or
01:04:51
radio waves. Not a single American
01:04:54
soldier uh killed, lifted him out. I
01:04:57
mean that that was that was an
01:04:59
incredible operation. I think he got
01:05:01
drunk on that macho and that success and
01:05:03
thought well I can do the same thing.
01:05:05
And the problem with wars is that the
01:05:07
enemy has a say. And what we have found
01:05:10
since I think a lot of our leaders
01:05:12
believe that wars could ultimately if
01:05:14
you have a bigger army will result in
01:05:16
unconditional surrender on the other
01:05:17
side. And there really hasn't been
01:05:19
unconditional surrender since World War
01:05:20
II. And all the enemy needs to do
01:05:22
whether it's the Vietkong or the Taliban
01:05:24
or the IRGC, all they need to do is
01:05:26
survive and they win. In addition, I
01:05:29
would describe the war as being
01:05:31
operational excellence and strategic
01:05:32
incompetence. I actually believe there
01:05:35
was justification and some merit to the
01:05:37
idea of a military operation that tried
01:05:39
to take advantage of a weakened Iran
01:05:41
whose air defenses were down to take out
01:05:44
the IRGC or at least maybe provide cloud
01:05:46
cover for a revolution against the IRGC
01:05:50
to diminish their navy, diminish their
01:05:51
nuclear capabilities, diminish their
01:05:53
missile launch capability. I think there
01:05:54
was real justification for that. The
01:05:56
problem was the strategic incompetence
01:05:59
here. not going to not enlisting some
01:06:01
European allies, not not briefing
01:06:04
Congress, not coordinating with Gulf
01:06:06
allies, not recognizing the game theory
01:06:09
around what happens if they start firing
01:06:10
at ships in the straight of Hormuz. It
01:06:13
just was strategically incompetent. And
01:06:16
now we're in a situation where we want
01:06:19
to diminish their nuclear capacity. But
01:06:21
the reality is if they can maintain an
01:06:23
ability to to turn off and on the
01:06:25
straight of hormones, that is probably
01:06:27
more powerful than them having nuclear
01:06:29
weapons. If you look at if you look at
01:06:32
what happens if if the fertilizer or the
01:06:37
the products that create fertilizer are
01:06:39
further sequestered, you could have a
01:06:42
mass starvation event around the world.
01:06:44
And so we've essentially given them
01:06:49
potentially a weapon that's more
01:06:50
powerful than a nuclear weapon. And also
01:06:54
we look like we have a bit of a glass
01:06:56
jaw. We go in, we lose 14 soldiers.
01:06:58
Tragedy for them and their families. The
01:07:00
Russians are losing a thousand people a
01:07:02
day and they don't show any signs of
01:07:03
giving up. We look like this giant boxer
01:07:06
who's the most skilled and biggest boxer
01:07:07
in the world. We go in argument over
01:07:10
whether we should go in or not. But now
01:07:12
if we withdraw, what incentive do the
01:07:15
Iranians right now have to negotiate
01:07:18
when every day this goes on, they look
01:07:20
like the little guy that's that that
01:07:23
stood up to the evil America and Israel.
01:07:25
I think this has been a disaster from a
01:07:28
US brand standpoint. And I would argue
01:07:30
that them blocking inbound and outbound
01:07:33
traffic from Iranian ports is actually
01:07:35
the way to go. But that lends itself to
01:07:38
the argument we should have just
01:07:39
continued with economic sanctions. But I
01:07:42
have to own it. I thought military
01:07:43
action was a good idea. I would argue, I
01:07:46
apologize for the word salad here, that
01:07:47
we've been at war with Iran for 47
01:07:49
years. Their first act to this regime in
01:07:50
1979 was to take 110 Americans hostage.
01:07:54
70% of the IEDs in Iraq were built in
01:07:57
Iran. We have been at war with Iran for
01:07:59
a long time. The question is whether or
01:08:01
not this military action/war was worth
01:08:04
it. And it looks as if it was so poorly
01:08:07
executed on a strategic level that it is
01:08:11
really diminished our brand. And we're
01:08:13
now in the definition of a quagmire. If
01:08:15
we leave, we look weak. And any nation
01:08:17
we perform military action against just
01:08:19
says start firing missiles at their
01:08:21
neighbors. You know who summarized every
01:08:23
war for the US right now is in this war
01:08:27
was Ho Chi Min. When he was describing
01:08:29
Vietnam, he said, "They will kill a lot
01:08:31
of our people. We will kill some of
01:08:33
theirs. They will tire. They will go
01:08:36
home.
01:08:38
>> We killed a million people in V Vietnam.
01:08:41
We lost 58,000 and we left.
01:08:44
>> Yeah.
01:08:44
>> Right. So, Americans tolerance for pain.
01:08:47
And I'm not suggesting that we should go
01:08:49
on military misadventures. But this
01:08:52
right now is no doubt turning out to be
01:08:54
a giant win for the IRGC and a pretty
01:08:58
severe loss for America that fur further
01:09:00
alienates us from our allies and shows
01:09:03
uh kind of our soft tissue around our
01:09:05
willingness to actually finish the job.
01:09:06
The other statement that kind of
01:09:08
perfectly summarizes this war is we
01:09:09
broke it now you fix it. We're leaving
01:09:12
the world a much more insecure place,
01:09:15
much more economically vulnerable. Gulf
01:09:17
States thought that having a US military
01:09:19
base was Kevlar and ended up just
01:09:22
putting a giant bullseye on them. So,
01:09:24
people are going to think twice before
01:09:25
they cooperate with our US military by
01:09:27
hosting bases. Uh we appear to have not
01:09:30
thought through getting our expats out
01:09:32
of the Gulf, protecting the Gulf States.
01:09:35
And I'm biased. I think the Trump
01:09:36
administration will be known for
01:09:37
criminal for corruption and
01:09:39
incompetence. And that incompetence is
01:09:41
bubbling up. I watched a press
01:09:43
conference of his last night where he
01:09:45
said this which kind of links to what
01:09:46
you were saying.
01:09:47
>> They're they're delaying it because they
01:09:49
we don't know who to deal with. They are
01:09:51
in, you know, they know who the leader
01:09:53
is in this country. We don't know who
01:09:55
the leader is in Iran.
01:09:57
>> And I just thought, do you know what? If
01:09:59
I was running Iran,
01:10:01
that's exactly what I would want. We
01:10:04
don't know who to deal with, Trump. We
01:10:05
don't even know who to negotiate with.
01:10:06
If he can't negotiate, he can't do
01:10:08
anything. So I think I think the
01:10:10
Iranians potentially the the IRGC are
01:10:13
saying no we don't even know who's
01:10:14
leading because then what can you do?
01:10:16
You can't just keep bombing. That's not
01:10:18
going to work. You also can't negotiate.
01:10:20
So it runs the clock down. You can
01:10:22
affect regime change from the air. They
01:10:26
the Iranians are smart. They have
01:10:27
distributed power.
01:10:28
>> Yeah.
01:10:28
>> So there's no kind of head of the snake
01:10:30
to cut off. But also a lot of this is
01:10:32
incompetence on our part. Do you know
01:10:34
what we have done in the US to our
01:10:35
diplomatic corps? We've absolutely
01:10:37
gutted it. When Vance goes to Islamabad
01:10:40
thinking he's going to do a deal, if you
01:10:42
look at the history of every truce of
01:10:44
every deal of every summit, 97% of the
01:10:48
work is done before they hit the tarmac
01:10:51
by diplomats who go through line by line
01:10:54
and iron out and talk to each other and
01:10:57
negotiate. We've gutted our diplomatic
01:10:59
core. Our counter intelligence
01:11:02
operations have been gutted. So, we're
01:11:05
kind of flying blind without
01:11:06
instruments. and they think that JD
01:11:08
Vance going to Islamabad for a Tik Tok
01:11:10
moment where he tries to look
01:11:11
presidential and then blames it on the
01:11:13
IRGC, it's just not going to work. So I
01:11:16
think a a lack of investment in key
01:11:18
areas, a lack of soft power, whether
01:11:21
it's through cutting USA aid, a lack of
01:11:23
respect for our diplomatic core and the
01:11:26
engine room, like like you know actually
01:11:28
working with people and talking to them.
01:11:30
I think this level of incompetence and
01:11:32
arrogance is all bubbling up and they
01:11:35
you're right, they don't even know who
01:11:36
to talk to. That's good. They don't even
01:11:38
know who who do we negotiate with. And
01:11:41
by the way, you got to look at
01:11:42
incentives. If I'm the IRGC, I'm like,
01:11:45
all we need to do is survive. Yeah.
01:11:46
Every day this goes on. And by the way,
01:11:48
we're in the middle of what I'd call a
01:11:50
the first AI meme war. And that is Trump
01:11:54
is communicating with truths on truth
01:11:56
social and these macho videos and memes
01:12:00
of him as Jesus Christ, but he's been
01:12:02
bested by kind of the sloppi memes of
01:12:08
the IRGC. Have you seen these Legos
01:12:10
memes? They understand him better than
01:12:13
he understands them. They are
01:12:15
outstanding. And it's a group of 18 to
01:12:17
25 year old probably people who look
01:12:19
like this crew.
01:12:20
>> None of the none of this what we're
01:12:21
involved in Tehran
01:12:24
figuring out AIdriven means, highly
01:12:26
produced, highly effective, very strong
01:12:28
message going right after the, you know,
01:12:30
portrayals of the Epstein island and I
01:12:33
mean they are doing a much better job
01:12:36
because as Lincoln said and it goes back
01:12:37
to basics, you can't win a war without
01:12:39
public support and you can't lose a war
01:12:41
with public support. And right now Iran
01:12:44
is winning what you would call the
01:12:45
slopp.
01:12:47
They're putting out better information
01:12:48
and propaganda than us right now.
01:12:50
>> And what how do you predict this ends?
01:12:51
Because as you said, we can't back out
01:12:53
of this war as the West. Trump can't
01:12:55
back out of it, but he also just can't
01:12:57
keep doing it. His the midterms are
01:12:59
coming up. His approval ratings are I
01:13:00
think an all-time low because of this
01:13:02
war. His base is turning on him. So, he
01:13:04
can't it's like lose loose at this
01:13:06
moment.
01:13:07
>> Yeah. So, the honest answer is I don't
01:13:09
know cuz he's unpredictable. If I had to
01:13:10
pick anything, I think there'll be a
01:13:12
multinational force that has a vested
01:13:13
interest in ensuring the straight of
01:13:15
hormones is open. There's so many things
01:13:17
we've taken for granted in the West and
01:13:19
one of them is freedom of navigation. If
01:13:21
Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia
01:13:23
decide we need money or we need
01:13:24
geopolitical power, we're going to close
01:13:26
the straits of Malika or the Strait of
01:13:28
Singapore. What if China closes off
01:13:30
certain straits in the South China Sea
01:13:32
where something like 60% of trade goes
01:13:34
through? We have always enforced, we've
01:13:37
gone to war over this basic notion of
01:13:39
freedom of navigation that pretty much
01:13:40
any ship goes pretty much gets to go
01:13:42
anywhere with pretty much anything on
01:13:44
it. So I think that European nations,
01:13:47
Asian nations all have a vested interest
01:13:49
in ensuring the straight of Hormos is
01:13:51
open. The way to do that is by
01:13:54
sequestering or blocking offloading and
01:13:56
onloading of oil into Iranian ports
01:13:59
because at some point it not only shuts
01:14:00
them off economically. I didn't know
01:14:02
this, but within I think about 12 weeks
01:14:06
if you can't offload the oil and get it
01:14:09
somewhere, it backs up and actually
01:14:12
starts to damage the source. Well,
01:14:14
>> oh, okay.
01:14:15
>> It like stops up. So, I think ideally
01:14:18
the optimistic scenario is there's a
01:14:20
multinational force that enforces the
01:14:22
straight of Hormos. He comes up with a
01:14:24
series of objectives. If he had in his
01:14:26
first if he had outlined, we're going to
01:14:28
take out most of their navy. We're going
01:14:29
to give the Iranian people an
01:14:30
opportunity to overthrow the IRGC. We're
01:14:33
going to take out the majority of their
01:14:34
missile capability.
01:14:36
And after 72 hours said, "This is a
01:14:38
win." and got the hell out and
01:14:40
coordinated with Gulf States to say,
01:14:41
"What can we do to ensure your safety?"
01:14:44
I think it would have been a win. But
01:14:46
now, I don't even know what his
01:14:48
objectives are. Can you list what his
01:14:49
objectives are? I don't know what they
01:14:51
are. They seem to keep
01:14:53
>> We're going to be out very soon, which
01:14:54
is why we need to continue this war. It
01:14:56
the communications here and thinking has
01:14:59
been so sclerotic
01:15:01
and difficult to track. I'm like, who's
01:15:02
boarding what ships? Is it a ceasefire?
01:15:04
Isn't a ceasefire? He claims that them
01:15:07
commandeering two western vessels is not
01:15:10
a violation of the ceasefire. Of course
01:15:12
it is. That's actually that's an act of
01:15:14
war. So we don't even know what to look
01:15:16
for. You ask me how does this turn out?
01:15:18
I think a multinational force that opens
01:15:20
a straight of hormones. Too many people
01:15:21
have too much vested interest in free
01:15:24
navigation.
01:15:25
>> But in such a scenario they they're
01:15:27
probably building up drones right now in
01:15:28
a ceasefire underground. They'll be
01:15:30
building drone factories in every bunker
01:15:31
in Iran right now. The minute you do a
01:15:33
multinational force in the straight of
01:15:35
moose, those drones start hitting ships
01:15:36
and then the big companies say, "I'm not
01:15:38
putting my ships through there."
01:15:40
>> I think that's a fair point and actually
01:15:41
not that many ships have gone down. But
01:15:42
it's actually an insurance problem
01:15:44
because if you have 2 million barrels on
01:15:46
a tanker, you've got aund $160 million
01:15:49
payload. Someone has to take receipt of
01:15:51
that. Someone has bought it. So there
01:15:53
needs to be middlemen in the form of
01:15:54
insurance. And no one wants to ensure
01:15:56
take that kind of risk right now. So
01:15:58
it's a lack of insurance more than it is
01:15:59
a lack of safety from the threat. But I
01:16:01
do think the reality is the Iranians,
01:16:04
the IRGC, I say the bottom line is you
01:16:07
go after the money. You don't bomb
01:16:09
civilian infrastructure. That's a war
01:16:10
crime. But making it very difficult for
01:16:13
them and creating a carrot. You can
01:16:15
have, you know, free flow of oil. If you
01:16:17
look at the Arab Spring, if you look at
01:16:20
revolutions, they're usually a function
01:16:21
of unemployment or economics. So if you
01:16:24
were to inhibit their ability to export
01:16:26
oil, that brings them to the table
01:16:29
because the IRGC has been able to
01:16:30
survive because millions of families in
01:16:32
Iran are dependent upon the IRGC for
01:16:34
their check. They control the most
01:16:36
profitable, biggest parts of the
01:16:37
economy. So if you if you cut off their
01:16:41
economics that I think or threaten to, I
01:16:44
think that brings them to the table. I
01:16:46
think that's an the most optimistic
01:16:48
scenario is the straits open by a
01:16:49
multinational force and there's a
01:16:51
feeling of safety because it's enforced.
01:16:53
Iran agrees to keep it open and somehow
01:16:56
we develop a series of objectives that
01:16:58
we claim those boxes we've been checked
01:17:00
and we declare victory and get the hell
01:17:02
out of dodge. But every day this goes
01:17:04
on, we seed, in my opinion advantage and
01:17:08
power to the IRGC because they just look
01:17:09
like they're winning. I think it's clear
01:17:11
that Trump miscalculated this situation
01:17:14
quite horrifically. You you have to be a
01:17:16
logic like you don't have to be a genius
01:17:18
to look at what he's saying and see the
01:17:19
contradictions, the constant
01:17:20
contradictions week over week. And the
01:17:21
big one he's now got himself trapped in
01:17:24
is he was handing out a six week
01:17:25
timeline at the start of this and we're
01:17:27
approaching 6 weeks. So if you watch
01:17:28
this press conference from yesterday, he
01:17:30
is incredibly irritated because all the
01:17:32
journalists are saying, "You said 6
01:17:34
weeks, it's 6 weeks." And for the first
01:17:37
time, there's a real measurable
01:17:39
contradiction in what he said at the
01:17:41
start versus now. And so if you watch
01:17:43
it, he's so he's so agitated. He's
01:17:45
calling the reporters a disgrace. I
01:17:47
think in this press conference
01:17:48
yesterday, he personally insulted around
01:17:51
10 journalists.
01:17:52
>> He's crashing out.
01:17:53
>> He's crashing out.
01:17:54
>> Yeah.
01:17:54
>> And for me, that was like, "God, this
01:17:56
guy's lost. But I find the most
01:17:59
interesting thing about this, one of the
01:18:01
most interesting thing is someone who
01:18:02
follows the markets. If you didn't know
01:18:05
there was a war in Iran that threatens
01:18:06
geopolitical,
01:18:08
I don't know, safety, world oil flows.
01:18:11
>> Yeah.
01:18:12
>> If you looked at the market, would you
01:18:13
know?
01:18:13
>> No.
01:18:14
>> The market just hit an all-time high in
01:18:15
the US. And again, it goes back to
01:18:17
something very unhealthy. And that is
01:18:19
there's certain elements of our economy,
01:18:21
specifically the wealthy, that have
01:18:22
totally disassociated from
01:18:24
>> they can't feel it at the pump. Do you
01:18:26
feel it?
01:18:27
>> No.
01:18:28
>> So 50% of consumer spending in the US is
01:18:30
the top 10%. The top 10% don't give a
01:18:33
[ __ ] if gas is at six bucks a gallon. It
01:18:35
doesn't matter. Young uh poor people,
01:18:38
lower-inccome people spend 22% of their
01:18:40
household income on energy. And when
01:18:43
energy prices are going up, it really
01:18:45
impacts them. So unfortunately, we've
01:18:47
again outsourced the downside of war to
01:18:49
less wealthy nations who are very oil
01:18:51
dependent, to the Gulf, which is
01:18:53
incurring damage here. But America is
01:18:56
somewhat sequestered other than
01:18:58
reputational risk in who gets elected
01:19:00
president.
01:19:02
We're somewhat squ again we've
01:19:04
outsourced the pain to military families
01:19:06
to people who who spend a
01:19:08
disproportionate amount of their income
01:19:10
lower income households on energy. But
01:19:12
it's somewhat dangerous that the most
01:19:14
powerful people in the world and to a
01:19:15
certain extent the most powerful nation
01:19:17
in the world seems to be unaffected by
01:19:20
some of these uh by some of this. uh we
01:19:23
stocks are at an all-time high.
01:19:26
>> This is something that I've made for
01:19:28
you. I've realized that the direio
01:19:29
audience are striv
01:19:33
goals that we want to accomplish. And
01:19:35
one of the things I've learned is that
01:19:37
when you aim at the big big goal, it can
01:19:40
feel incredibly psychologically
01:19:42
uncomfortable because it's kind of like
01:19:44
being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
01:19:46
and looking upwards. The way to
01:19:47
accomplish your goals is by breaking
01:19:49
them down into tiny small steps. And we
01:19:52
call this in our team the 1%. And
01:19:54
actually this philosophy is highly
01:19:56
responsible for much of our success
01:19:57
here. So what we've done so that you at
01:20:00
home can accomplish any big goal that
01:20:02
you have is we've made these 1% diaries
01:20:05
and we released these last year and they
01:20:07
all sold out. So I asked my team over
01:20:09
and over again to bring the diaries back
01:20:11
but also to introduce some new colors
01:20:12
and to make some minor tweaks to the
01:20:14
diary. Now we have a better range for
01:20:18
you. So if you have a big goal in mind
01:20:20
and you need a framework and a process
01:20:22
and some motivation, then I highly
01:20:25
recommend you get one of these diaries
01:20:26
before they all sell out once again. And
01:20:28
you can get yours at the diary.com.
01:20:31
And if you want the link, the link is in
01:20:33
the description below.
01:20:35
On this point of stocks, the average
01:20:36
person and tying it back into what we
01:20:38
were saying about AI because there's
01:20:40
been this overinvestment in artificial
01:20:42
intelligence technology companies. As
01:20:44
you said earlier, a kid in Stanford
01:20:45
right now or anybody could raise 1020
01:20:48
million for some AI idea they have and
01:20:50
I'm seeing it everywhere. Um the
01:20:52
companies are overinvesting in
01:20:53
infrastructure. I mean it was crazy. I
01:20:55
think OpenAI did the biggest ever fund
01:20:56
raise. Was it almost two $200 billion
01:20:59
>> to build data centers on revenues of I
01:21:01
don't know is it $30 billion or
01:21:03
something? Craziness is going on in the
01:21:04
markets. At some point things correct?
01:21:07
>> Oh 100%. And if you look at the greatest
01:21:09
spends on infrastructure, when they get
01:21:10
above 2 or 3% of GDP, there's almost
01:21:12
always a crash afterwards. It happened
01:21:14
in the railroads. It happened in
01:21:16
electrification. It happened in the
01:21:17
internet. It happened in the huge telco
01:21:20
buildout of global crossing.
01:21:22
Now, having said that, that doesn't mean
01:21:24
those companies don't come back at some
01:21:25
point, but there's almost always a dip
01:21:27
or a correction afterwards. Uh I
01:21:30
encourage or I I absolutely was on the
01:21:32
wrong end of that dip in 2000, again in
01:21:34
2008.
01:21:36
But if you look at the most valuable
01:21:38
companies in the world,
01:21:40
they have in a single year all of them
01:21:42
have had a 40 to 97% correction. Amazon
01:21:45
went down 94 97% from 99 to 2001.
01:21:49
Facebook was off 72% in 2022. The
01:21:53
difference now is if those companies go
01:21:55
down, they're such a big part of the
01:21:56
market. If they sneeze, the global
01:21:58
economy could catch a cold. So I I think
01:22:01
the technology
01:22:04
will absolutely survive. I do think it's
01:22:05
seminal. It's breakthrough. But that
01:22:08
doesn't mean that we're not going to
01:22:08
incur a pretty massive correction from a
01:22:10
stock market perspective. Also, let me
01:22:13
catastrophize for a moment.
01:22:17
your generation and the majority of
01:22:19
investors right now are under the
01:22:21
impression that any breakthrough in
01:22:22
technology results in a small number of
01:22:24
companies over time that are able to use
01:22:26
IP distribution ability to raise capital
01:22:31
to sequester and capture trillions of
01:22:33
dollars in market cap e-commerce that's
01:22:36
Amazon eBay Shopify social media you
01:22:40
know whether it's you know obviously
01:22:42
Meta or or or Snap or YouTube or AI.
01:22:48
The problem is is that what we forget is
01:22:51
there have been seinal technologies that
01:22:54
have not necessarily resulted in any
01:22:56
small number of companies been able to
01:22:57
capture shareholder value. Let me give
01:22:59
you some examples. If someone said to
01:23:01
you right now for the next 36 months you
01:23:03
either have to go without AI or jet
01:23:05
transportation, what would you pick?
01:23:09
>> Without jet transportation or without AI
01:23:11
>> prop planes for the next 3 years or or
01:23:14
AI? I would I would keep the AI.
01:23:16
>> Okay. Hands down, jet transportation. I
01:23:20
use AI every day. I invest in AI
01:23:22
companies. Jet transportation is much
01:23:23
more important to me. I think that's
01:23:25
skirting along the surface of the
01:23:27
atmosphere at 810 the speed of sound has
01:23:28
unlocked emotional and financial
01:23:30
well-being across the world. It's an
01:23:32
unbelievable innovation. If you added up
01:23:34
all the shareholder value, the losses
01:23:36
and the gains, the profits and the
01:23:38
losses right now, as we sit here now,
01:23:40
the entire airline and jet manufacturing
01:23:42
industry is at break even. It still
01:23:44
hasn't made money. If you look at all
01:23:45
the airlines that have gone out of
01:23:46
business, if you look at the government
01:23:47
subsidies of all the jet plane
01:23:49
manufacturers, it has been a shitty
01:23:50
business. It's at zero. PCs. I was on
01:23:53
the board of Gateway Computer. I realize
01:23:56
that's the weakest flex in the world.
01:23:58
>> I have no idea what that is.
01:23:59
>> You don't know what Gateway is? Oh god,
01:24:00
I feel so old. It was his company Ted
01:24:03
Wade who was sort of the Michael Delvis
01:24:04
generation figured out a way to assemble
01:24:06
computers in I think South Dakota and it
01:24:08
became this hugely valuable company. It
01:24:09
was the second when I was on the board,
01:24:10
it was the second largest computer
01:24:12
manufacturer by volume in the world. We
01:24:13
were ahead of Apple. We got sold for
01:24:15
$600 million or maybe 760, which is what
01:24:18
Alphabet will lose in about three
01:24:19
trading seconds or gain today. No one's
01:24:22
been able to capture a lot of money
01:24:23
around PCs. People say Apple. No, it
01:24:25
wasn't PCs. It was the iPhone. Vaccines.
01:24:28
I think vaccines are the second greatest
01:24:30
innovation in history, only bested by
01:24:32
the American middle class. Millions of
01:24:34
lives saved through vaccines.
01:24:36
Mona is down 90%. There's no one company
01:24:39
that's been able to capture sequester
01:24:41
shareholder value. So my thesis is that
01:24:43
there's a one in three chance that AI
01:24:46
becomes as important as vaccines, as
01:24:48
important as jet transportation, as
01:24:50
important as PCs, but there's no one or
01:24:52
small group of companies that are able
01:24:54
to capture shareholder value. Why is
01:24:56
that? AI puts AI out of business. And
01:25:00
that is if you look at the convergence
01:25:01
of the technologies, all the models are
01:25:04
converging.
01:25:04
>> Yeah. the AI reverse engineers any
01:25:07
feature and basically they're all kind
01:25:09
of they all started with this delta
01:25:11
they're all converging towards the same
01:25:12
thing. So I wonder if the big winner or
01:25:15
the stakeholder that wins in AI is us.
01:25:18
>> Yeah.
01:25:18
>> And that is we have this we have amazing
01:25:21
vaccines PCs transportation
01:25:24
but a small number of companies haven't
01:25:26
become worth trillions of dollars. And I
01:25:28
wonder if the same thing might not
01:25:29
happen with AI, with openweight models
01:25:31
out of China, with um basically great
01:25:35
models that are for free. My prediction
01:25:38
would be to go short the AI ecosystem
01:25:40
from a shareholder standpoint, but from
01:25:43
a stakeholder standpoint, I think it's
01:25:44
going to be great. And let me back up. I
01:25:48
think a more important technology in
01:25:50
terms of how it's going to change the
01:25:51
world is not AI. You know, every year I
01:25:53
say this is my technology of the year.
01:25:54
In 24, I said it was AI. 25 and 26 I've
01:25:58
had the same technology that said this
01:25:59
is more important than AI. Any guesses?
01:26:02
Talk about this a lot. You would not
01:26:04
know this technology or use it. That's a
01:26:06
hint.
01:26:08
>> Okay.
01:26:10
Testosterone
01:26:13
replacement.
01:26:14
>> That hurts cuz you know I'm on it. That
01:26:16
hurts.
01:26:16
>> Okay. No. Um Okay. A Zen.
01:26:19
>> Okay.
01:26:19
>> GLP1.
01:26:20
>> GLP1. Yeah.
01:26:21
>> Talk to somebody who's on GLP1 and uses
01:26:23
AI every day and ask them which one they
01:26:25
would give up.
01:26:26
Yeah,
01:26:27
>> I think GLP1, if you look at what's
01:26:29
really going to have an impact on
01:26:30
people's lives and what will create more
01:26:31
shareholder value, I think it's GLP1
01:26:33
than AI. And a lot of people much
01:26:35
smarter than me say you're full of [ __ ]
01:26:36
AI. AI is going to change everything. I
01:26:39
I don't I think GLP1 is more important
01:26:41
technology than than AI. And my thesis
01:26:43
is there's a one in three chance that AI
01:26:46
ends up being more like vaccines than
01:26:48
e-commerce or social. and that it's
01:26:50
going to be impossible for a small
01:26:52
number of companies to capture all the
01:26:53
shareholder value they're raising money
01:26:55
at. The other kind of what I'll put, you
01:26:58
know, fun to speculate or catastrophize.
01:27:00
If someone were to say the US economy
01:27:02
crashed in the next 24 months or or
01:27:05
valuations came down not 30% but the
01:27:08
market dropped 40 or 50%, which has
01:27:10
happened before, I wouldn't think it's
01:27:11
because of its misadventures in the
01:27:13
Middle East. I think there's a decent
01:27:15
chance if I were advising she and China
01:27:18
and I saw America as a real adversary
01:27:20
and said we are sick of these guys
01:27:22
messing with us, treating us so poorly,
01:27:24
these ridiculous tariffs, very difficult
01:27:27
to understand what they're what they're
01:27:29
thinking or how we deal with them. I
01:27:30
would do what I think they're doing and
01:27:32
that is I would engage in modern-day
01:27:34
steel dumping. So back I think it was in
01:27:36
the 80s or the '90s, China wanted to
01:27:39
ramp up, they wanted to consolidate the
01:27:41
global steel market. So they began
01:27:42
dumping cheap steel into the US and US
01:27:44
steel manufacturers could not compete.
01:27:45
And the idea was price it below market,
01:27:48
consolidate the market and then you get
01:27:49
margin power. That's basically what
01:27:51
Amazon and Netflix have done. They've
01:27:52
sold you a dollar worth of goods for 80
01:27:54
cents until they wrapped up the market.
01:27:56
Then they started raising prices. I
01:27:58
think China is beginning to engage in
01:28:00
what I'll call AI dumping. And that is
01:28:02
they're going to have a series of
01:28:03
openweight models. About a third of
01:28:05
corporations now are supposedly using
01:28:07
Chinese lightweight openweight models
01:28:09
that are cheaper. If I were she, I would
01:28:11
just dump cheap AI into the US market.
01:28:14
And the moment large corporations start
01:28:15
announcing they're not engaging these
01:28:17
multi-million dollar site licenses with
01:28:19
anthropic or open AI, they're using
01:28:21
these inexpensive Chinese models and the
01:28:24
market realizes that there's no way they
01:28:25
can justify these incredible valuations.
01:28:28
I think the US market crashes because
01:28:30
40% of the S&P now is directly or
01:28:33
tangentially related to this giant bet
01:28:35
America is making on AI. The majority of
01:28:38
GDP growth over the last two years has
01:28:40
come from AI capex. If that slows down,
01:28:43
we're immediately in recession.
01:28:45
>> That's such an interesting idea that if
01:28:46
you're sat in China as a leader now, you
01:28:48
go, you know what? Give Americans cheap
01:28:50
AI and you'll kneecap their economy.
01:28:52
>> 100%. That's what I would do.
01:28:54
>> It does make sense, right?
01:28:56
>> It makes a lot of sense. I I've heard a
01:28:58
lot of founders um get quite scared that
01:29:00
there will be an economic crash in the
01:29:02
next 12 or 24 months because of the
01:29:04
overinvestment in in AI. And investors
01:29:06
are going to start to realize that the
01:29:07
returns just aren't there for a lot of
01:29:09
these companies that have raised at 100
01:29:11
million valuation that on an idea and so
01:29:14
the market will contract. And if it if
01:29:15
the market does contract, what does
01:29:16
history tell us that the individual
01:29:18
should do? The person listening, they're
01:29:20
not the average person in such a market
01:29:22
because they're scared they're going to
01:29:23
be laid off. If all this investor money
01:29:24
suddenly contracts, investors go risk
01:29:26
off. They might be laid off. Well,
01:29:29
again, so Jamie Diamond was asked, "What
01:29:31
is the definition of a recession?" and
01:29:33
he said something that happens every
01:29:34
seven years. Your generation isn't used
01:29:37
to a recession.
01:29:38
>> No.
01:29:38
>> I was on the board of the New York Times
01:29:40
and within like 60 days 70% of our
01:29:43
revenues went away. 2008 the credit
01:29:46
crisis advertisers 70 80% of the New
01:29:49
York Times revenue was advertising.
01:29:51
You know, in May we're doing X million
01:29:54
in revenue.
01:29:55
>> And then you joined the board and then
01:29:56
>> Yeah. No, I think I joined the board. I
01:29:59
joined the board at exactly the wrong
01:30:00
time. I raised Quickstory. I raised 600
01:30:02
million to become the largest sheriff in
01:30:03
the New York Times and overnight I
01:30:04
turned it into 200 million.
01:30:07
So, but yeah, that was that was a
01:30:09
learning experience for me. Anyways,
01:30:11
just about the time I started having
01:30:13
kids. God, that was stressful. Anyway,
01:30:15
they basically within 60 days lost 70%
01:30:19
of their ad revenue and we had to go and
01:30:21
find a Mexican billionaire to basically
01:30:23
call us to bail us out. Your generation
01:30:25
really doesn't know what a recession
01:30:27
looks like. Like, everything stops.
01:30:30
Imagine 70% of your subscription and
01:30:32
advertising revenue from 1 month to one
01:30:34
month declines. What would that do to
01:30:36
your business?
01:30:36
>> You'd have to consider letting people go
01:30:39
and you'd have to cut costs. And
01:30:41
>> but here's the thing, to a certain
01:30:42
extent, it's healthy. You start
01:30:45
developing all these fatty deposits and
01:30:48
the best time to start a business is
01:30:50
coming out of a recession because people
01:30:52
are cheaper, things are cheaper, people
01:30:54
have a new way of looking at stuff. And
01:30:55
also for your generation,
01:30:58
people don't realize, I mean, quite
01:31:00
frankly, if I'm a 28-year-old who's
01:31:01
talented and doesn't have kids and dogs
01:31:03
yet, I think a recession that takes down
01:31:06
the asset prices might not be the worst
01:31:07
thing in the world that happens to your
01:31:09
generation. Because when 08 crashed,
01:31:12
when there was the crash of '08, we let
01:31:15
the banks fail. We I'm sorry, we bailed
01:31:18
out the banks, but we didn't bail out
01:31:19
the economy. And I was coming into my
01:31:21
prime income earning years. I was in my
01:31:22
early 40s and I was still lucky enough
01:31:25
and talented enough to make good money.
01:31:27
So what did I get in 2009? Amazon,
01:31:30
Apple, and Netflix for 8, 10, and 12
01:31:32
bucks a share.
01:31:34
Those companies have 20xed.
01:31:36
>> We don't let anything fail now. We bail
01:31:39
out the markets. Where do you and your
01:31:41
colleagues find value? Like what's cheap
01:31:44
right now? Where do you find value? And
01:31:46
here's the thing. When you There's two
01:31:48
parts of your life from a financial
01:31:49
standpoint. There's investing part of
01:31:51
your life and there's harvesting. You're
01:31:53
in the investing part of your life.
01:31:55
There's a certain
01:31:57
advantage to getting to invest when
01:32:00
asset prices are low. There's nowhere
01:32:02
for you to find value.
01:32:04
>> Yeah.
01:32:04
>> I I I'm pretty comfortable saying Apple
01:32:06
or Nvidia aren't going to 20x from here.
01:32:08
Where do you find value? Real estate.
01:32:11
What? Brooklyn is $3,000 a square foot.
01:32:14
So while you're in the investing part of
01:32:17
your life and you can survive a bit of a
01:32:19
shock, I don't know if quite frankly a
01:32:22
good thing to happen for your generation
01:32:24
wouldn't be a correction in asset prices
01:32:27
because the economy has an unbelievable
01:32:29
malleability and resilience to reform,
01:32:31
reshape and come back. Recessions
01:32:33
usually don't last longer than 18, 24,
01:32:36
36 months. And I think a correction in
01:32:39
asset values would be good. But what
01:32:41
we've decided, the leadership of my
01:32:43
generation has decided we'd rather pull
01:32:45
out your credit card and artificially
01:32:47
prop up the markets through deficit
01:32:49
spending or bailouts.
01:32:51
They're talking, we mentioned Spirit
01:32:52
Airlines, they're talking about a $500
01:32:54
million government loan
01:32:56
to Spirit Airlines to bail them out.
01:32:59
That's nothing but you transferring
01:33:01
money to me.
01:33:03
>> Because who owns shares in Spirit?
01:33:06
People my age. Who's trying to buy [ __ ]
01:33:09
for cheap? people your age, it should be
01:33:12
allowed to go out of business. It should
01:33:14
decline in price. Asset value should go
01:33:16
down. When we bailed out every baby
01:33:19
boomer owner of a restaurant or a small
01:33:21
business in COVID, that just robbed
01:33:23
opportunity from the new graduate of a
01:33:24
culinary academy who wanted her shot to
01:33:27
go buy a restaurant for pennies on the
01:33:29
dollar. Everyone in my generation has
01:33:32
had those asset dips where if you were
01:33:33
resilient and coming into your prime
01:33:35
income earning years, you could buy
01:33:36
assets for a lower price. We've decided
01:33:39
that the the government is here to bail
01:33:41
my generation out and smooth out our
01:33:43
assets. Make sure that our assets never
01:33:45
go down by too much. All that does is
01:33:48
rub opportunity from your generation.
01:33:50
You wrote this book, the the MLP
01:33:51
profile, the simple formula for success.
01:33:53
Uh brilliant, brilliant book. And
01:33:56
linking to what you were just saying
01:33:57
there, where are you investing now? Like
01:33:59
if you're a young person that's trying
01:34:00
to defend your money or just really
01:34:02
anybody at any age that's trying to find
01:34:03
a place to put your money where you'll
01:34:04
make a return. I guess there's actually
01:34:06
two questions here. which is the
01:34:07
investing part. And they're like, "How
01:34:09
do I set myself up just to make more
01:34:10
money, especially if there's going to be
01:34:12
an economic collapse, things might get a
01:34:14
little bit uncertain?" I think you I
01:34:16
think I heard you say before that less
01:34:18
people are leaving their jobs. It's it's
01:34:19
harder for entry- level people to get
01:34:21
into newer roles potentially at the
01:34:23
moment. So, in such a world where there
01:34:24
is uncertainty and I want to make sure
01:34:27
that I don't go broke, I have $10,000,
01:34:30
let's say, and I want to make sure I
01:34:32
increase my earning potential. What's
01:34:33
one's advice for those dual strategies?
01:34:35
>> Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing. So,
01:34:38
and it's different. I'm at a point where
01:34:40
I'm not looking to get rich. I'm looking
01:34:41
to not get poor. So, I just diversify
01:34:43
like crazy. I don't put more than I
01:34:45
don't invest more than 3% of my net
01:34:47
worth in any one thing.
01:34:48
>> Yeah.
01:34:48
>> And I've been diversifying out of the US
01:34:50
market, in the Latin America and
01:34:51
European markets because the reality is
01:34:54
nobody knows. The only kevlar against
01:34:56
the unknown, which is everywhere, is
01:34:57
diversification. Now, a younger person
01:35:00
can take more risks, right? I mean, what
01:35:02
am I doing? I'm diversifying and I'm
01:35:04
investing in Pokemon because I do it
01:35:05
with my son and he loves it and I think
01:35:08
collectibles are actually the only place
01:35:09
where there's value right now.
01:35:10
Everything to me just looks crazy
01:35:12
overvalued. I look at everything and
01:35:13
think that's going to get cut in half.
01:35:15
Oh, that's going to get cut in half. But
01:35:17
you always want to be in the market.
01:35:18
It's very hard to be a stock picker. So
01:35:20
if you're your age, you're a talented
01:35:22
entrepreneur. You're investing in
01:35:23
yourself. There's no ROI like finding a
01:35:26
business you're good at, trying to
01:35:28
invest, and working your ass off. That's
01:35:30
how you get wealthy in this for young
01:35:32
people in this generation or you find a
01:35:34
company that's going fast. You do well
01:35:36
there. You get stock options. But the
01:35:37
key is to make sure that a certain
01:35:40
amount of your income never comes into
01:35:42
your hands. People your age can't save
01:35:43
money. If they get $100, they'll spend
01:35:46
105. So the key is to find every
01:35:48
matching program or every vehicle or
01:35:51
hack to make sure you never see the
01:35:52
money. And from an early age, it goes
01:35:54
into lowcost index funds. Take 30% of
01:35:57
your capital and have fun with it. buy
01:36:00
Nvidia, whatever you want that you think
01:36:02
you're smarter than everyone else and
01:36:03
then you're going to find out you're not
01:36:05
and and the market outperforms you. But
01:36:07
how do you get rich? The only answer I
01:36:09
have is slowly and that is figure out a
01:36:12
way to make sure that money every month
01:36:14
is invested in lowcost index funds. In
01:36:18
terms of trying to pick the next big
01:36:21
thing, oh Christ, your guess is as good
01:36:24
as mine. I just don't. And anyone who
01:36:26
tells you they know doesn't know. So, I
01:36:29
know how to get you rich. That's the
01:36:30
good news. The bad news is the answer is
01:36:32
slowly and it requires some discipline.
01:36:34
But people your age, just find out a way
01:36:36
to start saving when you're a teenager,
01:36:38
25 bucks a month, then in your 20s, 100,
01:36:40
then 500, then a,000. And regardless of
01:36:43
whether you have a platinum record or a
01:36:45
bestselling book or a podcast empire,
01:36:47
you're going to be fine. Uh, but I don't
01:36:50
I can't look at a sector and say, "Oh,
01:36:52
it's AI." Well, AI is overvalued right
01:36:54
now. I don't know. Your job is to find
01:36:56
something you're good at, to focus such
01:36:58
you can become great at something which
01:36:59
commands margin. To show some
01:37:01
discipline, save some money, to
01:37:03
diversify like crazy, and then to let
01:37:05
time take over. Cuz I look at you and I
01:37:08
think, "Oh, I'm like Stephen. I'm a
01:37:10
young entrepreneur." And then I look in
01:37:11
the mirror, I'm like, "Fuck." And I'm
01:37:12
like, "Oh my god, I'm 5 years from
01:37:14
death."
01:37:16
It goes, but it happened in a blink. So
01:37:19
take advantage of that because if I gave
01:37:21
you a magic box and said if you put like
01:37:23
you're making real money now if you put
01:37:25
$100,000 in a box by the time you're my
01:37:27
age it's going to be worth a million
01:37:29
bucks. And imagine that that that that
01:37:32
box is like a second. 100,000 in a
01:37:36
second it's a million dollars. This to
01:37:38
this feels like a second. So how much
01:37:40
money would you put in that box?
01:37:41
>> Oh my gosh. Yeah. So the moment you have
01:37:43
some capital, just think about trying to
01:37:47
at a young age show some discipline and
01:37:50
put some money in that box because it
01:37:52
just compound interest is just it's
01:37:56
staggering the power of it. But trying
01:37:58
to predict where you should invest other
01:38:00
than investing in yourself, additional
01:38:02
skills, certifications, investing in
01:38:03
relationships, trying to be as do as
01:38:06
many nice kind things for other people,
01:38:07
I think that compounds, especially when
01:38:09
you're younger. People remember people
01:38:11
who helped them when they were younger
01:38:12
and maybe not that powerful. I imagine
01:38:14
you're very loyal.
01:38:16
>> The person who gave you 5,000 bucks, do
01:38:18
you resent the money they make? They
01:38:20
made
01:38:21
>> I actually emailed him this weekend.
01:38:22
It's called Alistister thanking him
01:38:23
again. Send him a big letter for
01:38:25
>> that because that person took a chance
01:38:26
on you. There was a certain amount of
01:38:28
kindness there, right?
01:38:28
>> It wasn't even the 5,000. It was that a
01:38:30
smart person said, "I believe in you."
01:38:32
And that meant that I could go back to
01:38:33
my mother who was ignoring me and
01:38:34
saying, "Look, the smart person believed
01:38:36
in me and therefore it made me believe
01:38:37
in myself." That's really the investment
01:38:38
they made. That's everything and they
01:38:40
took a chance and it probably was they
01:38:42
wanted a return but what they wanted to
01:38:43
do was help out a young man. Those
01:38:45
people
01:38:46
>> your opportunity to make those
01:38:47
investments as a young person whether
01:38:48
it's helping someone get a job being
01:38:50
kind a kind a kind word a kind text
01:38:53
telling them how impressive they are
01:38:54
whatever it might be that stuff it's
01:38:56
like investing it compounds and you wake
01:38:59
up at 50 and you find those
01:39:02
relationships are really powerful
01:39:04
assets.
01:39:05
>> Mhm.
01:39:05
>> So look I don't I don't have a silver
01:39:07
bullet here. save money, diversify,
01:39:10
compound interest, invest in
01:39:11
relationships early. Those compound too.
01:39:14
>> What are the most important decisions
01:39:15
you made that resulted in the biggest
01:39:17
sort of wealth upside for you? And they
01:39:19
could be any kind of decision. It's not
01:39:21
like I invested in this, but just I
01:39:23
don't know, a philosophy, a mentality
01:39:24
and approach that when you look back on
01:39:26
your career, you go, it was that that
01:39:28
that was the biggest step change in my
01:39:30
money. Well, my superpower is I I I've
01:39:34
gotten shot in the face a couple times
01:39:35
personally and professionally and I
01:39:37
mourn and I get up and I go try and
01:39:40
raise money again and start another
01:39:41
company. I had an e-commerce incubator.
01:39:43
It was basically out of business 6
01:39:44
months from starting it. My e-commerce
01:39:46
company that went public in 2002 went
01:39:48
through restructuring, which is a fancy
01:39:50
word for bankruptcy. In 2008, I started
01:39:53
a video delivery company that went out
01:39:55
of business. So, I mean, you know,
01:39:58
people talk about their successes. I
01:39:59
think generously I'm sort of like three,
01:40:02
four and two. I've lo I've had more
01:40:04
losses than wins every time I've been
01:40:07
rejected from a school. I had my
01:40:10
affections weren't returned from a
01:40:12
potential romantic partner. I got fired.
01:40:14
I had a company go out of business. I
01:40:16
had investment. I've always been able
01:40:18
and I think this is a key skill. I think
01:40:19
you have to do whatever you need to do.
01:40:21
Whether it's be around people who care
01:40:23
about you, exercise, you have to be able
01:40:25
to stand in front of a metaphorical
01:40:26
mirror and go. I can add a lot of value
01:40:29
to a company. I can raise money again
01:40:32
and start a business if I need to. I can
01:40:34
make someone really happy.
01:40:36
>> That's been my superpower. So the the
01:40:39
seinal moment in my professional success
01:40:43
was a willingness to say, "Okay, I just
01:40:44
got shot in the face. The whole world
01:40:46
says I'm a failure because my business I
01:40:47
raised a ton of money and I had to call
01:40:48
my investors and say we're shutting
01:40:50
down." That's humiliating. It's public
01:40:51
failure. I mourn and then I go out and I
01:40:54
raise more money. I try another company
01:40:56
because only one in seven businesses
01:40:58
succeed. So I started nine
01:41:01
and I knew at some point if you work
01:41:04
hard enough, I mean you can't guarantee
01:41:05
success, but so much of it is out of
01:41:07
your control. You just want to step up
01:41:09
to the plate as many times as possible.
01:41:11
You want to have a great swing. You want
01:41:12
to be in shape. You want to be a good
01:41:13
person. But a lot of it is resilience. I
01:41:16
have a lot of really talented friends
01:41:19
who came up through the alternative
01:41:20
investments community. Masters of the
01:41:22
universe making one, two, three million
01:41:25
bucks a year working for hedge funds in
01:41:27
the '9s and the odds and then they went
01:41:29
out on their own, raised a bunch of
01:41:30
money, hit some bumps and then closed
01:41:33
their funds or they had a business. I
01:41:36
have friends who are entrepreneurs who
01:41:38
left a good job and started a business
01:41:41
and they get stuck. These are people
01:41:43
who've never known anything but success.
01:41:45
They got into an Ivy League school. They
01:41:47
got a great job. Everything has been
01:41:50
this. And then they hit a failure and
01:41:54
they just get they lose their mojo. They
01:41:57
just get stuck. They can't get over it.
01:41:59
They lose the confidence to go out and
01:42:01
raise more money. And that's the key.
01:42:04
The key to success is getting shot in
01:42:06
the face and then just getting up again.
01:42:09
>> I'm 30 years old. How old are you,
01:42:11
Scott? I'm 61. Are
01:42:13
>> you actually 61?
01:42:14
>> No, I'm lying. Yeah, I'm 61. It's the
01:42:16
testosterone therapy show.
01:42:18
>> No, I thought I didn't think you were
01:42:19
61.
01:42:19
>> I appreciate that.
01:42:20
>> Um I thought you were
01:42:22
>> 62 and 61.
01:42:22
>> 62 in November.
01:42:23
>> If you'd said to me anywhere between
01:42:27
49 and 61, I think I would have believed
01:42:31
you. Um so
01:42:33
>> I'm sorry. Let me take that out. I'm 49.
01:42:35
Stephen,
01:42:36
>> what is it that you know, you're 61, I'm
01:42:39
33. Yeah. What is it that I don't know
01:42:41
as a 30-year-old that I'm going to find
01:42:43
out in the next 30 years that I should
01:42:46
know? What is the most important thing
01:42:47
that I should know about the next 30
01:42:48
years?
01:42:50
>> Nothing's ever as good or as bad as it
01:42:52
seems. You've raised a ton of money.
01:42:54
You're on fire right now.
01:42:58
>> Be humble
01:43:00
>> because a lot of this is out is out of
01:43:01
your control. If there's AI dumping in
01:43:03
the US or the swore gets out of control
01:43:05
and the market shuts down,
01:43:08
>> this goes away. Yeah.
01:43:10
And it's not your fault, but nor is your
01:43:12
success. So when things are going really
01:43:14
well, be really humble and invest a lot
01:43:17
in other people and realize be careful
01:43:19
not to believe your own press. In 1999,
01:43:22
my company was going public. I was
01:43:23
looking at jets. I just thought I was
01:43:25
the man. I wasn't very kind to my
01:43:27
ex-wife. I really thought a lot of
01:43:30
myself. And I I credited my character
01:43:33
and my grit for my success without
01:43:36
crediting enough to how lucky I was that
01:43:39
I was in the right place at the right
01:43:41
time. So be humble when you're
01:43:43
successful. At the same time,
01:43:45
when you fail, and I failed a lot,
01:43:47
realize a lot of that isn't your fault,
01:43:49
too. And forgive yourself and move on.
01:43:53
So a lot of your success and a lot of
01:43:54
your failure isn't your fault. And when
01:43:56
you look back on your life, when you
01:43:58
look back on the biggest
01:43:59
disappointments, and my sense is I don't
01:44:01
know much about you, but my sense is you
01:44:02
haven't had a lot of tragedy or a real
01:44:04
disappointment, at least professionally,
01:44:05
it feels like it's been upward for you.
01:44:07
When you look back on the most
01:44:09
disappointing things that happened to
01:44:10
you in this decade, you're not going to
01:44:13
be disappointed about the thing that
01:44:14
happened. You're going to be
01:44:15
disappointed about how upset you were. M
01:44:17
>> so forgive yourself and realize this
01:44:20
will pass because at the end of life
01:44:23
people wish they'd allowed themselves to
01:44:25
be happier. They think I wish I had not
01:44:29
beaten myself up over that breakup, over
01:44:32
that loss of job, over that loss of
01:44:34
money. They're upset about how upset
01:44:36
they were, not about what actually
01:44:37
happened. So nothing's ever as good as
01:44:39
bad as it seems. and to really try and
01:44:44
embrace and I didn't do this embrace
01:44:46
relationships and that is I got on a
01:44:49
hamster wheel. I just never had enough
01:44:51
money. I I was my whole identity was
01:44:54
professional and from like the age of 25
01:44:56
to 45 I don't think I established many
01:44:59
healthy relationships. I just didn't
01:45:00
invest in them. I was always good with
01:45:02
friends. I always stayed in contact. But
01:45:05
I kind of woke up in my early 40s. I
01:45:08
just decided I wanted to move to New
01:45:09
York and not have any obligations. I got
01:45:12
divorced. I don't say left my friends,
01:45:15
but I had enough money. I was living
01:45:16
like a caveman, just occasionally
01:45:18
leaving for food or alcohol or a good
01:45:20
time. And I liked having absolutely no
01:45:23
obligations and no connection to
01:45:24
anybody. I actually enjoyed it. And then
01:45:26
I realized I started reading a lot of
01:45:28
literature on happiness and longevity.
01:45:30
And I realized if I do this, I'll be
01:45:31
dead at 55 because I don't have any
01:45:34
connection to anybody. And so I started
01:45:36
investing in relationships, started
01:45:39
making an effort to reinvigorate
01:45:41
friendships,
01:45:42
really start started to think about
01:45:44
thoughtfully about I want to be around
01:45:46
people a lot more. I was becoming very
01:45:48
much an introvert and isolated. I mean,
01:45:50
and I was like a poorer version of
01:45:52
Howard Hughes at some point, but so I
01:45:54
would say really focus on as much as you
01:45:57
can relationships and investing in them
01:46:00
uh in your 30s. I think it's super
01:46:02
rewarding or it pays off. But more than
01:46:04
anything, just forgive yourself
01:46:06
>> and become a dad.
01:46:08
>> Well, look, I didn't want to have kids.
01:46:11
So, and I think you can be happy without
01:46:13
kids. I kind of got forced into it. I
01:46:16
was with someone who much higher
01:46:19
character, much more attractive than me,
01:46:21
and she decided she wanted to have kids,
01:46:22
and I said, "Well, I'm never getting
01:46:23
married again." And she called my bluff
01:46:25
and said, "We don't have to be married."
01:46:27
So, I'm Anyways, so I didn't want kids.
01:46:32
Uh, but now, and this goes back to
01:46:35
purpose. Everyone talks about finding a
01:46:36
purpose. And the way I approach life,
01:46:38
which was really screwed up, is I
01:46:39
approached it from a capitalist
01:46:40
standpoint. I want more out of this
01:46:42
friendship than I'm getting. I want more
01:46:44
out of this investment than I invested.
01:46:45
I want to pay this employee less than
01:46:48
the value they're creating. I saw
01:46:49
everything as a transaction that I
01:46:50
wanted to be on the right side of. And
01:46:52
what I figured out is that finding your
01:46:55
purpose is finding that thing that you
01:46:57
can never get a a real positive return
01:47:01
on. What do I mean by that? I will never
01:47:03
get a positive return for my children.
01:47:05
There's they're never going to be up at
01:47:07
2 a.m. worried about me, right? I I they
01:47:11
are costing me so much money. I don't
01:47:12
care how nice the senior home is that
01:47:14
I'm putting them in. The amount of love,
01:47:16
concern, and anxiety I feel over my
01:47:18
boys, it would be almost impossible for
01:47:21
them to return that. And that's the
01:47:24
point. I finally have something where I
01:47:26
feel like that sense of purpose. The
01:47:28
most loyal, proud Americans are veterans
01:47:31
because there's no way America can
01:47:32
really pay them back for leaving their
01:47:34
families and risking their person.
01:47:37
That's an unparalleled investment.
01:47:38
They'll never get that investment back,
01:47:40
but what they get back is purpose. And I
01:47:42
didn't realize that finding something
01:47:44
you were so passionate about, whether it
01:47:46
was a nonprofit or saving dogs from kill
01:47:49
shelters or getting involved in a
01:47:51
woman's right to have bodily autonomy
01:47:53
where you give so much that there's just
01:47:56
no way you'll ever really get at the
01:47:57
kind of tangible ROI. And what I
01:48:00
realized is when you find that, that's
01:48:01
your purpose. And I didn't realize that.
01:48:04
So having kids for me has given me
01:48:07
purpose. Um I enjoy it, but that's my
01:48:10
thing now. I realized that's my job is
01:48:13
to overinvest is not to measure it
01:48:15
because I'm just not going to get that
01:48:16
back. So for me, having kids has been my
01:48:19
purpose. Also, building something with a
01:48:22
partner is really rewarding. It's like
01:48:25
you travel a lot. Inevitably, I don't
01:48:27
know if this happens to you. I always
01:48:28
get upgraded to the presidential suite
01:48:30
when I'm alone. And it's like it doesn't
01:48:32
happen. If you don't have someone to
01:48:34
share with, it doesn't happen. And the
01:48:37
most rewarding businesses, the most
01:48:38
rewarding things in my life have been
01:48:40
when you build something with a
01:48:41
co-founder or you build something with a
01:48:43
partner. And when you have kids who go
01:48:45
up and down in terms of their health and
01:48:48
well-being and they end up being good
01:48:49
kids, which my kids are, and you've
01:48:52
built that with somebody, that's
01:48:54
immensely rewarding. It's like the most
01:48:56
rewarding businesses I've ever had have
01:48:58
been with co-founders where we build
01:49:00
something together and it pays off. It's
01:49:02
just so rewarding. And when you don't
01:49:04
build something with someone else, when
01:49:05
you build it on your own, it's like
01:49:07
getting upgraded without anyone there.
01:49:10
It's like it didn't happen.
01:49:11
>> So, so true.
01:49:13
>> Yeah.
01:49:13
>> What I tell any man, there's never a
01:49:16
good time to have kids. You want to be
01:49:18
somewhat financially stable. That was my
01:49:20
problem. The biggest source of stress in
01:49:21
my life was when I had kids in ' 08 when
01:49:24
I went broke. That was hugely stressful.
01:49:27
And I think you want to make sure you
01:49:29
have a not only a partner you're
01:49:30
committed to, but I didn't realize how
01:49:31
important competence was in a partner
01:49:33
because once you have kids, it's like
01:49:35
operating a panzer tank division.
01:49:36
There's a lot of moving parts and you
01:49:38
have to have a competent partner. But I
01:49:40
think if you're economically somewhat
01:49:42
secure and you have a competent partner,
01:49:44
for me, I'm not going to tell anyone
01:49:47
what to do. Having kids has given me my
01:49:50
purpose. Hands down the most rewarding
01:49:52
thing I will ever do. That is that is
01:49:54
the last thing I I will think about when
01:49:55
I die. I see so much emotion in you when
01:49:58
you talk about it. Your eyes filled with
01:50:01
with tears as you started talking about
01:50:02
your boys.
01:50:03
>> Yeah.
01:50:04
>> Because I know a lot about you because
01:50:05
I've interviewed you a couple of times
01:50:06
now and I've read your books and so on
01:50:07
and it's um I find that fascinating
01:50:09
because I don't know what it is. I don't
01:50:11
know what where where that emotion comes
01:50:13
from because lots of people sit here and
01:50:14
talk about their kids,
01:50:15
>> right?
01:50:15
>> But when you the minute you started
01:50:16
mentioning them and the impact they've
01:50:18
had on you in terms of find helping you
01:50:19
find your purpose, I could see the
01:50:20
emotion in your eyes.
01:50:21
>> Yeah. Well, there's and there's some
01:50:23
things that surprised me.
01:50:26
one,
01:50:28
I didn't fall in love with my kid. I I
01:50:29
didn't love my kids when they first came
01:50:31
out into the world. You know, I felt a
01:50:33
sense of responsibility and anxiety. I
01:50:35
did not like having babies. I was able
01:50:38
to be selfish up to that point. I didn't
01:50:39
feel this immense level of love and
01:50:41
support that you were supposed to. I
01:50:44
fell in love with my voice. It was a
01:50:46
sort of slow incremental
01:50:48
incremental thing. And like I mean for
01:50:52
me and I think everyone's a little bit
01:50:54
different. The reason I'm just
01:50:56
fascinated and obsessed with my older
01:50:58
one is he's me. I look at him you know
01:51:03
the bad skin he had in his junior year.
01:51:05
It's scrawny 6'1 130 lb. The way he
01:51:10
laughs I'm like when I hug him I'm
01:51:12
hugging me at 17 or 18. It's like so
01:51:14
rewarding and that's why I love him so
01:51:17
much. My second is a different species
01:51:19
than me. I observe him with fascination
01:51:22
because I can't get over the fact that I
01:51:25
made that because he is so different
01:51:27
than me. So I'm fascinated by him in
01:51:30
just such a different way. Right? My
01:51:33
oldest is a pleaser used to come into
01:51:35
the bedroom on a Sunday and get in bed
01:51:37
with us and then stand up and say,
01:51:39
"Let's make a plan." And I'd be like,
01:51:41
"Where are the cameras? This is like a
01:51:42
hall this like about Hallmark film,
01:51:45
right? My youngest is a terrorist
01:51:47
assessing the household for
01:51:48
vulnerabilities so we can strike more at
01:51:50
our weakest. The only one recommendation
01:51:53
I make to anyone who has a kid have two
01:51:55
because it's fascinating. The only thing
01:51:57
I can guarantee you when I meet someone
01:51:58
with one kid I'm like okay the only
01:52:01
thing I know about the second is it will
01:52:03
be entirely different. If you want to
01:52:06
believe in nature over nurture have two
01:52:08
kids cuz they just could not be more
01:52:11
different. And it's fascinating.
01:52:14
We just haven't treated our boys that
01:52:16
differently. I don't We just haven't.
01:52:17
Birth order, whatever. There's something
01:52:19
in the batter. First Lady Obama,
01:52:21
Michelle Obama said something that
01:52:23
really struck with me. She said, "They
01:52:25
come to you." You know, I forget. I
01:52:27
think you've had that guy on the the
01:52:29
child psychologist guy.
01:52:32
We think we're engineers and that we get
01:52:34
to make the sheep. We don't. We're
01:52:36
shepherds. We get to point them in the
01:52:37
right direction. We get to pick what
01:52:38
food they have. But they come to you. Oh
01:52:41
my god. I've seen that. And I I like to
01:52:44
think I always thought that my kids were
01:52:47
going to be super into World War II
01:52:49
movies and CrossFit because that's what
01:52:50
dad is into and they just want to hang
01:52:51
out with me. No, no, no. The reason I'm
01:52:53
up at night looking at Pokemon cards is
01:52:55
because my kid is interested in it. And
01:52:57
what you realize as a dad is if you want
01:52:59
to be a good dad, you have to lean into
01:53:01
their interests. I'm not fascinated by
01:53:03
Pokemon. That's not something I will do
01:53:04
once my kid is out of the house. But
01:53:07
what you realize is you have to engage
01:53:08
in their interests and get into it. And
01:53:11
it took me a while because I was very
01:53:13
selfish to fully embrace that. I hated
01:53:16
giving up my weekends. I liked having
01:53:18
fabulous brunch with interesting people.
01:53:20
I liked going to St. Barts. All that
01:53:22
went away and I resented it for a while.
01:53:25
And then there's a certain ease and
01:53:27
relaxation that overwhelms you where
01:53:28
you're like, I'm not trying to be
01:53:30
fabulous. I know what I'm doing this
01:53:31
weekend. I'm going to some lame birthday
01:53:32
party for four-year-olds and then I'm
01:53:34
taking my kid to the soccer game. And
01:53:36
there's a certain ease about it that's
01:53:38
relaxing and liberating. Building some
01:53:41
something with somebody, seeing the way
01:53:43
they evolve is just fascinating. Just
01:53:46
fascinating the things they start asking
01:53:47
you and you find your purpose. So I
01:53:51
would recommend it to anybody, but I
01:53:53
also want to be clear, it's not
01:53:55
oneizefits-all. Some people can be very
01:53:56
happy not having it. So many of the
01:53:58
themes we've talked about today,
01:53:59
especially at the end of this
01:54:00
conversation, are in your new book,
01:54:02
Notes on Being a Man: How to Address the
01:54:04
Masculinity Crisis: Build Mental
01:54:05
Strength and Raise Concerns. I've had so
01:54:07
many of my friends, actually, both men
01:54:09
and women, talk to me about this book
01:54:11
because I think so many of us have been
01:54:12
looking for a road map on exactly these
01:54:14
subjects, notes on being a man. Some of
01:54:17
the themes are here on the back about
01:54:19
being kind, about being a good dad, and
01:54:21
how what that means. Um, but a lot of
01:54:23
the stuff you said about getting out of
01:54:24
the house and really attacking the world
01:54:25
and who one should become in such a
01:54:27
world. So, I highly recommend anybody
01:54:28
who is raising sons, who is a son, who
01:54:30
is a father, or just wants to understand
01:54:32
what it is to be a good man in the
01:54:34
modern world gets this book. And I'm
01:54:35
going to link it below.
01:54:36
>> Thank you.
01:54:37
>> All of you. It's been such a smash hit
01:54:39
and it's it's really rare that my some
01:54:40
of my close friends will send me
01:54:42
messages thinking about one particular
01:54:43
friend about this book and I think it's
01:54:45
a testament to the impact it's having on
01:54:47
the world. So, thank you for writing
01:54:48
this. I know you took a long time to
01:54:50
write this book because we talked about
01:54:51
it a couple of times when we had
01:54:52
conversations, but it is finally here.
01:54:55
>> Who is it for? I write with only one
01:54:58
objective. I hope my sons read my stuff
01:55:00
in 30 or 40 years and feel like they
01:55:03
understand me and the world a little bit
01:55:05
better. That's it. And I tried I use
01:55:07
that as a means of trying to be fearless
01:55:08
because there's so many comments and so
01:55:11
many there's such a narrative out there
01:55:13
trying to shape your views around the
01:55:14
orthodoxy that whatever your political
01:55:17
leanings are, it's pretty easy to be
01:55:18
intimidated into having a certain
01:55:20
narrative. So I try to write as if no
01:55:22
one's going to read it but my sons in 20
01:55:23
or 30 years. We have a closing tradition
01:55:25
where the last guest leaves a question
01:55:26
for the next not knowing who they're
01:55:27
leaving it for. The question left for
01:55:29
you is in one sentence, what is the most
01:55:31
challenging setback you've experienced?
01:55:32
And what's the lesson you want to pass
01:55:34
on to others?
01:55:36
That's easy. My mother dying and you can
01:55:40
never tell your parents how much you
01:55:42
love them too much. Forgive them. And
01:55:50
my mom died slowly, which is bad for
01:55:52
her, but it was good for me cuz nothing
01:55:54
went outside.
01:55:59
>> What What is What is the emotion you're
01:56:01
experiencing?
01:56:01
>> I miss my mom terribly. I'm I'm a
01:56:04
middle-aged man who hasn't gotten over
01:56:06
the death of his mother. Lie to my life.
01:56:14
raised me on her own secretary salary.
01:56:18
Gave me confidence,
01:56:22
everything.
01:56:26
>> Is there a way to You said you're a
01:56:28
middle-aged man that hasn't gotten over
01:56:29
the loss of his mother. Is there a way
01:56:31
to
01:56:31
>> I don't want to. I I think the recedes
01:56:35
for love is grief. I hope my boys feel
01:56:37
the same way about me. Hasn't got in the
01:56:39
way of my life.
01:56:41
uh makes me be more bold with my
01:56:44
emotions.
01:56:46
Yeah. I don't I see it I used to see it
01:56:49
as a problem. I went to grief
01:56:50
counseling. Now I see it as a not a bug
01:56:53
but as a feature.
01:56:55
The the recedes for for love are grief
01:56:58
and anxiety. And so what I would tell
01:57:00
every young person is I I hope they have
01:57:03
a lot of joy in their life. I also hope
01:57:04
they have a decent amount of grief
01:57:06
because that means they have people they
01:57:07
loved immensely.
01:57:11
Amen.
01:57:13
>> Thank you, Scott.
01:57:13
>> Thank you, Steve. Good to see you.
01:57:15
Congratulations on your burgeoning
01:57:17
empire.
01:57:19
>> Jesus Christ, man. This is out of
01:57:21
control.
01:57:24
>> You say this every time.
01:57:25
>> Every time I come here, I'm like, "Where
01:57:27
are the helicopters?"
01:57:30
Is is it's like pretty soon I'm going to
01:57:32
see like a nuclear tower power plant
01:57:34
towering next to It's just amazing. and
01:57:37
you're you're like everywhere. At one
01:57:40
point at one point I was on I was I was
01:57:42
at the airport with my boys and I'm
01:57:44
staring at this like 100 foot like
01:57:46
testimonial deal and I'm like make it
01:57:48
stop.
01:57:51
God
01:57:52
Jesus. YouTube have this new crazy
01:57:55
algorithm where they know exactly what
01:57:57
video you would like to watch next based
01:57:59
on AI and all of your viewing behavior.
01:58:01
And the algorithm says that this video
01:58:04
is the perfect video for you. It's
01:58:06
different for everybody looking right
01:58:07
now.
