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[Applause]
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all right next up
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um
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joe lonsdale
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we go joe lonsdale's gonna come up he's
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gonna tee it up for about five or ten
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minutes in a solo dolo
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he told me he's burning the house down
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[Music]
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and they've just gone crazy with them
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well hello miami it's good to be here
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from austin for a day we're uh
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it's the second second best tech city
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here it's not too bad
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how many people actually are live in
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miami i'm curious with the crowd we've
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been over that so everyone's flown in
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town like me that's pretty cool well you
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know i'm i'm generally an american
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optimist but i want to talk about
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a lot of stuff that's broken right now
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that we know how to fix but we aren't
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and you know talking to these guys
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especially hearing from elon and
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everyone today it's just so exciting
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what our civilization is going towards
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what it could be doing but if you talk
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to a lot of our smartest friends uh you
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know you look at guys like dolly or
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bridgewater and others you know they see
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america and decline they see decadence
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they see decay and i think there's a lot
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of important questions we're facing
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right now like why do these happen to a
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civilization
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why when there's so many exciting things
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going on that we know can make a really
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great future you know for our kids and
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grandkids and for humanity why is this
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stuff breaking and i want to tell you a
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little story a policy group in austin
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and we have you know we follow the
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homeless population there and we were
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going along with a middle-aged mexican
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gentleman who had just lost his job and
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he went into the homeless center he's
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really struggling and he says you know i
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really want to try to find a job i want
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some job training and the and the in the
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person working there she says you know
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sir you deserve a home and he said yeah
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that's great but you know what can i get
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some training and she said you don't
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need to worry about that you need to
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worry about getting a home for people
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just like you what you deserve
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and and i want to back up about the
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situation in austin because we're seeing
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this all over the country right now you
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know in 2018 the mayor of austin went to
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san francisco in l.a
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and and you know he was asking him for
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advice that i wanted to do for
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homelessness there wasn't really
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homelessness downtown it's funny this is
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funny to me too but there's actually a
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reason he was asking him for advice and
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it's a special interest thing where
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there's actually hundreds of millions of
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funding that goes to these groups in sf
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and la that work on this into all of
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their friends and to all the people with
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their politics and it's a huge money
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spigot for for politicians they're very
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powerful in those other cities in austin
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they didn't have that money spaghett and
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he wanted it and you know you know what
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they told him i heard this from both
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sides he said you know you have to show
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people that capitalism doesn't work you
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gotta put it in their faces
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uh and then you'll get funding and he
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went back to austin and he brought all
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the camps downtown uh homeless death
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spiked homeless trafficking spike sex
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trafficking spike drugs spiked but uh
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the funding went way up for him and his
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friends uh they got massive new funding
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you know unaccountable sources of money
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for these people and and and then and
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then of course they start deploying the
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answers which is the housing first
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strategy and by the way this is not just
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like a right versus left thing i think
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housing first was first deployed under w
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bush so this is this is a general
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strategy you guys probably know in la
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they spend eight hundred thousand
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dollars per new home trying to solve
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this problem there's seven thousand
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non-profits right now you know funded by
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hud around our country with the same
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philosophy and the philosophy is no pay
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for performance no transparency no
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accountability just build the homes and
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you know when i first heard about this a
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decade ago i thought wow that makes
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sense there's 5 000 homeless people
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let's build 5 000 homes uh it turns out
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that there's still about a couple
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percent of our society that really don't
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have a home but they're living kind of
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on the edge on people's couches with
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other family with friends so the actual
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demand for homes
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and it turns out maybe it's about 6
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million 10 million it's effectively
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infinite there's infinite demand for
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homes in our society and who do you
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think gets these tones when we build
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them so so this guy we're following you
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know a few hundred people with my
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philanthropy group and our team goes
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back in with him
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and he gets in line and he's been
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leaving between a camp that they helped
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him set up in downtown and uh in a
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relative's house but he's saying he's
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living outside in camp and he goes back
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and he's just missed getting a home and
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he's frustrated and they're explaining
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the points to someone he says wait a
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second so you're saying that if i was on
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drugs i'd qualify for a home and they
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said well we don't like to say it that
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way but that's true and he says you're
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saying if i committed a crime i'd
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qualify for a home and they're like well
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yeah but that's that yeah we don't like
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to say it that way but that's true that
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would have given you enough points to
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qualify for a home and and and and what
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happens here if you try to bait this
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system there's you know 7 000 of these
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pro groups around around the country uh
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you you're streamed out as a racist
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you're streamed at without a homonym
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attacks there's three things one there's
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not the intellectual humility to see
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that there may be other answers that may
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be correct
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two there's no respect for the dignity
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of everyone in this conversations if you
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disagree you are a bad person
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and three there's no passion for the
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truth these people are not trying to
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pursue the truth these people already
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have the truth and they're giving it to
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you as a dogma
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and this is true of pretty much
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every of these broken areas in our
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society and there's a lot of them
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there's a lot of them right now there's
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like we know we have 50 training
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programs that we spend a lot of money on
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the federal government they're not
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accountable they don't tend to work
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they're very broken there's no
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transparency there's no competition
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there's no debate you're forward or
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against it and you're a bad person if
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you're against it there's there's
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there's these vocational schools around
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the country texas vocational schools uh
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were really underperforming seven years
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ago
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and uh you know what we did is we ended
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up actually changing them so that the
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schools were only going to be funded
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based on the salaries of the students
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coming out if you tie it to graduation
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rates doesn't work because they can
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graduate everyone we tied to the salary
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is coming out we got the we got the
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salaries coming out to go up 117 percent
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just by putting in that accountability
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but but most of the country doesn't do
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that most of the country there's
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vocational schools people go very low
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graduation rates they fail uh we're not
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going to go into the k to 12 issues you
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guys know about but one fact most people
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don't know is the education inequality
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in this country is far greater than the
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wealth inequality far greater so so
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there's i mean you know and you guys
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probably see there's infant formula
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production thing which is a crisis right
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now there's really basic policy mistakes
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around that the way we run our prisons
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our probation and parole there's all
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sorts of ways to run a much better we're
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not doing it though uh you know i'll
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give you one other example because elon
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was speaking today austin infrastructure
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i'm very excited about his boring
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company
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and you know they on austin we passed a
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six billion seven billion dollar plan to
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build really small amount of
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infrastructure it's already balloon and
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cost of 12 billion you know for for less
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than half the original money for three
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billion dollars you could do over a
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hundred times as many uh as many tunnels
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in terms of what they're building right
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now and and you do you know with with a
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hundred more stations and so basically
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for a tiny fraction of the cost and
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again i go and talk to the city and talk
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to the guys there's no intellectual
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humility uh you know we don't there's no
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they don't respect your dignity elon's a
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bad guy we don't like elon whatever
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because they're they're some kind of
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extreme version
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and uh and they're not interested in the
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truth and they're really not they're
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just interested in like what they're
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going to do their way and so can you
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kind of come back to this like what
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what's going on in our society where is
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this coming from and you know say what
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causes decadence to can decline i think
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the more important question is what
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actually works like why is our society
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functional and yeah i think this you
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have to take it back to the
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enlightenment right i mean this if you
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look at the exponential growth that's
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happened that's created the wealth that
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all of us enjoy it really happened over
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the last few centuries kind of post
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enlightenment and and you had a society
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that really cared about pursuit of the
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truth really cared about competition of
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ideas right i mean and you need the
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virtues for this to work right the
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classical virtues that we talk about our
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civilization justice wisdom temperous
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courage you need the courage to actually
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fight for the truth and so what in the
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long time ago you tended to have
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religious dogma uh which could be some
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form of virtue signaling some sort of
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some form of you know basically keeping
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out outsiders and then you had
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separately debate and substance and
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debate and substance generally lost to
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religious dogma and what was unique
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about the enlightenment was unique about
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our university system
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which we which we created was the
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liberal universities were a place to
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have debates where substance could
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actually win
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against you know dogma and against you
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know people who people who disagree you
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actually had to disagree civilly and you
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actually had to pursue truth you had to
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have the intellectual humility
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to know that you don't have all the
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answers you had to expect the dignity of
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people who are debating and you had to
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fight for a passion for the truth and
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what's happened instead is that most of
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our universities have been conquered by
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dogma by religion
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they no longer have these things so once
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again we have the idea of heretics and
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blasphemy we don't call that we don't
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use those words but that's what we're
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facing right now if you disagree with
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people you're a heretic and you're
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committing blasphemy if you speak
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against all sorts of these things you're
00:08:10
not supposed to speak against if you say
00:08:12
that dei is actually causing problems
00:08:15
if you say that here's why esg is wrong
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that's like it's blasphemous you're not
00:08:19
this isn't yourself you're not allowed
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to attack these days you're in trouble
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you're told not to speak against it
00:08:23
again or else you're fired there's been
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about lots of corporations right now
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this happens all sorts of people and
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this is happening first and foremost on
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our campus what's happened is this
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zero-sum historically illiterate and
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tolerant virtue signaling religion has
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completely taken over and is silencing
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people and you know our founders our
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founders were were quite fond of
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heretics i don't know if people realized
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that but that was kind of the equivalent
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debate 300 years ago to this to this
00:08:46
woke religion is that benjamin franklin
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he said i think all heretics i have
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known have been virtuous men they are
00:08:52
the virtue of courage or they wouldn't
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venture their heresy and they cannot
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afford to be deficient in other virtues
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to the numerous uh
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enemies they provoke
00:09:02
and so you know i think thinking what's
00:09:03
going on here
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all of us first of all need to go back
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and think about
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like where where do we not have enough
00:09:10
humility to try to learn more where
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where are we not expecting people who
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disagree and actually engaging them and
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debating them as opposed to calling them
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names running them off
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and frankly i think we should also
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remember it's actually really good to be
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offended
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uh it's the opposite of safe spaces
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there's this weird cultural thing with
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the millennial generation i guess i'm
00:09:27
barely part of it unfortunately where
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you're basically supposed to protect
00:09:31
people from being offended you're
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supposed to protect them from blasphemy
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i think it has to be the opposite if our
00:09:36
civilization is not going to decline i
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think we actually have to go out of our
00:09:38
way to learn that when we're offended we
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have to be stronger it doesn't mean
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you're you're somehow like elevated as a
00:09:44
victim if you're offended that's your
00:09:45
problem if you're offended and you just
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stop and think about it and we need to
00:09:49
use that to advance our civilization
00:09:51
again
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so that's my that's my save for today
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jason wanted me to add a bunch more
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blast for me but i'm going to hold off
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on that
00:10:07
i think you did enough i think it did
00:10:09
enough
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let's talk let's chop it up get in here
00:10:13
let's talk about
00:10:14
why people feel like they're
00:10:16
victims what do you think in our country
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makes certain people
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feel
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that they've been victimized
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what are the valid reasons people might
00:10:27
feel
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that they have gotten a raw deal in
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america i mean i think all of our
00:10:32
answers have gone through us i'm jewish
00:10:33
and irish there was when my ancestors
00:10:35
came over they were signs saying no dogs
00:10:37
are irish allowed my grandfather was
00:10:39
only promoted to a certain level at
00:10:40
abbott because he was a jew actually
00:10:41
didn't realize they hired a g when they
00:10:43
they laughed and said oops that was a
00:10:44
mistake you can only get to this level
00:10:45
yeah and so i mean i think i think there
00:10:47
has been some pretty horrible things
00:10:48
everywhere in the world frankly not just
00:10:49
not just america i think everywhere you
00:10:51
look there's there's always been groups
00:10:53
that have been treated pretty badly i'm
00:10:54
irish as well
00:10:56
irish need not apply yep we had a pretty
00:10:58
horrific family and and i'm lucky and
00:11:00
then and it's obviously a lot easier to
00:11:02
be irish than it is to be someone who's
00:11:03
black in america i think or jewish and
00:11:05
the holocaust yeah yeah so that would
00:11:07
agree that's true different people's
00:11:09
experiences
00:11:11
are on a spectrum of the suffering
00:11:13
correct 100
00:11:15
and so
00:11:17
people who've suffered more deserve a
00:11:19
little more empathy and perhaps a little
00:11:21
bit more
00:11:22
uh consideration they deserve more
00:11:24
empathy but doesn't mean you should
00:11:25
embrace philosophies that are wrong or
00:11:28
harmful right so i mean if you look at
00:11:30
the
00:11:31
obviously like there's a lot of truth
00:11:32
and positive parts of the blm movement
00:11:34
the last couple years but it's actually
00:11:36
led to thousands more deaths in the
00:11:38
black community because of the things
00:11:39
that it was pushing because of the bad
00:11:41
ideas we got another one of these things
00:11:44
we got one more one more
00:11:45
how many more of these do we got to do
00:11:48
this is like way more work than i
00:11:50
thought i was signing up for
00:11:51
way more work someone get this man a
00:11:53
drink
00:11:56
we should have had cocktails i never
00:11:57
agreed to be in the conference business
00:11:59
when we started doing this pod
00:12:02
i respect you for what you've been able
00:12:04
to do but this is way too much work you
00:12:07
guys said you wanted to do a look at
00:12:08
yeah all these fans are here though
00:12:10
you're doing the q a tomorrow okay
00:12:12
sounds good
00:12:13
uh i think you know joe uh
00:12:15
candidly i think that is where the
00:12:18
argument breaks down a bit is um
00:12:21
people have had different experiences
00:12:23
and i would
00:12:25
disagree that people have to stop
00:12:28
thinking like victims i think sometimes
00:12:30
we have to think very deeply about
00:12:33
the suffering people have had especially
00:12:35
when it's different than the suffering
00:12:36
that you and i have had but that that
00:12:38
it's so it's and i'm not virtual
00:12:40
signaling here i'm just countering i
00:12:42
think that i think that's fully true
00:12:44
what i was really against is i gave 10
00:12:46
examples of ways in which our society is
00:12:48
broken and hurting poor people hurting
00:12:49
working class people like just wasting
00:12:51
money on things in dysfunctional ways
00:12:53
and all of that is happening because
00:12:56
we're like going to this illiberal
00:12:57
society where we're not able to actually
00:12:59
like debate things logically sure and
00:13:02
respect uh respect other people on the
00:13:04
other side of the argument and it's all
00:13:05
about demonizing people who disagree
00:13:07
with us right and i think that's just
00:13:08
really really scary right now do you um
00:13:11
there's a website people have tweeted
00:13:13
this uh i think the website is called
00:13:16
what the [ __ ] happened in 1971.com
00:13:19
you know what i'm talking about where
00:13:20
yeah if you go to this website i don't
00:13:23
tell me so in 196
00:13:25
if you look back socioeconomically
00:13:27
there's a whole bunch of charts and
00:13:28
graphs of everything from gdp to
00:13:31
you know uh labor participation rates
00:13:33
etc
00:13:34
and there is a a moment
00:13:37
in 1971 where just trend lines break
00:13:40
and uh you know dorsey tweeted this out
00:13:42
a little while ago
00:13:43
um a bunch of people talked about it and
00:13:45
everybody has tried to figure out what
00:13:47
actually happened there's a couple
00:13:49
there's a couple really good
00:13:49
explanations i think right i think i
00:13:51
think the two biggest ones i think the
00:13:52
two biggest ones by far is one is tech
00:13:55
driven globalization and the other one
00:13:57
is going off the gold currency which
00:13:59
over financialized economy so i think
00:14:00
the gold currency one was important i
00:14:02
think the one that people don't talk
00:14:03
about whether you agree with it or not
00:14:05
i'd love to get your perspective is you
00:14:07
know the move to the great society had a
00:14:09
whole bunch of
00:14:11
um things that i think were meant to do
00:14:13
uh meaningful good
00:14:15
and then broke down the family as well
00:14:17
which is a huge problem in america and
00:14:19
this is yeah so i mean we talk about
00:14:20
things that make civilization
00:14:23
prosper i think you get the classical
00:14:24
virtues and you get a strong families uh
00:14:27
which by the way for whatever reason i
00:14:28
still can't tell blm was strongly
00:14:29
against which i think is like just just
00:14:31
horrible so so i think it's a problem in
00:14:32
the white community as well by the way
00:14:34
it's like almost half kids are born out
00:14:35
of wedlock right now and if you
00:14:36
statistically look at that those kids
00:14:38
just on average vastly underperform this
00:14:41
doesn't mean to say there's aren't
00:14:42
one-off cases and you should get
00:14:43
divorced if it's the right thing to do
00:14:44
but but but but it's like it's like it's
00:14:46
really bad for society as a whole
00:14:47
statistically you can't argue against
00:14:49
that and exactly we've accidentally
00:14:50
created the incentives towards divorce
00:14:52
in the 1960s which
00:14:54
obviously wasn't intentional but this is
00:14:55
a huge problem you're not supposed to
00:14:56
talk about it's like a conservative
00:14:58
thing i guess
00:14:59
um and talk about the the
00:15:00
financialization and moving off the gold
00:15:02
standard as well how did that change
00:15:03
socioeconomic dynamics in america well
00:15:05
basically it made it so there's like a
00:15:08
lot more
00:15:09
money around and so i think i think it
00:15:11
over it put more returns into finance so
00:15:13
i i benefit from this is is do you for
00:15:15
as an investor uh so but but making
00:15:17
things yeah i think i think i think it
00:15:19
put more returns into finance and
00:15:21
because there's this explosion of credit
00:15:23
and money relative to so i think finance
00:15:26
outperformed uh labor in terms of it's
00:15:28
an advantage for finance which is not
00:15:29
what you necessarily want it also really
00:15:32
really helped accelerate tech driven
00:15:33
globalization which probably was good
00:15:35
for india and china and southeast asia
00:15:38
and even africa but it basically forced
00:15:40
workers in the u.s to compete against
00:15:42
all these people directly and so you had
00:15:44
people paid like 15 times as much in the
00:15:46
us these are people and and and then and
00:15:49
it wasn't sustainable so over time these
00:15:50
other people just out competed
00:15:52
over the last 50 years which is really
00:15:53
tough
00:15:54
you find it hard to find
00:15:58
your tribe in silicon valley
00:16:00
oh yeah intellectually has it become
00:16:01
easier harder the same you know i've
00:16:04
just given up on like having even a
00:16:06
tribe so much as like let's work on this
00:16:08
together let's actually make prisons
00:16:09
have lower recidivism and higher
00:16:11
employment and here's how we're going to
00:16:13
do it we're going to put these
00:16:14
transparency and accountability
00:16:15
incentives and it's hard for anyone to
00:16:17
really disagree with that unless you're
00:16:18
running the prisons union and so like
00:16:19
we're getting all these laws passed from
00:16:21
probation and parole and that we're
00:16:22
getting all these laws passed foreign
00:16:24
vocational school work better yeah and
00:16:25
what's annoys me chamoth is that i feel
00:16:28
like as people who've succeeded we all
00:16:30
sort of have a duty to go and fix these
00:16:32
problems and almost no one else is
00:16:33
working on them that does annoy me um
00:16:36
and then in terms of like for example i
00:16:38
want to talk specifically because you
00:16:40
mentioned higher ed but if you go a
00:16:42
little bit before this
00:16:44
um we have no real form of competition
00:16:46
in the school system yes
00:16:48
um you need to use some mechanism for
00:16:50
good ideas to win a bad idea solutions
00:16:52
and the
00:16:53
the existing framework has been charter
00:16:55
schools um
00:16:56
but that's been attacked in
00:16:58
under every you know sort of way shape
00:17:00
or form how
00:17:02
how does that problem get solved how do
00:17:04
we get kids
00:17:05
um
00:17:06
you know so so the problem if you just
00:17:08
give everybody choice right now and you
00:17:10
give them say funding take the money
00:17:11
where they want it basically defunds the
00:17:13
public schools which then hurts the poor
00:17:14
kids the most uh and so i understand why
00:17:16
people are against like total choice for
00:17:18
everyone it's kind of it's kind of more
00:17:19
like policy detail i think the way to
00:17:21
get around that is you just give the
00:17:22
poor kids choice because if you just
00:17:24
give the poor kids choice and now it's
00:17:26
very clear you're just doing it to help
00:17:27
them but even them being able to choose
00:17:29
will put pressure and get rid of the
00:17:30
hurt the bad schools and help the good
00:17:31
schools so you see some mechanism let's
00:17:33
do the mechanism through the poor kids
00:17:34
because that helps them the most like
00:17:35
that that's that's my view seems
00:17:37
actually like a reasonable
00:17:38
argument
00:17:39
because why should the i mean my kids
00:17:41
have choice where to go with my with
00:17:42
with my wife and i why shouldn't poor
00:17:44
kids have that choice so there's there's
00:17:45
things that teachers usually are going
00:17:46
to hate that but at least it's a way to
00:17:48
kind of kind of maybe build support for
00:17:49
it and is there a way for unions to
00:17:51
to actually do the the part of the job
00:17:53
which is about protecting workers
00:17:55
with but disentangle some of the
00:17:57
financial incentives to aggregate you
00:18:00
know dues participate actively you just
00:18:03
got to change the power structure right
00:18:04
now they're totally in charge they don't
00:18:05
want to give an inch i get it because
00:18:07
every time they give an inch they're
00:18:08
going to lose more power later on if
00:18:10
they see that they're losing some
00:18:11
battles
00:18:12
then they have to negotiate and they're
00:18:13
going to be more reasonable yeah you're
00:18:14
right we're going to get rid of the
00:18:16
bottom 20 percent we're going to you
00:18:17
know you got to get to a point where the
00:18:18
power changes enough that they're
00:18:19
willing to then work with you
00:18:22
but i mean the bigger the bigger thing i
00:18:24
think is we actually need leaders who
00:18:27
are courageous who could speak up about
00:18:29
problems in in the midst of everyone
00:18:31
yelling and screaming and saying you're
00:18:32
not supposed to say things because they
00:18:34
actually i don't care what you're not
00:18:35
supposed to say
00:18:36
this is my version of the truth and this
00:18:38
is what's going to be the best in
00:18:39
society and what we're teaching at
00:18:41
universities right now is the opposite
00:18:42
of that what we're teaching is joe just
00:18:44
don't say that joe why are you causing
00:18:45
problems for yourself joe you know
00:18:47
you're not supposed to talk about these
00:18:48
things and i'm so sick of it because
00:18:50
like this is why all that stuff's broken
00:18:51
is because no one's speaking up you
00:18:53
bought a college
00:18:55
[Applause]
00:18:58
my my friends barry weiss and neil
00:19:01
ferguson and i uh along with a couple a
00:19:03
bunch of others are starting a new
00:19:04
university in austin yes did you buy an
00:19:07
existing university
00:19:08
[Applause]
00:19:11
we got 500 acres in the water it's
00:19:13
really pretty it's about
00:19:14
15 minutes from the tesla giant tesla
00:19:16
plan about 30 minutes from downtown what
00:19:19
are we going to build you teach what
00:19:20
will the majors be and what will be the
00:19:22
approach you know
00:19:24
the the hypothesis you know as
00:19:25
entrepreneurs our job is to find these
00:19:27
gaps in the world where something should
00:19:28
exist but it doesn't and it seems like
00:19:30
for the first time in a few generations
00:19:32
uh you could actually build a university
00:19:34
that competes with the other very top
00:19:36
universities and attracts the very you
00:19:38
know most talented kids one of my
00:19:39
obnoxious views on this which i think
00:19:41
the stage might might agree with because
00:19:43
it's in our direction is that you used
00:19:44
to be the smartest people in the world a
00:19:46
lot of them became professors and now
00:19:48
you get a lot of very smart people
00:19:49
becoming innovators becoming builders
00:19:51
like my smartest friends i got to drop
00:19:52
out of their phds from mit and stanford
00:19:54
and caltech actually found more
00:19:56
intellectual expression and satisfaction
00:19:58
you know in the entrepreneurship world
00:19:59
than they did there and so therefore in
00:20:01
order to compete you want not only the
00:20:03
top professors but you want to involve a
00:20:05
lot of top innovators
00:20:06
and you know we want to teach we want to
00:20:08
teach the history of thought in into
00:20:10
free civilizations you want to actually
00:20:11
see like like how the alignment come
00:20:13
about what were the books what were the
00:20:14
debates that people were having when
00:20:15
they're found in the country and kind of
00:20:17
kind of learn that core uh and then we
00:20:20
also want to have centers where you keep
00:20:21
interdisciplinary there's one of the key
00:20:23
things universities this is again
00:20:24
somewhat technical but they're broken
00:20:26
because you get these departments to get
00:20:27
conquered by a certain ideology so you
00:20:29
get certain people to only allow people
00:20:30
who think like them to be in those
00:20:31
departments so you want to you want to
00:20:33
spread it out keep interesting how much
00:20:34
how much of this is because of tenure
00:20:37
tenure is a big problem you want to have
00:20:38
some protection 10 year old originally
00:20:40
was a great thing protected you to say
00:20:41
what you want in practice now it's
00:20:43
usually it's usually the other way
00:20:45
around and it's pretty and yeah it's
00:20:46
just not good yeah
00:20:48
but yeah no there's there's a huge gap
00:20:49
there i think we could fix it and my
00:20:51
goal obviously is not to have everyone
00:20:52
educated through one great university
00:20:54
it's to put pressure on other
00:20:55
universities to change and to help build
00:20:57
multiple new ones which i think we need
00:20:58
to do and the school that you start
00:21:01
interdisciplinary by nature which means
00:21:03
that not necessarily known as
00:21:05
for technical people for mathematics
00:21:08
they'll be like a center of like
00:21:09
political economy and history they'll be
00:21:10
a center of
00:21:12
data science and innovation and you know
00:21:13
et cetera there'll be centers you know
00:21:15
of you know arts and writing and stuff
00:21:17
so i think you want difference there are
00:21:18
different skills i think everyone should
00:21:20
get the kind of core isn't it for profit
00:21:23
or is he going to no it's non-profit
00:21:25
it's probably it's part of me wishes i
00:21:26
made it for profits i need to make money
00:21:28
because it'd be easier to raise money
00:21:29
for it but we've talked to him we've
00:21:31
raised about 100 million dollars
00:21:32
nonprofit for it we have the land uh so
00:21:35
i mean it's it's gonna work i put my
00:21:36
name on it so i'll pay for it raised a
00:21:38
hundred million dollars for this yeah
00:21:40
the non-profit yeah yeah
00:21:43
and uh
00:21:45
when do you plan on opening it fall of
00:21:47
2024 is our goal for the first class to
00:21:49
be about the size of caltech at first is
00:21:51
the hope
00:21:52
it's pretty ambitious project
00:21:55
yeah well a country our country needs
00:21:56
some some more leaders right now who are
00:21:58
courageous and know what i think how do
00:22:00
you energy
00:22:01
how do you uh how do you how do you
00:22:03
think you'll recruit the first class how
00:22:05
do you get uh yeah you want you want to
00:22:06
do much more active recruiting than most
00:22:07
of
00:22:08
a top colleges right now especially
00:22:09
because we won't be as known at first
00:22:10
but i'll tell you what we have a seminar
00:22:12
this summer of 80 kids and we had 44 000
00:22:14
inquiries of from kids about it we have
00:22:17
uh you know when we first the first two
00:22:18
weeks after the story was out on twitter
00:22:20
in november that we're doing this we had
00:22:21
4 400 professors apply because these
00:22:23
professors are fleeing a lot of the
00:22:25
professors by the way a lot of them on
00:22:26
the moderate left they're being attacked
00:22:27
by the extremes for again talking about
00:22:29
and saying things you're not supposed to
00:22:30
talk about and say and so so a lot of
00:22:32
them are trying to fleet other
00:22:33
environments there's a huge demand for
00:22:35
it right now it's it's super weird that
00:22:37
college kids yeah are
00:22:40
against having debates and discussions
00:22:43
so much worse i just find it so weird
00:22:45
like that was like one of the best parts
00:22:47
of college because i don't have i mean i
00:22:48
haven't been in college so the last five
00:22:50
years just gotten totally crazy like we
00:22:52
had a woman
00:22:53
profess a really smart woman you know
00:22:56
definitely on the left but like she was
00:22:57
applying from nyu law school asking
00:22:59
against her we're going to do a new law
00:23:00
school because she can't stand that
00:23:01
anymore and we say well what's going on
00:23:03
she said well for example we used to use
00:23:04
the socratic method in my law school and
00:23:06
i would ask tough questions from both
00:23:08
sides of the kids and now in order not
00:23:10
to trigger people i have to write them
00:23:11
an email a week ahead of time to make
00:23:12
sure i can ask the question and then i'm
00:23:14
going to ask in class next week so if
00:23:16
you were to need a lawyer this is to
00:23:17
train a lawyer i mean it's just this is
00:23:19
this is where we are at this point
00:23:20
so that's nyu law school is nyu
00:23:24
that's the policy of nyu i think we got
00:23:25
a bigger cycle project i don't know but
00:23:27
like this is this our universities have
00:23:29
just gone crazy the last five years like
00:23:31
but is that is that an isolated incident
00:23:32
or no yeah yeah has more administrators
00:23:35
and students these administrators are on
00:23:37
the whole more likely to be neo-marxists
00:23:38
than to be than be republicans i mean
00:23:41
it's just like these things have gotten
00:23:42
very extreme
00:23:44
what do you think sex
00:23:46
[Laughter]
00:23:48
about did you ever think it would get
00:23:51
this bad
00:23:52
when you were about the university and
00:23:54
you know i mean you lived at a time i
00:23:55
mean
00:23:56
the time at stanford was uh
00:23:59
a pretty bold time when you were there
00:24:01
in terms of freedom of speech in terms
00:24:03
of debate vibrancy yeah what basically
00:24:05
happened is all those radicals are being
00:24:07
inculcated and trained and brainwashed
00:24:10
at stanford that we were reacting to
00:24:12
what have 25 30 years ago they all
00:24:14
graduated and then they went off into
00:24:16
society and took over all these
00:24:18
institutions
00:24:20
and that's the problem we have today
00:24:22
matt taibbi and glenn greenwald were
00:24:23
talking about it earlier today where if
00:24:25
you actually look at polling the biggest
00:24:27
divide in america in terms of political
00:24:29
and cultural beliefs is whether or not
00:24:31
you have a college degree
00:24:34
so if you're basically a college
00:24:36
graduate you're a member of the
00:24:37
professional class if you're not a
00:24:39
college graduate you're a member of the
00:24:41
working class that is the biggest divide
00:24:43
and
00:24:45
you know the the members of the
00:24:46
professional class by and large have
00:24:48
very very far left
00:24:50
views on sociocultural issues that's
00:24:53
just a fact i mean whether you agree
00:24:54
with it or not
00:24:56
um and that is creating a huge amount of
00:24:58
tension in our society because
00:24:59
two-thirds of the country is working
00:25:01
class one-third
00:25:03
is
00:25:04
a professional class
00:25:06
in a democracy the side that has the
00:25:08
larger numbers should win so the working
00:25:11
class has the votes but the professional
00:25:13
class runs all the institutions
00:25:15
and this is the source i think of all of
00:25:18
our political strife
00:25:20
in america is that the people who are in
00:25:21
charge of our institutions from the new
00:25:23
york times to the washington post to the
00:25:26
fortune 500 disney hollywood
00:25:29
and you go go down the list they have
00:25:32
views that are fundamentally in tension
00:25:34
in conflict with the views in most of
00:25:36
the country the working class of the
00:25:37
country now if you remember that class
00:25:39
you may think it's a good thing we're
00:25:40
going to push our views
00:25:43
onto the country whether they like it or
00:25:44
not and we're going to convert them
00:25:46
that's what you call the elite class
00:25:47
right that's the elite and um and that's
00:25:50
what's basically now like what i'm
00:25:51
describing is not like a criticism i
00:25:54
think it's just like i think that's what
00:25:55
i think this is a factual criticism
00:25:57
what's happening well yeah i don't think
00:25:59
it's partisan either i mean there there
00:26:01
are people who are republicans or
00:26:03
democrats there are elites there are
00:26:05
elites in both parties and there are
00:26:06
certainly working class people in both
00:26:08
parties but what i would say is that the
00:26:10
parties are now in the process of
00:26:12
resorting
00:26:13
around this sort of political and
00:26:14
cultural divide and historically the
00:26:17
democrats were the party of the working
00:26:19
class they are now much more the party
00:26:21
of the professional class um and they
00:26:24
buy into the belief set
00:26:26
of sort of the college educated the you
00:26:29
know the those sort of
00:26:31
you call it the woke uh sensibility and
00:26:34
the republicans are in the process of
00:26:35
transforming into a working class sort
00:26:37
of populist party yeah and um and look
00:26:40
there are in both parties there are
00:26:42
outliers who don't quite fit in anymore
00:26:44
but um but that's the fundamental
00:26:45
transformation that's happening yeah
00:26:47
i mean you guys fit into that your
00:26:50
people in the
00:26:51
republican party who don't fit in it
00:26:53
anymore
00:26:54
i mean i wouldn't even necessarily mind
00:26:55
that dynamic you described so much if
00:26:57
they weren't breaking everything and if
00:26:58
they weren't not allowing conversations
00:27:00
about how broken things are and the
00:27:01
better ideas right it's a very strange
00:27:03
illiberal nature so i think and i
00:27:05
disconnected with what we were talking
00:27:07
about with glenn you know greenwald and
00:27:08
tybee is that
00:27:10
look if if you're
00:27:12
part of the elite and you control all
00:27:14
these institutions all the this cultural
00:27:16
high ground but
00:27:17
the country is not with you and just in
00:27:19
terms of the sheer numbers
00:27:20
you are going to use the tactics that
00:27:23
people in power always use to suppress
00:27:26
the greater numbers that's where
00:27:27
censorship comes from
00:27:29
the people who are running these
00:27:30
institutions don't they want the debate
00:27:32
to be over they want the power to end
00:27:34
the debate
00:27:35
because they're not otherwise going to
00:27:37
win that debate
00:27:40
[Applause]
00:27:41
well
00:27:43
we're very interested in seeing where
00:27:44
you take it and
00:27:46
we appreciate you taking the time to
00:27:47
share your views ladies and gentlemen
00:27:50
thanks
00:27:53
we'll let your winners ride
00:27:55
rain man david sacks
00:28:00
we open source it to the fans and
00:28:02
they've just gone crazy
00:28:04
[Music]
00:28:27
it's like this like sexual tension that
00:28:29
they just need to release
00:28:30
[Music]
00:28:34
your feet
00:28:41
[Music]
00:28:46
i'm going on
00:28:48
[Music]
