Author: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway

  • Ambition, Media, and What’s Left of Hollywood — with Barry Diller

    AI transcript
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    0:01:37 Episode 352.
    0:01:39 352 is the area code serving Northern Florida.
    0:01:42 In 1952, the contraceptive pill was introduced.
    0:01:44 What does MAGA use for contraception?
    0:01:46 Their personality.
    0:01:48 Yeah, I said it.
    0:01:49 And by the way,
    0:01:52 if you’re going to fill my comments up with how I have Trump derangement syndrome,
    0:01:56 just look at what’s going on with the fascist movement in Los Angeles.
    0:01:59 And if you unsubscribe, I promise to send you a full refund.
    0:02:02 Go! Go! Go!
    0:02:13 Welcome to the 352nd episode of the Prop G-Pod.
    0:02:13 What’s happening?
    0:02:15 I am back in London.
    0:02:18 I went London, Paris, Paris, Miami,
    0:02:21 Miami, New York for a couple days,
    0:02:22 then to Detroit for Summit,
    0:02:24 and then back home.
    0:02:27 The highlight was I did this thing called the Faena Rumble,
    0:02:29 where they set it up like a boxing tournament.
    0:02:31 And it’s sort of a debate.
    0:02:33 The audience asks questions,
    0:02:34 you have a minute to respond,
    0:02:35 then the other person responds,
    0:02:37 and then at the end of the fight,
    0:02:40 the audience decides who won the bout.
    0:02:43 And I debated a guy named Shermichael Singleton,
    0:02:46 who’s a fairly well-known conservative
    0:02:49 who’s on CNN a lot.
    0:02:52 I would describe him as sort of a Romney or Bush conservative
    0:02:53 in that he isn’t fucking crazy
    0:02:55 and is pretty thoughtful.
    0:02:56 I was really impressed with him.
    0:02:58 He’s a really young man, a 34-year-old.
    0:03:01 But I went into this.
    0:03:03 I agreed to do this because my buddy wanted to do it
    0:03:04 and asked me to commit,
    0:03:06 because, you know, kind of a big deal.
    0:03:09 And then I find out I’m going up against some young Republican,
    0:03:10 and it’s like, okay, I’m fucked.
    0:03:12 Anyways, it was a lot of fun.
    0:03:13 He’s a really impressive kid.
    0:03:15 Came back to London last night
    0:03:17 to find out that my hometown of Los Angeles
    0:03:20 is being occupied by the National Guard.
    0:03:21 The last time I happened,
    0:03:22 or last time I happened,
    0:03:24 I was actually in Los Angeles.
    0:03:27 I had returned home from business school.
    0:03:28 Was it business school?
    0:03:28 I think it was business school.
    0:03:29 And I was living with my mom,
    0:03:32 and we live in a suburb of Los Angeles, Westwood,
    0:03:33 right behind UCLA.
    0:03:36 And I came home,
    0:03:37 and on every corner,
    0:03:39 there were two young men,
    0:03:40 they looked 17 and fatigues,
    0:03:43 with M15s.
    0:03:44 They call them the semi-automatic
    0:03:46 that they used to carry way back when.
    0:03:48 And it was very odd and very strange
    0:03:50 and a very dark moment for us.
    0:03:51 But this was back when people
    0:03:52 were being pulled out of their cars,
    0:03:53 beaten up,
    0:03:54 bricks being thrown,
    0:03:56 people were killed.
    0:03:57 And my understanding is,
    0:03:59 having spoken to several people
    0:03:59 who live in Los Angeles,
    0:04:01 most of my college friends are still there,
    0:04:04 there really isn’t anything going on
    0:04:06 that would in any way
    0:04:08 indicate a need for this type
    0:04:10 of brute federal force.
    0:04:12 I think this is,
    0:04:14 when you think about what you want to do
    0:04:15 in your own household
    0:04:15 as you get older,
    0:04:16 a little bit more mature,
    0:04:19 or as the man of the household,
    0:04:20 I think your job is oftentimes
    0:04:21 to de-escalate.
    0:04:22 And that is,
    0:04:23 I do that a lot
    0:04:24 in confrontations in my house
    0:04:25 and my company.
    0:04:26 And that is,
    0:04:28 I try and de-escalate the situation
    0:04:29 such that,
    0:04:29 because what happens
    0:04:30 when you get to a certain point,
    0:04:32 people start saying things
    0:04:32 or doing things
    0:04:34 that is difficult to take back
    0:04:36 and just makes a bad situation
    0:04:37 much worse.
    0:04:39 And if you think about it,
    0:04:39 the whole point,
    0:04:41 or one of the wonderful things
    0:04:41 about being a president
    0:04:43 and having a huge military
    0:04:44 and a bully pulpit
    0:04:45 that’s the biggest platform
    0:04:46 in the world,
    0:04:46 arguably,
    0:04:48 is you can kind of be
    0:04:50 the master de-escalator.
    0:04:51 That’s kind of your job.
    0:04:52 We’re called on
    0:04:53 to try and create peace
    0:04:54 and de-escalate.
    0:04:56 And this is a perfect example
    0:04:57 of doing exactly the opposite.
    0:04:58 This is setting up
    0:04:59 a confrontation.
    0:05:00 This is incendiary.
    0:05:02 It’s inflaming emotions.
    0:05:03 You’re supposed to only
    0:05:04 send in the National Guard.
    0:05:04 And by the way,
    0:05:05 he’s allowed to do this
    0:05:06 under Title XI.
    0:05:07 He’s supposed to be able
    0:05:08 to use federal resources
    0:05:09 to ensure that people’s work
    0:05:10 gets done.
    0:05:12 But it’s almost always
    0:05:13 the governor requested
    0:05:14 a natural disaster
    0:05:15 when things get out of control
    0:05:16 as they did in 1992.
    0:05:18 But this is just setting up
    0:05:19 a confrontation.
    0:05:20 I don’t,
    0:05:21 you know,
    0:05:22 I have a bias here,
    0:05:23 but I believe that ultimately
    0:05:24 Governor Newsom
    0:05:25 is going to come out of this
    0:05:26 probably looking pretty good
    0:05:27 because I think
    0:05:28 he’s been forceful
    0:05:29 yet dignified.
    0:05:31 And he’s sort of setting up
    0:05:32 the national stage
    0:05:34 of Trump versus Newsom,
    0:05:35 which I think will ultimately
    0:05:35 end up being
    0:05:36 kind of J.D. Vance
    0:05:38 versus Newsom.
    0:05:39 I think Newsom has
    0:05:40 stronger prospects
    0:05:41 to get the Democratic nomination
    0:05:42 than people like.
    0:05:42 Why?
    0:05:45 I think the nation
    0:05:46 is exceptionally luxest
    0:05:48 and that he just looks
    0:05:48 very presidential.
    0:05:49 I also think he has
    0:05:50 a good story to tell.
    0:05:51 Fourth largest economy
    0:05:51 in the world
    0:05:52 for all the shitposting
    0:05:53 from VCs who leave
    0:05:54 to get tax status
    0:05:54 in Florida
    0:05:55 and then move back.
    0:05:57 California’s created
    0:05:58 more tax revenue.
    0:05:59 It’s a net contributor.
    0:06:00 It gives, I believe,
    0:06:01 $80 billion
    0:06:02 or sends $80 billion
    0:06:03 back to the federal government,
    0:06:03 whereas a lot of these
    0:06:04 red states take money.
    0:06:05 For example,
    0:06:06 Texas, I think,
    0:06:07 takes about $70 billion.
    0:06:09 But what is the danger here?
    0:06:10 I’d like to think
    0:06:11 I’m hoping things
    0:06:12 are going to maintain civility
    0:06:14 and de-escalate
    0:06:15 and that the president
    0:06:16 will do his fucking job.
    0:06:18 But I’ve always thought
    0:06:19 that I’ve always kind of,
    0:06:20 you know,
    0:06:20 I’m definitely
    0:06:21 a glass half empty
    0:06:22 kind of person.
    0:06:23 So what could go wrong here?
    0:06:24 How does America end?
    0:06:25 How does America end?
    0:06:27 The thing is,
    0:06:28 we think of ourselves,
    0:06:29 we’re so narcissistic
    0:06:29 and think of America
    0:06:31 as such a big, powerful,
    0:06:32 you know,
    0:06:34 and we’re right,
    0:06:36 such an unbelievably huge,
    0:06:38 dramatic icon,
    0:06:39 center of the universe
    0:06:40 that if America
    0:06:41 were to go out of business
    0:06:41 or end,
    0:06:42 it would go down with a bang.
    0:06:44 I don’t think that’s true.
    0:06:45 I think America goes out
    0:06:46 of business with a whimper.
    0:06:48 And that is,
    0:06:49 this is a step towards that.
    0:06:50 This is a confrontation
    0:06:51 between the federal government
    0:06:53 and a politically
    0:06:56 oppositional governor
    0:06:57 in a liberal state.
    0:06:59 Trump is not going to send
    0:07:00 federal troops
    0:07:01 into a red state.
    0:07:02 he’s already,
    0:07:03 they’ve already are trying
    0:07:04 to demonize Governor Walz
    0:07:04 in Minnesota.
    0:07:06 Basically,
    0:07:07 he’s deciding to weaponize
    0:07:08 the federal government
    0:07:09 to go after his,
    0:07:10 what he perceives
    0:07:11 as his political enemies
    0:07:12 or to distract
    0:07:13 from other things.
    0:07:13 I have this big,
    0:07:14 beautiful tax bill,
    0:07:15 which is just a giant
    0:07:17 fucking transfer of wealth
    0:07:18 from the poor to the rich,
    0:07:19 from the young to the old,
    0:07:21 from the future to the past.
    0:07:21 Anyway,
    0:07:24 this is how America ends.
    0:07:24 And I think,
    0:07:24 again,
    0:07:25 it’s with a,
    0:07:26 it’s with a whimper.
    0:07:27 And that is,
    0:07:29 there’s a confrontation.
    0:07:30 I don’t know if it results
    0:07:31 in violence or not,
    0:07:33 but maybe Governor Newsom
    0:07:33 says we’re no longer
    0:07:35 going to send our tax revenue
    0:07:36 back to the federal government.
    0:07:37 We’re just going to hold on to it.
    0:07:38 That ends up
    0:07:40 in another confrontation.
    0:07:41 There is an election.
    0:07:43 So you can now see states
    0:07:44 that have economies
    0:07:45 the size of a European nation
    0:07:45 decide,
    0:07:46 no,
    0:07:47 we’re no longer signed up
    0:07:48 for the federal government
    0:07:49 or what the people
    0:07:50 have decided
    0:07:50 on the Democratic
    0:07:52 or the Republican side.
    0:07:53 and we have a series
    0:07:55 of small nation states.
    0:07:57 California is a tech-centered economy
    0:07:58 that does a lot of business
    0:07:59 with Asia.
    0:08:01 The South is,
    0:08:02 or Texas would be,
    0:08:04 a oil and gas-centered economy
    0:08:05 doing a lot of business
    0:08:06 with the Gulf,
    0:08:07 if you will,
    0:08:08 or overseas
    0:08:09 or whoever needs oil.
    0:08:10 The Midwest
    0:08:12 is a manufacturing economy
    0:08:12 doing a lot of business
    0:08:13 with Canada.
    0:08:15 And I could see
    0:08:16 the East Coast
    0:08:17 breaking into its own fiefdom
    0:08:18 where it’s mostly
    0:08:19 about trade with Europe
    0:08:20 and finance
    0:08:21 and financial services.
    0:08:23 And this is the new
    0:08:25 dis-united states of America.
    0:08:26 And how does America
    0:08:27 come to an end?
    0:08:29 Not with a bang,
    0:08:30 but with a whimper.
    0:08:32 That was somber, wasn’t it?
    0:08:33 Wasn’t that light and cheery?
    0:08:34 Wasn’t that,
    0:08:35 aren’t I just a little bucket
    0:08:36 of sunshine today?
    0:08:37 Anyways,
    0:08:38 in today’s episode,
    0:08:40 we speak with Barry Diller,
    0:08:41 a businessman known
    0:08:41 for his influential roles
    0:08:42 in media and entertainment
    0:08:43 and the chairman
    0:08:44 and senior executive of ISE.
    0:08:46 We discuss with Barry
    0:08:47 his origin story,
    0:08:48 the current state of media
    0:08:48 and streaming,
    0:08:49 and his new book,
    0:08:50 Who Knew,
    0:08:51 out now.
    0:08:52 But I really enjoy
    0:08:53 Barry Diller.
    0:08:55 He was a media mogul
    0:08:56 when I was in college.
    0:08:56 This guy,
    0:08:57 as you’ll hear,
    0:08:58 he was doing,
    0:08:58 he was in charge
    0:08:59 of Movie of the Week.
    0:09:00 And if you’re my age,
    0:09:00 you remember that
    0:09:02 when he was in his early 20s.
    0:09:02 Anyways,
    0:09:03 with that,
    0:09:04 here’s our conversation
    0:09:05 with Barry Diller.
    0:09:13 Barry,
    0:09:14 where does this podcast
    0:09:14 find you?
    0:09:16 I’m in my New York office.
    0:09:18 Is that the big sales?
    0:09:19 Yes,
    0:09:20 it’s the Sailcloth
    0:09:21 Frank Gehry building.
    0:09:22 Yeah,
    0:09:23 it’s a beautiful building.
    0:09:24 I’ve done several events there.
    0:09:25 So,
    0:09:26 let’s bust right into this.
    0:09:28 I want to get your origin story.
    0:09:29 I remember being,
    0:09:31 I remember my senior year
    0:09:31 at UCLA,
    0:09:32 I had a job
    0:09:33 selling insurance
    0:09:34 and I wanted to break
    0:09:35 into media
    0:09:35 and I had a friend
    0:09:36 named Tom Noonan
    0:09:38 and he worked
    0:09:39 for you
    0:09:40 like two levels down
    0:09:41 or he knew you.
    0:09:43 you were already
    0:09:43 kind of a master
    0:09:45 of the universe then.
    0:09:45 But what,
    0:09:46 is this like
    0:09:47 ancient history
    0:09:48 we’re doing here?
    0:09:48 Like,
    0:09:50 is this like 1912?
    0:09:50 No,
    0:09:52 this is like 1987.
    0:09:54 I think you were at Fox.
    0:09:54 In 1987,
    0:09:55 I was at Fox.
    0:09:56 Yeah,
    0:09:57 so,
    0:09:58 I would just love
    0:09:59 to get your origin story
    0:10:00 and how you ended up
    0:10:01 in,
    0:10:02 as a fairly young man,
    0:10:03 kind of being a captain
    0:10:05 of media industry.
    0:10:05 Like,
    0:10:06 give us the origin story,
    0:10:07 Barry Diller.
    0:10:09 Let’s do
    0:10:10 when I kind of
    0:10:11 went to work
    0:10:12 since I had
    0:10:14 no seeming ambition
    0:10:15 until I walked
    0:10:15 into the
    0:10:17 William Morris Agency
    0:10:19 as a mailboy,
    0:10:19 basically,
    0:10:20 although I never
    0:10:21 really delivered mail
    0:10:23 and I ended up
    0:10:24 reading the file room
    0:10:26 and at that time,
    0:10:27 file rooms were,
    0:10:29 this was a huge room
    0:10:30 with big file cabinets
    0:10:32 and in it
    0:10:33 was basically
    0:10:33 the history
    0:10:34 of the entertainment business.
    0:10:36 I found a way
    0:10:37 not to deliver mail
    0:10:38 or do what the other
    0:10:39 guys were doing,
    0:10:40 which were trying
    0:10:41 to be agents,
    0:10:42 which I never wanted to be
    0:10:43 and I basically read
    0:10:44 the entire file room
    0:10:46 and that was
    0:10:49 the most fortuitous thing
    0:10:50 because I got
    0:10:52 the entire,
    0:10:52 I mean,
    0:10:53 William Morris
    0:10:53 had been in business
    0:10:54 then for
    0:10:57 70 years or something
    0:10:58 and it represented
    0:10:59 almost everyone
    0:11:00 so it had
    0:11:01 all the history.
    0:11:02 So I read
    0:11:03 The Life of Elvis Presley.
    0:11:04 I read the,
    0:11:04 I mean,
    0:11:05 it was just
    0:11:07 incredible basing
    0:11:08 and then
    0:11:10 I got serendipitously lucky
    0:11:11 in that
    0:11:13 they wouldn’t throw me
    0:11:14 out of William Morris
    0:11:15 because I never wanted
    0:11:15 to be an agent
    0:11:17 and they only
    0:11:19 did these mailboy things
    0:11:20 in order to turn people
    0:11:22 into productive agents
    0:11:23 and I was never
    0:11:23 going to be that
    0:11:25 and I’d finished
    0:11:26 kind of the file room
    0:11:27 and I think they were
    0:11:27 getting ready
    0:11:28 to throw me out
    0:11:29 and luckily
    0:11:30 I took
    0:11:32 the only job
    0:11:34 that I was offered
    0:11:34 which was to be
    0:11:35 the assistant
    0:11:37 to what I thought
    0:11:39 was a middle level
    0:11:41 job at ABC
    0:11:43 in Los Angeles
    0:11:45 in what was called
    0:11:45 current programming
    0:11:47 and the day
    0:11:48 that I accepted
    0:11:49 that job
    0:11:50 they fired the czar
    0:11:50 of ABC
    0:11:52 and they reached out
    0:11:52 and they picked
    0:11:53 my guy
    0:11:53 so instead of
    0:11:54 being the assistant
    0:11:55 to this West Coast person
    0:11:56 I moved to New York
    0:11:58 to be the assistant
    0:11:58 to the head
    0:11:59 of the network
    0:12:00 and within six months
    0:12:00 I was kind of running
    0:12:01 the program department
    0:12:02 so there you go
    0:12:03 that was
    0:12:05 at age 23
    0:12:07 There’s something
    0:12:08 that clearly came
    0:12:08 from your
    0:12:10 even earlier than that
    0:12:11 what influences
    0:12:12 growing up
    0:12:13 gave you that type
    0:12:13 of drive
    0:12:14 that type of creativity
    0:12:15 like when you look
    0:12:16 back on your childhood
    0:12:17 and how you were raised
    0:12:18 is there anything
    0:12:18 or people
    0:12:19 that stand out?
    0:12:21 I think that
    0:12:22 all of the things
    0:12:24 that were
    0:12:25 enormously
    0:12:26 enormous difficulties
    0:12:27 for me
    0:12:28 all those kind
    0:12:30 of insecurities
    0:12:31 inadequacies
    0:12:33 feeling that I had
    0:12:33 no self
    0:12:34 that I didn’t deserve
    0:12:36 for all sorts
    0:12:37 of excuses
    0:12:38 of sexual confusion
    0:12:39 and stuff
    0:12:40 and one big secret
    0:12:42 which if you have
    0:12:42 one big secret
    0:12:44 and it’s an
    0:12:45 overwhelming one
    0:12:46 it tends
    0:12:47 to let
    0:12:48 all the other
    0:12:49 risks
    0:12:50 reduce in size
    0:12:51 so you can take
    0:12:52 these giant
    0:12:53 risks
    0:12:53 because the
    0:12:54 big risk
    0:12:55 is just
    0:12:56 obliviating
    0:12:57 everything else
    0:12:57 so
    0:12:59 that’s
    0:13:00 in a way
    0:13:01 not that God
    0:13:02 knows I wanted it
    0:13:03 but
    0:13:04 it allowed me
    0:13:05 to take
    0:13:05 risks
    0:13:06 everywhere else
    0:13:07 my family
    0:13:08 never thought
    0:13:09 that I would
    0:13:10 actually ever work
    0:13:11 and they were
    0:13:12 had resources
    0:13:13 enough that it
    0:13:14 didn’t really matter
    0:13:15 but
    0:13:16 I had no
    0:13:16 seeming ambition
    0:13:18 up until the age
    0:13:19 of really 19
    0:13:21 and I didn’t
    0:13:21 really want to
    0:13:22 go to school
    0:13:23 and I was
    0:13:23 kind of just
    0:13:24 hibernating
    0:13:25 but once
    0:13:26 I found
    0:13:27 actually when I
    0:13:28 walked into
    0:13:29 that William Morris
    0:13:29 agency
    0:13:30 because I’d always
    0:13:31 been interested
    0:13:31 in the entertainment
    0:13:31 business
    0:13:32 when I walked in
    0:13:34 and I started
    0:13:35 reading about
    0:13:37 that world
    0:13:39 that just
    0:13:39 drew me
    0:13:40 like the
    0:13:40 fiercest
    0:13:41 magnet
    0:13:42 and that
    0:13:42 ignited
    0:13:44 this
    0:13:45 I don’t know
    0:13:45 where that
    0:13:45 ambition
    0:13:46 was but
    0:13:47 it was
    0:13:47 certainly
    0:13:48 born
    0:13:49 of
    0:13:50 not
    0:13:50 feeling
    0:13:50 that
    0:13:51 there was
    0:13:51 any
    0:13:52 self
    0:13:53 or
    0:13:53 that
    0:13:54 I
    0:13:55 deserved
    0:13:56 any
    0:13:56 self
    0:13:57 and therefore
    0:13:58 that fuel
    0:13:58 that was
    0:13:59 just
    0:13:59 big
    0:13:59 fuel
    0:14:00 for me
    0:14:01 you said
    0:14:02 something
    0:14:03 off mic
    0:14:04 I was saying
    0:14:05 I wanted
    0:14:05 to talk
    0:14:05 more about
    0:14:06 business
    0:14:06 because everyone’s
    0:14:07 focused on
    0:14:07 other parts
    0:14:08 of the book
    0:14:09 but you said
    0:14:10 that you’re
    0:14:11 quote unquote
    0:14:11 secret
    0:14:12 and I assume
    0:14:12 that’s your
    0:14:13 sexuality
    0:14:13 you’re talking
    0:14:14 about
    0:14:15 well let me
    0:14:16 ask you this
    0:14:17 if you were
    0:14:18 a 20s
    0:14:18 something
    0:14:19 executive
    0:14:19 in today’s
    0:14:19 Hollywood
    0:14:20 which is
    0:14:21 much more
    0:14:22 accepting
    0:14:23 of people’s
    0:14:23 sexual orientation
    0:14:24 do you not
    0:14:24 think you’d be
    0:14:25 as successful
    0:14:26 as you were
    0:14:28 god I don’t
    0:14:29 have a clue
    0:14:29 I think
    0:14:31 no I
    0:14:31 I think I
    0:14:32 would not
    0:14:32 have
    0:14:33 I definitely
    0:14:34 think
    0:14:35 that the
    0:14:36 tools that
    0:14:37 I developed
    0:14:38 out of
    0:14:39 all of
    0:14:39 these seeming
    0:14:40 disadvantages
    0:14:42 absolutely
    0:14:43 did propel
    0:14:43 me
    0:14:44 for sure
    0:14:45 if I didn’t
    0:14:46 have those
    0:14:47 I’d probably
    0:14:48 be a ribbon
    0:14:48 clerk
    0:14:49 there’s this
    0:14:50 term trad
    0:14:50 dad
    0:14:51 traditional
    0:14:51 dads
    0:14:52 who are a
    0:14:52 little bit
    0:14:53 harsher
    0:14:53 and you
    0:14:53 know
    0:14:55 are not
    0:14:55 sitting
    0:14:55 kids
    0:14:56 down
    0:14:56 and asking
    0:14:56 them
    0:14:57 you know
    0:14:57 how this
    0:14:57 made them
    0:14:58 feel
    0:14:59 what I
    0:15:00 knew of
    0:15:00 you
    0:15:01 back in
    0:15:02 the 80s
    0:15:02 was you
    0:15:03 were like
    0:15:03 the trad
    0:15:04 manager
    0:15:05 people were
    0:15:05 scared of
    0:15:06 you
    0:15:06 you had
    0:15:07 a reputation
    0:15:08 for not
    0:15:08 suffering
    0:15:09 fools
    0:15:09 that you
    0:15:09 were
    0:15:11 a hard
    0:15:11 ass
    0:15:12 one
    0:15:13 is that
    0:15:13 accurate
    0:15:14 and two
    0:15:15 what can
    0:15:15 you tell
    0:15:16 us about
    0:15:16 how your
    0:15:17 management
    0:15:18 approach
    0:15:19 has
    0:15:19 if at
    0:15:19 all
    0:15:20 how it’s
    0:15:20 evolved
    0:15:21 as you’ve
    0:15:21 gotten
    0:15:21 older
    0:15:23 well
    0:15:23 yeah
    0:15:23 it is
    0:15:24 true
    0:15:24 I mean
    0:15:25 first of
    0:15:26 all I
    0:15:26 have this
    0:15:26 voice
    0:15:27 and that
    0:15:27 voice
    0:15:28 is a bit
    0:15:28 intimidating
    0:15:29 to begin
    0:15:29 with
    0:15:30 and then
    0:15:31 in all
    0:15:32 these
    0:15:32 because I’m
    0:15:33 so indirect
    0:15:33 in everything
    0:15:34 else in my
    0:15:34 life
    0:15:34 I’m so
    0:15:35 direct
    0:15:35 in
    0:15:37 anything
    0:15:37 relating
    0:15:38 to business
    0:15:38 I am
    0:15:39 direct
    0:15:39 I say
    0:15:40 exactly
    0:15:41 exactly
    0:15:41 I say
    0:15:42 what I
    0:15:42 think
    0:15:43 without
    0:15:43 kind of
    0:15:43 fear
    0:15:44 or favor
    0:15:44 and
    0:15:45 I
    0:15:46 like
    0:15:47 creative
    0:15:47 conflict
    0:15:48 I like
    0:15:48 argument
    0:15:49 I like
    0:15:50 the whole
    0:15:51 concept
    0:15:51 of
    0:15:52 arguing
    0:15:52 things
    0:15:53 out of
    0:15:53 passion
    0:15:53 because
    0:15:54 all I
    0:15:54 care
    0:15:54 about
    0:15:54 is
    0:15:54 instinct
    0:15:55 and
    0:15:55 in order
    0:15:56 to hear
    0:15:57 the truth
    0:15:57 of something
    0:15:58 you’ve got
    0:15:58 to push
    0:15:59 through
    0:15:59 and you’ve
    0:15:59 got to
    0:16:00 get
    0:16:00 all right
    0:16:01 what does
    0:16:01 that person
    0:16:02 really
    0:16:02 believe
    0:16:03 and
    0:16:04 taking
    0:16:04 out
    0:16:05 of
    0:16:05 those
    0:16:06 kind
    0:16:06 of
    0:16:07 clanging
    0:16:08 discussions
    0:16:09 you hear
    0:16:10 a truth
    0:16:10 and you
    0:16:10 can pull
    0:16:11 it
    0:16:11 when I
    0:16:11 notice
    0:16:12 somebody’s
    0:16:12 like
    0:16:12 I’m
    0:16:13 comfortable
    0:16:13 I say
    0:16:13 look
    0:16:14 this
    0:16:14 isn’t
    0:16:14 for you
    0:16:15 you don’t
    0:16:15 like
    0:16:16 this
    0:16:16 environment
    0:16:17 and
    0:16:18 whether it
    0:16:18 threatens
    0:16:18 you
    0:16:18 or
    0:16:18 does
    0:16:18 this
    0:16:19 you
    0:16:19 is
    0:16:19 of
    0:16:19 no
    0:16:20 matter
    0:16:20 except
    0:16:21 I
    0:16:21 don’t
    0:16:21 want
    0:16:22 anyone
    0:16:22 in it
    0:16:23 who
    0:16:24 isn’t
    0:16:25 accepting
    0:16:25 of the
    0:16:26 challenge
    0:16:26 of that
    0:16:27 kind
    0:16:27 of
    0:16:28 cauldron
    0:16:28 I
    0:16:29 just
    0:16:29 think
    0:16:29 it’s
    0:16:29 the
    0:16:29 most
    0:16:30 productive
    0:16:30 way
    0:16:31 to
    0:16:31 manage
    0:16:31 the
    0:16:32 other
    0:16:32 thing
    0:16:33 is
    0:16:33 that
    0:16:33 and
    0:16:33 it’s
    0:16:34 long
    0:16:34 gone
    0:16:34 for
    0:16:34 me
    0:16:35 now
    0:16:36 but
    0:16:36 I
    0:16:37 think
    0:16:37 the
    0:16:37 best
    0:16:37 way
    0:16:37 to
    0:16:38 learn
    0:16:38 to
    0:16:38 be
    0:16:39 a
    0:16:39 manager
    0:16:39 and
    0:16:39 evolve
    0:16:40 into
    0:16:40 that
    0:16:41 is
    0:16:41 and
    0:16:42 I
    0:16:42 got
    0:16:42 very
    0:16:42 lucky
    0:16:43 because
    0:16:43 at
    0:16:44 24
    0:16:44 and a
    0:16:45 half
    0:16:45 something
    0:16:45 like
    0:16:45 that
    0:16:46 I
    0:16:46 started
    0:16:46 this
    0:16:47 project
    0:16:47 called
    0:16:47 movie
    0:16:47 the
    0:16:48 week
    0:16:48 where
    0:16:48 I
    0:16:49 got
    0:16:49 to
    0:16:49 build
    0:16:50 my
    0:16:51 own
    0:16:51 company
    0:16:52 inside
    0:16:52 another
    0:16:53 company
    0:16:53 so
    0:16:54 for
    0:16:54 a
    0:16:54 couple
    0:16:55 of
    0:16:55 years
    0:16:55 I
    0:16:56 hired
    0:16:57 every
    0:16:57 first of
    0:16:57 all
    0:16:57 I
    0:16:58 did
    0:16:58 every
    0:16:58 job
    0:16:59 and
    0:16:59 I
    0:16:59 hired
    0:17:00 every
    0:17:00 single
    0:17:01 person
    0:17:02 up
    0:17:02 to
    0:17:02 the
    0:17:03 point
    0:17:03 when
    0:17:03 we
    0:17:03 had
    0:17:04 I
    0:17:04 don’t
    0:17:04 know
    0:17:05 hundreds
    0:17:06 and
    0:17:07 thousands
    0:17:07 of
    0:17:07 employees
    0:17:07 in
    0:17:08 that
    0:17:08 group
    0:17:09 so
    0:17:09 when
    0:17:09 you
    0:17:10 learn
    0:17:10 the
    0:17:11 luckiest
    0:17:11 thing
    0:17:11 anyone
    0:17:12 can
    0:17:12 get
    0:17:12 is
    0:17:13 to
    0:17:13 start
    0:17:14 something
    0:17:15 where
    0:17:15 you
    0:17:15 get
    0:17:15 to
    0:17:15 learn
    0:17:16 every
    0:17:16 job
    0:17:16 because
    0:17:17 in
    0:17:17 learning
    0:17:17 every
    0:17:18 job
    0:17:18 and
    0:17:18 in
    0:17:19 hiring
    0:17:19 the
    0:17:19 people
    0:17:19 and
    0:17:20 doing
    0:17:20 all
    0:17:20 that
    0:17:21 you
    0:17:21 actually
    0:17:22 learn
    0:17:22 to
    0:17:22 manage
    0:17:23 because
    0:17:23 you
    0:17:23 are
    0:17:24 so
    0:17:25 on
    0:17:25 the
    0:17:26 original
    0:17:26 ground
    0:17:27 of
    0:17:27 things
    0:17:27 and
    0:17:27 I
    0:17:28 think
    0:17:28 that
    0:17:28 is
    0:17:30 incredibly
    0:17:30 productive
    0:17:31 now
    0:17:31 I
    0:17:31 evolved
    0:17:32 out
    0:17:32 of
    0:17:32 that
    0:17:33 in
    0:17:33 my
    0:17:34 mid
    0:17:34 20s
    0:17:34 because
    0:17:35 by
    0:17:35 my
    0:17:36 late
    0:17:36 20s
    0:17:37 I
    0:17:38 was
    0:17:39 supervising
    0:17:40 a rather
    0:17:40 large
    0:17:41 organization
    0:17:42 and
    0:17:42 then
    0:17:42 at
    0:17:42 32
    0:17:42 I
    0:17:43 became
    0:17:43 chair
    0:17:43 on
    0:17:43 a
    0:17:44 paramount
    0:17:44 which
    0:17:44 is
    0:17:44 a
    0:17:44 whole
    0:17:45 other
    0:17:46 kind
    0:17:46 of
    0:17:47 management
    0:17:48 classes
    0:17:48 of
    0:17:49 learning
    0:17:49 how
    0:17:49 to
    0:17:50 be
    0:17:50 in
    0:17:51 a
    0:17:51 movie
    0:17:51 business
    0:17:51 where
    0:17:52 nobody
    0:17:52 from
    0:17:52 television
    0:17:53 had
    0:17:53 been
    0:17:53 in
    0:17:53 one
    0:17:53 before
    0:17:54 and
    0:17:54 they
    0:17:54 didn’t
    0:17:54 like
    0:17:55 those
    0:17:55 people
    0:17:56 I
    0:17:56 don’t
    0:17:56 know
    0:17:56 about
    0:17:56 the
    0:17:57 evolution
    0:17:57 I’m
    0:17:58 still
    0:17:58 I
    0:17:59 hope
    0:17:59 I
    0:18:00 still
    0:18:00 bring
    0:18:00 that
    0:18:01 same
    0:18:03 tool
    0:18:04 making
    0:18:04 which
    0:18:05 is
    0:18:06 to
    0:18:06 create
    0:18:07 situations
    0:18:08 where
    0:18:09 you
    0:18:09 have
    0:18:11 opinion
    0:18:12 argued
    0:18:12 about
    0:18:13 whether
    0:18:13 it’s
    0:18:13 a
    0:18:13 new
    0:18:14 business
    0:18:14 idea
    0:18:15 or
    0:18:15 a
    0:18:15 company
    0:18:15 to
    0:18:16 acquire
    0:18:17 or
    0:18:17 anything
    0:18:17 else
    0:18:18 I
    0:18:18 hope
    0:18:18 I
    0:18:19 still
    0:18:19 have
    0:18:19 that
    0:18:19 very
    0:18:20 tough
    0:18:21 process
    0:18:22 of
    0:18:22 trying
    0:18:22 to
    0:18:23 find
    0:18:23 what
    0:18:24 is
    0:18:24 at
    0:18:24 the
    0:18:24 heart
    0:18:25 root
    0:18:26 of
    0:18:26 an
    0:18:26 idea
    0:18:27 to
    0:18:27 determine
    0:18:27 whether
    0:18:27 it’s
    0:18:28 worth
    0:18:28 pursuing
    0:18:30 so
    0:18:30 I
    0:18:30 can’t
    0:18:30 help
    0:18:30 but
    0:18:31 wax
    0:18:31 nostalgic
    0:18:32 here
    0:18:32 so
    0:18:33 I
    0:18:33 was
    0:18:33 raised
    0:18:33 by
    0:18:33 a
    0:18:33 single
    0:18:34 immigrant
    0:18:34 mother
    0:18:35 and
    0:18:35 we
    0:18:35 didn’t
    0:18:35 see
    0:18:36 each
    0:18:36 other
    0:18:36 much
    0:18:37 during
    0:18:37 the
    0:18:37 week
    0:18:39 she
    0:18:39 was
    0:18:39 a
    0:18:39 secretary
    0:18:40 and
    0:18:41 but
    0:18:41 we
    0:18:42 always
    0:18:42 made
    0:18:42 we
    0:18:43 had
    0:18:43 a
    0:18:43 date
    0:18:43 a
    0:18:43 standing
    0:18:44 date
    0:18:44 on
    0:18:44 Tuesday
    0:18:45 nights
    0:18:45 you know
    0:18:45 what we
    0:18:45 did
    0:18:46 oh
    0:18:47 730
    0:18:47 movie
    0:18:47 of
    0:18:47 the
    0:18:48 week
    0:18:49 ABC
    0:18:49 movie
    0:18:49 of
    0:18:49 the
    0:18:50 week
    0:18:50 and
    0:18:50 it
    0:18:50 was
    0:18:51 a
    0:18:51 standing
    0:18:51 thing
    0:18:51 and
    0:18:51 my
    0:18:52 mom
    0:18:52 would
    0:18:52 make
    0:18:52 me
    0:18:53 loaf
    0:18:55 getting
    0:18:56 emotional
    0:18:56 thinking
    0:18:56 about
    0:18:57 it
    0:18:57 and
    0:18:58 my
    0:18:58 three
    0:18:59 favorites
    0:19:00 people
    0:19:00 don’t
    0:19:00 realize
    0:19:02 how
    0:19:03 to create
    0:19:04 a breakthrough
    0:19:04 in that
    0:19:04 show
    0:19:05 and I
    0:19:05 assume
    0:19:05 you’re
    0:19:05 involved
    0:19:05 in
    0:19:06 all
    0:19:06 three
    0:19:06 of
    0:19:06 these
    0:19:06 things
    0:19:07 one
    0:19:08 duel
    0:19:08 Steven
    0:19:09 Spielberg’s
    0:19:09 first
    0:19:10 thing
    0:19:10 I remember
    0:19:11 two
    0:19:13 in my
    0:19:13 opinion
    0:19:14 Billy
    0:19:14 D.
    0:19:15 Williams
    0:19:15 best
    0:19:15 movie
    0:19:16 Brian
    0:19:16 Song
    0:19:17 by
    0:19:17 far
    0:19:17 and
    0:19:18 then
    0:19:19 the
    0:19:19 most
    0:19:20 underrated
    0:19:20 it was
    0:19:20 a
    0:19:20 movie
    0:19:21 of
    0:19:21 the
    0:19:21 week
    0:19:21 but
    0:19:21 it
    0:19:21 turned
    0:19:22 into
    0:19:22 a
    0:19:22 show
    0:19:22 which
    0:19:22 I
    0:19:23 think
    0:19:23 was
    0:19:23 one
    0:19:23 of
    0:19:23 the
    0:19:23 most
    0:19:24 underrated
    0:19:24 shows
    0:19:24 of
    0:19:24 the
    0:19:25 70s
    0:19:25 that
    0:19:25 I
    0:19:26 never
    0:19:26 miss
    0:19:26 an
    0:19:27 episode
    0:19:27 the
    0:19:27 night
    0:19:28 stalker
    0:19:28 remember
    0:19:28 that
    0:19:28 with
    0:19:28 Darren
    0:19:29 McGavin
    0:19:29 are
    0:19:29 you
    0:19:30 kidding
    0:19:30 I
    0:19:30 mean
    0:19:31 I
    0:19:32 first
    0:19:32 of all
    0:19:33 those
    0:19:33 three
    0:19:33 there’s
    0:19:34 one
    0:19:34 there’s
    0:19:34 a
    0:19:34 fourth
    0:19:35 called
    0:19:35 that
    0:19:35 certain
    0:19:36 summer
    0:19:37 which
    0:19:37 was
    0:19:39 probably
    0:19:39 all
    0:19:40 the
    0:19:41 what
    0:19:41 did
    0:19:42 we
    0:19:42 make
    0:19:43 I
    0:19:43 say
    0:19:43 we
    0:19:43 probably
    0:19:44 made
    0:19:45 350
    0:19:46 individual
    0:19:47 movies
    0:19:47 of the
    0:19:47 week
    0:19:47 during
    0:19:48 that
    0:19:48 five
    0:19:49 year
    0:19:49 seven
    0:19:49 year
    0:19:50 period
    0:19:50 and
    0:19:51 certain
    0:19:52 summer
    0:19:52 was
    0:19:52 my
    0:19:52 favorite
    0:19:53 for a
    0:19:53 lot
    0:19:53 of
    0:19:53 reasons
    0:19:54 it
    0:19:54 was
    0:19:54 about
    0:19:54 it
    0:19:54 was
    0:19:54 the
    0:19:55 first
    0:19:56 dramatic
    0:19:57 depiction
    0:19:58 of
    0:19:59 homosexuality
    0:19:59 on
    0:20:00 broadcast
    0:20:00 television
    0:20:01 and
    0:20:01 it
    0:20:01 was
    0:20:02 a
    0:20:02 lovely
    0:20:03 story
    0:20:03 about
    0:20:05 about
    0:20:06 two
    0:20:06 men’s
    0:20:07 relationship
    0:20:07 and
    0:20:08 him
    0:20:08 having
    0:20:08 to
    0:20:08 tell
    0:20:09 one
    0:20:09 of
    0:20:09 them
    0:20:09 having
    0:20:10 to
    0:20:10 tell
    0:20:10 his
    0:20:10 son
    0:20:11 about
    0:20:11 his
    0:20:11 life
    0:20:12 night
    0:20:13 stalker
    0:20:14 I
    0:20:14 got
    0:20:14 this
    0:20:15 book
    0:20:16 that
    0:20:17 somebody
    0:20:17 sent
    0:20:17 me
    0:20:17 that
    0:20:18 I
    0:20:18 respected
    0:20:19 and
    0:20:19 it
    0:20:19 was
    0:20:19 about
    0:20:19 200
    0:20:20 pages
    0:20:20 long
    0:20:21 I
    0:20:21 read
    0:20:22 it
    0:20:22 and
    0:20:22 I
    0:20:22 said
    0:20:22 oh
    0:20:23 my
    0:20:23 god
    0:20:23 a
    0:20:24 vampire
    0:20:24 in
    0:20:25 Las
    0:20:25 Vegas
    0:20:26 what
    0:20:26 could
    0:20:27 be
    0:20:27 a
    0:20:27 better
    0:20:28 idea
    0:20:28 or
    0:20:28 a
    0:20:28 better
    0:20:29 place
    0:20:29 for
    0:20:29 a
    0:20:29 vampire
    0:20:30 to
    0:20:30 go
    0:20:30 than
    0:20:31 Las
    0:20:31 Vegas
    0:20:31 which
    0:20:32 is
    0:20:32 open
    0:20:32 24
    0:20:33 hours
    0:20:33 a
    0:20:33 day
    0:20:34 etc
    0:20:34 is
    0:20:34 the
    0:20:35 definition
    0:20:35 of
    0:20:35 a
    0:20:35 night
    0:20:35 city
    0:20:36 and
    0:20:37 I
    0:20:37 read
    0:20:38 it
    0:20:39 literally
    0:20:39 I
    0:20:39 read
    0:20:39 those
    0:20:39 200
    0:20:40 pages
    0:20:40 in
    0:20:40 three
    0:20:41 hours
    0:20:42 and
    0:20:42 ordered
    0:20:43 up
    0:20:43 the
    0:20:43 movie
    0:20:43 and
    0:20:43 when
    0:20:44 that
    0:20:44 movie
    0:20:44 was
    0:20:45 finished
    0:20:46 it
    0:20:46 was
    0:20:46 so
    0:20:47 good
    0:20:47 that
    0:20:47 my
    0:20:47 colleagues
    0:20:48 at
    0:20:48 ABC
    0:20:48 said
    0:20:49 this
    0:20:49 is
    0:20:49 a
    0:20:50 theatrical
    0:20:50 movie
    0:20:51 let’s
    0:20:51 release
    0:20:51 this
    0:20:52 in
    0:20:52 theaters
    0:20:52 we’ll
    0:20:52 make
    0:20:52 a
    0:20:53 fortune
    0:20:54 and
    0:20:54 I
    0:20:54 said
    0:20:55 are
    0:20:55 you
    0:20:55 crazy
    0:20:56 this
    0:20:56 is
    0:20:57 this
    0:20:57 is
    0:20:57 what
    0:20:57 we
    0:20:57 do
    0:20:58 this
    0:20:58 is
    0:20:58 a
    0:20:58 movie
    0:20:58 of
    0:20:58 the
    0:20:59 week
    0:20:59 that’s
    0:20:59 where
    0:20:59 it’s
    0:20:59 going
    0:21:00 that’s
    0:21:00 where
    0:21:00 it
    0:21:00 belongs
    0:21:01 and
    0:21:01 of
    0:21:01 course
    0:21:02 it
    0:21:02 then
    0:21:02 spawned
    0:21:02 the
    0:21:02 series
    0:21:03 etc
    0:21:03 and
    0:21:04 Brian’s
    0:21:04 song
    0:21:05 I
    0:21:05 don’t
    0:21:05 know
    0:21:06 that
    0:21:06 you
    0:21:06 can
    0:21:06 do
    0:21:06 better
    0:21:07 for
    0:21:08 sure
    0:21:08 I
    0:21:08 mean
    0:21:09 yeah
    0:21:09 you
    0:21:09 pick
    0:21:09 some
    0:21:09 good
    0:21:10 ones
    0:21:11 what
    0:21:11 other
    0:21:12 things
    0:21:12 early
    0:21:12 in
    0:21:12 your
    0:21:13 career
    0:21:13 sort
    0:21:13 of
    0:21:13 got
    0:21:13 you
    0:21:14 to
    0:21:14 the
    0:21:14 next
    0:21:14 level
    0:21:14 if
    0:21:15 you
    0:21:15 will
    0:21:16 well
    0:21:16 I
    0:21:16 would
    0:21:16 say
    0:21:17 that
    0:21:17 I
    0:21:17 mean
    0:21:17 it
    0:21:17 was
    0:21:18 definitely
    0:21:18 I
    0:21:18 mean
    0:21:19 movie
    0:21:19 of
    0:21:19 the
    0:21:19 week
    0:21:19 was
    0:21:20 again
    0:21:20 I’m
    0:21:20 23
    0:21:21 or
    0:21:22 4
    0:21:22 and
    0:21:23 so
    0:21:24 my
    0:21:24 20s
    0:21:25 were
    0:21:25 just
    0:21:25 dominated
    0:21:26 for
    0:21:27 five
    0:21:27 years
    0:21:27 by
    0:21:27 this
    0:21:28 and
    0:21:28 and
    0:21:29 then
    0:21:29 at
    0:21:29 the
    0:21:29 end
    0:21:29 of
    0:21:30 that
    0:21:30 because
    0:21:31 after
    0:21:31 we
    0:21:31 made
    0:21:31 these
    0:21:31 movies
    0:21:32 I
    0:21:32 was
    0:21:32 kind
    0:21:32 of
    0:21:33 used
    0:21:33 to
    0:21:33 the
    0:21:33 process
    0:21:34 to
    0:21:34 say
    0:21:34 the
    0:21:34 least
    0:21:35 and
    0:21:36 I
    0:21:36 thought
    0:21:36 that
    0:21:37 you
    0:21:37 know
    0:21:37 there
    0:21:37 were
    0:21:38 books
    0:21:38 that
    0:21:38 were
    0:21:38 made
    0:21:39 into
    0:21:39 movies
    0:21:39 but
    0:21:40 big
    0:21:41 sprawling
    0:21:41 epic
    0:21:42 novels
    0:21:43 you
    0:21:43 can’t
    0:21:43 tell
    0:21:43 that
    0:21:44 story
    0:21:44 in
    0:21:44 two
    0:21:44 hours
    0:21:45 really
    0:21:46 and
    0:21:46 I
    0:21:46 thought
    0:21:46 television
    0:21:46 has
    0:21:47 all
    0:21:47 this
    0:21:47 time
    0:21:47 so
    0:21:48 why
    0:21:48 not
    0:21:49 do
    0:21:49 long
    0:21:50 long
    0:21:50 form
    0:21:51 which
    0:21:51 we
    0:21:52 called
    0:21:52 the
    0:21:52 novel
    0:21:52 for
    0:21:53 television
    0:21:53 which
    0:21:53 evolved
    0:21:54 into
    0:21:54 the
    0:21:54 miniseries
    0:21:55 which
    0:21:55 we
    0:21:55 all
    0:21:55 live
    0:21:56 with
    0:21:57 today
    0:21:57 for
    0:21:58 sure
    0:21:58 in
    0:21:59 streaming
    0:21:59 and
    0:22:00 that
    0:22:00 created
    0:22:00 like
    0:22:01 the
    0:22:01 next
    0:22:01 bump
    0:22:01 because
    0:22:02 that
    0:22:02 was
    0:22:02 this
    0:22:03 out
    0:22:03 of
    0:22:03 nowhere
    0:22:04 huge
    0:22:09 a
    0:22:09 thrust
    0:22:11 really
    0:22:11 early
    0:22:12 and
    0:22:13 I
    0:22:13 don’t
    0:22:13 know
    0:22:13 it
    0:22:13 was
    0:22:14 that
    0:22:14 because
    0:22:14 it
    0:22:14 was
    0:22:14 a
    0:22:15 confluence
    0:22:15 of
    0:22:15 other
    0:22:15 events
    0:22:16 that
    0:22:16 landed
    0:22:16 me
    0:22:17 at
    0:22:17 Paramount
    0:22:18 and
    0:22:18 the
    0:22:18 movie
    0:22:19 business
    0:22:20 at
    0:22:20 also
    0:22:20 a
    0:22:21 really
    0:22:21 young
    0:22:21 age
    0:22:22 and
    0:22:23 I
    0:22:23 was
    0:22:24 always
    0:22:24 the
    0:22:24 youngest
    0:22:25 and
    0:22:26 now
    0:22:26 I’m
    0:22:26 always
    0:22:26 the
    0:22:27 oldest
    0:22:28 yeah
    0:22:28 it’s
    0:22:28 weird
    0:22:29 I
    0:22:29 often
    0:22:29 say
    0:22:30 I
    0:22:30 used
    0:22:30 to
    0:22:30 walk
    0:22:30 into
    0:22:31 every
    0:22:31 room
    0:22:31 be
    0:22:31 the
    0:22:31 youngest
    0:22:31 now
    0:22:32 walk
    0:22:32 into
    0:22:32 every
    0:22:32 room
    0:22:32 when
    0:22:32 I’m
    0:22:32 the
    0:22:33 oldest
    0:22:33 I
    0:22:33 was
    0:22:33 never
    0:22:33 the
    0:22:33 same
    0:22:34 age
    0:22:34 just
    0:22:34 go
    0:22:35 so
    0:22:35 fast
    0:22:36 what
    0:22:37 so
    0:22:37 you
    0:22:37 you’re
    0:22:37 sort
    0:22:37 of
    0:22:38 a
    0:22:38 decathlete
    0:22:38 in terms
    0:22:39 of
    0:22:39 different
    0:22:39 types
    0:22:39 of
    0:22:39 content
    0:22:40 you
    0:22:40 started
    0:22:40 in
    0:22:40 TV
    0:22:41 and
    0:22:41 then
    0:22:41 you
    0:22:41 transition
    0:22:42 to
    0:22:42 movies
    0:22:43 how
    0:22:43 is
    0:22:44 that
    0:22:44 different
    0:22:44 or
    0:22:45 what
    0:22:45 what
    0:22:46 skills
    0:22:47 is
    0:22:47 it
    0:22:47 the
    0:22:47 same
    0:22:48 skills
    0:22:48 or
    0:22:48 did
    0:22:48 you
    0:22:48 need
    0:22:48 to
    0:22:49 develop
    0:22:49 different
    0:22:49 management
    0:22:50 and
    0:22:50 different
    0:22:50 capital
    0:22:51 allocation
    0:22:51 skills
    0:22:53 it’s
    0:22:53 the
    0:22:53 same
    0:22:54 tool
    0:22:54 set
    0:22:54 I’d
    0:22:54 say
    0:22:55 but
    0:22:55 it’s
    0:22:56 applied
    0:22:56 to
    0:22:56 totally
    0:22:57 different
    0:22:58 organizations
    0:22:59 the
    0:23:00 movie
    0:23:01 business
    0:23:01 you know
    0:23:02 television
    0:23:03 if you
    0:23:04 didn’t
    0:23:05 get it
    0:23:06 delivered
    0:23:06 on
    0:23:07 7
    0:23:07 at
    0:23:08 730
    0:23:08 on a
    0:23:09 Tuesday
    0:23:09 night
    0:23:10 you know
    0:23:10 the
    0:23:11 screen
    0:23:11 went
    0:23:11 dark
    0:23:12 in the
    0:23:13 movie
    0:23:13 business
    0:23:13 if you
    0:23:14 didn’t
    0:23:14 make a
    0:23:14 movie
    0:23:15 nobody
    0:23:15 knew
    0:23:16 nobody
    0:23:16 cared
    0:23:17 so
    0:23:17 the
    0:23:18 rhythms
    0:23:18 are just
    0:23:19 so
    0:23:19 completely
    0:23:19 different
    0:23:20 and the
    0:23:20 industry
    0:23:21 movie
    0:23:21 industry
    0:23:23 at its
    0:23:23 height
    0:23:23 of
    0:23:24 snobism
    0:23:24 I don’t
    0:23:25 think it’s
    0:23:25 diverted
    0:23:26 that
    0:23:26 much
    0:23:27 today
    0:23:27 from
    0:23:28 what
    0:23:28 it
    0:23:28 was
    0:23:28 then
    0:23:28 in
    0:23:29 terms
    0:23:29 of
    0:23:29 looking
    0:23:29 down
    0:23:30 on
    0:23:30 almost
    0:23:31 all
    0:23:31 other
    0:23:32 forms
    0:23:33 but now
    0:23:34 the world
    0:23:34 is so
    0:23:34 I don’t
    0:23:35 know even
    0:23:35 what the
    0:23:36 definition
    0:23:36 of a
    0:23:36 movie
    0:23:37 is
    0:23:37 anymore
    0:23:38 given
    0:23:38 the
    0:23:39 Netflix
    0:23:40 of life
    0:23:40 but
    0:23:41 the
    0:23:42 movie
    0:23:42 companies
    0:23:43 in the
    0:23:44 this is
    0:23:44 in the
    0:23:45 70s
    0:23:46 dominated
    0:23:47 world
    0:23:47 culture
    0:23:48 to such
    0:23:48 an
    0:23:49 extent
    0:23:50 and
    0:23:51 so
    0:23:52 and
    0:23:52 you only
    0:23:53 did
    0:23:53 we
    0:23:54 never
    0:23:54 made
    0:23:55 we
    0:23:55 paramount
    0:23:56 made
    0:23:57 probably
    0:23:57 fewer
    0:23:58 movies
    0:23:58 than
    0:23:58 most
    0:23:58 other
    0:23:59 companies
    0:23:59 other
    0:24:00 studios
    0:24:00 of
    0:24:00 which
    0:24:00 there
    0:24:01 were
    0:24:01 five
    0:24:01 dominant
    0:24:02 ones
    0:24:03 we
    0:24:03 made
    0:24:04 maybe
    0:24:05 15
    0:24:05 to
    0:24:06 18
    0:24:06 movies
    0:24:06 a
    0:24:06 year
    0:24:07 other
    0:24:07 people
    0:24:07 made
    0:24:08 25
    0:24:08 to
    0:24:08 30
    0:24:10 so
    0:24:10 so
    0:24:10 so
    0:24:10 that’s
    0:24:12 putting
    0:24:12 your
    0:24:12 tent
    0:24:12 up
    0:24:12 and
    0:24:13 taking
    0:24:13 it
    0:24:13 down
    0:24:13 every
    0:24:14 month
    0:24:14 or
    0:24:14 so
    0:24:15 it’s
    0:24:15 a
    0:24:16 completely
    0:24:17 different
    0:24:17 rhythm
    0:24:18 and I
    0:24:19 had
    0:24:20 first of all
    0:24:21 the movie
    0:24:22 people peed
    0:24:22 on people
    0:24:23 from television
    0:24:23 so
    0:24:24 I
    0:24:24 had
    0:24:25 the good
    0:24:26 and the
    0:24:26 bad
    0:24:27 of
    0:24:27 people
    0:24:28 so
    0:24:29 discounting
    0:24:29 saying
    0:24:30 well I’d be
    0:24:30 thrown out
    0:24:31 soon
    0:24:31 because a
    0:24:32 television person
    0:24:32 could never
    0:24:33 succeed in the
    0:24:34 exalted movie
    0:24:34 world
    0:24:37 and so
    0:24:37 they kind of
    0:24:38 left me
    0:24:38 alone for a
    0:24:38 couple of
    0:24:39 years
    0:24:39 where
    0:24:40 I figured
    0:24:41 out how to
    0:24:42 make the
    0:24:42 company run
    0:24:44 the way I was
    0:24:44 comfortable with
    0:24:46 and that
    0:24:46 was a
    0:24:47 very very
    0:24:48 hard
    0:24:49 time
    0:24:49 where I
    0:24:50 certainly
    0:24:50 failed
    0:24:50 first
    0:24:51 because I
    0:24:51 believe
    0:24:52 almost
    0:24:53 everything
    0:24:54 I’ve ever
    0:24:54 done
    0:24:54 you kind
    0:24:54 of
    0:24:55 at least
    0:24:55 in my
    0:24:56 mind
    0:24:56 fail
    0:24:56 first
    0:24:57 before
    0:24:57 you
    0:24:57 succeed
    0:24:59 and so
    0:25:00 it was a
    0:25:01 completely
    0:25:02 different
    0:25:02 process
    0:25:02 that I
    0:25:03 had to
    0:25:03 adapt
    0:25:03 to
    0:25:04 I was
    0:25:04 using
    0:25:05 the same
    0:25:06 basically
    0:25:07 toolkit
    0:25:08 of
    0:25:09 in my
    0:25:09 case
    0:25:09 which was
    0:25:10 developing
    0:25:11 material
    0:25:11 rather than
    0:25:11 buying
    0:25:12 packages
    0:25:13 made up
    0:25:14 to form
    0:25:15 directors
    0:25:15 actors
    0:25:16 writers
    0:25:16 etc
    0:25:17 that were
    0:25:18 given to
    0:25:18 studios
    0:25:18 by
    0:25:19 agencies
    0:25:20 I
    0:25:20 wanted
    0:25:20 to
    0:25:21 develop
    0:25:21 I’ve
    0:25:21 always
    0:25:22 thought
    0:25:22 it was
    0:25:22 my
    0:25:22 first
    0:25:23 thing
    0:25:23 of
    0:25:23 developing
    0:25:24 material
    0:25:25 so
    0:25:25 I
    0:25:25 wanted
    0:25:25 to
    0:25:25 develop
    0:25:26 material
    0:25:26 that
    0:25:26 takes
    0:25:26 a
    0:25:27 long
    0:25:27 time
    0:25:27 to
    0:25:27 do
    0:25:28 but
    0:25:29 that
    0:25:30 process
    0:25:30 has
    0:25:30 never
    0:25:31 changed
    0:25:31 for me
    0:25:33 so
    0:25:33 while you
    0:25:33 were there
    0:25:34 I just
    0:25:34 want to
    0:25:34 review
    0:25:35 this
    0:25:35 you
    0:25:35 decided
    0:25:36 to go
    0:25:36 back
    0:25:36 to
    0:25:37 TV
    0:25:37 and
    0:25:38 essentially
    0:25:38 started
    0:25:39 the
    0:25:39 Fox
    0:25:40 television
    0:25:40 network
    0:25:41 where
    0:25:41 Married
    0:25:41 with
    0:25:42 Children
    0:25:42 and
    0:25:42 The
    0:25:43 Simpsons
    0:25:43 were
    0:25:44 sort
    0:25:44 of
    0:25:44 the
    0:25:44 pillars
    0:25:45 there
    0:25:45 talk
    0:25:46 why
    0:25:46 did
    0:25:46 you
    0:25:46 go
    0:25:46 back
    0:25:46 to
    0:25:47 TV
    0:25:48 and
    0:25:48 tell
    0:25:48 us
    0:25:48 a little
    0:25:49 bit
    0:25:49 about
    0:25:50 those
    0:25:50 two
    0:25:50 shows
    0:25:50 because
    0:25:51 someone
    0:25:52 told me
    0:25:52 The Simpsons
    0:25:53 is the
    0:25:53 most
    0:25:53 profitable
    0:25:54 TV show
    0:25:55 in history
    0:25:56 that is
    0:25:56 true
    0:25:57 back in
    0:25:58 the TV
    0:25:58 when I
    0:25:59 left
    0:26:00 Paramount
    0:26:01 to go
    0:26:01 to Fox
    0:26:02 I tried
    0:26:03 to start
    0:26:04 a fourth
    0:26:04 network
    0:26:05 there were
    0:26:06 at that
    0:26:06 time
    0:26:06 three
    0:26:06 networks
    0:26:07 which
    0:26:07 got
    0:26:08 100%
    0:26:08 of the
    0:26:08 viewing
    0:26:08 there
    0:26:08 wasn’t
    0:26:09 cable
    0:26:10 I mean
    0:26:10 cable
    0:26:10 was
    0:26:11 just
    0:26:11 getting
    0:26:12 a better
    0:26:12 signal
    0:26:14 and
    0:26:14 so
    0:26:15 three
    0:26:15 networks
    0:26:16 dominated
    0:26:16 everything
    0:26:16 and I
    0:26:17 thought
    0:26:17 I had
    0:26:17 thought
    0:26:17 over
    0:26:17 the
    0:26:18 years
    0:26:18 that
    0:26:18 while
    0:26:18 they
    0:26:19 started
    0:26:19 out
    0:26:19 with
    0:26:19 different
    0:26:20 personalities
    0:26:21 by
    0:26:22 the
    0:26:23 80s
    0:26:24 they all
    0:26:25 talked
    0:26:25 looked
    0:26:25 and
    0:26:26 acted
    0:26:26 like
    0:26:27 and
    0:26:27 I
    0:26:28 thought
    0:26:29 well
    0:26:30 that’s
    0:26:30 interesting
    0:26:30 there’s
    0:26:31 room
    0:26:31 for
    0:26:32 I mean
    0:26:32 maybe
    0:26:32 room
    0:26:33 for
    0:26:34 an
    0:26:34 alternative
    0:26:35 to
    0:26:35 that
    0:26:35 so
    0:26:36 when
    0:26:36 I
    0:26:36 got
    0:26:37 to
    0:26:37 Fox
    0:26:38 and
    0:26:38 their
    0:26:39 confluence
    0:26:39 against
    0:26:40 serendipitous
    0:26:40 events
    0:26:41 I was able
    0:26:41 to get
    0:26:42 a bunch
    0:26:42 of television
    0:26:43 stations
    0:26:44 that we
    0:26:44 could buy
    0:26:45 and
    0:26:46 start
    0:26:46 this
    0:26:47 fourth
    0:26:47 network
    0:26:48 and
    0:26:49 in the
    0:26:50 beginning
    0:26:51 you know
    0:26:51 we didn’t
    0:26:52 find our
    0:26:52 vein
    0:26:53 until
    0:26:54 I got
    0:26:55 a script
    0:26:55 called
    0:26:56 Not
    0:26:56 the
    0:26:56 Cosbys
    0:26:57 and
    0:26:57 now
    0:26:58 Not
    0:26:58 the
    0:26:59 Cosbys
    0:26:59 means
    0:26:59 Bill
    0:27:00 Cosby
    0:27:00 show
    0:27:00 was
    0:27:00 number
    0:27:01 one
    0:27:01 on
    0:27:01 television
    0:27:01 had
    0:27:01 been
    0:27:02 for
    0:27:02 many
    0:27:02 years
    0:27:03 and
    0:27:03 so
    0:27:03 when
    0:27:04 I
    0:27:04 saw
    0:27:04 the
    0:27:04 title
    0:27:04 Not
    0:27:05 the
    0:27:05 Cosbys
    0:27:05 I
    0:27:05 was
    0:27:05 oh
    0:27:06 that’s
    0:27:06 like
    0:27:07 interesting
    0:27:08 and
    0:27:08 and
    0:27:09 it
    0:27:10 was
    0:27:10 an
    0:27:10 anti
    0:27:11 establishment
    0:27:11 family
    0:27:12 which
    0:27:12 we
    0:27:13 later
    0:27:13 called
    0:27:14 married
    0:27:14 with
    0:27:15 children
    0:27:16 and
    0:27:16 that
    0:27:17 I
    0:27:17 knew
    0:27:17 we’d
    0:27:18 struck
    0:27:18 the
    0:27:19 vein
    0:27:20 and
    0:27:20 shortly
    0:27:21 thereafter
    0:27:23 we’d
    0:27:23 had a
    0:27:23 show
    0:27:24 called
    0:27:24 Tracy
    0:27:24 Ullman
    0:27:25 and
    0:27:25 in it
    0:27:25 were
    0:27:26 these
    0:27:26 interstitials
    0:27:27 that
    0:27:27 Matt
    0:27:27 Groening
    0:27:28 did
    0:27:28 with his
    0:27:29 character
    0:27:29 The Simpsons
    0:27:30 and Jim
    0:27:30 Brooks
    0:27:31 great director
    0:27:32 who made
    0:27:32 terms of
    0:27:33 Endearment
    0:27:33 etc.
    0:27:34 said
    0:27:35 who produced
    0:27:35 Tracy
    0:27:36 Ullman
    0:27:36 said
    0:27:37 I
    0:27:37 think
    0:27:37 we
    0:27:37 could
    0:27:38 make
    0:27:38 this
    0:27:38 into
    0:27:38 a
    0:27:38 series
    0:27:40 and
    0:27:40 I
    0:27:40 said
    0:27:41 yes
    0:27:42 absolutely
    0:27:42 now
    0:27:42 at
    0:27:42 that
    0:27:43 time
    0:27:44 because
    0:27:44 animation
    0:27:44 took
    0:27:45 six
    0:27:45 months
    0:27:45 and
    0:27:46 whatever
    0:27:46 we
    0:27:46 had
    0:27:46 to
    0:27:46 commit
    0:27:47 to
    0:27:47 13
    0:27:47 episodes
    0:27:48 without
    0:27:49 making
    0:27:49 quote
    0:27:50 pilot
    0:27:50 etc.
    0:27:51 So
    0:27:51 it was
    0:27:51 a big
    0:27:52 commitment
    0:27:52 we did
    0:27:52 it
    0:27:53 and
    0:27:53 made
    0:27:54 the
    0:27:54 13
    0:27:54 episodes
    0:27:55 and
    0:27:56 we
    0:27:56 hadn’t
    0:27:57 scheduled
    0:27:57 yet
    0:27:57 and
    0:27:57 the
    0:27:58 first
    0:27:58 episode
    0:27:58 came
    0:27:59 back
    0:27:59 again
    0:27:59 like
    0:27:59 six
    0:28:00 eight
    0:28:00 months
    0:28:00 later
    0:28:02 and
    0:28:02 we
    0:28:02 had
    0:28:02 this
    0:28:03 viewing
    0:28:03 and
    0:28:04 actually
    0:28:05 Jim
    0:28:05 Brooks’s
    0:28:05 little
    0:28:06 bungalow
    0:28:06 on the
    0:28:06 Fox
    0:28:07 lot
    0:28:08 and
    0:28:08 I
    0:28:08 brought
    0:28:09 the
    0:28:09 sales
    0:28:10 department
    0:28:10 some
    0:28:10 other
    0:28:11 like
    0:28:11 12
    0:28:11 people
    0:28:12 there’s
    0:28:12 one
    0:28:12 of
    0:28:12 those
    0:28:13 screenings
    0:28:13 where
    0:28:14 Jim
    0:28:14 Brooks
    0:28:15 and I
    0:28:15 are
    0:28:15 the
    0:28:16 only
    0:28:16 people
    0:28:16 laughing
    0:28:18 and
    0:28:18 when
    0:28:18 you’re
    0:28:19 laughing
    0:28:19 at
    0:28:20 material
    0:28:21 that
    0:28:21 you’ve
    0:28:21 already
    0:28:22 seen
    0:28:22 before
    0:28:22 you’re
    0:28:23 really
    0:28:23 doing
    0:28:23 it
    0:28:24 to
    0:28:25 try
    0:28:25 and
    0:28:25 get
    0:28:25 other
    0:28:25 people
    0:28:26 to
    0:28:26 laugh
    0:28:27 so
    0:28:27 it’s
    0:28:27 like
    0:28:28 over
    0:28:28 performance
    0:28:29 and
    0:28:29 there
    0:28:29 Jim
    0:28:30 and I
    0:28:30 are
    0:28:30 hooking
    0:28:31 it
    0:28:31 up
    0:28:32 stone
    0:28:32 faced
    0:28:33 every
    0:28:33 other
    0:28:33 person
    0:28:34 in
    0:28:34 the
    0:28:34 room
    0:28:35 we
    0:28:35 walk
    0:28:36 out
    0:28:37 with
    0:28:37 my
    0:28:38 group
    0:28:38 out
    0:28:38 of
    0:28:39 the
    0:28:39 bungalow
    0:28:40 back
    0:28:40 up
    0:28:40 to
    0:28:40 our
    0:28:40 offices
    0:28:41 and
    0:28:42 these
    0:28:42 guys
    0:28:42 said
    0:28:42 well
    0:28:43 can’t
    0:28:43 air
    0:28:44 that
    0:28:44 I
    0:28:44 mean
    0:28:45 a
    0:28:45 cartoon
    0:28:46 and
    0:28:47 I
    0:28:47 thought
    0:28:48 as
    0:28:48 Jim
    0:28:48 did
    0:28:48 this
    0:28:49 is
    0:28:49 great
    0:28:51 of
    0:28:51 course
    0:28:52 we
    0:28:52 scheduled
    0:28:53 it
    0:28:54 from
    0:28:54 the
    0:28:54 first
    0:28:55 hour
    0:28:55 of
    0:28:55 the
    0:28:55 first
    0:28:55 day
    0:28:55 it
    0:28:55 was
    0:28:56 a
    0:28:56 smash
    0:28:56 hit
    0:28:57 it’s
    0:28:57 still
    0:28:58 going
    0:28:58 now
    0:28:59 well
    0:28:59 certainly
    0:29:00 decades
    0:29:00 30
    0:29:00 years
    0:29:01 later
    0:29:02 but
    0:29:03 because
    0:29:03 of
    0:29:04 syndication
    0:29:04 and
    0:29:04 because
    0:29:04 of
    0:29:05 streaming
    0:29:05 and
    0:29:05 because
    0:29:06 of
    0:29:06 all
    0:29:06 this
    0:29:06 now
    0:29:06 it’s
    0:29:06 owned
    0:29:07 by
    0:29:07 Disney
    0:29:08 there’s
    0:29:08 there’s
    0:29:09 no
    0:29:09 question
    0:29:09 that
    0:29:09 as
    0:29:10 a
    0:29:10 single
    0:29:11 entertainment
    0:29:12 product
    0:29:13 it
    0:29:13 is
    0:29:13 the
    0:29:14 most
    0:29:14 profitable
    0:29:15 in
    0:29:15 history
    0:29:16 we’ll
    0:29:16 be right
    0:29:16 back
    0:29:17 after a
    0:29:17 quick
    0:29:17 break
    0:29:22 summer
    0:29:22 is
    0:29:22 Tim’s
    0:29:23 ice
    0:29:23 latte
    0:29:23 season
    0:29:24 it’s
    0:29:24 also
    0:29:24 hike
    0:29:25 season
    0:29:25 pool
    0:29:26 season
    0:29:26 picnic
    0:29:27 season
    0:29:27 and
    0:29:28 yeah
    0:29:28 I’m
    0:29:28 down
    0:29:29 season
    0:29:29 so
    0:29:30 drink
    0:29:30 it
    0:29:30 up
    0:29:30 with
    0:29:30 Tim’s
    0:29:30 ice
    0:29:31 lattes
    0:29:31 now
    0:29:32 whipped
    0:29:32 for a
    0:29:32 smooth
    0:29:32 taste
    0:29:33 order
    0:29:33 yours
    0:29:33 on
    0:29:33 the
    0:29:34 Tim’s
    0:29:34 app
    0:29:34 today
    0:29:34 at
    0:29:35 participating
    0:29:35 restaurants
    0:29:35 in Canada
    0:29:36 for a
    0:29:36 limited
    0:29:36 time
    0:29:40 support
    0:29:41 for the
    0:29:41 show
    0:29:41 comes
    0:29:41 from
    0:29:41 TED
    0:29:42 Next
    0:29:42 let’s
    0:29:42 be
    0:29:43 honest
    0:29:43 we’re
    0:29:43 not
    0:29:43 just
    0:29:44 busy
    0:29:44 we’re
    0:29:44 experiencing
    0:29:45 the greatest
    0:29:45 acceleration
    0:29:46 of change
    0:29:46 in human
    0:29:47 history
    0:29:48 the pace
    0:29:48 of technology
    0:29:49 has left
    0:29:49 regulation
    0:29:50 culture
    0:29:50 and even
    0:29:51 our own
    0:29:51 biology
    0:29:52 in the
    0:29:52 dust
    0:29:53 and somehow
    0:29:53 we’re
    0:29:54 supposed to
    0:29:54 figure out
    0:29:54 who we
    0:29:55 want to
    0:29:55 be
    0:29:56 that’s
    0:29:56 what
    0:29:56 TED
    0:29:56 Next
    0:29:56 is
    0:29:57 built
    0:29:57 for
    0:29:57 to
    0:29:57 provide
    0:29:58 a
    0:29:58 toolkit
    0:29:58 for
    0:29:58 navigating
    0:29:59 a
    0:29:59 world
    0:29:59 where
    0:29:59 yesterday’s
    0:30:00 playbook
    0:30:00 is
    0:30:01 already
    0:30:01 obsolete
    0:30:02 it’s
    0:30:02 an
    0:30:02 invitation
    0:30:03 to join
    0:30:03 a
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    0:30:03 of
    0:30:04 visionaries
    0:30:04 emerging
    0:30:05 leaders
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    0:30:06 culture
    0:30:06 shapers
    0:30:07 and change
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    0:30:09 take the
    0:30:09 next step
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    0:30:10 journey
    0:30:11 together
    0:30:11 if you
    0:30:11 want to
    0:30:12 be part of
    0:30:12 something
    0:30:13 meaningful
    0:30:14 and energizing
    0:30:14 TED is
    0:30:15 for you
    0:30:15 so
    0:30:15 I’ve
    0:30:16 spoken
    0:30:16 to
    0:30:16 TED
    0:30:16 myself
    0:30:17 after
    0:30:17 working
    0:30:17 my
    0:30:17 ass
    0:30:18 off
    0:30:18 for
    0:30:18 30
    0:30:18 years
    0:30:18 I
    0:30:18 was
    0:30:18 an
    0:30:19 overnight
    0:30:19 success
    0:30:19 after
    0:30:20 speaking
    0:30:20 to
    0:30:20 TED
    0:30:20 I
    0:30:20 like
    0:30:21 the
    0:30:21 community
    0:30:22 and I
    0:30:22 really
    0:30:23 found
    0:30:23 it
    0:30:23 very
    0:30:24 rewarding
    0:30:25 register
    0:30:25 for
    0:30:25 TED
    0:30:25 next
    0:30:26 November
    0:30:26 9th
    0:30:26 to
    0:30:27 11th
    0:30:27 in
    0:30:27 Atlanta
    0:30:28 it’s
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    0:30:28 rare
    0:30:29 convergence
    0:30:29 where
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    0:30:30 advancement
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    0:30:31 both
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    0:30:32 for
    0:30:33 tomorrow’s
    0:30:33 leaders
    0:30:34 and right
    0:30:34 now
    0:30:35 TED
    0:30:35 is
    0:30:35 offering
    0:30:35 our
    0:30:36 listeners
    0:30:36 a
    0:30:36 special
    0:30:37 rate
    0:30:37 at
    0:30:38 ted.com
    0:30:38 slash
    0:30:39 scott
    0:30:40 again
    0:30:40 that’s
    0:30:41 ted.com
    0:30:42 slash
    0:30:43 scott
    0:30:48 support
    0:30:48 for the
    0:30:49 show
    0:30:49 comes
    0:30:49 from
    0:30:49 the
    0:30:49 podcast
    0:30:50 the
    0:30:50 world
    0:30:50 as
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    0:30:51 know
    0:30:51 it
    0:30:51 hosted
    0:30:51 by
    0:30:52 science
    0:30:52 journalist
    0:30:52 and
    0:30:52 Yale
    0:30:53 professor
    0:30:53 Carl
    0:30:53 Zimmer
    0:30:54 author
    0:30:54 of
    0:30:55 Life’s
    0:30:55 Edge
    0:30:55 and
    0:30:56 Airborne
    0:30:56 the
    0:30:56 world
    0:30:56 as
    0:30:57 you
    0:30:57 know
    0:30:57 it
    0:30:57 is
    0:30:57 a
    0:30:57 podcast
    0:30:58 about
    0:30:58 the
    0:30:58 forces
    0:30:59 shaping
    0:30:59 the
    0:30:59 future
    0:31:00 this
    0:31:00 season
    0:31:00 Zimmer
    0:31:01 speaks
    0:31:01 to
    0:31:01 some
    0:31:01 of
    0:31:01 the
    0:31:01 most
    0:31:02 respected
    0:31:02 scientists
    0:31:03 in
    0:31:03 the
    0:31:03 field
    0:31:03 of
    0:31:03 longevity
    0:31:04 research
    0:31:04 about
    0:31:04 what
    0:31:05 old
    0:31:05 age
    0:31:05 could
    0:31:05 look
    0:31:06 like
    0:31:06 in
    0:31:06 the
    0:31:06 future
    0:31:07 humans
    0:31:07 are
    0:31:07 already
    0:31:08 living
    0:31:08 longer
    0:31:08 than
    0:31:08 ever
    0:31:09 thanks
    0:31:09 to
    0:31:09 advances
    0:31:09 like
    0:31:10 vaccines
    0:31:11 antibiotics
    0:31:11 and
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    0:31:12 and
    0:31:13 with
    0:31:13 the
    0:31:13 incredible
    0:31:13 progress
    0:31:14 being
    0:31:14 made
    0:31:14 in
    0:31:14 treating
    0:31:15 deadly
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    0:31:16 including
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    0:31:16 disease
    0:31:16 and
    0:31:17 cancer
    0:31:18 mortality
    0:31:18 rates
    0:31:19 for
    0:31:19 each
    0:31:19 have
    0:31:19 dropped
    0:31:19 by
    0:31:20 double
    0:31:20 digits
    0:31:21 now
    0:31:21 science
    0:31:21 is
    0:31:22 tackling
    0:31:22 a
    0:31:22 new
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    0:31:23 curing
    0:31:24 aging
    0:31:24 itself
    0:31:25 will
    0:31:25 new
    0:31:26 breakthroughs
    0:31:26 add
    0:31:26 even
    0:31:26 more
    0:31:27 years
    0:31:27 to
    0:31:27 our
    0:31:27 lives
    0:31:27 can
    0:31:28 older
    0:31:28 brains
    0:31:28 be
    0:31:29 rewired
    0:31:29 to
    0:31:29 function
    0:31:29 like
    0:31:30 younger
    0:31:30 ones
    0:31:30 and
    0:31:31 which
    0:31:31 so-called
    0:31:32 biohacks
    0:31:32 actually
    0:31:33 work
    0:31:33 join
    0:31:34 Carl
    0:31:34 Zimmer
    0:31:34 as he
    0:31:35 investigates
    0:31:35 what
    0:31:35 current
    0:31:35 science
    0:31:35 is
    0:31:36 claiming
    0:31:36 about
    0:31:36 longevity
    0:31:37 and
    0:31:37 gets
    0:31:37 to
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    0:31:38 what’s
    0:31:38 unbelievable
    0:31:39 and
    0:31:39 what’s
    0:31:39 actually
    0:31:40 possible
    0:31:41 you
    0:31:41 can
    0:31:41 find
    0:31:41 the
    0:31:41 world
    0:31:41 as
    0:31:42 you’ll
    0:31:42 know
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    0:31:43 wherever
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    0:31:46 at
    0:31:47 aventine.org
    0:31:47 slash
    0:31:58 so
    0:31:58 you
    0:31:59 then
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    0:32:00 to
    0:32:01 pivot
    0:32:01 or
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    0:32:03 into
    0:32:04 online
    0:32:04 or
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    0:32:05 what
    0:32:05 was
    0:32:06 the
    0:32:06 motivation
    0:32:06 there
    0:32:07 and
    0:32:07 what
    0:32:07 kind
    0:32:07 of
    0:32:08 what
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    0:32:09 you
    0:32:09 to
    0:32:09 get
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    0:32:10 in
    0:32:10 sort
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    0:32:11 digital
    0:32:11 world
    0:32:12 what
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    0:32:12 was
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    0:32:13 I
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    0:32:14 Fox
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    0:32:14 wanted
    0:32:14 to
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    0:32:15 I
    0:32:15 wanted
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    0:32:16 own
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    0:32:18 always
    0:32:18 worked
    0:32:18 for
    0:32:19 companies
    0:32:20 I
    0:32:20 was
    0:32:20 the
    0:32:20 definition
    0:32:21 of
    0:32:21 a
    0:32:21 corporatist
    0:32:22 and
    0:32:22 I
    0:32:23 was
    0:32:23 49
    0:32:23 years
    0:32:24 old
    0:32:24 and
    0:32:28 so
    0:32:28 to
    0:32:28 speak
    0:32:29 for
    0:32:29 independence
    0:32:30 I
    0:32:30 never
    0:32:31 will
    0:32:32 and
    0:32:32 I
    0:32:32 didn’t
    0:32:32 like
    0:32:32 that
    0:32:33 idea
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    0:32:33 I
    0:32:33 never
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    0:32:35 kind
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    0:32:35 forced
    0:32:35 me
    0:32:36 out
    0:32:36 of
    0:32:36 Fox
    0:32:37 and
    0:32:37 I
    0:32:37 had
    0:32:37 no
    0:32:38 clue
    0:32:38 what
    0:32:38 I
    0:32:38 wanted
    0:32:40 to
    0:32:40 do
    0:32:40 was
    0:32:40 not
    0:32:40 what
    0:32:41 I
    0:32:41 done
    0:32:41 before
    0:32:42 I
    0:32:42 didn’t
    0:32:43 want
    0:32:43 to
    0:32:43 run
    0:32:43 movie
    0:32:44 companies
    0:32:44 anymore
    0:32:45 I’d
    0:32:45 run
    0:32:46 too
    0:32:47 and
    0:32:47 a
    0:32:47 couple
    0:32:47 of
    0:32:47 people
    0:32:48 asked
    0:32:48 me
    0:32:48 if
    0:32:48 I
    0:32:48 would
    0:32:48 do
    0:32:49 that
    0:32:49 and
    0:32:49 I
    0:32:49 said
    0:32:49 no
    0:32:49 and
    0:32:50 I
    0:32:58 didn’t
    0:33:00 want
    0:33:01 to
    0:33:02 drive
    0:33:02 across
    0:33:02 the
    0:33:03 country
    0:33:03 and
    0:33:04 wait
    0:33:05 for
    0:33:05 something
    0:33:05 and
    0:33:07 again
    0:33:08 serendipity
    0:33:08 my
    0:33:09 wife
    0:33:10 is in
    0:33:10 the
    0:33:11 fashion
    0:33:11 business
    0:33:12 called
    0:33:12 me
    0:33:13 and
    0:33:13 said
    0:33:13 you
    0:33:13 have
    0:33:13 to
    0:33:13 come
    0:33:14 go
    0:33:14 see
    0:33:14 this
    0:33:15 QVC
    0:33:16 this
    0:33:16 home
    0:33:17 shopping
    0:33:17 channel
    0:33:17 because
    0:33:18 I’m
    0:33:18 thinking
    0:33:19 of
    0:33:19 going
    0:33:19 on
    0:33:19 at
    0:33:19 the
    0:33:20 offer
    0:33:20 my
    0:33:21 design
    0:33:21 clothes
    0:33:23 and
    0:33:23 he
    0:33:24 said
    0:33:24 it’s
    0:33:24 just
    0:33:24 interesting
    0:33:25 just
    0:33:25 go
    0:33:25 see
    0:33:25 it
    0:33:26 so
    0:33:26 I
    0:33:26 wasn’t
    0:33:26 doing
    0:33:27 anything
    0:33:27 so
    0:33:27 I
    0:33:28 went
    0:33:28 to
    0:33:29 Westchester
    0:33:29 Pennsylvania
    0:33:31 and
    0:33:31 I
    0:33:31 got
    0:33:32 again
    0:33:33 you know
    0:33:33 I had
    0:33:33 this
    0:33:34 probably
    0:33:35 single
    0:33:36 epiphany
    0:33:37 which is
    0:33:37 I saw
    0:33:38 screens being
    0:33:38 used for
    0:33:39 something
    0:33:39 other than
    0:33:39 to tell
    0:33:40 stories
    0:33:40 now I
    0:33:41 knew
    0:33:42 God
    0:33:42 knows
    0:33:43 screens
    0:33:43 tell
    0:33:43 stories
    0:33:44 but I
    0:33:44 didn’t
    0:33:44 know
    0:33:44 anything
    0:33:45 else
    0:33:45 I
    0:33:45 didn’t
    0:33:45 know
    0:33:45 a
    0:33:45 screen
    0:33:45 could
    0:33:46 be
    0:33:46 interactive
    0:33:47 and
    0:33:47 there
    0:33:47 I
    0:33:47 am
    0:33:48 watching
    0:33:50 telephones
    0:33:50 and
    0:33:50 televisions
    0:33:50 and
    0:33:51 computers
    0:33:51 being
    0:33:52 used
    0:33:52 in
    0:33:52 this
    0:33:53 primitive
    0:33:53 convergence
    0:33:54 and
    0:33:55 it
    0:33:55 struck
    0:33:55 me
    0:33:56 I
    0:33:56 mean
    0:33:56 it
    0:33:56 just
    0:33:57 like
    0:33:57 banged
    0:33:58 at me
    0:33:58 of
    0:33:59 wow
    0:33:59 now I
    0:34:00 didn’t
    0:34:01 this
    0:34:01 this
    0:34:01 is
    0:34:02 1993
    0:34:03 two
    0:34:03 years
    0:34:03 before
    0:34:04 the
    0:34:04 internet
    0:34:05 really
    0:34:05 started
    0:34:05 being
    0:34:06 used
    0:34:06 by
    0:34:06 common
    0:34:07 folk
    0:34:08 and
    0:34:08 I
    0:34:09 thought
    0:34:09 wow
    0:34:10 but I
    0:34:11 didn’t
    0:34:12 think
    0:34:12 what
    0:34:13 was
    0:34:13 going
    0:34:13 to
    0:34:13 happen
    0:34:13 I
    0:34:14 just
    0:34:14 knew
    0:34:14 it
    0:34:14 was
    0:34:15 going
    0:34:15 to
    0:34:15 change
    0:34:15 things
    0:34:16 and
    0:34:16 I
    0:34:16 was
    0:34:17 fascinated
    0:34:17 with
    0:34:17 it
    0:34:18 and
    0:34:18 then
    0:34:19 again
    0:34:19 I’ve
    0:34:20 used
    0:34:20 this
    0:34:20 word
    0:34:20 serendipity
    0:34:21 but it
    0:34:21 is
    0:34:21 the
    0:34:21 leet
    0:34:22 motive
    0:34:22 of
    0:34:22 my
    0:34:22 life
    0:34:23 a
    0:34:23 couple
    0:34:23 of
    0:34:24 months
    0:34:24 later
    0:34:25 I
    0:34:25 was
    0:34:26 offered
    0:34:27 to buy
    0:34:28 QVC
    0:34:29 and
    0:34:29 I
    0:34:30 did
    0:34:30 it
    0:34:30 and
    0:34:31 so
    0:34:31 by
    0:34:31 the
    0:34:32 time
    0:34:32 the
    0:34:32 internet
    0:34:32 came
    0:34:33 along
    0:34:33 from
    0:34:33 this
    0:34:34 primitive
    0:34:34 convergence
    0:34:35 now
    0:34:35 two
    0:34:35 years
    0:34:36 later
    0:34:37 I
    0:34:37 had
    0:34:37 kind
    0:34:37 of
    0:34:38 in
    0:34:38 my
    0:34:39 fingertips
    0:34:39 an
    0:34:40 understanding
    0:34:40 of
    0:34:40 that
    0:34:41 world
    0:34:42 and
    0:34:42 so
    0:34:43 when
    0:34:44 that
    0:34:44 happened
    0:34:45 we
    0:34:45 were
    0:34:45 able
    0:34:45 to
    0:34:46 start
    0:34:47 all
    0:34:47 these
    0:34:48 businesses
    0:34:48 the
    0:34:48 internet
    0:34:49 business
    0:34:49 Expedia
    0:34:50 and
    0:34:50 Match
    0:34:50 and
    0:34:50 all
    0:34:50 these
    0:34:51 things
    0:34:51 that
    0:34:51 came
    0:34:52 along
    0:34:52 because
    0:34:53 I
    0:34:53 was
    0:34:53 kind
    0:34:53 of
    0:34:53 present
    0:34:54 at
    0:34:54 the
    0:34:54 creation
    0:34:55 of
    0:34:55 this
    0:34:55 radical
    0:34:56 transformation
    0:34:57 into
    0:34:58 digital
    0:34:58 age
    0:34:59 I
    0:34:59 didn’t
    0:35:00 plan
    0:35:00 it
    0:35:01 I
    0:35:01 never
    0:35:01 actually
    0:35:01 planned
    0:35:02 anything
    0:35:03 but
    0:35:03 once
    0:35:03 I
    0:35:04 saw
    0:35:04 it
    0:35:05 I
    0:35:05 was
    0:35:06 just
    0:35:07 again
    0:35:07 drawn
    0:35:08 like
    0:35:08 a
    0:35:08 magnet
    0:35:08 to
    0:35:08 it
    0:35:09 and
    0:35:10 that’s
    0:35:11 what
    0:35:11 got it
    0:35:11 started
    0:35:12 and
    0:35:12 then
    0:35:12 it
    0:35:12 just
    0:35:13 went
    0:35:13 from
    0:35:13 there
    0:35:14 you
    0:35:14 you
    0:35:14 you
    0:35:15 have
    0:35:15 a
    0:35:15 reputation
    0:35:16 for
    0:35:17 mentoring
    0:35:18 and
    0:35:19 developing
    0:35:19 or
    0:35:19 maturing
    0:35:19 a lot
    0:35:19 of
    0:35:20 pretty
    0:35:21 impressive
    0:35:22 executives
    0:35:22 ranging
    0:35:22 from
    0:35:23 Strauss
    0:35:23 Elnick
    0:35:23 to
    0:35:24 Dara
    0:35:24 Kaswishai
    0:35:26 at
    0:35:26 Uber
    0:35:26 Don
    0:35:27 Steele
    0:35:29 one of
    0:35:29 my
    0:35:30 investors
    0:35:30 Tim
    0:35:31 Armstrong
    0:35:32 speaks
    0:35:32 very
    0:35:33 highly
    0:35:33 of you
    0:35:34 I’d be
    0:35:34 curious
    0:35:35 when
    0:35:35 you
    0:35:35 see
    0:35:36 someone
    0:35:36 what
    0:35:37 attributes
    0:35:37 in
    0:35:38 them
    0:35:39 or
    0:35:39 signals
    0:35:40 tell
    0:35:40 you
    0:35:40 this
    0:35:41 person
    0:35:41 is
    0:35:41 worth
    0:35:42 making
    0:35:42 an
    0:35:42 investment
    0:35:42 in
    0:35:43 and
    0:35:43 this
    0:35:43 person
    0:35:43 could
    0:35:45 play
    0:35:45 a
    0:35:45 really
    0:35:46 important
    0:35:46 role
    0:35:46 what
    0:35:47 do
    0:35:48 you
    0:35:48 spot
    0:35:48 in
    0:35:49 people
    0:35:49 and
    0:35:49 think
    0:35:49 this
    0:35:50 person
    0:35:50 is
    0:35:50 a
    0:35:50 comer
    0:35:51 spark
    0:35:53 energy
    0:35:53 edge
    0:35:54 being
    0:35:55 alive
    0:35:55 to
    0:35:55 the
    0:35:55 moment
    0:35:56 and
    0:35:56 that’s
    0:35:56 all
    0:35:57 I
    0:35:57 need
    0:35:57 I
    0:35:57 don’t
    0:35:58 like
    0:35:59 education
    0:36:01 unless
    0:36:02 they’re
    0:36:02 you know
    0:36:02 tool
    0:36:03 sets
    0:36:03 you need
    0:36:03 to do
    0:36:03 a
    0:36:04 specific
    0:36:04 task
    0:36:05 but
    0:36:06 education
    0:36:06 doesn’t
    0:36:07 impress
    0:36:07 me
    0:36:08 certainly
    0:36:08 MBAs
    0:36:08 don’t
    0:36:09 impress
    0:36:09 me
    0:36:09 I
    0:36:09 think
    0:36:09 they’re
    0:36:10 over
    0:36:10 educated
    0:36:11 or
    0:36:11 narrowly
    0:36:11 over
    0:36:12 educated
    0:36:14 and
    0:36:15 I
    0:36:15 just
    0:36:15 look
    0:36:16 for
    0:36:16 somebody
    0:36:16 who’s
    0:36:17 got
    0:36:18 some
    0:36:18 spark
    0:36:19 and
    0:36:20 edge
    0:36:20 doesn’t
    0:36:21 have
    0:36:21 to
    0:36:21 have
    0:36:21 an
    0:36:21 original
    0:36:22 mind
    0:36:23 just
    0:36:23 has
    0:36:23 has
    0:36:24 to
    0:36:24 have
    0:36:24 a
    0:36:25 live
    0:36:25 mind
    0:36:25 and
    0:36:25 be
    0:36:26 open
    0:36:26 to
    0:36:27 possibilities
    0:36:27 and
    0:36:28 be
    0:36:28 curious
    0:36:28 if I
    0:36:29 see
    0:36:29 that
    0:36:31 that’s
    0:36:31 enough
    0:36:31 to
    0:36:32 start
    0:36:32 and
    0:36:33 every
    0:36:33 one
    0:36:33 of
    0:36:33 the
    0:36:34 people
    0:36:34 you
    0:36:34 mentioned
    0:36:36 almost
    0:36:36 almost
    0:36:36 almost
    0:36:36 everyone
    0:36:37 that’s
    0:36:37 come
    0:36:37 into
    0:36:37 my
    0:36:37 life
    0:36:37 in
    0:36:37 that
    0:36:38 way
    0:36:39 usually
    0:36:39 comes
    0:36:39 in
    0:36:40 at
    0:36:40 the
    0:36:40 junior
    0:36:41 of
    0:36:41 levels
    0:36:43 and
    0:36:44 you
    0:36:44 see
    0:36:45 that
    0:36:46 little
    0:36:46 spark
    0:36:46 or
    0:36:46 whatever
    0:36:47 it
    0:36:47 is
    0:36:48 and
    0:36:50 I
    0:36:50 don’t
    0:36:50 like
    0:36:50 I
    0:36:51 think
    0:36:51 mentoring
    0:36:51 is
    0:36:51 a
    0:36:52 it’s
    0:36:53 cut
    0:36:53 into
    0:36:53 official
    0:36:54 like
    0:36:55 choose
    0:36:55 your
    0:36:55 mentor
    0:36:55 me
    0:36:56 or
    0:36:56 whatever
    0:36:56 all
    0:36:56 that
    0:36:57 stuff
    0:36:57 I
    0:36:58 think
    0:36:58 it’s
    0:36:58 a
    0:36:58 little
    0:36:59 high
    0:36:59 flown
    0:37:00 but
    0:37:01 I
    0:37:01 think
    0:37:02 if
    0:37:02 you
    0:37:02 get
    0:37:02 people
    0:37:02 at
    0:37:02 the
    0:37:03 earliest
    0:37:03 age
    0:37:03 and
    0:37:03 they
    0:37:04 get
    0:37:04 into
    0:37:04 your
    0:37:05 environment
    0:37:06 and
    0:37:06 you
    0:37:06 can
    0:37:07 bash
    0:37:07 around
    0:37:08 with
    0:37:08 them
    0:37:09 in
    0:37:09 different
    0:37:10 roles
    0:37:10 that
    0:37:10 they
    0:37:10 could
    0:37:11 play
    0:37:12 and
    0:37:12 then
    0:37:13 they
    0:37:13 grow
    0:37:13 up
    0:37:14 within
    0:37:14 the
    0:37:16 organization
    0:37:17 they
    0:37:17 just
    0:37:18 get
    0:37:18 big
    0:37:19 dosages
    0:37:19 of
    0:37:19 everything
    0:37:20 and
    0:37:21 some
    0:37:21 it
    0:37:21 takes
    0:37:21 and
    0:37:21 some
    0:37:21 it
    0:37:22 doesn’t
    0:37:23 I’m
    0:37:23 curious
    0:37:23 what
    0:37:24 you
    0:37:24 think
    0:37:24 when
    0:37:24 you
    0:37:25 look
    0:37:25 at
    0:37:25 the
    0:37:25 media
    0:37:26 world
    0:37:26 right
    0:37:26 now
    0:37:27 are
    0:37:27 there
    0:37:27 any
    0:37:27 kind
    0:37:28 specific
    0:37:28 trends
    0:37:29 that
    0:37:29 pop
    0:37:29 out
    0:37:29 to
    0:37:30 you
    0:37:30 and
    0:37:30 any
    0:37:30 thoughts
    0:37:31 on
    0:37:31 say
    0:37:31 you’re
    0:37:31 coming
    0:37:32 out
    0:37:32 and
    0:37:33 you
    0:37:33 want
    0:37:33 to
    0:37:33 be
    0:37:33 the
    0:37:33 next
    0:37:33 Barry
    0:37:34 Diller
    0:37:34 where
    0:37:34 do
    0:37:34 you
    0:37:34 think
    0:37:34 the
    0:37:35 puck
    0:37:35 is
    0:37:35 headed
    0:37:36 well
    0:37:36 I
    0:37:36 have
    0:37:37 no
    0:37:37 clue
    0:37:37 where
    0:37:37 it’s
    0:37:37 headed
    0:37:38 really
    0:37:38 I
    0:37:38 mean
    0:37:38 I
    0:37:39 can
    0:37:40 a
    0:37:40 couple
    0:37:40 of
    0:37:40 things
    0:37:41 maybe
    0:37:41 I
    0:37:41 mean
    0:37:42 if
    0:37:42 I
    0:37:42 was
    0:37:43 starting
    0:37:43 today
    0:37:43 I
    0:37:43 would
    0:37:44 look
    0:37:44 for
    0:37:44 things
    0:37:44 that
    0:37:44 can’t
    0:37:45 be
    0:37:46 disintermediated
    0:37:47 because
    0:37:47 I
    0:37:47 think
    0:37:48 the
    0:37:48 changes
    0:37:59 so
    0:38:01 if
    0:38:02 I
    0:38:02 were
    0:38:03 again
    0:38:04 mine
    0:38:05 wasn’t
    0:38:06 my own
    0:38:06 experience
    0:38:07 all I
    0:38:07 got is
    0:38:07 my own
    0:38:08 experience
    0:38:08 I
    0:38:08 was
    0:38:09 drawn
    0:38:09 to
    0:38:09 stuff
    0:38:10 I
    0:38:10 didn’t
    0:38:10 suss
    0:38:11 out
    0:38:12 oh
    0:38:13 entertainment
    0:38:13 business
    0:38:14 looks like
    0:38:15 it has
    0:38:15 this or
    0:38:15 that
    0:38:16 quality
    0:38:16 about
    0:38:16 it
    0:38:17 I
    0:38:17 was
    0:38:17 just
    0:38:17 fascinated
    0:38:18 by
    0:38:18 it
    0:38:19 I
    0:38:19 think
    0:38:20 you
    0:38:20 think
    0:38:20 what
    0:38:21 fascinates
    0:38:21 you
    0:38:21 what
    0:38:21 are
    0:38:22 you
    0:38:23 curious
    0:38:23 about
    0:38:24 and
    0:38:24 then
    0:38:25 just
    0:38:25 get on
    0:38:25 the
    0:38:25 broad
    0:38:26 path
    0:38:26 of it
    0:38:26 somehow
    0:38:27 just
    0:38:27 start
    0:38:28 however
    0:38:28 you
    0:38:29 whatever
    0:38:29 door
    0:38:30 you
    0:38:30 have
    0:38:30 to
    0:38:30 bash
    0:38:30 through
    0:38:31 whatever
    0:38:31 you
    0:38:31 have
    0:38:32 to
    0:38:32 do
    0:38:34 just
    0:38:35 get
    0:38:35 on
    0:38:35 the
    0:38:35 main
    0:38:36 path
    0:38:36 of
    0:38:36 whatever
    0:38:37 intrigues
    0:38:37 you
    0:38:38 and
    0:38:39 it
    0:38:39 will
    0:38:41 take
    0:38:41 you
    0:38:42 or not
    0:38:42 but
    0:38:43 it’ll
    0:38:43 it’ll
    0:38:44 take
    0:38:44 you
    0:38:44 where
    0:38:45 you’re
    0:38:45 supposed
    0:38:45 to
    0:38:46 go
    0:38:47 as
    0:38:47 against
    0:38:48 the
    0:38:49 dopes
    0:38:50 particularly
    0:38:50 entertainment
    0:38:51 business
    0:38:51 who say
    0:38:51 I
    0:38:52 want to
    0:38:52 run
    0:38:52 a
    0:38:52 studio
    0:38:53 anyone
    0:38:53 who
    0:38:53 says
    0:38:53 that
    0:38:53 to
    0:38:53 me
    0:38:53 I
    0:38:54 would
    0:38:54 throw
    0:38:54 out
    0:38:54 of
    0:38:54 my
    0:38:54 office
    0:38:55 I
    0:38:55 mean
    0:38:56 that’s
    0:38:56 like
    0:38:56 such
    0:38:57 an
    0:38:57 idiot
    0:38:57 goal
    0:38:58 I
    0:38:59 think
    0:38:59 look
    0:38:59 if
    0:38:59 you
    0:38:59 want
    0:39:00 to
    0:39:00 be
    0:39:00 a
    0:39:00 doctor
    0:39:01 yeah
    0:39:01 you
    0:39:02 gotta
    0:39:02 have
    0:39:02 a
    0:39:02 goal
    0:39:03 you
    0:39:03 gotta
    0:39:03 get
    0:39:03 a
    0:39:03 degree
    0:39:04 or
    0:39:04 other
    0:39:05 things
    0:39:06 but
    0:39:06 if
    0:39:06 if
    0:39:07 those
    0:39:07 aren’t
    0:39:08 necessary
    0:39:08 then
    0:39:09 early
    0:39:09 age
    0:39:10 goal
    0:39:10 stuff
    0:39:10 is
    0:39:11 really
    0:39:11 stupid
    0:39:12 you
    0:39:12 should
    0:39:12 only
    0:39:13 be
    0:39:13 governed
    0:39:13 by
    0:39:13 what
    0:39:14 you’re
    0:39:14 curious
    0:39:15 about
    0:39:15 and
    0:39:16 get
    0:39:16 in
    0:39:16 the
    0:39:16 lane
    0:39:18 in
    0:39:18 terms
    0:39:18 of
    0:39:19 the
    0:39:19 media
    0:39:19 ecosystem
    0:39:20 right
    0:39:20 now
    0:39:21 you’ve
    0:39:21 actually
    0:39:22 I
    0:39:22 think
    0:39:22 some
    0:39:22 of
    0:39:22 the
    0:39:22 stuff
    0:39:23 I’ve
    0:39:23 read
    0:39:23 you’ve
    0:39:23 called
    0:39:23 for
    0:39:24 antitrust
    0:39:24 do you
    0:39:24 think
    0:39:25 the
    0:39:25 ecosystem
    0:39:26 is
    0:39:26 too
    0:39:26 concentrated
    0:39:27 right
    0:39:27 now
    0:39:28 oh
    0:39:28 you
    0:39:28 mean
    0:39:28 the
    0:39:29 lawsuits
    0:39:30 against
    0:39:30 Google
    0:39:30 and
    0:39:31 and
    0:39:32 alphabet
    0:39:32 I
    0:39:32 don’t
    0:39:33 know
    0:39:33 how
    0:39:33 practical
    0:39:34 it
    0:39:34 is
    0:39:34 look
    0:39:34 I
    0:39:34 think
    0:39:35 with
    0:39:35 Google
    0:39:35 Google
    0:39:36 the
    0:39:36 thing
    0:39:37 is
    0:39:37 Google
    0:39:38 was
    0:39:39 and
    0:39:39 is
    0:39:40 currently
    0:39:40 but
    0:39:41 by
    0:39:41 my
    0:39:41 little
    0:39:42 currently
    0:39:42 is on
    0:39:42 the
    0:39:43 head
    0:39:43 of
    0:39:43 a
    0:39:43 little
    0:39:43 pin
    0:39:44 because
    0:39:45 that’s
    0:39:45 changing
    0:39:46 Google
    0:39:46 was an
    0:39:47 absolute
    0:39:47 monopoly
    0:39:49 no
    0:39:49 question
    0:39:50 you
    0:39:51 lived
    0:39:51 as a
    0:39:52 surf
    0:39:52 in
    0:39:52 their
    0:39:53 land
    0:39:53 if
    0:39:53 you
    0:39:54 had
    0:39:54 anything
    0:39:55 internet
    0:39:55 or
    0:39:56 traffic
    0:39:56 oriented
    0:39:57 that you
    0:39:57 needed
    0:39:58 for
    0:39:58 your
    0:39:59 services
    0:39:59 or
    0:40:00 products
    0:40:01 a
    0:40:01 total
    0:40:02 monopoly
    0:40:03 I
    0:40:03 think
    0:40:05 that’s
    0:40:06 just
    0:40:06 about
    0:40:06 to
    0:40:06 change
    0:40:07 now
    0:40:08 maybe
    0:40:08 their
    0:40:09 Gemini
    0:40:10 will
    0:40:11 take
    0:40:11 over
    0:40:12 search
    0:40:12 just
    0:40:12 like
    0:40:13 their
    0:40:13 Google
    0:40:14 took
    0:40:14 over
    0:40:15 search
    0:40:15 20
    0:40:15 years
    0:40:16 ago
    0:40:16 I
    0:40:17 doubt
    0:40:17 it
    0:40:17 I
    0:40:17 don’t
    0:40:18 think
    0:40:18 the
    0:40:18 chances
    0:40:18 are
    0:40:19 great
    0:40:20 so
    0:40:21 it
    0:40:21 seems
    0:40:22 awfully
    0:40:22 late
    0:40:23 maybe
    0:40:23 you
    0:40:24 need
    0:40:24 most
    0:40:24 antitrust
    0:40:25 stuff
    0:40:25 does
    0:40:25 come
    0:40:25 late
    0:40:26 of
    0:40:26 this
    0:40:26 kind
    0:40:27 so
    0:40:27 I
    0:40:27 don’t
    0:40:28 know
    0:40:28 if
    0:40:28 that
    0:40:28 how
    0:40:29 what
    0:40:29 sense
    0:40:29 that
    0:40:30 makes
    0:40:30 and
    0:40:30 as
    0:40:30 for
    0:40:31 separating
    0:40:32 Instagram
    0:40:33 or
    0:40:33 WhatsApp
    0:40:33 and
    0:40:33 trying
    0:40:34 to
    0:40:34 get
    0:40:34 them
    0:40:34 I
    0:40:34 mean
    0:40:35 it’s
    0:40:36 also
    0:40:36 I
    0:40:37 think
    0:40:37 the
    0:40:37 basis
    0:40:38 of that
    0:40:38 doesn’t
    0:40:38 make
    0:40:38 any
    0:40:39 sense
    0:40:39 I
    0:40:39 don’t
    0:40:40 think
    0:40:41 that
    0:40:41 they
    0:40:42 are
    0:40:42 anti
    0:40:43 competitive
    0:40:45 at the
    0:40:45 heart
    0:40:45 of the
    0:40:46 meta
    0:40:46 lawsuit
    0:40:46 doesn’t
    0:40:47 make
    0:40:47 any
    0:40:47 total
    0:40:47 sense
    0:40:48 to
    0:40:48 me
    0:40:48 but
    0:40:48 okay
    0:40:49 all
    0:40:49 of
    0:40:49 that
    0:40:50 I
    0:40:51 think
    0:40:52 that
    0:40:52 what
    0:40:53 is
    0:40:53 happening
    0:40:54 on
    0:40:54 the
    0:40:54 eve
    0:40:54 of
    0:40:55 today
    0:40:56 in
    0:40:56 the
    0:40:56 next
    0:40:56 year
    0:40:57 or
    0:40:57 two
    0:40:58 is
    0:40:59 there’s
    0:40:59 going
    0:40:59 to
    0:41:00 be
    0:41:00 so
    0:41:01 much
    0:41:01 diversity
    0:41:02 in
    0:41:03 AI
    0:41:04 empowered
    0:41:04 stuff
    0:41:05 that
    0:41:06 I
    0:41:06 think
    0:41:07 these
    0:41:08 tech
    0:41:09 monopolies
    0:41:09 except
    0:41:09 for
    0:41:10 Apple
    0:41:11 which
    0:41:11 is
    0:41:11 not
    0:41:11 a
    0:41:12 monopoly
    0:41:12 but
    0:41:12 is
    0:41:12 the
    0:41:13 greatest
    0:41:13 business
    0:41:13 as
    0:41:14 you
    0:41:14 know
    0:41:15 the
    0:41:15 iPhone
    0:41:16 business
    0:41:16 and
    0:41:16 its
    0:41:17 walled
    0:41:17 circle
    0:41:18 I
    0:41:19 don’t
    0:41:19 know
    0:41:19 how
    0:41:19 you
    0:41:19 do
    0:41:19 better
    0:41:20 than
    0:41:20 that
    0:41:22 that
    0:41:22 ecosystem
    0:41:23 but
    0:41:23 I
    0:41:24 don’t
    0:41:24 think
    0:41:24 these
    0:41:24 companies
    0:41:24 are
    0:41:25 going
    0:41:25 to
    0:41:26 these
    0:41:26 companies
    0:41:27 probably
    0:41:28 because
    0:41:28 they’re
    0:41:28 so
    0:41:29 big
    0:41:29 and
    0:41:29 so
    0:41:30 profitable
    0:41:31 that
    0:41:31 offshoots
    0:41:31 of
    0:41:31 them
    0:41:32 look
    0:41:33 Google
    0:41:34 has
    0:41:34 YouTube
    0:41:35 which
    0:41:37 is
    0:41:37 a
    0:41:38 giant
    0:41:40 people
    0:41:40 don’t
    0:41:41 realize
    0:41:41 how
    0:41:42 powerful
    0:41:43 YouTube
    0:41:43 is
    0:41:44 YouTube
    0:41:44 is
    0:41:44 probably
    0:41:45 worth
    0:41:45 more
    0:41:46 than
    0:41:46 Google
    0:41:46 search
    0:41:47 in a
    0:41:47 while
    0:41:48 because
    0:41:48 I
    0:41:48 don’t
    0:41:48 see
    0:41:48 that
    0:41:48 getting
    0:41:49 disintermediated
    0:41:50 so
    0:41:51 anyway
    0:41:51 I’m
    0:41:51 long
    0:41:52 winded
    0:41:52 about
    0:41:52 this
    0:41:52 I
    0:41:53 don’t
    0:41:53 think
    0:41:54 that
    0:41:55 the
    0:41:55 breakup
    0:41:56 I think
    0:41:56 it’s
    0:41:56 the
    0:41:57 breakup
    0:41:57 of
    0:41:57 these
    0:41:57 things
    0:41:58 is
    0:41:58 so
    0:41:58 late
    0:41:59 in
    0:41:59 the
    0:41:59 game
    0:42:00 that
    0:42:00 they’re
    0:42:01 going
    0:42:01 to
    0:42:01 get
    0:42:02 competed
    0:42:03 with
    0:42:04 vociferously
    0:42:04 by
    0:42:05 everything
    0:42:06 by
    0:42:07 everything
    0:42:08 you’re
    0:42:08 you’re
    0:42:08 going to
    0:42:09 do it
    0:42:09 you’re
    0:42:09 going to
    0:42:09 be a good
    0:42:09 segue
    0:42:10 into
    0:42:10 streaming
    0:42:11 wars
    0:42:12 when you
    0:42:12 look at
    0:42:12 Netflix
    0:42:13 and all
    0:42:14 the other
    0:42:14 players
    0:42:14 I think
    0:42:14 of it
    0:42:15 as
    0:42:15 Netflix
    0:42:15 and the
    0:42:15 seven
    0:42:16 dwarves
    0:42:16 any
    0:42:17 predictions
    0:42:17 or any
    0:42:19 feel for
    0:42:19 how that
    0:42:20 might shake
    0:42:20 out
    0:42:22 five years
    0:42:22 ago
    0:42:22 I said
    0:42:22 Netflix
    0:42:23 won
    0:42:23 everybody
    0:42:24 get over
    0:42:24 it
    0:42:24 please
    0:42:25 don’t
    0:42:25 try
    0:42:26 don’t
    0:42:26 over
    0:42:27 invest
    0:42:27 to try
    0:42:28 and become
    0:42:29 or compete
    0:42:30 against Netflix
    0:42:30 you cannot
    0:42:31 do it
    0:42:33 they lead
    0:42:33 in every
    0:42:34 respect
    0:42:36 not only
    0:42:36 the movie
    0:42:37 business
    0:42:37 but certainly
    0:42:38 the television
    0:42:38 business
    0:42:40 in every
    0:42:40 respect
    0:42:41 they are
    0:42:42 dominant
    0:42:43 they set
    0:42:44 the rules
    0:42:45 and everybody
    0:42:45 else
    0:42:46 abides by
    0:42:46 those rules
    0:42:47 doesn’t mean
    0:42:47 that there
    0:42:48 aren’t other
    0:42:48 companies
    0:42:50 that can be
    0:42:50 successful
    0:42:51 with their
    0:42:52 streaming
    0:42:52 if they
    0:42:53 scale it
    0:42:53 down
    0:42:55 what their
    0:42:56 cost going
    0:42:57 into it
    0:42:57 and
    0:42:58 they
    0:42:59 make
    0:42:59 good
    0:43:00 programming
    0:43:00 because in
    0:43:01 the end
    0:43:01 entertainment
    0:43:02 is a
    0:43:02 business
    0:43:02 of hits
    0:43:03 world
    0:43:03 of hits
    0:43:05 and
    0:43:05 you can
    0:43:06 do it
    0:43:06 at a
    0:43:08 lesser
    0:43:09 scale
    0:43:09 than Netflix
    0:43:10 and succeed
    0:43:10 very nicely
    0:43:11 you can
    0:43:11 just never
    0:43:12 be
    0:43:13 ever
    0:43:14 be number
    0:43:14 one
    0:43:14 or have
    0:43:15 big growth
    0:43:15 that the
    0:43:16 growth
    0:43:16 of those
    0:43:17 movie
    0:43:17 companies
    0:43:18 subsumed
    0:43:19 everything else
    0:43:19 that came
    0:43:19 along for
    0:43:20 70 years
    0:43:21 they are
    0:43:21 being
    0:43:22 have been
    0:43:22 subsumed
    0:43:23 now by
    0:43:24 huge
    0:43:24 tech
    0:43:25 companies
    0:43:25 that have
    0:43:25 different
    0:43:26 business
    0:43:26 models
    0:43:26 than they
    0:43:27 do
    0:43:27 that they
    0:43:28 can never
    0:43:28 compete
    0:43:28 with
    0:43:29 so all
    0:43:30 those
    0:43:30 companies
    0:43:31 that
    0:43:31 have
    0:43:32 been
    0:43:32 around
    0:43:32 for
    0:43:32 100
    0:43:33 years
    0:43:34 they’re
    0:43:34 just
    0:43:34 going
    0:43:34 to be
    0:43:34 smaller
    0:43:35 enterprises
    0:43:36 without
    0:43:37 great growth
    0:43:38 prospects
    0:43:38 but they’ll
    0:43:39 be okay
    0:43:40 there’s a lot
    0:43:41 of you see
    0:43:41 all these
    0:43:41 tiktoks about
    0:43:42 people saying
    0:43:43 that you know
    0:43:44 Hollywood is
    0:43:44 under set
    0:43:45 especially production
    0:43:46 that production
    0:43:46 is way down
    0:43:47 in LA
    0:43:48 and that everyone’s
    0:43:49 asking for tax
    0:43:50 credits to make
    0:43:50 it more
    0:43:51 competitive
    0:43:52 and I think
    0:43:53 Netflix now
    0:43:53 spends more
    0:43:53 than half
    0:43:54 of its content
    0:43:54 budget
    0:43:55 overseas
    0:43:56 do you
    0:43:56 think
    0:43:57 that
    0:43:58 Hollywood
    0:43:59 is to
    0:44:00 the
    0:44:01 entertainment
    0:44:01 industry
    0:44:02 what Detroit
    0:44:02 was to
    0:44:02 the automotive
    0:44:03 industry
    0:44:04 is this
    0:44:04 cyclical
    0:44:05 or structural
    0:44:06 Hollywood
    0:44:06 hedge money
    0:44:07 is gone
    0:44:08 forever
    0:44:08 again
    0:44:10 Hollywood
    0:44:10 now
    0:44:11 is dominated
    0:44:12 by
    0:44:13 Netflix
    0:44:14 tech
    0:44:14 company
    0:44:15 Amazon
    0:44:16 a tech
    0:44:16 company
    0:44:16 with
    0:44:17 completely
    0:44:17 different
    0:44:17 business
    0:44:18 model
    0:44:19 than
    0:44:19 anybody
    0:44:19 in the
    0:44:20 entertainment
    0:44:20 business
    0:44:20 could have
    0:44:21 ever
    0:44:21 conceived
    0:44:21 of
    0:44:22 which
    0:44:22 is
    0:44:22 we
    0:44:23 don’t
    0:44:23 care
    0:44:23 if
    0:44:23 you
    0:44:23 watch
    0:44:23 this
    0:44:24 stuff
    0:44:24 really
    0:44:25 or
    0:44:25 that
    0:44:25 if
    0:44:26 it’s
    0:44:26 you know
    0:44:26 we don’t
    0:44:27 need
    0:44:27 really
    0:44:27 hits
    0:44:28 we need
    0:44:28 you to
    0:44:29 join
    0:44:29 prime
    0:44:30 and we’re
    0:44:30 going to
    0:44:30 give you
    0:44:31 this
    0:44:31 stuff
    0:44:32 in the
    0:44:32 front
    0:44:33 of the
    0:44:33 store
    0:44:35 in order
    0:44:35 to get
    0:44:35 you in
    0:44:35 the
    0:44:36 store
    0:44:36 of
    0:44:37 prime
    0:44:38 how do
    0:44:38 you
    0:44:38 compete
    0:44:39 with
    0:44:39 that
    0:44:39 it’s
    0:44:40 not
    0:44:40 possible
    0:44:41 and
    0:44:41 then
    0:44:42 there’s
    0:44:42 of course
    0:44:43 Apple
    0:44:43 and its
    0:44:44 efforts
    0:44:44 in
    0:44:45 programming
    0:44:46 so
    0:44:47 tech
    0:44:48 are
    0:44:49 now
    0:44:49 the
    0:44:50 overlords
    0:44:51 Hollywood
    0:44:52 is
    0:44:53 I’m
    0:44:53 not
    0:44:53 saying
    0:44:54 it’s
    0:44:54 culturally
    0:44:55 irrelevant
    0:44:55 because
    0:44:56 a lot
    0:44:56 of
    0:44:57 stuff
    0:44:57 gets
    0:44:58 created
    0:44:58 there
    0:44:59 or
    0:44:59 is
    0:44:59 organized
    0:45:00 there
    0:45:01 whether
    0:45:01 it’s
    0:45:01 shot
    0:45:01 there
    0:45:01 or
    0:45:02 shot
    0:45:02 someplace
    0:45:02 else
    0:45:03 is
    0:45:03 somewhat
    0:45:04 irrelevant
    0:45:04 though
    0:45:05 I think
    0:45:05 it’s
    0:45:05 very
    0:45:05 relevant
    0:45:06 to
    0:45:06 the
    0:45:06 crafts
    0:45:07 all of
    0:45:07 whom
    0:45:07 live
    0:45:07 in
    0:45:08 LA
    0:45:09 and
    0:45:09 I
    0:45:09 think
    0:45:10 LA
    0:45:11 county
    0:45:11 LA
    0:45:12 city
    0:45:13 California
    0:45:13 state
    0:45:14 has
    0:45:14 been
    0:45:15 so
    0:45:15 frigging
    0:45:16 dumb
    0:45:17 in
    0:45:18 not
    0:45:18 offering
    0:45:19 the
    0:45:19 kinds
    0:45:19 of
    0:45:20 production
    0:45:21 below
    0:45:21 the
    0:45:21 line
    0:45:22 incentives
    0:45:22 that
    0:45:22 every
    0:45:23 other
    0:45:23 state
    0:45:24 and
    0:45:24 country
    0:45:25 has
    0:45:25 offered
    0:45:26 that
    0:45:26 has
    0:45:26 pulled
    0:45:27 the
    0:45:27 centrality
    0:45:27 of
    0:45:28 just
    0:45:28 making
    0:45:28 this
    0:45:28 stuff
    0:45:29 away
    0:45:29 from
    0:45:30 the
    0:45:30 place
    0:45:30 that’s
    0:45:30 got
    0:45:31 all
    0:45:31 the
    0:45:31 craft
    0:45:32 expertise
    0:45:32 kind
    0:45:32 kind
    0:45:33 crazy
    0:45:34 there
    0:45:34 it
    0:45:34 is
    0:45:35 certainly
    0:45:35 tariffs
    0:45:35 aren’t
    0:45:36 going
    0:45:36 to
    0:45:36 help
    0:45:36 that
    0:45:37 that’s
    0:45:38 brainless
    0:45:39 it’s
    0:45:39 just a
    0:45:40 completely
    0:45:41 different
    0:45:43 system
    0:45:43 now
    0:45:44 than
    0:45:45 what it
    0:45:45 was
    0:45:45 for
    0:45:46 you know
    0:45:46 dominated
    0:45:47 again
    0:45:47 for
    0:45:48 close
    0:45:48 to
    0:45:48 100
    0:45:48 years
    0:45:49 by
    0:45:49 just
    0:45:50 a
    0:45:50 handful
    0:45:50 of
    0:45:50 companies
    0:45:52 that
    0:45:53 subsumed
    0:45:53 almost
    0:45:54 everything
    0:45:54 that came
    0:45:55 along
    0:45:56 technically
    0:45:57 until
    0:45:57 Netflix
    0:45:58 busted
    0:45:58 the
    0:45:58 apple
    0:46:08 support
    0:46:08 for
    0:46:08 the
    0:46:08 show
    0:46:08 comes
    0:46:08 from
    0:46:09 Mercury
    0:46:09 the
    0:46:09 banking
    0:46:10 product
    0:46:10 that
    0:46:10 feels
    0:46:11 extraordinary
    0:46:12 to use
    0:46:12 when you’re
    0:46:12 a startup
    0:46:13 founder
    0:46:13 getting your
    0:46:13 business
    0:46:14 off the
    0:46:14 ground
    0:46:15 the last
    0:46:15 thing you
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    0:46:22 Mercury
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    0:46:23 is the
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    0:46:24 made by
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    0:46:25 entrepreneurs
    0:46:26 what makes
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    0:46:27 well
    0:46:28 Mercury
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    0:46:28 technically
    0:46:29 a bank
    0:46:29 that
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    0:46:47 visit
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    0:46:49 over 200,000
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    0:46:52 business
    0:46:52 Mercury
    0:46:53 banking
    0:46:54 that does
    0:46:54 more
    0:46:59 financial
    0:46:59 group
    0:46:59 column
    0:47:00 NA
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    0:47:01 and Trust
    0:47:01 members
    0:47:02 FDIC
    0:47:02 the
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    0:47:03 is
    0:47:03 issued
    0:47:03 by
    0:47:04 Patriot
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    0:47:12 Support for
    0:47:12 the show
    0:47:12 comes from
    0:47:13 SelectQuote
    0:47:14 I’m sure
    0:47:14 you’ve heard
    0:47:15 people say
    0:47:15 the phrase
    0:47:16 you can’t
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    0:47:16 with you
    0:47:17 and what
    0:47:17 that phrase
    0:47:18 means
    0:47:18 is that
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    0:47:19 pass
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    0:47:19 worldly
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    0:47:20 won’t
    0:47:20 matter
    0:47:20 to you
    0:47:21 and that’s
    0:47:21 a nice
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    0:47:22 but your
    0:47:22 worldly
    0:47:23 assets
    0:47:23 will
    0:47:23 definitely
    0:47:24 matter
    0:47:24 to your
    0:47:24 loved
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    0:47:25 should
    0:47:25 something
    0:47:26 happen
    0:47:26 to you
    0:47:26 tomorrow
    0:47:26 you can
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    0:47:27 sure
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    0:47:31 SelectQuote
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    0:47:32 they can
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    0:47:33 SelectQuote
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    0:48:05 prop
    0:48:05 g
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    0:48:09 that’s
    0:48:10 selectquote.com
    0:48:11 slash
    0:48:11 prop
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    0:48:35 we’re back
    0:48:36 with more
    0:48:36 from
    0:48:37 Barry
    0:48:37 Diller
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    0:48:40 just
    0:48:40 I
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    0:48:40 to
    0:48:41 in
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    0:48:42 want
    0:48:42 to
    0:48:42 switch
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    0:48:43 stuff
    0:48:43 that’s
    0:48:44 more
    0:48:44 personal
    0:48:45 you’ve
    0:48:45 had
    0:48:45 what
    0:48:45 I
    0:48:46 would
    0:48:46 argue
    0:48:46 from
    0:48:47 at least
    0:48:47 an
    0:48:47 exterior
    0:48:48 perspective
    0:48:48 is
    0:48:48 a
    0:48:48 very
    0:48:49 successful
    0:48:49 partnership
    0:48:50 with
    0:48:50 your
    0:48:51 wife
    0:48:51 you
    0:48:51 guys
    0:48:51 have
    0:48:52 been
    0:48:52 together
    0:48:53 married
    0:48:53 for
    0:48:53 two
    0:48:53 and a
    0:48:54 half
    0:48:54 decades
    0:48:54 but
    0:48:54 together
    0:48:54 for
    0:48:55 five
    0:48:55 decades
    0:48:55 is
    0:48:56 that
    0:48:56 right
    0:48:57 except
    0:48:57 for
    0:48:57 an
    0:48:58 inter
    0:48:59 regnum
    0:48:59 period
    0:48:59 when
    0:49:00 I
    0:49:00 was
    0:49:00 sent
    0:49:00 off
    0:49:00 to
    0:49:01 the
    0:49:01 wilderness
    0:49:02 which
    0:49:02 lasted
    0:49:03 ,
    0:49:03 almost
    0:49:03 about
    0:49:03 10
    0:49:03 years
    0:49:04 but
    0:49:04 yes
    0:49:04 we
    0:49:05 are
    0:49:05 it’s
    0:49:06 almost
    0:49:06 50
    0:49:06 years
    0:49:07 your
    0:49:07 two
    0:49:08 kids
    0:49:08 I’m
    0:49:08 friends
    0:49:09 are
    0:49:09 friendly
    0:49:09 with
    0:49:10 Alex
    0:49:10 my
    0:49:10 sense
    0:49:10 is
    0:49:10 you
    0:49:10 have
    0:49:10 a
    0:49:11 really
    0:49:11 good
    0:49:11 relationship
    0:49:11 with
    0:49:12 them
    0:49:12 what
    0:49:13 advice
    0:49:13 would
    0:49:13 you
    0:49:14 have
    0:49:15 for
    0:49:16 husbands
    0:49:16 and
    0:49:16 for
    0:49:17 dads
    0:49:18 around
    0:49:20 fostering
    0:49:20 and
    0:49:21 cultivating
    0:49:21 strong
    0:49:22 relationships
    0:49:23 with
    0:49:23 your
    0:49:23 partner
    0:49:24 and
    0:49:24 your
    0:49:24 kids
    0:49:25 I
    0:49:25 don’t
    0:49:25 know
    0:49:26 I
    0:49:26 guess
    0:49:26 be
    0:49:27 engaged
    0:49:27 or
    0:49:27 whatever
    0:49:28 I
    0:49:28 don’t
    0:49:28 I’m
    0:49:29 not
    0:49:29 really
    0:49:29 very
    0:49:29 good
    0:49:29 at
    0:49:30 advice
    0:49:30 I
    0:49:31 think
    0:49:32 I
    0:49:33 just
    0:49:33 think
    0:49:33 again
    0:49:33 if
    0:49:33 you’re
    0:49:34 lucky
    0:49:34 enough
    0:49:35 that
    0:49:39 luck
    0:49:39 is
    0:49:40 a
    0:49:40 real
    0:49:40 part
    0:49:41 of
    0:49:42 what
    0:49:43 is
    0:49:44 the
    0:49:44 result
    0:49:45 of
    0:49:46 a
    0:49:46 child
    0:49:46 that
    0:49:47 gets
    0:49:47 to
    0:49:47 be
    0:49:48 let’s
    0:49:48 see
    0:49:49 a
    0:49:49 semi
    0:49:50 adult
    0:49:50 in
    0:49:50 their
    0:49:51 teens
    0:49:51 or
    0:49:51 post
    0:49:51 teens
    0:49:52 or
    0:49:52 twenties
    0:49:53 whatever
    0:49:53 in
    0:49:53 their
    0:49:53 kind
    0:49:53 of
    0:49:54 development
    0:49:54 period
    0:49:56 and
    0:49:57 you
    0:49:57 know
    0:49:57 if
    0:49:58 they
    0:49:58 come
    0:49:58 out
    0:49:58 of
    0:49:58 that
    0:49:58 as
    0:49:59 responsible
    0:50:00 whatever
    0:50:00 your
    0:50:01 definition
    0:50:01 of
    0:50:01 responsible
    0:50:02 is
    0:50:02 if
    0:50:02 they’re
    0:50:03 responsible
    0:50:04 and
    0:50:05 you’re
    0:50:05 engaged
    0:50:05 with
    0:50:06 them
    0:50:08 it’s
    0:50:08 really
    0:50:08 not
    0:50:08 me
    0:50:08 you
    0:50:08 know
    0:50:09 what
    0:50:09 as I
    0:50:09 think
    0:50:10 about it
    0:50:10 it’s
    0:50:10 not
    0:50:10 me
    0:50:10 it’s
    0:50:11 Dionne
    0:50:11 my
    0:50:11 wife
    0:50:12 I
    0:50:12 don’t
    0:50:12 know
    0:50:13 I’ve
    0:50:13 never
    0:50:13 seen
    0:50:14 anyone
    0:50:14 else’s
    0:50:15 relationship
    0:50:15 with
    0:50:15 their
    0:50:15 children
    0:50:16 which
    0:50:16 is
    0:50:17 like
    0:50:17 that
    0:50:18 it
    0:50:18 is
    0:50:20 it’s
    0:50:20 not
    0:50:21 the
    0:50:22 old
    0:50:23 Elaine
    0:50:23 May
    0:50:23 Mike
    0:50:24 Nichols
    0:50:24 thing
    0:50:24 of
    0:50:24 you
    0:50:24 know
    0:50:25 of
    0:50:25 guilt
    0:50:26 and
    0:50:26 calling
    0:50:26 quote
    0:50:26 your
    0:50:27 mother
    0:50:28 this
    0:50:28 family
    0:50:29 talks
    0:50:29 to
    0:50:29 each
    0:50:29 other
    0:50:31 every
    0:50:31 day
    0:50:33 and
    0:50:33 multiple
    0:50:34 times
    0:50:34 a day
    0:50:35 and
    0:50:36 none
    0:50:36 of it
    0:50:36 is
    0:50:37 effortful
    0:50:38 it’s
    0:50:39 effortless
    0:50:40 and
    0:50:42 that’s
    0:50:43 just
    0:50:43 the
    0:50:44 children
    0:50:44 and
    0:50:45 and the
    0:50:46 grandchildren
    0:50:47 much younger
    0:50:48 obviously
    0:50:48 but the
    0:50:48 children
    0:50:50 are
    0:50:52 everybody’s
    0:50:52 life is
    0:50:52 kind of
    0:50:53 intertwined
    0:50:54 there’s
    0:50:54 no
    0:50:55 you know
    0:50:56 I’m marveled
    0:50:56 people say
    0:50:56 well I
    0:50:57 haven’t talked
    0:50:57 to my
    0:50:58 mother or
    0:50:58 father in
    0:51:00 two weeks
    0:51:00 or I call
    0:51:00 them every
    0:51:01 Thursday or
    0:51:01 whatever
    0:51:02 something like
    0:51:02 that
    0:51:03 formalized
    0:51:04 could not
    0:51:04 be further
    0:51:05 than the
    0:51:05 truth
    0:51:05 I just
    0:51:05 think
    0:51:06 I don’t
    0:51:06 got no
    0:51:07 advice
    0:51:07 here I
    0:51:07 just think
    0:51:08 if you’re
    0:51:08 lucky enough
    0:51:08 to have
    0:51:09 that kind
    0:51:09 of
    0:51:11 easy is
    0:51:11 not the
    0:51:11 world for
    0:51:12 it but
    0:51:13 natural
    0:51:14 engagement
    0:51:15 and
    0:51:16 enfoldment
    0:51:17 that
    0:51:18 when things
    0:51:18 happen
    0:51:20 so you’re
    0:51:20 83
    0:51:22 you’ve
    0:51:22 checked a
    0:51:22 lot of
    0:51:23 boxes
    0:51:24 like
    0:51:25 what boxes
    0:51:25 are left
    0:51:26 for you
    0:51:26 like do
    0:51:27 you have
    0:51:27 when you
    0:51:28 think about
    0:51:28 your purpose
    0:51:29 and what’s
    0:51:29 left for
    0:51:30 you and
    0:51:30 what you
    0:51:31 want to
    0:51:31 accomplish
    0:51:31 you haven’t
    0:51:32 accomplished
    0:51:33 what is
    0:51:34 that or
    0:51:34 those things
    0:51:35 I don’t
    0:51:36 think it’s
    0:51:36 accomplished
    0:51:37 I never
    0:51:37 thought about
    0:51:38 accomplishments
    0:51:38 in that
    0:51:38 sense
    0:51:39 I think
    0:51:40 it’s
    0:51:40 am I
    0:51:40 still
    0:51:41 curious
    0:51:42 I’m
    0:51:42 still
    0:51:43 responsible
    0:51:43 for
    0:51:44 two
    0:51:45 public
    0:51:45 companies
    0:51:46 probably
    0:51:46 three
    0:51:47 actually
    0:51:47 now
    0:51:49 and
    0:51:51 as long
    0:51:51 as I’m
    0:51:52 curious
    0:51:52 about
    0:51:52 them
    0:51:54 then I
    0:51:54 will have
    0:51:54 something
    0:51:55 to contribute
    0:51:56 and that
    0:51:57 kind of
    0:51:57 goes on
    0:51:58 just like
    0:51:58 a clock
    0:51:59 that
    0:51:59 doesn’t
    0:52:00 stop
    0:52:01 energizer
    0:52:01 bunny
    0:52:01 that you
    0:52:02 can’t
    0:52:02 turn
    0:52:02 off
    0:52:03 and that’s
    0:52:03 just
    0:52:05 nature
    0:52:07 but
    0:52:07 what I
    0:52:08 do
    0:52:08 think
    0:52:08 about
    0:52:09 is
    0:52:09 and I
    0:52:09 don’t
    0:52:09 think
    0:52:10 of
    0:52:10 I
    0:52:10 hate
    0:52:11 that
    0:52:11 word
    0:52:11 legacy
    0:52:11 anyway
    0:52:12 because I
    0:52:12 think it’s
    0:52:12 stupid
    0:52:13 but
    0:52:15 what I
    0:52:16 want
    0:52:17 to do
    0:52:17 I like
    0:52:18 public
    0:52:18 art
    0:52:19 and
    0:52:20 public
    0:52:20 places
    0:52:21 and I’ve
    0:52:21 been lucky
    0:52:22 enough to
    0:52:22 be involved
    0:52:23 in a few
    0:52:23 of those
    0:52:24 and I
    0:52:24 want to
    0:52:25 do as
    0:52:25 many more
    0:52:26 of those
    0:52:26 as I
    0:52:26 can
    0:52:27 because I
    0:52:28 think there
    0:52:28 are very
    0:52:29 few people
    0:52:29 who have
    0:52:30 the resources
    0:52:31 and the
    0:52:32 will
    0:52:32 or desire
    0:52:33 to do
    0:52:33 that
    0:52:34 and since
    0:52:34 I got
    0:52:35 that
    0:52:36 then I
    0:52:36 think it’d
    0:52:37 be criminal
    0:52:37 for me
    0:52:38 not to
    0:52:39 spend
    0:52:40 those
    0:52:41 resources
    0:52:43 and my
    0:52:43 own
    0:52:44 juice
    0:52:45 to create
    0:52:46 more
    0:52:47 more public
    0:52:47 places
    0:52:48 and public
    0:52:48 art
    0:52:49 because I
    0:52:50 marvel
    0:52:52 at what
    0:52:52 has been
    0:52:53 created by
    0:52:53 others
    0:52:54 and
    0:52:55 lives
    0:52:55 for
    0:52:56 hundreds
    0:52:56 of
    0:52:56 years
    0:52:56 and
    0:52:56 you
    0:52:57 come
    0:52:57 upon
    0:52:57 it
    0:52:57 and you
    0:52:57 say
    0:52:58 how
    0:52:59 the hell
    0:53:01 did they
    0:53:01 decide
    0:53:01 to do
    0:53:02 Central Park
    0:53:03 you know
    0:53:05 how did
    0:53:05 they
    0:53:06 whatever it
    0:53:06 is
    0:53:07 any place
    0:53:07 that there
    0:53:08 is
    0:53:08 anything
    0:53:09 that
    0:53:09 is
    0:53:10 of a
    0:53:11 public
    0:53:12 institution
    0:53:13 Barry
    0:53:13 Diller
    0:53:14 is a
    0:53:14 businessman
    0:53:15 known for
    0:53:15 his
    0:53:15 influential
    0:53:16 roles
    0:53:16 in
    0:53:16 media
    0:53:16 and
    0:53:17 entertainment
    0:53:17 he’s
    0:53:18 the
    0:53:18 chairman
    0:53:18 and
    0:53:18 senior
    0:53:19 executive
    0:53:19 of
    0:53:20 IAC
    0:53:20 his
    0:53:20 new
    0:53:21 book
    0:53:21 Who
    0:53:21 Knew
    0:53:22 is
    0:53:22 out
    0:53:22 now
    0:53:22 he
    0:53:23 joins
    0:53:23 us
    0:53:23 from
    0:53:23 his
    0:53:24 office
    0:53:25 in
    0:53:25 Manhattan
    0:53:25 Barry
    0:53:27 I’ve
    0:53:27 only
    0:53:27 had
    0:53:27 one
    0:53:28 dinner
    0:53:28 with
    0:53:28 you
    0:53:28 but
    0:53:28 I
    0:53:28 think
    0:53:29 everybody
    0:53:30 everybody
    0:53:30 just
    0:53:30 wants
    0:53:30 to be
    0:53:31 Barry
    0:53:31 Diller
    0:53:32 you just
    0:53:33 have a certain
    0:53:36 fearlessness
    0:53:37 about you
    0:53:37 that I
    0:53:38 think we’re
    0:53:38 all
    0:53:39 drawn to
    0:53:39 both
    0:53:40 professionally
    0:53:40 and
    0:53:40 personally
    0:53:41 really
    0:53:41 appreciate
    0:53:41 your
    0:53:42 coming
    0:53:42 on
    0:53:42 the
    0:53:42 show
    0:53:50 this
    0:53:51 episode
    0:53:51 was
    0:53:51 produced
    0:53:51 by
    0:53:51 Jennifer
    0:53:52 Sanchez
    0:53:53 Drew
    0:53:53 Burrows
    0:53:53 is
    0:53:53 our
    0:53:53 technical
    0:53:54 director
    0:53:54 thank you
    0:53:55 for listening
    0:53:55 to the
    0:53:55 Prop G
    0:53:56 Pod
    0:53:56 from the
    0:53:56 Box Media
    0:53:57 Podcast
    0:53:57 Network
    0:53:58 stay tuned
    0:53:58 for next
    0:53:58 week’s
    0:53:59 conversation
    0:53:59 episode
    0:54:00 featuring
    0:54:00 one of
    0:54:00 my
    0:54:01 favorites
    0:54:01 and a
    0:54:01 real
    0:54:02 role
    0:54:02 model
    0:54:02 for me
    0:54:03 Sam
    0:54:03 Harris

    Barry Diller, a businessman known for his influential roles in media and entertainment and also the chairman and senior executive of IAC, joins Scott to discuss his origin story, the current state of media and streaming, and his new book, Who Knew.

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  • World Bank Cuts U.S. Growth Outlook, Meta Invests in Scale AI, & Smucker’s Stock Tanks

    Ed takes a look at new World Bank data projecting that U.S. economic growth will be cut in half this year, breaks down what went wrong with JM Smucker’s earnings, and unpacks the deal structure behind Meta’s investment in Scale AI. 

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  • Raging Moderates: Are Protestors Playing Into Trump’s Hands?

    AI transcript
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    0:01:12 and want to know what we can do better.
    0:01:13 More dick jokes.
    0:01:14 More dick jokes.
    0:01:15 Red your mind.
    0:01:20 We’re all looking for signs for what’s next in the economy.
    0:01:22 the underwear index,
    0:01:24 the lipstick indexed,
    0:01:25 and the music charts.
    0:01:29 Oh, recession pop is very much a real thing.
    0:01:31 And it’s completely made up.
    0:01:32 Which is to say that there was no such thing
    0:01:34 as recession pop during the recession.
    0:01:37 It’s a term that was made up only very recently.
    0:01:40 Now that’s what I call recession music.
    0:01:42 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
    0:01:44 New episodes every Sunday morning,
    0:01:46 wherever you get your podcasts.
    0:01:54 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
    0:01:55 I’m Scott Galloway.
    0:01:56 And I’m Jessica Tarlov.
    0:01:59 Jess, it’s banter time.
    0:02:01 I’ve been waiting for banter time
    0:02:03 because I need you to tell me
    0:02:06 about the rumble in Detroit.
    0:02:07 Oh, yeah.
    0:02:09 So I’ve had a great week.
    0:02:10 I went to the French Open,
    0:02:12 which I found lovely,
    0:02:12 which was lovely.
    0:02:13 Yeah.
    0:02:15 And then I got on a plane from Miami,
    0:02:16 did a speaking gig down there.
    0:02:17 Unfortunately, it was raining.
    0:02:20 Miami loses 110% of its charm
    0:02:21 when it’s raining.
    0:02:22 110% is generous.
    0:02:24 I think it’s more like 200%.
    0:02:24 Yeah.
    0:02:25 There you go.
    0:02:27 And then I got on a plane from New York,
    0:02:28 a couple of days in New York.
    0:02:30 Daddy hit the members clubs,
    0:02:31 went deep in the paint,
    0:02:32 a little alcohol,
    0:02:35 a little mushroom chocolates.
    0:02:36 That’s my next thing,
    0:02:37 mushroom chocolates.
    0:02:39 It’s like the tequila of psychedelics.
    0:02:40 It takes you up.
    0:02:42 Had never done those before
    0:02:44 and enjoyed them more than I thought.
    0:02:48 And then I went to Detroit for Summit,
    0:02:50 which is this big gathering.
    0:02:51 They call it Learning Man.
    0:02:52 It’s talks during the day.
    0:02:54 And then everyone does
    0:02:55 much more serious hallucinogenics
    0:02:57 and listens to DJs
    0:02:59 and talks about vertical farming.
    0:03:01 And as far as I can tell,
    0:03:02 it’s a bunch of rich kids
    0:03:03 whose parents are putting them
    0:03:05 through focusing on their sleep.
    0:03:06 Or, you know, I mean…
    0:03:06 This is,
    0:03:07 didn’t they fly you
    0:03:09 and some friends somewhere before
    0:03:11 because they didn’t have money
    0:03:12 to pay you?
    0:03:12 So you were like,
    0:03:14 let’s just all go on vacation.
    0:03:14 Yeah.
    0:03:16 South America or something.
    0:03:17 First of all,
    0:03:17 I’m being cynical.
    0:03:18 I love the community.
    0:03:20 I think they do a great job.
    0:03:21 I think it’s interesting people.
    0:03:24 And my speaking fee is fairly crazy.
    0:03:25 I’ve noticed.
    0:03:26 Not, I mean,
    0:03:28 not that I’m trying to pay you, but…
    0:03:30 But instead of charging them a speaking fee,
    0:03:30 I say,
    0:03:32 let me bring my team and friends.
    0:03:36 Because I think it costs like five or ten grand
    0:03:37 to go listen to DJs
    0:03:39 and hear me talk about income inequality.
    0:03:42 And so I went to that
    0:03:44 and my friend Pablo Doritos,
    0:03:46 who runs culture and programming
    0:03:47 at the Faena,
    0:03:48 my favorite hotel in Miami,
    0:03:51 he does this thing called the Rumble
    0:03:53 where they have two people.
    0:03:55 The metaphor is a boxing match.
    0:03:56 You come out in a ring.
    0:03:58 The best part is the entrance.
    0:04:01 My opponent was Shermichael Singleton.
    0:04:02 Super impressive young man.
    0:04:04 All downside for me.
    0:04:05 34-year-old black Republican.
    0:04:07 Like, I lost before I got in the ring.
    0:04:09 No, I saw your abs.
    0:04:11 And I’m not trying to get an HR violation,
    0:04:13 but you are looking fabulous.
    0:04:15 I appreciate that.
    0:04:16 And you’re welcome to harass me
    0:04:17 at any time, any point.
    0:04:18 I see it as a feature,
    0:04:20 not a bug, of the workplace,
    0:04:22 as long as it’s coming this way.
    0:04:22 Anyways,
    0:04:25 I’m going to hear from people on that.
    0:04:28 So Shermichael did a drum line,
    0:04:29 which was fantastic,
    0:04:30 but I one-upped them.
    0:04:32 I came out with five drag queens.
    0:04:34 And I mean, these ladies were outstanding.
    0:04:35 They were fabulous.
    0:04:38 And then audience has a question.
    0:04:39 You answer.
    0:04:40 Your opponent answers.
    0:04:42 And at the end of like eight rounds,
    0:04:44 they decide who wins.
    0:04:46 And you get a big belt if you win.
    0:04:47 It was really cool.
    0:04:48 I really enjoyed it.
    0:04:51 So yeah, that’s my midlife crisis tour.
    0:04:53 And I knew I was going to have to take my shirt off.
    0:04:55 I decided to take my shirt off.
    0:04:57 So additional doses of testosterone,
    0:04:59 and I’ve been doing free weights
    0:05:00 and loading up on the creatine
    0:05:03 just to put it in the window a little bit.
    0:05:06 So yeah, that was my week.
    0:05:07 What did you do?
    0:05:09 What have you done the last week?
    0:05:11 Nothing like that.
    0:05:14 I definitely haven’t been testosterone dosing
    0:05:15 and creatine.
    0:05:18 You sound though like when women
    0:05:19 are getting ready for their weddings, right?
    0:05:22 Like that you have this push at the end
    0:05:24 to make sure that you look great in the dress
    0:05:26 or in your case in the boxing shorts.
    0:05:27 That’s right.
    0:05:30 It was pretty normal family stuff,
    0:05:34 but I’m in the middle of a staycation at home.
    0:05:36 Our girls are at Brian’s mother’s.
    0:05:40 So we’re at home without them.
    0:05:41 And it’s so great because you realize
    0:05:43 that you actually love your home,
    0:05:44 which you don’t usually feel
    0:05:45 because you’re just like stepping on toys
    0:05:46 and everyone is screaming
    0:05:48 and has a dirty diaper.
    0:05:50 Not talking about my husband,
    0:05:52 talking about little people.
    0:05:53 So that’s been fun.
    0:05:55 And going out to dinner,
    0:05:57 which I miss doing without thinking about like,
    0:05:58 oh, I have to get back for the babysitter.
    0:06:01 So these are all very kind of average,
    0:06:03 I’m sure, experiences for young parents.
    0:06:06 But I am enjoying my kid-free week.
    0:06:08 So you have great in-laws.
    0:06:08 Yeah.
    0:06:10 You have in-laws you can dump the kids out.
    0:06:13 Well, also the nanny goes as well.
    0:06:15 So the in-laws get to feel like
    0:06:17 they’re taking care of kids,
    0:06:19 but they’re not actually taking care of kids.
    0:06:19 That guy.
    0:06:20 I take it back.
    0:06:22 They’re average to better than average in-laws.
    0:06:24 No, they’re fantastic.
    0:06:25 But, you know.
    0:06:27 Can I give you sort of some insider,
    0:06:28 a little insider info,
    0:06:31 some like hacks on getting along with your in-laws?
    0:06:31 Yeah.
    0:06:32 It’s very easy.
    0:06:34 Is this like buy them a Mercedes?
    0:06:35 A hundred percent.
    0:06:37 Don’t communicate with them.
    0:06:38 Don’t communicate.
    0:06:40 It’s not a thing, Scott.
    0:06:42 You can’t do that and women can’t do that.
    0:06:43 Don’t communicate.
    0:06:44 That’s like totally a dude thing.
    0:06:46 That’s when your relationship with your in-laws
    0:06:46 comes off the tracks.
    0:06:47 When you start communicating
    0:06:49 and your father-in-law decides
    0:06:51 he needs to let you know why he likes Trump.
    0:06:55 And two, buy dad a Mercedes every three years.
    0:06:57 And when your mother-in-law gives your father-in-law
    0:06:59 just an unreasonable amount of shit and grief,
    0:07:02 just look at her in the eye and nod.
    0:07:07 Just show that empathy for a little bit of crazy.
    0:07:08 That’s what I do.
    0:07:10 I just buy him a car every three years.
    0:07:12 And when she’s out of control,
    0:07:13 I look at her and I’m like,
    0:07:13 I get it.
    0:07:15 I hundred percent get it.
    0:07:16 I’ll work on it.
    0:07:17 You’re welcome, Jess.
    0:07:18 Thank you.
    0:07:21 Today, we’re talking about the LA protests
    0:07:22 sparked by ICE raids.
    0:07:23 That’s bias.
    0:07:24 I don’t want to be biased
    0:07:26 saying it’s sparked by ICE raids.
    0:07:29 That’s a little bit of our progressive bias here.
    0:07:31 Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return
    0:07:33 and the fallout from Musk and Trump’s breakup
    0:07:35 and what it means for the future of the GOP.
    0:07:37 Okay, let’s bust right into it.
    0:07:39 It’s been a volatile few days in Los Angeles.
    0:07:40 Over the weekend,
    0:07:42 President Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops
    0:07:45 to the city without a request from the state,
    0:07:48 prompting swift backlash from Governor Newsom,
    0:07:50 who called the move purposefully inflammatory.
    0:07:52 Now California is suing.
    0:07:55 The state filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration
    0:07:57 asking a federal judge to declare the troop deployment
    0:08:00 unconstitutional and block future call-ups
    0:08:01 tied to street protests.
    0:08:04 Meanwhile, tensions on the ground remain high.
    0:08:06 Over the last five days,
    0:08:07 law enforcement fired rubber bullets
    0:08:10 and threw flashbangs at protesters in downtown LA
    0:08:12 after projectiles were reportedly thrown at officers.
    0:08:14 Over the weekend,
    0:08:16 police used similar tactics to disperse crowds.
    0:08:19 Protesters set self-driving cars on fire.
    0:08:21 And parts of downtown were declared
    0:08:23 an unlawful assembly zone.
    0:08:24 One county official called Sunday
    0:08:27 probably one of the most volatile nights
    0:08:28 in LA’s recent memory.
    0:08:31 The federal response is only escalating.
    0:08:31 On Monday,
    0:08:34 U.S. Northern Command activated 700 Marines
    0:08:35 to help protect federal property in the area.
    0:08:37 The Pentagon also confirmed
    0:08:39 Trump had ordered another 2,000 National Guard troops
    0:08:40 in Los Angeles
    0:08:41 on top of the original deployment.
    0:08:43 The president’s border czar,
    0:08:44 Tom Homan,
    0:08:47 said the Marines were necessary to quell protests,
    0:08:49 though he declined to explain
    0:08:51 what criteria the administration is using
    0:08:52 to justify the moves.
    0:08:54 This all comes as outrage
    0:08:55 over Trump’s immigration crackdown
    0:08:57 spreads from the streets to the courts,
    0:08:58 especially in the case
    0:08:59 of Kimar Obrego-Garcia,
    0:09:01 a man who was mistakenly deported
    0:09:02 despite a judge’s order,
    0:09:04 eventually returned to the U.S.
    0:09:05 and later faced federal charges
    0:09:06 he says are politically motivated.
    0:09:08 And while public opinion
    0:09:10 on immigration remains split,
    0:09:12 Trump’s tactics aren’t winning him support.
    0:09:14 A new CBS News YouGov poll
    0:09:15 finds most Americans
    0:09:16 do support deporting
    0:09:18 undocumented immigrants in theory,
    0:09:20 but a majority disapprove
    0:09:21 of how Trump is doing it.
    0:09:23 Over 60% say no one should be deported
    0:09:24 without a court hearing.
    0:09:26 And many question whether these crackdowns
    0:09:28 make the country safer
    0:09:29 or just do more harm than good.
    0:09:32 Jess, what is your take on all of this?
    0:09:36 It’s distressing to see what’s going on,
    0:09:40 but I overwhelmingly feel like Trump
    0:09:42 is just having the best time ever.
    0:09:44 Like, he’s in absolute heaven.
    0:09:48 So it’s less than six months into his term,
    0:09:51 and he has Russ Vogt as the head of OMB
    0:09:52 and now of Doge.
    0:09:55 So if you thought Elon was bad
    0:09:56 in terms of what he was trying to doge,
    0:09:59 put the king of Project 2025 in charge,
    0:10:02 he has yes men and yes women
    0:10:04 at DOD and DHS.
    0:10:08 Mike Johnson has been more useful to him
    0:10:09 than I think he could have ever expected.
    0:10:10 Remember at the beginning,
    0:10:12 he wasn’t even that enchanted with Mike Johnson,
    0:10:13 didn’t know if he was going to have
    0:10:14 the backbone for this.
    0:10:16 Mike Johnson, by far and away,
    0:10:19 earning his keep at the Mar-a-Lago buffet.
    0:10:24 Scott Besson has forgotten that he hates tariffs.
    0:10:27 There are scenes of troops,
    0:10:30 Marines, National Guard across Los Angeles,
    0:10:33 and even though it was only a couple of people,
    0:10:36 there is an image of a shirtless protester
    0:10:38 on top of a flaming Waymo car
    0:10:40 waving a Mexican flag.
    0:10:43 He is in absolute heaven
    0:10:45 with what’s going on here.
    0:10:47 And I know people point to the courts
    0:10:48 and I am one of those people
    0:10:50 and say the courts are holding the line
    0:10:51 and they absolutely are.
    0:10:56 But he’s getting everything that he wanted,
    0:10:58 everything that he dreamed of,
    0:11:01 all of the people from the first administration
    0:11:02 that were saying things like,
    0:11:05 eh, we can’t really invoke the Insurrection Act.
    0:11:07 You know, maybe we should double-think this.
    0:11:08 You know, the John Kellys of the world are gone.
    0:11:10 The Mark Espers of the world are gone.
    0:11:13 And he and Stephen Miller
    0:11:15 are sitting side by side,
    0:11:18 gleefully smiling at one another
    0:11:20 that they just can’t believe their luck.
    0:11:23 That’s writ large how I feel
    0:11:24 about what’s going on now.
    0:11:27 In terms of the specifics of Los Angeles,
    0:11:29 I think that we are in a new frontier
    0:11:31 of the immigration wars.
    0:11:33 This has been bubbling
    0:11:35 because the administration has been frustrated
    0:11:38 that they weren’t getting enough deportations,
    0:11:40 that they were getting less on a daily basis
    0:11:42 by far and away than the Biden administration.
    0:11:43 So they set a fake quota.
    0:11:45 3,000 people need to be out per day.
    0:11:46 And the Washington Examiner,
    0:11:48 which is a conservative paper,
    0:11:50 had some great reporting
    0:11:51 about a private meeting
    0:11:53 with Stephen Miller and ICE agents
    0:11:55 where he’s berating them,
    0:11:57 saying enough with going after the criminals.
    0:12:00 You go to Home Depot and you go to 7-Eleven.
    0:12:02 And that’s where we are now.
    0:12:05 People are being picked up off their job sites.
    0:12:07 They are invading nail salons,
    0:12:09 elementary schools.
    0:12:11 There was a story about a pickup
    0:12:13 from a birthday party.
    0:12:15 And most importantly, I think,
    0:12:18 is that they’re showing up at immigration courts
    0:12:20 to take people away.
    0:12:21 So the signal is clear
    0:12:25 that there actually is no right way to do this.
    0:12:27 If you are here illegally,
    0:12:28 you can be sent home
    0:12:31 and you are most likely
    0:12:33 not going to get the due process
    0:12:34 that you deserve
    0:12:36 as a projection from the Constitution.
    0:12:39 But we are going to have millions of people
    0:12:42 going inside and hiding
    0:12:43 and living in abject terror
    0:12:45 of what’s to come.
    0:12:49 And I feel like we’re pretty powerless to fight it.
    0:12:51 Public opinion is swaying against this.
    0:12:53 There’s new YouGov polling out
    0:12:55 about disapproving of sending in the National Guard
    0:12:56 and sending in the Marines.
    0:13:00 And people don’t like how he’s executing this.
    0:13:03 But I don’t know if any of that matters.
    0:13:04 You know, see my first comment
    0:13:07 about how well he thinks everything is going.
    0:13:09 Like, you’re not going to get them out of office.
    0:13:10 And even if there’s a blue wave
    0:13:12 for the 2026 midterms,
    0:13:14 he’s not doing anything
    0:13:17 through a normal legislative route anyway.
    0:13:19 So what’s the difference?
    0:13:23 Yeah, it’s, I think your comments are spot on.
    0:13:25 I always draw parallels
    0:13:27 and people say I’m being hysterical
    0:13:29 or a catastrophist.
    0:13:31 I always draw parallels with 1930s Germany.
    0:13:32 And you don’t have to be Hitler
    0:13:35 to take a page out of this playbook.
    0:13:38 And we didn’t just wake up with Auschwitz.
    0:13:40 It was a slow burn.
    0:13:42 You know, a few of those incremental steps
    0:13:45 were recasting authoritarianism
    0:13:46 as patriotism
    0:13:49 and claiming that the enemy was within.
    0:13:50 You know, on the whole,
    0:13:52 Americans, for the most part,
    0:13:53 on the whole, day to day,
    0:13:54 pretty much get along.
    0:13:56 On the whole, our economy,
    0:13:56 with all our problems
    0:13:57 around income inequality,
    0:14:00 159 sovereign nations in the world,
    0:14:01 the majority would kill
    0:14:03 to have our problems.
    0:14:04 What you do
    0:14:06 or kind of the best practice
    0:14:07 around a move
    0:14:08 from a democracy,
    0:14:10 which is based on trust,
    0:14:11 to an autocracy,
    0:14:12 which is based on fear,
    0:14:14 is you claim
    0:14:15 that the enemy is within.
    0:14:16 And in the 30s,
    0:14:19 it was socialists and Jews.
    0:14:22 And they talk about law and order
    0:14:25 as being that I will restore order.
    0:14:26 And then they weaponize
    0:14:28 and deputize the military.
    0:14:30 When you have tanks on the street,
    0:14:32 when you have the military
    0:14:33 being brought in above
    0:14:34 and beyond state
    0:14:35 and local law enforcement,
    0:14:36 it essentially says,
    0:14:37 in my opinion,
    0:14:38 our society is failing.
    0:14:40 The last time it happened for me
    0:14:41 was in 1992.
    0:14:42 I came home from graduate school
    0:14:43 and after the Rodney King riots,
    0:14:44 there was,
    0:14:45 I lived in a very sleepy suburb
    0:14:46 of Westwood.
    0:14:48 There were what looked like
    0:14:49 two high school kids
    0:14:51 in fatigues and M-15s
    0:14:52 just posted on every corner.
    0:14:53 I remember thinking,
    0:14:54 wow, this is America now?
    0:14:55 We’re that country?
    0:14:58 But this is how
    0:15:00 an authoritarian gets,
    0:15:01 they try and motivate
    0:15:03 or incite a response
    0:15:04 so they can justify
    0:15:06 having an overreaction
    0:15:08 against their political enemies.
    0:15:10 Now, the really sad part about it
    0:15:11 is that,
    0:15:13 I won’t say we,
    0:15:14 I’ll say the protesters
    0:15:15 are playing into their hands.
    0:15:17 When you see people
    0:15:19 throwing rocks and stones
    0:15:21 at law enforcement officials
    0:15:22 and you see them wearing masks
    0:15:23 and you see them
    0:15:24 waving Palestinian flags
    0:15:25 and even Mexican flags,
    0:15:26 I think they should be
    0:15:28 waving American flags.
    0:15:29 I think they’re just
    0:15:30 absolutely playing
    0:15:33 into his autocracy playbook.
    0:15:36 And this is,
    0:15:37 you know,
    0:15:38 incredibly disappointing.
    0:15:39 I feel like these individuals
    0:15:40 who are angry
    0:15:42 and, you know,
    0:15:42 there’s warranted anger
    0:15:43 and concern,
    0:15:44 but they’re absolutely
    0:15:46 making things worse
    0:15:48 and giving them an excuse
    0:15:49 to call up the military.
    0:15:52 I think Miller and Trump
    0:15:53 are praying for
    0:15:54 a law enforcement official
    0:15:55 to be shot
    0:15:56 such that they can warrant
    0:15:57 an overreaction here
    0:15:58 and move to sort of
    0:15:59 a police state
    0:16:02 and attempt to defenestrate
    0:16:04 who is one of
    0:16:05 kind of the Democratic
    0:16:07 strongholds, California,
    0:16:08 and what is perceived
    0:16:09 as a potential
    0:16:10 Democratic presidential candidate,
    0:16:11 and that’s Governor Newsom.
    0:16:14 This is just so disappointing,
    0:16:15 both in terms of
    0:16:16 people on the ground,
    0:16:17 protesters not recognizing
    0:16:18 they’re doing themselves
    0:16:19 a disservice
    0:16:19 with the way
    0:16:20 they acquit themselves,
    0:16:22 but this is just,
    0:16:24 this is using a flamethrower
    0:16:27 to fix a smoke alarm.
    0:16:28 This is just,
    0:16:29 this is just unnecessary
    0:16:31 inflammation.
    0:16:32 Typically when the National Guard
    0:16:33 is called in,
    0:16:33 it’s at the request
    0:16:34 of the governor,
    0:16:35 it’s at the request
    0:16:36 of the local police authorities.
    0:16:38 The LAPD issued a statement
    0:16:39 a couple days ago
    0:16:40 commending the protesters
    0:16:41 for what had been
    0:16:41 to that point
    0:16:43 very civil protests,
    0:16:45 and yet they invent,
    0:16:46 I mean,
    0:16:47 this happened
    0:16:48 over and over
    0:16:50 in 30s Germany,
    0:16:52 invent the enemy within,
    0:16:54 preach about law and order,
    0:16:56 have an overreaction
    0:16:56 to things
    0:16:59 to try and seize control
    0:17:00 to avoid
    0:17:01 or obviate
    0:17:02 the total erosion
    0:17:03 of habeas corpus,
    0:17:05 and say that the enemy
    0:17:06 is,
    0:17:07 the enemy is academics
    0:17:09 and immigrants
    0:17:11 and Democrats,
    0:17:12 that the enemy
    0:17:12 is within.
    0:17:14 Yeah,
    0:17:16 I agree with what you’re saying,
    0:17:17 and I’m thinking back
    0:17:17 to some of the rhetoric
    0:17:18 from the campaign
    0:17:19 that they’re poisoning
    0:17:21 the blood of America
    0:17:22 and referring to them
    0:17:23 as vermin.
    0:17:24 So that was straight
    0:17:26 1930s playbook stuff.
    0:17:27 I tend
    0:17:29 to not be
    0:17:30 an alarmist
    0:17:31 in that sense.
    0:17:32 I don’t like any
    0:17:32 comparisons
    0:17:34 to Hitler.
    0:17:35 Hitler was one of a kind
    0:17:36 in the absolute
    0:17:37 worst way,
    0:17:38 but you are
    0:17:39 definitely seeing
    0:17:40 the important
    0:17:42 components of democracy
    0:17:44 being stripped away
    0:17:45 or an attempt
    0:17:46 to strip them away,
    0:17:47 and that’s deeply
    0:17:48 concerning to me.
    0:17:49 I think that
    0:17:50 Governor Newsom
    0:17:51 and Mayor Bass
    0:17:52 have done
    0:17:53 an incredible job
    0:17:54 in managing
    0:17:55 what’s going on,
    0:17:56 and central to that
    0:17:56 has been that
    0:17:57 they have led
    0:17:58 every statement
    0:17:59 that they have made
    0:18:00 with there is no tolerance
    0:18:02 for violence
    0:18:04 on behalf of the protesters.
    0:18:05 That’s a clear signal
    0:18:06 that we have learned
    0:18:07 our lesson
    0:18:08 from the
    0:18:09 Black Lives Matter
    0:18:10 summer
    0:18:11 where things got
    0:18:12 wildly out of control
    0:18:14 and there wasn’t
    0:18:15 enough democratic
    0:18:16 leadership out there.
    0:18:17 Some exceptions
    0:18:18 like Keisha Lance Bottoms
    0:18:19 who was the mayor
    0:18:19 of Atlanta
    0:18:20 who got up there
    0:18:20 and basically said,
    0:18:21 what the fuck
    0:18:22 are you doing?
    0:18:23 There is a way
    0:18:24 to do this properly
    0:18:25 and there is a way
    0:18:26 to do this wrong
    0:18:28 and you are doing it
    0:18:29 the wrong way.
    0:18:30 So I like that
    0:18:31 there has been
    0:18:32 a call for
    0:18:33 peaceful protest
    0:18:34 at every single
    0:18:35 opportunity.
    0:18:36 the lawsuit
    0:18:38 that Governor Newsom
    0:18:38 has filed
    0:18:39 against the administration.
    0:18:40 I don’t really know
    0:18:41 where that goes
    0:18:42 but I do think
    0:18:43 it’s important
    0:18:43 that we seem like
    0:18:44 there’s fighting back
    0:18:46 on every level.
    0:18:47 I should note as well
    0:18:48 that all of this
    0:18:49 is going on
    0:18:50 while there’s a threat
    0:18:51 from the administration
    0:18:52 to defund California.
    0:18:54 So this is an incredibly
    0:18:55 precarious time
    0:18:56 that Newsom
    0:18:58 has to be operating in
    0:18:59 and I think
    0:19:00 that he has seemed
    0:19:01 downright presidential
    0:19:03 at these moments
    0:19:03 and also saying
    0:19:04 you know
    0:19:05 go ahead
    0:19:06 come and arrest me
    0:19:06 and that’s what
    0:19:07 Trump is threatening now
    0:19:08 and even Tom Holman
    0:19:09 is trying to walk it back
    0:19:10 and then of course
    0:19:11 Trump who
    0:19:12 has no limits
    0:19:13 or care
    0:19:14 for what is
    0:19:16 possible actually
    0:19:17 or even legal
    0:19:17 just you know
    0:19:18 keeps harping on it
    0:19:19 and that just makes
    0:19:20 Newsom seem stronger
    0:19:23 but January 6th
    0:19:24 always exists
    0:19:25 in the back of my mind
    0:19:26 right that our country
    0:19:27 is being run
    0:19:28 by people
    0:19:29 who don’t have
    0:19:31 a respect for the rule of law
    0:19:33 or for our vote
    0:19:34 right that they tried
    0:19:34 to overturn a free
    0:19:35 and fair election
    0:19:37 and then we send them back
    0:19:39 to the most important
    0:19:40 seat in the world
    0:19:43 and my mind
    0:19:45 is going to this scary place
    0:19:46 where you think
    0:19:47 this might just be
    0:19:48 step one or step two
    0:19:49 heading towards
    0:19:51 a place where we don’t
    0:19:53 have elections
    0:19:54 because if
    0:19:56 you want to
    0:19:57 militarize
    0:19:58 the country
    0:19:59 which is what he wants to do
    0:19:59 and the decree
    0:20:00 that he sent down
    0:20:01 actually means
    0:20:02 it’s not just about
    0:20:03 sending troops
    0:20:03 into California
    0:20:05 they can be sent anywhere
    0:20:06 and it’s very
    0:20:08 few limitations
    0:20:09 on what justifies
    0:20:12 sending the troops out
    0:20:13 it’s what you decide
    0:20:13 is a rebellion
    0:20:15 it doesn’t even have to be
    0:20:16 violent protests
    0:20:16 etc
    0:20:18 David Frum
    0:20:19 wrote in the Atlantic
    0:20:19 you know
    0:20:20 for Trump
    0:20:21 this is a dress rehearsal
    0:20:24 and you can see
    0:20:25 a world in which
    0:20:26 an administration
    0:20:28 that already says
    0:20:29 everything is an emergency
    0:20:30 so they’ve exercised
    0:20:31 emergency powers
    0:20:32 more than any
    0:20:33 of their predecessors
    0:20:34 you know
    0:20:35 everything from immigration
    0:20:36 to the economy
    0:20:37 tariffs
    0:20:38 energy emergency
    0:20:38 etc
    0:20:40 so if we live
    0:20:40 in a constant state
    0:20:41 of emergency
    0:20:42 if you can deploy
    0:20:43 troops
    0:20:44 at the drop of a hat
    0:20:46 we’re recording this
    0:20:47 on Tuesday morning
    0:20:48 another 2000
    0:20:49 National Guard
    0:20:50 is being sent
    0:20:50 and we should note
    0:20:52 refuse to send them
    0:20:53 for January 6th
    0:20:53 which is really
    0:20:54 what an insurrection
    0:20:55 looks like
    0:20:56 you could see a world
    0:20:58 where it comes time
    0:20:59 to vote
    0:21:00 and we’re living
    0:21:02 in a military state
    0:21:02 and somehow
    0:21:04 that isn’t possible
    0:21:05 you know
    0:21:06 seizing control
    0:21:07 of local operations
    0:21:07 of government
    0:21:09 maybe that is
    0:21:10 a step
    0:21:10 I don’t know
    0:21:11 what number step
    0:21:12 in this process
    0:21:13 but it’s something
    0:21:13 that’s hanging
    0:21:14 over my head
    0:21:15 and it’s really
    0:21:16 distressing me
    0:21:17 what do you think
    0:21:18 about that
    0:21:19 have you catastrophized
    0:21:20 to that level
    0:21:22 yeah
    0:21:24 I’m a glass half
    0:21:24 empty kind of guy
    0:21:25 so it’s easy
    0:21:26 for me to go there
    0:21:27 that’s what I love
    0:21:27 about you
    0:21:28 there you go
    0:21:28 bring me down
    0:21:29 even further
    0:21:30 I’m already like
    0:21:31 on ground level
    0:21:32 take me subterranean
    0:21:33 I’m just so sick
    0:21:34 of everyone saying
    0:21:35 they’re an optimist
    0:21:36 you know
    0:21:36 yeah you need
    0:21:37 an optimist
    0:21:37 to vent the plane
    0:21:38 you need pessimist
    0:21:39 to have seat belts
    0:21:40 but anyways
    0:21:42 there are three
    0:21:43 firewalls here
    0:21:43 and so let’s go
    0:21:44 through each of them
    0:21:45 the first is
    0:21:45 the courts
    0:21:46 and I think the courts
    0:21:47 are doing their jobs
    0:21:49 essentially anytime
    0:21:50 this gets in front
    0:21:50 of a judge
    0:21:51 even if it’s a
    0:21:52 Trump appointed judge
    0:21:52 they go
    0:21:54 no you can’t
    0:21:55 raise tariffs
    0:21:55 and claim you’re
    0:21:56 doing this
    0:21:57 because it’s wartime
    0:21:58 no you can’t
    0:21:58 cut all
    0:22:00 research for medical
    0:22:01 funding to a university
    0:22:02 because you’ve decided
    0:22:03 it’s anti-semitic
    0:22:04 we’re talking about
    0:22:06 research for diabetes
    0:22:07 and so the courts
    0:22:07 seem to be doing
    0:22:08 their job
    0:22:09 the second
    0:22:10 is the media
    0:22:11 I’m mixed
    0:22:12 on the media
    0:22:12 I think there’s
    0:22:13 a lot of good
    0:22:13 on the ground
    0:22:14 reporting
    0:22:16 but the media
    0:22:17 isn’t interested
    0:22:18 in giving a real
    0:22:19 they’re not going
    0:22:19 to cover
    0:22:20 the peaceful
    0:22:21 protests
    0:22:22 that doesn’t
    0:22:23 they might say
    0:22:24 this is bullshit
    0:22:24 and talk about
    0:22:25 this is peaceful
    0:22:26 protests
    0:22:26 as a means
    0:22:27 of diminishing
    0:22:29 or puncturing
    0:22:29 the validity
    0:22:31 of this over response
    0:22:32 but they don’t
    0:22:33 really give
    0:22:35 the rest of the world
    0:22:36 a sense for the
    0:22:37 real vibe in LA
    0:22:37 and when I talk
    0:22:38 to people in LA
    0:22:38 they say
    0:22:39 yeah
    0:22:39 there’s flashpoints
    0:22:40 I’ve seen them
    0:22:40 on the news
    0:22:41 but
    0:22:41 everything’s fine
    0:22:42 we’re at brunch
    0:22:43 we’re all going
    0:22:44 to Gelson’s
    0:22:44 and you know
    0:22:46 headed to the movies
    0:22:46 or whatever
    0:22:47 getting like a
    0:22:48 $90 smoothie
    0:22:49 yeah we’re not
    0:22:50 we’re fine
    0:22:51 we’re you know
    0:22:51 we’re still going
    0:22:52 to No Boo
    0:22:52 tomorrow night
    0:22:53 it’s just
    0:22:54 you know
    0:22:54 it’s not like
    0:22:55 the riots
    0:22:56 that was different
    0:22:57 or it’s not
    0:22:58 nothing like COVID
    0:22:59 or anything like that
    0:23:01 but on the whole
    0:23:01 I would say
    0:23:02 the media is doing
    0:23:03 its level best
    0:23:04 and there’s a lot
    0:23:04 of kind of
    0:23:05 citizen journalism
    0:23:05 I’ve seen
    0:23:06 that I think
    0:23:06 it’s been pretty good
    0:23:08 and then civil
    0:23:08 protest
    0:23:09 is sort of
    0:23:10 the third leg
    0:23:10 of the stool
    0:23:11 and I would argue
    0:23:12 that started strong
    0:23:13 I just think
    0:23:14 that the absolute
    0:23:15 worst thing
    0:23:16 for us
    0:23:16 is when you see
    0:23:17 someone waving
    0:23:18 a Palestinian flag
    0:23:20 with a mask on
    0:23:21 you know
    0:23:22 on top of a
    0:23:23 burning car
    0:23:24 that’s literally
    0:23:25 like okay
    0:23:25 the Democrats
    0:23:26 are fucking
    0:23:27 out of control
    0:23:28 they may not
    0:23:29 endorse this
    0:23:30 but they tolerate it
    0:23:31 things are
    0:23:32 out of control
    0:23:33 and people’s
    0:23:34 emotions start
    0:23:35 to
    0:23:36 they just get angry
    0:23:37 and they want
    0:23:38 an over correction
    0:23:39 and so
    0:23:40 I would say
    0:23:40 that there’s
    0:23:41 some elements
    0:23:42 of the protest
    0:23:43 that are just
    0:23:44 absolutely feeding
    0:23:44 into this
    0:23:46 the scenario
    0:23:47 here where things
    0:23:48 get really bad
    0:23:48 is that
    0:23:50 it’s much more
    0:23:50 dramatic to think
    0:23:51 about a nation
    0:23:52 as great as America
    0:23:54 goes out with a boom
    0:23:55 that it’s a huge
    0:23:56 civil war
    0:23:57 where we have
    0:23:58 you know
    0:23:59 the Air Force
    0:24:00 pitted against
    0:24:00 the Navy
    0:24:02 and the Coast Guard
    0:24:03 has to pick a side
    0:24:03 and people
    0:24:05 with all their guns
    0:24:05 take to the streets
    0:24:06 and there’s this
    0:24:07 civil war
    0:24:08 and then
    0:24:09 you know
    0:24:10 whatever side wins
    0:24:10 they take over
    0:24:11 the state capitals
    0:24:12 the blue states
    0:24:13 or if the blue states
    0:24:14 win they end up
    0:24:15 assaulting the White House
    0:24:16 I don’t think
    0:24:18 America ends like that
    0:24:18 I think it’s much
    0:24:19 less cinematic
    0:24:22 and this is one
    0:24:22 of those steps
    0:24:23 to what would be
    0:24:24 I would argue
    0:24:25 a fairly
    0:24:27 non-dramatic
    0:24:28 non-cinematic
    0:24:29 end of America
    0:24:30 as we know it
    0:24:30 and it plays out
    0:24:31 something like this
    0:24:33 Trump tries to foment
    0:24:34 an overreaction
    0:24:35 and a militarization
    0:24:37 or an occupation
    0:24:38 of our biggest
    0:24:39 blue states
    0:24:40 and then
    0:24:41 Governor Newsom
    0:24:41 says
    0:24:43 hey boss
    0:24:44 I send 70
    0:24:45 80 billion dollars
    0:24:46 more than I get
    0:24:46 from you
    0:24:47 I’m out
    0:24:48 I’m not
    0:24:49 sending you
    0:24:50 80 billion dollars
    0:24:51 I’m sick of funding
    0:24:52 your attempt
    0:24:53 to militarize
    0:24:54 my state
    0:24:55 and funding
    0:24:55 the red states
    0:24:56 who seem
    0:24:57 to have
    0:24:58 endorsed
    0:24:59 your militarization
    0:24:59 of our state
    0:25:00 I’m no longer
    0:25:00 sending you
    0:25:02 this 80 billion dollars
    0:25:03 or Texas
    0:25:04 if say
    0:25:05 Governor Newsom
    0:25:06 or Representative
    0:25:07 Torres
    0:25:07 is elected
    0:25:08 president
    0:25:09 they say
    0:25:09 we’re not
    0:25:09 sort of finding
    0:25:10 the election
    0:25:10 we don’t
    0:25:10 recognize
    0:25:12 this president
    0:25:13 and then
    0:25:13 slowly
    0:25:14 but surely
    0:25:15 you have
    0:25:15 California
    0:25:16 a tech-based
    0:25:16 economy
    0:25:17 that does
    0:25:17 business
    0:25:18 with Asia
    0:25:20 you have
    0:25:20 Texas
    0:25:21 lead an oil
    0:25:21 and energy
    0:25:22 based economy
    0:25:23 that does
    0:25:23 business
    0:25:24 with the Gulf
    0:25:24 you have
    0:25:25 the Midwest
    0:25:26 an industrial
    0:25:27 economy
    0:25:27 manufacturing
    0:25:28 economy
    0:25:28 that does
    0:25:28 a lot
    0:25:29 of business
    0:25:30 with Canada
    0:25:31 the East Coast
    0:25:32 financial services
    0:25:33 and media economy
    0:25:34 that does a lot
    0:25:34 of business
    0:25:34 with Europe
    0:25:35 they each develop
    0:25:36 their own currencies
    0:25:37 they come to a
    0:25:37 detente
    0:25:37 they don’t want
    0:25:38 to go to war
    0:25:39 against each other
    0:25:40 they don’t want
    0:25:40 to escalate
    0:25:41 that far
    0:25:41 but slowly
    0:25:42 but surely
    0:25:42 you end up
    0:25:43 with a series
    0:25:44 of nation states
    0:25:44 that look
    0:25:45 very similar
    0:25:46 to the EU
    0:25:48 where you have
    0:25:48 big ones
    0:25:49 like Germany
    0:25:49 that would
    0:25:50 be California
    0:25:51 smaller ones
    0:25:51 like Florida
    0:25:52 which would
    0:25:52 look more
    0:25:53 like France
    0:25:53 or what have
    0:25:54 you
    0:25:55 and America
    0:25:56 kind of ends
    0:25:57 with a whimper
    0:25:57 not a bang
    0:25:59 I think there’s
    0:25:59 a non-zero
    0:26:00 probability
    0:26:00 we’re sort
    0:26:01 of at letter
    0:26:02 C or D
    0:26:03 in that
    0:26:04 devolution
    0:26:05 or digression
    0:26:05 to a breaking
    0:26:06 up of America
    0:26:07 and I don’t
    0:26:08 think it’s
    0:26:08 I think people
    0:26:09 think well
    0:26:09 it’s not going
    0:26:09 to happen
    0:26:10 because I
    0:26:10 can’t imagine
    0:26:12 you know
    0:26:13 grabbing my gun
    0:26:13 and going
    0:26:13 somewhere
    0:26:14 and potentially
    0:26:15 killing my
    0:26:15 cousins
    0:26:15 who live
    0:26:16 in Atlanta
    0:26:16 I don’t
    0:26:17 think that’s
    0:26:18 going to happen
    0:26:18 you think
    0:26:18 it could
    0:26:19 be peacefully
    0:26:20 done
    0:26:21 where we
    0:26:21 just
    0:26:22 we go
    0:26:22 into a
    0:26:23 federalist
    0:26:23 system
    0:26:24 and we
    0:26:24 say this
    0:26:25 is what
    0:26:25 the northeast
    0:26:26 looks like
    0:26:26 I’m no longer
    0:26:27 sending money
    0:26:27 to the federal
    0:26:28 government
    0:26:29 I’m capturing
    0:26:29 my own
    0:26:30 property
    0:26:30 and income
    0:26:31 taxes
    0:26:32 I come up
    0:26:33 with my own
    0:26:34 shit coin
    0:26:34 the Texas
    0:26:35 coin
    0:26:36 that is used
    0:26:36 as currency
    0:26:37 here
    0:26:39 and we
    0:26:39 essentially
    0:26:40 have our
    0:26:40 own economy
    0:26:41 our own
    0:26:41 elected
    0:26:41 officials
    0:26:42 we ignore
    0:26:43 federal
    0:26:43 mandates
    0:26:44 federal laws
    0:26:44 we come up
    0:26:45 with our
    0:26:45 own
    0:26:46 constitution
    0:26:47 maybe
    0:26:48 blue and
    0:26:48 red
    0:26:48 it might
    0:26:49 be blue
    0:26:49 states
    0:26:49 that lead
    0:26:50 this
    0:26:50 to say
    0:26:50 we’ve had
    0:26:51 enough
    0:26:52 we’re done
    0:26:53 we’re California
    0:26:53 we’re the fourth
    0:26:54 largest economy
    0:26:54 in the world
    0:26:56 we’ll go our
    0:26:56 own way
    0:26:57 we’ll be able
    0:26:58 to house
    0:26:58 the homeless
    0:26:59 if we don’t
    0:26:59 have to send
    0:27:00 80 billion dollars
    0:27:01 to DC
    0:27:03 to fund a military
    0:27:04 occupation of our
    0:27:04 state
    0:27:05 I mean that to me
    0:27:05 seems like a
    0:27:07 fairly cogent
    0:27:08 argument
    0:27:08 if and by the
    0:27:09 way I don’t
    0:27:09 I don’t believe
    0:27:10 we should do
    0:27:10 that I think
    0:27:11 it’s a terrible
    0:27:12 idea but I
    0:27:13 can see blue
    0:27:14 and red states
    0:27:15 creating a
    0:27:16 narrative where
    0:27:17 they justify
    0:27:18 kind of a slow
    0:27:19 sequestering from
    0:27:20 the federal
    0:27:20 government
    0:27:21 I think people
    0:27:22 will tire of
    0:27:23 if they haven’t
    0:27:23 already
    0:27:25 the ricochet
    0:27:26 effect of
    0:27:28 what a new
    0:27:28 administration
    0:27:29 means every
    0:27:30 four or eight
    0:27:30 years
    0:27:31 right that you
    0:27:31 have to
    0:27:33 totally recast
    0:27:35 how you see
    0:27:36 America or how
    0:27:37 America operates
    0:27:38 depending on
    0:27:39 who holds the
    0:27:40 Oval Office
    0:27:40 this
    0:27:41 and America
    0:27:42 is not
    0:27:43 supposed to
    0:27:44 be that way
    0:27:44 there are
    0:27:45 supposed to be
    0:27:46 fundamental
    0:27:46 principles and
    0:27:47 ideas and sets
    0:27:49 of laws that
    0:27:50 govern and that
    0:27:51 is supposed to
    0:27:51 bring some
    0:27:52 consistency and
    0:27:53 then the difference
    0:27:54 in the political
    0:27:54 parties that are
    0:27:55 in charge are
    0:27:56 supposed to make
    0:27:57 changes more or
    0:27:58 less around the
    0:27:59 edges right and
    0:28:00 then we have a
    0:28:00 you know a
    0:28:01 slightly different
    0:28:02 tax policy our
    0:28:02 immigration policy
    0:28:03 changes this way
    0:28:04 oh you know we’re
    0:28:05 going to do more
    0:28:06 nuclear power we’re
    0:28:06 cutting down on
    0:28:07 EV credits etc
    0:28:09 like that’s I
    0:28:10 think how people
    0:28:10 had understood
    0:28:11 what’s going on
    0:28:12 but we are in a
    0:28:15 moment where people
    0:28:16 want to burn it
    0:28:17 all down and I
    0:28:17 don’t know if you
    0:28:18 read David Brooks’s
    0:28:19 column from the end
    0:28:20 of last week in the
    0:28:22 Times but he was
    0:28:24 talking about how
    0:28:25 one of the ways at
    0:28:26 least that he sees
    0:28:27 that the Democrats
    0:28:28 don’t get it or are
    0:28:30 not prepared for this
    0:28:32 moment is that we’re
    0:28:32 thinking way too
    0:28:34 small in terms of
    0:28:35 what can be
    0:28:36 achieved and that
    0:28:37 the problems that we
    0:28:38 face as a country
    0:28:40 and as a political
    0:28:41 party are not going
    0:28:41 to be solved by
    0:28:42 having a good
    0:28:44 midterms right or
    0:28:45 even having Governor
    0:28:46 Shapiro turn into
    0:28:48 President Shapiro in
    0:28:49 2028 but that the
    0:28:51 Republicans have much
    0:28:53 better understood the
    0:28:55 moment and how much
    0:28:57 people hate the
    0:28:58 system you know
    0:29:00 system TM right but
    0:29:02 see that this deck
    0:29:03 is stacked so
    0:29:05 enormously against the
    0:29:06 average person that
    0:29:07 unless you are willing
    0:29:10 to actually burn it
    0:29:12 down that you can’t
    0:29:14 capture real support
    0:29:16 from the American body
    0:29:19 politic and I think
    0:29:20 that there’s a lot of
    0:29:21 merit to that you know
    0:29:23 how do we make it clear
    0:29:25 to people that we
    0:29:26 understand how important
    0:29:28 this moment is how
    0:29:29 scared everyone is and
    0:29:31 that also business as
    0:29:33 usual is not something
    0:29:34 that they are interested
    0:29:36 in returning to so we
    0:29:37 have to we have to at
    0:29:39 one speed the adults in
    0:29:40 the room that can
    0:29:41 quell everything and
    0:29:42 bring us back to a
    0:29:43 status quo but we also
    0:29:44 have to destroy the
    0:29:45 status quo at the same
    0:29:46 time and the
    0:29:47 Republicans never had to
    0:29:49 do that they just went
    0:29:51 all burn it down and
    0:29:52 they were able to get
    0:29:53 reelected but Democrats
    0:29:55 have to be both parent
    0:29:57 and child and that’s a
    0:29:59 very complex role to
    0:29:59 have to fill
    0:30:02 okay let’s take a quick
    0:30:04 break stay with us
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    0:32:05 a few weeks ago google dropped
    0:32:08 vo3 generative ai video but
    0:32:11 now with generative ai sound to
    0:32:13 go with it this is video from
    0:32:14 vo3 what do you think about the
    0:32:15 idea that we’re just a bunch of
    0:32:17 prompts if i’m generated from a
    0:32:18 prompt how come i don’t have six
    0:32:21 fingers so is this about to do
    0:32:23 the first plunge into an active
    0:32:26 volcano let’s send it and this
    0:32:28 breaking news the secretary of
    0:32:30 defense pete hegg seth has died
    0:32:32 after drinking an entire liter of
    0:32:35 vodka on a dare by rfk but how
    0:32:39 are the reviews a slot monger’s
    0:32:40 dream says the verge it might
    0:32:43 actually take my job says
    0:32:45 youtuber matthew berman the world
    0:32:48 is not ready says mashable we’re
    0:32:50 so cooked says
    0:32:53 thousands of people on social
    0:32:55 media but are we maybe not that’s
    0:32:57 our take at today explained
    0:33:07 welcome back so i’m i’m i’m
    0:33:08 renovating house and building a
    0:33:10 house and what i found much to my
    0:33:12 surprise is that it actually takes
    0:33:14 less time to build a house than to
    0:33:14 renovate one
    0:33:17 because there’s you know historic
    0:33:19 society you run into a pipe once you
    0:33:21 have your architectural plans on a
    0:33:23 piece of land and you have zoning you
    0:33:25 can just go wham you just go and i
    0:33:27 do think the advantage that the
    0:33:28 democrats should lean into right now
    0:33:30 is basically i think our party is
    0:33:33 almost at zero right now we had
    0:33:34 leader jeffries we interviewed him i
    0:33:36 think he’s a wonderful congressman a
    0:33:37 wonderful representative i don’t
    0:33:40 think he is up to the job of leading
    0:33:42 the democratic party through this and
    0:33:44 i think senator schumer is case
    0:33:45 study number one for why we need age
    0:33:49 limits and how weak we’ve become i
    0:33:53 think there’s very strong bench but i
    0:33:55 don’t know if it’s party orthodoxy or
    0:33:59 format or systemic rules that keep these
    0:34:03 voices more quiet whatever it is but we
    0:34:05 are literally starting from zero and i
    0:34:07 think that’s an opportunity it’s like
    0:34:09 what yoda said to luke skywalker you
    0:34:10 must forget what you know
    0:34:12 so forget everything about identity
    0:34:14 politics forget everything about
    0:34:15 democrats trying to show their
    0:34:17 affection for special interest groups
    0:34:18 by just cutting them a check
    0:34:21 like if you had a blank slate which i
    0:34:22 think the democratic party kind of does
    0:34:23 right now
    0:34:25 if you were to propose a tax bill what
    0:34:27 would be your core themes would it be
    0:34:27 around
    0:34:30 encouraging housing would it be around
    0:34:32 capital formation would it be around
    0:34:34 lowering tax rates and moving to a
    0:34:36 flat tax but it’s non-negotiable these
    0:34:37 tax rates are
    0:34:39 non-negotiable for everybody everybody
    0:34:42 if everybody paid about 24 percent in
    0:34:44 tax corporations and individuals you’re
    0:34:48 kind of done no deficits that’s it 24
    0:34:50 percent i think most people would sign
    0:34:53 up for that they go okay i’m down with
    0:34:54 that if that’s going to give my kids a
    0:34:56 better life and it’s simple and i don’t
    0:34:58 have to deal with accountants and
    0:35:01 taxation and you know just a postcard is
    0:35:04 ross perrosa 0.24 times my top line
    0:35:07 income boom we’re done and maybe it’s
    0:35:09 zero anyone makes less than eighty
    0:35:10 thousand dollars at zero two taxes
    0:35:12 let you make less than eighty thousand
    0:35:15 dollars at zero above eighty it’s 24
    0:35:19 above 10 million it’s 64 i’m already
    0:35:21 making it more complex than it needs to
    0:35:23 be but we’d have to have someone from
    0:35:25 the democratic side or a group of
    0:35:27 democratic representatives say this is
    0:35:30 our contract with america these are the
    0:35:33 three things we’re focused on and try
    0:35:34 and get away from the identity politics
    0:35:36 and the hand-wringing over the trans
    0:35:40 community or you know pronouns or just
    0:35:43 okay we are totally focused on the
    0:35:44 material and psychological well-being of
    0:35:47 americans they’re very focused on their
    0:35:51 economics i mean flat tax more housing
    0:35:55 and socialization of medicine within 10
    0:35:56 years everyone’s gonna have coverage
    0:35:57 and no one’s ever gonna have to come out
    0:35:59 of pocket more than a thousand dollars a
    0:36:00 year you’re never gonna find out that
    0:36:02 your wife has cancer and that means
    0:36:03 you’re going bankrupt like whatever it is
    0:36:05 i’m not saying those are even the right
    0:36:07 things yeah foreign policy our foreign
    0:36:09 policy is we’re gonna bring in really
    0:36:11 fucking smart people to figure out these
    0:36:13 complex problems but we’re not going to
    0:36:14 dictate foreign policy right now around
    0:36:17 what it means to be an american abroad
    0:36:19 or maybe it’s the restoration of
    0:36:22 alliances our job is to take advantage of
    0:36:25 the unbelievable prosperity that we’ve
    0:36:26 recognized through global trade we’re
    0:36:28 going on a gigantic apology tour we’re
    0:36:30 going to take down not only we’re going to
    0:36:31 go anti-tariff we’re going to have bigger
    0:36:34 bolder free trading zones around the world
    0:36:36 biggest tax cut in history will be if we
    0:36:38 kiss and make up with china there has to
    0:36:41 be some ip protection but just as the cost
    0:36:43 of clothes have been cut in half because
    0:36:47 97 are imported into the u.s right let’s
    0:36:50 get rid of this old stupid 1890s thinking
    0:36:52 we’re going to have more global trade
    0:36:54 shit’s going to get much cheaper for
    0:36:57 americans and we’re going to try and
    0:36:58 restore the alliance the greatest alliance
    0:37:00 in history and that is between men and
    0:37:02 women men have to stop this bullshit of
    0:37:04 thinking that their struggles have come
    0:37:05 because of the ascent of women this is
    0:37:08 not a zero-sum game and women we need you
    0:37:09 to stop saying that men don’t have
    0:37:12 problems they are the problem we need men
    0:37:14 and women to get on each other’s side
    0:37:16 again i don’t know what it is alliances
    0:37:19 housing an embrace of global trade i don’t
    0:37:22 know three things but the democrats need to
    0:37:24 say okay this is an etch-a-sketch and it’s
    0:37:27 been shaken and it’s blank right now what
    0:37:29 new lines do you want to draw and for god’s
    0:37:33 sakes get it out there propose something and
    0:37:35 get it out there such that we’re just not
    0:37:37 all running around you know accusing trump of
    0:37:40 being a fascist over and over like we have
    0:37:43 to move to the positive part of this what are
    0:37:46 our proposals what are our counter proposals and
    0:37:48 the exciting thing is i don’t think we’re
    0:37:50 renovating a house here i think the house is
    0:37:52 burnt down i think the democratic party given
    0:37:54 this move towards authoritarianism despite
    0:37:56 that trump would be re-elected today
    0:37:59 i think that if he was running against vice
    0:38:01 president harris and the democratic
    0:38:03 establishment i think he’d probably win
    0:38:07 today so the democratic party is done as
    0:38:10 we know it and the ideals and principles and
    0:38:12 bench are really strong we have some outstanding
    0:38:16 assets so what would we do new don’t even
    0:38:18 mention trump’s name don’t even mention his
    0:38:21 name hopefully he is an afterthought in
    0:38:26 whatever goes on for 2028 anyway but it is it
    0:38:29 seems to me that mentioning donald trump is
    0:38:32 perhaps the quickest way to get people to turn
    0:38:35 off but is at least in the top five in terms of
    0:38:38 who they’re looking to support as a politician
    0:38:41 or as a political party his people have already
    0:38:43 made up their minds about him years and years and
    0:38:47 years ago frankly and and you know to self-flagellate
    0:38:50 you know we forced people back into his arms or we
    0:38:54 made it a lot easier to go and do that in 2024 and
    0:38:59 i think that if voters could see democrats at least
    0:39:01 spitballing the way that you were so some of the
    0:39:03 things that you said i like some of the things you
    0:39:05 know i want to double tap on and push back i’m not a
    0:39:08 big flat tax person but at least you’re having a
    0:39:10 discussion about this and no one would penalize a
    0:39:14 politician for showing up with a postcard that said an
    0:39:18 economy that works for everyone decent health care that
    0:39:22 isn’t going to bankrupt you an education system that works
    0:39:25 right and then you build out the rest of it i think focusing on
    0:39:29 domestic policy is the way to win a domestic election i think
    0:39:32 that our alliances and partnerships abroad are
    0:39:36 certainly important but people are most concerned with what’s
    0:39:39 going on in their house right now that’s why they call them the
    0:39:41 kitchen table issues like they’re going to get up
    0:39:43 they’re going to go to work they’re going to think about how much
    0:39:46 they’re being paid to do that work their kids are going to get up
    0:39:48 and go to school they’re going to come home and they’re going to sit
    0:39:50 around the dinner table and they’re going to think about what it is that
    0:39:55 they’re having for dinner and if it was too expensive or cost the
    0:39:58 right amount that’s basically what life looks like for the
    0:40:03 average person and you are also describing a governor you are
    0:40:09 describing someone who has worked in management and you can see the kind of
    0:40:12 clarity that’s delivered in a speech by a jb pritzker
    0:40:18 a westmore josh shapiro governor whitmer jared polis etc it doesn’t even
    0:40:21 actually matter the topic that they’re discussing you know jared polis talking
    0:40:25 about anti-semitism which is not going to be the lead issue or the lead
    0:40:31 platform plank for someone running for president but there is a clarity that
    0:40:36 comes with having to manage a state that you just don’t get from people that
    0:40:39 give you know soaring speeches on the floor of congress because these people
    0:40:43 have to get shit done they have to rebuild i-95 they have to repair a bridge
    0:40:48 they have to bring a community back together after some lunatic anti-semite
    0:40:57 is throwing flames on jews peacefully protesting so i i’m very much in on the
    0:41:02 governor train right now and somebody declaring i i have a higher opinion i think
    0:41:07 to some degree of what hakeem jeffries is doing than you do because keeping the
    0:41:13 caucus together is difficult work i bet yeah that’s fair especially when you have
    0:41:18 you know super conservative members of the caucus over to the aocs of the world
    0:41:24 and democrats have at least been able to have a unified front and i i think that that matters
    0:41:30 and especially in opposing legislation etc but uh point taken on all of those fronts
    0:41:38 what are your thoughts on kilmar obrega garcia jess so i was pleased to see that he was returned
    0:41:45 to face his day and quarter to get his due process um but was pretty disturbed by the indictment
    0:41:50 that they had i don’t know if you saw pam bondy’s press conference about it so this all came together
    0:41:56 and i think the grand jury met a couple of weeks ago but this indictment which was filed in
    0:42:02 tennessee is absolutely scathing and alleges that he was engaged in smuggling men women and children
    0:42:06 she also went off script and talked about all these things that he allegedly did that aren’t even in
    0:42:11 the indictment like talking about murder and child pornography and you would think if that was true
    0:42:18 that it would probably be in the indictment itself but now we have kind of like a mini fight within the
    0:42:25 larger fight because kilmar obrega garcia’s lawyers have filed a contempt lawsuit against the
    0:42:28 administration they’re sticking with it because it’s quite clear that they could have brought him
    0:42:33 home months ago so it was three months ago that was he was mistakenly deported and i’m i’m using the
    0:42:38 terms that they even used it was a mistake that he was sent then two months since the supreme court said
    0:42:43 you need to facilitate his return and then they finally got around to it i think because public opinion
    0:42:50 was so clear about this he may be an ms-13 member he may be the gangbanger that they said and not the
    0:42:56 maryland dad but that people deserve their due process rights and it’s a lot different to deport
    0:43:01 someone versus to put them in seacot right to put them in a foreign gulag where they may never see the
    0:43:07 light of day again and i just wanted to bring up you know also about the indictment itself and that’s where
    0:43:15 the next phase of this battle will be fought that a high-ranking prosecutor in tennessee this guy ben
    0:43:22 schrader resigned over this indictment fearing that albergo garcia was being targeted for political
    0:43:27 reasons so this isn’t just someone claiming that he’s turned into a political pawn or a target it’s
    0:43:33 somebody who has worked within the federal government for a long time saying that that is the case
    0:43:39 and not to get too nitty-gritty but this is going back to a 2022 incident where he was pulled over
    0:43:46 he had many passengers in the car he was driving them to a construction site in maryland he told
    0:43:52 authorities at the time that they had originated in texas the current government pam bondy’s doj is denying
    0:43:58 that that was ever stated at the time so there’s a lot of fuzziness around this but the big flashing
    0:44:03 red light to me is this prosecutor resigning over it and i don’t know if that means that albergo
    0:44:11 garcia ends up going free and it’s all totally fine but it seems like the trump administration
    0:44:19 needed to find a solution or save face after they’ve been humiliated on so many fronts when it comes to
    0:44:26 immigration and that they may have and let this play out but they may have created a scenario that
    0:44:31 isn’t particularly accurate yeah i’m trying to think of someone who’s been more politicized than this
    0:44:39 young man i just he’s now got essentially the department of justice which has been weaponized
    0:44:46 against him and an entire administration is who’s not does not shy away from lying or i would imagine
    0:44:52 recasting evidence they feel as if their whole reputation around this issue is showing that he’s
    0:44:58 evil and finding a way to put him in prison for longer so yeah yeah politicization is an understatement
    0:45:05 here do you think it was a mistake to make this case as big of a deal as the democrats did because
    0:45:10 that is a discussion that’s still going on internally like if it does end up that this quote-unquote
    0:45:18 maryland dad you know is a human smuggler or whatever and god forbid the child porn stuff is true
    0:45:25 any of it do you think it was a waste of capital because i don’t and i think that going for due
    0:45:30 process is what matters the most no matter who he turns out to be and that we have a higher chance
    0:45:36 of getting people like andre hernandez the gay makeup artist who’s also in el salvador the venezuelan
    0:45:42 back if there’s a precedent that they can get people out of secot but i do understand the flip side
    0:45:47 argument as well that if we’re talking about him we’re not talking about tariffs yeah i think it’s an
    0:45:53 interesting point because the way you grab people’s emotions is you humanize it with individual stories
    0:45:58 but that’s a risk i would have stuck to just probably habeas corpus and i’m not sure i would
    0:46:04 have gone down there but i think they should have just stuck with look there’s just the definition of
    0:46:09 a concentration camp is lifting people out of their one region sending them to another one such that
    0:46:14 they don’t have the protections and rights that they had and domestically we should not have
    0:46:19 concentration camps and everyone needs to be brought back and for due process i just would
    0:46:25 have stuck with that argument and list people and maybe reference them and individuals and the most
    0:46:31 obvious ones are the most blatant ones but to pin your hopes on one person i mean if this guy has done
    0:46:37 half of what they say he’s done it could backfire and i wouldn’t even engage in the argument yeah maybe
    0:46:43 he is guilty of all these things we’ll find out the constitution is clear it says persons not citizens
    0:46:53 and an underpinning of our judicial system is the following we purposely decide to err on the side of
    0:47:01 occasionally letting someone guilty go free as opposed to incarcerating innocent people yeah so that means we go
    0:47:08 through incredible expense and provide some people who are awful with rights at the time that feel like
    0:47:15 unfair to the victims or to safety but that is the approach we’ve taken to national security and if we
    0:47:22 want to have a different approach where okay innocent people end up in prison innocent people end up
    0:47:28 incarcerated without due process with no access to their family perhaps even shipped to different black sites
    0:47:34 their concentration camps all right vote for those people but the current constitution does not allow
    0:47:40 for that i’m not sure i worry that we’ve we’ve doubled down too much on an individual’s background that we
    0:47:47 don’t know that much about or that the government using their synchronicity with fox news and different
    0:47:56 conservative media outlets and doctoring of photos over tattoos is going to be able to just say hey we should
    0:48:01 have left them down there look at you guys are wrong this is a bad hombre that’s not the argument the
    0:48:07 argument is we take the worst people and we give them due process and habeas corpus because we want
    0:48:13 everyone to have access to that so yeah we’ll see how it plays out but this is you’ve always said
    0:48:19 correctly i was watching on the five that this is still his most popular issue or the issue he has the
    0:48:23 most support on all right let’s take a quick break stay with us
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    0:51:20 welcome back one of the most powerful alliances in american politics just blew up spectacularly
    0:51:27 donald trump and elon musk once political partners and mutual hype men are now trading insults threats
    0:51:33 and even conspiracy theories in a very public very messy breakup it started with musk blasting trump’s
    0:51:39 gop-backed mega bill as a disgusting abomination uh i think he said pork field disgusting abomination
    0:51:45 which by the way just is the new au d’oeuvre at tgi fridays uh trump hit back saying he was
    0:51:50 very disappointed and floated cutting musk’s massive federal contracts musk escalated claiming
    0:51:59 trump is in the epstein files oh there we go that was the best it escalated to pedophile in like four
    0:52:05 minutes that’s right yeah and even reposted calls for impeachment before deleting them days later meanwhile
    0:52:11 vice president jd vance tried to play peacemaker saying musk’s criticisms were understandable but that
    0:52:16 his loyalty still lies with trump she’s like did you sell more mealing mouth the online war briefly
    0:52:21 paused after intermediaries from both camps reportedly got on the phone but the damage appears to be done
    0:52:26 this just isn’t about ecos though just the fallout threatens major legislation billions in government
    0:52:31 contracts and the balance of power in the gop just as trump pushes for his biggest domestic win yet
    0:52:37 jess is this feud really about the mega bill and government contracts or is it about something else what
    0:52:43 are your thoughts i think it’s about both um and everything is tied together um when you’re dealing
    0:52:50 with the president and his co-president for a time you know there’s the money of this which matters a huge
    0:52:58 amount you know tesla is not tesla without those ev credits and i think musk did a lot of the democrats
    0:53:06 messaging work to say things like well you didn’t touch oil and gas so why are you coming after clean
    0:53:14 energy you know in some ways this happens regularly but your opponent gives you some good tips on how to
    0:53:20 message about these things when they have a a break and are morally clear out loud every once in a while
    0:53:26 and i think like write that down there’s that great snl skit there’s a melissa mccarthy one from years
    0:53:30 ago it’s about hidden valley ranch everyone should go watch it it’s very funny but she keeps saying
    0:53:35 like write that down write that down and as musk is talking i’m saying like write that down write that
    0:53:42 down you know because somebody that’s on the inside is exposed to things that we haven’t been necessarily
    0:53:49 as the formal opposition and if it’s something that’s affecting elon musk it’s affecting other republicans
    0:53:54 as well that there are other people within the party or in the gop infrastructure who are thinking
    0:54:03 similarly so i’m team ro kanna on the engaging elon musk i don’t think that we are in a position to write
    0:54:11 off anybody that might help us defeat this bill or win future elections and it does seem like the
    0:54:18 protests in los angeles has kind of brought trump and musk together a little bit you see musk
    0:54:23 posting on twitter you know that it’s a good thing that the troops are there and oh my god i can’t
    0:54:28 believe that you know cars are on fire they’re waving mexican flags etc so i think it’s doing some of the
    0:54:34 the repair work uh that musk decided that he wanted but trump wasn’t necessarily ready to talk which i think
    0:54:41 is so funny just in terms of the breakup vibes of it all but what really stuck out to me i guess is
    0:54:50 twofold so one that they both think the other is completely depraved right elon musk at core thinks
    0:54:56 that trump is a pedophile right someone who’s on the epstein list was happy to be engaging in that
    0:55:04 kind of behavior and trump when pushed thinks that elon musk is a drug addict who isn’t making good
    0:55:11 decisions but they’ll come together for the purposes of accumulating power no matter the circumstance and
    0:55:16 that is the lesson in all of this i know politics makes strange bedfellows but i like to think that
    0:55:23 if you believed somebody was doing it with 14 year old girls that you probably wouldn’t want to be
    0:55:29 in political bed with them and that if you thought that someone else was really losing it and couldn’t
    0:55:34 get through the day without being on ketamine that you wouldn’t want to put them essentially in charge
    0:55:41 of government or giving them such a big job so that was one lesson from it and the other lesson of this
    0:55:48 for me is that donald trump is really scared of elon musk so his response was so much more muted
    0:55:56 than we have seen in the past when someone pisses him off let alone someone turning against him that has
    0:56:01 that much access to power and that he felt was that close to him you know having him in the oval having
    0:56:06 the mar-a-lago bringing his kids around etc or kid i should say only one of them gets to come out in
    0:56:15 public and so you could see that that anxiety about what musk could do from you know funding challengers
    0:56:21 to the republican party to you know what he could do in space that he could turn off the grid right like
    0:56:28 this guy has immense power and he needs the government contracts which is trump’s card to play
    0:56:35 but he seemed genuinely petrified of what a life with elon musk against you looks like
    0:56:42 um if this thing were any gayer it’d be a show on bravo sponsored by grinder
    0:56:50 i i just can’t get over what total bitches these two are and i say bitch androgynously as people
    0:56:59 acting like total children and not like grown-ups i think this is so embarrassing that these are the
    0:57:04 two individuals that the majority of young people are supposed to look up to the president and the
    0:57:10 world’s wealthiest man it has nothing to do with the bill um musk knew about this bill if musk gave
    0:57:17 a good goddamn about the deficit and this pork he wouldn’t be recommending that we cut 40 to 50 percent
    0:57:23 of the irs i mean there’s there’s estimates that there’s a 600 billion dollar a year tax gap and that
    0:57:29 is our inability because of the neutering of the irs our inability to actually collect the taxes that
    0:57:35 are owed so the notion somehow that he just can’t handle the deficit and what’s happening to our
    0:57:43 country that is so fucking ridiculous um he kind of got what he wanted they have neutered and basically
    0:57:48 fired every inspector general that’s going to get in the way of his autonomous driving regulations or
    0:57:56 any case against him has kind of magically gone away so the notion that somehow he’s just outraged about
    0:58:03 the bill oh and that he just figured out that epstein was guilty of sex crimes on an island
    0:58:09 a jury of trump’s peers found that he was guilty of sex crimes on an island called manhattan
    0:58:16 what he didn’t know that like he just figured that out that this guy has a past that is really
    0:58:22 unsavory but he decided to work with him when he’d been convicted of sexual assault but now he’s just
    0:58:28 he’s outraged by the pork in this bill and he’s upset at trump’s past and then trump goes
    0:58:35 immediately to let’s deport him let’s cut his subsidies and it’s just you know when i think of
    0:58:42 what it means to aggregate power one of the real opportunities and signals that you’ve attained power
    0:58:49 in a thoughtful high integrity way is that you get to be a peacemaker your job is to de-escalate
    0:58:55 if you have real skills on a board of directors you’re asked to mediate between the rest of the
    0:59:00 board and the ceo and the president of the united states more than any individual in the world is
    0:59:06 asked to step in and de-escalate conflicts that could ratchet up to nuclear war naturally when
    0:59:12 pakistan and india get into border skirmishes it could go a very ugly place usually you think of
    0:59:17 bringing in the secretary of state of the united states under the auspices of the president to try and
    0:59:21 de-escalate that this person has the most skills and the most resources and the most respect globally
    0:59:28 to de-escalate to turn the heat down and we no longer occupy that position when these two get into
    0:59:37 this ridiculous love quarrel that’s how i can see it musk wants trump’s relevance and trump wants musk’s
    0:59:43 cults or vice versa and the fact that they would immediately digress to these types of personal
    0:59:50 statements and indictments against each other is just evidence that neither commands the position
    0:59:57 they occupy and it’s just such a bad look it’s it’s with the war between musk and trump reminds me of the
    1:00:03 war between iran and iraq and that is i’m rooting for the bullets i gotta be honest i’m enjoying it
    1:00:10 and unfortunately it’s a distraction from this tax bill which is a transfer of wealth from poor to rich
    1:00:18 young to old future to past but trump is scared of the guy because musk was correct he probably got
    1:00:26 trump elected he probably swung the congress to the republicans so musk can rightfully claim credit
    1:00:34 or is responsible and accountable for what’s going on right now because he did weaponize his platform
    1:00:41 quarter of a billion dollars he probably did have a big impact on the election which speaks to god we
    1:00:48 need some sort of reform around citizens united or i mean we we really can’t have one person electing
    1:00:53 the president and then that person wanted to be president i think what really happened here
    1:00:58 is he wanted more input on his nasa pick he wanted to be involved in the pick for the cia
    1:01:05 but sent said no you don’t get to pick the new head of the irs he wanted to be in on china briefings
    1:01:11 he basically wants to be an unelected president and a lot of his cabinet members threw up on that
    1:01:18 supposedly there was actually a physical altercation between him and besant right and also the thing
    1:01:22 that kind of explains a lot of this is that according to the new york times the wall street journal
    1:01:30 elon musk is a rabid drug addict and i don’t know if you’ve ever had a drug addict in your life i have
    1:01:39 it is striking i mean it is sort of unbelievable what inconsistencies irrationality weirdness
    1:01:44 ability to lie through the teeth through the people they love most in the world
    1:01:51 can happen when drugs take over i mean you lose your shit and if you look at what this guy is tweeting
    1:01:56 out and then in a moment of sobriety deleting yeah that’s what we’re dealing with here we’re dealing
    1:02:04 with children this is bad for both of them they both lose i think musk to a certain extent is doing
    1:02:10 what a lot of ceos would like to do and that is just hit back but elon musk doesn’t need the money
    1:02:15 he’s got control of his board it doesn’t matter that he lost 150 billion dollars and tesla market
    1:02:20 cap in one day because he controls the board he doesn’t need more money he’s not scared of his board
    1:02:25 every other ceo would probably get fired if they did this they’d be like look good for you i hope that
    1:02:33 was fun but our stock’s off 14 today because you can’t hold your tongue so this is it’s it’s theater
    1:02:38 but you come out of the theater just thinking oh wow god do i feel nauseous what a waste of two and a
    1:02:45 half hours yeah what a waste what a waste of drama here i do think that part of what we are seeing on
    1:02:51 musk not to give him too much emotional credibility is his disappointment for the way government works
    1:03:00 and the realities of what’s happening within the government itself so he was angry rightfully so
    1:03:05 that they were only going to codify nine billion dollars in the quote-unquote savings that he found
    1:03:12 and i think it is important that a doge employee who has been doged himself said quote i personally
    1:03:17 was pretty surprised actually at how efficient the government was fraud was minimal and abuse was
    1:03:25 quote relatively non-existent so i think that you know musk came in with this vision of what it was
    1:03:32 going to be like and that he and trump were partners and that everyone really believed in doge and they
    1:03:38 were going to do their best to make sure that these cuts were codified and he faced resistance internally
    1:03:45 in some cases from the other cabinet secretaries the courts certainly but then also the fact that the
    1:03:52 government is much more efficient than anyone expected and that is a very difficult needle to thread
    1:03:59 for the democrats because nobody wants to hear actually that this enormous behemoth of a federal government
    1:04:04 is uh doing as good as possible or as well as possible i should say my english should be better
    1:04:12 but i think that that is an important component to the breakdown that he had frankly that he you know
    1:04:21 walked into a pretty well humming machine and then was minimized by the man that promised him the world
    1:04:28 and that he paid 294 million dollars or whatever it was to get elected you know i love that i think
    1:04:33 it’s a buddha saying that the man with good health has thousands of problems and the man with bad health
    1:04:39 has one problem actually is that appropriate here basically i’m trying to get to there are so many
    1:04:47 injustices just flying under the radar right now because of the weirdness and economic threat and usurp of
    1:04:52 congressional power that we’re missing a lot of stuff that is in my opinion just so outrageous and i was
    1:05:00 especially incensed by something that happened last week the first week of pride month i don’t know if
    1:05:08 you’re familiar with harvey milk yeah harvey milk uh served in the korean war he went on to be an
    1:05:13 elected u.s supervisor that one of the first openly gay elected officials in america he served his country
    1:05:19 and his reviews in his military record he actually worked on a submarine he was promoted his reviews say he was
    1:05:26 outstanding he was promoted to officer and then in 1954 he was outed as gay and was given a decision
    1:05:32 by his superiors to either resign from the military with less than honorable discharge or some weird
    1:05:39 thing that basically is not an honorable discharge or face court martial and so he decided to resign from
    1:05:47 the military forego all of his military benefits and then went on to be an activist and was the first
    1:05:52 openly gay elected official or one of the first in san francisco to the board of supervisors which
    1:05:58 provides huge comfort to i think a lot of a lot of gay people who thought that they were never going to
    1:06:06 have real robust representations he was as i like to say he was gay before it was cool he was out when it
    1:06:13 was a real risk to your reputation and your personal safety and he was murdered along with mayor bill
    1:06:20 musconi by actually a fellow supervisor and the u.s navy they put in a request there’s a process for
    1:06:26 putting in a request to name a ship so they put in a request in 2017 that harvey milk uh and some small
    1:06:33 nod to his service in his memory that they name a ship after him so they named the usns harvey milk
    1:06:40 that was christened in 2021 and just a nod to the the inclusivity that the armed services are known for
    1:06:52 and secretary hegseth decides the first week of pride month to rename that ship which is just a such a
    1:07:00 giant unnecessary fuck you to the gay community it’s not only cruel and unnecessary it’s really fucking
    1:07:09 stupid because we are in an environment right now where 70 of the men who show up to a services recruiting
    1:07:18 office do not qualify to be a private in the army because they are either obese or can’t pass a basic
    1:07:26 mental wellness test and we want to say to america of which most surveys show somewhere between five and
    1:07:33 eight percent of america identifies as gay that you can come here serve proudly and if by chance you get
    1:07:41 something named after you by chance you get a medal the moment we let far-right weirdos whose heart is full of
    1:07:50 hate they might embarrass your your descendants and pull your name off as shit it is it’s not only stupid it
    1:07:57 makes us less safe and as somebody who interacts with our service personnel all the time and you know
    1:08:02 i don’t know how to i don’t know how to say this without sounding stupid some of my best friends are gay
    1:08:07 i’m pretty sure gay people are just as good at defending our borders and killing people as straight people
    1:08:15 i have seen no difference in their ability or their skills to serve on the ground to be paratroopers or to be
    1:08:20 fixing planes i have never seen i don’t by the way i don’t think they’re any better at it but i’m pretty
    1:08:26 sure they’re not any worse at it and so when you say to a population a huge population in america you
    1:08:33 really aren’t welcome to serve it degrades our ability to defend our shores and kill bad guys
    1:08:40 it’s just so stupid and i i don’t want to i want to move away from the democratic playbook of moral
    1:08:48 indignation here but unnecessarily unrequested pulling someone’s name off an unimportant ship
    1:08:56 under the auspices of trying to restore he says this notion of a warrior mentality what what the yeah
    1:09:00 it flies in the face of the argument that they’re making which is we don’t care who you are as long
    1:09:05 as you’re good at your job well guess what harvey milk was good at his job and he happened to be gay
    1:09:12 so i mean and they did point out that the timing was intentional you know they’re not embarrassed
    1:09:20 of doing these kinds of things and i’m glad to see that recruitment is up i think it’s important
    1:09:26 etc and this was a trend that started before trump came in to office but it has accelerated and the
    1:09:33 cruelty is the point it’s always the point this is cruel and it’s dumb and it shines a very negative light
    1:09:38 on the way that our armed services are being run cruel and dumb let’s leave it there all right
    1:09:41 that’s all for this episode jess thank you for listening to raging moderates our producers are
    1:09:48 david toledo and eric genekes our technical directors drew burrows starting this week you’ll
    1:09:52 find raging moderates every wednesday and friday that’s every wednesday and friday subscribe to
    1:09:57 raging moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds that you won’t
    1:10:02 hear anywhere else just to give you a sense for how heated it is and how early this race is you will
    1:10:07 not believe the people that are calling jess to get interviewed by her right now this week
    1:10:12 we’re speaking with representative richie torres who both just and i are huge fans of make sure to
    1:10:18 follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss an episode just have a great rest of the week
    1:10:18 you too

    Scott and Jessica talk about the protests in California sparked by ICE raids, and the White House’s decision to deploy Marines and National Guard members in the city. They also get into what the Democrats’ message for the future should be, the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, the very public Musk/Trump breakup, and whether or not America will go out with a bang… or with a whimper.

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  • Warner Bros. Discovery Splits In Two, Apple’s WWDC Flops, & Tesla Gets Downgraded

    Ed takes a look at Warner Bros Discovery’s move to split into two companies, breaks down the highlights from the opening day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and unpacks why two analysts decided to downgrade Tesla’s stock. 

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  • Trump & Elon Break Up Over the Tax Bill

    Scott and Ed break down Reddit’s lawsuit against Anthropic, the controversy surrounding the new $TRUMP-branded crypto wallet, and why Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders rejected CEO David Zaslav’s pay package. Then, they unpack the growing opposition to the GOP Tax Bill and debate the potential motivations for Elon Musk’s criticism of the bill. Scott shares his thoughts on how critics of the bill can mount a more effective response. Finally, they examine why venture capital is pulling back from seed-stage investments, and Ed reflects on the growing challenges facing young investors and entrepreneurs.

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  • Prof G Markets: Trump & Elon Break Up Over the Tax Bill

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    0:01:33 The masked and entirely anonymous quartet are getting millions of listens and a plethora of haters who say they’re ruining the genre.
    0:01:37 I’m musicologist Nate Sloan, co-host of Switched on Pop, Vulture’s music podcast.
    0:01:41 And in this week’s episode, we’re asking, is metal the new pop?
    0:01:44 And if so, what happens when a niche genre goes mainstream?
    0:01:48 Listen to Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts.
    0:01:52 Today is number 11.
    0:01:56 That’s the percentage of Fortune 500 companies run by women in 2025.
    0:01:57 A record high.
    0:01:58 True story yet.
    0:02:04 My first boss was a woman, and she recently passed away, and it was an open casket, and I couldn’t help muttering to her,
    0:02:07 who’s thinking outside the box now, bitch?
    0:02:21 Is that wrong, Ed?
    0:02:23 Maybe you didn’t need to add bitch at the end, man.
    0:02:25 Just, look who’s thinking outside the box now.
    0:02:28 I love the word bitch, but I use it androgynously.
    0:02:31 I describe, I say, I call you bitch all the time.
    0:02:32 You do.
    0:02:33 That you do.
    0:02:33 Yeah.
    0:02:38 So, it’s not, for me, it’s not a gender thing.
    0:02:38 No.
    0:02:39 No, it’s not.
    0:02:39 How are you, Ed?
    0:02:41 Have you had any really nice dinners recently?
    0:02:42 What have you been up to?
    0:02:43 I did.
    0:02:46 I had a very nice dinner with you last night on Nursing Hangover.
    0:02:51 We went to your members’ club and had our, what is that, sort of like our annual company dinner?
    0:02:52 Annual?
    0:02:53 Monthly.
    0:02:54 Monthly, bitch.
    0:02:56 Annual.
    0:02:56 Yeah.
    0:02:59 We never do anything fun.
    0:03:00 Oh, my God.
    0:03:01 I don’t think I’m wrong.
    0:03:04 When was the last time you and I had a meal together?
    0:03:06 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
    0:03:06 It’s better.
    0:03:09 You have meals paid for by me where I’m not there.
    0:03:10 I’m the perfect boss.
    0:03:13 We do a lot of social stuff.
    0:03:14 That’s true.
    0:03:14 That’s true.
    0:03:18 We have our own dinners as well when you’re not there.
    0:03:21 Granted, you live in a different country, so it’s fair enough.
    0:03:28 But let’s just call it our annual sort of celebration of the company where you ball out, take us to a nice members’ club.
    0:03:32 Usually we go to zero bond, but now we’ve switched over to your new club.
    0:03:33 And it was very fun.
    0:03:36 We stuck around and had some drinks.
    0:03:36 It was good.
    0:03:37 Yeah, it was nice.
    0:03:38 I really enjoyed seeing everybody.
    0:03:43 And I know you stuck around a little bit later than we did.
    0:03:45 Well, I was in the bathroom doing an eight ball.
    0:03:49 I was actually – I’m such a narcissist.
    0:03:51 Someone texted me and said, you’re going viral.
    0:03:56 So I immediately went and found one in Quiet Place and started typing in Scott Galloway, Scott Galloway.
    0:03:58 I’m such a fucking narcissist.
    0:04:00 You were gone for a while.
    0:04:02 Someone’s like, you’re going viral.
    0:04:06 And I’m like, okay, is it for my gay prostitute habit?
    0:04:09 What am I going viral for?
    0:04:11 Or some sort of insight?
    0:04:16 When someone tells you you’re going viral, you don’t know if it’s insight or syphilis.
    0:04:21 You’ve got to lock yourself away in the bathroom and find out what’s happening.
    0:04:25 But you’re going viral for a good reason, and that is you crushed it on Piers Morgan.
    0:04:25 Well done.
    0:04:36 I think one of the wonderful things about being an American, and quite frankly, for me, what it means to be a man and what I try to teach my boys is the whole point of prosperity is such that you can protect people.
    0:04:45 And I think the two of you are more impressed with Mr. Musk than I am in that too many of us excuse what is abhorrent behavior.
    0:04:51 I think his legacy is not going to be an EV or putting rockets into space.
    0:04:57 I think it’s going to be unnecessary death, disease, and disability of the world’s most vulnerable.
    0:04:59 That is not what it means to be an innovator.
    0:05:01 It’s not what it means to be an American.
    0:05:03 It’s not what it means to be a man.
    0:05:04 Wow.
    0:05:07 You know, Ed, I don’t like to talk about me.
    0:05:10 Yeah.
    0:05:12 Anyways, let’s get to the headlines, Ed.
    0:05:13 Let’s get to the headlines.
    0:05:21 But before I do that, I just want to remind everyone, this is a big day, because this is the last time Prof G Markets will air on the Prof G podcast.
    0:05:31 So starting tomorrow, we’ll be publishing a new episode every day of the week, and it will be exclusively on the Prof G Markets podcast, not on the Prof G podcast.
    0:05:39 If you’re trying to differentiate, the Prof G podcast is the turquoise logo, Prof G Markets is the green logo with me and Scott.
    0:05:47 Make sure you’re subscribed to Prof G Markets in your podcast player right now, and tune in tomorrow for our very, very first daily episode.
    0:05:49 We’re very excited for you to hear it.
    0:05:51 We’ve been working on this for a long time.
    0:05:54 We’re about to start grinding every single day.
    0:05:55 Tune in for it.
    0:05:55 Nice.
    0:05:58 Let’s start with our weekly review of Market Vitals.
    0:06:08 The S&P 500 climbed on the promise of trade talks between the U.S. and China.
    0:06:09 The dollar fell.
    0:06:13 Bitcoin was relatively stable, and the yield on 10-year treasuries increased.
    0:06:15 Shifting to the headlines.
    0:06:20 Reddit is suing Anthropic for allegedly training its models on user data without permission.
    0:06:25 The lawsuit says Anthropic accessed the platform more than 100,000 times after claiming it had stopped.
    0:06:28 Reddit shares rose more than 6% on that news.
    0:06:35 The creators of the Trump meme coin are launching a Trump-branded crypto wallet for trading digital assets, including Bitcoin.
    0:06:41 However, soon after it was announced, Trump’s sons quickly denied any knowledge of this venture.
    0:06:48 Eric Trump then clarified that their company, World Liberty Financial, would be launching their own official wallet soon.
    0:06:56 And finally, Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against CEO David Zasloff’s $52 million pay package for 2024.
    0:07:06 The vote was largely symbolic because it is non-binding, meaning Zasloff will, unless the board chooses otherwise, still receive his full compensation.
    0:07:11 So, Scott, let’s start with Reddit suing Anthropic.
    0:07:13 Anthropic is obviously the big AI company.
    0:07:18 They produce Claude, their chatbot, their competitor to ChatGPT.
    0:07:21 And Reddit is suing them for scraping their data.
    0:07:22 Any initial reactions?
    0:07:23 I think it’s a great move.
    0:07:23 I read it.
    0:07:25 And the market seems to love it.
    0:07:30 This is that moment where they have a chance to push back on these crawlers.
    0:07:35 My first board meeting, the New York Times, my big proposal and idea was, I said, we need to turn off Google.
    0:07:56 And we need to go to Pearson, which on the FT at the time, the Murdochs, the Wall Street Journal, News Corp, and to the New Houses, who own Condé Nast, and the best property is Vanity Fair, and we need, and Hearst, and we need to develop a consortium and say, and this is back when they were all still trying to kind of grab share.
    0:08:14 And Search wasn’t, you know, this was almost 20 years ago, Search wasn’t as big a market as it was now, and say, all right, one of you is going to get access to this big, beautiful content, everything from GQ to the Wall Street Journal to, you know, the New York Times, whatever it might be, all these local newspapers.
    0:08:19 I said we should also bring in Gannett and present as one voice and get a licensing agreement.
    0:08:25 And I believe that Microsoft would have, in an effort to try and catch up to Google, would have paid a lot of money for that content.
    0:08:39 And the general view from New York Times management was, no, they were so stuck in an eyeballs, an advertising mindset, their view was, no, we need to drive as much traffic, and Google is driving a decent amount of traffic.
    0:08:42 And then within a few years, it was too late.
    0:08:46 They didn’t need, we needed them much more than they needed us.
    0:08:50 There was no one entity or group of entities that could shut them down.
    0:08:53 And what Google said was, this is amazing.
    0:08:56 This is such a symbiotic, we send you traffic and you monetize it.
    0:09:02 And what nobody did was the actual analysis that they were making a dollar off our content and we were making two cents.
    0:09:14 They had figured out a way to monetize it perfectly or near perfectly, and we were just getting a view, a banner ad on the New York Times cooking section that we could barely monetize, like CPMs of almost zero.
    0:09:17 Anyway, we’re at that moment with AI.
    0:09:23 And I think the market loves that Reddit is pushing back and saying, no, you’re not allowed to crawl.
    0:09:25 They should take the next step.
    0:09:30 They should create a consortium of all this incredible content to present a unified front.
    0:09:38 The problem is, is that the kind of Russia of being able to just throw bodies at the problem is meta.
    0:09:45 Because I believe as big as Reddit is, I think it’s the fifth or sixth most traffic site in America.
    0:09:51 It creates, I think, about 1.3 trillion tokens of information and meta creates about 150 or 160 across all of its platforms.
    0:09:59 But pretty soon, AI will have so much power that no one entity will have any real bargaining power with it.
    0:10:03 So I think this is good news for the content community.
    0:10:05 I applaud how aggressive they’re being.
    0:10:14 But the next step would be for them to call literally every content repository that AI is crawling and say, we need a unified front here.
    0:10:23 We’re all going to participate in some sort of economic algorithm based on how much we get crawled or not crawled and start getting some of that revenue.
    0:10:31 I believe that Reddit did, in fact, get – I think they struck a deal with OpenAI for access to their information.
    0:10:33 Google and OpenAI.
    0:10:39 Those deal terms haven’t been disclosed, but they said that it was around 10% of their annual revenue.
    0:10:45 So people estimate that those deals were worth between $60 and $70 million each.
    0:10:52 To your point, they are sitting on an oil field, which is 20 years’ worth of conversational user data.
    0:10:55 And that is literally oil for these AI companies.
    0:11:02 Like, these AI – these models need to train on that kind of data, on people just chatting with each other.
    0:11:10 So if they aren’t going to be super aggressive as soon as some AI company comes in and starts scraping that data, then they’re not doing their job right.
    0:11:13 I loved how aggressive the complaint was.
    0:11:15 The opening line here was, quote,
    0:11:19 Anthropic is a company that bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry.
    0:11:21 It is anything but.
    0:11:26 And then the whole paragraph just keeps on going on about everything they hate about Anthropic.
    0:11:31 It’s very aggressive, it’s very sassy, but it’s the right thing to do.
    0:11:36 And I think that’s why the stock rose so significantly, around more than 6%, almost 7%.
    0:11:43 Because I think Wall Street recognizes that Steve Huffman, the CEO, he’s got his head screwed on very tight.
    0:11:45 He knows exactly what’s at stake here.
    0:11:53 He knows that if you let these guys come in and start pillaging the data, as the New York Times did back when you were on the board,
    0:11:55 then you’re basically just going to be left for dead.
    0:12:00 And by the way, those numbers, 60 to 70 million, I’ve said it before, that feels small.
    0:12:01 Yeah, it should go up.
    0:12:03 I mean, I’m surprised they couldn’t get more.
    0:12:08 The key is the first deal, because it establishes a gestalt where you’re paying us for access,
    0:12:15 whereas Google and all the other crawlers have established a basic operating model where no, we don’t pay to crawl your data.
    0:12:17 We’ll send you traffic, but that’s it.
    0:12:19 But this is the right thing to do, good for Reddit.
    0:12:23 Let’s talk about this Trump crypto wallet saga.
    0:12:31 So basically, just to run through what happened, on Tuesday, the Trump meme coin website launched this official Trump crypto wallet,
    0:12:36 which is basically just a trading app to buy and sell crypto with Trump branding.
    0:12:46 Immediately after that announcement, Trump’s sons, so Don Jr., Eric Trump, and even Barron Trump, went out and publicly said,
    0:12:50 our family has nothing to do with this, and they publicly denounced it.
    0:12:58 So you might think that that would mean that this new crypto wallet was fake or wrong or some kind of hack or something like that.
    0:13:00 But that’s actually not the case.
    0:13:05 This was a real announcement by the real issuer of the Trump meme coin.
    0:13:10 And what you have to remember is the Trump meme coin is actually not run by Trump’s children.
    0:13:14 It’s run by one of Trump’s business partners, this guy named Bill Zanker.
    0:13:24 And so essentially what is happening now, all these different people who are in some way launching these Trump branded crypto projects,
    0:13:26 they’re all starting to butt heads.
    0:13:31 And I just want to remind you of what all these stupid Trump crypto projects actually are.
    0:13:35 So you’ve got Bill Zanker, who’s running the Trump meme coin.
    0:13:35 It’s called Trumpcoin.
    0:13:40 You’ve got Eric Trump and Don Jr., who are running World Liberty Financial.
    0:13:42 That’s another crypto company.
    0:13:46 You’ve got Devin Nunes, who’s running Trump Media and Technology Group,
    0:13:49 which, as we’ve discussed, is doing the Bitcoin treasury thing.
    0:13:51 They’re also becoming a crypto company.
    0:13:56 And you’ve also got this company, American Bitcoin, which is a Bitcoin mining operation
    0:14:00 that is also run by Eric Trump and Don Jr.
    0:14:05 So all of these guys are running around trying to do the same thing,
    0:14:11 which is they’re trying to leverage Trump’s image to make money by slinging crypto to his fan base.
    0:14:15 Now, the reason the Suns were so upset about this one specifically, I believe,
    0:14:22 is because they were planning to do the exact same thing over at their company, World Liberty Financial,
    0:14:24 where they wanted to launch their own Trump crypto wallet.
    0:14:29 But then suddenly Bill Zanker at Trump meme coin comes in and beats them to it.
    0:14:32 So the whole thing is confusing and extremely stupid.
    0:14:37 But this is the state of affairs in Trump crypto land.
    0:14:42 It’s a free-for-all now where all of these different people with these different ties to the president
    0:14:47 are now competing against each other to win this game of grift.
    0:14:53 All of this is a bit of a distraction from the following that the first family has figured out a way to let people.
    0:14:59 And the statement that Donald or that I think it was Don Jr. said,
    0:15:06 well, are you worried about the perception of a conflict that someone could be using this for grift to curry favors?
    0:15:09 And his response was, well, you don’t know who’s actually doing any of these things.
    0:15:12 But that’s one of the things that has people on edge.
    0:15:16 But then it’s different because it’s hard to influence if you don’t actually know where this stuff’s coming from.
    0:15:17 So I wasn’t involved.
    0:15:17 Okay, Don.
    0:15:21 But this is part of the grift and what’s so dangerous about that.
    0:15:31 And that is, say, Qatar could or someone from Qatar could reach out to Don on a secure phone and say,
    0:15:40 we’re going to deposit exactly $10,258,944 at exactly 12.02 a.m. tomorrow.
    0:15:53 And, by the way, we would really appreciate it if you would not weigh in and not be supportive of the latest unfair persecution and genocide taking place in Gaza.
    0:15:57 And then, you know, Don could wink, wink to Dad.
    0:15:59 Yeah, they deposited it.
    0:16:01 It would be very easy to figure out who’s depositing it.
    0:16:04 But the thing is, no one else knows.
    0:16:05 No one else has any idea.
    0:16:07 There’s absolutely no record.
    0:16:08 So that’s the whole point.
    0:16:10 That’s where the grift happens.
    0:16:13 I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten as much attention.
    0:16:14 I think people still don’t.
    0:16:16 It should be getting so much more attention.
    0:16:24 It’s because it’s, I mean, I think we are evolving from flood the zone with shit to flood the zone with crypto.
    0:16:37 There are so many of these crypto companies, and it’s such a poorly understood industry that it’s one of those things where if things start getting confusing and you don’t really know what these terms really mean,
    0:16:40 eventually you just sort of put your hands up and you say, I don’t really care.
    0:16:42 And honestly, I’m a little bored by the whole thing.
    0:16:45 I think that’s what they see in crypto.
    0:16:51 They once, they went from flood the zone with shit, where we’ll just fire out so many crazy statements and confuse you.
    0:16:56 And now it’s, we’re just going to fire out so many different crypto projects, so many different crypto products.
    0:16:59 You won’t even be able to keep track of what is even happening.
    0:17:05 And in the interim, we will do any and all grift possible.
    0:17:06 And yes, we can take bribes.
    0:17:11 But let’s move on to this Warner Brothers Discovery news.
    0:17:20 So 59% of the shareholders of Warner Brothers Discovery voted against David Zasloff’s compensation of $52 million for 2024.
    0:17:28 This is an increase from the year before, where it was less than 50% who voted against his compensation package.
    0:17:31 Now the board will look at it.
    0:17:32 They will review.
    0:17:35 But to be clear, as I mentioned, this is a non-binding vote.
    0:17:38 So the board can still just approve this package.
    0:17:41 But I’m sure if they were to do that, they’d probably get a lot of pushback.
    0:17:42 I mean, 59%.
    0:17:44 That’s a lot of shareholders.
    0:17:45 Scott, your reactions.
    0:17:48 I think this is arguably the worst board in media.
    0:17:51 Shareholders since the merger have lost two-thirds of their value.
    0:17:53 Their debt has been downgraded to junk.
    0:17:58 Whenever I see something really funky going on with management in a company I’m involved in,
    0:18:01 it can almost always be reverse-engineered to compensation.
    0:18:03 Compensation drives behavior.
    0:18:08 CEO is the most overcompensated CEO in media.
    0:18:10 Maybe even in media history, I’m trying to think.
    0:18:13 Certainly in this era of media.
    0:18:18 And I would just point to some statistics right now that would support that point.
    0:18:24 The average compensation for S&P 500 CEOs in 2024 was $17 million.
    0:18:27 And this guy’s about to get paid $52 million.
    0:18:31 And by the way, that’s up 10% from the year before.
    0:18:36 So he’s getting a compensation that is 200% higher than the S&P 500 average.
    0:18:43 And it’s also, get this, the eighth highest CEO compensation package in the S&P 500.
    0:18:51 And this is a guy who is leading a company where in 2024, the stock returned negative 5%.
    0:18:54 The year before that, the stock returned negative 1%.
    0:19:00 And the year before that, from the time he took over during the merger, the stock returned negative 54%.
    0:19:04 He’s lost 60% of the value of this company.
    0:19:10 And now he’s getting paid $52 million, the eighth highest paid CEO in America.
    0:19:20 When you’re on comm committees, you can rail about how much money it is, but really what you’re in the business of is benchmarking it relative to other companies and CEOs performing at a similar level.
    0:19:28 And Mr. Zaslav’s pay is on par with the co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters of Netflix, who made around $60 million.
    0:19:36 Because Netflix is fucking killing it, and Warner Brothers’ discovery is in danger of going away if it’s not careful or being broken up.
    0:19:40 So Netflix stock increased by 80% in 2024.
    0:19:45 Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, made less than Zaslav.
    0:19:51 He made only $41 million, but the stock is up 23%, and he can point to the parks, which is just killing it.
    0:19:55 And it might have been that they, if you have an algorithm, they have to pay him this.
    0:20:00 And my attitude is, then fire him, sit him down and say, look, this isn’t going well.
    0:20:04 And this algorithm says we’re supposed to pay you another $55 million this year.
    0:20:05 We’re not going to.
    0:20:06 What algorithm would say that?
    0:20:08 You have compensation formulas.
    0:20:16 And my guess is if you look at the pieces of the business, he’s paying down debt, which means they haven’t had the cash flow to probably grow the businesses, you know, maybe they want.
    0:20:20 Whoever built that algorithm, I would argue, built a shitty algorithm.
    0:20:22 You shouldn’t be paying this guy $52 million.
    0:20:24 That doesn’t make any sense.
    0:20:27 I find in business, I find compensation is the most difficult part of business.
    0:20:30 And that is you want to, you have an obligation to shareholders.
    0:20:34 Unfortunately, you don’t know the shareholders and don’t play golf with them and aren’t in meetings with them.
    0:20:40 And you’re not trying to get your nephew an internship at, you know, at a shareholder’s company.
    0:20:41 You’re trying to get it with the CEO.
    0:20:44 So they have a tendency.
    0:20:46 In addition, there’s this dynamic.
    0:20:51 The one thing CEOs have in common is they’re just incredibly fucking likable.
    0:20:54 They were all the fraternity president or rush chairman.
    0:20:59 They’re all really likable people because usually the CEO is oftentimes the most talented person.
    0:21:01 It’s the one that’s made the fewest enemies.
    0:21:04 It’s the one that people think is just a really good guy or gal.
    0:21:06 So they’re very good at weaponizing the board.
    0:21:11 And that’s why you see typically the drop-off between the CEO’s compensation.
    0:21:12 I should ask you guys to do this.
    0:21:24 But I bet the drop-off between a Zaslav compensation and the number two, whether you think it’s the president of the Americas or the head of Warner Brothers or the CFO, I bet no one there is making 50.
    0:21:28 So the compensation is dramatically lower across the rest of them.
    0:21:31 But this is outrageous compensation.
    0:21:40 The compensation committee, Richard Fisher, Paul Gould, Deborah Lee, Jeffrey Yang, Ken Lowe, you’re not acting as a fiduciary for shareholders.
    0:21:44 And that’s what the shareholders are telling you, or at least 59% of them are telling you.
    0:21:48 I don’t understand who those 31% of shareholders are who said, oh, yeah, this is fine.
    0:21:50 I don’t get what’s going through their heads.
    0:21:52 That seems crazy to me, too.
    0:21:59 But I think the thing that the board does have to get into their heads is, like, we asked the shareholders, we asked the public, and they spoke.
    0:22:01 And they said this doesn’t make any sense.
    0:22:03 So it’s now on them to make a decision.
    0:22:11 It’ll be really interesting to see if they just acquiesce to the likability of the Zas once again.
    0:22:12 They will absolutely say thanks.
    0:22:16 They will act interested, thoughtful to hear from you.
    0:22:19 Please grab free lunch at the annual meeting and go fuck yourself.
    0:22:24 If you want to sell our stock, it’s already at nine bucks a share.
    0:22:27 I just don’t – let me put it this way.
    0:22:28 They’re not – he’s not giving this money back.
    0:22:33 He’s not – the other thing here is I believe John Malone was on the board.
    0:22:34 I don’t know if he’s on the board any longer.
    0:22:36 But John Malone, it’s interesting.
    0:22:40 He has a reputation, one, as being the smartest guy in the history of cable.
    0:22:46 The guy is just a genius and saw – like, just kind of saw behind corners like no one else in the industry.
    0:22:53 The other thing he was known for was over-the-top compensation of his CEOs.
    0:23:00 Like, he enjoyed and fomented the reputation of being the person who paid his leadership more than anyone in the industry.
    0:23:10 I think this is – I believe that the worst acquisitions or most acquisitions can be reverse-engineered to one thing, and that is a midlife crisis.
    0:23:17 And that is – two-thirds of acquisitions don’t make any sense, but it feels really good to be bigger.
    0:23:23 And I can’t imagine – David Zaslav was the head of Discovery, kind of an interesting – you know, Shark Week, right?
    0:23:34 And now he’s the CEO of one of the biggest media companies in history and gets to go to Warner Brothers and gets to go to, you know, The Last of Us or White Lotus premieres and the Academy Awards.
    0:23:38 He immediately moved to L.A. and bought Jack Warner’s old home.
    0:23:43 I mean, this is a midlife crisis being funded by the shareholders of Warner Brothers Discovery.
    0:23:51 It would have been much cheaper if the shareholders had just bought the guy a canary yellow T-top Corvette and said, crash it into a hair plugs clinic.
    0:23:51 Yeah.
    0:23:56 Well, they should just give him his own streaming show, just something to sort of pet the ego.
    0:23:57 That wouldn’t be too old.
    0:23:57 Yeah.
    0:24:02 Just some research here from our SEAL Team 6 research team.
    0:24:09 The CFO, to your point about the drop-off, the difference between the CEO, David Zaslav, versus all the other executives.
    0:24:13 In 2024, the CFO received $17 million.
    0:24:16 The head of global streaming received $19 million.
    0:24:20 Chief revenue and strategy officer, $20 million.
    0:24:21 That’s still pretty sweet compensation.
    0:24:28 I mean, it’s not as much as the co-host of Property Markets makes, but it’s pretty good compensation.
    0:24:29 It’s pretty good.
    0:24:39 What I try to do on compensation committees, and it never works, is figure out ratios between all the executives, because here’s the bottom line.
    0:24:45 Compensation is a function of proximity, and this is – let’s draw this to a larger learning for young people.
    0:24:51 If you are not in the office – okay, the CEO makes the most money because the CEO has closest proximity to the decision makers.
    0:24:55 The CFO is in the board meeting, but he’s not the friend –
    0:24:56 Crucial point.
    0:24:59 People don’t realize that you have to be close to the decision makers.
    0:25:00 Yeah.
    0:25:00 A hundred percent.
    0:25:07 Anyone who doesn’t present in board meetings has a dramatic drop-off in pay because they’re invisible.
    0:25:26 It’s easy to pay people you don’t know and you don’t meet a lot less, and so your proximity to the decision makers physically, the relationships you have with them, is directly correlated to your compensation, as evidenced by the fact that you are 38 percent less likely to get promoted when you work remotely.
    0:25:36 So if you want to work remotely, just acknowledge that is compensation, meaning you will make less money for the right to work remotely.
    0:25:38 If you were an economic animal, as I was –
    0:25:39 Economic animal.
    0:25:41 I was an economic animal.
    0:25:41 That’s all I cared about.
    0:25:43 I love that term.
    0:25:45 People would be like, what’s your purpose?
    0:25:46 What’s your passion?
    0:25:47 How do you want to change the world?
    0:25:48 I’m like, I want to be a fucking baller.
    0:25:50 I want to make a shit ton of Benjamins.
    0:25:52 I want to splash the cash.
    0:25:53 I want to fling the bling.
    0:25:58 And I think that most people, young people, are that way.
    0:26:06 And if you are an economic animal, then compensation is a function of proximity, and you see this up and down the chain.
    0:26:12 We’ll be right back after the break with a look at the mounting pushback against the big, beautiful bill.
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    0:29:51 We’re back with Prof G Markets.
    0:29:59 The big, beautiful bill is facing resistance on Capitol Hill as several GOP senators have raised concerns about the legislation.
    0:30:04 Trump met with the Senate Finance Committee Republicans last week to shore up support.
    0:30:09 As Elon Musk weighed in on X, he called the bill, quote, a disgusting abomination.
    0:30:15 The two have since feuded publicly, with Musk claiming Trump wouldn’t have won the election without him.
    0:30:19 And then Trump also said, quote, Elon and I had a great relationship.
    0:30:21 I don’t know if we will anymore.
    0:30:31 Adding to the pressure, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the big, beautiful bill will add $2.42 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
    0:30:35 So, Scott, let’s just review what’s happened here.
    0:30:45 I think what we’re seeing is that in the past week, this big, beautiful bill, which you and I have criticized at length, it’s becoming increasingly unpopular.
    0:30:50 I think it was initially seen as mostly a tax cut and a Medicaid cut.
    0:30:53 And it sort of passed in the House kind of quickly.
    0:30:59 It was a slim margin, but I don’t think the world or America got that much time to really review it.
    0:31:01 But now people are starting to look at it.
    0:31:09 They’re recognizing this larger economic issue, which you and I pointed out, which is that this is just going to massively inflate the deficit.
    0:31:13 We’ve had several different deficit calculations from several different organizations.
    0:31:18 The CFRB projected it would add $3 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
    0:31:22 The Congressional Budget Office just last week, they had their calculation.
    0:31:24 They say $2.5 trillion.
    0:31:26 Lots of different numbers floating around.
    0:31:32 But what is clear to everyone is that this bill will massively increase deficit spending very, very significantly.
    0:31:36 And just about now, people are starting to speak up about it.
    0:31:40 We had Ron Johnson, who said he won’t vote for it.
    0:31:43 Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Rand Paul.
    0:31:59 And now we’re getting arguably the biggest no from Elon Musk, who has spent the past week on X, tweeting about how bad this bill is, how destructive it will be in terms of our debt load and future interest payments, which, to be clear, I wholeheartedly agree with him on.
    0:32:02 And now it’s turning into this feud with Trump.
    0:32:08 And finally, finally, the relationship looks to be coming to an end.
    0:32:10 Your reaction, Scott?
    0:32:11 This is the thing.
    0:32:12 I don’t think he gives a shit about the bill.
    0:32:13 I don’t think he’s read it.
    0:32:14 I don’t think he cares about it.
    0:32:15 I think he saw a couple of things.
    0:32:20 One, they’re cutting off some of the subsidies that make his company profitable.
    0:32:25 What I really think happened here was I think Scott Bessett punched him in the face.
    0:32:26 That’s what Steve Bannon said.
    0:32:31 Steve Bannon said that Scott Bessett and Elon Musk got into a physical altercation.
    0:32:36 But I don’t know how he would know that because he’s not on the inside.
    0:32:38 Well, Steve Bannon is always right.
    0:32:42 But what I’m saying is you’re agreeing with him.
    0:32:45 Elon Musk, according to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, is a rabid drug addict.
    0:32:50 Have you known many people with rabid alcohol or drug problems?
    0:32:51 No.
    0:32:53 That’s great.
    0:32:55 Maybe your co-host.
    0:33:01 To be honest, I was trying to think of a smart joke there.
    0:33:02 I couldn’t squeeze it.
    0:33:03 I control my substances.
    0:33:04 They add to my life.
    0:33:06 It’s the only thing keeping me sane, Ed.
    0:33:11 That’s from the Falcon and the Condor, I think.
    0:33:12 Sean Penn.
    0:33:13 Great line.
    0:33:14 Another movie you never saw.
    0:33:19 Look, drug addicts, I’ve had – it’s weird.
    0:33:21 Professionally, I’ve been introduced to drug addicts.
    0:33:24 They’re very inconsistent.
    0:33:27 It is very – you do not know who you’re waking up next to.
    0:33:29 You literally – it’s Jekyll and Hyde.
    0:33:30 You just have no idea.
    0:33:35 I think the guy is so fucking high that he’s gone angry.
    0:33:38 He’s decided, Trump good, Trump God.
    0:33:40 Now, Trump bad, Trump evil.
    0:33:43 And he’s tweeting like crazy.
    0:33:44 He’s mad tweeting.
    0:33:45 He’s rage tweeting.
    0:33:48 And he has so much money.
    0:33:54 And he has such a powerful platform from the political chattering class that they don’t know
    0:33:55 what to do with this guy.
    0:33:59 They don’t know – he’s basically, I think, kind of – I don’t know.
    0:34:00 Kara was talking about this.
    0:34:03 Kara thinks that they’ve got to bear hug him and figure out a way to settle with him.
    0:34:07 My attitude is I actually think they can just sort of stick up the middle finger and say,
    0:34:08 all right, just go away.
    0:34:12 I don’t see why they have to come to some sort of consolation prize with him.
    0:34:14 I guess it would affect 26 maybe.
    0:34:18 We should also just talk about what the market thinks of the breakup.
    0:34:21 And that is the market thinks that Trump is bigger than Musk.
    0:34:29 And Musk getting into these wars or shooting these flares across the bow of the SS Trump,
    0:34:31 Tesla’s down 11% today.
    0:34:34 I think his shareholders are saying, we don’t know if it’s the ketamine.
    0:34:36 We don’t know if he cares about the deficit.
    0:34:38 But this is not good for us.
    0:34:44 The thing that is so disappointing is that the holdouts – one, I appreciate the fact that
    0:34:48 they are quote-unquote fiscal hawks and they’re saying this grows the deficit too much.
    0:34:56 What is so disappointing is none of them are talking about, okay, maybe we need to cut – maybe
    0:34:57 we need to raise revenues.
    0:35:02 Maybe we need to not raise the exemption on the estate tax.
    0:35:04 Maybe we need to lower it.
    0:35:12 Maybe we do in fact need to have some sort of alternative minimum tax on the wealthy and
    0:35:12 on corporations.
    0:35:16 Because on my debate yesterday with Pierce Morgan featuring me and Kevin O’Leary, Mr.
    0:35:23 Wonderful, he basically said we have to have the capital as mobile and we have to have at least
    0:35:25 be in the middle of tax rates.
    0:35:27 And I actually agree with Kevin on this, but I didn’t get a chance to respond.
    0:35:28 But here’s the thing.
    0:35:30 Our tax rates are illusory.
    0:35:34 It’s our ability to enforce them and not have a tax code that basically makes it such
    0:35:39 that the majority of wealthy people and the majority of corporations never pay what they’re
    0:35:41 supposed to pay in terms of tax rates.
    0:35:42 The tax rate is unimportant.
    0:35:45 It’s the tax code and our inability to enforce it.
    0:35:52 But none of them – for all their outrage about the tax on you and your generation moving
    0:35:56 forward, which is what a deficit is, and that it will ultimately begin to crowd out investments
    0:36:01 in the deficit and any forward-leaning investments in education or technology, none of them are
    0:36:05 outraged enough to actually broach the subject of, well, maybe we need to raise revenues.
    0:36:12 So this is – I was just on with the Young Congressional Democratic Caucus, and they said – I
    0:36:14 had a list of policy ideas, and they said, what would you do right away?
    0:36:18 A lot of my policies are more longer-term, national service, changing the tax code.
    0:36:19 They said, what would you do right away?
    0:36:22 I’m like, I think the Young Democrats should propose.
    0:36:25 They have a bunch of incredibly bright staffers.
    0:36:30 I would task them within seven days of coming up with an alternative tax bill that says, all
    0:36:34 right, hard decisions around means testing, Social Security, cutting Medicaid, maintaining
    0:36:39 defense spending, maybe reducing it 2% a year.
    0:36:41 We’re building ships that the Navy doesn’t even want.
    0:36:45 Come up with X in cost savings, X in reduction in spending.
    0:36:49 And but – and this is what will be different than the – beautiful.
    0:36:56 We have 1.5X in revenue increases, which I think they could find – it wouldn’t be that hard to find.
    0:36:58 Alternative minimum tax, lowering the state tax deduction.
    0:37:07 And then what would they would – what would happen is CNBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox would all put the two bills next to each other.
    0:37:11 So it would position the Democrats as the adults in the room.
    0:37:26 Now, Mike, say you’re willing to cut spending, but also you want to raise revenues, and you’re going to be the first administration since the Clinton administration to figure out a way to put us on a path over the next 4, 8, 12 years towards a massive reduction in our annual deficits.
    0:37:31 And it’ll deposition them as the fiscally irresponsible ones.
    0:37:33 And I call it the adult in the room strategy.
    0:37:41 But all of the oxygen is Mike Johnson and Republicans grabbing the mic and saying, I’m a fiscal hawk.
    0:37:47 And before I bend over and take it up the ass from Trump, which they will all do – that escalated quickly.
    0:37:52 They will all do – get some air time.
    0:38:02 It’s interesting that you think that Elon – that all he cares about is really just what’s happening with the EV tax credits, which are going to be stripped out in this bill.
    0:38:05 And that’s what Trump has said.
    0:38:12 He said that Elon was fine with the bill, and then suddenly I got rid of the EV tax credit, and now he’s upset about it.
    0:38:14 That’s also what Mike Johnson is saying.
    0:38:21 So the Republicans are saying, this guy is kind of lying about his concern about the deficit.
    0:38:24 All he really cares about is this EV tax credit thing.
    0:38:27 I actually disagree with that.
    0:38:33 I don’t – I mean, I just don’t believe that that’s the real problem.
    0:38:35 I actually believe that Elon went in there.
    0:38:37 I mean, think about what his job was.
    0:38:39 His job was to reduce spending.
    0:38:41 That was the whole point of him entering this government.
    0:38:43 That was the whole point of Doge.
    0:39:01 And this bill, which is going to increase deficits by somewhere between $2 to $4 trillion over the next decade – no one really knows – this bill has rendered Doge and Elon’s entire existence in this government as useless and irrelevant.
    0:39:25 And I think Elon is probably rightly offended by that, and now he’s having this lash out, and because he’s a very weird guy, and because he’s addicted to drugs, and because he has an addiction to social media, he’s doing it in a crazy way where he’s just lashing out like a maniac on social media.
    0:39:55 But that doesn’t make it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way.
    0:39:57 And he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way, and he’s doing it in a crazy way.
    0:40:02 We spend more on the interest than we do on Medicare and on national defense.
    0:40:07 So I think he looks at it, and he’s pissed off about it.
    0:40:12 And that’s why I’m sort of like, why don’t we just take that win?
    0:40:13 It’s kind of nice.
    0:40:27 I mean, the guy’s caused so much anguish for so many reasons, as you’ve explained, but he owns one of the largest social media platforms in the world, and he’s decided that this deficit thing is a real problem.
    0:40:34 And if he’s going to be the one to popularize it, at least among his cohort, how about it?
    0:40:36 I just think you’re giving him too much credit.
    0:40:49 I don’t—I mean, first off, I think his real objective here, as far as I can tell, was to remove all the inspectors’ generals and remove all of the cases against him for safety violations, discrimination violations,
    0:40:57 and remove all the inspector generals that were forcing him to, like, have crash test dummies in those autonomous vehicles before they were approved.
    0:40:58 All of those people are gone.
    0:40:59 I’m not defending that.
    0:41:01 But I think that was his objective.
    0:41:12 I think that you’re giving him too much credit as someone who was really concerned about the deficit, because if he was concerned about the deficit, he wouldn’t be proposing a 40 percent cut to the IRS.
    0:41:17 Well, he thinks you can have tax cuts and just cut a ton of other stuff.
    0:41:23 He thinks that all of the infrastructure in government is useless and fraudulent, and it’s all abuse.
    0:41:24 And so we can just get rid of all of it.
    0:41:26 Let’s get rid of all the inspector generals.
    0:41:30 And then, in addition, we can also cut taxes.
    0:41:35 I mean, he’s got, like, a five-year-old’s view of what government is and what government does.
    0:41:38 But that’s sort of the Republican view, just a brief history of deficits.
    0:41:41 George Washington to George Bush, $7 trillion in deficits.
    0:41:52 And then where this all really kicked off was that George W. Bush convinced the American public, I know we can go to war and lower taxes at the same time.
    0:41:53 We had never done that before.
    0:42:05 We had trained or logically inferred to the – or intimated or expressed to the American public that if we go to war, your taxes are going up.
    0:42:09 And that was a decent regulator on if and when you went to war.
    0:42:17 So what happens when you convince the American public that we can maintain social spending and cut taxes and we can go to war and cut taxes?
    0:42:19 You explode the deficit.
    0:42:24 And since George W. Bush, everyone on the left and the right has signed up to this.
    0:42:31 And nobody wants to be the adult in the room because they think by the time I’m out of office, it just doesn’t – you know, that’s when they’ll have to pay for it.
    0:42:42 But the notion that he came in with a serious attempt – if anyone was serious about deficits, they would triple the size of the IRS.
    0:42:48 I agree. I don’t think it was a very serious or informed perspective on the deficit.
    0:42:54 But I think it was very clear to me that that was one of his stated goals.
    0:42:59 And now he’s pointing out that they’re doing the opposite.
    0:43:00 And that’s true.
    0:43:08 Whether or not his opinion on the matter was serious or informed or legitimate, I don’t think it really was.
    0:43:11 I think he acted like a child throughout this.
    0:43:23 But the fact that he’s speaking up about it now, to me, I’m like, let’s just take the win and let’s see if we can popularize this idea that we can’t keep spending this much fucking money in America.
    0:43:28 But you’re assigning principle and logic and critical thinking to his actions.
    0:43:29 I’m not.
    0:43:30 I’m just saying that whatever.
    0:43:33 Let’s embrace it.
    0:43:37 My point is if he was really concerned with that from the beginning, he would have approached this much differently.
    0:43:45 He wasn’t going to solve your generation’s economic problems through big deficits by cutting off USAID.
    0:43:56 If you want to have an adult conversation, if you’re really philosophically committed to reducing deficits and not screwing your generation, do we have to cut spending or raise taxes?
    0:43:57 The answer is yes.
    0:44:07 And you’re not serious if you’re not talking about an increase in revenues and also going after entitlements, including Social Security, or going after defense, or raising taxes on the wealthy.
    0:44:09 Or health care, as we’ve talked about.
    0:44:10 That’s the big one, yeah.
    0:44:10 Health care.
    0:44:14 This was never a philosophically or an intellectually honest movement.
    0:44:16 I totally agree with that.
    0:44:22 I think the question now is that a lot of people are wondering, what are the chances that this bill actually goes through?
    0:44:29 And that is an important question because of all of the economic reasons that we’ve just discussed.
    0:44:33 So, will it go through as it stands?
    0:44:35 Probably not, actually.
    0:44:38 It needs a simple majority in the Senate, which is 51 votes.
    0:44:45 There are 47 Democrats in the Senate who are likely all going to vote no, and 53 Republicans.
    0:44:54 So, the Republicans can only afford to lose three votes, in which case it would be a tie, and the vice president can and would break that tie.
    0:44:59 But so far, we’ve seen four Republican senators who have come out and said they don’t support this.
    0:45:07 And then there are six more Republicans who haven’t outright opposed it, but who have raised concerns and are pushing to reform the bill.
    0:45:15 So, what will most likely happen at this point, now that everyone’s coming out of the woodwork and saying this doesn’t make sense, the Senate will likely reform the bill.
    0:45:22 Who knows what reforms they’ll make, but the bill will likely go back to the House, and the process will start all over again.
    0:45:27 So, right now, the situation actually looks less terrible than it did a week ago.
    0:45:32 And now the question is, what kinds of reforms will the Senate actually make?
    0:45:34 Will they actually address the deficit problem?
    0:45:38 Will we see a substantial decrease in spending?
    0:45:44 Will we see a substantial decrease in tax cuts, which, as you point out, would increase our tax revenue?
    0:45:45 These are the questions.
    0:45:46 So, we’ll see.
    0:45:52 We’ll be right back after the break with a new trend that’s shaking up the VC world.
    0:45:56 If you’re enjoying the show so far, hit follow and leave us a review on Profty Markets.
    0:46:12 We’re back with Profty Markets.
    0:46:18 Singapore’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, has dramatically cut its early-stage investments.
    0:46:28 The fund slashed its first-round investments in unlisted companies by 88%, dropping from 82 deals in 2021 to just 11 in 2024.
    0:46:38 Temasek still invests in startups indirectly through VC funds, but now prioritizes later-stage revenue-generating companies that are closer to IPOs.
    0:46:42 And this reflects a broader market shift away from early-stage investments.
    0:46:50 Seed-stage funding, as a whole, has dropped 40% year-over-year, while late-stage rounds are up 4%.
    0:46:57 So, I think the thing to focus on here, Scott, isn’t Temasek specifically, but the venture capital industry at large.
    0:47:04 Because it’s highlighting, this Temasek strategy is highlighting an interesting dynamic that is happening in VC right now,
    0:47:08 where early-stage investing is petering out, and late-stage investing is growing.
    0:47:10 And just some stats to illustrate this.
    0:47:21 In the past two years, seed-stage deal count has fallen 30%, seed-stage funding has fallen 40%, and Series A funding has fallen 20%.
    0:47:26 And what’s interesting is that as you progress into the later stages of startup funding,
    0:47:30 when you get to the Series C, D, E rounds, the trend starts to reverse.
    0:47:36 So, Series C funding, for example, is up 66% in that same period.
    0:47:38 Series E funding has more than doubled.
    0:47:43 So, in other words, we’re seeing less investment into young, early startups,
    0:47:47 more investment into older, later-stage startups.
    0:47:52 And that’s reflected in the numbers, and also anecdotally from what we’ve seen with Temasek here.
    0:47:56 And I would also point to what’s happening over at Thrive Capital,
    0:47:58 which is one of the hottest VC firms right now.
    0:48:00 And they’re starting to invest in public companies.
    0:48:06 They’re even starting to buy and operate late-stage companies in the same way that a private equity firm would.
    0:48:12 So, everyone’s kind of transitioning away from early stage, not as sexy, not as hot anymore,
    0:48:15 and they’re more interested in late-stage.
    0:48:18 My question to you, Scott, why is that happening?
    0:48:20 Well, one, you have.
    0:48:26 You could argue that it’s become an economy where it’s worth it to pay a premium,
    0:48:30 or maybe not a premium for whoever established themselves as the market leader.
    0:48:33 But I think this is mostly the following.
    0:48:36 So, I got pitched yesterday on a concept, a really interesting concept,
    0:48:41 of essentially an AI partner that listens to all of your text messages,
    0:48:45 and obviously you opt in, and then communicates with you and gives you tips,
    0:48:48 whether it’s personally, you’re being passive-aggressive here, stop it.
    0:48:56 If you need relationship coaching or can interpret business emails and give you kind of suggestions,
    0:48:57 sort of a mentor following you around.
    0:48:59 It’s a really neat idea.
    0:49:02 It’s essentially two guys and some contractors.
    0:49:09 I think one of the guys has had an exit, and they’re raising $4 million at a pre or a post of $40 million.
    0:49:12 And I just said, I’m not doing SeedStage anymore.
    0:49:16 I think SeedStage is the worst place because people want me to invest in SeedStage,
    0:49:20 and then they just want my time, and it’s a ton of work, and you’re in this thing for a decade,
    0:49:22 and most of the time it doesn’t work out.
    0:49:25 And even when it does, if you don’t have capital to defend your position,
    0:49:31 Seed and angel investing is for men in their 50s and 60s that have made a shit ton of money,
    0:49:34 still looking to stay relevant, enjoy hanging out with young entrepreneurs,
    0:49:37 but it is a shitty part of the cap table.
    0:49:40 It is just a really difficult place to make money.
    0:49:44 And also, I think Timestek is basically just saying in early-stage investing,
    0:49:50 the valuations on a risk-adjusted basis, the returns are just too low.
    0:49:51 And I’ll give you two examples.
    0:49:56 Personally, I invested in Post News.
    0:49:56 Do you remember them?
    0:49:58 That was going to be a competitor to Twitter.
    0:50:00 Super impressive founder.
    0:50:01 I co-invested with Andreessen.
    0:50:06 Seed round, $100 million valuation.
    0:50:09 Because this guy had invented ways.
    0:50:14 This guy was probably the most accomplished executive that wasn’t working at a company.
    0:50:17 And he took advantage of that and raised money at $100 million valuation.
    0:50:23 I think I invested $2 or $3 million out of business in 14 months, lost everything.
    0:50:29 The seed investment I did make money on about two and a half, three years ago,
    0:50:32 maybe four years, three, three and a half years ago.
    0:50:37 A friend of mine who I met at Gardner, his company was acquired, my own company was acquired,
    0:50:42 started a company focusing on supply chain-based research, subscription research for supply chain.
    0:50:43 I know that business really well.
    0:50:46 That’s what I did for digital at L2.
    0:50:48 I invested $1 million at a pre of nine.
    0:50:50 I was a seed stage investor.
    0:50:51 So I got 10% of the company.
    0:50:56 And then I invested another $2 million, I think 12 or 24 months later when it had some traction at a pre of 18.
    0:50:59 So I ended up with 18% of the company for $3 million.
    0:51:02 It got sold for $110 million.
    0:51:04 So I basically got turned three into 20.
    0:51:05 That was my best seed.
    0:51:08 And there’s been a bunch of others where I’ve invested like half a million.
    0:51:12 And it’s just like, I don’t even track them anymore because I think they’ve all gone sideways or gone away.
    0:51:21 But effectively, when you hear the guys are starting companies and want to raise a Series A at a post or a pre of $40 million,
    0:51:26 it’s like I just said to these guys, I’m like, best of luck to you.
    0:51:27 Well done.
    0:51:29 I’m not going to plan traffic like that.
    0:51:30 That’s just too expensive.
    0:51:40 The likelihood I get the kind of return I need here versus going into a company that’s in a Series C that maybe has a pre of $200 million but already has $10 million or $20 million in revenues
    0:51:49 and already is kind of like jamming and has product market fit and already has big investors behind it, is already a potential acquisition candidate.
    0:51:54 That on a risk-adjusted basis is just a better place to invest right now.
    0:51:59 In sum, seed stage investing, it’s always been a bad place to invest.
    0:52:07 It’s especially bad right now because what entrepreneurs don’t recognize is their valuations when they come down, they just don’t believe it.
    0:52:13 They can talk themselves into believing, oh, on a PowerPoint presentation, my company is worth $40 million.
    0:52:24 I’ve done a decent amount of this and it comes down to, A, investing in the right team because these things typically pivot and end up doing something different than they originally envisioned.
    0:52:29 And two, getting it at a reasonable valuation.
    0:52:40 And also there seems to be so much dislocation and so many companies getting beat up that it probably does make sense to be opportunistic and look at some public companies.
    0:52:43 Going into PE, I don’t know if Thrive should do that.
    0:52:48 I think that’s a different skill set where you bring in operators and it’s a different kind of mindset.
    0:52:57 But I can absolutely see why lighter stage companies are offering a better asymmetric bet than seed stage or Series A.
    0:53:00 It’s always been literally my least favorite place to invest.
    0:53:04 It is just so difficult, so expensive relative to what you’re investing in.
    0:53:07 When it works, you can make 100x.
    0:53:15 But you have to rewire your brain such that you’re ready to invest 15 times and have it go to zero.
    0:53:29 And at my stage, the last fucking thing I want to do is just have to take calls from some young, bushy-tailed entrepreneur that is thinking about pivoting or not pivoting or what VCs do I know that I can introduce them to.
    0:53:31 It’s not even the capital.
    0:53:32 It’s the time sink.
    0:53:34 It’s literally like taking care of a baby.
    0:53:38 Babies just take – I mean, they’re just constant attention.
    0:53:48 Anyway, I think a firm like Tomasik, the initial thinking a few years ago when they increased these investments was they wanted access to downstream opportunities to invest capital.
    0:53:54 So they would put $50,000, $100,000, $500,000 to work and say, call us back if things go well and we’ll do your B round.
    0:53:57 It was almost like they were buying a call option.
    0:53:59 And I think they’ve decided they don’t need to do that.
    0:54:04 But I think the question is also what has changed because a lot of what you said has kind of always been true of VC.
    0:54:11 I think one thing you mentioned there that might have changed is that valuations have gotten too expensive and so people are just like this is not worth it.
    0:54:14 But I think there’s got to be more to it as well.
    0:54:29 And I think one of the things that I’m landing on is it’s just harder to succeed now and it’s especially harder as evidenced by the lack of IPO activity that we’ve been seeing where IPOs are at a historic low.
    0:54:38 We had 225 IPO, a little bit of an uptick from the year before, but still down pretty significantly when you look at it historically.
    0:54:45 And then you’ve got all of these incredible private companies that you would think would go public.
    0:54:48 You know, Stripe, OpenAI, SpaceX.
    0:54:57 Instead, they’re raising these E rounds, these F rounds, sometimes G, H, I rounds instead of going into the public markets.
    0:55:00 And I wonder if investors look at that lack of activity.
    0:55:06 They recognize just how long it takes to get to the public markets and realize that return.
    0:55:17 And then they look at these young little fledgling startups and they think, yeah, you know what, I’m just going to go in again on Stripe because I’d rather optimize for liquidity.
    0:55:19 I need to realize a return for my LPs.
    0:55:25 So I’m just going to invest in the late round because the IPO, it’s probably coming in like the next one or two years.
    0:55:36 And I’d rather do that versus make this early bet where even if things go right, I’d still only realize a return in realistically 10 to 15 years.
    0:55:39 And I think that is different.
    0:55:44 I think that things did not used to be this way in terms of the private markets.
    0:55:56 And I think what it really emphasizes, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about, is just what a terrible time it is to be a new entrant in America today in all sectors.
    0:56:06 I mean, whether it’s you’re a young person, as you’ve talked about at length, if you’re a politician, as you’ve talked about with Crockett and the fact that the average age of a senator is 65 years old.
    0:56:12 And it’s true of founders, if you’re an early young founder, you’re struggling to raise funding right now.
    0:56:15 But it’s also true of investors.
    0:56:19 And this is the point that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.
    0:56:35 And this Temasek headline really sparked that for me, where I’m realizing the crucial difference between the internet back in like the early 2000s and AI today is that when the internet was happening,
    0:56:43 there was so much opportunity for regular retail investors to participate because these companies were actually going public.
    0:56:46 With AI, there’s almost zero opportunity.
    0:56:55 I mean, you’ve got, on the one hand, big tech just keeps on buying up these AI companies and these AI startups, so they never get the chance to actually grow and go public.
    0:56:59 And two, of the ones that do succeed, none of them are going public.
    0:57:02 But 20 years ago, it would have been a very different story.
    0:57:05 I just want to give you a few examples here.
    0:57:12 Apple, it went public in 1980 at a $1.8 billion valuation.
    0:57:15 And in today’s dollars, that is $7.5 billion.
    0:57:17 Not that big.
    0:57:20 And you could have invested as a regular investor, and now it’s worth $3 trillion.
    0:57:24 Amazon IPO’d at $560 million.
    0:57:27 That’s $1.1 billion in today’s dollars.
    0:57:29 That’s 300 times smaller than OpenAI.
    0:57:39 There were all of these opportunities that were happening in tech and in VC, and they were allowed to go into the public markets and list.
    0:57:41 But for some reason, that’s not happening.
    0:57:47 And in addition to that, you’ve got investors unwilling to make these early bets.
    0:57:53 And it’s just impossible, if you’re new to any of this, to get in and participate in that value creation.
    0:57:55 And that’s sort of the thing that frustrates me.
    0:57:57 AI is happening in front of our eyes.
    0:57:58 I don’t know where to invest.
    0:58:00 I can’t participate.
    0:58:03 The reason Google and Amazon went public is not because they wanted to.
    0:58:08 It’s because they needed capital, and the private markets didn’t have those capitals that deep to keep funding them.
    0:58:10 And their employees wanted to get rich.
    0:58:13 Now they have both those things in the private market.
    0:58:14 You mentioned a bunch of companies.
    0:58:15 I’m an investor in Epic Games.
    0:58:20 Epic could go public tomorrow at probably a $20, $30, $40 billion market cap.
    0:58:23 But they’re waiting until conditions are amazing because guess what?
    0:58:26 They can raise a shit ton of money in the private markets right now.
    0:58:33 And the founders and folks there can do a secondary and dole out enough money such that no one’s like, I want to buy a house.
    0:58:35 Of course, well, we’ll get you your house.
    0:58:40 In addition, you have an extension in the runway it takes to get to acquisition.
    0:58:46 So most studies say it takes five to seven years for a successful company to get from inception to acquisition.
    0:58:48 I have found that to be true.
    0:58:50 Profit got acquired.
    0:58:54 Actually, it took me when I started in 1992.
    0:58:56 I got an investment in 97.
    0:59:01 So it took me like seven, nine years to get an exit with Profit, my first company.
    0:59:03 L2, it took seven years.
    0:59:10 We got to our first funding round in four years and or five years and our acquisition in seven years.
    0:59:18 Red envelope, we got to IPO in five years, but that was during the kind of dot-com explosion.
    0:59:23 What’s happened recently is it’s now closer to 10 to 12 years for a company to get public.
    0:59:34 So if it’s going to take you 10 to 12 years to get to a liquidity event and what you’re seeing or what these investors are seeing is that they’re in a bit of a mismatched durations cash crunch.
    0:59:41 And that is they raise money from investors saying, all right, we should be able to get you distributions of your money back almost fully within seven years.
    0:59:47 And they have to send out notes basically saying, sorry, we don’t have any liquidity events.
    0:59:48 It just takes longer now.
    0:59:51 And M&A is down so you don’t get those exits either.
    1:00:02 So the IRR is a function of not only its internal rate of return, meaning, okay, what is your return on that money discounted back based on the amount of time it took you to get there?
    1:00:13 So essentially companies, VCs are doing the work and saying, okay, if the time, if the runway needed to get to an exit is much longer, then I need a much lower valuation.
    1:00:14 That is not happening.
    1:00:23 And also, if you’re a 48-year-old general partner at a company, do you want to be making investments you’re going to recognize when you’re 62?
    1:00:28 I was going to say that I think most of these guys at this point are probably closer to 55, 60.
    1:00:33 I mean, the real Silicon Valley legends, I feel like they’re more in that range.
    1:00:35 And they’re sort of like, I don’t want to wait.
    1:00:40 Yeah, they’re just like, I can make, I have a lot, if they’re one of the leaders, I’ve raised a lot of capital.
    1:00:49 I can get good returns investing in, you know, maybe going out and buying some private equity stubs or going out, finding, getting access to a good deal.
    1:00:54 It’s where they need capital, but the markets are down, so they need to do a mezzanine round or a late stage round.
    1:00:58 They probably look at that and say, I’m going to make good money here.
    1:01:08 Do I really want to figure out how to get, you know, Joey Bag of Donuts, New Startup, Inc. on AI, like through its A, B, C, D, F round?
    1:01:17 And what’s so interesting, by the way, is just this is yet another instance where we’re seeing how this old versus young dynamic is playing out.
    1:01:32 It literally crops up in every conversation we have about anything related to markets, where you have the old rich people who mostly control the system and they’re doing it, they’re doing it their way based on their preferences.
    1:01:46 But it is having a pretty substantial impact on all the young people, whether it’s the young investors who want to participate in these events or it’s the young founders who aren’t getting any more funding or at least a lot less funding, 40 percent less.
    1:01:50 Because these old people are like, it’s going to take too long.
    1:01:58 Okay, but before you sprinkle cyanide on your avocado toast and just get ridiculously fucked up playing shuffleboard or whatever it is you do in Gowanus.
    1:02:00 I think every millennial lives in Gowanus or every Gen Z.
    1:02:02 I’ve never been there.
    1:02:04 I don’t even know how to spell it.
    1:02:04 Is that in Brooklyn?
    1:02:05 I don’t know where it is.
    1:02:07 I just assume all young people live there.
    1:02:09 You do.
    1:02:12 I do think the flip side of this is the following.
    1:02:19 The explosion in AI technology and the ability to outsource things like fulfillment to Shopify, the cloud.
    1:02:22 I used to have to buy servers.
    1:02:26 Young people do have a lot of agency.
    1:02:39 While the financial markets might not be as frothy and access to capital might not be as promiscuous right now, I do think a group of smart young people can get so far on 50 or 100 grand.
    1:02:42 It’s possible, but it’s harder is what I would say.
    1:02:44 You can do it.
    1:02:44 I agree.
    1:02:49 It’s not like we’re all doomed, but you can’t just go out and buy Apple and sit around.
    1:02:51 That’s not possible anymore.
    1:02:52 There are no apples.
    1:02:53 Oh, let me be clear.
    1:02:56 From an investor standpoint, I’m talking about an entrepreneurship standpoint.
    1:03:02 From an investor standpoint, we keep bailing out any downward cycles such that entrants are fucked.
    1:03:11 Every bailout is a transfer of wealth from the young to the old because disruption is a transfer of wealth back through natural economic cycles, back from the incumbents to the entrance.
    1:03:14 We’ve decided not to let that happen any longer.
    1:03:17 So it’s very hard to find value right now for your generation.
    1:03:19 I’m talking about just a raw startup.
    1:03:28 I met with your college roommate from Princeton and his ability to scale on, granted, he’s raised a lot of capital.
    1:03:29 They’re very impressive.
    1:03:34 But the cost to get from letters A to E has never been lower.
    1:03:53 And that is when I started Red Envelope or founded Aardvark Pet Supplies, the cost to build a website – and I had a partner who was really good and really cost – it would cost us $500,000 to build a website that I think would maybe cost $3,000 to $5,000 right now.
    1:03:55 Is it harder to access capital?
    1:03:55 Is it harder to access capital?
    1:04:06 Yeah, but I do think young entrepreneurs with the cloud, with AI, do have more agency and ability to get from letters A to D for less money than before.
    1:04:13 And to your point, my friend who you met with, he just closed his B. Smooth sailing now. Everyone loves it.
    1:04:15 At a huge number, right?
    1:04:15 Huge.
    1:04:24 I mean, so – but what you said really struck me about how these old guys – I remember talking to these guys yesterday, nice kids.
    1:04:27 And they said, so we can’t give you stock.
    1:04:30 They literally said, you don’t even have to invest. We just want you on the cap table.
    1:04:33 And I said, no.
    1:04:34 No.
    1:04:35 I don’t want to have to take your calls.
    1:04:41 I don’t – I don’t – I don’t want to feel like I need to be supportive of you.
    1:04:44 I’m – I want to hang out in Aspen and wait for the ass cancer.
    1:04:50 And to be fair to you, because that makes you seem like a dick, perhaps, you get a lot of calls.
    1:04:56 I actually completely understand why you’d say no, because you are constantly getting these calls from people.
    1:05:00 But what you said is really true. I don’t have that much tread left on my tires.
    1:05:07 I want to – I want to do fun things with my boys and, you know, go to Summit, which I’m going to tomorrow.
    1:05:09 I’m very excited about that.
    1:05:11 Let’s take a look at the week ahead.
    1:05:14 We’ll see the consumer and producer price indices for May.
    1:05:18 We’ll also see earnings from Oracle, GameStop, and Adobe.
    1:05:20 Do you have any predictions, Scott?
    1:05:24 Well, I have two. I think Adobe is going to blow away earnings because they’re a new sponsor and I love their products.
    1:05:28 Don’t you love them?
    1:05:30 Adobe Express is going to turn everything around.
    1:05:34 Ed and I, they asked us to go do this sponsorship thing.
    1:05:36 It looked like a food truck.
    1:05:40 And we were printing out kind of Instagram-ready collateral materials.
    1:05:42 And I am really good.
    1:05:46 Anyone that makes me seem artistic, I really enjoyed that.
    1:05:50 I was actually – I was legitimately blown away by the product.
    1:05:51 I think that – and it’s a great company.
    1:05:55 I used to talk about Adobe being the first company and they were to move to subscription.
    1:05:58 It used to be Adobe Direct or whatever it was called, cost $2,500.
    1:06:03 And then the CEO said, no, it just starts $25 a month and you’ll massively broaden the market.
    1:06:07 The stock got cut in half and I think it’s up like 40-fold since then.
    1:06:09 They were the first one to kind of invent the SaaS model.
    1:06:11 Anyways, I love Adobe and their products.
    1:06:13 My prediction is the following.
    1:06:25 I love Robert Armstrong’s taco trade and he really got me thinking about the most prosperity-destroying tariff in the world is the steel tariff because it takes the prices up massively.
    1:06:34 And a few employees that – yes, you’ve noted that literally single thousands of people involved in the steel industry, they make more money.
    1:06:39 The union does better, the small number of shareholders that invest in U.S. steel companies do really well.
    1:06:42 You saw Cleveland Cliffs, I think, up 23% or 24%.
    1:06:51 I think once those costs are rippling through the auto, mobile industry, and the home building industry, Trump is going to chicken out again, back off.
    1:07:01 So my prediction is the run-up or the surge or the bump in the equity value of the U.S. steel industry is about to come back to its pre-tariff levels.
    1:07:06 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
    1:07:08 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss.
    1:07:10 Mia Silverio is our research lead.
    1:07:12 Isabella Kinsel is our research associate.
    1:07:13 Dan Chalon is our intern.
    1:07:15 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
    1:07:17 And Catherine Dillon is our executive producer.
    1:07:20 Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
    1:07:26 And again, if you haven’t subscribed to Prof G Markets, you will not be getting this podcast.
    1:07:28 So go subscribe to Prof G Markets.
    1:07:30 The daily show begins tomorrow.
    1:08:01 Prof G Markets.
    1:08:04 In love, love, love, love, love.

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  • No Mercy / No Malice: The Insiders

    AI transcript
    0:00:03 Support for the show comes from LPL Financial.
    0:00:07 What if you could take that dream vacation or take that idea and go start that business?
    0:00:10 What if you could grow your career or your company?
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    0:00:24 LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC, no strategy assures success or protects against loss.
    0:00:27 Investing involves risk, including possible loss in principle.
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    0:00:38 Well, almost, almost anything.
    0:00:41 So no, you can’t get a nice rink on Uber Eats.
    0:00:44 But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice?
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    0:01:06 When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?
    0:01:10 When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn’t so famous without the grainy mustard.
    0:01:13 When the barbecue’s lit, but there’s nothing to grill.
    0:01:17 When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner.
    0:01:19 Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer.
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    0:01:29 Service fees exclusions and terms apply.
    0:01:30 Instacart.
    0:01:32 Groceries that over-deliver.
    0:01:37 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
    0:01:41 I believe Trump’s economic team is stupid, but they can’t be this stupid.
    0:01:47 I believe this is artificially constructed market volatility, such that he and his cronies can
    0:01:52 engage in unprecedented market manipulation and insider trading.
    0:02:07 In the war between Trump and Musk, I’m rooting for the bullets.
    0:02:14 However, the whole thing is, again, a distraction from the significant damage being levied on the country.
    0:02:20 It’s tempting to believe America will emerge from the Trump chaos unscathed.
    0:02:21 It won’t.
    0:02:31 The defining features of this presidency are cruelty and chaos, but chaos with a purpose.
    0:02:38 Share prices plunge following tariff threats, only to rally when he backs down.
    0:02:44 The White House attempts to bar Harvard from enrolling international students, then gets blocked
    0:02:45 by the courts.
    0:02:52 Trump calls for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to be fired, then insists, days later, he has no
    0:02:54 intention of terminating him.
    0:03:01 Even if most of his promises go unfulfilled, the long-term damage will be severe.
    0:03:12 If Trump were a poker player, he’d swagger to the table talking shit, go all in, then fold before his opponents respond.
    0:03:14 It’s easy to dismiss this behavior.
    0:03:19 It’s easy to dismiss this behavior as crazy or incompetent, but it raises a troubling question.
    0:03:29 Is this a deliberate effort, straight out of an autocrat’s playbook, to create volatility that the autocrat and his acolytes can exploit?
    0:03:44 Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the perfect term, the taco trade, Trump always chickens out.
    0:03:49 But Armstrong told us on Prof G markets that chaos may be the point.
    0:03:58 Trump and his team have such contempt for the system, they don’t see any downside risk in burning the village to save it.
    0:04:06 These policy gyrations have created an association of toxic uncertainty with Brand USA.
    0:04:14 Announcing more than 50 new or revised tariff policies in a matter of months makes no sense.
    0:04:15 Until it does.
    0:04:19 Trump’s market manipulation operates like a carnival game.
    0:04:20 It’s rigged.
    0:04:25 The house always wins, as it knows when the music is about to stop.
    0:04:42 Trump’s ability to trigger wild swings in stock prices has created an environment ripe for insider trading, undermining trust in U.S. markets, and eroding a pillar of American prosperity, the rule of fair play.
    0:04:55 When Trump shocks the market and then retreats, it gives his inner circle, both in Washington and on Wall Street, an opportunity to place trades with asymmetric upside.
    0:05:03 They have information the other players, whether they’re buying or selling, don’t possess.
    0:05:10 Trump’s tariff proclamations have created some of the most extreme market volatility in decades.
    0:05:14 April 2 and 3, aka Liberation Day.
    0:05:20 The markets posted their worst day since June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    0:05:24 The S&P 500 dropped 4.8 percent.
    0:05:26 The Dow tumbled about 4 percent.
    0:05:29 And the Nasdaq fell 6 percent.
    0:05:38 Three days of losses wiped out about $10 trillion in wealth, equivalent to roughly 10 percent of global GDP.
    0:05:42 April 9 and 10, Trump blinks.
    0:05:49 In a stunning U-turn, the president walked back some tariffs, triggering a historic market rally.
    0:06:02 The S&P soared 9.5 percent in one day, its biggest gain since 2008, while European markets staged their biggest jump in more than three years.
    0:06:10 Multi-trillion-dollar swings happening within hours of his statements aren’t market forces.
    0:06:14 They’re signs of manipulation with a presidential seal.
    0:06:28 The markets are essentially reacting in real time to his policy announcements and reversals, creating unprecedented uncertainty for investors and opportunity for those who are inside.
    0:06:38 A string of incredibly prescient trades has sparked concern that Trump’s allies may be trading on material, non-public information.
    0:06:50 ProPublica reported that more than a dozen high-ranking officials made well-timed trades following Trump’s inauguration, most selling stock before markets tanked.
    0:07:03 Attorney General Pam Bondi sold $1 million to $5 million in Trump media stock on April 2, the same day the president announced his Liberation Day tariffs.
    0:07:09 The timing of her trades that day is unclear, but think about that.
    0:07:18 The nation’s top cop is selling stocks the day an announcement by the president ignites a crash in prices.
    0:07:24 Trump media slipped 13 percent in the following days before recovering.
    0:07:37 Most damaging, on April 9, Trump posted a message to followers on Truth Social, quote,
    0:07:44 This is a great time to buy, DJT, unquote.
    0:07:51 Less than four hours later, he announced a tariff pause, sending stocks soaring.
    0:08:02 Billionaires tracked by Bloomberg enjoyed their best day ever, adding more than $300 billion to their combined net worth.
    0:08:12 Maxine Waters, the California Democrat, zeroed in on suspicious call option trading in the 10 minutes before Trump’s announcement.
    0:08:23 She and her House colleagues wrote in an April 10 letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins requesting an investigation, quote,
    0:08:34 No rational investor would have purchased these options unless they had prior knowledge of the president’s impending reversal on tariff policy, unquote.
    0:08:45 Less than two weeks later, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, speaking at a closed-door investor summit hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase,
    0:08:50 said he expected a de-escalation in Trump’s trade war with China.
    0:08:56 Stocks, which had already started recovering after a sharp drop the previous day,
    0:08:59 soared after Besant’s comments were reported.
    0:09:03 Elizabeth Warren demanded an explanation.
    0:09:10 The Massachusetts senator argued in a letter to Besant that Trump’s opaque tariff decisions and, quote,
    0:09:14 frequent, seemingly random changes, of course,
    0:09:20 have created a scenario where wealthy investors and well-connected corporations can get special treatment,
    0:09:30 receiving inside information they can use to time the market or obtaining tariff exemptions that are worth billions of dollars,
    0:09:38 while Main Street, small businesses, and America’s families are left to clean up the damage, unquote.
    0:09:47 In late May, stocks dropped again after Trump threatened to raise tariffs to 50% on goods from the EU.
    0:09:53 But when the president subsequently said those tariffs would be delayed until July,
    0:09:58 his comments triggered a global rally over the next two days.
    0:10:07 The White House has announced a flurry of new and revised tariff policies since Inauguration Day in January.
    0:10:14 But I’m willing to bet that very little will change over the next year or two when it comes to trade policy.
    0:10:18 I also predict that Trump will fail to follow through on most of his threats,
    0:10:24 on everything from tariffs to Harvard, as he backpedals or gets stymied by the courts.
    0:10:29 The country’s top securities cop will get to the bottom of it.
    0:10:32 At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.
    0:10:35 But at a time when suspicious trading activity is mounting,
    0:10:38 the SEC is being defanged.
    0:10:45 Trump earlier this year signed an executive order to rein in independent regulators,
    0:10:50 including the SEC, and make them accountable to the administration.
    0:10:56 The order forces the agency to report to the White House for approval.
    0:11:02 At the same time, thanks to buyout and retirement programs offered by the administration,
    0:11:06 the SEC workforce is being slashed.
    0:11:13 SEC divisions reportedly lost up to 19% of their staff over a period of just several weeks.
    0:11:16 The fox isn’t just in the henhouse.
    0:11:18 Now he’s the farmer.
    0:11:25 And don’t expect a strongly worded letter from Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren
    0:11:27 to light a fire under Atkins,
    0:11:31 the pro-business crypto enthusiast Trump picked to head the SEC.
    0:11:38 You can bet Atkins will take a lighter regulatory approach than his predecessor, Gary Gensler.
    0:11:43 Insider trading has long been a scourge.
    0:11:50 James B. Stewart chronicled the 1980s insider trading scandals in his book Den of Thieves.
    0:11:59 Sheila Kolatkar’s 2017 book Black Edge tells the story of billionaire hedge fund investor Stephen A. Cohen,
    0:12:07 his former firm SAC Capital Advisors, and the largest insider trading investigation in history.
    0:12:16 SAC pleaded guilty in 2013 to fraud charges and agreed to pay a record $1.2 billion penalty.
    0:12:23 While Cohen wasn’t charged, he agreed to a two-year ban on managing outside money.
    0:12:29 In 2014, his firm was reborn as .72.
    0:12:33 Six years later, he bought the New York Mets.
    0:12:40 But the conditions today threaten to usher in a golden age of insider trading,
    0:12:43 inviting well-connected investors to cheat.
    0:12:50 I predict that the next set of results from the nation’s hedge fund managers will show
    0:12:52 that some of them have made a killing,
    0:13:00 raising questions about whether they’ve capitalized on insider information to achieve those gains.
    0:13:06 The collateral damage happens to the people on the other side of these trades.
    0:13:09 They are losing fortunes.
    0:13:12 As Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum argues,
    0:13:15 American policy is, quote,
    0:13:18 being transformed, not to benefit Americans,
    0:13:22 but to benefit the president, his family, and his friends.
    0:13:23 Unquote.
    0:13:27 In our conversation last month,
    0:13:33 she said that fighting corruption depends on connecting it to ordinary people’s lives,
    0:13:34 showing, quote,
    0:13:38 they are poor because the Trump family is rich.
    0:13:39 Unquote.
    0:13:42 She noted that Alexei Navalny,
    0:13:45 the Russian opposition leader who stood up to Putin
    0:13:48 and died in a remote prison above the Arctic Circle,
    0:13:54 successfully linked Russia’s kleptocracy to bad roads and poor health care.
    0:14:01 Ensuring America has a fair playing field is key to its success.
    0:14:05 That’s why we have five times Europe’s risk capital for startups.
    0:14:12 It’s why our companies garner $26 in value for every $1 in profit.
    0:14:15 Russia is a kleptocracy.
    0:14:20 The total value of its stock market is around $80 billion,
    0:14:25 versus $52 trillion for the U.S.
    0:14:30 The erosion of faith has disastrous consequences.
    0:14:33 Corruption is contagious.
    0:14:37 It starts with one infected trade,
    0:14:39 spreads to cabinet members,
    0:14:44 then metastasizes through Congress and the donor class.
    0:14:48 America under Trump hasn’t just caught the disease.
    0:14:53 It’s becoming a super spreader event that will infect global capitalism.
    0:14:59 Mean Girls breaking up makes for good reality TV,
    0:15:04 but it’s a misdirect from the grift that will reduce our prosperity
    0:15:10 and limit our ability to protect others at home and abroad.
    0:15:14 Life is so rich.
    0:15:26 Life is so rich.

    As read by George Hahn.

    The Insiders

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  • Why the TACO Trade Matters — ft. Robert Armstrong

    Scott and Ed discuss Trump’s move to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, the administration’s decision to enlist Palantir to streamline federal data sharing, and Meta’s plan to launch AI-powered ad creation tools. Then, Robert Armstrong, U.S. financial commentator for the Financial Times, returns to the show to share how he coined the term “TACO trade,” what he makes of its viral moment, and the potential ripple effects it could have. He also highlights an overlooked element of the “big beautiful bill” and discusses whether we can grow our way out of the deficit.

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  • China’s Collapse, America’s Rise, and What Comes Next — with Peter Zeihan

    AI transcript
    0:00:02 Support for Prop 3 comes from Viore.
    0:00:04 Oh my God, true story.
    0:00:09 I am wearing, totally coincidentally, guess what, Viore shorts.
    0:00:14 Viore’s high quality gym clothes are made to be versatile and stand the test of time.
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    0:00:31 slash Prop G.
    0:00:35 That’s V-U-O-R-I dot com slash Prop G.
    0:00:37 Exclusions apply.
    0:00:40 Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
    0:00:47 We have a favor to ask you.
    0:00:51 The Prop G pod team is planning for the future of the show and we want our listeners to be
    0:00:52 a part of the conversation.
    0:00:56 That’s why we’re hoping you’ll help us by filling out a brief survey.
    0:00:58 Your feedback will help us figure out what’s working, what’s not.
    0:01:02 Please visit us at VoxMedia.com slash survey.
    0:01:06 Again, that’s VoxMedia.com slash survey to provide us with feedback.
    0:01:11 We do take it seriously if we’re thinking about new product extensions and want to know what
    0:01:11 we can do better.
    0:01:13 More dick jokes.
    0:01:14 More dick jokes.
    0:01:15 Red your mind.
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    0:01:37 Check it out for yourself at Mercury.com.
    0:01:39 Mercury, banking that does more.
    0:01:47 So 351, 351 is your A code covering Northeastern Massachusetts.
    0:01:52 In 1951, the United States passed the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms.
    0:01:56 In other news, Taylor Swift has purchased back her entire catalog.
    0:01:58 So just some quick data here.
    0:02:04 Taylor Swift has about 300 songs about men breaking up with her and zero songs about giving a good
    0:02:04 blowjob.
    0:02:06 You do the math.
    0:02:25 Welcome to the 351st episode of the Prop G Pod.
    0:02:29 I’m at that point in my life where I’ve become a bit self-destructive and I’m looking to offend
    0:02:30 people.
    0:02:32 Anyway, I’m here at the Diplomat.
    0:02:33 What’s the Diplomat?
    0:02:39 It’s a fairly, I’d call it a four-star, that’s being generous, hotel in Hollywood, Florida,
    0:02:41 where I spoke this morning to Nielsen IQ.
    0:02:45 And then my plane has been delayed three hours, so I immediately offered the tech team a hundred
    0:02:48 bucks to find me a Mac computer laptop.
    0:02:51 And I am here recording a podcast in this very glamorous room.
    0:02:53 It’s got an ocean view, which is pretty nice.
    0:02:57 Although it’s been kind of 85 degrees and storming.
    0:02:59 It is hurricane weather here now.
    0:03:02 By the way, folks, Florida, check the weather before you come here.
    0:03:05 It loses about 110% of its charm when it’s not nice out.
    0:03:08 It’s just kind of the South minus the charm when the weather isn’t good here.
    0:03:12 But here I am, here I am at the Diplomat Hotel, just spoke, and then I’ll head to the airport,
    0:03:15 I’ll go to New York, then I go to Detroit for Summit, which I’m excited about.
    0:03:18 I’ve been to Detroit in 17 years.
    0:03:22 I went there in 2008 during the crisis to meet with a bankrupt General Motors.
    0:03:23 What was I doing there?
    0:03:23 I don’t know.
    0:03:24 They were interested in digital IQ.
    0:03:25 Why was I there?
    0:03:26 Why was I there?
    0:03:27 I don’t know.
    0:03:29 But I remember thinking this is a pretty depressing place.
    0:03:30 Although supposedly it’s making a comeback.
    0:03:32 Supposedly it’s making a comeback.
    0:03:36 Dan Gilbert is renovated or rejuvenated downtown and a lot of people, young people are moving
    0:03:37 in.
    0:03:41 I’m excited to go there and see what the sitch is, see what the situation is.
    0:03:43 And Detroit, Detroit.
    0:03:50 Anyways, anyways, with that, with that, I’m excited about our guest, Peter Zion, the geopolitical
    0:03:55 analyst who makes a series of provocative predictions, many of which are wrong.
    0:03:59 But hey, as someone who gets it wrong a lot, I like that he kind of inspires a really interesting
    0:04:00 conversation.
    0:04:02 We’ve been trying to get this guy on the pod for a good year now.
    0:04:04 He’s sort of a internet celebrity.
    0:04:05 I celebrity.
    0:04:06 There you go.
    0:04:11 We discussed with Peter China’s looming collapse, the future of the U.S.-led global order.
    0:04:14 And those are both pretty big assumptions.
    0:04:16 I don’t know if our producer has drank the Kool-Aid.
    0:04:18 I wonder if she was talking to Peter for too long before she wrote the script here.
    0:04:22 And whether AI and automation could reshape geopolitics.
    0:04:27 Anyways, with that, with that, from the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida, here’s our conversation
    0:04:29 with Peter Zion.
    0:04:37 Peter, where does this podcast find you?
    0:04:39 I am at home, just above Denver.
    0:04:41 By the way, thanks for being here.
    0:04:43 We’ve wanted you on for a while.
    0:04:46 You’ve been vocal about China’s impending collapse.
    0:04:48 Why do you believe that?
    0:04:53 How do you, what are the dynamics that are setting up for China’s collapse?
    0:04:57 Well, let me give you the two big ones, and there’s a lot of small ones.
    0:05:00 Number one, this is the most trade-dependent country in human history.
    0:05:05 They import 75% to 80% of their energy.
    0:05:08 They import 80% of the stuff that allows them to grow their own food.
    0:05:09 They are the world’s largest importer of food.
    0:05:12 They import all the raw commodities they need to make their manufactured products.
    0:05:15 And then they export most of those manufactured products.
    0:05:20 So if something happens to trade for any reason, they’re the first ones to go and the ones
    0:05:20 that fall hardest.
    0:05:27 That is something that theoretically could be managed with a good diplomatic core, which
    0:05:28 I might add they don’t have.
    0:05:31 But the other problem is demographic.
    0:05:36 When you industrialize and you move from the farm to the city, your birth rate drops because
    0:05:42 kids go from being a free source of labor to simply a cost.
    0:05:47 And China industrialized and urbanized more quickly than any country in human history.
    0:05:50 And on top of that, they had the one-child policy.
    0:06:00 So from the point that the process really got going in the 70s to 1990, their birth rate
    0:06:03 dropped by two-thirds and fell below the American birth rate.
    0:06:05 And it’s only dropped since then.
    0:06:09 And today, all of the major cities have birth rates that are less than one quarter of replacement
    0:06:10 level.
    0:06:13 So the American birth rate is now more than triple that of China.
    0:06:18 It’s been going for so long that they now have more people aged over 53 than under.
    0:06:21 And within the next few years, they simply won’t have a consumption base.
    0:06:26 It’s a workforce, a tax base, or consumers at all.
    0:06:30 Yeah, one of the things, there’s a lot of catastrophizing trying to justify investments
    0:06:34 for bringing onshore and U.S. manufacturing that we couldn’t survive in a shooting war with
    0:06:35 China.
    0:06:38 But I think I read somewhere that China’s out of business if you manage to cut off their
    0:06:43 energy supply, that they’re actually quite vulnerable to any sort of external conflict.
    0:06:43 Your thoughts?
    0:06:48 I would argue that if there’s any meaningful conflict in China, we don’t simply have a
    0:06:52 break of the Chinese military, which, by the way, doesn’t have range.
    0:06:56 So for them to beat us in a shooting war, we have to go to them.
    0:07:00 If we want to destroy them, we just need a few destroyers in the Indian Ocean Basin to interfere
    0:07:01 with shipping.
    0:07:02 And that’s it.
    0:07:02 It’s over.
    0:07:09 We’re actually looking at the disassociation of China as a unified industrialized nation state
    0:07:10 within the decade.
    0:07:14 And before Trump came in, I would have said that it would probably have been about eight
    0:07:14 years.
    0:07:18 If we take a much more aggressive position on trade, it’s going to be a lot less.
    0:07:20 That doesn’t mean we won’t feel it.
    0:07:25 You don’t remove the world’s largest industrial base from the math and not feel it.
    0:07:28 But for us, it’s something we can grow through.
    0:07:32 For them, we are literally looking at the end of the Han ethnicity this century.
    0:07:38 Just to steel man this, isn’t potentially the tariffs in America sort of tearing up the
    0:07:43 post-war alliances and a lot of nations, I think, no longer looking at us as a reliable
    0:07:43 partner.
    0:07:48 Don’t you think there’s an opportunity for China in terms of new trade agreements or I just
    0:07:52 thought for the first time that more people globally see China as a force of good than
    0:07:52 the U.S.?
    0:07:55 Isn’t this potentially an opportunity for China for new markets?
    0:07:59 As a rule, I ignore what people say and look at what they do.
    0:08:05 This isn’t the first time that American politics have made us less popular around the world.
    0:08:09 And I’m not willing to suggest that there aren’t some short-term opportunities here.
    0:08:14 But the bottom line is that China doesn’t have enough people under age 50 to consume.
    0:08:17 And so the product has to go somewhere.
    0:08:19 It just gets dumped in other markets.
    0:08:25 And as we have seen with the EV issue in 2024, as soon as the United States put on
    0:08:31 tariffs to block EVs from swarming into the American markets, everyone else did some version of
    0:08:33 the same if they had any sort of auto industry.
    0:08:36 So what we’re seeing right now is the first stages of that.
    0:08:38 The Chinese are losing access to the American market.
    0:08:39 They’re trying to dump everything everywhere else.
    0:08:44 And we’re now starting to see those secondary waves of tariffs forming.
    0:08:48 So it’s a nice thought, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in it in the long term.
    0:08:52 They must be playing with the ultimate poker face though, because my sense is they basically
    0:08:53 told Trump to pound sand.
    0:08:58 And if they were as vulnerable as your data suggests, don’t you think they’d be more amenable
    0:08:59 to some sort of big, beautiful deal?
    0:09:01 A couple of thoughts of that.
    0:09:06 Number one, this always had a limited runway.
    0:09:12 And so any deal that they were able to strike, say today, they’d still collapse within the
    0:09:12 decade.
    0:09:17 So is there a deal that would allow them to persist throughout that time without losing
    0:09:18 their sense of self?
    0:09:19 I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
    0:09:21 It might’ve been 10 years ago, but not now.
    0:09:25 Second, it’s unclear to me how much Xi is actually aware.
    0:09:31 He has so purged the system, most notably the bureaucracy, that the bureaucracy no longer even
    0:09:36 collects data that they think might result in numbers that Xi doesn’t want to hear.
    0:09:37 So they just don’t collect it at all.
    0:09:43 So the idea that Xi has a deep understanding of the reality of the world or even his own country
    0:09:45 now, that’s flawed.
    0:09:46 It’s just not true.
    0:09:52 The new book by, I think it’s Patrick McGee talking about Apple essentially upwinds.
    0:09:58 upskilling China and as a result, creating a pretty robust advanced manufacturing capability
    0:10:03 in China and Tesla, you could argue doing maybe the same thing, that some of that is
    0:10:04 leaked to BYD.
    0:10:09 It strikes me that they have built this incredible supply chain.
    0:10:11 You don’t think that pulls them out.
    0:10:13 You don’t think that’s their saving grace.
    0:10:17 No, I mean, that certainly helps, but we’re not at a point where tech transfer would help
    0:10:17 here.
    0:10:18 I mean, if you don’t have workers, you don’t have workers.
    0:10:19 It really is that simple.
    0:10:24 In the case of Tesla, Tesla made the same mistake that most manufacturers in the United
    0:10:28 States made is they thought they could set up a system where their intellectual property
    0:10:30 rights would be protected.
    0:10:35 And then the competitors, BYD, for example, set up a plant across the street and hired exactly
    0:10:35 the same people.
    0:10:41 So they’d work one shift at Tesla, copy everything they could, work one shift at BYD, install it
    0:10:41 all over there.
    0:10:46 We’ve seen this story over and over and over again in pretty much every manufacturing sector.
    0:10:49 Apple, a little different.
    0:10:51 Apple, it’s an assembly story.
    0:10:58 Most of the parts that matter for Apple are made somewhere else and everything comes together
    0:10:59 in China.
    0:11:02 It’s just like the semiconductor sector writ large has its 30,000 pieces.
    0:11:04 They come together at Taiwan.
    0:11:09 And now Apple has to basically figure out a new model for bringing everything together.
    0:11:14 And it’s not clear they can achieve the same scale anywhere else in the world.
    0:11:17 So we will probably be taking a few year break from having iPhones.
    0:11:24 This was Patrick’s point that the notion that an iPhone domestically manufactured in the
    0:11:28 U.S. would cost $3,500, he said it might as well cost a million, that we’re just literally
    0:11:29 not capable of it.
    0:11:32 A million or a thousand, a thousand individual.
    0:11:35 $3,500 assumes you’ve already built the infrastructure.
    0:11:36 We have it.
    0:11:40 And his point was it would be easier to recreate the Manhattan Project than try to figure out
    0:11:42 a way to produce a million iPhones a day.
    0:11:43 No, the Manhattan Project was easy.
    0:11:47 That was just a few dozen dudes basically running a few gamma ray experiments.
    0:11:49 That doesn’t make for a good film.
    0:11:54 Yeah, it’s just, it’s like modern, I mean, this little guy, I mean, there’s 1,800 pieces
    0:11:58 in this and each of those pieces has their own supply chain.
    0:12:02 One of the things that we forget when we talk about electronics is it’s not just like eight
    0:12:07 pieces, it’s 800 plus pieces, each of which have their own components.
    0:12:13 Computing today, Highland Electronics today requires the entire planet.
    0:12:15 And people focus on the United States and China and Taiwan.
    0:12:17 It’s not those are unimportant partners.
    0:12:23 But for example, there’s a single company in California and another one in Germany that
    0:12:29 make very, very small pieces for the manufacturing process that don’t even go into the chips.
    0:12:30 But without them, none of it happens.
    0:12:33 And there’s 30,000 failure points like that.
    0:12:35 So you would not be long Apple stock right now.
    0:12:36 You said a couple of years without iPhone.
    0:12:37 No, no.
    0:12:41 I mean, every time the new phone comes out, I buy a backup because I’m preparing for the
    0:12:42 day that this just stops.
    0:12:49 But no, it’s like there’s no way that Apple comes out of this without a few years of no
    0:12:49 product.
    0:12:51 What do you…
    0:12:52 So you’re obviously bearish on China.
    0:12:54 Who are you bullish on?
    0:12:59 If you were willing to dial the clock back to October, I would have been bullish on the
    0:13:00 United States on all cylinders.
    0:13:02 We’ve got the best demography.
    0:13:03 We’ve got the best infrastructure.
    0:13:05 We have the best educational system.
    0:13:07 We’re more than self-sufficient in energy and food.
    0:13:09 We had some gaps.
    0:13:12 All of them related to the manufacturing sector.
    0:13:14 And really, that was it.
    0:13:19 One of the problems that I’ve got with the Trump administration right now is it’s basically
    0:13:25 cut off our ability to access the precursor stuff that we need in order to build out our
    0:13:26 industrial plant.
    0:13:30 So Trump likes to focus on steel and aluminum, not that those aren’t important, but it’s
    0:13:31 more than that.
    0:13:36 It’s turning raw chemicals into processed chemicals that can then be built into the manufacturing
    0:13:36 system.
    0:13:38 It’s about a copper smelter.
    0:13:42 There’s a thousand things that happen in the processing world that the United States doesn’t
    0:13:47 have that we need first if then we’re going to build out the industrial plant.
    0:13:50 And Trump has basically made that impossible in the midterm.
    0:13:53 So does this all present an opportunity for Europe?
    0:14:01 In the short term, again, but their demographics, while not as terminal as the Chinese, are still
    0:14:02 pretty bad.
    0:14:04 The Chinese are aging faster than anybody else.
    0:14:08 And by the end of this decade, they will have the oldest average age of any country in
    0:14:09 the world, including Japan.
    0:14:14 But the Germans and the Italians and the Dutch are not all that far behind.
    0:14:18 So we are in the final years of them having a value-added manufacturing system as well.
    0:14:21 Can a lot of these problems be solved with immigration?
    0:14:28 I love that you focus on demographics, but can some of this work, labor force and aging
    0:14:30 population, be solved with immigration policies?
    0:14:34 Based on whose numbers you’re using and how you define Hispanic, because that’s a problem
    0:14:41 here in this country, somewhere between one-third and one-half of the American birth rate is
    0:14:43 either immigrants or children of immigrants.
    0:14:45 And so that’s a non-trivial factor.
    0:14:47 The problem’s timing.
    0:14:54 So if you can incorporate immigration into your political culture, and so have a dribble
    0:15:00 coming in year on, year out, so that those people can be assimilated, then yes, immigration
    0:15:02 absolutely can be part of your solution.
    0:15:07 But if you have waited, waited, waited, waited, waited until everyone’s old, and then open the
    0:15:09 doors, then you’ve got a very different situation.
    0:15:12 So take the German example right now.
    0:15:17 There’s roughly 80, 82 million Germans, but the average age is now over 50.
    0:15:24 So for them to just hold where they are, they need to bring in 2 million people under age 25
    0:15:27 every year for the next 20 years, just to hold the line.
    0:15:31 And that means you’ve brought in 50 million people, and all of a sudden, the Germans are
    0:15:33 no longer the majority in their own country.
    0:15:38 That triggers a series of political consequences that I’m not sure the Germans can deal with.
    0:15:43 You want to do that in China, you need an order of magnitude more.
    0:15:49 And the world, to be perfectly blunt, only can provide those migrants from one place, India.
    0:15:51 Wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing?
    0:15:57 So if, and there’s a lot of logic here, that a youthful workforce is a productive workforce.
    0:16:03 Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, who demographically is set up the best?
    0:16:05 There’s a mix of countries.
    0:16:10 Now, I must underline that all of these countries are aging faster than the United States.
    0:16:16 The faster you go through the urbanization and the industrialization experiences, the faster
    0:16:18 your birth rate collapses, and the U.S. really is an outlier in that.
    0:16:27 But Mexico, Indonesia, India, and Turkey, those are the big four that look really promising
    0:16:31 in the future, which isn’t to say they don’t have their own complications.
    0:16:33 All of these countries have problems with rule of law, for example.
    0:16:37 All of them have problems with infrastructure and electricity and education.
    0:16:42 But these are the problems you would expect for countries at their stage of evolution.
    0:16:45 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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    0:19:17 So big news over the weekend with respect to Ukraine taking out 40 strategic bombers from
    0:19:18 the Russian Air Force.
    0:19:21 It felt, I mean, I thought it was just incredible.
    0:19:23 I’ve been watching that video over and over.
    0:19:28 Maybe with the exception of the Pager operation against Hezbollah, I think this will go down
    0:19:32 as one of the decades, great sort of, I don’t know, military operations.
    0:19:37 Curious to get your thoughts on the operation and how you see the Russia-Ukraine conflict
    0:19:38 progressing and unfolding.
    0:19:42 The technology of what they used was not particularly new.
    0:19:46 It looks like what the Ukrainians did is built a bunch of sheds, put them on a bunch of flatbed
    0:19:49 trucks and just drove them to their destination.
    0:19:51 And when they got within a certain distance, it was pretty close.
    0:19:53 These were not long-range drones.
    0:19:59 They just abandoned the trucks, remotely operated the roof hatches, and the drones flew out and
    0:20:00 did their thing.
    0:20:04 It was maybe somewhere between 100 and 150 drones is what most of the reports are saying.
    0:20:11 And it took out long-range strategic bombers who were designed to carry nuclear-tipped cruise
    0:20:17 missiles to target either extreme Western Europe, North America, or the sea lanes in between in
    0:20:18 case of a war with the United States.
    0:20:26 So while these craft could have been used, have been used to target Ukrainian targets, the location
    0:20:31 of the bases in places like Murmansk and Irkutsk, these are places that were designed to strike
    0:20:35 the United States with weaponries that were designed to strike the United States.
    0:20:44 And so in one day, Ukraine did more to secure American national interests than any ally has
    0:20:46 ever done since 1945.
    0:20:49 That is going to resonate in Washington.
    0:20:51 That’s a really interesting insight.
    0:20:57 So you’re saying this is more a psychological blow or a, well, let me ask you this.
    0:20:59 Do you think, do you think the Americans were behind this?
    0:21:03 If you would ask me that a year ago, I would have said it would really be hard to imagine
    0:21:07 this happening without the Americans behind it in some way with the today’s political environment
    0:21:11 and how things have gone, particularly as Vance becomes more and more ingratiated into the
    0:21:12 defense community.
    0:21:13 Ingratiated, wrong word, intertwined.
    0:21:15 I don’t know.
    0:21:19 I have a clearance, but, you know, need to know and all that.
    0:21:22 I can’t just go through the archives and the defense department whenever I’m in Washington.
    0:21:31 But it’s difficult to imagine something of this caliber getting signed off by this White
    0:21:31 House.
    0:21:37 So this was, again, didn’t use any fundamentally new technologies.
    0:21:39 It was just audacity.
    0:21:41 And it was amazing.
    0:21:42 Yeah, it really was.
    0:21:47 So give us your view of the state of play in terms of on the ground there and how the
    0:21:50 conflict, you know, who’s winning, who’s losing, how you see it playing out.
    0:21:53 Well, the problem is in part demographic.
    0:21:58 The Russians are facing something similar to the Chinese, just not on as a steep of a descent.
    0:22:02 They know they only have a few years left that they’ll have enough men in their 20s to even
    0:22:05 attempt to use military tactics to adjust their world.
    0:22:10 And they feel they need to get to something closer to the old Soviet boundaries if they’re
    0:22:12 going to be able to defend themselves.
    0:22:15 Right now, they’ve got wide open frontiers that are about 3,000 miles long.
    0:22:21 If they can get into central Poland and Romania, that shrinks down to about 500 miles.
    0:22:23 They feel that’s more manageable, the right.
    0:22:28 Unfortunately, that means they have to conquer all or part of a dozen countries that collectively
    0:22:30 have a population that’s larger than theirs.
    0:22:35 And Ukraine isn’t the first post-Soviet war, it’s the ninth, and it won’t be the last if
    0:22:36 Ukraine falls.
    0:22:42 So from the Russian point of view, they outnumber the Ukrainians in any fight somewhere like three
    0:22:47 to five to one, which means that any fight where the Ukrainians don’t kill three to five
    0:22:51 as many Russians as they lose of their own people is a fight that technically the Ukrainians
    0:22:53 have lost because their demographics are very similar to the Russians.
    0:23:00 So by the numbers, the Russians very much are wearing down the Ukrainians.
    0:23:05 The problem with projecting how this war is going to go one way or the other is that the
    0:23:06 technology is changing so quickly.
    0:23:12 None of the weapon systems that have dominated the battlefield in 2025 existed in 2021.
    0:23:19 And we are now in, I think, our 17th turnover in terms of drone technology in Ukraine and
    0:23:20 our 11th in Russia.
    0:23:25 The Russians aren’t innovating nearly as quickly, but they also can draw upon legacy equipment out
    0:23:29 of North Korea, lots of drones out of Iran, and then lots of industrial plant out of China.
    0:23:34 So this is a type of war that mixes what we thought we understood with things that are
    0:23:38 completely new, and it’s taking us in a lot of really strange directions.
    0:23:43 I mean, it looks like the Russian military, which used to be an entirely artillery force,
    0:23:48 can barely even use artillery anymore because the Ukrainians can target it before the shell
    0:23:49 even drops.
    0:23:54 Counter battery has gotten that good in this new acoustic drone detection age.
    0:23:56 So I don’t know.
    0:23:59 By the numbers, still Russia’s war to lose.
    0:24:03 By the numbers, NATO needs to get ready for the next phase because that involves seven
    0:24:04 NATO countries now.
    0:24:07 But it’s anyone’s guess because the goalposts keep moving.
    0:24:11 Other than drones, what are some of those new battlefield technologies?
    0:24:16 One of the things that the Ukrainians set up early in the war was a series of basically
    0:24:17 microphones along the border.
    0:24:22 So whenever the drones, because if you remember, the Shahid drones out of Iran are really noisy.
    0:24:27 Whenever the drones started to come in, they could basically get picked up on multiple phones
    0:24:30 and figure out what the vector was and where they were going.
    0:24:32 And so you could activate air defense on the other side.
    0:24:37 The Ukrainians have now turned that into a counter battery fire, which is spectacular.
    0:24:42 The Ukrainians have combined drone technology with rocket technology to make rocket drones
    0:24:46 that have a range of 1,100 miles they can hit within a couple of meters of their target.
    0:24:54 So we’re seeing really, really cheap developments that are outperforming anything that was in
    0:24:55 the Russian arsenal before.
    0:24:57 And that applies to us, too.
    0:25:02 A Ukrainian drone jammer, which is the only reason that Ukraine is still there this year,
    0:25:09 which forces the Russians to use fiber optic drones, is now about one-tenth the cost of what
    0:25:12 the U.S. produces and performs an order of magnitude more effectively.
    0:25:19 And so if you were advising the U.S. and Europe, your general, what I think you said before was that
    0:25:25 if Ukraine falls, it’s only a matter of time before there’s a next conflict.
    0:25:27 Where do you see that next conflict emerging?
    0:25:28 Would it be Poland?
    0:25:29 Where would it be?
    0:25:34 It will depend upon the tactical situation at that moment, and a lot can change between
    0:25:37 now and a hypothetical Ukrainian fall.
    0:25:42 But the Russians know they have to reach the Vistola River, and that’s in central Poland,
    0:25:43 cuts through Warsaw.
    0:25:48 They know they have to be at the Baltic Sea, so they’re the three Baltic republics, and they
    0:25:53 know they have to reach the Danube, which will include the northeastern sliver of Romania.
    0:25:58 So which one of those the Russians would go for would be shaped by the tactical situation at the
    0:26:02 moment they felt the need to pull the trigger, but they need all of that territory.
    0:26:06 And now that Finland is in NATO, they would definitely go for Finland as well if they thought
    0:26:07 they could pull it off.
    0:26:13 I would guess they would do the Baltics first because it looks, from the details, the simplest,
    0:26:16 but the tactical math changes pretty rapidly.
    0:26:19 And you think they have the economy and the war machine.
    0:26:22 I mean, my sense of all of this is it’s kind of defanged them a bit.
    0:26:25 You think they still would have the capacity to wage more war?
    0:26:29 If you had asked me that a year and a half ago, I would say that a very real concern that
    0:26:31 they simply don’t have the capacity to carry it forward.
    0:26:31 Now I’m not so sure.
    0:26:37 So few of the legacy weapon systems that the Russians started this war with are still being
    0:26:38 used.
    0:26:39 This is a drone fight now.
    0:26:44 Something like 70% of the casualties over the last eight months have been first-person
    0:26:45 drones.
    0:26:46 It’s a different math now.
    0:26:51 Artillery, tanks, jets just don’t mean as much as they used to in the current context.
    0:26:57 I just underline that we are very early in this transition and guessing what these weapons
    0:27:02 systems are going to evolve into over the next five years would be as foolhardy as guessing
    0:27:05 three years ago that we would have ended up in some version of where we are today.
    0:27:07 This is all very new, changing very rapidly.
    0:27:13 My sense is that it’s always the stuff you’re not worried about that gets you.
    0:27:17 And I don’t think we were that worried about India and Pakistan until recently.
    0:27:19 What’s your take on the situation there?
    0:27:25 Well, the Americans love to ignore India and Pakistan because there’s obviously no solution.
    0:27:29 You’ve got two countries that don’t like each other on a border that is not economically
    0:27:33 important, which means they can piss back and forth over the line however much they want.
    0:27:36 And until a nuke gets used, no one in the rest of the world really cares.
    0:27:43 So unfortunately, or fortunately, based on your point of view, that assessment is broadly
    0:27:49 accurate and has not evolved, uh, in any real war.
    0:27:55 It goes to nukes very quickly because neither of them have the capacity to really hurt the other
    0:27:57 side in any other way.
    0:27:58 The Thar Desert is there.
    0:28:00 Kashmir is broadly worthless.
    0:28:04 Uh, you’re talking about glaciers and empty mountainsides.
    0:28:12 So they’re fighting over an idea, which means that it can be trumped up or tamped down based
    0:28:14 entirely on domestic politics.
    0:28:19 And unfortunately, earlier this year, they both had a vested interest in plumping it up more
    0:28:20 than it needed to be.
    0:28:25 Whether or not the current ceasefire will hold, that is also a question of internal domestic
    0:28:25 politics.
    0:28:29 So both of us predicted that Biden would be reelected.
    0:28:30 What do you think we got wrong?
    0:28:32 Technically, he didn’t run.
    0:28:33 So, you know.
    0:28:34 Fair enough.
    0:28:35 Fair enough.
    0:28:40 Yeah, when I did my postmortem, my general idea was that for the first time in modern
    0:28:47 American history, in two elections in a row, the independents flipped.
    0:28:52 So the way it worked before is every time we had a fresh elections, the independents would
    0:28:53 vote for the other guy.
    0:28:56 They, they’re notorious for having buyer’s remorse.
    0:29:01 But when it came to Trump, they changed their mind because Trump basically said, your vote
    0:29:02 doesn’t matter.
    0:29:04 So I don’t care about you at all.
    0:29:06 And their response was basically, hold my beer.
    0:29:11 And the independent vote in the United States, the 10 percent of Americans who really are
    0:29:16 independent, did continue to turn against Trump, actually turned more strongly in this most
    0:29:17 recent election.
    0:29:21 But everyone else went the other direction.
    0:29:28 Every single voter demographic, 49 of the 50 states shifted towards Trump, which blew away
    0:29:30 any significance for the independent vote.
    0:29:32 And what do you see going on here?
    0:29:36 I mean, you talk a lot about other nations and geopolitics.
    0:29:43 What do you, what do you think are the undercurrents in the U.S. that led to, I mean, I was shocked
    0:29:44 by this, this election.
    0:29:49 I didn’t, I not only didn’t see Trump winning, but I didn’t see him winning as soundly.
    0:29:54 Any themes that you think are emerging out of the U.S. that kind of go against conventional
    0:29:55 wisdom?
    0:29:57 So first, let’s not overplay it.
    0:30:06 Trump, um, Trump beat Harris by the same margin as Biden beat Trump.
    0:30:12 So it’s really only a 3% switch in the, in voter preferences in the right places.
    0:30:18 electoral system mucks up the analysis, but really it wasn’t nearly as title as a lot
    0:30:20 of people would like to think it is.
    0:30:22 Uh, the second issue is more historical.
    0:30:27 Uh, we have a first past the post single member district system, which is a really technical
    0:30:32 way of saying that you vote for one person who represents a specific geography and a specific
    0:30:33 group of people.
    0:30:35 You’re not voting for an idea or a party on a national basis.
    0:30:37 You’re voting for a district.
    0:30:44 And what that means is we tend to have really, really big tent parties that are not driven
    0:30:46 by all ideology with a lot of factions within them.
    0:30:53 And those factions get more or less powerful based on changes in demographics or technology
    0:30:57 or trade or security or culture or immigration, thousand different issues.
    0:31:04 But every once in a while, about once or twice a generation, the changes become so significant
    0:31:08 that the factions that are under the tent, don’t just rise and fall within the tent.
    0:31:11 They jump out of the tent or maybe jump into the other tent.
    0:31:13 And that’s what’s going on right now.
    0:31:16 It’s the sixth time we’ve done this as a country.
    0:31:22 We will get through it, but it’s really awkward because all of the old rules have gone away and
    0:31:23 the new rules are not in place.
    0:31:27 So I would argue that in this last round, the democratic party died.
    0:31:32 I’m not sure they’re going to come back, but the Republican party died too.
    0:31:39 It is MAGA now and MAGA doesn’t have a wide enough base to win an election.
    0:31:44 So we’ve got two things that call themselves parties that can’t possibly win.
    0:31:46 It’s just a question of who can lose more.
    0:31:49 And last time the Democrats pulled out all the stops.
    0:31:55 So staying on the U.S., talk about the U.S.
    0:31:59 This is a little bit like saying Europe, and that is there are just different regions and
    0:32:02 cultures and economic bases in the U.S.
    0:32:07 Where in the U.S. or which regions do you think are poised to be the biggest winners and losers?
    0:32:10 From deglobalization?
    0:32:14 Deglobalization, AI, whatever big themes you see in the U.S.
    0:32:17 I’ll put AI to the side because that’s not going to happen for such that later.
    0:32:20 We need to double the size of the industrial plant.
    0:32:26 And for that, you need workers, you need green space, you need infrastructure, and you need
    0:32:29 a regulatory structure that is friendly to the investment.
    0:32:35 You put all those together, you’re basically looking at an area that starts roughly in Norfolk
    0:32:41 and Richmond in Virginia, comes down through the south into Texas, and then up through the
    0:32:44 Rockies to maybe Denver and Salt Lake City.
    0:32:50 So down from the west, from the mountain west down into Phoenix, over through Texas, then up
    0:32:53 to the very, very southern tip of the Mid-Atlantic.
    0:32:57 That’s the section that can most benefit from where we are.
    0:33:01 The problem that all of these areas are going to have is, first and foremost, electricity.
    0:33:05 If you’re going to double the size of the industrial plant, that means you need to at least
    0:33:06 expand the grid by half.
    0:33:11 And we now need to do that without the Chinese, and that will not be cheap, and that will not
    0:33:12 be quick, and that will not be easy.
    0:33:15 But until we do that, none of the rest of this matters.
    0:33:20 But it’s all based on a premise that we need to further expand our industrial base.
    0:33:24 The economy has done really well moving more to a services base.
    0:33:26 Why is an industrial base so important to the U.S.’s future?
    0:33:29 There’s a national security component to it.
    0:33:30 Trump is not making that up.
    0:33:35 But more importantly, the Chinese system is dying, and we need to prepare.
    0:33:39 And that means if we want stuff, it needs to be made somewhere else.
    0:33:41 Does it all need to be made here?
    0:33:41 No.
    0:33:47 And the wider the net that we throw, the more countries we bring into whatever the post-globalized
    0:33:50 order happens to be, the easier and faster this will be.
    0:33:56 We cannot do it in anything less than a 20-year time frame without Canada, and especially Mexico.
    0:34:04 So when Trump in his first term renegotiated NAFTA, and basically we got the guy who was calling
    0:34:09 Mexicans rapists, all of a sudden being the Mexicans’ best friend in trade talks, I was
    0:34:16 really optimistic, because if you take the most rightist, anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner aspect
    0:34:23 of the American polity, which is Trump, and you make that friends with Mexico, that’s a pretty
    0:34:24 bright future.
    0:34:27 But we’re kind of up in the air again.
    0:34:30 So you talk a little bit about Mexico.
    0:34:32 What are your thoughts on Latin America, specifically Brazil?
    0:34:36 Well, Brazil is its own beast.
    0:34:41 The demographics are very rapidly aging, and they haven’t built out the industrial plant
    0:34:43 that they need for what’s coming.
    0:34:48 Their agriculture and industrial system are the highest cost producers in the world, which
    0:34:51 only works if the Chinese are paying for everything.
    0:34:53 So when China’s strong, Brazil is strong.
    0:34:55 You remove China, all of a sudden Brazil looks really bad.
    0:34:59 They’ve also lost a lot of their industrial plant to the Chinese.
    0:35:05 Under Lula last time, he invited in the Chinese to do a lot of joint ventures, which from the
    0:35:09 Chinese point of view, as we come in, we build a joint facility, we steal all of your technology,
    0:35:12 we take it home, and then we drive you out of business on a global basis.
    0:35:14 And there’s just not much left in Brazil at this point.
    0:35:20 So we talked a little bit about demographics and some of the countries you think that are not
    0:35:21 well-positioned.
    0:35:26 If you’re the U.S., and realizing it’s a global world,
    0:35:29 you talked a little bit about the importance of the U.S.-Mexico relationship.
    0:35:31 What about U.S. and Canada?
    0:35:37 Are there other allies we should be focused on developing stronger partnerships with?
    0:35:45 We already have free trade deals with Central America, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Korea, functionally
    0:35:46 with Taiwan.
    0:35:50 If the Brits can ever figure out what happens after Brexit, we’ll have a deal with them as
    0:35:50 well.
    0:35:52 So that’s the core.
    0:35:54 And that’s a great starting point.
    0:35:58 If you were to add one more big thing, I would say Southeast Asia.
    0:36:00 The demographics are pretty good.
    0:36:01 The industrial plant is already pretty good.
    0:36:06 They’re very well positioned to pick up anything that the Chinese drop.
    0:36:09 They are a bridge to India, which is a non-insignificant power.
    0:36:15 But the biggest thing I like about Southeast Asia is we’re already friends, courtesy of
    0:36:19 our relationship with Australia and New Zealand, and they have a big consumption base.
    0:36:25 So this is already a billion people with a demographic that is very primed for consumption.
    0:36:32 It’s exactly the sort of partner that you would like to preserve as the broader world breaks
    0:36:32 down.
    0:36:35 I brought up AI, and you said it’s not going to happen.
    0:36:36 Say more.
    0:36:36 Sure.
    0:36:43 So there’s about 30,000 parts that go into your typical semiconductor, not counting the
    0:36:46 things that do the manufacturing, like, say, the lithography systems that came out of
    0:36:47 ASML in the Netherlands.
    0:36:52 So functionally, you’ve got 50,000 failure points in that sector.
    0:36:57 Right now, everything that we’re running a large language model on requires a chip that
    0:37:03 is roughly seven or six nanometers or smaller, and the newer chips that we’re making for AI
    0:37:07 are roughly two nanometers and have encoded cooling into them.
    0:37:08 We don’t have those yet.
    0:37:11 That’s what they’re working on building, hopefully getting out onto the market within the next couple
    0:37:12 of years.
    0:37:18 If we can’t make those high-end chips, if we can’t do anything with extreme ultraviolet,
    0:37:22 which is how pretty much everything under 12 nanometers is made now, we have to go back
    0:37:26 to an older, simpler technology called Deep Ultraviolet.
    0:37:31 And that would suggest that the only chips we’re going to be able to make at scale are going
    0:37:33 to be 14 nanometers or bigger.
    0:37:40 So we will need five times as many of those to fill the data centers to get the same compute
    0:37:40 power.
    0:37:46 And that will take four to five times as much power in order to operate the center.
    0:37:54 So we’re looking at a 95% reduction on a cost basis in order to run AI models that we had
    0:37:55 last year.
    0:37:57 ChatGPT 4.0, that won’t be able to work at all.
    0:37:59 But ChatGPT 3.0, probably.
    0:38:07 So that lasts until such time as we rebuild the supply chain in a more demographically stable,
    0:38:09 geopolitically stable zone.
    0:38:11 That’ll take 20 years.
    0:38:17 A lot of what you’ve said the last few minutes kind of bubble up to the need for a dramatic
    0:38:20 increase in our power grid or ability to produce electricity.
    0:38:26 Which of these energy technologies are you most bullish and bearish on?
    0:38:27 I want them all.
    0:38:32 Because it’s like we’re past the point where we can pick a winner and that’ll do it.
    0:38:33 We have to do so much so fast.
    0:38:36 So number one, we’re not going to retire anything.
    0:38:37 I don’t care if it’s coal.
    0:38:38 We don’t have the option anymore.
    0:38:41 If we’re going to still have manufactured product, we have to do it here.
    0:38:43 We have to do it with the grid that we have.
    0:38:45 It’s kind of like the military going into Iraq.
    0:38:47 You fight with the military you have.
    0:38:52 The idea of transforming it into something hypothetical and in the future is gone.
    0:38:59 In addition, wind and solar, while we do have some of the world’s best wind and solar acreage
    0:39:01 in the Southwest for solar and the Great Plains for wind,
    0:39:08 two-thirds of the cost of a solar or wind facility has to be financed because it’s all up front construction.
    0:39:12 It’s not a subscription model like it would be for coal or natural gas.
    0:39:18 Which means unless the geography is really, really, really good for installation,
    0:39:22 we’re not going to do it anymore because we’ve seen capital costs increase by a factor of four
    0:39:24 in just the last five years.
    0:39:30 That won’t come down until we have another generation that ages into the capital class,
    0:39:32 which is typically people aged 55 to 65.
    0:39:34 Those are the people who are saving for retirement.
    0:39:36 That’s 70% of all private capital.
    0:39:40 We’ve been relying on the baby winners until now, but now they’re two-third retired.
    0:39:45 And so the capital just isn’t there for the green transition to happen at all.
    0:39:49 I would love for nukes to be part of the equation,
    0:39:54 but we still haven’t built a prototype for a fourth-generation nuclear power plant
    0:39:56 or a small modular reactor.
    0:39:58 So we’re stuck with a third generation.
    0:40:01 And the regulatory structure for that is very strict.
    0:40:05 And as a result, we’ve only built one in the last 50 years.
    0:40:09 So we’re looking at mostly coal and gas,
    0:40:12 a sprinkling of solar and wind where it makes sense.
    0:40:14 And after that, we have to get creative.
    0:40:16 We’ll be right back.
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    0:42:51 We’re back with more from Peter Zion.
    0:42:58 I’m fascinated by you because you, as much as almost anyone I know, have created—
    0:43:03 I had never heard of you three, four years ago, and now you’ve developed this personal brand.
    0:43:07 Well, you didn’t run for elected office.
    0:43:08 You’re not an athlete.
    0:43:14 You basically have kind of built this incredible brand around very provocative predictions.
    0:43:15 And I make a lot of predictions.
    0:43:17 And quite frankly, you get a lot of yours wrong,
    0:43:21 but you always inspire an interesting—you catalyze an interesting conversation.
    0:43:23 And I think that’s why people are really drawn,
    0:43:26 because even with stuff I think, well, that can’t happen,
    0:43:28 it gets you thinking.
    0:43:31 I would just like to know more about you.
    0:43:32 Like, what’s your origin story?
    0:43:35 How did you get—how did you get to this point?
    0:43:37 It’s not all that exciting.
    0:43:41 I was just always the kid who had to figure out why things worked the way they did.
    0:43:45 And so, like everyone else who was interested in international affairs,
    0:43:49 I went to Washington for my first year out of grad school and hated it.
    0:43:51 I was there for 10 months.
    0:43:52 It was nine months too long.
    0:43:58 And then I ended up working for a private intelligence company slash media company for 12 years,
    0:44:00 where I ended up being their global generalist,
    0:44:04 kind of putting everything together into a tapestry.
    0:44:09 And then 12 years ago, I left that company.
    0:44:09 Now I do this.
    0:44:11 And what is this?
    0:44:15 I help companies and entities, usually at the local government level,
    0:44:18 figure where global trends are going and the problems
    0:44:21 and the opportunities they’re going to have in front of them in the not-too-distant future.
    0:44:28 So is it like a green mantle or a, you know, what’s it called, Eurasia Group?
    0:44:34 Eurasia Group is more focused on the here and the now and the government decision-making apparatus.
    0:44:37 Not that that’s not important, but that’s not what I do.
    0:44:42 I focus on the longer-term trends of geopolitics, trade, security tech, and, of course,
    0:44:46 demographics to tell us, you know, this is going to be the big picture that you’re going to deal with.
    0:44:48 But if you want to know what happens next Tuesday, talk to Ian Bremmer.
    0:44:51 And do you connect that to alpha?
    0:44:53 Do you get hired by hedge funds to try and come up with investment things?
    0:44:57 I do get hired by hedge funds and financial houses a lot.
    0:44:59 I do not do tactical trading advice, though.
    0:45:00 Got it.
    0:45:04 And I’m curious, Peter, do you have kids?
    0:45:04 No.
    0:45:06 No kids.
    0:45:07 No, I’m part of the problem.
    0:45:08 You’re part of the problem.
    0:45:11 And are you worried about kids being born generally?
    0:45:15 And how do you feel about the prospect of this, the next generation in America?
    0:45:19 Well, if you’re in the United States and you have any, any opinions about when the United States
    0:45:26 should be, the most reliable way to make that happen is to ensure the existence of the next
    0:45:28 generation and instill them with your values.
    0:45:30 So I will never tell people to not have children.
    0:45:33 We’re not going to face an energy crisis.
    0:45:35 We’re not going to face a food crisis.
    0:45:40 Our financial crisis is going to be something that is mild compared to the rest of the world.
    0:45:43 Our challenge is to build.
    0:45:47 As problems go, that’s not bad.
    0:45:49 Where do you find inspiration?
    0:45:51 Do you have any go-to sources in terms of media?
    0:45:53 Where do you spend your time trying to get insight?
    0:46:01 As technology has evolved, the entire media sector has basically removed more and more
    0:46:03 eyes and fingers from the process and automated everything.
    0:46:08 So there aren’t a lot of people left in global media or national media to basically do the smell
    0:46:09 check.
    0:46:12 And so we’ve replaced it on a global basis with opinions.
    0:46:16 And that is definitely part of the problem in our political space right now.
    0:46:21 It’s just there’s no incentive on any side to actually put forward something that has been
    0:46:22 checked.
    0:46:28 If someone, I would think a lot of people look at Peter Zion and think, I want to be
    0:46:28 you.
    0:46:31 It seems to me like you have a pretty cool life.
    0:46:33 There are a lot of migraines that go with it.
    0:46:34 I’m not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be.
    0:46:39 Yeah, but at least the perception, I don’t know what the reality is, but the perception is
    0:46:41 you lead a very interesting life.
    0:46:42 You do interesting work.
    0:46:44 You’re doing what you want to do and you make a really good living.
    0:46:46 And I think a lot of young people would like to be Peter.
    0:46:52 I’m curious if you were helping someone develop a business plan to become a thought leader
    0:46:55 or develop a strategy firm, a geopolitical advisory firm.
    0:47:03 In terms of basic strategy focus and specifically which platforms to try and weaponize, you strike me.
    0:47:05 It feels, I feel like you were invented for TikTok.
    0:47:09 You’re just, you have these very provocative insights.
    0:47:11 Just to be clear, I’m not on TikTok.
    0:47:13 You’re not?
    0:47:13 No.
    0:47:16 Well, I stand corrected.
    0:47:16 Where do I see?
    0:47:17 I see you everywhere.
    0:47:18 Where am I seeing you?
    0:47:18 YouTube?
    0:47:20 I’m on YouTube.
    0:47:24 We have a Patreon page, which is our primary distribution for subscribers.
    0:47:27 But yeah, we’re in a lot of places, but never, never TikTok.
    0:47:28 That’ll never happen.
    0:47:30 Well, let’s go there.
    0:47:34 You are worried about your being on TikTok.
    0:47:35 Oh yeah, I would never do it.
    0:47:40 So let’s start with the devil we know, Facebook meta, whatever you want to call it.
    0:47:45 So whenever you post something on Facebook, whenever you have Facebook on your computer,
    0:47:52 even if it’s not open, unless you’ve deleted it and logged out, Facebook is capturing every
    0:47:54 keystroke on your computer.
    0:48:01 And they use that information to bundle you into like groups of roughly 10,000 with similar
    0:48:06 demographic structure, similar economics, similar political leanings, maybe similar kinks.
    0:48:09 There’s dozens of tags.
    0:48:16 They put you into a group of 10,000 and then they actively market you to scammers based
    0:48:19 on what sort of fraud they think you will fall for.
    0:48:22 And there are those, there are two conventions a year, one in Vegas, one in Germany.
    0:48:23 Isn’t that consumerism?
    0:48:25 Didn’t you just describe American capitalism?
    0:48:26 Tobito, to potato.
    0:48:28 But they actively do it.
    0:48:30 But when they do it, they anonymize your data.
    0:48:34 So they, you become user one, two, three, for example.
    0:48:35 All that data is there.
    0:48:38 The people can still target you personally, but they don’t have like your name.
    0:48:41 TikTok doesn’t anonymize.
    0:48:42 It’s your name.
    0:48:43 It’s your social security number.
    0:48:44 It’s your entire credit history.
    0:48:46 And that gets sold on.
    0:48:48 So yeah, I will never, ever be on TikTok.
    0:48:54 But let’s back to, we’re starting Yosemite Geopolitical Advisory Group.
    0:48:56 What has worked really well for you?
    0:48:57 What mistakes have you made?
    0:49:01 If you were advising, if you were investing your own money and wanted to advise a group of
    0:49:05 young men and women to launch a similar firm, what’s worked really well for you?
    0:49:08 Well, everything that we do is custom.
    0:49:13 So we figure out the world from the client’s point of view before we say anything.
    0:49:19 And then we put it against the backdrop of deglobalization and strategic shifts and demographics.
    0:49:22 And we see what is relevant to them.
    0:49:29 It is difficult to imagine anyone else replicating what we do without having 20 years of experience
    0:49:30 in the background, building that baseline.
    0:49:34 We actually spend probably about half of our time looking for things that prove the baseline
    0:49:35 wrong.
    0:49:42 So, because we base everything off of that, does that mean that what I’m doing is not
    0:49:43 replicable?
    0:49:47 Not necessarily, but it does mean moving forward, it’s going to be a lot more difficult.
    0:49:51 Because when you get to the point where globalization really does break and we’re really close to
    0:49:56 that, like an entirely new baseline is going to have to be invented for a world where all
    0:49:57 of a sudden the old rules don’t play.
    0:50:03 And the stability that has been the backbone of all economic development over the last 75
    0:50:08 years is going to turn into something completely different, a lot more random, a lot more disruptive.
    0:50:16 I’m not sure it’s a great time to be getting into my business on a strategic level, but the
    0:50:22 number of tactical applications, if you can take a narrow review, I think are legion in the
    0:50:23 world we’re about to be in.
    0:50:29 And if you were going to start your business over, would you do the exact same thing or would
    0:50:30 you have a different focus?
    0:50:32 I’d learn to weld and I’d learn Spanish.
    0:50:33 Say more?
    0:50:33 Sure.
    0:50:35 I mean, we need to double the industrial plant.
    0:50:37 Spanish is the number two language in the United States.
    0:50:41 Mexico is our number one trading partner, will be at least for the rest of my life.
    0:50:45 The fastest way to get six figures is to speak Spanish and have a trade.
    0:50:50 And as we wrap up here, I just want to do a kind of a lightning round here.
    0:50:56 Name an influence or influences in terms of education or people in your life early on that
    0:50:57 really shaped who you are.
    0:50:59 George Herbert Walker Bush.
    0:51:05 Well, he was the he was the president of the most important inflection point in modern history.
    0:51:07 He was taking us from the Cold War to whatever was next.
    0:51:14 And he tried to get us to have a conversation with ourselves about what should we do with globalization?
    0:51:18 What should we do with this alliance, the greatest alliance in human history and a system that
    0:51:20 generated the fastest economic growth ever?
    0:51:24 How should we reshape it for a post-Cold War era?
    0:51:27 And what sort of world do we want to leave for the next generation?
    0:51:29 So, of course, we voted him out of office.
    0:51:35 It’s funny you don’t hear that many people talk, speak about him, not as glowingly or as in that
    0:51:36 kind of singular fashion.
    0:51:39 And where does Peter Zion invest?
    0:51:40 Like, where do you put your money?
    0:51:42 I’m not a fan of this guy.
    0:51:45 I’m certainly not a CFA, so I can’t really give you any tactical advice.
    0:51:45 It’s an investment.
    0:51:47 It’s not investment advice.
    0:51:50 I’m just curious if to the extent you’re willing to disclose it, where do you put your money?
    0:51:53 Well, I’m in I’m in flux right now, just like the United States is.
    0:51:57 If you go back to October, everything, everything that I had was in U.S.
    0:52:03 mid cap because those are the companies that have the combination of fundraising plus access
    0:52:09 to rule of law, demographic trends, production, everything that goes along with urbanization
    0:52:10 that we need.
    0:52:14 I liked products that were energy intensive because we have the cheapest energy.
    0:52:17 I liked where the demand profile is driven by demographics.
    0:52:18 We had the best in the rich world.
    0:52:20 And if that end product could be exported, I really liked it.
    0:52:29 But in the last three months, the policy has basically punished anyone who wants to invest
    0:52:30 in the United States.
    0:52:35 The Trump administration’s policies are actively discouraging investment.
    0:52:42 We’ve now had, as of today, 133 different tariff policies since January 20th.
    0:52:46 And as long as the goalposts keep moving, no one knows what to do.
    0:52:48 So construction spending has just stopped.
    0:52:54 And until we get to the other side of this, I don’t know where to put my money.
    0:52:58 And just as we wrap up here, best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
    0:53:00 Go long.
    0:53:06 It’s like I was told by my advisor when I was in grad school that, you know, you’re at the
    0:53:09 age where you’re going to screw up and that’s fine.
    0:53:10 Go long.
    0:53:12 Hit hard.
    0:53:14 And if you have to change tack in a year, fine.
    0:53:20 I had a number of people after him who tried to talk me out of that.
    0:53:23 And if I, every time I listened to their advice, I regretted it.
    0:53:27 Peter Zine is a geopolitical strategist and founder of Zine on Geopolitics.
    0:53:32 Before launching his own firm in 2012, he spent over a decade at the geopolitical intelligence
    0:53:34 company Stratfor.
    0:53:36 Peter, I really appreciate you coming on.
    0:53:38 We’ve been trying to get you on for about a year.
    0:53:47 I’m so sort of impressed by you have these data rich, provocative, really kind of courageous
    0:53:51 out there, often wrong predictions, but you inspire a conversation.
    0:53:53 And I think that’s really important.
    0:53:58 I really enjoy your work and just appreciative that you took the time to join us today.
    0:53:59 It’s been my pleasure.
    0:54:14 Algebra of happiness, good friends and hard truths.
    0:54:18 The most successful people, everyone has a certain amount of bad judgment in their life.
    0:54:23 I have a really close friend who’s just got the most remarkable judgment.
    0:54:29 Any room, he asks the right questions, a baller professional, a great friend, helping take care
    0:54:30 of his parents.
    0:54:34 Just the kind of guy you’d call and ask about anything and he’d give you a reason take and
    0:54:39 you think, God, this guy’s just so impressive and has such good judgment, takes all of his
    0:54:41 bad judgment and throws it into his relationships.
    0:54:49 It’s a shit show with respect to his life partners, picking just low character people who are bad
    0:54:49 for him.
    0:54:53 And everybody has a certain amount of bad judgment, everybody.
    0:55:01 And hopefully you have friends that not only serve as conduits for a good time and connections
    0:55:08 and making memories, but are also willing to ask hard questions and present hard truths.
    0:55:15 When I started an e-commerce incubator, I was going to put my consulting firm profit into the
    0:55:17 incubator such that we had it all under one roof.
    0:55:21 And one of the board members of my e-commerce incubator said, Scott, do you really want to do
    0:55:27 that? Because if this doesn’t work out, granted, his motivation, his interests were for me to have
    0:55:27 everything in this thing.
    0:55:30 But he said, if it doesn’t work out, you lose everything.
    0:55:33 Whereas why wouldn’t you maintain that diversification?
    0:55:40 And so I didn’t put profit into Brand Farm, which basically shut down in the dot-com or the dot-bomb
    0:55:40 implosion.
    0:55:42 And I would have lost everything.
    0:55:45 Instead, I had profit, which I sold a few years later and got.
    0:55:49 After I split my proceeds with my partner, my ex-wife, I got three million bucks.
    0:55:55 But three million bucks was a lot of money for me, you know, in the in the aughts such
    0:55:57 that I could start a new life in New York.
    0:56:02 And this was because a friend just saw something that I didn’t see.
    0:56:07 I have on a few occasions said to somebody, you’re in a shitty relationship.
    0:56:08 What are you doing?
    0:56:09 What are you doing?
    0:56:15 I had another friend about to leave an amazing job at AOL where he was making millions of dollars
    0:56:19 a year in his 30s and said, oh, me and my wife have decided we’re going to go to Europe
    0:56:21 for a couple of years and just be vagabonds.
    0:56:22 I’m like, don’t be a fucking idiot.
    0:56:24 Do you think it’s easy to make this kind of money?
    0:56:29 Go to Europe when you’re 40 and you’re worth 20 million, not 3 million.
    0:56:32 You’re going to give you’re at the home of the bobsled right now.
    0:56:35 Believe it or not, that was AOL in the 90s, making a shit ton of money.
    0:56:38 But you’ve decided you’re sort of vogue and cool.
    0:56:39 I’m like, you’re not that granola.
    0:56:41 You like money as much as all of us.
    0:56:46 And I presented that to my friend Greg and he listened and they stayed.
    0:56:51 And by the way, they are really grateful because what they found is all of us found out was when
    0:56:53 this dot bomb hallucination came to an end.
    0:56:55 It’s really hard to make money.
    0:56:59 While we believed in our 30s, we were masters of the universe.
    0:57:02 We found out, wow, making money is really hard.
    0:57:05 And if you’re making money, you know, be careful what you give up.
    0:57:06 Is money everything?
    0:57:08 No, but it’s a lot in a capitalist society.
    0:57:11 Is your friend about to get married to someone?
    0:57:16 I have had friendships kind of come off the tracks because I’ve said to people, I don’t
    0:57:17 think you should get married.
    0:57:20 I don’t think this is a good fit for you.
    0:57:25 And what I have found is over the long term, the friends who do it in a generous, nonjudgmental
    0:57:27 way say, have you really thought this through?
    0:57:32 Your friendship might take a hit in the short run.
    0:57:34 You’re drinking too much, boss.
    0:57:36 You’re drinking too much.
    0:57:38 What the fuck are you on?
    0:57:41 The last two or three times, I have a good friend in New York, last two or three times.
    0:57:43 I don’t know if he’s on ketamine.
    0:57:43 I don’t know what he’s on.
    0:57:46 I’m like, you’re disappearing to the bathroom.
    0:57:46 You come back.
    0:57:47 You’re skittish.
    0:57:49 What the fuck is going on with you?
    0:57:51 And that was a very uncomfortable situation.
    0:57:54 And by the way, that person has not reached out to me since then.
    0:57:56 And here’s what I know is going to happen.
    0:57:59 In a couple of years, this person is going to say, thank you.
    0:58:01 I’ve had people save me from myself.
    0:58:03 Hard truths.
    0:58:09 Hard, uncomfortable moments done in a generous, loving, and nonjudgmental way.
    0:58:12 That is what it means to be a good friend.
    0:58:15 It is very hard to read the label from inside of the bottle.
    0:58:21 And good friends will help you see the obvious and are willing to have those uncomfortable conversations.
    0:58:28 Do you have a friend, a real friend, where you need to express friendship and illuminate a hard truth for them?
    0:58:34 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
    0:58:36 Our intern is Dan Shallon.
    0:58:38 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
    0:58:41 Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
    0:58:45 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.
    0:58:52 And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

    Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist and founder of Zeihan on Geopolitics, joins Scott to discuss why he’s bearish on China, bullish on U.S. demographics, and skeptical of AI.

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  • Private School Tradeoffs, Father-Son Dynamics, and Should You Raise a Kid in Today’s America?

    AI transcript
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    0:01:59 Welcome to Office Hours of Prop G.
    0:02:03 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
    0:02:08 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
    0:02:11 Again, that’s officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
    0:02:19 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature on our next episode, what a thrill.
    0:02:21 First question, I have not seen or read these questions.
    0:02:24 Hi, Professor Galloway.
    0:02:32 My question is, is it worth the money to send our elementary school-aged kids to private school?
    0:02:38 We live in a major city with a noticeably declining quality in the public education system.
    0:02:50 It is starved for resources, and we find ourselves signing up for tutoring and other extracurricular activities to bolster our kids’ learning in math, science, and the arts,
    0:02:55 with a high price tag and a huge time commitment outside of school hours.
    0:03:03 Private school would cost approximately 18% of our after-tax income, which is a significant investment.
    0:03:12 In your opinion, is it worth it, or would it serve our kids better to invest that money on their behalf?
    0:03:13 Looking forward to your answer.
    0:03:20 Anonymous, I love this question, and I also very much appreciate, I would have asked you a series of questions, and you answered one of them.
    0:03:23 And a lot of this comes down to how much money you have.
    0:03:28 Private schools, good private schools, on average, are better than the average public school.
    0:03:29 They have better funding.
    0:03:30 They have more engaged parents.
    0:03:36 Higher-income people tend to be, have more or fewer single-parent households so they can be engaged.
    0:03:37 They have more resources.
    0:03:39 I mean, you know, they’re better.
    0:03:44 I went through public school all the way through graduate school, and it changed my life.
    0:03:48 And I think of myself as being very engaged in the public school system, and yet I send my kids to private school.
    0:03:56 Because when it comes to your own kids, you want to find the best option possible, regardless of your, you know, social value, so to speak.
    0:04:01 So the average yearly tuition for a K-12 private school in America costs roughly $13,000.
    0:04:05 There’s a lot of evidence that private schools provide a worthwhile education.
    0:04:10 On average, private school students score higher on the SAT than students at public schools.
    0:04:18 Additionally, the student-to-teacher ratio at private schools is 12.5 students per teacher, lower than what is 15.5 at public schools.
    0:04:23 By the way, I have 33 kids in my classes at Fairburn, then Emerson, then University of High School.
    0:04:31 Those studies probably have a little bit of bias if you normalize for, like if you send a higher-income kid into a public school.
    0:04:32 I don’t know how they do.
    0:04:36 Anyways, this is my view on it, and this is a deeply personal decision.
    0:04:46 A lot of the data I’ve read is the following, that the best school you can send your kid, especially when they’re young to, is the school that is the closest to your home.
    0:04:48 And that a couple things.
    0:04:51 One, the teacher is more important than the school.
    0:04:59 And that is, if you have a mediocre teacher at a great school, your kid is going to have worse outcomes than if you have a great teacher at a mediocre school.
    0:05:08 So trying to figure out, and sometimes you don’t have any influence over this, who the best teacher in that grade is and advocate to get your kid into that class is the key.
    0:05:10 School that is closest to your home.
    0:05:10 Why?
    0:05:18 Because that additional time, one of the reasons we’re thinking of moving back to Florida or back to the U.S.
    0:05:26 I want to move back because I’m fucking horrified about what’s going on, and I’ve been totally inspired by a couple of CEOs I work with who returned to Israel after October the 7th.
    0:05:27 So I want to go back in the fight.
    0:05:27 Different talk show.
    0:05:29 Different talk show.
    0:05:39 So I’m going back, or I’m going to be moving back to the U.S., and been thinking about, as is today’s world, you know, when my parents moved, it was just like, oh, we’re moving tomorrow.
    0:05:45 And this is the address of the school, and I’d get on my Schwinn bike and go to the school for the first day in the middle of the year.
    0:05:49 Now everything is about, you know, the wonder children, right, our little princes.
    0:05:58 And so where we live in the U.S. is a function of simply where we think would be best for my 14-year-old who’s about to go into the ninth grade.
    0:06:04 And we decided that Florida, where I would, if I could choose anywhere, I would live back in Florida because I love the weather there.
    0:06:05 I love our house there.
    0:06:11 But the school we would send our 14-year-old to would be a 45-minute-plus commute each way.
    0:06:13 So that’s an additional hour and a half.
    0:06:28 And the stuff I’ve read has said that if you take that hour and a half, and there are literally no options where we live, if you took that hour and a half and you invested it in playtime, study time, time with your parents, sleep, that the kid, that makes up for a lot of underfunded schooling, so to speak.
    0:06:34 So one is have a bias towards sending your kid toward the local school.
    0:06:44 My snap judgment, and again, I think you want to talk to a bunch of people, but based on what you told me, if this is going to be 18% of your after-tax income, I probably would not do it.
    0:07:02 And that is I would probably send your kid to the local school or the public school because that’s a real strain on the finances of your family, which leads to strains on your mental well-being, which leads to stress and anxiety that can cause, put pressure on the marriage.
    0:07:04 And then the kid will absorb that anxiety.
    0:07:16 So one of my biggest sources of anxiety, I went to not very good schools, but the biggest source of anxiety in my life was my parents not getting along and then my parents getting divorced and my mom not having enough money and her anxiety.
    0:07:25 So I think that given the financial situation you’re in, sending them to the closest public school is the way to go.
    0:07:48 And just to give you some sense, and I love the idea, if you have the discipline to put that $13,000 a year you’d be spending on private school into a low-cost ETF from Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab, and you invest that every year for 17 years before they go to college, and then you don’t touch it until they’re 35, assume you screwed up.
    0:07:55 Something that will ease the pain of that kid is that when they’re 35, you can cut them a check for approximately $1.25 million.
    0:07:57 So that should ease their pain.
    0:08:08 In sum, if you’re actually disciplined enough to take that money and invest it on behalf of your child in low-cost index funds and then not touch it until they’re 35, I would argue that you’re going to be able to probably close any deficiency gap.
    0:08:10 Best of luck to yours, and I am jealous.
    0:08:14 I wish I had a four- or a five-year-old at home.
    0:08:19 Our second question comes from smallbox6226 on Reddit.
    0:08:19 They say,
    0:08:24 You often speak on the meaning you draw from the relationship with your son.
    0:08:31 I am curious, what role do you think a woman has on shaping and ultimately strengthening that type of father-son relationship?
    0:08:34 That’s a really thoughtful question.
    0:08:39 God, I love that question because I really hadn’t thought about it.
    0:08:58 So I think a lot about the way I strengthen the relationship my sons are going to have with their wives and other women is to be as kind and as generous and, quite frankly, as loving as I can with my partner.
    0:09:05 I want them to physically see how much I like her and I’m rooting for her and how much I respect her.
    0:09:14 I just think that, I think they will, a lot of my shortcomings as a man, especially when I was a younger man with relationships, romantic relationships.
    0:09:23 And I was never mean or I was never hostile towards women, but I saw relationships with friends, with business partners, and my romantic relationships as a transaction.
    0:09:27 And I constantly assess, am I getting more out of this than I’m giving?
    0:09:31 And if I’m not, I want out, I want to break up, or I want a divorce.
    0:09:39 And that is the wrong way to approach relationships with anybody, much less your, quote-unquote, partner, your romantic partner.
    0:09:46 And as I’ve gotten older, I realized that some of that is just basic lack of character on my part.
    0:09:50 I can’t blame that on anyone, and I like to think I’ve mostly tried to address that.
    0:09:55 But I think a lot of it was I was modeling my father, who was not good to my mother.
    0:09:56 I mean, just not good to her.
    0:10:02 I always basically saw my mom as a vessel for making his life better, and that’s it.
    0:10:03 There was no generosity.
    0:10:07 There was no doing more than he needed to do.
    0:10:13 And moments when he could have made my mom and my life much easier, he did not.
    0:10:16 He chose to not because it would have cost him some money or some time or some energy.
    0:10:24 So I’m constantly thinking about how do I improve their future relationships by trying to be better to their mom.
    0:10:31 Even in divorce, I think it’s really important to show a lot of respect and kindness and, even if you can, gentleness to your ex.
    0:10:33 I think your kids pick up on that.
    0:10:34 Anyway, it’s not what you asked.
    0:10:37 I’ll go back to my dad’s third wife, Linda.
    0:10:46 It would be easy to demonize the woman that my dad left my mom for, but she’s a really good woman.
    0:10:49 And she used to force my dad to spend more time with me.
    0:10:53 She used to kind of behind the scenes say my dad would be like, well, I’m going golfing today.
    0:10:55 I see you’re a selfish asshole.
    0:10:57 But she would say, all right, you’re taking him with you.
    0:11:01 And he would put up a fight, and she’d be like, no, you’re taking him with him.
    0:11:05 Keep in mind, I was not her biological son, but she just had certain values around parenting.
    0:11:22 So not that your husband doesn’t maybe have the inclination to do that, maybe does, but I generally find that women have much stronger organizational capabilities, have a better grasp and understanding of the calendar.
    0:11:29 And what my partner does is she will say, I love spending, I love doing vacations alone with each of my boys.
    0:11:33 I find the dynamics entirely different when they’re not together and we’re not with a whole family.
    0:11:41 So I absolutely, something I try and do at least once a year, and I try and do it twice a year, is I take vacations with each of my sons individually.
    0:11:52 So make that a rule if you can, and then help your husband organize those trips and plan ahead and put dates on the calendar because there is a lot of logistics and organization.
    0:12:07 I think it helps just in general to be very loving and affectionate around your kids to your partner and encourage also something that I don’t think sometimes we haven’t been very good at,
    0:12:13 is sometimes we undermine each other’s parenting and we get into arguments in front of our kids around how each of us parenting.
    0:12:15 I think you have to have a united front.
    0:12:21 And I don’t think, I also think it’s okay to occasionally bring in dad for certain aspects of discipline or parenting,
    0:12:27 but really try and show a united front and support for one another in front of the kids.
    0:12:41 Attempt to support, foment, and encourage guy time between the dad and the kid where the father and his sons individually get to spend a lot of time together.
    0:12:45 And I’m sure there’s other better things, but I can’t think of them.
    0:12:53 But just the fact you’re even thinking that way means that you’re raising your sons in really loving, thoughtful households.
    0:12:55 And I’m jealous.
    0:12:56 I’d like to go back.
    0:12:59 I didn’t realize how fast it was going to go.
    0:13:01 Where does the time go?
    0:13:03 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
    0:13:39 Check out VirginAtlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond.
    0:13:42 And see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure.
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    0:15:01 On this show, we talk a lot about financial security.
    0:15:03 It’s the goal that so many people simply don’t find attainable.
    0:15:08 But one of the most important steps in actually pursuing financial security is believing it’s possible
    0:15:11 and asking yourself the question, what if I could?
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    0:15:58 Welcome back.
    0:16:02 Our final question also comes from Reddit user residenttraffic333.
    0:16:05 And residenttraffic333 asks,
    0:16:07 Hi, Professor G.
    0:16:10 Simple question, but not easy to answer.
    0:16:16 Thinking about the second and third order effects of everything Trump is doing to America’s institutions,
    0:16:18 brand, debt, and innovation.
    0:16:21 Would you have a child in America right now?
    0:16:26 Not only do I fear American values are far from what they should be,
    0:16:33 the decade-plus ramifications of what’s happening now have me questioning our place in the world for the next generations.
    0:16:35 Matt in Brooklyn
    0:16:37 Oh, hi, Madam Brooklyn.
    0:16:38 Should you have kids?
    0:16:40 Oh, yeah.
    0:16:43 America has survived much worse than this.
    0:16:49 America was not that long ago rounding up people because they were of Japanese descent and putting them in camps.
    0:16:53 I mean, America went to war with the South.
    0:16:58 There’s been protectionism, nativism, nationalism.
    0:17:04 We’ve absolutely had, you know, as bad or worse moments than this.
    0:17:10 And I don’t think the question is thinking about the future of America or anything like that.
    0:17:12 I think the question is, are you ready to have kids?
    0:17:13 I’m not sure I’ll answer that, right?
    0:17:14 I’m not sure you’re ever, quote-unquote, ready.
    0:17:17 But do you have a certain level of economic security?
    0:17:18 I think that’s important.
    0:17:20 Otherwise, you’re going to be just so stressed out.
    0:17:22 And do you have a competent partner?
    0:17:28 And if you don’t have a competent partner and you’ve decided to have kids anyways, do you have a support network?
    0:17:30 Because it really does take a village and it takes a lot of time.
    0:17:33 But, oh, for God’s sakes, yeah, I have kids.
    0:17:37 One, kids are really important for the future of the species for obvious reasons.
    0:17:45 But also, there’s this myth that population growth is putting too big a tax on our national resources.
    0:17:46 I think that’s bullshit.
    0:17:55 I think there was a kind of population bomb narrative fomented in the 70s that we were going to – the earth was going to collapse on itself because of a strain on natural resources.
    0:18:07 And if you look at climate change, the two big puffs of carbon into the air have been the industrialization of China and the automobilization of America, if you will.
    0:18:09 So those were energy and lifestyle choices.
    0:18:13 And actually, the nations with the biggest population growth have the lowest carbon footprint.
    0:18:22 In addition, world hunger and poverty have been inversely correlated to population growth because, generally speaking, what we need is more brains.
    0:18:23 Now, is there a limit?
    0:18:23 Sure, there is.
    0:18:27 We could fit the entire world’s population into New York State.
    0:18:34 And if you fly over the United States, you see that 98% of the flight, there’s no sign of life anywhere.
    0:18:37 So I’ve just never thought about this population narrative.
    0:18:42 You have 10 babies, eight are good citizens, one is a fuck-up, and one is a genius.
    0:18:46 And the one genius solves more problems than the fuck-up creates.
    0:18:49 So I think population growth is accretive to the world.
    0:18:55 And if you look at economies, basically their GDP growth is dependent upon how many young people they have to support old people.
    0:18:55 Is there a limit?
    0:18:58 Yes, we’re a long way for that.
    0:19:03 In addition, just selfishly, if you’re blessed with some level of economic security, you don’t have to be a baller.
    0:19:17 You just have to be someone who says, okay, if we have a kid, do we have jobs that aren’t too fucking stressful, such that we can have a home and send our kid to a good public school or a private school, take a vacation once a year, absorb medical costs?
    0:19:25 And by the way, that’s a lot of money now, but if you’re blessed and you and your partner have that and you have a competent partner, just selfishly have kids.
    0:19:26 I didn’t want kids.
    0:19:28 I really, I was done.
    0:19:29 I’m like, that’s it.
    0:19:38 You know, my swimmers are going to, you know, have to find other places to swim or I don’t know what the right analogy was, but I did not want to have children.
    0:19:40 And I fell very much in love with someone.
    0:19:43 And she basically said, oh, we’re having kids.
    0:19:44 And I said, well, I’m not having kids.
    0:19:45 And she said, oh, well, then I’m leaving.
    0:19:46 I’m like, well, we’re having kids.
    0:19:50 So anyway, and I didn’t enjoy it the first two or three years.
    0:19:51 Men will pretend to enjoy it.
    0:19:53 Or maybe some men do.
    0:19:54 I did not.
    0:20:00 All I could think about was just keeping these things away from a body of water and how much like making up excuses so I didn’t have to be around them.
    0:20:09 But what I found, there’s a message or there’s a line in that show where Fraser says, you fall in love with your kids.
    0:20:11 And that is, you don’t immediately love them.
    0:20:11 I didn’t.
    0:20:16 When the kid came out, I’m like, what is this alien covered in blood and crap all over it?
    0:20:17 And I didn’t feel any sort of sense.
    0:20:21 I felt actually fear and shame because at the time I was financially strained.
    0:20:27 But I do think there’s something to the fact that, or at least with men, or what I found is that you fall in love with this kid.
    0:20:34 And what I have found is I’m older and I’m starting to sense my own mortality and reflect on my life and what I want to accomplish.
    0:20:37 Literally, for the first time in my life, I have purpose.
    0:20:40 I mean, literally, I’ve never felt a sense of purpose before.
    0:20:46 My sense of the closest thing I had to purpose was how do I get more money so I can have nicer shit, better experiences, and date hotter women.
    0:20:47 That was my purpose.
    0:20:48 And also take care of my mom.
    0:20:50 I wasn’t concerned with being a good person.
    0:20:52 And that was kind of an empty existence.
    0:20:56 Now, as far as empty existences go, it was pretty good living in New York with a little bit of money.
    0:20:59 But where I have moved to now, and it wasn’t a decision.
    0:21:00 It just sort of happened.
    0:21:01 I know my purpose.
    0:21:05 My purpose is to raise loving, patriotic men.
    0:21:09 And it gives me just a sense of pride.
    0:21:10 I enjoy it.
    0:21:11 I think I’m good at it.
    0:21:18 And I know that as I get towards the end, that will have given me a sense of, like, I have checked a really important box.
    0:21:21 And I’ve never gotten anything like that from anywhere else.
    0:21:32 So, again, if you are blessed with some economic security or trajectory, a support system, and or a competent partner, oh, my God, there is nothing.
    0:21:33 What a blessing.
    0:21:38 That’s all for this episode.
    0:21:43 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at proptomedia.com.
    0:21:46 Again, that’s officehours at proptomedia.com.
    0:21:52 Or, if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
    0:22:03 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
    0:22:04 Our intern is Dan Chalon.
    0:22:06 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
    0:22:10 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
    0:22:14 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.
    0:22:21 And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

    Scott breaks down whether private school is worth the cost. He then offers thoughts on how women can shape father-son relationships and wraps up with discussing whether it’s still a good idea to raise children in today’s America.

    Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to officehours@profgmedia.com, or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit.

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