Vivek Ramaswamy on Toxic Wokeism, Alien Existence, and Becoming President

release the Jeffree Epstein Client List say what we know about unidentified flying objects just give it to us straight every politician dances to the tomb like a circus monkey to their biggest donor how do you expect to unite the United States when you struggle to do so with ryen I think the way we're going to unite this country is by but before we get into it guys I've been getting interested into politics lately if you couldn't tell from the guest we've had on the ice coffee hour and I got to say I am incredibly disappointed when I tune in to Fox or I tune into CNN and the headlines are completely different yet they're reporting on the exact same thing it's made me insanely disappointed at the bias that exists here in the iced coffee hour we really do our best to hear as many different perspectives as possible but we can't do something like this on our own that's why we've decided to partner with our sponsor ground news to help bridge the gap and help get the entire picture across 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sponsoring this video and also just performing the service that they do for all of us making sure we're aware of all of the bias that exists in media so with that said thank you so much ground news and on to the episode thank you so much for uh having us on thanks for coming over guys it's good to be here I will say one of the biggest criticisms that I've seen from people who watch you is that they know your stand es they know your policies but they feel like they don't actually know you as a person they kind of feel like you're this human chat GPT yeah been but they they don't know you so I'm curious growing up what did you want to be you know I went through like most young people a lot of different phases my parents I think acclimatized us to think of being a doctor when we grew up my mom was a doctor a lot of our family members uncles and aunts were too I think that came though from more of a place of Financial Security my parents came to this country with not a lot of money and part of that immigrant mentality is just a very defensive instinct which is how are you going to have you know a stable secure life so that's kind of the defensive environment in which we were raised I you know at points along the way look at what other kids' parents are doing thought maybe I would be a lawyer at times that seemed like not a career that called me in terms of being in a service profession profession honestly kept an open mind when I went into college but there wasn't something that I thought of that to say that this is definitely what I want to be I had what about as a kid you're like 5 years old you didn't want to be an investment banker when no I think I wanted to play I think I want to be a basketball player basketball yeah you're taller than I expected you oh thank you people do say that to me actually I don't know why everybody tall I'm at six yeah short for the NBA though fair not NBA standards yeah in principle you can achieve everything you ever want within the limitations of what you God has given you as your talent you realize that like basketball's not going to be probably around probably around fourth grade yeah this was just realistically not going to be I might have made the select team but then there's the aaou league which is yeah you guys have no reason to know this but that's kind of where it gets really serious and I was getting nowhere near that and so I ended up switching Sports to tennis where I thought I had a better shot of actual success and ended up you know doing well too but that wasn't going to be in the cards to be a professional tennis player either but a lot of the people that I played with did end up going to the Pro Tour and it's a very different life how were you as a kid growing up it's hard to know now that I'm a parent you kind of think about what you were like I was somebody who probably enjoyed I was pretty social enjoyed meeting other kids I was probably a kid who conversed with you know when my parents would have their own adults or whatever over before my younger brother was you know he's four years younger than me but before he was of age I was also able to probably be comfortable talking to people older than me or whatever that was just the environment that my parents raised me in I was always pretty curious I think I like to explore new things I've always enjoyed almost debate and arguing and storytelling where do you think you got that from and that inquisitive mind it's a good question were your parents like that some people are just born like that I don't think I turned out the way that my parents intended to mold me uh and and I mean I mean that in a good way I and I think that they wanted a guy who put his head down followed the rules learned how to do something useful built a successful and stable career and a family that had more security than they had or felt like they had when they were in this country that was their you know mindset for me like the kind of thing that you would hear in my household growing up would not be something like dream and be whatever you want to be when you grow up no it wasn't that it was you need to focus and have stability and make sure that you have a clear path to a stable career and that was instilled in US starting at a very young age and so now that I'm talking through it with you guys when you ask me where did that come from yeah I guess there's something innate probably in many kids that make them react but it over against what their parents yeah but but there's a reactionary Instinct and so you know I haven't had a conversation like this in a while but it makes me think about maybe it was a reactionary impulse that read led me to actually pursue a career as an entrepreneur and live a career life that was completely unstructured at every step of the way it's interesting because you kind of fit the mold of what your parents wanted from you for a very long time I mean especially with your job at Goldman Sachs but then for some reason actually what's what's really just interesting is for me when I went to Harvard and then had an open-ended career plan that alone was quite a bit of a leap and then when I decided to potentially explore you know career paths outside of traditional science or medicine that itself I know I know that the way I look at it now the way we would look at it now is that's like a pretty cut and dry you know assembly line path for my family's upbringing that was a weird thing to do that was already off the beaten path they didn't know anything about what that world entailed so yes in some ways it was itself much more conf in retrospect part of the assembly line path to go get an internship at Goldman Sachs but if you asked my parents that was like a foreign notion to them which was interesting actually but you still tried or I guess had that like subconscious pushing on you that was like okay find like a hiring job that's stable where you work a lot which was the Goldman Sachs thing but it seems like you still had this like thing that you were born with that was like okay no no no we got to do something more creative we got to do something higher risk it was definitely beaten into my head so so there's you know there's both parts of you right I mean if we all look inside each of ourselves and ask ourselves who are we I mean there's the part that's beaten into you I I guess in Freudian terms you call that I guess the super ego or whatever and then there's the inner self and the combination of those two things create a blend of who we are as people so yes there was the part of me also that grew up with some sense of stability and trying the tried andrue path that's half of me and then half of me just wants to break that and rebel against it and or just explore my own creative self about where my passions actually lead me now I would say that in that summer internship where where I chose probably it's probably one of the choices if I was to go back again I probably wouldn't have chose that particular summer internship but I learned a lot from it in retrospect and yet even my senior year in college that was part of what probably motivated me to start my first business which I did in my senior year after that internship after my junior year which is my first business that I founded but I probably did it in some ways out of feeling constrained by that first summer inter so it seems like you very much want to have free will to go with what you want did you ever get in trouble with your parents growing up yes I mean like but like not nothing nothing extraordinary fairly obedient right I mean like I wasn't I wasn't like I wasn't the I wasn't like a kid who I I was not the kid who ended up in detention but you're also highly opinionated yeah like so back in the day when you were a kid did your opinions ever get you into trouble with your peers did you ever get into a fight or did you ever like get bullied or something so I've went to a public school from 1st through 8th grade it wasn't a particularly great public school but it was a public school that was the one we were districted in nonetheless that was a place where actually being the straight laced academic you know put your head down go to science class kind of kid wasn't actually particularly rewarded and so there was probably one instance this is what caused my parents to switch me out of that public school to go to a Jesuit High School there was a flight of stairs I was carrying my science books from class to class got pushed down that flight of stairs resulted in me probably I mean we think that was the cause about few months later having to get a hip surgery who pushed you it was a random kid there's no way history with this kid no it's it's actually it's actually really interesting yeah it's really random a lot of these kids grew up in difficult background so this is a school where a lot of kids in the classes they weren't in my classrooms necessarily but were like one or two years left behind there was a wing of the school called the success Wing which is the wing that they would tell kids like me to stay away from CU these are kids who maybe 14 15 years old but are still in you know seventh grade but they called it the success that's that's the wing that they called sounds C it is the success Wing was I probably I went there for one class ever but the success Wing was the wing that you stayed out of but yeah it's a place where you know you got a nerdy kid with you know glasses and carrying a science textbooks from class to class who's an academic guy that's a Target but that was also a good experience for me because you know you're an outsider in that setting that's fine but I went to a different School setting Where I Was an outsider which was STX High School in Cincinnati so that was a Catholic High School I was a lone Hindu kid and that was also an interesting learning experience too and so I've probably always been in settings where I have been comfortable grew to be comfortable I would say in being in settings where I was you know often the odd man out so and that's kind of was was my big part of my what happened to the bully afterwards guy pushed you yeah I mean I don't think it was like I didn't go running to a teacher we didn't like I don't I mean it was I think probably nothing I can't I couldn't even remember who the kid was wasn't a kid who's in my classes or in you know cuz we were you know they had slightly advanced classes or slightly remedial classes there were different classrooms but in between classes it's the same group of kids going together in one school and yeah probably nothing happened you actually like tumbled down a flight of St yeah would push down a flight of stairs wow okay it happens it's the kind of stuff that goes you know grown up it's probably the biggest instance of what I would call the closest thing to bullying that I experienced but it was definitely something that you know a teacher of mine then pulled my parents aside when they picked me up from school like you need to get this kid the heck out of here and he was a teacher in that school so when I was in high school I observed two different predominant archetypes of of the student which is like those who work extremely hard and have to study consistently to get good grades and they feel pressured usually by their parent parents or by some other factor to like put their noes to the book and like grind versus those where School kind of just came easy they would get good grades but they wouldn't have to study as much as the other person I'm wondering which one of those two would you say you were because I see you you're like Ultra successful right hundreds of millions of dollars you're running for for president which is just insane like which one which archetype would lead to this future I don't think that you could necessarily predict one as a path I I think one of the things I've I mean that's just my honest answer if if I was to think back which one I fit there's probably elements of both I mean we did have parents who were very focused on the traditional path educational achievement come home do your homework Etc but did it come easy to you but but yeah I mean I think that everybody has their native talents and I think you know doing well in school was something that I was naturally prone to do and and you know write or read or learn or do math well yes I mean joining the NBA wasn't in the cards for me but the equivalent of that for academic achievement was just to be blunt about it and so I'm not sure that it's the compliant shut up sit down do your homework mentality that automatically yields a particular result I think it's different for different people I mean my wife was maybe on the other side of that she's also incredibly academically successful you know one of the smartest people I've met but you know I think that for her it was much more libertarian in her in her upbringing compared to my parents Focus just cuz they moved around to different places and so it was her love of learning that guided her I also had a natural love of learning but it was in a environment that was much more structed but I think it would be probably um reductionist and you know overly trying to fit a square peg into round hole kind of thing to sort of think that there's one trajectory of Parental upbringing that leads to one thing and another draw patterns like if you have disciplinarian parents that tell you this is the structure that you should be and then you have to learn and teach yourself to like to be disciplined to do all of your work work and to you know read the cross your te's and Dot your eyes and stuff like that I do think that that does have some long-term effect contrary to the person that has like the natural innate inherited intelligence that learns to be lazy they learn they can cut corners and stuff like that and it comes from a more like creative problem solving type brain I think so I think that if we're going to draw that out though I think that there's definitely more than two tracks those are the I would say like those are the two predominant archetypes that I observed in high school how old are you if you don't mind me 24 you're 24 actually oh yeah 2 what's that 33 you're 33 yeah oh look you look younger thank you um you're not at an age where that's a compliment yet it's just a it's just a fact uh now that I've become a parent myself and also just reflecting on seeing a lot of people who have pursued a lot of different Journeys I think that when kids show up like even at like a very like a very young age in many ways they're wired they are who they are they're just like I've got two young Sons they're both one of them's three and a half one of them is a year old they're very different people and we're raising them in the same circumstances like we're not doing anything that's that different for one than the other but they're just they're different pred elections one of them talked earlier than the other one the other one got up on his feet and is like far more physically dextrous and and physically exploring versus the other guys more verbal and emotionally exploring and I think that in some ways we're each the cake isn't fully baked but like it's like a half baked cake when it shows up and so how much ever you will to tame that or mold that I think is a failed Pursuit versus then there's the separate question of are you in an environment where that inner self is able to become the maximal version of whatever it's going to be versus an environment that sometimes can choke that out of existence for a long time or an environment that you know and this might have been my experience of this that wasn't really like fitted to what my new true inner nature was but that actually helped me hone it and Discover it even more I think that was my experience of it it depends on what kind of underlying person almost was born into their bodies that found themselves in that circumstance so I'm curious if you could change anything with the way your parents raised you what do you think that would be I'm not sure I would I wouldn't be who I am you know you're we're all we're each the product of our own experiences so I'm not there there's a few cases where I might look back in life and say there's a few things that I would have done differently and even still there's not that many of those because like I'm not even a person to dwell on that maybe I should have taken Spanish instead of French in high school like that'd be that'd be on the list for me I would have been better at speaking the relevant language cuz I would have used it more but I don't I'm not wired to think about that because the truth is who I am today is absolutely a product of the experiences that led me here and so to say that I would have wished for one of those experiences that was different either in a decision that I made or that my parents made is almost like rejecting some aspect of myself today but I guess how are you parenting your children differently than how your parents raised you well I think there's a couple realities um one is our children grow up in far more comfortable circumstances than I did I think that that raises both opportunities and concerns I worry a little bit about I think part of who I am the scrappy nature of who I am comes from a kind of insecurity that you pick up from your parents it's hard to recreate something that isn't you know NE manufactured a little bit yeah exactly and on the flip side I think that we are wide open to our kids deciding for themselves what it is discovering for themselves what it is they want to do my my older son right now wants to be a fighter jet pilot that was not within the Overton window of acceptable career options that sounds fun though yeah it does sound fun actually but as a father I bet you that's a little cons like oh I think I think actually not at all you don't think so I think and that's that's totally so nervous for the safety of my kids oh they even if he goes up and become a fighter jet pilot that's that's something he's passionate about doing that's pretty awesome cool and and I think that that's just a different Outlook now it's interesting to think about this I can't say that one of those approaches is better or worse than the other it's just the nature of where we are in our lives versus where our parents were in their lives and I'm a product of that upbringing that would bring up my kids in a different way than my parents did but that doesn't mean that I wish that my parents did it any differently that makes for your kids would it bother you if they wanted to pursue a career that made no money whatsoever like let's just say I want to totally fine with that okay absolutely so it seems like your parenting style is like worlds different than the parenting style you were subjected to when you were a kid cuz you're like do whatever you want kids yeah so it did we want we try to teach them we we we do our best them yeah and also understanding the consequences of their actions but to empower them to be able to make those decisions for themselves interesting absolutely but would you want them if their future career made no money would you feel good supporting them financially through that like let's just say they wanted to be an artist let's just say they made no money whatsoever but they're like I love art I'm passionate about this then the money would have to come from somewhere well uh if you're a good artist maybe the money comes from making so there's that so I think that there's a sweet spot zone for the optimal upbringing that you maybe be able to give your kids from a material perspective I think that if you don't have enough money to send your kids to a good school and you're in a bad school district or whatever and this is relates to my policy issues which we can talk about another day then I think that you're at a disadvantage I mean if you're not able to get the same kind or quality of Education as peers your age you're at a disadvantage on the other hand if you're raised in circumstances where you have nothing to actually aspire to because you're just showered and swimming in wealth that it crowds out your own ability to have hunger and scrappiness and I've gone to college and La school and otherwise with people who fit that description I think that's a kind of disservice that you can do for your kid as a parent too and so our goal for our kids will be allow them to have the true luxury this is a real luxury to be able to pick the career that allows you to follow your passions without fear of putting food on the dinner table but that doesn't mean that you have a right to fly around in a private jet right because of the career that you chose do you think that might stifle motivation knowing that there's always a fall back yeah I wonder about it um am I I mean I think that I think that that's a risk you know a lot of kids might end up I I know a lot of people who have ended up I think some of them are and my own extended family who ended up in careers that're they're like fine or perfectly complacent with but isn't exactly what they would have chosen if they were following their true passion they did it out of the need for achieving a level of Financial Security and then they pursue hobbies that may more align with their passions and and nothing to say with the anything wrong with that model I I suppose most people work for the sake of putting food on the dinner table but make sure that work isn't the entirety of their life so that they're able to pursue their passions outside of work I'm a little bit different the path I've pursued is one where I don't really draw a distinction between work and hobby and passion and pleasure the way I'm spending my time all the time as best I can is directed towards something that I'm incredibly passionate about and that's the ultimate win I think is to be able to live a life where you're able to do that you can't do that if you literally I mean we're human beings we like have certain basic needs you need a shelter over your head or food or drink for sustenance right so if you literally can't do those things then yes you're not able to achieve self-actualization by following your passions through your work I think that what the the boundary we'd like to draw for our kids is to give them the opportunity to pursue their passion without fear of putting food on the dinner table fine but that doesn't mean that you're going to live a life of opulence and luxury automatically because of that either no that could come through being an exceptional artist or musician or creator of whatever kind you want to be but part of the trade-off of making whatever Choice it is is you're passionate enough to do that regardless of whether that's the actual reason you're doing it to accumulate green pieces of paper that's not a reason to pursue a track as uh singer or a artist or whatever you should do it because of your passion and if you were doing it because it was going to accumulate you green pieces of paper that's not following your passion that's just the equivalent of going to work as a you know a a janitor or a cab driver or anything else that's doing it for the money do that make sense what are your hobbies outside of work what do you enjoy to tell you the truth I do I know you like I know you love work I'm the same way but like if if you take that aside I play tennis beses okay yeah I'm a tennis fanatic okay uh the the presidential campaign has not been great for my tennis game but until this kicked off probably uh probably since I was like since I turned turn maybe 29 or 30 for the last seven eight years yes tennis has been a big passion both watching okay and playing I I used to play growing up and so that's something that I try to keep up as much as I can is there anything besides that in terms of like fun hobbies so when kids came into the picture that one of the things is that does eat into your H you got to pick you got to pick one or two I did enjoy for a while um good film and good theater like good movies and Andor good live production yeah so that would be something and then writing is a hobby of mine too actually just free form carry around notebook long form writing and some of the argumentative stuff sure I'll publish and you can see it and you know where wherever I've published this stuff it's probably what resulted in me writing three books over the last couple of years I I was probably a suppressed author without knowing and so writing is is a hobby of mine as well you've also mentioned before that you are vegetarian for religious and moral reasons and that you also don't in any s of drinking or like smoking as I'm just curious like why do you decide to like how is it a moral reason to be vegetarian from your perspective because for me I like eating me I think it tastes great and all but morally I'm conflicted on it how do you draw that distinction between like okay for your own personal sake you deem it as immoral yeah and also for the other vices well I think that I think those the choices that we make in our own lives that are totally different from the policy perspectives of course that we offer on others right so I've been a CEO of a company well do we serve meat at company events yes we do because I believe that each person is able to make the choices that they deserve to make that's best for them and certainly from a policymaking perspective I'm a hard libertarian when it comes to people being able to make whatever decisions suit them and not legislating one form of morality so put that to one side I was raised in a vegetarian household but the reason I remained vegetarian is that all else equal I would rather not kill an animal for my culinary pleasure if my life depends on it absolutely not going to think twice if my nutrition actually depends on it like if if I'm going to be less healthy in some way absolutely I would I would do it in a heartbeat no problem because I do think that that's a trade-off that's Justified if it's going to allow us to live a more effective life than absolutely so are there circumstances in which I would do it absolutely but I'm able to get that in ways that don't require killing a sentient being if I can do it that way I'll do it that way that's the way I look at it and then what about the no drinking stance I'm not I'm not a hardliner I just prefer not to be intoxicated I prefer to be in control like that's just part of the freakish nature of my control freak nature of myself is I don't want to do things that like everything I want to do I want it to be a conscious decision when did you make that decision when did you realize that probably like pretty a pretty young age I mean I like to be in control of the situations that I'm in and I think that I've seen what it's done to friends and I don't care to subject myself to addictions that allow me to lose control over myself or who I am was there a specific moment that's not a moral decision right I think there's nothing there's nothing immoral about about having alcohol or nothing immoral about smoking a cigarette those are Health decisions that you want to make for yourself was there a specific moment though that changed your opinion on drinking or smoking no I don't think so I think that I'm openminded I mean it's not like it's not like I won't have a sip of alcohol but it's like it's not like it's like poison have to like spit it out right but I just don't like being intoxicated and I think that I did grow up in a household or neither of my parents drank so maybe that was sort of an A in natural conclusion for me to come to I also have friends who have become alcoholics and have suffered through that that reinforced my belief set as I grew up it's the same part of me that likes to get a good night of sleep I feel good and at my best the next day that I don't want to feel hung over the next day and I don't want to feel inebriated when I'm enjoying life plenty as it is I don't even drink c i I rarely drink caffeine actually I don't have coffee I have enough energy as it is where does the energy come from we recently had a guest on our podcast that said what was it like of the Uber successful there is a hypomania it's a very very rare trait or Gene that some people have it's like a super Gene where it means that you can get crazy energy off of very little sleep I get I I for better or worse I have a lot of energy so you probably have dist yeah I don't know I don't know about the term but I uh definitely am somebody who has a lot of energy as long as I'm doing something that that I think is worthy and interesting MH yeah I can run on very low fumes and be pretty high functioning so I'm curious who else in your family has that trait my mom has that trait for sure there we go she is uh also not a coffee drinker okay and and like to tell you the truth I don't know what would happen if I drank coffee like I think I might explode it might it's like I would love to see this yeah it's it's probably not great even if I have like a tea and I get you going gets it gets it's it's a little bit like I'm not even thinking clearly especially if I'm like tired like after not like a great night of sleep but then have a tea it's like oh no I can't deal with that I'd rather not have the caffeine and I'm I'm good at finding the our prior guest said that a lot of that is genetic that you would inherit that trait from a parent or close relative yeah I bet that's genetic interesting yeah huh I want to talk a little bit about there's far more that's genetic than we understand for sure that's we're wired the way we are and that that goes to my whole point about the upbringing piece of this is I just think it is overly false Precision to think that there's some kind of formula to all of this we're complicated beings each of us is unique in our own ways and to think that some model of molding you is going to result in some very precise outcome I just don't think it works that way how much would you say is genetic versus upbringing in terms of maybe someone's success life motivation future I mean both are important but I think that we would like to the the fairy tale side of us wants to say that you can achieve anything you want with your own hard work and commitment and dedication the fact of the matter that's not true there's no chance I was ever going to make it to the NBA despite the fact that I would have wanted to when I was in second or third grade and so I think what I think of as this isn't exactly your question but just to get my own thoughts on the table is what do I think of as the spirit of what we mean when we say that in America meritocracy or Merit or unbridled Excellence what do we mean is whatever your god-given talents are and each of us the three of us I'm sure have three different ones whatever they are any two different people have different god-given talents whatever your god-given talents are that you live in a society that allows you to achieve the maximum of your god-given potential without anybody standing in your way right so that's what I think about that's what I think is beautiful about this country that was the opportunity that I was given in this country I think that's the opportunity this country gives everybody that's what's special about the United States of America how much of that is god-given Talent versus god-given Gifts of other kinds like parenting or circumstance or otherwise depends on the attribute you're talking about I mean if you're talking about athletic Talent well let's talk about Athletics I think that if you want to be anywhere from the zeroth to the 70th percentile most of it is probably just effort and commitment and passion and dedication if you want to go the difference between like the 998th percentile and the 99.9th percentile it's absolutely genetics that make that difference of the increment of whether or not you're able to go that final distance controlling for somebody who has been passionate in that in that respect and so so we could say that for athletics but I think there's probably other domains of life for which that's generally true too and so I hate to draw an overall rule of thumb but we use the Athletics as a model it's probably not too far off the mark for other domains that we could think of too to say if you want to be in the 0 to 70th or even the 0 to 90th percentile of a given domain which is to say pretty darn good better than N9 out of 10 people who do it your effort and your dedication and your hard work and your passion and your upbringing and your commitment will get you pretty much as far as you want to go but if you want to go to that final increment of being that what we call we call it that for a reason freak of nature right and the people who are winning championships in athletics or comparable non-athletic MH domain s the true freaks of nature we call them that for reason is that it was a product of you know nature actually it's both I feel Bryant you know yeah I mean no mean yeah Kobe Bryant no matter you could have somebody else I would venture to say you any of the three of us that worked as hard on the basketball court as Co BR we're still not going to be we're still not going to be doing what he was doing at at the peak of his game and that's okay it's a beautiful thing we should celebrate that you think about it why are we opposed to athletes using performance-enhancing drugs or anabolic steroids or whatever is that it ruins our ability to celebrate that native Talent right I mean like let's say we talk about Kobe Bryant maybe 30 years from now we can have ai programmed humanoid robots that will do on a basketball court what like the combination of Kobe Bryant LeBron James could never do or on a tennis court Novak jokovic could never dream of doing I wouldn't want to watch that now some people might say I'm wrong about that maybe we will and I would draw a distinction the thing you'd be admiring there would be like computer programming coding right so there may be room for like we talking about tennis and pickle ball there may be AI ball later which is like the equivalent of like the AI version of humanoid you know AI program robots playing tennis and they're like hitting the ball like way harder than like a normal human tennis player is but you're admiring a different thing right there and in some ways that's even part of what's baked into why we separately enjoy men's and women's sports differently I'm just thinking out loud it kind of reminds me of that's probably why both are you if you want just the people going to hit the hardest or Pat or or just like see the ball fly the fastest that's not what you're really admiring you're admiring people competing to the outer edge of what natural capability endows combined with effort and I think there's something about us that admires that so like you know me men's women's sports we can celebrate each one differently partly because that's what's baked in what were you saying about F1 F1 a lot of people that celebrate F1 surprisingly are Engineers like mechanical engineers because they love to all of the stuff that goes into creating the vehicles it's not necessarily like watching a bunch of people go super fast around a track my friend mechanical engineer is like super into all of that stuff not for like watching the races but like the mechanics behind building such a machine yeah it's a great point and so I think we can admire different things in different experiences but it's okay to acknowledge that some of that is nature that we're celebrating expressed through us as human beings and that's that's a beautiful thing too I do want to bring up relationship advice cuz you said in your book woke Inc that your parents got an arranged marriage yeah which is I mean like growing up in the United States Growing Up in Southern California is nuts to like like we think that that stopped existing 100 years ago it's nuts but it's not as nuts as you think actually cuz it's kind of come full circle well they've been married 40 years sucess you also said wasn't the marriage like 12 days after their first real date it was like less than less than two weeks can you walk us through how does that happen so two families get together they each Pi they knew each other before right thees didn't know each other before but they knew of each other like via VIA Network so so my mom was living up and grow up in my store which is one part of India my dad was in Cara and Via family networks and there's a lot of prev vetting that went into it we're like all right they're both educated they're both like even like there's not some major mismatch in height right like like there's a lot of factors that go into this right where they you know academically inclin they know what each other's interests are but what did they think about it like your dad and your mom weren't they like I want toing nobody's forcing it on they're down they're cool the final consent for the decision but to put them together and then say hey if you guys want to go with it go with it that sounds nuts compared to the environment we grow up which is like which is different than I'm we're about to get to where we are now but the environment that I grew up in was one where you would date people that you might meet at school or at a bar or in a neighborhood or whatever and have an organic interaction that guides you all the way now to gen 3 where you have an algorithm that asks you for your preferences and asks you about your height right or left that exactly so that seems a lot more similar to me than like to to what my parents arranged marriage was you're arranged by AI today instead of arranged by human beings who love you so I like the way it went for me which was my wife and I met at a party and it and we were naturally drawn to each other and we had an immediate human chemistry that we Then followed and led us to the life that we've pursued and that's cool but but that's but what what the irony now yes we can look back and say like arranged marriages are weird but it's equally weird from my frame of mine to look at like algorithmically set up anonymity for swiping left and right there's senses in which I mean I just went to wedding with one one of my best friends who met exactly in that same setting but it felt like it wasn't so different than the setting in which my parents met which is kind of funny and interesting how did they get married after 12 days why 12 days is it like after that after a week if you ask me so I'm not endorsing was that their parents saying get married after 12 days or were they just like I think it's like I think it's sort of somewhere in between where now you can also look at like people who I know maybe you guys know as well who've like yeah we've been together for six years and we're we're deciding whether we want to get engaged at a certain point it's like dude have some conviction in your relation what do you feel like is too long what do you feel like it's true right like it's a fair what's too long to get engaged what would you say as a point where as a guy it's like by this time what's Too Short what's too long from your perspec broad Strokes we understand this is not uh we're not making policy right we're uh maybe we should I just think like if I was talking to a friend yeah right and my friend has been like if he's been engaged for three years but they're postponing the wedding I was like something's off interesting something's off right why get engaged then right or or why why have the level of partial commitment without just going all in so that's that's that's an instinct that's baked in there does that mean 12 days of the Right End are probably not in the modern society but part of these are societal Norms that are baked into the society you grow up in and so I think if your engagement is measured in years well I'm saying at least my friend think about it from the time of meeting somebody to the time where you get engaged like how long does it take to get to know some person I I think that a lot of people though would tell you who are in happily married relationships that are built to last and I'm grateful and feel fortunate to the world to God that I'm in one of those relationships now but I think I'm one of these people but many people I know who tell you the same thing within a matter of weeks and at times within days you'll know you know wow yeah that's crazy so against that backdrop like 12 days isn't nuts but if like I think if you're talking about within a period of months if you're serious right like it's one thing to just be like I'm hanging out with this person and I'm dating like five you know whatever I don't you know what the culture is right now but dating five people at the same time and you know I'm not going to it's not it's not like a particularly serious you know relationship put that to one side but if you're actually in a monogamous single person to single person committed relationship where you're invested in getting to know the other person and vice versa chances are that if you are going to fast forward that 40 or 50 years and say that that worked more often than not you knew that within the first several months of first probably three months of being in that relationship okay a couple of points on this because we just had Ben airo on recently and he said the exact same thing he was yeah because because he married or he proposed to his wife like two months right it early after they first met it was very quickly after they first met but like that doesn't strike me as crazy right like you know they great relationship playing with kids together so as someone in the dating pool currently what I'm so scared about is getting into a relationship and not feeling that immediate connection you don't be scared of it but here's the thing it's like I view relationships as a certain threshold that you have to exceed and you're like okay a threshold of compatibility now I know I can be with this person for the rest of my life but I do think that there is that like pinnical relationship where you do meet someone and like right off the rip you're like okay this is my person it's like am I going to subvert my expectations to to being you know exceeding that threshold of compatibility or for normaly but there there there comes a time where you can't continue to date for 20 years and hold out for that Pinnacle relationship because then you'll be too old no I know I think that some of this is just you there's there's certain things that are in the cards for you in life and certain things that aren't and I think there are many people who could be happy mhm in a long run lasting relationship with the person who probably still isn't their soulmate and that's a tough position to be in but you know what there's worse things that happen in life too to a lot of other people that may never find that or may never find internal satisfaction either so I can't speak for that one of the things I am most grateful for in my life is that I was in a position to say that very quickly here's a person I met and this was made to be and it's obvious with within a matter of months and so we're just mhm you know fate is sealed I wish that for every person you're asking for the scenario of what happens if I'm not that I'm just a personal concern of mine because I've always held out for like I'm going to meet that person where it's going to be like 12 days boom right yeah I'm tomorrow I'm 25 25 happy birthday thank you thank you so give yourself a few years and I would say that probably there's a life staging thing I guess I haven't been asked for this advice before so you know take it with a grain of salt but I think it's probably a life staging thing where you give yourself the next 10 years to open yourself up to that possibility and my advice during those 10 years would be don't waste time in a like a multi-month relationship where you know that that's not going to be that's not going to be fitting like if three months in you're not sure move on that'd be my advice for the at least the next 10 years of your life now you might get into your like mid or late 30s later on and you feel like you want to live a life that brings children into this world that find somebody you're compatible with that maybe doesn't meet this idic standard you can turn to that later but give yourself the next 10 years to give yourself the maximal chance as opposed to I think what I've seen many of my friends go through as well is you know I'll be in a relationship where it's compatibility for like 3 four years but then you get to late 20s and you're like 29 and you're like what do I do with that and that was something that probably many of them regret right you could have that what was four years could have been four months and give yourself I think the opportunity so that that be my like for you specifically in the Life Stage you're in thank you for the relationship be the advice you asked to tie off to tie the not on this to tie the that's on this whole relationship thing the one thing that you said that was super fascinating was comparing modern like on algorithm based apps to arranged marriage but the difference is in arranged marriage the people that probably know you most intimately know your character know your values your personality belief systems versus you selecting for yourself what you're interested in which is the the modern dating way and I find that a lot less effective and if I'm referencing if I'm correct it's Carl Young Who said when it comes to judging one's own character everyone is horrible something like that like judging others than your own let me let me say something about that I think the people who are making the modern dating apps would say something different is it's not even you choosing it oh the AI will know better than you what you're being served just because you put in your preferences of what you want to see right the feed you it's actually going to feed you want they give you the people that like you continue to date and stay on the app rather than the they're not about matching people the app so there's some that some I mean I'm not seems like most want to keep you on as long tind is something heard they show you the most attractive people first you swipe on them and then it shows you an attractive it's like a a slot machine they show you an attractive person I think it was like every like 12 to 15 times they to keep you on there yeah exactly so so I mean different I'm not up on the latest of what the competitive landscape of these dating apps look like from but but I would imagine there's a market Niche for at least back in the day there used to be the ones that would you know was it e-harmony or which one that would sort of promise you more that what you're in this for is not something in short run but something that's long run and Lasting but my only point is the real question and the real debate is do you trust an algorithm to do that well or do you trust the people who know you best know you best to do that well and a network and a tradition that makes that happen so I'm certainly not planning to and we have no vision that that's how things are going to play out for our kids it's not how play out for me but all I'm saying is what seems even to me growing up super weird as a model now that we've entered the postmodern world it actually makes that previous super weird model of my parents seem a little less weird than it once did because the postmodern world isn't all that different it does seem though that there would be more pressure on your parents to get married because of all the family pressure that they put on the two versus them coming to their own decision they could say well if our parents you know say it's good wouldn't that have such a big influence on them to believe it's probably did that marriage is inherently good the stigma of divorce as well like for the cohesiveness of arranged marriages there is a huge stigma in those communities they got divorced and their family made that decision divorce rates are great amongst arranged marriages from what I've heard the divorce rates are like but part of it might account for what you just said which is that if it's tradition that brought you together via an arranged marriage it might be tradition that keeps people together in unhappy marriages too I don't think that's most of what's going on but to be fair that's that's you know a possibility in certain cases I am somebody who in believes that all else equal I mean each person's different this doesn't mean for every individual but all else equal marriage is inherently good MH bringing children into the world in the context of a married household with two parents in the house is inherently good I don't know that it's such a bad thing for us to adopt that cultural norm I don't think the government should be enforcing it but I far from it but I think it's okay for us to embrace a culture that is that all else equal we're rooting for you MH to get married ideally finding I would age that that soulmate and that becomes part of a general cultural norm versus the postmodern slide of well maybe I will maybe I won't well maybe I'm a man and maybe I'm a woman right I mean it it just it just goes to it can it can go to a level of once you sort of feel like you're removing a lot of constraints what it turns out you're doing is you're actually just creating new ones that often can leave you far worse off as a result and so I think it's this tricky thing where it's like the Paradox of choice yeah yeah I think I think yes I think it's well said I think that you can become a prisoner of what you feel like the op is the optical illusion of choice when in fact it's just a new kind of prison and so I think we need some level I think I think we probably benefit with some level of default structural Norms in a culture in a society that we still have the freedom to opt out of for sure and I think that's probably the optimum that I would want to create for my kids and not just using governmental power but as a cultural norm I think that's a good thing in our country to create a certain default ordering but there's always going to be people for whom the right answer still isn't fitting in that order there's still a path to opt out and you know I guess I guess that's probably what my parents had right I mean if my my mom or my dad either of them said after those 12 days they don't want to do it nobody was going to force them to do it but there was a heavily you know heavily culturally informed expectation that there's a good chance this is going to work and as long as you have that opt out now this not we're just talking about marriage we're talking about really anything MH right that if you're a man you dress a certain way there are certain you compete in certain Sports in certain ways but if you're a fully grown adult and you want to do it differently we're not going to stop you no one's going to come to your house with the handcuffs and say you can't do it but that if you bastardize and pervert that fetishization of choice to say that there's no default Norm at all and there shouldn't be those defaults I think you're just creating a new form of Oppression and depression as a consequence and I think that's I think we're we're veering too far in that direction age with that but I also think that we do need to appreciate those that do go away from the norm whether or not we like embellish it and like you know what I mean like recommend it is a different thing but we do need to appreciate and respect the uh you know the abstraction from the norm yeah of course yeah for those for those for whom that's the right choice okay so now we're going to go into more of like a policy thing by the way I read woking I loved it I loved it and I want to say I've always intuitively thought that there is so much co-mingling between Corporate America and like bureaucrats like intuitively it made so much sense to me but I never really felt like I had like that confirmation but this book just like I feel like I you know what I mean like the Matrix got opened which is insane and I'm not just like a fullon just like believer of everything it was a it was a very honest book I mean I I was not really filtering very much in that book it was what I felt at the time I put it on a page and that was that book yeah but no one's open about this cuz especially the people that they control the dissemination of information right you know what I mean so obviously why would they out themselves as the people that muddy the waters right so it doesn't really make any sense but I I really liked that book and I'm going recommend it to a lot of people yeah I hope a lot of young people read it I mean it's it seems a little less bold today than it was oh come on a minute some people than it was at the timean at the time when I wrote that book the stuff in there you were not allowed to say it right but it's so abstract still and I do think that you go a little too nuanced and like deep about it where I think if you made it more of like a the problem with nuanced opinions which is exactly what that whole book is yeah we're rolling the problem with nuanced opinions is the fact that you need to justify it with so much data so much like supporting information that nobody is willing to pay attention to and I found that to be one of the biggest issues today is that a lot of the times the correct opinions are the nuanced ones but it's not exciting and it does require a lot more information too much thinking exactly and your book was exactly that it's like in order to understand that framework you do need all that supporting information but nobody's going to go out of their way to figure it out well I hope that we change that because I think the truth is sometimes nuanced for sure and sometimes requires getting Beyond just what is built to trend on algorithmically powered social media and I do worry about the discursive impact of an Internet that was built to mimic real life and then we now have real life mimicking the internet and I think that that's something I worry about I don't have an obvious answer of how to change it make it more exciting somehow yeah I I don't know how but like like the truth isn't exciting enough you know what I mean at times I I I think there's a difference between exciting and beautiful sure but I mean enticing like people want to try to reach the truth how do we make that more I would say you know enticing mhm appetizing why is that desirable to reach the truth no to make it more appetizing because then I think people digest it I think it's people are more receptive to surface level basic ideas they don't need to think too much about uh but that interests them and so how could you get people interested something if it takes too much work if I mean it's it's it's a kind of an age-old question of like what if you have a good product but you don't Market it well yeah what's the point of having a good product but you got you have to operate within the constraint of making sure the marketing of the product doesn't change what the product actually is and so you know the truth in this particular case of deep debate about cultural and political you know circumstance s in the United States in the year 2020 when I wrote that book is there a more effective way to Market that to reach a larger number of people without changing the underlying truth of what you're communicating I'm sure there is and I'm sure that I probably have been less effective than I than I can be but for me my goal in writing that book was not to reach the maximal number of people it really wasn't it was to it many was practicing out a hobby mhm pretty long form writing exactly and and if I write down there what I actually mean and you know nobody reads it but 10 people yeah that'd be disappointing certainly part of me would be disappointed by that but I'd rather do that and have it be true to who I am than to solve for what's going to reach the most people that that was easy in the case of writing the book where it actually becomes a lot harder is on a presidential campaign yeah right because there this one giant popularity contest is what this feels like actually it's it's not what I expected I I think that policies have less to do with it than I expected coming into this so what do you think is the most important factor I'm not sure I'm figuring it out right now but policy for me policy is very important I mean I think that money's money's the most important factor money is tactically the it's not what I think should be the most important factor there's two different question what I think should be the most important factor versus what is the most important factor and I think that there's a big Gulf between the two and the reality is I'd rather kind of do it like I did with woke Inc to make a bet on the universe and on the country and on our process to say I'm going to speak my convictions and maybe people will hear them and maybe they won't and if everything works the way it's supposed to work then that means that if that's what the people of this country want I'll be the next next president I I feel good approaching it that way that I can put my head on my pillow at night regardless of the outcome there's a version of the world where that just doesn't work and what you need to do is you need to check certain boxes particularly those that allow you to accumulate large scale donors really to buy the ads needed to reach people Etc so do you think this is really an advertising thing it's like how many people can you get in front of how much do you think it would cost I think spending I mean the person who wins this election this year all the way through is probably going to spend about $2 billion two billion yeah so is that how much you think it would cost to be able to get elected president well I think that you can't get elected if you don't have a message that the people of this country don't want but the distortions created by the amount of money that's spent via the super Pacs completely distorts the system so it's less that that amount of money will win you the election but the fact that that much money is being spent creating Distortion and noise makes it much more difficult for a guy who's coming in from the outside and actually just exp spend the money where does2 billion go where TV radio male direct M billboard are those are those the people who show up to votes yes in in primaries absolutely okay yeah the fact of the matter is the Republican primary electorate a lot of them they're not your they're not the world that we're talking to right now it's people who watch old school cable television that's where they get their news and Old School radio like amfm radio mhm that's the reality for the Republican primary when do you think that's going to change because eventually those people are going to age out it's going to change but I think it's I think the the obviousness of the fact that it is going to change creates an illusion for how quick that's going to happen I think it's like a 10 to 20 year time Horizon I have a very blunt question question as somebody who is a part of that like ultra wealthy upper echelon like Elite members of society and running for president I am sure as shown in your books that you have access to and can observe the level of corruptness that exists in the United States yeah now especially as you're running for president are you surprised by it what what how have you experienced corruption I'm surprised by how broken and corrupt the political system is and I you're surprised by it that com as a guy who's not naive to this right who who has a baseline expectation that it's a broken system it's far more broken than you expect how so cuz I'm a complete Outsider of this like how is how is it surprising I have no IDE I'll tell you it's it's surprising because they create the illusion that it's not so I'll just give you some you know boring facts but it helps you piece this together the max amount you can give to a campaign in a primary for a presidential election is 3,300 bucks turns out you can donate another 3,300 for the general so add that up the most you can contribute to a campaign is 6600 bucks that's a lot of money for a lot of people but it's not enough to buy off a presidential candidate it's just not because it's going to cost two billion there's a lot of people who can give 6600 bucks why do we limit it at 6600 bucks we limit it because we don't want any one person to have undo or corrupting influence over our president that's why we have that system this is all a farce that's not where the money like I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but like 90 plus perc of the money that's been spent on this campaign season so far has not been spent by the campaigns of the individual candidates that are subject to these limits it's spent by super packs these are these separate entities where there's no limit to how much money people can put in they can put in a million they can put in 10 million they can put in a 100 million and you have people putting in tens soon to be hundreds of millions as individuals why do they do that to get influence so the very thing that we were supposed to stop with the campaign thing now the candidates what they do is they show up at events hosted by the Super PAC where there are Mega donors in that room 10 20 people given millions of dollars a piece that's who the candidate knows is actually funding their campaign I mean if you look at other candidates in this race Ron sandis Nikki Haley whatever these are people where the dollars are really being spent by their super packs the candidates know who's the super packs are and I'm not saying these candidates are good people are bad people it's a broken system many of them are good people tainted by this system they're playing the game as it's as it's currently played and so what happens is they dance to the tune of those donors the things they say on TV or on that debate stage or whatever that's not them speaking that's some Mega donor speaking using their vocal cords as a vehicle as a vessel to communicate how much do you think it would cost to be able to do that like what's the minimum like is it 10 million 50 million more I mean you're saying you're saying like if have your own money influence if I were to influence a policy infl let's just say you know whoever's running uh you know whoever's in the lead right now 50 million bucks yeah is is that the amount is it 10 is it I think if you're talking about contributing mid to high seven figures you're definitely going to have influence on a politician if you're in the eight figure territory you're in the really special Club of people who are then the Puppet Masters so the people who can write eight figure checks they're the Puppet Masters is are these companies or people people what is the message that they're trying to get across usually is it depends on what their self-interest is I mean different people have different self regulations in their industry yeah or or actually even just pet policies that they consider to be their version of what makes for a better America that's actually the thing is it's not exactly as you'd expect in terms of it all being directly relating to like their business interest sometimes it is sometimes it is for sure but if only it were that simple have you been approached for any of these for super P stuff yes like huge donations say hey we'll give you $100 million but did well it it doesn't work it it never works that way even for the other candidates okay the way it works is there technically they will say can't be super pack coordination right but but Rond his entire campaign is literally being run by the Super PAC so that's not his fault that's not why to saying it's his fault but it is a tortured interpretation of how the system was supposed to work in the first place why even bother with the campaign contribution limits I mean why if the candidates entire the bulk of his campaign can be run by a Super PAC like most of the staff is hired by the Super PAC the ads are all being bought by the Super Pac and you know who the super pack donors are and you show up at their events to raise the money why bother with the fars mhm so so the beauty of our system is supposed to be that every Citizen's voice and vote counts equally regardless of the number of green pieces of paper they control and that culminates at The Ballot Box that's a farce that's just not the system we have in the United States of America and the wor part of it is we create this myth that that's how it works when in fact that's not how it works and so every politician dances to the tune of their biggest donor it's like as the sun rises in the East and sets in the west it's like a law of nature every politician dances to the tune like a circus monkey to their biggest donor now in my case that biggest donor is me and if you're investing in your own campaign the way the rules work is that the 6600 limit applies to everybody else but if it's your own money you can put in an unlimited amount mhm so I've put in over I think 15 plus million I have to look up the exact number it's over 15 for sure million dollars into this campaign well I'd rather do that than be somebody else's circus monkey but it is a broken system and it is the Dirty Little Secret in American politics and those who don't there's the donor Puppet Masters pulling the strings those who do not dance to the tune don't even end up becoming politicians because not the ones you hear of they don't end up winning I one thing that really frustrates me are the bureaucrats that you talked about in your book that then become upper management or sit on boards make millions of dollars all the while when they're in like the Public Public office they're just like a dancing puppet like you said for those industries that they will then join make seven figure salaries after their term yeah it it's the real one of the real divides in this country is not between black or white or democrat or republican even it's between what I call this manag iial class in woke Inc that's what I was talking about the same kind of middle to upper management that staff's corporate Boards of directors or is the associate dean of God knows what at some godforsaken University to being the under Secretary of something or other in the US government to the person sits in the ambassador to some second tier Nation abroad it's the same horizontal pool of people that are crushing the will of the everyday Citizen and I would put the super pack Puppet Masters in that category do you find that there's a balance though between going with some of these large donors and getting your own message across like let's just say that's the only way to become president that's what I'm doing but let's just say that's the only way to be president is that you have to get these donations do you find there to be a balance between it I think that that's because otherwise then you then it might never happen yeah that's that's so that's what I was saying it's one thing to write woke Inc like that was easy for me the hard part is if your mission is actually to change this country you got to be oriented towards your ends now I'm being an idealist about this but my hope is in the modern era versus at least even seven eight years ago we can reach people directly through other mediums that's why I'm talking to you guys I'm talking to other people reaching people directly on the hope that we can still break that system so I'm running against that system I'm not running against any other candidate I'm running against that system and because I've been blessed to live the American dream in this country I have no real resources to be able to put into this in a way that somebody who wanted to challenge the system without those resources couldn't so I don't want to compromise on principle there are there people if they if people want to support me in whatever way I'm not going to change what I say for them and they know that I'm not dancing anybody's tune but if people want to support me great I'll take it but I'm not going to play the game that the other candidates play in in becoming circus monkeys but we will find out whether that's a successful strategy or not what would you do if that doesn't work I'd reflect on it and think about how else we reshape and fix a badly broken system which is what we have today a badly broken system and so right now my my heart says we're going to be successful but there's no point in speculating I'm going to keep doing what we're doing exactly the way we've been doing it and another you know seven eight months it's going to be very clear we they're on the Republican nominee and in another 13 months it's going to be clear whether I'm the next president so I'm not naturally a plan B kind of person so we're going to carry that track and see see how far it takes us which I think is going to be to success in Reviving this country but if it's not and the broken system is as broken as it is that stops an outsider anybody else coming in play by the rules but be able to get elected without playing the donor Puppet Master game I think there's a lot of soul searching not just for me but for this country on how we break that system it is corrupt and it needs to change I'm curious why do so many politicians have all of these campaign promises before they get elected into being in public office and then all of the sudden when they're in public office nothing changes for example Trump in the wall for example Hillary Clinton saying that everything is wrong with with public policy everything's wrong with politics and the bureaucrats but she's been a career politician the same as Joe Biden like why do they blame everything yet change nothing is this because of that distort from their and prise all toing TOs and all it's a big part of it a lot of it's a deflection tool to be able to you know Advance their own political goals when in fact the things that they need to get done are the ones that their donor Masters have told them to get done I think some of this is also politicians sometimes just make mistakes I mean the US president can't do certain things without Congress M and so you don't know what Congress is going to going to look like so I try not to make promises that are legislative promises in this campaign things that are contingent on Congress the things I'm talking about doing are the things that I can get done without asking Congress for permission or for forgiveness shut down a lot of those excess bureaucratic agencies lay off 75% of the useless federal employee headcount 25% of the people can get the rest of the job done these are things that I'm going to be able to get done in my capacity as US president and the fact that I don't have promis that I've made to donors about very specific things that I'm going to do no the promises I've made are the ones that are transparent on media and social media to the American public every day that's what I hope will be what allows me to succeed in a way that many of these politicians of yesterday have not and I do think it's going to take an outsider to do that I also think it's going to take somebody coming from the Next Generation to do it I agree I I really do I mean it's our generation your generation that's going to Bear the brunt of the $33 trillion national deficit that we have and so on and so I think it makes sense right now more than ever to have somebody from the different generation from the Next Generation to lead us where do you feel like your weak spots are where are your blind spots H by definition of their blind spots you know you don't know about them I get but let me think about that cuz I've heard a lot of people say experience yeah I think I think that's a big one I mean I think that but that's the over said one yeah I think it is the overs said one but I think it's a legitimate question I mean I think that even for a lot of people in the Republican primary base who who view me favorably I the way they view me right now you know we're sitting in October we got time to evolve this many of them didn't know who I was six months ago but right now I think many of their head spaces great young man breath of fresh air that's what I hear a lot such an important voice in this race and I'm glad you're running and thank you for making the sacrifice to run and you have a bright future ahead and whether you're president or something else I'm so glad you're playing a role in our country's future that's that's that's where the headp space is you know there there's the you know 8% of people out there 10% of people out there who are already supporting me that's good it was 0% in March so we've made some progress but the big obstacle is getting people from seeing me as a you know nice young man with great ideas and energy and Youthful Spirit who has a bright future ahead and has a role to play to say that's going to be the guy who's my next president and I don't think that we have grown up in an era where people are used to seeing somebody who's 38 years old be the next president but frankly we live in an era I mean you're a Creator I I respect that about you man but Thomas Jefferson was a Creator he was 33 years old same age when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he invented the swivel chair while he was at right and Thomas Jefferson wasn't alone I mean Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin stove the bifocal spectacles a remedy to the common cold we don't have that spirit in this country anymore and I think that it doesn't have to stay that way we can bring it back but that's my job to get done if we get done I'll be the next president and that's the work that I have cut out for me in the in the next few months ahead do you feel like you have any other weaknesses though yeah I'm sure we all have you know are so you mean substantive weaknesses or electoral weaknesses substantive sub yeah yeah like in terms of being an effective president correct I mean countless I think I think we all do let me from a personal perspective look I'm a guy who has in my career been fortunate to work with very bright people in building the businesses that I've built that was part of my philosophy hire people smarter than you or more talented than you in whatever domain I can find them and need them and when I look back at the people who I've built my businesses or Enterprises with these are some of the most talented people I'll meet in my life chose them intentionally with that basis because we started from scratch to build up I think coming in in and running the executive branch of the government with Millions upon millions of pre-existing employees who are there not based on Merit but based on civil service protections and other factors is a different game than being a Creator from the ground up and so I think that that will be a new experience for me one where I can't alone rely on my entrepreneurial experience to do it now I think that that entrepreneurial experience provides some real vages that people otherwise coming from within politics or bureaucracy don't have but I think the best you can do about your limitations is at least to be aware of them humble about them one of the ways that I did build my businesses was to surround myself with people who would challenge me not just people who are Yes Men Who agreed with me people share the same principles and Mission and who are skilled but often will disagree with me and be unafraid to challenge me to be the best version of myself as a leader I possibly can be and I intend to lead the federal government this same way as well do you think the government has recovered alien spacecraft have they identified was the question unidentified flying objects or alien spacecraft or un flying objects evidence of aliens I I would say evidence of aliens I don't know so so the question I'm answering yes to is have unidentified flying objects yeah if you did discover aliens do you think it would be in the Public's best interest to know about it or not I think it's the Public's best interest to know what the government knows there are almost no circumstances in which the government should be hiding something from the let's say that would cause public Panic do you believe that maybe it's it's worthold I think there's so this is this is an ancient debate from the ER of Socrates and Plato to even the co 19 and climate change alarmism era that we're in today there's no such thing as a noble lie doesn't exist people think they're telling a lie to be Noble because the public can't handle the truth we can handle the truth we require the truth and the reason people don't trust the government government is that the government doesn't trust the people back and so if there's one thing I will bring to the table we will be transparent tell the truth about everything release the Jeffrey epsteam Client List say what we know about unidentified flying objects say what we know about how many federal agents were in the field on January 6 I mean just give it to us straight what do we know about the vaccines before they were rolled out for Co 19 just be straight with the public release the Nashville transgender shooter Manifesto transparency anytime a government official has pressured a private actor to do something through through the back door that the government couldn't do directly release it make it known to the public when the government controls like where they choose to be honest and and where they choose to lie I think that's hard to draw that line and I think that they've been a little generous on their side with it um you decided to step down from Roy vent because of your non actnow of BLM and you know post the George Floyd tragic death and broader stakeholder capitalism and and corporate social responsibility garbage all that exactly but currently you're kind of campaigning based off of being a huge like uniter right similar to what Obama was trying to do which is like be the great uniter how do you expect to unite the United States when you struggle to do so with rent well I I actually think that's a good challenging question to ask the mission is different right the mission of rent was to develop medicines for patients who needed them that the rest of Pharma had ignored and so we actually did the company around that mission even though there were people on both sides of a political question related to Black lives matter now my job as leader of the president of the United States is to unite this country around our national values so it depends on the mission that you have so it's it's more that I fulfilled that mission in my seven years as CEO I oversaw the development of a number of medicines five of which are FD approved today one of which is life-saving therapy and kids another for prostate cancer another for women's health conditions endometriosis uterine fibroids and others that was that mission now I'm on to a different Mission and I think that the Obama or Biden version of national Unity it's fake I think their model of national Unity is just getting other people to believe what they believe and trying to get the other side who disagrees with them to compromise and then sing hand hold hand sing Kumbaya that's not how we're going to get to National Unity I think the way we're going to unite this country is by Reviving the ideals that we share as Americans all the way going back to our founding and those are extreme ideals it's not through moderation or being a moderate It Is by embracing the extremism of those ideals Free Speech the idea that you guys get to speak your mind as long as I get to in return that is a radical idea for most of human history it was done the other way the unbridled pursuit of excellence and meritocracy that is a radical extreme idea but I think the way we're going to unite this country is by embracing that radicalism rather than somehow engaging in moderation and compromise now I'm curious on the topic of Roy event I'm really big into investing and yafu finance had an article about Roy Vince negative EPs and huge losses lately who is sustaining those losses so so it's actually really important to understand the biotech business model right I mean Roan's a N1 billion do or some odd public company today and most biotech companies that are even companies most biotech companies that are one or two or three billion dollar biotech companies on an accounting basis their R&D costs exceed their revenue many of don't even have products yet that are approved but the value of that IP as those products proceed through different stages of the process make it a lot more valuable so in Ren's history for example there were years of developing these medicines and then sell them in one year to other distributors in like a $3 billion deal that was what happened in my last full year as as CEO or or my last year and a half as CEO so it's just a way in which if you look at normal standard you know industry outside of Biotech consumer products or whatever you analyze it differently versus an IP industry intellectual property industry so most biotech companies full stop outside of big Pharma most Innovative biotech companies worth billions of dollars are not companies that in the year that they're actually developing a given medicine are recording EPS even though it's the accretion of the IP value does it worry you though that coo has sold off so many of his shares over the last year I have not paid attention to it once I've separated from the company I've um you know I've left my investments to to somebody separate but my view is that you know my My Hope and expectation is that Ryan's going to be an incredibly successful company over the long run I believe even in the businesses and Enterprises that I've created part of what you do is build great succession for yourself build great teams that are a able to carry on the mission such that what you create outlives you that's what gives me a lot of satisfaction and so you know I think it's been a be of a year in the stock market for a lot of people Roan's been immensely successful and I give a ton of credit to the team that's there I don't take credit for that I've been out of the business for a little while now but I give credit to the team that's there and I take pride in having for every about almost every one of those senior people there having recruited that team and that's I'll lead this government as well is recruit some of the best this is the last one okay uh there's a video of you out there I didn't realize you have an accent and I want to show you this I just want to give your opinion on this all right let me see it no Mom I'm going to be first but but Trump is so so way ahead way ahead man but I tell them I went to Har I went to they look at me like okay that's really funny hey uh V hey hey man how are you momy good to meet you good to meet you yeah what brings you to this part of town where you from uh I'm like down the street actually oh that's fantastic so so so what do you do uh I'm a student I want to uh play basketball it's fantastic so when you have you know you can be a cornerback you can be a wide receiver it doesn't really matter the great thing about am meritocracy is if you're really good you're going to make millions of dollars and if you're not you're going to get cut from your team probably not going to have any friends probably not going to get any girls but that's the great thing about capitalism right it's equality for all and uh that that's why on day one we got to get rid of affirmative action we got to get rid of affirmative action to say about that that guy's pretty good his actual V voice is very good it's really good SS oh my gosh yeah so this guy might have a might have a future career is that not you I mean I wish I was in my 20s that guy's pretty good yeah so maybe when uh when they're looking for people to mock me on SNL he'd be a pretty good I think he'd be pretty good I'm gonna tell you if you did a video with him and you brought him here you'll get like 30 million views we should bring down let's get the guy guaranteed I've never met him I came across this a few days ago and I wanted to show it's pretty darn this is gone vir good we'll get that guy here that's really fun he makes a living just off of impersonating you know what I'm happy to I'm happy to have spawned you know creative careers and uh you know I give that guy some credit I I have a feeling if we're successful in this as I expect to be I have a feeling that guy's going to be in employment for a long time to come so I wish him well in his career thank you so much for your time I really appreciate this this has been such an honor thanks guys thank you for coming over I appreciate it beautiful thanks I really appreciate your time s went a little later than expect