00:00:00
Everybody is in a rush to fire 10 to 25% of their workforce, but 10% unemployment
00:00:05
would be worse than anything that's ever happened in our lifetimes. We are going
00:00:08
to have a depression like we've never seen in our lives. >> Wow. Jake's a real Debbie Downer today.
00:00:14
I mean, this is an unbelievable opportunity we're talking about. I got to buy more sunglasses for how bright
00:00:20
the future is. >> If you notice, Kevin actually didn't address the wave of unemployment at all
00:00:24
because there's no question that it's going to happen. And when we hit the
00:00:28
iceberg, we're not going to be ready. And it is going to be an epic disaster.
00:00:32
>> Change is disruptive and it's uncomfortable. But the scare factor of
00:00:37
saying that everybody loses their job and the robots eat the children. I just don't buy it.
00:00:42
>> I I don't know anyone saying that the robots are going to eat the children.
00:00:45
And I understand that change happens, but we have to be careful with change because by 2028, we're going to have
00:00:51
disaster from AI, unemployment, and disaster from the war. The only hope is electing a smart person who's prepared
00:00:58
in 2028. Republicans, I have one thing to tell you. There's no way. Nobody's showing up to
00:01:08
vote. Their voter enthusiasm is obliterated. >> But the Democrats have also lost their
00:01:13
way. >> And the Republicans only have one guy who could win. And I'm worried about it.
00:01:17
Tucker Carlson. So, as we head towards the midterms, but also the elections, which aren't actually that far away now,
00:01:22
do you agree that we're heading towards a more socialist America? >> So, let me just say this.
00:01:30
How about that for an answer? >> This is super interesting to me. My team given me this report to show me how many
00:01:39
of you that watch the show subscribe. And some of you have told us according to this that you are unsubscribed from
00:01:44
the channel randomly. So, favor to ask all of you. Please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button
00:01:49
if you are a regular viewer of this show and you like what we do here. We're
00:01:51
approaching quite a significant landmark on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So, if there was one simple free
00:01:57
thing that you could do to help us, my team, everyone here to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over
00:02:03
year and week over week, it is just to hit that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
00:02:08
ever ask of you, do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:02:11
I'll make sure every single week, every single month, we fight harder and harder
00:02:15
and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear. I've stayed true to that
00:02:19
promise since the very beginning of the D of Sio and I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it.
00:02:25
Let's get on with the show. Jenk, thank you so much for being here with me. Um, there's so much going on in the
00:02:38
world that I have so many questions and you both have very different perspectives on all of the issues that I
00:02:43
care about the most. So, I thought I'd bring us together to try and pass through what is true. Unlike a lot of
00:02:48
shows, I I don't expect a shouting match. What I'm trying to get is to truth. And I'm hoping that seeing the
00:02:53
collision of your ideas on some of the big issues that are front of mind for me like artificial intelligence, like
00:02:59
geopolitics, like what's going on in America now that I live there, I think will be incredibly beneficial to me and
00:03:04
hopefully therefore my audience. I have this graph here that says seven in 10 Americans oppose local construction of
00:03:12
AI data centers. >> If you go back in time, any new technology is extremely disruptive.
00:03:19
Change is disruptive and it's uncomfortable and it always is that way and yet it
00:03:27
always proves within the context of the American economy to create a lot of productivity and opportunity. And I
00:03:33
would argue today if we're going to find a cure for cancer, it's going to be
00:03:37
through AI. If we're going to democratize education, it'll be through AI. If we're going to do some advances
00:03:44
on space research and travel, it'll be through AI. Productivity in the S&P 500
00:03:50
and it's all small companies, AI. And you can't have it without data centers.
00:03:55
You actually need the underpinnings, the infrastructure. And so that debate, that
00:04:00
narrative is going on, but there's a dark side to this that I've only started
00:04:05
to bring forward in the last couple of weeks. I discovered this in Utah that there are some nefarious forces.
00:04:12
Um, Arabella is the name of it. I didn't know anything about it, but I was wondering who was spending all the money
00:04:18
in Utah with all that misinformation about what the data center was going to be talking about using water we weren't
00:04:26
or using power we had no intention to or 40,000 acres that's complete BS. It was
00:04:32
all lies. And I said, who could afford that? So I hired a bunch of forensic auditors and lo and behold it took me
00:04:40
back to the Chinese through Arabellum uh Neville Singum is his name. He's funding
00:04:46
all these organizations in Utah and I caught him through the IRS 990 filings and I handed it over the White House and
00:04:53
to a bunch of special agents and I just wonder what's going to happen next. I'm
00:04:58
loving this now. This is so interesting and it's a national debate and the poo
00:05:03
poo's hit the fan. But I'm not debating this. I'm not suggesting it. I have
00:05:08
irrefutable evidence the Chinese are meddling in every place where new power is being proposed in America, every
00:05:16
state, every city. And it all goes back to the Chinese through this Arabellum. And just look at the IRS filings. Don't
00:05:25
shoot the messenger. I'm just providing the truth. >> Kevin, so just just for context here,
00:05:31
there was a proposal to build some data centers in Utah, and you're saying that
00:05:34
the push back and the negative reaction that has been seen is being encouraged or sponsored by the Chinese who are
00:05:42
driving misinformation through bots. Is that what you're proposing? >> No, it's not through bots. It's actually
00:05:48
through contributions that are shown through a a wide network of different entities. It's very it's very well um
00:05:57
cloaked, but through forensic audit and IP address scraping uh with some really strong data scientists that I hired and
00:06:05
I'm working with, we were able to provide 90 pages of IP addresses from foreigners uh to various agents and
00:06:13
various entities within the US government. And we're going to keep doing it. We're we're providing it every
00:06:18
four hours. where cuz one thing I have that I guess they hadn't thought through
00:06:22
is I have 12 million followers on social media. No, no uh data center developer has 4 million followers. This all showed
00:06:30
up on my feeds with bots on on Twitter which is now X and on Instagram and then onto LinkedIn. So we just provided the
00:06:40
data to the government and where the chips fall I have no idea. And we had death threats uh to our executives. I
00:06:49
provided that to the FBI and they visited the woman who did it in Denver. I think scared the pee peee right out of
00:06:55
her, but she won't be doing that again. So, I mean, it's Listen, bring it. Don't
00:07:01
mess with me. I'm just going to provide the data back to the government. I'm I'm
00:07:05
I'm just telling the truth. I'm not debating it. I'm not suggesting it. I'm
00:07:09
providing the IRS filings of the cash coming from Marabella right into the Alliance for a Better Utah
00:07:19
>> and the story. I mean, that's Listen, I didn't ask for this fight. I'm just
00:07:23
providing the data. >> Is that how you see things? Are you seeing the push back in terms of AI? Um,
00:07:30
do you think it's coming from Chinese sponsored actors or do you think it's
00:07:35
something else? No, I I don't think China has anything to do with it. Uh, so first off, there's
00:07:41
a lot of things Kevin and I share. Uh, I'm also an entrepreneur. I'm a capitalist and went to Wharton Business
00:07:47
School. So, I love America. I love the opportunity that America provides. I wanted to provide opportunity for all
00:07:53
sorts of new businesses. So, that's not remotely the issue. Okay. So, the question is, are we going to pay our own
00:08:00
uh costs? So now on the AI data centers um in the beginning I started reading these stories about how the data centers
00:08:08
are driving up the energy cost for everybody in that community that they're based in and I couldn't believe it. But
00:08:13
then I thought okay since we have basically legalized bribery in America that probably is true they probably you
00:08:19
know given enough campaign contributions to make this happen and it turns out they have. No, if you're going to do a
00:08:25
data center you have to pay for it and you have to pay for all of its costs. None of this subsidizing your costs to
00:08:32
the average taxpayer who's not getting anything out of it. So, we have to be
00:08:36
absolutely meticulous about who's paying for the cost of the data centers. And it
00:08:40
should be the businesses that profit from it. Unless you'd like to take have
00:08:44
the American people take some equity in your business because if we're going to
00:08:47
pay your costs, obviously we should have equity in it. When we bailed out the bankers back in 2008, it was an absolute
00:08:53
crime. We should have taken equity in those companies and then sold it later for a profit. I don't want the
00:08:58
government to run banks, but I do want us to not be suckers. Uh we constantly pay for the research of the drug
00:09:04
companies and never get any equity. So, um if you going to be capitalists, let's
00:09:08
be capitalists. Now, the real reason why people are most angry about AI is not even the data centers. And they have
00:09:14
every right to be livid about their energy costs being higher uh so somebody else can make a buck. Uh but the bigger
00:09:21
issue is the unemployment that we're all worried is coming and it most definitely
00:09:25
is. So, there's a lot of uh happy talk about, oh, 10 years from now, 20 years
00:09:29
from now, robots are going to be cooking our salmon. Or two years from now, I don't really care. I don't need my
00:09:35
salmon cooked by a robot. What I care about is, are we going to have massive unemployment? And right now, and I'm
00:09:43
curious what Kevin's going to say about this because it's kind of indisputable
00:09:46
if you're in the business community, everybody is in a rush uh to fire 10 to
00:09:50
25% of their workforce. and whoever gets there first gets a competitive advantage
00:09:54
and the market's rewarded and their stock uh price goes up. Well, if everybody goes to fire 10 to 25% of
00:10:01
their employees, we are going to have u not just a recession but a depression like we've never seen in our lives. And
00:10:08
everybody's whistling past the graveyard here. Uh so, do we have a plan? Does the
00:10:13
government have a plan? The only guy I've ever heard of working on a plan to
00:10:16
deal with this tsunami of unemployment is Roana. other than him it's crickets
00:10:22
and I think we're going to hit the iceberg really hard. >> Interestingly Jenk, the other person
00:10:27
that I've heard talk about the unemployment wave coming has actually been some of the big AI CEOs. And if you
00:10:32
go back and look look at their quotes through time, people like Sam Alman predicted that there will need to be
00:10:37
some kind of UBI scheme. And I think Worldcoin, which is his other startup that uses um retina scanning to be able
00:10:44
to distribute value to people to check their humans. One of the principles of the foundation of that company was to
00:10:50
distribute UBI, universal basic income to everybody. So on this point, Kevin, do you do you disagree that there there
00:10:57
will be a widespread unemployment apocalypse, as Jenk has called it on his Twitter feed.
00:11:02
>> So So let's go through Jack's shopping list of disaster. I think it's fair to
00:11:06
address them one at a time. Let's talk with the energy. I totally agree with
00:11:09
him. You can't build a data center anywhere and tap into the grid because he's right. the price of energy would go
00:11:16
up at the library, the church, and the community center by 30%. And that's what
00:11:21
happened in Virginia. So that is no longer a possibility. In Utah, for example, I have to bring my own power.
00:11:28
But the idea would be if we produce this energy because there's no data centers
00:11:34
without energy. We'll put it back into the grid, not just for Utah, but for the
00:11:39
whole country. Because I think he's right. Anybody that's building a new
00:11:42
data center should have the responsibility to provide the power and put some of it back into the grid. That
00:11:49
would solve two problems at once. The grid is tapped out. The library has no more power. We'll solve that problem for
00:11:56
Utah and the country. So that's the first falsehood I run into fueled by the
00:12:00
Chinese propaganda that came into Utah or whoever they are at Arabella, the CP C the CPP or the U you know who whoever
00:12:10
this agency is because you have to follow it through all these nefarious holdings. But at the end of the day
00:12:16
that's number one. Number two, the idea that everybody gets replaced by robots
00:12:21
and then they eat the children, I don't buy that at all. Every new technology in
00:12:25
American history for over 200 years has created vast opportunity, productivity, and fueled the economy to lead all
00:12:34
economies on Earth by 20%. Which is still the case today. Now, it's an uncomfortable reality. The market hit
00:12:42
new highs today. And that is an index of how great American companies are. And the smaller companies that are 5 to 500
00:12:50
employees also hitting on all cylinders now using AI tools for productivity, customer acquisition, maintenance. So
00:12:58
the scare factor of saying that everybody loses their job and the robots eat the children. I just don't buy it.
00:13:05
And so I think we should have that debate. But you don't know yet what opportunities there are in the economy
00:13:12
driven by this new technology. So I think what I know there's fear and loathing and I think it's important to
00:13:19
have that narrative. I think it's great to debate it but I think we should deal
00:13:23
with fact. It's very very uncomfortable when chain hit change hits anywhere and
00:13:29
yet it's proven itself within the context of the American economy to rise it above all challenges and still lead
00:13:37
the world. Unfortunately, there's the issue of defense and the economy against China. They're our big
00:13:45
adversary. In this last conflict in the Middle East where very few boots hit the
00:13:52
ground, it was the technology that provided the ordinance precision that's been used. In the future, wars will be
00:14:02
conducted using AI. And unfortunately, the country with the best AI technology will win those wars. I would certainly
00:14:09
not want China to be ahead of us. Yet, I think they're the ones that would like
00:14:15
to stop us building power and developing our AI platforms because they have something called deepseek. I just want
00:14:21
to put a fact out there because we're talking about this. While we were stymied in building any new power,
00:14:28
forget about data centers, just new power. The Chinese in the last 19 months built 400 gawatt of power off burning
00:14:39
coal. They don't care about the environment. They don't have any policy about that. They have a supreme leader
00:14:47
who points his finger at the ground and says, "Build a coal burning plant here.
00:14:52
Put a data center behind it or you'll disappear in 18 months." And the people
00:14:57
involved say, "Chop chop, Supreme Leader. We will make it happen." We can't do that in America. And he knows
00:15:05
that. So he's spending as much money as he can making sure he styies the efforts
00:15:09
of every entrepreneur in every state to do the same. So that's what I think is
00:15:15
happening and I'm happy to provide the data as I mentioned earlier and let the
00:15:19
government and their special agents in all of these different departments I'm
00:15:22
working with now. I'm proud to be providing this information. I think I've
00:15:27
kicked the door open on something very very nasty. >> Um Kevin, I would like to take a look at
00:15:32
that information as well. So we I'll pick pick up that pick up with you about
00:15:36
that off camera. Um, what I wanted to ask you is a lot of this sort of doomerism around unemployment that we're
00:15:41
talking about comes from the CEOs building the AI companies. And this is something that that's always caused me a
00:15:48
bit of cognitive dissonance, which is I think if you go back to I've got some
00:15:52
quotes here from March 2021. Sam Alman said, and he's the for anyone that doesn't know the CEO co-founder of
00:15:58
OpenAI, which is the maker of ChatgBT, AI will probably replace most of the jobs people do today. entire job
00:16:04
categories will be totally totally gone. And then Elon Musk said in May 24, probably none of us will have a job. If
00:16:12
you want to do a job that job, it's kind of like a hobby. You can do a job, but
00:16:16
otherwise AI and robots will provide any goods and services that you want. And Dario, who's the founder of Claude,
00:16:22
which is the other major leading AI model, said this was in 2025, AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white
00:16:29
collar jobs within 5 years. a shift that could push unemployment up to 20%. The public is being sugarcoated on what is
00:16:36
coming. These are the people that are most wellplaced and arguably I mean depends how you look at it have the
00:16:44
least incentive to say that their companies are going to cause societal harm and they're saying that their
00:16:49
companies are going to cause massive massive unemployment. Do we do we assume that they're not telling the truth or
00:16:56
that they don't know what they're talking about? I think that's a very selective um bunch
00:17:02
of sound bites. Dario also said the CEO of Ananthropic, if we don't build more
00:17:08
compute capacity in the next 6 months, the Chinese will catch up with us with deepseek.
00:17:14
That's an ominous warning because, you know, let's say you decide, look, it's
00:17:20
too scary. Let's shut down the US's ability to advance compute. Let's just
00:17:25
shut it all down as the Chinese want and let's all sit around the campfire and go
00:17:30
kumbaya. Do you think the Chinese are gonna stop? I don't think so. I think they're going to continue to do this and
00:17:37
they'll invade Taiwan using no boots. They'll just use AI to shut down their
00:17:42
power. I mean, I'm just telling you that the Kumbaya stuff I totally agree with. I
00:17:49
love it. But it's not reality. Should we compete? Should we advance our technology? Should we be the best in the
00:17:56
world advancing research on AI to solve for cancer? Yes. Or do you want the Chinese to do that for you? And in 20
00:18:04
years, they'll tell your children what to eat when they're sitting at their
00:18:07
table in New York City for breakfast. I'm the in the camp that says, "We know
00:18:12
who our adversary is. We know that why they want to stop us." And Dario himself
00:18:17
said, "Hey everybody, we better build some data centers real fast or in 6 months, Deepseek is now number one on
00:18:24
Earth." I don't want that outcome. >> Jen, it appears to me that, you know,
00:18:29
there's the CEOs are acknowledging that there could be a mass wave of unemployment that's going to cause a
00:18:34
bunch of problems that I don't think people are thinking about. But also what
00:18:37
Kevin's saying about it, you know, there being this this sort of global race
00:18:41
between countries also appears to me to be true that if we just sit back and relax and put our fingers in our ear,
00:18:46
then there's going to be a huge competitive advantage with this transformational technology that falls
00:18:51
into the hands of China and um and we'll miss out as the West. What's your
00:18:56
perspective? >> First to address a lot of things that have been said. First, I I don't know
00:19:00
anyone saying that the robots are going to eat the children. So, I want to thank
00:19:03
Kevin for educating me on a talking point there. Uh, I'm less concerned about that. A lot less concerned. Uh,
00:19:10
but I am concerned about some level of death with AI, and that has already begun to happen. There are reports that
00:19:16
we use AI in targeting that girl school in Tehran where we killed over 160 innocent school girls. Uh, so if that's
00:19:24
what AI is going to bring us in precision, as Kevin pulled it, called it, uh, no thank you. I'm not interested
00:19:31
in that kind of non-precision. Um, and and I would much rather have human beings involved in life and death
00:19:37
decisions. And I'm super worried that AI is going to be used more in the military
00:19:42
and uh, no, I do not trust Palanteer. Um, so now in terms of universal basic income, I mean, think about it, guys. If
00:19:50
a coder is making $120,000, you know, I I don't know where that puts him in two
00:19:55
years in, seven years in, uh, it's a healthy salary. It's not the world's
00:19:59
greatest salary, but it's a good good salary for a middle class person in America. Then you switch to UBI, you'd
00:20:05
be lucky to get 3,000 a month. That's 36,000 a year. You're going to go from
00:20:09
120,000 to 36,000. That is going to be devastating. Even if you magically got universal basic income passed in America
00:20:18
immediately as the wave of unemployment hit, but I don't think that's going to
00:20:21
happen either. So, is the wave of unemployment going to hit? Well, if you notice, Kevin actually didn't address
00:20:26
that at all. uh because there's no question that it's going to happen. That
00:20:30
is why literally every CEO of the AI companies is saying, well, you know, our product is great and you should value us
00:20:37
at a trillion dollars or so. Uh but yeah, you're all going to be fired. And and that's inescapable. It's already
00:20:43
begun. The coders have already started getting fired, especially young coders. Uh they feel totally betrayed. They have
00:20:51
to find a new line of work. But maybe that's a little bit easier for them because they're young and they're smart
00:20:56
and they're professionals, etc. Uh, and there's a lot of smart folks, but
00:21:00
getting a new profession at the age of 58, 62, what if you're a truck driver?
00:21:04
Um, and so I'm not saying that the Whimos don't work better. I actually would trust a Whimo more than I would
00:21:10
trust a human driver. But nevertheless, that car no longer has a driver that it did when it was a taxi or an Uber or a
00:21:17
lift. And I understand that change happens. And look, I'm a progressive. for change politically, for massive
00:21:24
change. I thought Obama did comically little change. Um, but we have to be careful with change. So, which direction
00:21:31
is it going to go and how are we going to handle it? Right now, I think Wall Street has lost its mind. How could we
00:21:38
be at record numbers? Who do you think's going to buy your products? So, this guy
00:21:43
named Nick Hanower, there's a lot of folks who believe in this, but he's a
00:21:45
big advocate of it. really smart guy up in Seattle, also an entrepreneur, also sold his business and has done well, and
00:21:52
he talks about middle out economics. If we give more advantages to the middle class, they immediately spend their
00:21:58
money. If you give it to the rich, which is what we've done all our lives with
00:22:01
this neoliberal nonsense that we've been doing, uh, and trickle down economics,
00:22:06
well, they barely spend any of it. So, giving to the middle is a much better way to go. And of course, the question
00:22:12
is, how are you going to do that? And you don't just want to give away money.
00:22:16
Uh, on the other hand, we give away money to oil companies and big drug companies and every one who's got
00:22:21
excellent army of lobbyists in DC, but we're not ready. And no one on earth has
00:22:30
given me a plan for, "Oh, Jen, don't worry. When 10% unemployment hits, which
00:22:34
is at this point almost baked in, completely inevitable, right? Um, what are we going to do? 10% unemployment
00:22:41
would be worse than anything that's ever happened in our lifetimes, let alone if
00:22:45
you get to 25%. Zero plans for it. None. When that when we hit the iceberg, we're
00:22:50
not going to be ready and it is going to be an epic disaster. There isn't going
00:22:54
to be anyone to buy your goods because employees are also customers and you're
00:23:01
going to lose a massive amount of customers and it is going to absolutely torpedo our economy. I can't believe how
00:23:08
shortsighted Wall Street is. Now, does that mean we stop AI in its tracks and we stop change? No, we can't stop
00:23:16
because it's it's true that China is also going, Russia is, North Korea is,
00:23:20
Israel is. Now, the problem is if we get it first, then very very likely the Israelis will
00:23:26
also have it and God help the world if that's true. Uh they have not been restrained in how they use their power
00:23:32
and I wouldn't want them anywhere near that kind of power. But nevertheless,
00:23:36
there is a race. So we can't just stop. So can we do the race in a way that is responsible and
00:23:44
actually serves the American voters and citizens instead of just serving the executives of the AI companies and the
00:23:51
shareholders of the AI companies? I hope we can, but we've taken absolutely zero
00:23:56
steps in that direction. >> So let's get specific, Jenk. What might that look like to to continue developing
00:24:02
this technology but do it in a way that's responsible and benefits everybody? Because this is kind of what
00:24:07
I hear a lot of. I hear from one side people saying we need to carry on going or you know the robots and the kids
00:24:13
thing. On the other hand I hear we need to be responsible but either side don't
00:24:18
tend to be very specific about what their definition of responsible or a race a responsible race might look like.
00:24:25
So does anyone have any specifics? Jenk. >> Yeah. So look, it's a it's a tough uh
00:24:31
industry to regulate. I get it. You have to move fast and regulation usually involves some degree of bureaucracy. Um
00:24:38
but if you have no regulation at all, you will have it run a muck. That's pretty much guaranteed. And all the
00:24:44
leaders of the AI companies say likewise. So um we've got to the problem here in America is that it's nearly
00:24:52
unsolvable in the window of time that we're talking about because we've lost
00:24:56
our democracy in America. But we've legalized bribery that happened back in Supreme Court decisions in 1976 78 and
00:25:03
then of course Citizens United. And so since we have legalized bribery in this country, there's no way they're going to
00:25:09
serve the voters. So whichever AI companies are giving them more money, they're going to serve them. And that's
00:25:14
already begun to happen. And the AI companies have already started getting involved in primaries and eliminating
00:25:19
their opponents through money and politics. So, our politicians are deeply deeply corrupt in America. Republicans
00:25:26
and Democrats, they almost all serve the donor class. So, we we won't make it.
00:25:31
We'll I'm telling you right now, uh we're going to run into the iceberg and
00:25:36
it's going to be an epic disaster. The only hope is electing a smart person who's prepared in 2028. Uh that that can
00:25:43
begin to get us on the road. So now when the disaster hits, the AI shareholders and executives aren't going to like it
00:25:50
either because the reaction will likely be tremendous anger. And then someone like me is going to say, "Hey, you know
00:25:57
what? Uh why do they get to keep all the money and you're all broke and out of a
00:26:02
job? They created this cost which is unemployment. Why don't they pay for it?
00:26:08
So why don't we take some of the billions and billions and billions of dollars that these AI companies have
00:26:13
made and put it towards their costs, which is the unemployment of the American people. So they could at a
00:26:18
minimum fund unemployment insurance and we could make sure that that's very healthy. Uh and we they could begin to
00:26:24
fund other things that might actually help other human beings. I know heaven forend that a millionaire or a
00:26:30
billionaire should ever help another human being. But if you don't, the pitchforks are coming. I'm not a
00:26:35
pitchfork guy. I'm I believe in nonviolence and I always will. Uh but I don't think people get the level of
00:26:42
anger that's happening. I'll try to stop it, but the pitchforks will be significant. And this whole thing of no,
00:26:48
I get all the money and you get nothing. Will not play well. You can try it, but
00:26:54
it will end in disaster. >> Kevin, the pitchforks are coming. We're going to hit an iceberg. And it also
00:26:58
sounded like AI is going to ultimately lead to a rise in what sounded like socialism.
00:27:04
>> Wow. Jake's a real Debbie Downer today. You know, this has been forecast in the
00:27:09
American economy. Every 20 years, it's the end of the free world as we know it.
00:27:13
And that's not what happens. Let's go back and do a little factchecking on
00:27:17
Jakester here. First of all, AI companies lose billions. They don't make any money right now. They're in a race,
00:27:24
as we talked about earlier, against China primarily. They're raising a ton of capital and losing billions every
00:27:30
year. We don't know yet how they're going to monetize it, but the market's
00:27:35
willing to provide it because they see the productivity opportunity and the cure for cancer and the democracy around
00:27:41
education and productivity for the nation already been proven by record earnings in the S&P of which all 11
00:27:48
sectors have adopted the first wave of AI to enhance productivity and reduce costs. We don't know yet what new jobs
00:27:56
are going to be created. I'll just talk about the ones I'm creating in Utah.
00:28:02
4,000 construction jobs for about nine and a half years highpaying. And another 2,000 engineering and support jobs,
00:28:10
extremely highpaying, because what's now a desert will be a data center. not near
00:28:16
anybody's backyard, not replacing farmland, not using any of the water the way the people have been talking about,
00:28:23
not taking any energy from Utah, but in fact contributing to it, not polluting the air because we can't do that without
00:28:31
air permits. All of this stuff is a falsehood. So, what we don't know, and Jake's right about this, is no one ever
00:28:39
predicts with a new technology what the outcome is. So, I'm not a doomer on this
00:28:45
stuff. My job here is to maintain a direct focus on entrepreneurship, hire as many people as I can because
00:28:55
that's what I do. And I take a lot of flak. I mean, Jake's hitting me hard
00:28:59
today and he and I appreciate he's an intelligent guy and he's got an opinion
00:29:03
and I'm glad we're in this narrative and having this discourse. It's important,
00:29:08
but let's deal with fact, not rhetoric and not hysteria. Because I still go back to the robots eating the
00:29:17
babies, cuz that's all I all I listen to every day. It's just ludicrous. And I
00:29:22
don't think robots are actually going to do as much as people think or look the
00:29:27
way they think. They're not going to be humanoid walking around taking out your
00:29:30
garbage. That's not how it's going to work. Robots have been building cars for
00:29:34
decades now and doing other things in medical research and robotics have been used in all kinds of technologies and
00:29:41
chipm and everything else but they don't they don't look like people walking
00:29:45
around. So, you know, I I say to myself, we don't know what we don't know, and
00:29:50
that's fair. But to say that all of these AI companies are making billions of dollars and something else, and Jake
00:29:58
knows this, most of the taxes in America are paid by the rich people. They pay their fair share now. So if you take it
00:30:09
past 50% like California, like New York, like New Jersey, like Massachusetts in the
00:30:18
Constitution of America with the forethought of the founding fathers, they believed in the competition of
00:30:24
states. And so you have people moving Schultz to Florida, you know, the Google guys to Florida, some have gone to
00:30:34
Texas. If you want to steal rich people's money, go ahead. They'll just move. And if you really make it
00:30:41
difficult for them in every state in America, they'll do what they did in England. They'll find a new America.
00:30:46
That's what made America great to over 200 years ago. Taxation. It doesn't work. The thing about
00:30:53
socialism and communism is you run out of other people's money very quickly because they simply leave. The French
00:31:01
figured that out. That's what happened any in England when they raised 90% tax
00:31:05
rates. Monaco, I mean, it only exists because the French screwed the rich French guys and they all move four miles
00:31:12
across the border. It's very simple. You want to support entrepreneurship and job
00:31:18
creation. Only onethird of the population in America can be entrepreneurs and they employ the other
00:31:24
twothirds. That's the way it's been for 200 years and it's a great thing. And I
00:31:31
don't see anybody else investing money anywhere else except America 52% of the
00:31:36
time. 52 cents of every dollar on earth from sovereign wealth comes to America because it has the opportunity. No other
00:31:45
country. I don't see a lot of people saying boy would I like to invest in North Korea. Hey, can you get me into
00:31:51
Russia? Is there a Russian fund I can invest in? Oh, can I invest in Cuba? I don't think so. I don't want to put my
00:31:59
money there for retirement. That's why I'm talking about this. The facts are
00:32:03
the facts. Get over it. Inhale. Everybody chillax and let's keep the American dream going.
00:32:12
Jen, I'll get your response to that. Many things said there. I mean, the core
00:32:15
argument there is if you try and tax rich people, they're going to leave and
00:32:18
go somewhere else and, you know, we might end up like Cuba. >> Yeah. So, I did I miss this meme about
00:32:25
the robots eating the kids because I don't know why they >> I love the robots eating the kids. I
00:32:30
just don't think it's going to happen. >> I don't think anybody thinks it's going
00:32:34
to happen. It sounds like it was made up. Um, okay. So, there's some fear-mongering about robots eating kids
00:32:40
and how America's going to turn communist or something. No, no, no. Look, as I said, we're capitalists.
00:32:46
We're just trying to figure out what's the best way to do this. Capitalism
00:32:50
isn't supposed to be let's crush the average guy and make sure the corporate
00:32:53
CEOs get everything. I'm a corporate CEO, but it's not right and it's not
00:32:57
balanced and it's not American. The American way is to make sure that we build a super strong middle class that
00:33:04
are great, productive citizens, voters, and by the way, consumers, right? And so
00:33:10
if we lose track of that, then we're all going to be doomed. So, like Kevin's so
00:33:17
worried that somebody's going to take his money. And it's not just Kevin. They
00:33:20
always like threaten us like, "Oh, oh yeah, we'll leave. I mean, don't
00:33:24
threaten me with a good time." Uh, but but beyond that, okay, but beyond that, Kevin, that's not
00:33:32
going to be your main problem. When you don't have any consumers, that's going
00:33:35
to be your main problem. You have to protect the American middle class. That, you know, you could argue that's the
00:33:42
goose that lays the golden eggs. And you guys keep chipping away and chipping away at that middle class. And so right
00:33:48
now, Stephen, this late into the conversation, still no plans on what to do with inevitable massive unemployment.
00:33:57
And what I'm telling you is we're not going to go necessarily to communism,
00:34:00
but we are going to wonder, wait, why is everyone unemployed and and only a couple of people have reaped billions or
00:34:08
trillions of dollars? So, and and and come on, Kevin. You know, you know how uh the economy works and the markets
00:34:14
work. Yes, you invest into it in the beginning and that's why right now they're theoretically losing billions of
00:34:19
dollars. Same exact thing that happened to Amazon. And then later you make billions and maybe even trillions.
00:34:23
That's why their stock prices are so high. And so they're powered by that
00:34:28
investment and later they'll reap the rewards. And when they reap those rewards, it's fair to ask who got you
00:34:34
those rewards. It's not to say that the entrepreneurs didn't and the employees
00:34:38
and the shareholders of those companies didn't, but there were other factors
00:34:41
involved, including all the American government and the American people that supported the infrastructure that made
00:34:47
that happen. That conversation is going to be inevitable when we have tens of millions of people unemployed. And and
00:34:54
guys, there's one other factor that's involved there. When you have a lot of
00:34:58
unemployed young men sitting around, usually what happens is nothing good. Wars happen, crime goes up. We have to
00:35:07
be prepared. And all I'm hearing from the AI industry is like, as Kevin said,
00:35:13
chillax. Don't sweat it, bro. Don't worry. We're going to have all the money
00:35:18
and then you guys, I don't know, you'll figure it out and I'll be in Monaco.
00:35:21
Monaco. That was hilarious. Monaco. So maybe that's where the child eating robots are. Uh, so Kevin, be careful.
00:35:30
>> Kevin, your thoughts on that? No. No. there's, you know, saying there's no
00:35:34
answers and we're we're being asked to just chillax. I think Kevin, you do
00:35:37
acknowledge that there will be a change in the occupation mix in America, right?
00:35:42
Even as a a founder and CEO myself and as a business owner that employs hundreds of people, I am thinking
00:35:47
differently about especially entry- level positions in a way that I wasn't honestly 6 months ago before some of the
00:35:53
models got more advanced, especially as it relates to things like coding. But I'm thinking very, very differently
00:35:58
about who to hire. And actually, one of the things I find myself naturally doing
00:36:01
is the person that still is on the coldface of hiring in my company is when I see entry- level positions, the first
00:36:07
thing I'm looking for is if they have an AI proficiency. And there are candidates
00:36:11
now, even for me at entry- level positions that I'm not selecting for because I realize that someone with an
00:36:15
AI proficiency in that exact same role is now like a five or 10x person. And so I I'm just experiencing myself making
00:36:24
different hiring decisions as a founder. And I'm I'm sure you are as well. People
00:36:29
think that engineers are going to be replaced by AI codew writing. Uh claude is one of the tools being used right
00:36:36
now. But actually most engineers aren't hired to write code. They're hired to
00:36:43
solve problems. They use code to try and solve those problems. So you know companies that have been firing people,
00:36:51
everybody's attributing it to AI. It's not true. There's been a lot of fat in a
00:36:56
lot of these companies that hired trying to assume what would happen next. They got it wrong. So I don't think we've yet
00:37:01
seen what the outcome's going to be. I tend to be the optimist as I talked about other technologies in the past
00:37:09
being loathed for the fact that they cause disruption. There is no question AI is disruptive.
00:37:15
Um >> Kevin, did you see this week Figure AI, which is one of the humanoid robot
00:37:19
companies, did a live stream for I think it was four days where they just showed
00:37:23
a robot um on a sort of factory floor sorting out parcels for four straight days and it it did it better and faster
00:37:31
than humans doing it. This was a humanoid robot. And so the one of the things I think about is if you listen to
00:37:37
someone like Elon Musk who's made a prediction, this is a direct quote from him. My prediction is that there will be
00:37:42
far far more robots like intelligent robots in the world than there will be people. Long term I think the ratio of
00:37:48
humanoid robots will be more like 2:1. There might be two humanoid robots or more for every one human. And when you
00:37:58
when you think about Elon Musk's predictions over time, to his credit, sometimes his time frames are wrong. But
00:38:04
when he says the rocket is going to land on the chopsticks, the rocket eventually
00:38:08
lands on the chopsticks. when he says, "My car in LA, my Tesla, will eventually
00:38:12
drive itself without me interfering," the car eventually drives itself. So,
00:38:16
with Elon's track record in predicting what he'll be able to do with technology, I think he's got a pretty
00:38:21
solid track record. So, when he says these humanoid robots are going to be better at surgery or cleaning or
00:38:28
whatever than humans in short order, sometimes predicting, you know, time frames of 2027, 2028, I tend to believe
00:38:37
him. Is he lying? Because if he's telling the truth, what we're seeing is
00:38:41
both the disruption of intelligence, but also, one could say, the disruption of our muscles at the same time. And I
00:38:47
can't think of a comparable like the industrial revolution where humans like
00:38:51
two real um sort of professional productivity driving forces of their brains and their their physicality are
00:38:59
being disrupted at the same time. And just to give you another story to overlay onto this, my co-founder and my
00:39:04
company called Third Webb, big company, we've raised 30 odd million dollars.
00:39:07
It's out in San Francisco. I went down to his his uh entrepreneurship accelerator. I've not been there in 2
00:39:13
years. And I I arrived and I was like, "Why is everyone building robotics?" And
00:39:16
he said to me, he goes, "Stephen, the robot pieces have been here for decades.
00:39:20
We've always had them. What we've been missing and the expensive part was the
00:39:23
intelligence." And he tooured me through this 40,000 square ft um building called
00:39:28
Ethink down in San Francisco. And I saw a robot cooking with a robot arm making food. I saw a robot making perfume for
00:39:37
you. Whatever perfume you wanted, this big machine that just makes it for you. And he says, because we've got
00:39:41
intelligence and we've always had the machinery, there's going to be this huge
00:39:45
explosion of robotics that we've always been waiting for. Intelligence was the
00:39:49
missing piece. And now he says it costs pennies and everyone there is building, not software anymore. They're all
00:39:54
building robotics. And so for me, I was like, wow, the future's going to look very, very
00:40:00
different, I think, in short order than the past. And I'm just a realist. So,
00:40:03
I'm not trying to be pessimistic or optimistic. I think there's truth on
00:40:06
both sides. But Kevin, do you acknowledge that the jobs that we have today in large part are going to go
00:40:12
away. >> Yeah. You know, I don't think um shaking a perfume bottle is a great job for
00:40:18
anybody, but I do think, and I'll give you two examples, cuz maybe you're right
00:40:22
about Elon, he doesn't get a big chunk of his stock unless he populates Mars
00:40:27
with a million people. NASA announced 6 hours ago that they're going to put a
00:40:32
permanent plant there on the moon, an established base on the moon. Can you imagine the
00:40:41
hundreds of thousands of jobs just those two activities are going to create to actually execute on that highpaying jobs
00:40:53
engineers analysts coders everything the manufacturing of facilities to take to Mars to take to the moon I mean
00:41:00
everybody wants to talk about the guy shaking perfume bottles losing his job when you're talking about millions of
00:41:07
jobs on new opportunities for mankind that no one even could think about 24 months ago that have been announced
00:41:14
today. So, you either have to be a jaker, a doomser, like you know, it's the end of the free world as we know it
00:41:22
and we're all going to be eaten by robots or you're in my camp saying the
00:41:26
opportunity is so bright I got to wear shades. I got to buy more sunglasses for how bright the future is. This is an
00:41:34
unbelievable opportunity we're talking about. And we're not wiping out jobs.
00:41:40
We're creating new jobs that are very highpaying and really interesting for people to do. Imagine somebody working
00:41:47
on the Mars project or putting data centers in space or expanding the telecommunications on Starlink. I mean,
00:41:57
these are the future jobs. No, you know, I think the person that was born to shake perfume would rather have a job
00:42:05
getting people onto the moon. >> Just on this point, Elon, you mentioned Elon's pay packet. Part of that is he
00:42:10
gets that big payout if there are a hundred uh sorry, a million humanoid robots um in very short order. And when
00:42:17
we think about who you might want to send to Mars, a super intelligent humanoid robot is probably much easier
00:42:23
to send than a biological human being for v various reasons to do with atmospheric pressure. But if if he's
00:42:30
right on both counts on both this journey to Mars and humanoid robots, presumably it'll be the humanoid robots
00:42:35
going. I just wanted Kevin, can you tell me how you might be wrong? I think that's quite important because I think
00:42:41
it it it shows your ability to see both sides of the argument. Is there a case where you could be wrong about this
00:42:47
about this unemployment issue? >> No. How about that for an answer, >> Jen?
00:42:58
Yeah. So, look, I shouldn't laugh too hard because I'm trying to answer that
00:43:03
same question in my head. And Stephen, it's hard to uh answer it from my perspective because the interregnum is
00:43:12
just unaccounted for. So, here's what I mean by that. So, even if we have Kevin's beautiful uh sunshine scenario,
00:43:21
none of the robots ever eat the children. I don't know why that keeps coming back in, but anyway. Um so and
00:43:28
and we create all these wonderful jobs in in some uh distant future. Well, okay. Yes. But the nevertheless, the
00:43:35
truck driver and the assembly line guy and all those folks already lost their jobs. And the guy who lost his job on an
00:43:42
assembly line in Cleveland is not going to be able to become the engineer who figures out how to get on Mars. So, it's
00:43:50
not that he's not capable of it. he's just 61 years old and he he can't learn
00:43:55
a whole new profession. So this is an unrealistic conversation. So even if all of the wonderful scenarios about AI are
00:44:03
true, it would take minimum 20 years to get to this place where the robots are running everything, we all have leisure
00:44:11
time and we just can't figure out what to do with ourselves and we decide how
00:44:14
to get to Venus and and Uranus and wherever else you want to go. Okay. But in the meanwhile, in those 20 years, we
00:44:23
had massive waves of unemployment. It is indisputable. Even as Kevin explains it,
00:44:29
he says, "Well, you know, you're not going to be doing doing the perfume
00:44:31
shaking, you're not doing the assembly line, you're not doing the driving,
00:44:34
you're not doing this, you're not doing that. All those jobs are going to go."
00:44:38
And in fact, if you actually just listen to folks on Wall Street, they brag about
00:44:42
it nonstop. Oh, we're going to get to, you know, cut 25%. We're going to have
00:44:47
synergies. we're going to have cost cutting. And then when people say that, everybody gets the analysts get excited
00:44:52
and they're like, "Oh, bye, bye." They're going to fire all their
00:44:55
employees. And then the other guy goes, "No, no, no. I'm going to fire them even
00:44:58
quicker." And they go, "Bye, bye bye." And not once have they thought, "Who's
00:45:01
going to buy the actual products?" And they just don't have an answer for that.
00:45:06
So into into there is going to be upheaval, massive upheaval. And it doesn't And I'm not a doomsday guy. My
00:45:14
god, we have a thing called Operation Hope on on the Young Turks. Um, we our slogan is get caught trying. No, no, I'm
00:45:22
an enormously optimistic guy and I think we can solve these issues, but we got to
00:45:26
try to solve them. And I don't see anyone even trying to solve them now again outside of Roana.
00:45:32
>> Kevin, I spoke to Dra, the CEO of Uber, and I think I'm right in saying that
00:45:36
driving is the biggest employer in the world. And when I asked Dra, who's the
00:45:40
CEO of Uber, if they're going to um create autonomous vehicles very very quickly to automate the 9.4 million
00:45:49
drivers that they have. He said that they are. And then I asked him the question, what will those 9.4 million
00:45:54
people do? And his response to me, the direct quote is he said, I don't know.
00:46:00
Which is pretty pretty shocking. He also noted that privately he said, "I have to
00:46:07
be honest. AI will replace 9.4 million jobs at Uber. Tech executives are not being transparent about AI. They talk
00:46:15
behind closed doors about the sheer amount of disruption they anticipate, but they don't talk about it publicly.
00:46:22
Look, I don't think we're going to make any progress, more progress on this
00:46:24
issue." So, um, because >> well, I think I think you're bringing a
00:46:28
great point, but the fact is we don't know what comes next. Much of the reason
00:46:33
most people haven't posted content or built their personal brand is because it's hard and it's timeconuming and
00:46:39
we're all very very busy and if you've never posted something before there's so
00:46:44
many factors in your psychology that stop you wanting to post what people will think of you am I doing this right
00:46:50
is the thing I'm saying absolutely stupid all of these result in paralysis which means you don't post and your feed
00:46:56
goes bare I'm an investor in a company called Stanto which you've probably
00:47:01
heard me talk about and what they've been building is this new tool called Stanley that uses AI, looks at your
00:47:06
feed, looks at your tone of voice, looks at your history, looks at your best performing posts, and tells you what you
00:47:11
should post, makes those posts for you. You can also just use it for inspiration. And sometimes what we need
00:47:16
when we're thinking about doing a post for our social media channels is inspiration. Building an audience has
00:47:21
fundamentally changed my life, and I think it could change yours, too. So, I'm inviting you to give this new tool a
00:47:27
shot and let me know what you think. All you have to do is search coach.stand.sto. store now to get
00:47:32
started. >> Steve, what are you doing? >> Uh, just making myself a delicious
00:47:38
coffee >> from the freezer. >> From the freezer? Have you not heard about CompTIA?
00:47:42
>> No. >> Oh my gosh, this is going to change your life. Couple of months ago, the founder
00:47:47
of this business called Matt sent a big shipment of this coffee to our office in
00:47:52
London. What most people don't know is that the processing of coffee takes out
00:47:54
a lot of the taste. So, what they do is they flash freeze it at the optimal moment when it's most tasty and they
00:48:02
send you in the post the coffee in these little frozen ice cubes. Now, Matt sent
00:48:06
a big shipment to my office. I moved it to the kitchen. I said to the team, "Knock yourselves out." And then I saw
00:48:11
so many messages in our Slack channel of people going, "Oh my god, what the hell
00:48:15
is that? It's so delicious." All I have to do is pop it out in the morning using
00:48:19
the little button on the back of this thing. I pour my hot water in and I mix it and that is done. You can get $30 off
00:48:27
your first order of Cometier coffee if you go to cometier.com/stephven. Try it and please Instagram DM me,
00:48:35
LinkedIn me and let me know if you love it as much as I do. One of the things that's probably going
00:48:41
to be a disruptor to AI's so I should say America's ability to pursue these technologies is what's
00:48:48
going on with president approval ratings at the moment. I've got this uh graph
00:48:52
here in front of me which you you know you don't need to be able to zoom in to
00:48:55
see which shows that President Trump's approval rating is declining rapidly in
00:48:59
part because of what's going on in the Middle East. I wanted to get um Jenk your opinion on what all of this stuff
00:49:05
is. As someone like me I don't really know much about politics. I know that there's these midterms coming up in
00:49:09
November time in the US, um, which is going to be consequential, but from a 30,000 foot perspective, how do I how do
00:49:17
I pass out the truth of this war? Because Trump seems to be saying different things. Every day there's a
00:49:21
ceasefire with Iran, and then there's and then they're bombing again. I think
00:49:25
2 days ago, they started bombing again, which they call defensive strikes, and then there's a ceasefire, and he says
00:49:29
there's a deal about to be done, and then there's some bombing again. The
00:49:32
straight straight of Hormuse is open, then it's closed, then it's I just don't
00:49:35
know what the truth is. Chank, in your opinion, what is the truth? What's going
00:49:38
on? >> Yeah. So, first let's start with uh the president's polling numbers. Yeah.
00:49:43
They've been uh decimated by this war. They were already in trouble because the
00:49:47
Epstein files and he didn't do anything about affordability. Just gave a massive
00:49:51
tax cut for the rich as usual. Did whatever Israel wants as usual. Uh and so now, uh you know, he's eaten into his
00:49:59
own base. So, he's barely hanging on to a majority of non-MAGA Republicans that
00:50:06
voted for him. Only 53% still support him. He's lost about 20% of hardcore MAGA. Uh his disapproval numbers are at
00:50:14
record numbers now. Um 68% of the country thinks we're going in the wrong direction. Uh he they about 76% of the
00:50:22
country is dissatisfied with how the economy is going. And a lot of that is because of the war. And so the war is
00:50:29
obviously driving up gas prices which is then uh leading to uh inflation in other
00:50:34
areas. Of course a lot of things uh use not just oil and gas but fertilizer which has also been blocked uh through
00:50:42
the straight of hormuz. So we're we're having an energy crisis um actually
00:50:46
mainly in Asia and Europe uh more so than than even America. So that's why the South Koreans are livid at the
00:50:53
Israelis that they're having to cons, you know, conserve gas and go through lean times because Israel wanted this
00:51:00
war and literally no one else on planet Earth did. And so shortages in India and
00:51:06
this is all before we re-engage and restart the war, which is what I'm afraid is going to come next. So now
00:51:13
it's some folks have a hard time believing this, but we we have to go back to a conversation we had earlier.
00:51:19
Remember in America we legalize bribery. So um one uh corporation can give to an
00:51:27
infinite amount to a super PAC uh corporate interest, lobbyists, individuals. To give you a sense of the
00:51:33
scale of the problem, one family alone uh the Aden family, Miriam and Sheldon Adlesen have given Donald Trump over
00:51:40
$317 million in campaign contributions. We used to have a word for that. It was called a bribe. And Trump is so
00:51:49
accidentally honest on this stuff, he just can't keep anything in his head uh
00:51:53
from going outside his mouth. So he has said, "Oh, Miriam, she cares more about
00:51:58
Israel than America, right?" I'm like, "No, that's super awkward." And then he
00:52:02
says, "Oh, Sheldon Adlesen used to come in here and tell me what to do all the
00:52:05
time." And then I did it, you know, and I moved the embassy for the Adles, our
00:52:09
embassy in Israel. He's just, you know, basically selling off our foreign policy. To be fair to him, almost all of
00:52:15
our politicians do that. uh Israel gives to 94% of Congress. So there Israel is not some unique lobbyist that uh
00:52:23
community that is unseen in the world. No, all the lobbyists do this. That's
00:52:28
why we give $35 billion in uh oil subsidies which they're profitable companies. That makes no sense. Why does
00:52:35
an average person have to give money to Exon Mobile? That's insanity. Because
00:52:39
big pharma's lobby is so strong, we can't negotiate prices. Now, when it
00:52:43
comes to Israel, that's when people lose their minds. And mainstream media goes,
00:52:46
"Okay, you're right about big farmer. You're right about big oil and defense
00:52:49
contractors and every other lobby. But if you say the same exact thing about Israel, we'll call you an anti-semite,
00:52:55
cancel you, and you're never going to ever get another job again. No criticism
00:53:00
of Israel is allowed without us doing massive oppression inside this country."
00:53:05
So, we've now got Israel that is totally empowered to go, you know, rogue. They
00:53:11
don't follow any laws. They don't follow the laws of war crimes. They've now
00:53:16
invaded Lebanon. They say they're going to take all the way to the Latani River.
00:53:19
They're going to own southern Lebanon. They've already ethnically cleansed southern Lebanon, moved out a
00:53:27
million people to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Netanyahu on tape bragged about, oh, we used to have 53% of Gaza after
00:53:33
the war. Uh, now we have over 60%. So, it was to steal land. That's what it was
00:53:38
about. It wasn't self-defense. Lebanon's not self-defense. Israel invaded them.
00:53:42
Iran's not self-defense. We invaded Iran. This war was utterly pointless, especially from an American perspective.
00:53:49
Let me tell you what American interests are and what Israeli interests are. And they're very, very different. And in
00:53:54
America right now, because of we started this war, we need the straight of Hormuz
00:53:57
open. That's what's hurting our gas prices and all of our other prices and
00:54:01
affordability, inflation, all of that is connected to the straight of horm. We didn't have that problem before the war,
00:54:06
but now we have it. We've got to open it back up. In order to do that, Iran has
00:54:10
an enormous amount of leverage. We've got to make a reasonable peace deal. Good news. We were about to have one
00:54:14
over this weekend. And all we want theoretically is for them to take out their to not make nuclear weapons. And
00:54:22
they've already promised 18 different times that they wouldn't do that. They
00:54:25
did it under the Obama deal. They've offered it before the war. They've offered it during the war. So, that is
00:54:30
not an issue. And them promising it doesn't mean anything. It has to be verified. So what they're saying is yes,
00:54:35
we will have international monitors verify that we will not have a weapon. So that's the only thing that America
00:54:40
said they cared about before the war. So then we're done. And we just killed 49
00:54:45
of their top regime leaders. Trump says we destroyed their navy, their air force, and everything else. We're done.
00:54:52
We have no American interest in there. The only interest left is leave, open up the straight of Hormuz so we can get our
00:54:57
economy back on track. Israel, on the other hand, has said they would like, and again, this is on tape. Netanyahu
00:55:03
said it. They would like to be the only regional superpower in the Middle East. In order to do that, they have to
00:55:09
destroy every other power in the Middle East. Now, good news for them. They completely control our Congress and our
00:55:15
presidents. So, uh they got us to they literally gave us a list after 9/11 of seven countries they wanted us to attack
00:55:23
on their behalf. We have attacked all seven. Iran was the last one on that list. So they want them destroyed so
00:55:31
that they can't fight back when Israel takes more land as they are doing today.
00:55:35
They don't want anyone to be able to defend themselves. They're going to kill
00:55:40
and take land as much as humanly possible. And they want us Americans to pay the bill. They say, "You owe us a
00:55:47
genocide. You owe us endless string of wars. You owe us a global war on terror." No, that was a global war on
00:55:53
Israel's neighbors. That cost us $8 trillion. We gave $320 billion to Israel so far
00:56:00
already. Lifetime. Why? Why? Why don't they give us the money back? No. They
00:56:04
say, "You owe us. You owe us. You owe us. That's why we're in this war." And
00:56:09
by the way, the last thing, Stephen, is while we're all distracted in Iran, Israel has taken southern Lebanon. And
00:56:15
now they're saying they're going to keep it forever. So that was the point of
00:56:18
this war. 100% Israeli interest, 0% American interest. Let's get out of there. Let's stop fighting Israel's wars
00:56:27
for them and come back home. >> What about nuclear weapons? One of the pretenses is that they were weeks away
00:56:33
from enriching uranium to a point where that weapon could be used. >> Yeah. So that's what Netanyahu has been
00:56:38
saying for the last 30 years in back in the 1990s. Oh, they're weeks away. They're weeks away. Do you know and you
00:56:44
probably don't know because American media pretty much works for Israel. And
00:56:48
now when I say that guys, those are not hyperbole. Uh the Israeli lobby donate donates I
00:56:54
would say legally bribes like the other lobbies do. 94% of Congress. Number one lifetime donor
00:57:01
to Donald Trump is Israel. Number one lifetime donor to Joe Biden. Number one lifetime donor to Hakee Jeff, Chuck
00:57:06
Schumer, Mike Johnson. All of our leaders, their number one lifetime donor is Apac and the Israeli lobby. They
00:57:12
completely control our government. And then our media comes and lies to us and says, "Oh, they're the victims." Well,
00:57:17
we have eyes. We saw Gaza. Gaza is utterly destroyed and Israel did that with our money. That's insane. So, no,
00:57:26
we look, is I don't even think Israel is an ally. I I don't know why in the world
00:57:31
we would ever serve a foreign nation. They're treading all over us. They've
00:57:35
taken our sovereignty away. They've taken our freedom away. And all we have is these dupes in mainstream media
00:57:41
telling us about how they're doing self-defense. Well, part of self-defense is I take your land. Currently, they're
00:57:48
taping themselves going into IDF soldiers are going into Lebanese homes, Muslims and Christians,
00:57:55
stealing all their property. Then they put it on online, go a look, we stole other things. Then they destroy the
00:58:01
homes and they say, "Now this is Israeli territory." That's not self-defense.
00:58:04
That's terrorism. It we are supporting a terrorist nation and we're giving them
00:58:10
hundreds of billions of dollars and this isn't even helping Israel. were enabling
00:58:14
their worst instincts and they're getting the whole world to hate them. How does that help Israel to have the
00:58:20
whole world despise you because you're so selfishly driving up everyone's
00:58:25
prices and creating endless wars? Literally, no other country on earth wants this war in Iran to continue other
00:58:32
than Israel. >> Kevin, you have a different perspective on the um effectiveness and purpose of
00:58:38
the the original strikes that Trump did. Are you supportive of this military operation at large?
00:58:44
>> Well, you know, I'm not a show for uh any politician. I focus on policy
00:58:49
because that's ultimately what survives. Politicians come and go. Policy lingers.
00:58:53
I've always said that and that's as an investor what you have to worry about.
00:58:57
So, um let's talk about the situation in the Middle East for about 49 years. Um
00:59:05
some people would say 60. It depends what you believed in the early years. The Persians are were a very advanced
00:59:12
society in mathematics, poetry, art, you name it. Uh they're very famous. And
00:59:17
then you have this small um I I'm going to call it bad management. I don't know what else to call it. that
00:59:25
took this society, brutalized the people there, created a million um man army run
00:59:33
by 150,000 people, a super militia um that caused a lot of chaos in that region with proxies uh as people have
00:59:43
been talking about. Um and and the this militia is is paid with cash that's gotten from um the sales of of energy
00:59:53
and they would stop killing their own people if they didn't get paid. So that
00:59:58
the the 150,000 that run that country that brutalize the almost 100 million others. I mean it's a really strange
01:00:06
platform that hasn't worked for the people there for 60 years. But it it was
01:00:11
tolerated by all the neighbors until 6 months ago. the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, they they
01:00:21
wanted to stay out of it because it was, you know, it was relatively calm. Every
01:00:25
6 months the hoodies or one of the uranium proxies would blow up an oil ship kept the insurance premiums 30%
01:00:32
higher and then the proverbial poo poo hit the fan. Now, China, let's get down
01:00:38
to business, gets 48% of its energy through that straight, as does many other Asian countries. So, they, as Jake
01:00:47
pointed out, um, uh, you know, basically are underwater. They don't have energy, Jack, I should
01:00:56
say. So, you know, at the end of the day here, um, there's a problem. And so,
01:01:01
what's going to happen when this is over? Um, forget about Look, you can't
01:01:06
let a You can't let a society that 150 people there say, "Let's kill
01:01:12
everybody." I mean, they're on a different kind of mandate. They they they're a little a little strange. You
01:01:18
don't want to give those people a nuclear bomb. I don't care who you are.
01:01:22
They're just offside. And they they're happy to kill their own people, but I
01:01:25
don't want them killing everybody else with interbolistic missiles. So, no, they can't have 90 pounds of rich
01:01:30
uranium. and they're not going to get it and they're going to keep getting bombed
01:01:35
until they give it up. And at some point, somebody in there is going to say, "Whoa, uh, they're really we're
01:01:41
getting tenderized in here and we got to stop this and we got to get the best deal we can." We want to stay in power
01:01:46
to keep killing our people as long as we can because we're the 150,000 guys that
01:01:51
live very well and everybody else lives like crap. And that's just the way that
01:01:56
society works. And if the people want to rise up and kill the 150 that are killing them, they will one day. I don't
01:02:02
know. But here's what I think. I think the actual countries around there are
01:02:08
going to end up in the same boat that we have in the Suez and Panama canals where
01:02:14
there's a fee to go through, but it's managed so that no country, including
01:02:18
China, gets to run it. And so that has already found peace and all the shipping lanes are open and the insurance rates
01:02:25
are normal there. So, if you're Saudi Arabia, you got let's let's say it costs
01:02:29
five billion a month to police the strait. Okay, that's a good number because I'm probably right, pretty close
01:02:37
to it. That's nothing for the UAE and for Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Bahrain. They're going to need it open. So, if
01:02:45
they have to be like the United Nations for that region and keep it open, that's
01:02:49
great. Now, I'm staying long the UAE because I've invested there in in ADGM.
01:02:55
I have a company there. I've got employees there. I talk to them every day. I think this is going to end soon.
01:03:01
But I would like to see it in a way that Iran is isolated. Maybe, you know, they're not they can't control the
01:03:08
strait and they can't have the nukes. Those are the two things that I think have to be resolved. And then if they
01:03:14
want to brutalize their people forever, okay, you know, they're going to do that. It's a horrible outcome for those
01:03:20
people. I feel terrible for them. But this outcome is a good one. If we resolve those two things, new policing
01:03:27
of the strait, that would be great because the Chinese need that, they want that. And at some point, they're going
01:03:34
to squeeze the heads of these Iranian leaders, whoever they are. They keep getting killed and a new one pops up
01:03:39
like whack-a-ole. But that's just the way that regime works. And nobody's
01:03:43
willing to to say, "Look, I I want to take them over because you got the army
01:03:47
still being paid." But by blocking that straight for the last 60 days, the the
01:03:54
amount of money they're losing is 210 million US per 24 hours. So at some point, whoever's running the show there
01:04:05
is going to say, "If we can't pay our soldiers to kill our people, we're going
01:04:09
to be screwed. They're going to come up to the top of the castle and take Frankenstein out." So we got to make
01:04:15
sure we cut a deal. That's why I'm optimistic. The price of oil is down almost 16%. It'll get back near 70. I
01:04:23
don't know what that's going to do for the midterms because, you know, yeah,
01:04:27
the numbers are terrible, but every incumbent gets screwed in the midterms. It's it's just the nature of how it
01:04:32
works. Now, whether they lose the Senate, I don't know. Are they going to lose the House? Who knows? But if
01:04:36
gasoline's back to 70 bucks, we won't be having this narrative about unaffordability around energy in the
01:04:43
United States. And you just don't know. But I do know that the status quo because the UAE and Qatar and Bahrain
01:04:56
left those Iranians alone until they rained missiles on them. Now they're pissed. And so it's not business as
01:05:03
usual. And so I think the the winds of change are going to blow through there. And maybe the upside is the great
01:05:11
Persian people get better leadership because boy, their leaders suck. >> Jenk, it sounds like an optimistic um
01:05:18
outcome is being forecasted by Kevin and I can see you nodding your head there in
01:05:23
a disagreement, shaking your head. >> Yeah. So, look, again, I'm normally an
01:05:28
optimist here, but we've gotten ourselves uh in some significant ruts here. So, uh first of all, u you know,
01:05:36
this whole idea of the Iranian regime is bad. Okay. Yeah, it is. Uh, it's Muslim
01:05:40
fundamentalist. I don't like fundamentalists of any religion. I'm an atheist. Uh, you know, they abuse their
01:05:45
people and they're corrupt. No question about it. Netanyahu is corrupt. He's up
01:05:49
on corruption charges that seem to never come. Uh, the Israeli settlers are religious fundamentalists, biggest
01:05:55
lunatics on earth. They think that God said to kill the Palestinians and take their land, and we fund them. We give
01:06:01
them billions of dollars. So, I'm not in favor of any of these uh fundamentalists, no matter what religion
01:06:06
they're from. Now, on the issue of nukes, uh, that you asked about earlier, Stephen, you know that the reason I
01:06:12
brought up American media is because they pretty much do nothing but Israeli propaganda, they never clarified to
01:06:17
anyone. You know that Iran doesn't have a missile that can deliver any warhead
01:06:22
to America. It just doesn't. It's that it's never had it. It didn't have it 30
01:06:27
years ago when Netanyahu started saying it. It doesn't have it today. So, and
01:06:31
they never enriched uranium up to 90%, which is where you would have to get it for weapons grade. They get up to about
01:06:36
60% and then we destroy their nuclear facilities and Trump bragged about it and now all that's buried underneath. So
01:06:42
where's the question? They're not even close. And and again they've promised
01:06:46
not only to this repeatedly in negotiations, but the former Grand Ayatoll, the one we murdered, uh had
01:06:53
done a fatwa, the most important religious edict in Shia Islam, when he said we are to never build nukes. So
01:06:59
when they Hamas has something in their charter, the Israelis say oh the charter is the most important thing. Then the
01:07:04
grand ayatollah does a f way import more important than a charter and they go ignore that. Ignore that. No, no, don't
01:07:10
ignore that. And why would Iran ever use a nuke? If they use a nuke then we either Israel or us would strike back
01:07:16
and would kill 90 million Iranians. Nobody wants that. They they want you to believe that the Iranians are irrational
01:07:22
psychotic terrorists. Boo. They're Muslims. Oh, that's super scary, right?
01:07:27
No, there is an irrational government in the Middle East. It's it's Israel.
01:07:32
They're the Iran did not attack a single neighbor. Israel has attacked seven
01:07:36
neighbors. Iran hasn't asked us for a single dollar. Israel asked us for hundreds of billions of dollars. So
01:07:43
there's one country that is constantly attacking their neighbors and taking land. And by the way, the ter the
01:07:49
civilian kill ratio of the IDF is 83%. 83% of the people that they kill are civilians. That is higher than Hamas or
01:07:57
Hezblah or any terrorist group on earth. and they kill about a hundred times the
01:08:02
civilians of Hamas. So if Hamas is terrorist, it is absolutely indisputable that Israel is a terrorist government.
01:08:10
And yet we're forced to fund that when we don't have any money. They have
01:08:14
universal healthcare. They have free college. They have paid family leave. We don't have any of that. And then our
01:08:20
greedy and corrupt politicians and media tell us that we owe the Israelis more war and more genocide. The reason why I
01:08:27
think we're in a lot of trouble here and it's not going to be easy to resolve is
01:08:30
every time we get close to peace. Netanyahu calls Trump literally happened this weekend. Right after the call,
01:08:36
Trump then goes back to wararm mongering. After the call, we bombed Iran. Israel started heavy bombing of
01:08:43
Lebanon. And then Trump came up with three new totally impossible things. Give me all the highly arrange enriched
01:08:50
uranium on day one. Well, it's buried under the ground. It's going to take
01:08:53
months to take out. Uh, number two, uh, you all have to join the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords, again,
01:08:59
American media paints it as, oh, this wonderful peace plan. It's no such thing. It's to normalize relations with
01:09:05
Israel and start doing trade with Israel without getting a promise back that they're going to end the occupation. It
01:09:11
is betraying the Palestinians and saying the Israelis can permanently occupy them. By the way, again, never talked
01:09:17
about in American media, but I we read a lot of this in the Israeli press and that's why we get a lot of our
01:09:22
information on the Young Turks from them because they actually do pretty good reporting in Israel. And so, uh, one of
01:09:27
the things is they believe in Greater Israel. They talk about it all the time. Our press never talks about it, but they
01:09:32
do. They know they stole our nuclear secrets. They know they stole our nuclear triggers and our uranium. What
01:09:38
kind of an ally steals all of our material? And and so but last thing, Stephen, the most important impossible
01:09:45
thing was Netanyahu demanded, he made this public, that everyone else stop fighting except Israel, that they have a
01:09:52
right to keep attacking and invading and taking southern Lebanon. Well, that's
01:09:56
not a peace deal. Nobody's going to sign on to that. So, and and Israel has said
01:10:02
no matter what happens, they're going to keep attacking Lebanon. That means even
01:10:06
if Iran and America make a peace deal, Israel will literally ruin it on a first day. So we can't ever get to peace as
01:10:14
long as we're allies with Israel. It's literally impossible. They're massive
01:10:18
wararm mongers. And they say we need endless wars. And by the way, it makes sense because they're a settler colony.
01:10:24
In order for a settle settler colony to expand, you need permanent war so they can keep taking more land. We shouldn't
01:10:32
be funding these terrorists. We have a way of getting out. This is what you do. You just say, "Hey, we make a peace deal
01:10:38
with Iran. We take Israel out of it. Israel, you want peace, you have peace. If you want war, have war with Iran.
01:10:43
It's not our business." >> So, what's what what are you predicting,
01:10:46
Jenk, is going to happen? What is your prediction? >> Disaster. A positive disaster. So,
01:10:52
there's no way we're going to get to peace because Israel says their line in
01:10:54
the sand is they're going to keep attacking Lebanon. As long as they keep attacking Lebanon, Iran is not going to
01:11:00
get to a peace deal. >> What does disaster mean specifically? Oh, disaster means we re-engage in the
01:11:06
bombing. We have 50,000 ground troops on those ships. People forgot that we're
01:11:09
there. Of course, it has to be American ground troops. It can't be precious Israeli ground troops because Israeli
01:11:15
lives are apparently worth more than American lives if you listen to American politicians. So, we have the ground
01:11:20
troops there. We're going to very likely do more disastrous bombing of Iran. And
01:11:25
then Iran is going to bomb the oil and gas fields in of the Gulf countries. And then not only will gas prices go
01:11:32
absolutely through the roof and cause a massive economic recession, perhaps depression worldwide, but on top of
01:11:39
that, then uh they're going to say, "Well, it's not enough. We want more."
01:11:45
And the infrastructure is already destroyed. It's going to take 5 to 10 years to rebuild that infrastructure.
01:11:51
They're going to do permanent damage to our economy. Why? They want more land.
01:11:56
Enough. enough with supporting the terrorists. >> Kevin, is it fair to say if you look at
01:12:02
what Trump said over since the start of this war that he miscalculated this because he gave us a window of time when
01:12:07
it would be over and that window of time is now long gone. And it appears to me like he thought it would be similar to
01:12:13
Venezuela where you could just go in there, boom, boom, boom, regime change, you control the country. But that's
01:12:19
clearly, I mean, just like a logical impartial person, that's kind of like how it looks.
01:12:23
This is different because this war is what I would call the first tech war um ever. A lot of the ordinance being used
01:12:33
um is with very advanced GPS systems controlled from space. We've learned something else uh which is rather
01:12:41
interesting. The I learned this from my own employees that are sitting in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The drones that came
01:12:47
over in the first four weeks, those waves every morning were basically carbon fiber wings with lawnmower
01:12:56
engines on them and and very inexpensive to make about $35,000. and we shot them
01:13:03
down or at least the UAE did with American ordinance between a million2 and $3 million per missile on a $35,000
01:13:14
homemade drone. And so it goes back to um wow I hope the Pentagon has enough compute power because I wouldn't want
01:13:24
that in the hands of the Chinese cuz I I what I've learned from this conflict and
01:13:29
look that you know people dying is horrible period wherever they are it's just horrible but this is not a
01:13:37
traditional war. I don't know if there's going to be boots on the ground by the
01:13:41
time this is over. If there's another wave of conflict, it's just going to be
01:13:45
more ordinance taking out more infrastructure until the 150,000 people running the show there say, "Wow,
01:13:53
this is really hurting us in terms of maintaining control." I don't see uh a
01:13:59
boots on the ground invasion. I just see more tenderizing and more tenderizing. It's expensive because we're on the
01:14:05
wrong side of defense. We need the cheap drones. And I think in two years from now, from what I see in the development,
01:14:12
because I I see these deals all over the place, there's a whole bunch of new tech
01:14:17
being developed around drone blocking technology and very inexpensive versions of what those Iranians built, better
01:14:24
than lawnmower engines, though. So, it's it's going to be pretty interesting in
01:14:30
24 months. I'm not a fan of war, but I have a different view of the outcome here. And I think that part of the
01:14:37
world's going to be stabilized and funded by the neighbors there, and probably everybody's better off because
01:14:44
the Chinese can't take the pain much longer. Their oil supplies, both on the
01:14:49
water and in storage, are starting to really dwindle. And if I'm the big supreme leader there, I'm thinking to
01:14:57
myself, I'm going to call those guys in Iran, say, "Okay, big boys, time to
01:15:02
settle. We've had enough." Cuz that that is actually a different view of that policy over
01:15:09
there. Because every Asian country is hurting. And by the way, in North America,
01:15:14
we actually don't have any problems with energy. We have an abundance of it,
01:15:19
including the stuff coming from Canada, the number one import. The problem we have is the price of oil is determined
01:15:26
by world markets. It's a commodity in US dollars. You know, it was 106. Now it's
01:15:32
9712, whatever it is trading right now. Um it's but we're not going to run out of
01:15:39
energy in America. That's not going to happen. It's it's the rest of the world
01:15:43
to the extent that we care about them. Um we got to resolve this issue. For every founder, there comes a point in
01:15:50
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No credit card is needed. That's pipedive.com/ceo. I've done almost 700 interviews with
01:16:58
some of the most interesting people in the world. And one of the things you learn, which is unexpected, is that
01:17:02
vulnerability is the doorway to connection. And after sitting here for 2 three hours with a guest, I feel a deep
01:17:09
sense of connection to them. And as they leave, what I get them to do is to write
01:17:13
a question in the diary of a CEO. We've taken all of the questions from the diary of a CEO. We have put the question
01:17:22
here on this card with the name of the person that wrote it. So you can sit at home as I do with my fiance and my
01:17:28
colleagues at work and other people in my life. Whenever we get a minute, we play the Duracio conversation cards. And
01:17:34
it is incredible what happens. These are great if you're in a romantic relationship and you want to connect
01:17:39
your partner more. These are also great if you're in a team and you want to bond
01:17:43
your team together. And I have to say they're also great for families that want to learn more about each other and
01:17:47
that need a good excuse to spend some time in a digital world in the analog environment connecting human to human.
01:17:54
It is remarkable what the right question at the right time can do. Go to the diary.com
01:18:01
and you can get these conversation cards right now. The thing that I think America's at risk
01:18:07
of running out of Kevin though is is is patience and uh support. And if you think about the sort of existential risk
01:18:14
to Trump, he you know, if you looking at these numbers, so this this first line you see is his disapproval going up and
01:18:20
his approval going down. If I'm the supreme leader in Iran, I go listen, this guy has got I mean there's an
01:18:27
election in 2028 in the United States, this guy has got months. So in terms of you talk about, you know, the art of a
01:18:34
deal and doing a good deal. If you know your counterparty in the deal negotiation literally has months to do a
01:18:40
deal or they are going to be thrown out of power, if I'm one of those 150,000
01:18:45
people or the supreme leader, honestly, I'm going to wait it out. I think I have
01:18:48
all the cards. if you have almost no, you know, they can survive. Again, you said they oppress their people. They
01:18:54
don't seem to have much morality surrounding that. Could they wait it out a couple of months knowing that Trump
01:18:59
can't because the midterms are coming and then the election's coming. I >> think you're making a good point on that
01:19:05
one. But I, you know, the one thing I would say, Stephen, is that it's not just Trump you're waiting out. You got
01:19:11
Chi, it's it's not just Trump, the big guy. You got two supreme leaders. You
01:19:17
got whoever is running the show this week in Iran and you've got the Chinese leader, the
01:19:25
supreme leader. And the only way he gets to say the supreme leader is people eat,
01:19:30
people have jobs there and his economy stays buoyant. That's the only way he
01:19:36
stays in power. So you're you're serving two masters. You're you're trying to time the 28
01:19:44
decision you talked about versus how pissed off the big guy is going to get in China. He has no choice. 48% of his
01:19:51
energy comes through that straight at some point. I think before November, Elsa primo in China squeezes Iranian
01:20:01
heads like teenage pimples. That's what I think is going to happen. The other
01:20:04
thing just to give you the other thought that's been spiraling in my head since
01:20:08
I've interviewed all these people on this subject is that Trump and JD Vance
01:20:11
repeatedly say they don't even know who they're negotiating with because they've
01:20:14
knocked out every layer it seems of leadership. They on one hand brag about that but then I would also suggest that
01:20:20
that makes negotiation hard. I think JD Vance actually talked about or Marco Rubio talked about the fact that they
01:20:26
can't get the carrier pigeon to the um Iranian soldiers that are still shooting
01:20:31
the missiles. And this talk this speaks to the um lack of organization in Iran because you've wiped out all the
01:20:37
leadership. So I even wonder if you can really do a deal at this point with Iran, Jenk.
01:20:43
>> No, we can remember we almost had a deal this weekend. Uh and the deal is
01:20:47
actually kind of obvious. Open up the straight of Hormuz. We lift a blockade. Iran says uh we'll find the
01:20:53
highlyenriched uranium and hand it over. We won't have a weapons program and
01:20:57
we'll have international monitors for the uranium that we enrich to just energy levels, not weapons levels. Boom.
01:21:04
Done. Easy. Though, but as I explained before, we can't get it done because Israel says, "No, I want permanent."
01:21:10
>> How do you know it's Israel? How do you know it's Israel, Jenk?
01:21:14
>> Yeah, there's no question. So first of all in the before the invasion New York
01:21:18
Times with a rare good article that explained uh that Netanyahu and the head of MSAD came into the situation room
01:21:25
Netanyahu physically and head of Mossad uh through a teleconference and they uh told Trump you got to attack you got to
01:21:32
attack now and they to they at least as the New York Times describes it they convinced them. Whether they actually
01:21:38
convinced him through language or through money or through blackmail is a whole different question. But uh another
01:21:45
thing that's absolutely clear is that after every call with Netanyahu, Trump
01:21:49
goes from saying we're going to have peace to saying we're not going to have
01:21:52
peace and we're have these new impossible standards. It's happened about half a dozen times so far. It's
01:21:57
super clear that Israel is driving the bus. Plus, you could see it based on the facts on the ground. We have no interest
01:22:03
there. We have a deal ready to make for American interests. Israel says, "No,
01:22:07
we're not done because we need southern Lebanon and we need Iran to be completely decimated." This idea that
01:22:14
Kevin's talking about, to be fair to Kevin, almost everybody in in America thinks in this, well, now to be unfair
01:22:19
to Kevin, this fantasy world where the regime in Iran is just going to give up. It's never going to happen. We already
01:22:26
tried to regime change it. It it didn't work at all. They have an enormous infrastructure set up so it doesn't
01:22:34
really matter how many people you knock off at the top, somebody else rises up, somebody else rises up out of that
01:22:39
150,000 people that that Kevin's talking about. Now, China, he's got a theory
01:22:44
that maybe China puts pressure on him. That's not a crazy theory. I get it. At
01:22:47
the same time, China's looking at Russia and America and going, "Look at these
01:22:50
schmucks. Russia is wasting their entire military and resources in Ukraine. And now America's totally wasting their
01:22:57
military and resources in Iran. And these two other knuckleheads keep punching themselves in the face.
01:23:04
Meanwhile, we haven't started any wars if you're China. And so we haven't had
01:23:08
any of those costs. We haven't had any of those troubles. We don't have that PR
01:23:11
problem. So when we go into Africa or Latin America and we say, "Hey, you know
01:23:14
what? We're going to build roads and bridges for you guys and America's going
01:23:17
to come and bomb you. So which one do you want to do a deal with?" Now a lot
01:23:21
of them are saying, "No, we want to do a deal with China." because they don't do
01:23:25
war. Uh instead they build infrastructure. Look, it just is a business strategy, an economic strategy
01:23:30
that is much much smarter. But we can't go into a smart strategy because Israel
01:23:34
won't let us. Every time we go towards peace, Israel blocks it. And today, this
01:23:40
weekend, we had both Republicans and Democrats go out and say we shouldn't do
01:23:45
the peace deal. You want to know what the one connective tissue? Every one of those politicians had over a million
01:23:51
dollars given to them by the Israeli lobby. So that's just the stone cold reality of it. And so in terms of energy
01:23:58
here at home, Kevin says we're not going to run out. But he also acknowledged
01:24:01
that no, wait a minute, that has nothing to do with anything. We oil goes into a
01:24:06
world market and it is controlled by world prices. So the fact that we are so-called energy independent means
01:24:12
nothing. That's not even our oil or gas. It's Exon Mobile and Chevrons. So they
01:24:17
could sell it anywhere they want and they do sell it anywhere they want. The only way to get them to sell it
01:24:22
exclusively in America is to do socialism and say you're not allowed to sell that oil anywhere else. I don't
01:24:28
think Kevin wants that. So that means we are definitely not energyindependent. We
01:24:34
are definitely tied to global oil prices and that means again more disaster. When
01:24:39
you get to tech, oh my god, the Israelis used AI in Gaza. They did this uh program called Where's Daddy. AI would
01:24:47
pick a target uh that was maybe connected to someone in Hamas at some point, but they did, you know, he called
01:24:55
this guy and the other guy called other guy and that lady now has a cell phone. Good enough. But they would wait till
01:25:00
their target went home so they would bomb the house and kill their entire family. If that's the future of tech in
01:25:08
the military, we're all doomed. So, they've been testing all of this stuff
01:25:12
in Gaza and now they're doing in Iran. What I'm worried about is what Larry
01:25:16
Ellison said. He said, "Oh, we now can track all citizens anywhere and we're
01:25:22
going to bring that technology to America." I don't want their surveillance state. I don't want
01:25:26
anything to do with the Israelis. Let's just come home and serve American interest. That's what I keep. That's But
01:25:33
the good news, Stephen, is almost all the voters agree. 80% of Democrats now have a negative view of Israel and say,
01:25:38
"No, take care of American voters first. When you get to under 50 years old in
01:25:44
all parties, Israel now has a negative 45 rating." The only people left in this
01:25:49
country who still want to serve Israel are our politicians and our media. That's it. The rest of us can't stand
01:25:55
them anymore and the endless wars they drag us into and all the money they take from us. And Kevin, as a businessman,
01:26:02
what are we doing? Why are we letting this country the size of their population is the equivalent of Papa New
01:26:08
Guinea lead us around by the nose and get us into endless wars? You know, this war in Iran isn't helping us. And and if
01:26:14
they continue and they bomb the infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf countries, you know, it's going to take
01:26:18
5 to 10 years to rebuild and it is going to be a global economic disaster. What are we doing? We got to get rid of the
01:26:25
Israelis. I don't mean that in a physical way. Just get them out of our government and make decisions based on
01:26:31
what's good for America. will be 10,000 times better off and then we could end
01:26:36
the war. >> I think if there was a path to peace in the Middle East, it's one of the largest
01:26:41
consumer markets on earth. Just Iran itself has 100 million people. They buy stuff. And you know, I think about the
01:26:50
future of a global economy. If there was stability there, uh including peace with
01:26:55
Israel and their neighbors, that would be an amazing market, a huge market. And one of the reasons that people like me
01:27:03
keep a foothold or a footprint in the UAE, it is and was the capital of capital until nine weeks ago. And I
01:27:12
think it'll return at some point. That's a the size of the market in Egypt,
01:27:19
Jordan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, I mean, and Iran are they're just huge. And those
01:27:27
people want stuff that we make. I mean, you know, it's that pragmatic. It's that
01:27:32
So, if you could have peace and stabilize and you want to sell stuff, that's a massive market. And and I, you
01:27:40
know, that's why I remain an optimist on how this gets resolved because at the
01:27:45
end of the day, it doesn't matter what religion you are or, you know, what country you're in or what geography you
01:27:51
came from. Most people, and I would say 99% want to raise a family, have a job, and enjoy life. they don't want to get
01:27:59
blown up. And so I'm I'm kind of an optimist that it's in everybody's
01:28:05
interest to solve this. It's kind of like the the human condition is I'd like
01:28:10
to get, you know, I'd like to form a family unit and I'd like to live a peaceful life and I'd like to buy stuff.
01:28:15
I want to be a consumer. So I'm uh in the camp that says, look, I don't know
01:28:19
how this thing gets resolved. Nobody does. I'm disappointed that there's no
01:28:24
peace deal this weekend, but hopefully there'll be one soon. But in the end,
01:28:29
most people want peace, period. Unless you're, you know, you're crazed as a
01:28:35
crazed leader and you just want to kill everybody. Those people don't last that
01:28:40
long. They don't seem to, well, they're certainly not lasting that long in Iran
01:28:44
right now, but you're right. They keep popping up. But at some point, I don't
01:28:48
know. I think uh peace is a better deal for everybody. There should be a button just down below here. And if it says
01:28:54
subscribed, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber, that means you're
01:28:58
not yet. And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit
01:29:01
that button? It helps the show more than you know. And according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches
01:29:05
our show, but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much, Kevin. Um,
01:29:09
based on that, based on both our conversation on AI and also how unpopular this war is, what we're seeing
01:29:16
across the world at the moment is this rise in socialism in Western markets. We're seeing it in the UK. We're seeing
01:29:21
it around Europe. And we're also seeing it in the United States. Positive views
01:29:24
of capitalism amongst all Americans has dropped to an all-time low according to a poll done by Gallup. Um, a massive
01:29:32
almost 70% of Democrats now view socialism positively with only 40% roughly view capitalism favorably. And
01:29:39
again, this was at the end of last year, so these stats aren't even factoring in
01:29:43
the war. And a staggering 62% of young Americans hold a favorable view of socialism as well. So, as we head
01:29:49
towards the midterms, but also the elections, which I'm not actually that far away now. It's quite clear to me, as
01:29:54
someone that, you know, I I'm an entrepreneur in the United States. I I live in Los Angeles, as you know. Um I
01:29:59
build businesses. It's quite clear to me that we're on the verge of a very
01:30:03
different type of America. And we've seen, you know, um Zhan Mandani be elected in New York, and we're seeing
01:30:08
this sort of socialistic nar narrative spread like wildfire. I think heavily fueled by both wars, but also by
01:30:14
technology, AI, and sort of wealth inequality. Do you agree that if things continue on this trajectory, we're
01:30:21
heading towards a more socialist America? >> No. What I agree on is I'm I'm a history
01:30:28
buff. Um you can go back into the uh 40s and 50s. It seems every 17 to 20 years we take um a dip back into socialism and
01:30:38
back in those days communism even in New York in Brooklyn longing for what the Soviet Union had or Cuba had in its
01:30:48
heyday. Um and then the outcome is always the same. It doesn't work. And so it it really you have all these
01:30:58
different ideas about how a country should run and what works best for all the faults that US has now and the
01:31:05
debates we have and you know AOC and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and all this rhetoric and I get it. I mean
01:31:13
they're they're very successful politicians. I love AOC. She just spews out stuff and raises five bucks at a
01:31:20
time. You know it's smart. It's a great social media strategy. And same with
01:31:24
Bernie. I mean, the guy But will she be president of the United States? I don't
01:31:29
think so. And will Bernie get there? No. Why does everybody leave Massachusetts,
01:31:34
including my son, because you can't raise any money there to start a company? The super tax is stupid. And
01:31:41
so, it it's sort of it's it's a it's a it's a mixing pot of ideas and
01:31:46
competition. But in the end, and I always say this to my students because I I what I find so interesting about, you
01:31:54
know, a 20 a cohort of 23 year olds that I teach in in business classes and injury classes, they're all socialists,
01:32:01
all of them, until they get their first paycheck. Then they become capitalists when they see something called tax. And
01:32:10
they wonder, "Wait a second, wait a second. Where'd half my salary go? What's this?" And I say, "That's tax."
01:32:17
Now, if you want it to be 80% tax, you follow that trail that you had before I started teaching you, you were a
01:32:25
socialist. And now, what are you? Well, I can't pay 50% tax. No kidding. Well,
01:32:31
move to Austin, move to Tennessee, you move to Florida like everybody else is doing, and you'll pay 16%. And so I love
01:32:39
the fact that everybody's an idealist socialist until they get their first paycheck. And
01:32:45
that's how America works. It's a wonderful thing. And I say it's good
01:32:50
because you all everybody has a vote. We continue to believe in that. And I think
01:32:56
the debate rages on and it's great. And everybody has an opinion. I have mine,
01:33:01
others have theirs. And I love to be part of this course. You know, one of the reasons I keep doing what I do is I
01:33:06
love to get into the with everybody. I like to say the things I say cuz I really believe them and I've
01:33:13
been there before. I'm wise. I've seen this movie before. That's what I tell my
01:33:19
students and it freaks them out. >> Just a yes or no answer in this question. So in 2028, do you think
01:33:25
another capitalistic sort of focused candidate will win the election >> or do you think a Democrat or a
01:33:30
socialist will? I don't think socialism's going to is socialism going to make it in America at the uh in the
01:33:36
office of the White House. I think the pendulum always swings. The Biden administration went way too far in one
01:33:43
direction. It snapped back. Now you might argue it went too far the other way and it snaps back. The whole idea of
01:33:50
midterm gives you the smell test of the direction which is coming up just months
01:33:54
away and then you'll see who emerges. I don't think we know who the next
01:34:00
president of the United States is going to be, him or her. We don't know who's
01:34:05
going to emerge. >> What's your sense though, Kevin? You're you're a predict you're a man that makes
01:34:08
predictions. Is it Democrat or is it Republican in your view? Got to give me a straight answer here.
01:34:12
>> I I I wouldn't even make that guess. It's It's so difficult. I really don't
01:34:16
know. I I I really think that in my view, the Democrats have lost their way. I would like to see them find a new
01:34:24
leader that's more moderate. I don't think you can spew socialism and get elected. You got to find somebody
01:34:31
that is in the middle that is more pragmatic about providing jobs. I mean, look at California. What a mess that
01:34:38
place is. It's just they may actually they may hire a Republican mayor out there. I mean, that's going to be a
01:34:46
shakaroo for LA. But it's gotten pretty bad. I work out there. It's a you can't
01:34:52
even wear your watch at daytime anymore. I mean, it That's true. >> It's a mess. It's a mess. It's a a
01:34:59
lawless wasteland. It has poor management, no executional skills with the politicians. I mean, you know,
01:35:05
you're lucky to be You work there. You know what I'm talking about. >> Jenk, what's your point of view on that
01:35:09
socialism? Is it coming to America midterms 2028? It's a lot to talk about there. So,
01:35:15
look, I I'm not a fan of Karen Bass. I voted against her before. I probably vote against her again in this mayor's
01:35:20
race. Uh, and so I think that sometimes Democrats, uh, like to get mired in their bureaucracy and not push for
01:35:27
enough change. So, uh, so I'm not a person who just, uh, supports Democrats no matter what. In fact, I criticize
01:35:34
Democrats a lot on the Young Turks. Uh, but no, you're not going to get your
01:35:38
watch stolen in LA. Uh, I have a family. We go out all the time. It's perfectly
01:35:42
safe. Uh, so for a little while between 2019 and 2023, crime really did rise in some of the big cities. We talked about
01:35:49
on the air. were very honest about it. It took some heat from the left on it, but crime's gone down significantly in
01:35:54
24 and 25. So, I don't think those are real issues anymore. In terms of uh our
01:35:59
economic model, we need a couple of clarifications here. So, as I said earlier, we we really do corporatism in
01:36:05
America. And another word for that or phrase for it is crony capitalism. So, we'd be lucky to get back to capitalism,
01:36:12
let alone going all the way to socialism because right now we don't have capitalism. We don't have free markets.
01:36:17
We have uh every industry has captured the government. They've bribed all of
01:36:21
our politicians. We can't negotiate prices. Uh these are the I mean that is the most socialist thing I've ever heard
01:36:28
except socialism for corporations. It's mindbending. And that's and that's what
01:36:32
corporism is. It's totally run a muck now. And why is that? Because of money
01:36:36
and politics. So in order to fix all of these problems and to get back to real free markets and capitalism, you have
01:36:43
got to get the money out of politics. If you don't do that, you're just on a
01:36:47
treadmill of corruption and it never ends. And you get BS guys like Biden and Trump who come in and tell you that
01:36:53
they're going to drain the swamp and then they fill it up even more and even
01:36:56
more. So they and they serve all their donors. So in terms of socialism, we never define what it means. The reality
01:37:03
is most governments are mixed economies. Not most governments, almost all governments are mixed economies. So when
01:37:10
we say socialism, are we talking about Cuba or are we talking about the Netherlands? Because you could argue
01:37:16
that Northern Europe does socialism. Uh they have a lot more things that are public rather than private. But do they
01:37:22
have private businesses? Of course they do. Right? So I would argue that democratic capitalism is the right way
01:37:27
to go where we have capitalism, but it is checked by democracy. the CEOs and the shareholders look out for the
01:37:34
companies and the legislators and the president and the prime ministers are supposed to look out for the citizens
01:37:39
and check the corporations so they don't run a muck. I think Northern Europe's
01:37:43
probably pretty close to that. In terms of candidates here in America, again, I'd have to say Roana is probably
01:37:49
the closest one to that. And so if you go too far left, um I get it that that's
01:37:55
hard, especially on identity politics, which again we're not a fan of on the
01:37:59
Young Turks and we don't think that's the right direction to go and it just
01:38:03
divides our country. Uh so I don't think that that type of far-left candidate can
01:38:07
can win a national election. But after what Trump does this to this country, what he's already done to this country,
01:38:13
Republicans, I have one thing to tell you. N there's no way. The the midterms are
01:38:22
gone. Nobody's showing up to vote. Their voter enthusiasm is gone, obliterated.
01:38:28
And by 2028, we're going to have the disaster from the war and disaster from
01:38:33
AI, unemployment. So they they only have one guy who could win, and I'm worried
01:38:38
about it, and that's Tucker Carlson. If Tucker runs in the Republican primary,
01:38:43
he definitely wins that primary. You can quote me on it. And then you could have
01:38:46
Kevin laughing and you could rerun that tape. It'll be great. In fact, back in
01:38:50
2016, I was on ABC's This Week with Stephanopoulos. They asked the whole panel who's going to win. At that point,
01:38:56
they just won the Democratic National Convention and Hillary Clinton had a 10-point lead. I was the only one on the
01:39:01
panel to say Donald Trump was going to win. And they all laughed out loud. Populists win. The people chasing after
01:39:08
the donors, whether it's Israel or Big Farmer or any of the other donors, then
01:39:12
nobody nobody likes those people. Kla Harris lost because she was bragging about how she had 90 corporate CEOs on
01:39:20
her side. I got bad news for her. Nobody likes corporate CEOs. Sorry Kevin. Sorry
01:39:24
me. But the reality is that's what every poll shows. It is deeply deeply unpopular and these days it's pretty
01:39:32
merited. So if if you've got someone in the right lane, which is Democratic capitalism, I think they win.
01:39:38
>> We just got two minutes left. Kevin, uh you laughed there at the suggestion that
01:39:41
Tucker Carlson might win. I know Tucker. I just did a thing with him this week. It was really interesting
01:39:48
because he's taken a a very um uh controversial view about AI and that's
01:39:54
the debate we had. And he has obviously shifted his focus uh from being proTrump
01:40:00
to something else. But you know, I have to admit when I think about it, that is a possibility if he would uh align
01:40:07
himself. I'm not sure what party he represents anymore. I think he is a selfproclaimed Republican, but um that's
01:40:17
interesting idea. The more I think about it, I can't I can't I I know I laughed
01:40:20
at it, but I've been thinking about it for the last couple of minutes. Yeah. I
01:40:24
mean, the guy has a massive base. Um he has a his own network now, which is something you kind of need these days
01:40:31
in. Uh you need a really strong social media base to play um in politics and and to and to fight the fights in the
01:40:39
seven states. you really got to have a good organization on social. So, I mean, I think it's going to be fascinating.
01:40:44
Um, I think we'll get a pretty good indication of what the themes will be in
01:40:49
November. Uh, affordability obviously remains a big one. Um, border remains a big one in in the US, but AI could
01:40:59
emerge as as a big one too. I mean it maybe but I I think by then um I always look at these big you know AI
01:41:08
kind of burst on the theme but it's not really about data centers and power it's
01:41:12
about jobs I think is where it's going and I don't know if that gets resolved
01:41:17
by you can always be a fear mongerer about the robots eating the babies and maybe that is an election issue. I don't
01:41:24
know. We'll see. It's going to be interesting though cuz it it wasn't an
01:41:28
issue until 6 months ago. Jen, last word before we close out. >> Yeah. So, look, I don't think that a
01:41:35
pro-Israel candidate can win. Uh, and so, but all of our politicians are trained to be pro-Israel. And
01:41:41
apparently, they have trouble reading polls. So, uh, I think that that, you know, a populist right versus populist
01:41:49
left would in a sense be a dream. Um, because either way, you hope that they I mean, the key has to be that they have
01:41:57
to be real. I mean, we're so tired of these fake politicians in America. They
01:42:01
never do what they say they're going to do. They always back the donors. But if
01:42:05
you got two honest guys, and by the way, maybe it's Kana versus Massie, and that
01:42:09
would be amazing. Or maybe it's Kana and Massie, but there's two guys who were
01:42:13
clearly honest in Congress, and you know, I can name Bernie as my third. I'm
01:42:18
going to struggle on the fourth one. So, there aren't that many choices. So, and
01:42:24
maybe we go populist, we go independent, and we go in a new direction because God
01:42:28
knows that America needs a new direction. >> Kevin Jenk, thank you so much for the
01:42:33
time. Um, I've been a fan of both of you for many, many, many years. I was saying
01:42:36
to Jenk before we started recording that I think I've watched The Young Tuck
01:42:39
since I was 19. And when I say watched, I mean really, really watched, not not casually saw it, but I would watch it
01:42:45
almost daily when I was going through uh building my businesses and sort of coming into the professional world. So,
01:42:50
thank you so much, Jen. It's a pleasure to have spent this time with you and
01:42:52
Kevin. Again, I've been, you know, my my my favorite shark for I think 15 years
01:42:56
now. Um, for many, many, many reasons. Thank you to both of you. Um, I really, really appreciate it. And hopefully
01:43:02
we'll have this discussion again soon once all of this plays out because the
01:43:05
answer to a lot of these questions has been I don't know. And we shall see. So,
01:43:09
we shall see. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks a lot. YouTube have this new
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crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing
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