Elon Musk, The Changing World Order & America’s Future - Marc Andreessen
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Marc Andreessen argues that we are currently on a distinct new timeline, marked by significant political shifts in late July and November 6th, which have created an atmosphere of relief for many institutions previously burdened by chaos. He suggests that while overnight transformation is unlikely, there is cautious optimism as leaders across the spectrum seek to return to core missions like business or teaching rather than managing perpetual drama. Andreessen critiques the "Paradox of Tolerance," noting how left-leaning movements have shrunk their coalitions through aggressive identity politics and cancel culture, a strategy he believes fails because groups bound by mutual distaste for an outgroup are unstable compared to those united by shared love. He draws parallels between today's political climate and the 1970s in America under Nixon, suggesting that just as it took Democrats twelve years to return to center with inclusive policies after losing three consecutive elections from 1980 to 1988, a similar realignment is now possible for the current Democratic party. The conversation addresses recent violence and ideological extremism, specifically referencing the killing of Brian Thompson in healthcare. Andreessen expresses concern that some media narratives trivialize such murders or justify them ideologically, drawing historical comparisons to domestic terrorism from the 1970s involving privileged individuals like those in the Weather Underground. He emphasizes two critical economic realities facing Western nations: healthcare spending is consuming an unsustainable portion of GDP and will eventually consume all national production if costs continue rising without technological intervention; simultaneously, rapid demographic aging means fewer workers are available to fund social safety nets for retirees. Consequently, Andreessen advocates for technology-driven solutions like AI in medicine and nuclear energy as essential tools to break these cost curves, criticizing the hypocrisy of those who demand better healthcare while rejecting advanced technologies or climate-friendly innovations like nuclear power. Andreessen also delves into the nature of entrepreneurship under stress, using Mark Zuckerberg's ability to maintain analytical calm during crises as an example of low neuroticism versus the raw emotional engagement typical of highly creative but more neurotic individuals. He notes that while business failure rates are high, most problems can be solved if a team remains intact internally rather than fracturing from within. Regarding government inefficiency in the US, he points out that much of current bureaucracy stems from decades of executive branch agencies issuing regulations without legislative authorization—a practice recently ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He suggests that the new administration could restore constitutional order and efficiency through measures like voluntary buyouts for retiring Baby Boomers or addressing remote work controversies, potentially creating a more competent government structure similar to those seen in the 1930s. Finally, Andreessen contrasts three global models of free speech: China's top-down authoritarianism, Europe's hybrid "bottom-up" censorship combined with strict laws and identity politics, and America's constitutionally guaranteed but socially enforced freedom which he describes as a form of distributed authoritarianism via PC culture. He expresses disappointment in the UK's current state, citing poor service quality, an apparent identity crisis regarding diversity and immigration, and restrictive regulations like the EU AI Act that stifle innovation by effectively banning startups rather than fostering them. Citing Curtis Yarvin's concept of living under "FDR's personal monarchy," he argues that the US federal government has grown into a runaway bureaucracy since 1945 without its founder to guide it, requiring a transformative leader akin to FDR in reverse to reclaim control and solve systemic issues before they become irreversible.
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how much of a new timeline are we on
right now we are on a very very
different new timeline um so uh yeah so
you know I I think the timeline split
twice um it it split once in the second
week of July um and then uh it split
again uh on November 6th and I I don't
know you you tell me I mean can you feel
it it the sense in the air the omons uh
has certainly taken a hard pivot um lots
of people that were happy and now
unhappy and lots of people that were
unhappy and now [ __ ]
ecstatic so I think actually I've
detected something interesting and maybe
it's just my my world or maybe business
but I think it's broader which is I
actually think a fairly large number of
people who didn't vote for Trump are
actually feeling um people who run
organizations who did not vote for Trump
are feeling liberated uh they're feeling
like they can make changes that they
have been wanting to make for a long
time um and they can really dial down a
lot of the things that have really been
causing the problems so the uh the blast
radius of the Good Vibes is wider than
people might have anticipated I think
it's wider than people anticipated and
I've been in some discussions where
people are like yeah like it feel it
really feels like the air is coming out
of the uh it really feels like the
tension is draining out of the system in
an interesting way this time which is of
course the exact opposite of how it felt
in 2016 um and so it's I I don't know
I'm I'm you know I'm cautiously
optimistic that actually a fair you know
look I don't think there's any like
overnight you know transformation and
there's going to be continued you know
drama and strife and so forth but um I
think a lot of Institutions I think a
lot of leaders at a lot of Institutions
including ones that are left leaning I
think they've just simply had it um with
a lot of the chaos of the last 10 years
and a lot of the drama and a lot of the
pressure and conflict and I think
they're just done with it and they want
their you know if it's a company they
wanted to get back to business if it's
University they wanted to get back to
teaching um so I'm I'm you know knock on
wood oh cautiously optimistic this pivot
from uh saying good or appearing good to
hang on but what actually happened it's
stress testing the outcomes and uh
people optimizing for actual
Effectiveness as opposed to like uh
Optical uh slickness I guess or
popularity reputational stuff uh I think
that pivot seems to be uh one that was
quite
overw yeah and you know part of it is
you know there were some ideas that had
to be stress tested right apparently and
I think they were stress tested and
maybe found wanting maybe backfired um
and then you know there's this thing in
U you know there's this thing in
philosophy the um the they called the
Paradox of Tolerance um which is um in
order to maximize tolerance uh we must
we must not the int the
intolerant right right right like you
can only have tolerance if you don't
tolerate the intolerant and and so
therefore if you want to maximize
tolerance which is what we've all been
told that we need to do you need to
ostracize cancel you know nuke and you
know get rid of the intolerant and of
course you know the definition of the
intolerant you know very rapidly goes
from you know small people the small set
of people who are like truly antisocial
to basically everybody who doesn't agree
with every single thing on the you know
thousand item checklist of what makes
good person um right and so so you know
it's it's you put it this way it's hard
to win elections when your electoral
strategy is to shrink your Coalition um
as much as you possibly can by driving
out as many people as possible by
tagging them as racist or sexist or
intolerant and like it just doesn't work
it doesn't win elections it doesn't lead
to a happy company it doesn't lead to a
well functioning University it doesn't
lead to a well functioning organization
of any kind and I think I think a lot of
leaders have have maybe finally figure
that out yeah I think any group that's
bound together of the mutual distaste of
an outgroup not the mutual love of an
ingroup
the only way that you can continue to
bind that together is to scapegoat and
shave off the people on the outsid are
insufficiently pure continue to point
the finger at them and say well at least
we're not dot dot dot that thing over
there uh but yeah I mean it's the reason
I've had a bunch of conversations with
people on the left anak kasparian Chen
Yuga Dave Smith you like
people varied political standings
Anna the fact that you can only move
from left to right you can't go from
right to left like it's a oneway valve
you know it's a it's a oneway street and
guess what happens the street that
allows you to move in One Direction is
going to be more welcoming and uh better
populated yeah and you you I don't you
may know this either either or either
because of age or or or nationality you
might not know this but um uh you know
this this happened before um actually in
my in my lifetime so you know sort of
the late 60s the 1970s were in many ways
you know a lot like what we just went
through in the last decade um you know
and sort of you know Trump was the was
the you know we the version of trump at
that time was Nixon um and uh you know
the version of of things like um you
know the Iraq War was the Vietnam War
and so forth and so you know energy
crisis inflation all these all these you
know host hostages crisis all these
crazy comparisons and um uh and and
basically and what happened actually was
you know Jimmy Carter Lost In 1980 and
then Democrats didn't win another
national election until
1992 uh it took actually 12 years uh for
the Democratic party to get back on
track and and really what had to happen
was the party the party and the movement
behind it to go back to the center and
to your point had to become a party of
incl actual inclusivity of actual
inclusivity of actual tolerance you know
is sort of the democratic party had to
re reconstruct its own big tent uh
precisely for the reason you said which
is you you have to be able to attract
people back like you have to get people
to be able to come back and feel like
they're part of a of a broad-based
coalition and not just part of a a very
a very narrow thing now at that time it
took 12 years right so you know they
they they lost in 8 they lost in 84 they
lost in 88 and then and then Bill
Clinton and then a guy named L FR uh who
Ren the thing called the Democratic
Leadership Council and then Al Gore um
you know kind of put together this
program to kind of bring the Democrats
back to Center and and then that led to
you know a boom uh you know for the
Democratic party with with a much more
you say sensible Centrist you know set
of policies and a much much more you
know kind of say open-minded and and
optimistic attitude by the way Pro
business pro pro pro patriotism you know
kind of pro you know kind of treating
everybody well um and so you know I am
cautiously optimistic that the current
Democratic party will be able to find
its way back in less than 12 years
um and I think I think that would be
good for the country right I mean I
think even if you're a republican you
should want there to be a healthy I
think there should you should want there
to be a healthy vibrant viable Centrist
sensible responsible um you know kind of
even you know kind of um uh stable you
know configuration of of an opposition
party as opposed to you know as opposed
to what we've seen what we've seen
recently and so I'm I'm cautiously you
know there's a Democratic party there's
there's a civil war already you know
kind of playing out the Democratic party
and you know there's there's these
different arguments going back and forth
already and I'm you know but you're
starting to see voices like Richie
Torres and Rana and others who are
standing up saying you know it's kind of
time to go back to the center um and
again I'm cautiously optimistic that
that will happen how big of a civil war
do you think is unfolding at the moment
so it's really big so um it's really
quite something so um a couple things so
one is there was just a political story
that was really good that talked about
the first big kind of summit meeting
that that the Democrats have had which
was the DNC hosted a meeting of the
State uh uh Democratic party uh leaders
and and and it started with a full land
acknowledgement right and then the right
which is step one okay and then you and
then the current chairman of the party
you know gave the stem winding speech
about how the party absolutely you know
needs to double down on identity
politics um right you know sort of you
know step two and then um and then you
know this this horrific you know tragedy
in New York with this CEO getting you
know shot and killed you know there's
now you know loud prominent voices on
the on the left including in the Press
you know saying you know basically you
know yay murder uh which I think is you
know step three is maybe maybe not like
these are not vectoring in the direction
of like let's just say a successful
majority electoral electoral path um but
but again like the the contrast is clear
like that that is that is a conceivable
path there are some people who want to
go on that path I think I mean I think
there are a much larger number of you
know completely sensible people in the
party and interested in in in in the
party and interested in rejoining the
party um who would like to um you know
who would like to see the exact opposite
so but but yeah I mean they're they are
going to you know argue this and
litigate this I think all the way out I
think they you know they really feel
like they have to um they have to argue
this and and you you mentioned the folks
you've talked to like you know there
there are now some you know I think some
you know some voices including some you
know folks that are pretty far left who
are kind of saying all right let's let's
pause for a moment and make sure we're
not going off the cliff you work with a
lot of Founders CEOs tons of your
friends will be in that position too
what do you make of the response to the
Brian Thompson killing and and the
situation more
broadly well the killing it's The
Killing itself was obviously an enormous
shock and I I know people who knew him
and um you had been with him recently so
you know he was a well-known figure in
the healthcare industry so um a very you
know very respected um among in in the
in the you know sort of the business
circles um uh so um yeah I mean enormous
shock and then of course you know at
first you're just like well these things
are either random or you know you know
or or most murders are you know
committed by you know you know some
somebody in somebody's personal life um
you know the way this one seems to be
unfolding you know is and I don't know
anything that's not in the Press but it
seems to have you know ideological
motivation behind it and and so you know
then it's like okay is that just a
one-off or you know is this the
beginning of a pattern um and um you
know I I would say it you know a lot of
people I talk to are very disconcerted
by I would say the enthusiasm that a lot
of people in the Press are showing to
yeah there have been a tremendous there
have been a shockingly large number of
Stories of the line of you know of
course murder is bad
but we shouldn't laugh I shouldn't laugh
right well I mean it is I mean you have
to laugh for your cry right so and then
it's like 3,000 words that come after
the butt right and it's like okay like
you know which is basically a long long
long-winded you know sort of
justification for murder um and so you
know that that is that is disconcerting
there are some comedians now comedians
you know that are have gotten in the
game um and so um you know I say this is
fairly disconcerting I mean you know we
you know we'll see what happens the the
the scary scenario you know I mentioned
the 70s um you know domestic Terror
actually got to be quite a thing in the
70s in the US and there's this great
book called days of Rage that kind of
Chronicles basically like very
widespread pattern of domestic Terror
ideologically motivated domestic Terror
in the 70s um by you know many kind of
um you know sort of radical
revolutionary groups The Weather
Underground and and and you know and
many others um and uh you know what a
lot of those domestic terrorists had in
common was sort of this very you know
various kind of privileged backgrounds
you know a lot of these were like you
know ivy league you know like the
Weather Underground came out at Columbia
University um and then um you know you
know domestic terrorists coming out of
places like UC Berkeley and then you
know sort of very privileged often very
privileged back backgrounds very kind of
upper you know kind of elite upper
middle class people um and then you know
ended up in some cases going on the lamb
for years being hunted by the FBI and
there were you know there were years in
the 1970s when there were thousands of
Terror bombings a year and then there
was a run of you know anti-corporate you
know basically murder and terrorism in
Germany kind of through that period into
the 80s uh with this thing called the
the the beter mhof group and so forth
and so you know there there's always
been this kind of violent Edge to kind
of call it the anti-corporate anti- bus
anti-industrial um you know you know
kind of by the and by the way you know
little bit that you know some of that's
on the left some of that's on the right
you know there's there's different you
know you can squint different ways um
you know Ted kazinski was on the right
this guy maybe appears to be a little
bit more on the left um and so you know
this pattern has unfolded before um you
know I don't know that it's ever been
effective at causing any of the change
that its proponents seem to want um you
know it seems to you know these these
tactics violent tactics usually backfire
in our societies but uh you know certain
certainly U certainly hope that this
hasn't become a copycat situation and I
and I do think it's striking I mean I
think there are a lot of voices in
American public life who behaving quite
irresponsibly right now what what do
they think that they're doing that
sometimes people that Run Healthcare
organizations don't pay out when people
should be paid out therefore it's okay
to kill the person at the
top yeah it's the thing well of course
murder is bad but and then in the three
in the 3,000 words is basically what
what you said so so that the whole
Healthcare situation is is very it's
obviously very complicated and very
emotional the the the there's there's
this can you know become a very long
conversation but the the sort of key
fact that all Western countries are
trying to kind of grapple with and is
this true of the US but also Canada and
the UK and the rest of Europe uh the key
but basically there's two key facts so
key fact number one is um healthc care
is at like a fifth of US GDP in terms of
spending so like a fifth of all national
production per year goes to healthcare
um and that and that that number is
rising um the healthcare is basically
rising and if and if you just chart this
on a on a graph it's just very clear
what's happening is Healthcare left un
is going to go from being a fifth
economy to a fourth to a third to a half
and then you know somay in the future
you know effectively all of it um and
then and then nobody wants to pay for it
right um right and so like nobody wants
pay everybody wants somebody else to pay
for it um and then just saying the
government should pay for it of course
doesn't answer the question because the
government has to be funded by somebody
and so that means taxpayers have to pay
for it and so you you get in all these
questions and of course we we live in a
progressive taxation system in which you
know people who make more money pay you
know pay a higher percentage of taxes
and you know there's big political
fights over that and I I'm kind of
neutral on that I don't really I don't
really care I'm it's not one of my
issues um but you know it's part of this
big fight over who who pays for it so
that's that's issue number one and
that's just gonna you know it's going to
bring out a lot of emotion to people
because of course especially as you get
closer to end of life or you get into
these you know very bad chronic you know
thing you know conditions that require a
lot of money to take care of people it's
this real challenge of how to how to pay
for it and then the other kind of key
kind of fact is all these countries also
are aging very rapidly right the
demographics are headed in the direction
of you know increased average age and
and the you know consequence of that is
um the you know a sharp reduction in the
percentage of working age people versus
you know older people retirees and the
the whole basis for every social welfare
system in the world is that the current
workers pay for the current retirees
right that like that that that is the
basis there is no you know the Social
Security trust fund doesn't exist you
the money that you pay in you don't get
later you know your money you pay in
today gets paid out to old people today
and then when you're old there need to
be young workers in the system to be
able to generate the money to pay you
and that's it's true for Social Security
it's true for Medicare it's true for
Medicaid it's true for all of these kind
of so it's true of any socialized Health
System it'd be true of government funded
Health System it' be the same thing just
you know for for taxpayers um taxpayers
are people who work um and so if the if
the demographics go upside down and you
have a country you know and you you can
see the future in places like Japan
where you just have like way more old
people than you have young people um and
then you just have this like fundamental
mismatch and then you you literally
quite simply can't pay for it um and so
like these two things kind of put this
whole issue in advice now what what we
try to do like in our line of work which
is you know tech and and and biotech and
BC what we try to do is figure out ways
to kind of get out of that Vice
primarily through new technologies that
at least you know in some cases will
provide new kinds of healthcare new
kinds of drugs and new kinds of medical
devices but also things that are able to
break that price curve and able to make
Healthcare much cheaper right that that
you know that's the other way to solve
it is you just you make all this stuff
much cheaper and that's where you know
we get excited about things like for
example Ai and Healthcare right and you
know maybe the prospect that instead of
you know people having you know only
having human doctors maybe a lot of you
know routine medical interactions are
with AI doctors and then you know you
only consult with a human doctor when
something gets you know really sensitive
um and you know I think there's a
reasonable chance in the next few years
that we can figure out how to do that so
so hopefully we can solve this with
technology it is weird I will say and
it's coming out in this kind of current
you know kind of debate and controversy
it is weird that the same people who are
the maddest about Healthcare cost rising
and not being able to pay for it are
also the ones who hate technology the
most
right like
yeah and nuclear and people who care
most about climate the people who care
most about climate and carbon emissions
hate nuclear energy the most right and
it's like all right we are genuinely
trying to help solve these those of us
in Tech are genuinely trying to help
solve these problem what what do you
think that is is it just some sort of
generalized skepticism generalized
scrutiny over rich people that they
don't have the best interests at heart
of of the common
folk yeah well there's there's there you
know there's this say part of it is just
like simply right moral intuitions right
and so you have these kind of moral
intuitions that and moral intuitions
presumably evolve to be the way they are
according to kind of historical
conditions of how people lived but you
know historically people lived in these
very small you know kind of communities
you know one way of describ this this
great book called the ancient city that
goes back and reconstructs basically
like pre basically prehistoric
civilization like what it was like and
and uh basically the the the conclusion
of it is you know sort of pre you know
go back 4,000 5,000 6,000 years and and
further back you know basically we all
lived in these very small tribes you
know Max maxed out at a few hundred
people and then you could kind of
describe the politics of the tribe being
sort of a hybrid of like absolute
fascism combined with absolute communism
right like like at the same time right
so it was it was like absolute fascism
in that the father of the family or the
leader of the tribe had the total power
of life or death over all the members of
the tribe and could kill them at any
moment um for whatever reason he wanted
to and then it was also pure communism
in that there was no market economy
everybody shared everything um and if
you if you went out and killed an animal
and brought it back and didn't share the
food they would kill it you know you had
to share the food like everything had to
be shared because it was how you were
both of those forms of governance were
basically how the tribe would survive it
needed total discipline and total
sharing right at the same time and so we
we evolve these moral intuitions that
basically says you know maybe we don't
want the the fascism part but we kind of
want everything to be shared we want
everything to be equal having inequality
is sort of intrinsically morally
offensive to us and so we naturally
drive towards you know and who who can
possibly argue against you know wouldn't
it be desirable if everybody you know if
everybody had the same you know how it's
it's default unfair for some people to
have more than others and then of course
profit you know particularly drives
people crazy right because profit feel
you know profit in the capitalist system
if if you have this moral intuition it
feels like it's unfair because it feels
like it's money that's been extracted
that's not you know that's not doing
anything there was I won't name names
but there was a congressman this morning
who tweeted two back-to-back tweets um
and he tweeted he said it's just
completely absurd and outrageous that
the uh you know the American uh health
insurance industry gener raise $1.4
trillion in profits per year uh and he
said you know that's just like so
clearly unfair because that's you know
presumptively that's $1.4 trillion being
extracted providing you know no value at
all and then like four hours later there
was a second tweet which he said he said
you know actually um I I learned that
actually it's um $ 1.4 trillion in
Revenue um not profit um and total
profits are you know a very small
fraction of what I thought it was right
you
know but still right
equally absurd and unfair right going
back to sort of where we're at at the
moment um I know that you've been
heavily involved in a lot of meetings
over the last month or so how much
having been on every side of the fence
and above it and and inside of it how
much governmental efficiency is there to
improve on in your opinion oh en like
absolutely enormous and and this and
it's actually interesting and that this
this actually historically this is
actually a bipartisan question um um and
and I actually think that that the V and
Elon are looking at it in a very
bipartisan way and you may have already
seen there already some Democrats
signing up for the the the Doge
Congressional caucus and you know coming
out to the even Bernie Sanders to his
credit came out and said he certainly
agrees with Elon ofc specifically on the
topic of military spending um which is
of course one of the big areas and so
that's a you know that's and I you know
that that's significant um so it
historically partisan topic when I when
I was younger you know I mentioned the
sort of Clinton Gore comeback in '92
this was actually a big theme of the
Clinton Gore campaign in '92 and
actually El Gore uh who who I know you
know I've known over the years um El
Gore actually had a whole program like
the Doge actually at the time called
rioo REO called Reinventing government
um and he he said he said many of the
same things that that actually El beer
are saying today um and he he had this
famous he made it famous at the time you
find it on YouTube there's this famous
thing he did to kind of visualize this
which is he went on the David Letterman
show at the time and he he took out um
he took it was like the Department of
Defense was like buying like $600
shatterproof as
astray um and uh he he took them onto
the Letterman show with a with a with a
with a chisel um and and safety glasses
uh and you know gave it a big whack and
of course it fractures just like any
other you know ASR um so so like anyway
so there was a whole program around that
you know they made a little bit of
progress um you so so anyway I think you
know I think everybody effectively
agrees that there's you know who doesn't
want who doesn't want tax money to be
spent efficiently who doesn't want to
get results um you know who doesn't want
to eliminate waste and fraud like you
know these are kind of you know these
These are you know those are hard things
to against um in terms of methods you
know the the the big change here is that
we've never you know in the past these
have been government officials trying to
figure this out or you know commissions
or whatever some may say the blind
leading the blind some may some may say
part participants in the system
attempting to reform the system from
within let's say um and you know and
this of course what's starkly different
here is to have you know people of of
the caliber of Elana BC you know who are
you know tremendously accomplished
entrepreneurs uh and and uh and Founders
and people who run businesses and people
who understand how to do things that
like you know and Elon you know vivx
obviously very smart on all this but
Elon is legendary uh for being being
able to think as he says think from
first principles on things like costs
and if you read the books about him
there you know he's always focused on
that and so he's he's going to bring a
toolkit that has been you know very
successfully deployed at some of the
world's leading you know literally some
of the world's leading companies like
Tesla and SpaceX and he's goingon to
bring that to the government for the
first time how is Elon so productive
have you ever deconstructed
this so I actually I've known Elon for a
long time I didn't work with him um uh
uh for a very long time just we working
on you know different different
different things um but I've been
working with them quite closely for the
last couple years um starting with the X
acquisition um and then um and then
we've also invested in xai and in and in
SpaceX and so we now work on on three
companies together to different degrees
and now the the government the
government stuff um yeah I mean he there
there's basically he has an operating
method that he's developed um that I
would say is very unusual by modern
standards um I'm actually I'm not aware
of another current CEO operates the way
that he does and I think probably the
single biggest kind of question in all
of business right now is why don't we
CEOs operate the way that he does and
it's a complicated question we could
talk about um but um if you go back in
history you find characters um more like
him and so um especially like the
industrialists of the late 1800s early
1900s um you know people like Henry Ford
or Andrew Carnegie uh or Thomas Watson
who built IBM if you go back and read
the biographies of of people like that
Andrew melon you know those guy
Cornelius Vanderbilt like those guys ran
very similar to the way that that that
Elon Elon runs things and it's just this
like the top top line thing is just this
incredible devotion uh from the leader
of the company to fully deeply
understand what the company does and to
be you know completely knowledgeable
about every aspect of it and to be in
the trenches and talking directly to the
people who do the work uh deeply
understanding the issues and you know
being the key the lead Problem Solver in
the organization and basically what Elon
does is he shows up every week at each
of his companies um he had identifies
the biggest problem that the company's
having that week and he fixes it right
and then he and then he does that every
week for 52 weeks in a row and then each
of his companies has solved the 52
biggest problems that year like in that
year and you know most other large
companies are still having the planning
meeting for the pre-planning meeting for
the board meeting for the presentation
for the this for the you know with the
compliance review and the legal review
and like so so he's just like it's it's
this it's this level of both like
incredible intellectual capability
coupled with Incredible force of
Personality moral Authority execution
cap ility focus on fundamentals um that
um is just like really amazing to watch
and then by the way the the side effect
of it um is he attracts you know many of
the best people in the world to work
with him um because if you work with
Elon like the expectations are through
the roof in terms of your level of
performance and he is going to know who
you are and he is going to know what
you've done and he's going to know what
you've done this week um and he's going
to know if you're under performing and
he may fire you in the meeting um if uh
you're not if you're not if you're not
carrying your weight but if you're if
you are as committed to the company as
he is and working hard and capable many
people who have worked for for him say
that they had the best experience of
their lives when they were working for
him and so then there's this this
attraction thing and and and that's why
I think his companies compound the way
they do is because they just because of
this they just keep bringing oh they're
a black hole that sucks in the best
talent if you're the best in the world
you want to work harder than anybody
else come here that's right and people
look at this from the outside and
they're like how can people tolerate you
know all the criticisms I tolerate this
guy and da and inside the company people
are like finally I get to work yeah
somebody gets it somebody uh uh somebody
there's a famous Li somebody used to
work in one of the other defense space
aerospace companies and went to work at
SpaceX and said he was asked what it was
like and he said it's like being dropped
into a shocking zone of
competence right it's just like it's
just like exactly your point like
everybody around me is like so
absolutely comp competent and and and Mo
and look most of most people most of us
never have that experience Mo you know
most people are never in an organization
where like the the bar is held that high
and as a consequence as a consequence
the competence level is so high and
stays so high and even Rises over time
um and he and he's and and again to his
master credit he has been able to do
that repeatedly so detail oriented
focusing on everything from a toz in
terms of the business sort of intimately
familiar with it and prepared to get his
hands dirty from a I will get in there
and actually look at solving the problem
myself so is that you know that suggests
to me although this can't be the case
because you couldn't run this many
companies if you were doing it this way
um there may be some challenges in
learning when to delegate uh when to
hand off tasks because in order to get
that level of uh resolution to be able
to see things with that that much
finitude uh you also need to spend a lot
of time on it and then if you're solving
the problems how do you choose the
problems that are yours to solve and the
problems that aren't so on and so forth
so that must be that must be a challenge
uh delineating between what is my
problem to solve and what is somebody
else's yeah so I would say most leaders
like most CEOs we work with have exactly
that problem for exactly the reasons you
described I think the Elon method is a
little bit different and I don't know if
you'd agree with this but the way I I
think about it is he actually delegates
almost everything um like he's not
involved in most of the things that his
companies are doing he's involved in the
thing that is the biggest problem right
now until that thing is fixed and then
he doesn't have to be involved anymore
and then he can go focus on the next
thing that's the biggest problem for
that company right now so like like for
example manufacturing there's this
concept of the bottleneck right and so
in any manufacturer chain there there's
always some bottleneck there's always
something that is keeping the
manufacturing line from running the way
that it's supposed to and sometimes the
bottleneck is up is at the beginning of
the process it's like we can't get
enough raw material sometimes the
bottleneck is at the end of the process
we don't have enough warehouses for the
finished product or the bottleneck might
be somewhere in the middle and if you
run a Manufacturing Company there's
always a bottleneck whatever the
bottleneck is is holding everything up
um and and and you you the job number
one is to remove that bottleneck and get
everything flowing again and I I think
he basically has universalized that
concept and he basically looks at every
company like it's you know some sort of
conceptual assembly line sometimes a
literal assembly line you know making
cars and Rockets and and basically any
given week There's a bottleneck there's
guaranteed there's guaranteed to be the
main bottleneck there's going to be one
thing that's going to be the thing
that's holding people back and and so
the answer to your question the
resolution the Paradox is I'm going to
micromanage the solution of that I don't
need to manage everything else because
everything else by definition is running
better than that right and so I can go
focus on that the other part of it is so
compelling and this is where I think a
lot of especially non-technical CEOs
would really struggle to implement the
method is he really when he identifies
the bottleneck he goes and he talks to
the line Engineers who understand the
technical nature of the bottleneck um
and if it's people on a manufacturing
line he's talking to people directly on
the line or if that's people in a
software development group he's talking
to the people actually writing the code
right so so he's not asking the VP of
engineering to ask the director of
engineering to ask the manager to ask
the individual contributor to write a
report for you know that's to be
reviewed in three weeks he doesn't do
that he would like throw them all out of
the window there's just no way he would
do that what he does is he goes and he
goes and personally finds the engineer
who actually has the knowledge about the
thing and then he sits in the room with
that engineer and fixes the problem with
them right and again this is why he
inspires such incredible loyalty from
the from the especially the technical
people who he works with which is
they're just like wow if I if I if I'm
up against a problem that I don't know
how to solve freaking Elon must I can
call on the guy that owns freaking Elon
Musk is going to show up in his Gulf
Stream and he's going to sit with me in
the overnight in front of the keyboard
or in front of the manufacturing line
and he's going to help me figure this
out wow right and so it's like how do
you possibly like how can yeah and this
is the thing it's like okay you're like
a normal CEO running a normal company
like how can you possibly compete with
that um what are the other reasons that
uh CEOs of similar companies or
comparable companies don't do that
technical uh understanding I get that
that you need to be able to get your
hands dirty from a a specificity
perspective but what else yeah so like
so that's a lot that that is a lot of it
and that's that's a topic that makes
people really mad CU um non-technical
people really hate being told that they
are not qualified to do something
because they're not technical but every
now and then the technical details
actually do matter so there's there's a
whole domain there and you know most
managers you know it's like most people
in government are lawyers you know most
people in in in in business and in
senior levels are mbas like and so there
there's a there's a there's a you know
most large companies are not run by
Engineers right they're run by business
train business people and so there's a
or increasingly lawyer increasingly also
lawyers um uh and so um you know there
is a real challenge there I I just think
more generally uh more generally it's
just the way that management is taught
um and you know most classically in the
form of something like a Harvard
Business School or Stanford Business
School it's basically taught it's
basically management as it was sort of
developed and implemented I would say in
like the 1950s 6070s it was sort of the
so-called scientific School of
Management and so it's basically
management as a generic skill that you
can apply to any industry um and you
know you could manage a Soup company or
you could manage a you know I don't know
whatever whatever whatever kind of
company and they're kind of all the same
and it kind of doesn't matter what they
do and there's a common set of
management practices and and it has you
know is a lot to do it's you know
process um it's you know how do you
structure you know the how do you the
manage the balance sheet how do you set
the review schedule for the meetings how
do you do compliance how do you you know
hire you know how do you manage a uh you
know how do you hire and motivate
Executives um you know how do you
resolve interpersonal conflicts like all
these like General business skills and
by the way those General business skills
are you know very useful in lot in lots
of contexts
um it's just that that that training
doesn't give you any of the inform that
training gives you none of what you need
to go do what Elon does um and then and
then Elon push I would say he pushes it
as far as he can and not doing all the
stuff that you're classically trained to
do so that he can spend all of his time
doing the things that only he can do
which it turns out has this like just
like incredible you know cat catalytic
multiplicative effect where his
companies are you know so just
incredibly amazing he Elon just said
this thing at the most recent Tesla
event um that blew my mind you know
because his companies are famous they
don't don't actually have like marketing
departments like like Tesla doesn't
spend any money on sales and marketing
like they don't they don't sell the cars
like every other car company in the
world is like running all these ad
campaigns all the time TV commercials
and the you know newspaper flyers and
the quarterly you know sales events and
like all this crazy stuff and promotions
all these things like Tesla doesn't do
any of that it's just like it's the it's
you know it's the best car and you just
like show up and buy it or not it's up
to you you're a [ __ ] if you don't right
like it's a very my my dad went to go
and test drive a Model S maybe a couple
of years ago and he's s of an old school
car guy and he's used to the the sort of
banter back and forth the for courts the
discussion they say please sit down
would you like a coffee would you like
you know what is that and he said that
he walked in and it felt like he gotone
into an Apple store and there was some
as he called it teenager in a hoodie uh
that came out and my dad started to do
the whole like classic Boomer parent
negotiation thing and this guy was like
the price is the price and I don't have
any [ __ ] coffee for you
so he he left he left feeling uh like
this is the new world and now he has a a
Range Rover so uh yeah well that's the
thing it's like do you want the best car
in the world or not right like that's
elon's mentality right and and and it's
working very well and then he at this
event he just he took it to the next
level and this broke my brain and I'm
still thinking about it he said if you
think about it he said the best product
in the world shouldn't even need a
logo like you shouldn't even have to
have your name on the
product people can just identify it from
how good it is it's just obvious
it's just OB he did right it's just
obvious everybody knows because it's the
best product in the world everybody has
it everybody uses it and like of course
you don't need to put the name on it
everybody knows right and so for a
minute I was like all right is this like
a Zen you know thing that
I and then I was like no he's actually
as usual with Elon it's like no he's
actually serious um the best products in
the world would not need your name on it
yeah um and and so yeah anyway so it's
just this like completely different um
it's just this completely different
method and then and then on top of that
to have the guy who's on top of his game
you know uh to you know to as you said
to kind of be working on the government
Challenge and then to be you know to
have have the new pres you know for
whatever people think of the new
president pros and cons like to have him
fully you know fully signed up embracing
you know Elon and encouraging him to do
this is a really I mean this this has
not you have to go back like literally
the last time something like this
happened in in the United States
government was was literally like
1933 this is this the closest analogy to
what what at least has started to happen
is is is is literally what happened
under FDR which is just like a
fundamental reinvention of how
government works and like this massive
influx of talent um from actually from
the private sector that is able to just
like do things that are unimagined and
so it's you know it's it's a Once in an
80 years thing I'm you know I'm doing
everything I can to help and I hope it
goes you know pouring some kerosene onto
the fire as you are the uh I saw a clip
of Elon speaking I don't know whether it
was recent clip but the clip only came
up uh the other day he's talking about
his thoughts on being a CEO a lot of
times people think that creating a
company is going to be fun I would say
it's really not that fun I mean there
are periods are fun and there are
periods where it's just awful and
particularly if you're the CEO of the
company you actually have a distillation
of all the worst problems in a company
there's no point in spending your time
on things that are going right so you
only spend your time on things that are
going wrong and there are things that
are going wrong that other people can't
take care of so you have like the worst
you have a filter for the crappiest
problems in the company the most
pernicious and painful problems so I
wouldn't say it's fun you have to feel
quite compelled to do it and have a
fairly High pain threshold and there's a
friend of mine who says starting
companies is like staring into the abyss
and eating glass and there's some truth
to that the staring into the abyss part
is that you're constantly facing
extermination for the company because
most startups fail 90% 99% fail that's
the staring part you're constantly
staring okay and saying if I don't get
this right the company will die quite
stressful then the eating glass part is
you've got to work on the problems that
the company needs you to work on not the
problems you want to work on so you end
up working on that you really wish you
weren't working on it that's the eating
glass part it goes on for a long time
what's your assessment of his uh
postmortem on being a CEO so the
original form I number one I agree with
all of that and I felt that myself um
and that's one of the reasons I'm happy
to be an investor right now and not not
a uh not a not a CEO of a company um but
the original form of the quote the
eating glass quote was actually Sean
Parker um and the original form of the
quote was uh starting a company is like
is like eating glass um eventually you
start to like the taste of your own
blood oh my God
oh my God and I love using that quote in
front of an audience because it always
gets the exact reaction you just gave me
it always gets that moment of stun
silence followed by that look in the
face and everybody's like oh my God
that's horrifying and I'm like yes now
you understand go forth run your company
now you understand what it's going to
feel like yeah yeah no look and I the
serious thing I would say is you know
there there there have you know it's a
little bit less now but there have been
times when the idea of being an
entrepreneur and you know Tech
entrepreneur has been like a
romanticized concept and you know there
used to be TV shows talking about how
much fun it was um uh and um and you
know I I I you know I have people ask
questions like well how do we how do we
encourage more people to be
entrepreneurs and my answer was always
was like no we shouldn't do that like
people shouldn't be encouraged to do
something that painful um they should do
it because they really want to do it in
fact they should do it because they
can't not do it right so it's it's I'm
not I'm not an endurance athlete but it
would be a little bit like encouraging
somebody to do a triathlon or an
ultramarathon right like yeah why don't
you go out there and run 20 miles in the
heat right like no like that's bad no
most people should not do that but the
people driven to do that should do that
and by the way the people driven to do
that will do that right uh for you know
for their for for their own reasons and
so it it really is like that and yeah
then look it's it's tremendously painful
um you know most most of the experience
of being in business uh in a competitive
you know setting and a startup is sort
of the peak version of that is most of
it consists of basically being told no
you know by by everybody you know you
need all these things right you need
employees and you need you know
financing and you need customers and you
know you go around all day long asking
people for those things and they tell
you no or you know half the time they
don't even respond you know they they
just go dark on you um and ghost you um
and then you know just when you think
you get it working a new competitor
emerges and just starts like you know
punching you square in the face and you
know the minute you think your products
working there's a problem in it you have
to do a recall and and every you know
just yeah it's just this constant it's
just kind of this this constant rolling
you know Horror Story another you're
another Agony ant uh to the people who
are eating glass and and learning to try
and enjoy the tast of their own blood do
you do you feel more like a therapist
than an investor sometimes so it really
depends you one of the things um I think
there are certain Prof I think there are
certain fields in which you really get
to see somebody's core personality um
and you get to see their kind of core
attributes and their core virtues and
their core vices and their core
weaknesses um and you know it's it's
it's really only people under you know
situations of extreme stress where you
really see that and so um so part of it
is like we see that we see we see people
when they're at their most dress and
when they're when at their worst and you
know then there are you know I would say
many cases where we're you know one of
their only remaining allies you know
kind of at that point so that that's not
uncommon thing um and you know there
there is you know sort of a there's a
coaching component to it and a
therapeutic and a just a general you
know kind of being a friend you know
being an ally component to it um but I
also say the other thing you see is just
like you know there are very specific
personality types um and you know there
are certain people um where I'll just
give you an example Mark Zuckerberg um
you know a great superpower that Mark
Zuckerberg has that probably is not well
understood enough which is he does not
get emotionally upset um in stressful
situations um he is able to maintain an
analytical frame of mind um even when
other people would be you know literally
bursting into tears and hiding under the
table and I've seen that many many times
um it's just like i' you know the
company's been through a tremendous
amount of both good and bad you know
things over the last you know I've been
I've been involved almost for 20 years
and you know we've been through almost
everything good and bad and and I've
literally not want seeing him raise his
voice um you know's he's always been you
know he's he's very sympathetic and he's
very you know when somebody has a
personal crisis you know it's it's not
that he's not emotional like he he
engages emotionally with people and he's
very supportive of people when they have
issues and he you know he feels things
very deeply like like everybody does but
you know he just he has a level of
emotional self-control you know
psychologists would say you know zero%
neuroticism um he just doesn't respond
emotionally and as a consequence he can
keep his head right when when everybody
around around him is is losing theirs
and so you got that having said that we
also work with a lot of people who are
let's say higher in neuroticism um and
in particular often the more cre you
know people who are super creative are
are often high in neuroticism and so
sometimes you get the you know we get
the the artist type where they're like
incredibly creative and they're a
fountain of new ideas and they just are
have a much more let's say direct
engagement with their emotions um and
they feel things you know I would say
more directly or kind of in a more raw
way and so you know when things go bad
it really come it really comes down to
them emotionally I was frankly myself
probably more more on that on on on that
side of things um and so yeah there
there's you know a therapeutic aspect of
that um the good news I would say is
generally in business Al so a couple
things so one is um it's not in our
world it's not a 90% failure rate it's
about 50% um and and 50 50% is still
high but you know you have a reasonably
good shot and then I think most problems
in business are fixable um as long as
you can keep the team together um I
think usually when companies crack and
go down it's usually not sometimes it's
catalyzed by something that happened
from the outside but generally the thing
that actually happens before a company
goes down is the internal the team cred
cracks the the the team itself cracks
internally um and the founders turn on
each other the management team dissolves
um and so a big part of it is just with
these things is just like can can can
you keep the team together if you can
keep the team together and you know
we're happy to be a part of you know
we're thr you know our job is to be part
of that team um then you know most of
these companies can battle through most
things um and so so i' say I've seen
like I've seen you know just as many
like incredible last minute saves and
rescues and turnarounds as I have you
know screaming disasters um so you know
there there is reason for optimism going
into even the dark times going back to
the governmental efficiency thing how
much do you think the uh huge swats the
platoon of useless middle management
inside of the government are [ __ ]
themselves at the moment yeah so it's
you know it's actually an interesting
question um I actually it's it's it's
hard to say from the outside the other
thing is you have this I would say very
interesting thing you don't have a you
know there's no homogeneous you know the
government employs whatever it is you
know millions of people multiple
millions of people um it's not you know
it's far from a homogeneous group um and
I just give you some examples um uh
there's a pretty large contingent um uh
which is sort of the baby boom um uh
component of it you know because the
government went on a massive hiring boom
in the 50s 60s 70s 80s um there's a
pretty big contingent that's close to
retirement um and you know was probably
going to retire anyway in the near
future um and so you know there's some
Prospect maybe there for you know kind
of let's say mutually agreeable
accelerated retirement you know is is is
is is one is is one possible solu
mutually agreeable accelerated retir the
most diplomatic way to say get [ __ ] out
no no this happens to So In fairness
this happens at companies and I'm not
saying the do is going to do this I'm
not I'm not in charge of this but I'll
just give you the scenario that happens
in companies it's something called
buyouts has contrasted to layoffs um and
it sounds like it's a clever way to do
the same thing but it's actually
different which is you basically you
offer retirement packages right and you
let people voluntarily sign up for the
retirement pack and they don't have to
sign up for it it's a it's a voluntary
thing but if they choose to they can get
accelerated retirement or an unusual
level of of of of retirement
compensation like a way to think about
this is like the the budget crisis that
we that a business has when it gets in
trouble or that the government has where
we're 36 trillion in debt the budget
crisis is not like the money that we
might have to pay to have people retire
this year like you can afford almost
anything to do that it's the savings
that you can have compounded over the
next 20 years if you get your fiscal
house in order right and so you can
sometimes do things in the near term
that cost more money in order to get the
long-term savings and that often makes
sense and so there's so you know and
again I'm not speaking for the so this
you know this is one option another
option that they've already talked about
in public is the remote work thing you
know most most federal workers are not
most federal workers are not actually at
work um you know most most federal
workplaces are empty today um you know
there are agencies where there are
formal collective bargaining agreements
where the employees are down to a day a
month in the office um right um and and
you know there's a huge controversy
around remote work um you know is how
effective it is and there are companies
that make it work but you know if
hypothetically you have a government
agency with 10,000 people and nobody's
literally com to work you might as a
taxpayer have some questions about
exactly what's going on and then you
have this situation where if you say as
they've said if say people have they
people have to come back to work like
part of the thing of working for the
government working for taxpayers say
people have to come to work well there
are people who have literally left you
know there are people who have moved to
lower cost locations who are not going
to come back to work and so that's
that's another opportunity and so
there's there's like there's there's a
lot of this and then I would I would say
the the third thing that they've talked
about which is I think probably the part
of it that is not well appreciated um is
that the government that we live under
today um you know we we you know
remember that if you had I don't know if
you were you probably didn't see this
because you weren't maybe here at the
time but there's this cartoon that every
American kid of a certain age uh saw in
elementary school social studies which
was how a bill becomes a law uh oh this
it's this very bouncy it's this very
bouncy like 1970s cartoon about the bill
and you know the Cong you know the White
House proposes the bill then the
Congress agrees and then the Senate then
they reconcile and you know dance the
bills it's a little cartoon you know
Bill wrapped in a little ribbon and it
bounces up the thing and the president
signs it and everybody's happy right and
so it's like you know legisl
legislative process um most of what the
government do and most of the rules that
we all live under are not that right
most of the most of it's not legislation
most of it what is what's called
regulation right which is very different
uh and most of the rules that the
government sort of exists in order to
process and enforce are regulatory not
not not legislative um the government we
live under today is the result of
basically 60 to 80 years of agencies
effectively putting out regulations
entirely on their own
so executive branch agencies just
basically deciding that there are going
to be hundreds of thousands of rules
that we need to live under and then
deciding that they need to staff
themselves to be able to process and
handle and enforce all those rules um
the Supreme Court recently ruled in a
series of judgments a couple years ago
ruled that regulations that were not
authorized by legislation are not
constitutional right and by the way if
you just read the US Constitution which
is quite short to the point it makes it
very clear that the legislature the
Congress exists to pass laws executive
branch exists to enforce those laws the
executive branch does not get to issue
its own laws right um and so we we've
lived in a system where the executive
branch has been issuing its own laws for
a very long time Supreme Court now says
that all of those regulations are are
now not constitutional and so basically
any activity in the government that
relates to the the the the Staffing and
enforcement and all of the processes and
all the work around those regulations is
no longer constitutional and so there's
a lot of government activity that
actually is no longer consti
and you know the previous administration
was completely uninterested in doing
anything bring bringing the executive
branch into alignment with what the
Supreme Court had ruled but again if you
read the Constitution the Supreme Court
gets to make these decisions they've
decided this is not constitutional this
new Administration has an opportunity to
bring the government more in compliance
with the Supreme Court which means the
government will get smaller yeah what
happens if Trump can't deliver change
he's got all of the things house senate
popular vote Elon unlimited funds blah
blah blah he doesn't even need to worry
about being re elected what's the
implication for America in the west if
he can't make sizable
change yeah I don't know I mean look I
start by saying I'm optimistic like I
think he's determined I think that
elon's determined I think Bea is
determined I think the do that that you
know the team are on the Doge by the way
a lot of the Key Staffing uh positions
you know there's a lot of controversy in
the press as usual about the cabinet POS
you officials and I think you know many
of those are also very good but a lot of
the a lot of the operational managers
that are being brought in at like the
deputy secretary level and the
department heads are very very strong
people um and so I you know I think this
is going to be one of one of the
strongest if not strongest you know
execution competence capability
administrations that we've had in a long
long time again maybe arguably since the
I I think a reasonable case that this
will be the best best the best staffed
Administration since the 1930s um and so
you know I'm I'm reasonably optimistic
and then look the the president has this
you know is in this sort of very
interesting position where he doesn't
ever have to run again right because he
can't right um and so the like a lot of
what happens in the second term if
presidents choose to take advantage of
it is they can do things that you know
that basically might even put their
re-election at Peril they can do more
forceful things because they they you
know they can do the things that they
actually think are important as compared
to the things that they think they might
need to do to get reelected and that's
something you can only do when you're
going to get when you're going to get
termed out and so um and then of course
there's just yeah there's sort of you
know all the things kind of behind
Trump's level of determination this time
which I think are is very high um so I
you know I'm I'm quite optimistic I
don't know I mean you know you could
paint various cynical pictures of of of
the whole thing being gummed up um I I
my guess is if it if it disappoints it's
going to dis a point in the sense of
some of these things are going to get
done but not all of them um and and and
and and frankly like I think it' be
great it'd be great to solve all of her
problems at once um but if we can't do
that if we can just basically if if this
team can sort of give us a road map on
how to do things properly and can kind
of show us you know through examples you
know if if let let's say there's you
know let's let's say there's you know
let's say there's a thousand versions of
this problem that have to get solved and
this team only gets to the first 100 um
then we will have the recipe book
right for how to solve the next 900 over
the next you know two or three or four
administrations that follows that and so
that that that would be my optimistic
failure case and I I think we'll I think
we will get at least that if not a much
more sweeping transformation talk to me
about this uh Willow Google quantum
computer thing how how big of a deal is
it yeah so um so first of all I don't
know you know just I just read the
announcement I I haven't been face Toof
face with the technology so I don't I
don't know anything that's not public on
that um Quantum Computing historically
has been one of those things that is
theoretically very exciting and then
just extremely hard to actually get
working um quantum computers don't act
like regular computers in any way um and
so and there's always this kind of thing
where you in theory can kind of
demonstrate something in a lab and that
maybe it works and maybe it doesn't it's
often not completely clear even whether
it worked um and then you know could you
ever get that to repeat could you get
that to repeat across you know 10 or 100
different um you know kind of locations
could you ever then apply that to these
different problems like there there's
just all these like really really
fundamental questions and so um it's one
of these really enticing things um that
um you know everybody's hoping that we
get to um I I just I'm not close enough
to know whether they got to the full
breakthrough or not the thing that I
think would be the full breakthrough
would be not only does it work in one
lab it this is something where you could
now Stamp Out 10 and then 100 and then a
thousand of these machines and then you
could do it repeatedly um the most
enticing thing of what they said um
which is one of these things where you
think about it and then you decide you
have to stop thinking about it because
you'll never think about anything else
again um is that in theory um the um the
the lab demonstration that they have um
is doing a
computation um that the entire universe
um that we live in if it was converted
entirely to just a giant computer um if
every atom in our universe was was was
was turned into a giant computer um that
computer could not solve that problem
before the universe ultimately dies of
heat right and and and and and the Imp
of that is that the computation
therefore must be spread out across many
other parallel universes which is
therefore proof that there are many
other parallel
universes and so oh
interesting right in other words if you
weren't able to spread this computation
out across many parallel universes it
could not have been done therefore there
must be many parallel universes
therefore we do actually live in a
Multiverse and there are actually
billions or uncountable numbers of
parallel realities including the way
using for our
Ram yes yes and we're yeah we basically
have out yeah we're we're yeah we're
Outsourcing to these other universes I
mean you know by the way are we having
any impact on them when we do that I
don't know um some there's some very
glitchy 360p Universe out there and [ __ ]
God damn it that guy from yeah that guy
from Google is trying to work out if 2
plus 2 equals four again yes exactly and
then of course are any of these other
universes going to do it to us um so uh
you know the the the quantum people
really do believe it's a you know we
live in with many you know many many
many different realities so um you know
may be one of those things from science
fiction that that we end up figuring out
but um yeah this it's it's the kind of
thing you know it's it's you know
Einstein's famous reaction of quantum
physics was you know this this is
impossible because quot the famous quote
was God doesn't play dice with the
universe right and it you know this
result is yet another evidence that no
actually God really likes playing dice
with the universe seems like he is doing
it between that I mean this this last
period so much going on in Tech uh Sora
AI as well what's your postm I mean
they've closed now signups and stuff
because it just went ballistic so for
the people that don't know this is the
video equivalent of open ai's uh image
creation service and now you can do
video too although so many people signed
up it's restricted to particular
territories etc etc etc uh what what do
you make of the way that that went yeah
so um so this is yeah this is video so
this is textto video generation so you
put in a text prompt you get you get out
of video which sounds easy turns out to
be very hard um it's very magical um
they there sour uh you know one of the
more impressive ones at at open AI there
you know we we there are others you know
we have we have a bunch of others and
there's a bunch of others underway it's
a competitive space but um you know the
the the class of Technologies is very
impressive and Sora is very impressive
um I mean one is just like how amazing
is it to live in a world in which you
can literally you know say a text prompt
of you know a you know a hobbit living
in a hobbit town with you know and the
dragon shows up and then like literally
it will render that for you right and if
you want the dragon to be rendered out
of used car parts you just say dragon
made out of used car parts and it
renders that for you right and so it
it's it's like I mean that that's just
amazing to start with um uh the even
more amazing thing about that um and
open I put out a paper about this um
it's very interesting so the more
amazing thing about that is um to
generate um video that passes the sniff
test of the human eye looks at it and
thinks that it real thinks that it's
real um you can't you can't just sort of
copy from other videos you know that's
part of what's happening is you know
this is you're training the system like
s has trained on millions of hours of
video you know from like all over the
world and all this open source stuff and
everything and old you know out of old
movies and all this stuff and and then
there's copyright disputes over what
else is in there and so forth but um you
know so it's train on lots of video but
it's not sufficient to just train on
lots of two you know because video is
all 2D it's not sufficient to just train
on 2D video and then generate a new 2D
video that actually looks to the human
eye like it's a representation of the
real 3D World and if and if you look at
these videos coming out from s if you
look at them carefully um basically what
you see is like multiple uh sources of
lighting in in different parts in 3D
space coming together um you see
Reflections coming off of reflective
surfaces that that are actually correct
um you see translucency um that's
correct and then you you get
combinations of these factors so like
for example if you do something where
like man walking through puddle at night
you'll get the splashing effects of the
water the water has to Splash in a way
that is physically realistic the light
has to come through refract through the
water droplets in the correct way the
water droplets have to reflect the IM of
the man's shoe in the right way so and
the AI term for this is World model um
this is not only a model for video this
is a model that actually understands the
real world it's a model that actually
understands 3D reality right and it
understands light right and it
understands surfaces and textures and
materials and motion and gravity and
gravity and gravity and shapes and right
exactly all all these things right
exactly um you know a stiff Surface
versus a spongy surface um yeah you know
def you know give me a closeup give me a
closeup of a um of a baseball bat
hitting a baseball you know like in slow
motion it has to deform the baseball in
the way that the in the real world it
does you know when it hits the bat and
like for this story it has to do all
those things and in fact it is able to
do all those things like the if you just
look at the results you can see all
that's happening and so so what what
that means backing up to that the
implication is that model is not just a
video model it's what's called A World
model uh meaning it actually understands
3D physical reality the implication of
that is that we may we may have
basically just solved the fundamental
challenge of Robotics um the fundamental
challenge the fundamental challenge of
Robotics is how do you get a physical
robot to navigate the real world without
screwing everything up right so how do
you get a robot waiter to come navigate
through a busy restaurant without
stepping on anybody's Foot Right without
tripping over anything without spilling
water on the table um to understand
everything that's happening in real time
to be able to adapt you know very
similar to the self-driving car
challenge like how how do you do that
but how do you do that for basically
everything and how do you put machines
up close with people in such a way that
it's like completely safe and it turns
out one of the things you need to do to
do that is you need a world model um you
need you the robot needs to have a
comprehensive understanding of physical
reality so that it can understand what's
happening and so when things change
because you know the robot's seeing
primarily visual right it's it's just
like you're seeing Visual and so you
have to map the visual into an internal
representation of the 3D World up until
now building a world model like that has
been difficult or impossible and it now
appears that that's actually starting to
that that's actually starting to work so
Westworld
it's happening
2028
2030 what do you think I mean you must
be it's coming you must be knee deep in
uh projections for robotics for AI for
where we're going to get to what what's
the
meteorological uh artificial
intelligence forecast for the next few
years what do you think people can
expect sort of 25 26 27 Etc yeah so I
just start by saying it's really hard to
forecast this and I I'll give you my
favorite example of this which was the
world's leading AI researchers in the
year 1956 um got together and they got a
a grant from uh the government to spend
uh 10 weeks in the summer of 1956 at
DARPA at uh sorry at Dartmouth um uh at
Dartmouth University and so they all got
together and in that 10 weeks they were
going to finally get to artificial
general
intelligence um they were so close like
they were almost to it was called AGI
they were almost to an AI that can do
everything that a person can do they
were only 10 weeks away um and you know
you'll notice that was in 1956 it didn't
happen we're sitting here in 2024 and we
still don't have it so this so this
field is prone to this field in of all
the fields in TCH AI is prone to
utopianism it's prone to apocalyptic
nightmare scenarios and it's prone to a
very very it's been very hard to
forecast progress like extremely
difficult to forecast progress well
another another great example that is
open AI was not formed to make chat GPT
open AI was not created to make large
language models open AI was created to
make an entirely different kind of AI
and then it it turns out if you trace
back the origin of GPT there was lit one
guy at open AI his name Alec Radford and
he was like sitting in a corner and he's
like I think all this other stuff is
wrong I think we should be doing this
other thing instead and so like you know
even that company that brought us you
know chat GPT you know didn't you know a
few years ago didn't didn't didn't
didn't know that that's what they they
were going to do so so forecasting is
very hard um uh especially about the
future um look having said that the
progress is staggering uh and and and
you know one is just the observed
progress is staggering the the plans
that people have are incredibly exciting
um you know one of the things you always
wonder with any field like this is just
how much how many more ideas are there
right like like arguably we've run out
of ideas for what the smartphone can do
like you know what's new with the
smartphone now versus last year versus
the year before it's we you know the
smartphone companies kind of run out run
out of ideas with AI there's ideas all
over the place and so that that's very
optimistic and then many of the smartest
people in the world are being drawn into
the field right and so every smart
college kid you know who's considering
what to do a lot of the very smartest
are going into the field and then a lot
of people are like coming over from
other fields like physics to to work on
this now that it's really started to
work so we're also getting this effect
of kind of this you know reverse brain
drain or something where we're pulling
in all the smart people that's another
reason for optimism and then obviously
the commercial opportunity is very large
so that that's another reason for
optimism I the big Focus right now is to
get these things to what's called
reasoning uh general purpose reasoning
so to get them to you know like to get
them to predictably be able to solve
problems um in a way that is you know
fully coherent and and leads to good
results every time um and you know these
things are very good at solving certain
problems most of the time they you know
they it's it's a very unusual technology
where if you ask a large language model
the same question twice it actually
gives you different answers um and if it
doesn't know the answer to the question
it will sometimes make up an answer and
it is pretty amazing and wild that we
have creative computers that will
literally like you know make things up
um but like we we need versions of these
that don't do that we need versions of
these that are able to reason their way
through complicated logic chains that
are able to uh model physical reality
like I just described um that are able
to you know think longer and get better
results um and so there's tremendous
amounts of work happening on that right
now I'm pretty optimistic on that I
think by yeah I think by I don't know
2028 or something I'm just off off the
top of my head just with a little bit of
a margin of safety by 2028 these systems
you'll be able to basically give these
systems problems and they'll you know
they and they'll solve the problems if
it's something if it's something that a
human being can do they'll be able to do
it and then robotics is basically that
um and then we now have the interface
method for Rob because we have large
language models so we can now make
robots talk and listen and we have
voices and you know human english
comprehension all that stuff and then
and then basically the rest of Robotics
is basically mechanical engineering and
then some power basically Battery
Technology um and I I think Robotics are
getting quite close now um and so that
and and that I bring that up because
like that AI is going to be important if
it's just disembodied software but it's
going to be really important if it's if
it's around us all the time in the form
of yes in the real in the real world and
of course that's happening right you
know autonomous you know it's now drones
now fly themselves cars now you know
cars now drive themselves right so you
know for people who haven't tried either
the weo cars in places like San
Francisco or the new Tesla you know the
latest version of the Tesla software um
they're both outstanding um and so cars
now drive themselves that's a big step
forward um drones now fly themselves
there are now companies making you know
autonomous submarines um and um you know
all kinds of you know fanc fancy things
oddly enough the autonomous submarine
just feels like one that you could have
done earlier you know there's far
there's far less traffic there's far a
few of things to crash into yeah yeah
Pro probably um there's yeah we we have
a company that's has a has a has a
military submarine that is uh is uh it's
it's literally it's lit it's an
unpressurized uh shell uh sort of
platform and and you can basically
customize it in many different ways load
many kinds of things on it um but it in
it's like unpressurized form it's able
to you know go far deeper um than you
know than a than a than a sub that needs
to support human beings can go um you
know it's able to go down and you know
if able to do all kind of things so um
yeah like you know the whole as we're
seeing you know on the military side
there a transformation of of
military military strategy you know this
underway right now you know kind of as
these Technologies hit that we're
already seeing in Ukraine um so that's
going to matter but you know look a lot
of this stuff is just going to be stuff
in our in our personal lives and our
daily lives what do you think of the
adoption of self-driving sort of on mass
self-driving I don't know whether there
is a
more highly
kinetic High risk and heavily involved
area of human life that is ready to be
outsourced to AI you know there's other
thing you can help you cook or it'll you
know keep your food fresh or do whatever
but there doesn't seem to be the same
sort of mortal consequences uh you know
people have very strange relationship
between car safety when it's done
manually and when it's sort of pivoting
to that is this just some conceptual
inertia thing that we're moving through
over time slowly as usual
yeah so to start with cars today are a
disaster from a safety standpoint right
um and so uh cars the current run rate
of Road deaths uh worldwide is at least
a million people a year right it's it's
it's about 40,000 Road deaths a year in
the US and about a million worldwide and
by the way that million may be a low
number it may be much higher worldwide
and just we just don't know how to count
it but it's at least a million worldwide
and so you know it's and it's sort of
again you kind of think about this like
okay a million people a year dying from
Cars okay over the course of a decade
that's 10 million people like when 10
million people die from something in
modern world we use words for it like
you know like you know apocalypse right
genocide like you know this is like Mass
Death at a very large scale um and so
one is just like to your point like
there's a psychological thing here which
is we have gotten ACC and by the way for
every death there's many injuries right
many people crippled and you know never
recover um and so um we there's a
psychological thing here we which is we
have gotten used to a very large amount
of Carnage um in return for the
convenience of modern transportation and
Logistics by the way you know in the
fullness of time as a civilization it
seems to have been a good trade-off
um you know I I don't think you know
very few of us not named Greta thunberg
want to go back to you know you know you
know walking everywhere right um and so
um and you know you know you could you
could never go back to riding horses
right because of course you know animal
rights um but um you know so like that
it is amazing that we got there by the
way implication of that being if the car
were invented today I mean imagine the
conversation that we would have right
about the roll out of the automobile
right which is like okay the plan right
the plan is to strap people into 6,000
pounds of steel and glass and then the
plan is to shoot them down you know a
road that may or may not you know be in
good shape at 60 miles an hour and then
they're going to shoot them at each
other and then we're going to have the
safety measure the safety measure is
going to be we're going to paint a line
down the center of the road and that's
going to keep them from crashing right
and so like there there's no way that
you'd be able to like invent this today
or launch this today so maybe it's good
that it happened uh in an earlier era so
so anyway to your point we're used to
that um the self-driving both Whos and
Teslas today are far safer than that far
safer and there's like Edge questions
about you know like you know this is the
the the metric is like you know
collisions per you know thousand or
100,000 miles or something or deaths per
100,000 miles and like there's just no
question they're just like tiny
percentages relative and it's by the way
not that they're necessarily zero but
they're tiny percentages of what we of
what we experience every day with um uh
you know with Road Des by the way I
think as humans we have a bad intuition
on this because we can't see the other
drivers most of the time when we're
driving um so I find the CER for people
who need to think about this harder is
to just go spend a day sitting at the
DMV
and just watch the parade of
humanity and watch the people who have
to be physically steered by their
relatives in front of the camera to get
the new driver's license at age 90 right
like so we we just you know then you
know and then get if you like an x-ray
machine into cars that are driving past
you to see how many people are just
texting right or how many people have
been hitting the Vape for the last three
hours right so so so like there's no
question that the the the the technology
we have was much safer there's a
societal question as to whether we want
the where we want the tradeoff to be
right do we want the trade-off to be to
stay to the current level of Carnage
because we're used to it right um or do
we want you know and wait until the
computers are perfect or you know is it
just is it enough for the computers to
be much better which is what's actually
happening interestingly and
optimistically we as a society have
chosen to actually accept we we have we
have chosen to roll out self-driving
without the computers being perfect and
so you know there's Teslas and Whos on
the road all over the place um and you
know and people are fine with it and I
actually think that's like it's a very
optimistic thing that we were we were
able to do that um if you talk to the
people who make self-driving cars what
they tell you is the problem is not ever
a self-driving car colliding with a
self-driving car the problem is it's
when you have other humans in the mix um
right as you'd expect right because
humans react in unpredictable ways um
and so a lot of the engineering going
going into these cars is to accommodate
the human drivers there will be some
future State years in the future where
there are no more human drivers um at
least on public roads and when that
happens these things will be like
basically completely safe because then
you won't have the human element in
there and so one of the things that we
we may want to drive you know we we to
drive to ultimately is that um there are
a lot of questions around that but that
may be where we want to go to um I'm
pretty optimistic about this I think
that these companies are making
excellent progress um I think that the
the the this is pros and cons but the
Chinese Auto industry is now coming
online and I think they're also going to
be quite good at this and I think
they're they're they're coming now um
and so I I think that this is this whole
Space is going to develop I think quite
quickly what about uh
personal autonomous vehicles like drone
drone I I remember I was in uh Leonardo
da Vinci airport years ago and there was
one out gyrocopter thing out front this
can fly itself Etc uh that feels like a
a much bigger problem in that you you're
not retrofitting a new piece of
technology onto an existing
infrastructure that this is basically an
entirely new thing that you need to have
where they can float around yeah so the
US the ter the term the term most common
in in our world is they call Ev tol EV
so uh electric uh vertical takeoff and
Landing okay right right so VL VL
everybody's seen VL VTO vertical takeoff
and Landing it's the it's a Harrier jet
uh that the military flies the movie
True Lies um they have a big scene on
the Harrier jet so it's the jet that can
that has thrusters that point down it
rises and then it has thrusters that
that carry it forward and so you know
we've we've had we've had these VL you
know things and by you know by the way
we also have had helicopters which have
the same property so we we've had these
these these things in the past um and
then the electric part is basically you
know that that they'll be electric and
then and then the other the other
presumptive part of that is that they'll
be autonomous they'll be self-piloting
um you know because for those things to
go Mass Market you can't expect
everybody to get a pilot's license right
you're G to want to just get in want to
sit back and let the thing fly itself so
so autonomous electric vertical takeoff
and Landing um we have all of the
elements to do that we we know how to do
all of that like all those Technologies
exist now uh and there's there are
companies that have put this together
and have these products working um the
big issue right now uh I I think there's
a couple big issues one is just is power
um which is it's just it takes a lot of
power to get something in the air and
keep it in the air um and you like I
said batteries aren't very good right
now um relative to what we need for
things like that um so you know we need
we need some breakthroughs in batteries
and then the other is just you know cost
and and and and you know infrastructure
and and then you know safety regul you
know sort of safety regime and all that
you know over the course of five or 10
years I think you could imagine um you
know that happening there's also um you
know there are people working on the
Iron Man suit um you know keeps making
references to I don't know that he's
working on it or not but he keeps making
references to it and then there are
there are I there have been well you I
remember there was was it the James Bond
one of the old James Bond movies um like
Goldfinger one of those movies uh
actually had what looked like a stunt
where James Bond actually escaped uh
from a house by strapping on a jetpack
um and actually and actually did this
thing and he did this thing a Big Arc up
in the air and then he landed you know
like a half mile away and when I was a
kid I I I watched it like you know I
just love those I love those movies and
I watched it I was like well clearly
they that with like a green screen
special effects and it's like no that
was an actual jetpack no that actually
yes that actually existed and and
actually the military has those today um
I've seen someone boarding a like a
tanker type thing and they've got sort
of the hands- in gauntlets and that but
that's uh not electric that's that looks
like it's jet some sort of sort of fuel
jet powered type thing yeah that's right
so today today that would be today that
would be today that would be jet powered
and there there are jet packs like that
um again expensive risky you know not
not not not mainam
the location if you've got one of those
things strapped to you yes exactly that
maybe the second most dangerous hobby
after flying in Squirrel suits um uh so
it's those are the hobby videos where
they end the YouTube videos end two
seconds before the uh the final moment
um so but like you know look we you know
we know how to get things in the air
like we know how to do that um and so
you know is there a kind of you know is
there a kind of propulsions is there
kind of you know either fuel system
propulsion system is there a battery
system by the way you know there are
hobbyists that have literally put
together like quadcopter drones um you
know where you you it's like a you know
it's like a helicopter with you know
using lots of individual like quad
quadcopter rotors and so that that could
be electric powered and could basically
do the same thing um and so I you know
there's lots lots of hobby activity here
and so I think people are going to be
you know working on this a lot over over
the next few years solving autonomy
helps tremendously um because um uh
you're able to um you know then the
human doesn't need to be trained you can
you can make the things super safe um
another interesting thing that's
happened is um if you've seen the wh car
like the wayo cars in the street they've
got sensor on the top of the car that
kind of spins around and um and that's
that's a system called lar um and it's a
light based form of radar and so it's
it's a system that lets it do basically
3D mapping of the environment so the the
the Tesla is basically uh Optical so the
Tesla is using cameras to construct a 3D
model of the environment and and sort of
interpolating distances based on having
different camera angles um the wayo cars
actually have these sensors called lar
that actually do do depth sensing uh the
problem with the depth sensing is light
R sensors historically have been
extremely expensive um which makes it
hard to F these things in products um
but they they're coming down rapidly in
price now and I I about uh three months
ago I bought my n my nine-year-old as my
prototype in-house prototyper for all
this stuff and I I got him a Chinese
robot dog uh for I think $1600 and the
robot dogs um snout um and it's a it's a
robot dog like the demos you've seen
like the if you've seen like the Buster
Dynamics robot dogs it's like that but
you can you can buy it and it you can
actually have one of your own and it
does all the things it's very impressive
um and uh it actually has the snout
that's the spinning sensor um and so
they they've somehow gotten lar down to
a couple hundred dollars wow um and and
again like that's very encouraging
because now that you've got that now you
could start to think about building all
kinds of things that then have have
depth sensing and so all the yeah so all
all these pieces are are starting to
fall into place and with a little bit of
luck and some progress in batteries um
the next you know five years 10 years
yeah more of the Iron Man stuff you know
Jet and stuff hopefully will start to
happen it really is a different timeline
speaking of which I went I was in the UK
uh last week I was there for for a
couple of weeks I went back home I had
had this live show thing give me your
opinion on the sort of state of free
speech and and regulation on that side
of the world we're talking about the
excesses the overreaches that hopefully
maybe coming out of over here what's
your opinion on the other side of the
Atlantic yeah so I'd say there's like
three kind of Worlds of speech right now
three uh zones in the world there's like
the Chinese version which is we're going
to tell you explicitly what the rules
are and you better not break them
um but basically you know other than the
things we tell you not to talk about
which we're very clear about you know
you can you go go crazy and talk about
whatever you want um so kind of the top-
down authoritarian you know kind of
model um we have the American model
which is we have free speech
constitutionally guaranteed but there
are a thousand Unwritten rules um uh of
society um like the world's worst
version of Kure enthusiasm um where you
know there's a thousand different ways
to trip the PC police and if you if you
trip any one of them you are you know
your life gets vaporized um and so you
might call that kind of Bottoms Up
authoritarianism right like you know the
government's not coming to get you
they're not going to jail you for it but
like you know boy you know just it's a
shame that you got fired and your family
now hates you and your friends have all
left you and you can you can never work
again right so that's like the distri
that's like the distributed Bottoms Up
authoritarian Unwritten version of what
China has right so top down bottoms up
and then there's Europe which has
decided to do
both
um
for for I have to say I don't fully
understand um but you know at least from
an American perspective if you look at
you know this the speech laws in um you
know the UK or Canada they are
horrifying um you know I would like to
think that if those speech laws came to
the us we would have a revolution um
like they're just like completely
unacceptable like of course you can't
send police to somebody's house because
they you know said something wrong on
Twitter like of course you can't do that
um but yet it happens um and then yeah
you know the rest of Europe has you know
they all have variations on that you
know some obviously Germany has like
very you know explicit explicit versions
of that on a lot of topics and other
other countries uh do as well so yeah
but but then also Europe Europe and the
anglosphere have also the you know they
have the top down version of of of the
actual laws hate speech laws and and so
forth um uh and and then they but then
they they also have the bottoms up
authoritarianism um uh of all the of all
the implicit codes um which if you're a
you know Highly Educated you know ivy
league graduate equivalent you you know
your job is to track those codes as they
evolve every day by Faithfully reading
the New York Times cover to cover every
day and you know but if you don't and
you fall out of Step or you're a
working-class person you say the wrong
thing you know if you if you if you
crack your knuckles in the wrong way
outside of your truck cab you get
accused of being a white supremacist and
you get fired which is something that
actually happened in the US uh during
the 2020 craziness um so um yeah so yeah
Europe Europe right now is combining the
worst of those worlds and you know you
know you may know more about it than I
do they they seem hellbent to just get
much much worse I don't know what's
going on I I I really you I went back to
the UK and I was quite disheartened by
like a lot of this stuff I was spent my
time in Kensington um you know the
diversity is our strength thing in the
UK uh which is a a message that you're
greeted by as you enter the country um I
don't know whether there's such a thing
as too much diversity um but you know it
just didn't particularly feel that much
like London I'm aware that that just
sounds like the most brexit sentence
that I could have ever said I was like
huh like this just doesn't feel very
much like London maybe it should be a
Cosmopolitan place so on and so forth so
that was kind of a little bit strange
it's just something that hadn't noticed
uh previously like that level of
diversity um what else did I notice the
level of service like every Uber took 20
minutes to get to you like why is why is
that happening that seems I was slap
banging in the middle of the city every
bit of service in every restaurant was
either a long weight or there was some
sort of a problem uh Uber Eats seem
completely determined to just like
destroy whatever food or coffee we
actually started ordering twice the
number of coffees that we needed to
order in attempt that we could maybe
combine them together to have residual
amounts of the right amount of coffee
that we needed and we still didn't get
like just and I don't know you know
where that I can just whine on like the
[ __ ] opulent like returning prodigal
son or something but it just it really
was quite it was quite disappointing uh
in many ways and then on top of this you
know this upside down world where K
starm is saying that the immigration's
too high and that this is a problem that
we need to deal with and at the same
time you've got these still unbelievably
bizarre
uh non-crime hate incidents that are
being reported um it's odd and uh I feel
bad about my old Homeland I I don't know
whether Europe's in the middle of a
downfall or what at the moment but you
know between all of the different
parties that going in this vote of no
confidence it just happened recently
it's like whatever the timeline is maybe
this is actually what happens when we
get used for the ram of another [ __ ]
universes computation that they just
start to speed up all of the drama
that's the side effect I don't know um
but but yeah there's there's something
happening and it's being expedited
whatever it is yeah so say a couple
things so a friend of mine in private
Equity went and worked in you grew up in
Texas and worked in the US and then uh
went over and lived in London and did
private equity in Europe for five years
and he came back and I said you know
what was it like and he said said Europe
it's like he said in Europe it's like
there are like five things that are more
important than making money um and
nobody will tell you what they
are right like there's there's the there
are these there are these goals and
objectives um and they're they're
Loosely around ideas of societal
fairness and their Loosely around ideas
of not having to work very hard and
they're Loosely around you know
retirement things and social services
and they're Loosely around diversity and
they're Loosely run immigration but
they're not they don't seem crisply
defined um and so maybe there's a a bit
of an identity crisis happening there um
there's another another thing is a
famous line um that fascism and
communism are always looming over the US
and landing in Europe um right like the
US always like there's always this
threat of like the us is going to go
communist in the 20s or it's going to go
fascist in the 30s or something and then
what actually happens is you know ger
you know France actually goes communist
and Germany actually goes fascist right
like so you know they're actually still
they're actually still communist parties
in Europe um uh and so maybe Europe is
Downstream of American culture um in a
way that is maybe helpful in some ways
but harmful in others well it's it's a
little bit let's say a little bit a
great example that with England is it's
like okay like you know in in the us we
are all trained from birth of course to
feel you know extremely bad about the
the fate of indigenous peoples on the
North American continent um um um you
know Chris pop pop question who are the
indigenous people of England uh I don't
know who are they whoever was before the
[ __ ] Normans came and and no it's the
answer is it's the English right okay
okay like it's just the it's just the
English right like the English didn't
display yeah it's like the Normans it's
like the Saxons like whatever came
together but there there was no
displacement right there it was it's
like the indigenous people of England
are just there the English yet somehow
the English feel just as bad about
indigenous peoples as we do right like
right well the other thing is like you
know as you know England has like no his
England has no history of like you know
you know African you know they anyway
I'm not going to go into that topic but
um yeah the the the spectacle of BLM in
England is really quite something yeah
um it's just it's not historically it's
not very historically grounded let's say
so um yeah so you know maybe it's just
America maybe America's both functions
and dysfunctions kind of Ripple out to
the rest of the world yeah in a way that
is helpful in some ways and harmful in
others and then you know maybe it's a I
mean from the outside it seems like it's
a continent that is in a series of
countries that are having just a massive
identity crisis I think that's I think
that's certainly true looking for a
direction looking for what your
contribution is to the broader world you
know it very much is uh a little bit of
attention is being paid to Russia most
of the attention is being paid to the US
and some attention gets paid to China
and everybody else is playing second
third fourth fifth string behind that
and I wonder whether the the UK is
feeling like a jilted lover at the
moment where it's just like we used to
be important we used to do a thing I
actually want you to bring this up um
I've been sort of hopping on about the
uh differential number of entrepreneurs
coming out of the UK versus coming out
of the US despite the fact that we have
similar higher education levels and the
same number of universities in the top
10 worldwide the UK's got the same
number as the US do but we put out only
20% of the number of
entrepreneurs what based on your
assessment
culturally commercially what do you lay
that at the feet of yeah look part of it
is some of the great UK entrepreneurs
come to the US um and so we like by the
way this is not just true the UK it's
also true of France and Germany and
Sweden and Norway and many other
countries right and so I just be because
the US has such a highly evolved
Advanced entrepreneurial ecosystem um
you know it may just be that we're
drawing a lot of them um and so they
just you know they don't start companies
in the UK because they they've left um I
think that's part of it I think part of
it is that you know the identity crisis
I here I just know what I hear from my
friends who are you know English or or
or French or German which is just you
know they they feel like their home
countries and cultures are just not very
supportive um of the entire concept um
you know the governments don't
necessarily want it um you know the uh
you know the legal codes are not you
know well set up for it um you know look
the UK you know you know this is a great
example so this is a great example of
the dichotomy just like the speech thing
so you know in the US you know this AI
thing is kind of you know the big
exciting thing in TCH and the US is
forming it and you know the Biden
Administration was threatening to do all
these horrible regulatory things but you
know the new Administration is certainly
not they're going to do I think really
smart things and so there's going to be
a AI Tech boom in the US that's going to
be spectacular and a lot of that is
around
startups Europe the EU has chosen to
basically make all of that illegal right
and so they passed this thing called the
the the EU AI act and they you know this
guer K Britton uh it's just kind of
crowning achievement to basically make
AI startups in the EU illegal so they
they've just decided they just don't
want them and then off at the knes just
in case we were going to contribute to
this new fledgling industry yeah well EU
you know the EU they have this slogan
the EU kind of bureaucrats have this
slogan should say you know we're not
going to lead the world in Innovation
but but but but we can lead it in
regulation
right it's like no right exactly that's
what your reaction is the appropriate
reaction which is like no that's not
actually what um we're going to yeah
that doesn't make any sense like if it's
not literally happening there then
you're not going to be able to regulate
it and in fact what's happening is new
Leading Edge AI products from American
companies now um are actually not being
um are actually not being released in um
uh not not even being released in Europe
right so like the new Apple AI products
and I actually think the new open AI
products as well are just not even you
know literally being released in in in
Europe as a result the UK again has
chosen UK's chosen this middle form
which is they've sort of made it illegal
right and so they did this the last
Administration did this disastrous AI
safety push which was basically a
massive red light basically saying don't
even bother to try to start AI startups
in the UK um so but it wasn't like as
overt as a ban as the EU put on but it
was like this massive signal that
basically says this is not a safe place
to do it and I I think the UK is kind of
stuck halfway in the middle right now
and and kind of has to decide which way
it wants to go yeah I uh I don't know
man I I I really hope that we can bring
ourselves back around maybe not like old
school colonialist glory I'm not I'm not
I'm not hearkening back to the [ __ ]
East indor training company but uh
something I don't know you're right the
the identity crisis in the direction is
a big part and then you lay her on top
um I'm sure you've been seeing Dominick
Cummings going full [ __ ] scorched
Earth recently uh he he came on the show
about six month ago and everything that
he said even like Rory Stewart someone
that you think of as you know being way
less of a fire branded Dominic Cummings
and uh he has this really like visceral
description of the type of people that
inhabit the the halls whiteall and and
Westminster and he describes the way
that they smell and the way that they
talk and the things that concern them
and he realized you know the
governmental efficiency thing needs to
be scaled out Beyond just the US this is
the sort of thing that really needs to
be probably put everywhere yeah so
Dominic has this great I'm glad you're
about it Dominic he's a good friend of
mine so Dominic has this great line he
says the people aren't running the
system the system is running the
people right um and he uses that to
describe the UK government but you could
also describe the US government and you
could also describe the EU kind of the
same way which is like in a sense it's
like like what happens when you get face
to face with people in government is
what you realize is you know there there
are actually a significant number of
like very publicly spirited very
determined people who actually want to
do good things and there's this and and
and then there's there's people who are
not like that and they're just there for
the job or whatever but like there are
people you know who legitimately are
working hard and trying to figure things
out and what happens is if you know them
what happens generally they get ground
down you know they they end up
disappointed and then they end up either
you know becoming disillusioned or they
end up leaving and going into the
private sector and and so I think
dominance explanation is a good one
which is the system is running the
people not the people running the system
um the bad news with that um is that um
you know it be it would be it' be easier
like if the solution was just to swap
out the people in a sense that would be
an easy answer to the question
um whether you could do that or not is
an open question but at least you would
know what to do to to reform the system
as Dominic talks about and others talk
about and actually saw actually starmer
is now talking about this too right um
which is like okay how do we actually
like redo the system is of course uh
much harder um the other lens on this
that I think about a lot is uh Curtis
yarvin um who's also a good friend of
mine and um he the way he describes the
American system um that's running the
people uh the way he describes it is um
we are um we are living under FDR's
personal monarchy um 80 years later
without
FDR right uh and and the reason he
describes that he says look when when
when before FDR the federal government
was actually very small like tax rates
were like super low the federal
government didn't do very much um the
the the FDR dramatically uh uh you know
by orders of magnitude increased the
size and scope of the federal government
he did that for two reasons one was the
New Deal um and then the other was World
War II um and so the federal government
that Franklin Roosevelt left behind in
1945 when he passed away was the
government that he had built which he
had run the entire time from 1933 to
1945 himself in which he had staffed
himself and he had overseen himself and
everything and he built this basically
this giant structure and as as Curtis
basically says as long as you had FDR
running that it it could run really well
and you know we won World War II and
save the Free World and like it it work
pulled the us out of depression like the
whole thing worked and it was great but
if you let an organization of that size
and scope run without its founder CEO
for 80 years you end up with what we
have now which is just like basically
out of control bureaucracy like an outof
control system in which people can't
even make positive change even if they
want to yeah and again that's why you
could have in the US you could have
reason for optimism which is okay what
do you need well you need another FDR
like figure but in Reverse right you you
need somebody and a team of people
around them who's actually willing to
come in and like take the thing by the
throat and make the changes by the way
make the changes that FDR would probably
make if he were here to make them but
he's not right and so somebody else has
to step up and do that it has to be a
president nobody else conceivably has
the power to do that but you know we we
we will see how much this President can
do but like that that's a lot of what
this Administration plans to do in the
UK you know look the you know the UK
government maybe grew up in parallel
with the US government so maybe FDR is
also partially responsible for it by
inspiring you know the general modern
western style of governance but also
that of course the English system grew
up for you know many centuries before
that um you know it it it may be time
for an FDR style transformational leader
to come in and like really get
a dependence I always you know we always
talk about the the wonderful Heritage of
the UK but you don't necessarily think
about the Ein Stelling effect that has
got you beholden to all of this [ __ ]
that came before I learned last year
that the distance between the two front
benches uh in the the House of Commons
is a broadsword held out at arms length
from either side um which just tells you
kind of everything that you need to know
about what our current government and
political institutions in the UK are
inheriting it's like if you've got a
country it's thousand years old a couple
of thousand years old you're like bloody
hell like really lovely history there
and you say yeah but what else comes
along for the ride and uh sometimes it's
stuff you want to get rid of Mark let's
bring this one home dude it's been a
long time coming you're so great I'd
love to bring you back on at some point
soon where should people go they want to
keep up to dat with all of the stuff
that you're doing oh go to x go to x uh
P Mar p m a r CA on x.com heck yeah and
and also on sub Mark I appreciate you
thank you mate good fantastic thank you
Chris thank you very much for in if you
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