WEBVTT - Part Two: How Peter Thiel Became the Gravedigger of Democracy

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<v Speaker 1>Also media.

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<v Speaker 2>Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, A podcast is entirely

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<v Speaker 2>funded and supported by the film Alien Resurrection, which no

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<v Speaker 2>one on this call but me has seen. I have

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<v Speaker 2>picked a bit that no one can play off of

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<v Speaker 2>because they simply don't remember the classic Ron Pearlman film

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<v Speaker 2>Alien Resurrection. What a tragedy. Speaking of works of artes, no,

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<v Speaker 2>I was gonna say works of arts. No, No ashactment

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<v Speaker 2>contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Wired, How are you

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<v Speaker 2>doing today?

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<v Speaker 3>I'm doing sad better than a astronaut with an alien

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<v Speaker 3>implanted into my gut? Question? Yeah, does that's that's? Does that?

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<v Speaker 3>Does that take place in that movie?

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<v Speaker 2>I guess they if you consider anyone who's in space

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<v Speaker 2>an astrona yes, yes, I okay, then yes, yes, that's

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<v Speaker 2>essentially what's going on in that movie. There's a lot

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<v Speaker 2>of cloning involved, though, which you know, fingers crossed. Would

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<v Speaker 2>you clone yourself if you could? You know? Absolutely you would?

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<v Speaker 4>Okay, absolutely, because then I could have somebody else do

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<v Speaker 4>my job twice, even though I know that's not on how

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<v Speaker 4>that works?

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, yeah we could.

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<v Speaker 3>If you've writ any Spider Man comics, it never goes well.

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<v Speaker 2>No, m M and I do think that Spider Man

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<v Speaker 2>comics really really are the that that's where I go

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<v Speaker 2>to for maya all of my cloning related information, specifically

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<v Speaker 2>Spider Man.

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<v Speaker 3>I should work for a guy that had cloned dogs. Really.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh that's so weird to me.

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<v Speaker 1>I would never clone my dog. I love my dog,

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<v Speaker 1>but it wouldn't be her. I know it wouldn't be her.

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<v Speaker 1>I'd be like, who's this impostor not Anderson?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know.

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<v Speaker 3>Folks yourself, but not your dog.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 4>For efficiency purposes, you just want somebody that could sit

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<v Speaker 4>in the meetings I don't want to go to or

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<v Speaker 4>sit in do like all the work things that don't

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<v Speaker 4>appeal to me, and then I could just do the

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<v Speaker 4>things I want to do.

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<v Speaker 3>So the clone would have to grow up to be

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<v Speaker 3>exactly your age and then slow down.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, you would have to like accelerate its growth

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<v Speaker 2>really rob it of a childhood or you're or you're

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<v Speaker 2>doing a clone like in that? Well yeah, so are you?

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<v Speaker 2>You do not think clones are people, Sophie, because that's

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<v Speaker 2>a very problematic attitude to have. Year I'm like, it's

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<v Speaker 2>not real.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, again, the Spider Man books would would tell

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<v Speaker 3>you this is this way lies madness.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, it's absolute madness.

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<v Speaker 2>There's no if we get cloning at the same period

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<v Speaker 2>of time, we get like Peterteel's ideal, like breakdown of

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<v Speaker 2>federal power so that like there's all these isolated city

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<v Speaker 2>states run at the whims of rich people. There's no

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<v Speaker 2>way we will not get someone like acting as a

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<v Speaker 2>wellness influencer who starts an island where you can go

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<v Speaker 2>hunt and murder a clone of yourself in order to

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<v Speaker 2>gain like unspecified mental health benefits. That's absolutely going Like

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<v Speaker 2>Joe Rogan is going to kill his clone in order

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<v Speaker 2>to gain its power by eating its heart. That's a

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<v Speaker 2>version of the future that could be us in ten years. People.

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<v Speaker 3>I feel like that's just called Austin, Texas.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it could be in Austin, Texas. I would say

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<v Speaker 2>that's not a bad place to set.

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<v Speaker 3>It, Like I feel like that's happening right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean I killed a guy in Austin, Texas once

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<v Speaker 2>who looked a lot like me, but that was less

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<v Speaker 2>out of a desire to gain better mental health. And anyway, Noah,

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<v Speaker 2>you ever killed me, buddy.

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<v Speaker 3>Not that I can talk about. On this podcast.

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<v Speaker 2>Well that's the answer Peter Teal would give. I'm sure,

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<v Speaker 2>and we are getting back to Peter's story. Up to

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<v Speaker 2>this point. The Teal story is the tale of an isolated,

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<v Speaker 2>super disciplined kid who didn't connect with his classmates, or

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<v Speaker 2>at least that's one version of it, right. I will say,

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know if that's right, because this vision of

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<v Speaker 2>this kid who just like doesn't understand or get along

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<v Speaker 2>with other people and it's like separate from them, is

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<v Speaker 2>at odds of a kid who hangs out with Judge

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<v Speaker 2>Kennedy's son because he wants to clerk for Justice Kennedy,

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<v Speaker 2>who socializes with the Federalist Society people, and who starts

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<v Speaker 2>and operates a student newspaper with several friends. Right, that

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<v Speaker 2>version of Teal reads less like lonely victim of bullying

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<v Speaker 2>and more maybe kind of a rich kid asshole who

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<v Speaker 2>doesn't like to be associated with regular people. Right, It's

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<v Speaker 2>not so much that he's lonely and separate, it's that

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<v Speaker 2>he has separated himself because he wants to be better

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<v Speaker 2>than them. Right, I don't know which of these. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>you can really make a case for either. If we're

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<v Speaker 2>going for that latter interpretation of Teal. It makes sense, then,

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<v Speaker 2>to draw a line from his the old ambitions as

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<v Speaker 2>a lawyer and his anger at the higher education system

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<v Speaker 2>that had evidently prepared him poorly to succeed in his

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<v Speaker 2>first ambition. Stanford had not made Peter into the kind

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<v Speaker 2>of person who could clerk for the Supreme Court, and

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<v Speaker 2>since that could not be representative of a fault of Peter's,

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<v Speaker 2>maybe he just literally wasn't good enough. It has to

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<v Speaker 2>have been the fault of higher education as a system,

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<v Speaker 2>and Peter has made his anger at this everyone else's

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<v Speaker 2>problem for the last forty years now. The other open

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<v Speaker 2>question here is how did being gay influence Peter's development

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<v Speaker 2>and the nation state sized chip on his shoulder. In

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<v Speaker 2>twenty eleven, a writer for The New Yorker asked Peter

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<v Speaker 2>more or less that same question, how did his homosexuality

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<v Speaker 2>and status as an outsider influence the way he thinks

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<v Speaker 2>about politics and business today? Here's his response. I can

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<v Speaker 2>come up with stories about how they're factors, but I'm

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<v Speaker 2>not sure that they're interesting. The gay thing is that

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<v Speaker 2>you're sort of an outsider. There are things about it

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<v Speaker 2>that are problematic. There are things about it that can

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<v Speaker 2>be positive, but it also contrived. Maybe I'm more of

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<v Speaker 2>an outsider because I was a gifted and introverted child.

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<v Speaker 2>Maybe it's some complicated combination of all these things. And

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<v Speaker 2>maybe I'm not even an outsider. And I think that's

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<v Speaker 2>interesting where he's like, maybe I'm just kind of full

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<v Speaker 2>of shit with you people, and like I've always I've

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<v Speaker 2>never been an outsider. I just think I'm better than you, right,

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<v Speaker 2>And a lot of this is a crafted image of

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<v Speaker 2>like this is a more sympathetic vision of me, right,

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<v Speaker 2>Like he definitely has it takes some joy in playing

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<v Speaker 2>the mastermind manipulating the media and yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, no, I mean clearly not. And yeah, or maybe

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<v Speaker 3>it's like maybe it's a bit to appeal to actual outsiders.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, maybe it's a bit to appeal to, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>the real ones. One thing you can say about Peter

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<v Speaker 2>is that very shortly after starting his career in law,

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<v Speaker 2>he decided I don't want to be a lawyer. In total,

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<v Speaker 2>his career consistent of he clerks for a judge in

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<v Speaker 2>Atlanta for a little while, and then he becomes a

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<v Speaker 2>first year associate at a corporate law firm, and he

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<v Speaker 2>never makes it to year two, so he just kind

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<v Speaker 2>of hates the thing that he had studied to do

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<v Speaker 2>in school. It seems like he hates it largely because

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<v Speaker 2>he's not going to get a shortcut to being at

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<v Speaker 2>the top of that. If he's going to get anywhere,

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<v Speaker 2>he's gonna have to work himself up from maybe not

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<v Speaker 2>the bottom, but like the middle. And Peter just doesn't

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<v Speaker 2>have any interest in doing that. That's a regular life,

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<v Speaker 2>that's an ordinary people kind of thing to do, is

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<v Speaker 2>like starting it kind of the bottom rung of your

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<v Speaker 2>career and working your way up. He doesn't want to

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<v Speaker 2>have to do that, so he leaves this profession to

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<v Speaker 2>start trading derivatives. Right, what's the thing you do if, like,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, you want to feel like you're better than

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<v Speaker 2>everyone else, Try to get into finance and get mega rich. Right,

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<v Speaker 2>That's his next move is like, well, law isn't going

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<v Speaker 2>to be the thing I wanted, so I'm going to

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<v Speaker 2>try to get wealthy and the financ this is not

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<v Speaker 2>going to work out immediately well to him, right, And

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<v Speaker 2>the fact that finances, you know, the thing that he's doing,

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<v Speaker 2>but it's not his first career choice, seems to rub

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<v Speaker 2>him the wrong way, and this is when we first

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<v Speaker 2>get outside evidence that he's built a grudge against higher education.

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<v Speaker 2>In the late nineteen nineties, he gets together with a

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<v Speaker 2>friend from his Harvard Review days, David Sachs, and co

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<v Speaker 2>authors a book called The Diversity Myth, which was published

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<v Speaker 2>in nineteen ninety five by the Independent Institute, a right

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<v Speaker 2>wing think tank that made Peter a fellow. During this

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<v Speaker 2>awkward period in his career, he was hard up for cash.

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<v Speaker 2>His investment business isn't going well. He's not making money

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<v Speaker 2>as a lawyer. The think tank gives him income. It

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<v Speaker 2>helps him in David Sacks secure a series of op

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<v Speaker 2>eds in The Wall Street Journal mocking things like Indigenous

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<v Speaker 2>People's Day and a broad side against multiculturalism that was

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<v Speaker 2>anti Western. Their book, which was endorsed by Denesh Desuza,

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<v Speaker 2>had been funded in part by a forty thousand dollars

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<v Speaker 2>grant by the John m Olin Foundation, a conservative nonprofit

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<v Speaker 2>geared towards creating a counter intelligensia that had also bank

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<v Speaker 2>rolled some of Dessuz's Earth career. Peter got to do

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<v Speaker 2>a book tour and a series of speaking engagements, and

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<v Speaker 2>he found that he enjoyed aspects of life as a

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<v Speaker 2>right wing intellectual. And this is really interesting to me

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<v Speaker 2>because Peter doesn't start as a founder and gets successful

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<v Speaker 2>in business and then pivot to right wing politics. He

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<v Speaker 2>is scouted by right wing like moneyed interests, by these

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<v Speaker 2>guys working at think tanks and nonprofits funded by like

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<v Speaker 2>oil and gas billionaires and the like. He is scouted

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<v Speaker 2>as this is a smart kid who is frustrated because

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<v Speaker 2>the first thing he wanted to do didn't work out

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<v Speaker 2>for him. We could get him into right wing politics.

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<v Speaker 2>Right he is a conservative pundit before he starts funding

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<v Speaker 2>conservative causes. And this is a part is.

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<v Speaker 3>The opposite of what I thought the origin story was.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, it's so interesting because this is how for decades,

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<v Speaker 2>if we want to ask the question, how did right

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<v Speaker 2>wing politics get so deranged? How do the Republican Party

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<v Speaker 2>get so deranged? Well, it's because of this decade's long,

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<v Speaker 2>very dedicated, methodical effort to every time we can find

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<v Speaker 2>an angry young man with a degree of like skill

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<v Speaker 2>and talent who has failed out of their first ambition,

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<v Speaker 2>let's put a pile of cash in the front of

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<v Speaker 2>their face and say, like, hey, do you want to

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<v Speaker 2>get into conservative media? Right that's where all the Daily

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<v Speaker 2>Wire guys come from, their failed Hollywood screenwriters and standard comedians, right,

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<v Speaker 2>that's where Teal gets into this from he is a

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<v Speaker 2>failed lawyer. Yeah who and they're like, hey, come be

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<v Speaker 2>our Danchet Suza, right, like, come be another Daneshta Susa.

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<v Speaker 2>That's his Like yeah yeah. And in fact, Peter, while

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<v Speaker 2>he's kind of like having this flirtation with being a

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<v Speaker 2>right wing intellectual, he tries to start a Bay Area

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<v Speaker 2>public access talk show with a liberal friend of his,

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<v Speaker 2>which biographer Chafkin describes as Crossfire, but way way more pretentious.

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<v Speaker 2>And I can't imagin that, Like, can you get what

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<v Speaker 2>is a more pretentious crossfire that even exists with.

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<v Speaker 3>Like mid nineties production value? God?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, like a fucking uhf crossfire? Incredible shit. I

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<v Speaker 2>desperately wish they'd gotten out like eight episodes and those

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<v Speaker 2>were on YouTube for me to just watch. I want

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<v Speaker 2>to see Peter Teal's take on Crossfire.

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<v Speaker 3>No you think you want to see?

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<v Speaker 2>No, I for sure don't.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you would definitely gouch out at least one, if

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<v Speaker 3>not both eyes.

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<v Speaker 5>Yeah, but.

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<v Speaker 2>That's true, but not too not to no one does

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<v Speaker 2>so Teal in Sachs's book becomes a foundational work in

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<v Speaker 2>the complaining liberals on campus are intolerant genre. Right, these

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<v Speaker 2>are that's a big part of conservative media today, intolerant

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<v Speaker 2>liberals ruining college I mean, mean to conservatives, and Sacks

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<v Speaker 2>are doing this in the nineties. Right. It is also

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<v Speaker 2>an early work of DEI panic.

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<v Speaker 3>Right.

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<v Speaker 2>This is really where Chafkin gets a lot of credit

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<v Speaker 2>for me, because most of the articles that I read

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<v Speaker 2>which talked about this period in Peter's life mentioned that

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<v Speaker 2>he'd co written The Diversity Myth, but they just described

0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.560
<v Speaker 2>it as a book Peter and David Sachs wrote because

0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.600
<v Speaker 2>they were so frustrated. Right, This genuinely came out of

0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:25.480
<v Speaker 2>a place of we were so angry about what we

0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.360
<v Speaker 2>saw at Stanford that we just had to write this

0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.080
<v Speaker 2>book about, Like, this is real problem we saw coming

0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.520
<v Speaker 2>up from higher education, all these fucked up things on

0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.920
<v Speaker 2>campus that we just couldn't ignore anymore. And that's not true.

0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.959
<v Speaker 2>The reality is that the Diversity Myth and the ideological

0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:45.280
<v Speaker 2>careers of David and Peter were crafted, molded, and funded

0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.960
<v Speaker 2>by powerful moneyed interests looking for fighters to help them

0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.040
<v Speaker 2>tear down the liberal status quo. And chief among the

0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.880
<v Speaker 2>bugbears of these moneyed interests was people who thought that

0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.240
<v Speaker 2>other cultures should get to exist in American intellectual life. Right,

0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.240
<v Speaker 2>That's what made these rich guys angry, and they hired

0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.439
<v Speaker 2>people like Peter in Teal to yell about it. Now

0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:12.600
<v Speaker 2>the books, yeah, yeah, fascinating shit. The book's Amazon description

0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.960
<v Speaker 2>informs us the authors convincingly show that multiculturalism is not

0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:22.360
<v Speaker 2>about learning more, it's actually about learning less. Now, if

0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.000
<v Speaker 2>you read there's a fun article, because this has become

0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.440
<v Speaker 2>like the modern you know, this is also like most

0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.760
<v Speaker 2>of conservative politics today. Teal got to write an article

0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.040
<v Speaker 2>about this book he wrote as a young man for

0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.120
<v Speaker 2>a website called The New Criterion in twenty twenty three,

0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.880
<v Speaker 2>which is, you know, coming out just as this panic

0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.640
<v Speaker 2>that he and David had really tried to start much

0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:47.439
<v Speaker 2>earlier over multiculturalism on campus became integral to conservative politics.

0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.960
<v Speaker 2>So Peter goes in and basically does like a victory

0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.400
<v Speaker 2>lap I was right all along, And he lists his

0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.920
<v Speaker 2>examples of progressive mania that he saw in Stanford as

0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.760
<v Speaker 2>the replacement of Shakespeare's The Tempest and One Class with

0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.319
<v Speaker 2>a play that had been written by a modern author

0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.760
<v Speaker 2>based on the tempest. The inclusion of other works beyond

0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:11.160
<v Speaker 2>the Western classic literature canon was, in Tel's eyes, a tendentious,

0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.000
<v Speaker 2>left wing anti Western crusade, as opposed to just like,

0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.520
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, man, maybe maybe it's good at a

0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.000
<v Speaker 2>certain point to add in works that are influenced by

0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.000
<v Speaker 2>and based on some of these like classics, instead of

0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.440
<v Speaker 2>just having everyone read these classics, you know, ad nauseum.

0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:31.040
<v Speaker 2>There's an intellectual value in discussing the works that they inspired.

0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.760
<v Speaker 2>That's kind of accepting that art and creativity is a

0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.000
<v Speaker 2>living sort of thing, as opposed to just being like, no,

0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.080
<v Speaker 2>everyone just needs to memorize the Iliad. Well, maybe we

0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.600
<v Speaker 2>could talk about some of the works that were influenced

0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.800
<v Speaker 2>by it and you know, that have descended as a

0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.880
<v Speaker 2>result of it, because that's just kind of how education

0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.400
<v Speaker 2>ought to work. At one point, listing examples of how

0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.480
<v Speaker 2>progressive madness had warped educations at Stanford, Teal complained that

0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.640
<v Speaker 2>the campus refused to seal off glory holes during the

0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.080
<v Speaker 2>height of the AIDS epidemic. Now, I don't know if

0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.120
<v Speaker 2>this is true. I have not found any outside evidence

0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.400
<v Speaker 2>that this is a thing that happened in that twenty

0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.640
<v Speaker 2>twenty three article. Tiel does make a couple of valid points.

0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.920
<v Speaker 2>He complains about the insane increase in tuition costs and

0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.240
<v Speaker 2>how that's a part of the housing crisis. And he's

0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.920
<v Speaker 2>not wrong there, right, Like the fact that so many

0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.880
<v Speaker 2>people are in educational debt is part of why it's

0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:24.920
<v Speaker 2>hard for them to afford housing and to like buy

0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.680
<v Speaker 2>houses of their own. But what he's what he's doing

0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.000
<v Speaker 2>here that's fucked up is he's rapping decisions made by

0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:31.520
<v Speaker 2>people who aren't teachers.

0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:32.040
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.200
<v Speaker 2>Teachers are not choosing to make college this expensive, and

0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.960
<v Speaker 2>they are not the primary financial benefactors of college being

0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.160
<v Speaker 2>that expensive, right, It is the administrators of the school.

0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.720
<v Speaker 2>It's not like your history professor isn't deciding what, like

0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.640
<v Speaker 2>the campus is going to charge people for credit hours,

0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:49.960
<v Speaker 2>you know.

0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the glory whole thing is just is also just.

0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.080
<v Speaker 2>Like I feel like it's just bullshit. I feel like

0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.400
<v Speaker 2>it's just bullshit. Yeah, I feel like there were probably

0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.640
<v Speaker 2>a couple of glory holes on campus maybe, but like

0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.120
<v Speaker 2>I don't feel like the student the school was like, no,

0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.240
<v Speaker 2>we love our glory holes. We're keeping those in.

0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.000
<v Speaker 3>It's bananas. And then also, I mean it is a

0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:17.000
<v Speaker 3>little bit bananas that this guy was like confronted for

0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:23.640
<v Speaker 3>being kind of like pro apartheid South Africa by black classmates. Yeah,

0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.920
<v Speaker 3>and then his solution is what that it was bad

0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.600
<v Speaker 3>to have any diversity on college.

0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.280
<v Speaker 2>It's bad to have any diversity in like the course material.

0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.600
<v Speaker 2>If you're doing a Western class, you should only be

0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.920
<v Speaker 2>reading old, dead white men as opposed to like, well

0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.000
<v Speaker 2>number one, Western civilization includes a lot of people who

0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.960
<v Speaker 2>are not white and exists up to the present day.

0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.320
<v Speaker 2>So it's actually very valid to say, like, Okay, Shakespeare

0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.200
<v Speaker 2>is obviously part of the Western canon. Can should we

0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.120
<v Speaker 2>not also be looking at like some non white authors

0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.480
<v Speaker 2>who are in the Western canon who are right and

0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.280
<v Speaker 2>pivoting off of works started by Shakespeare and influenced by him?

0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:04.520
<v Speaker 3>Right?

0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.880
<v Speaker 2>Is that not a valid part of art education? Which

0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.320
<v Speaker 2>I would say, well, yeah, that just seems like what

0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:10.760
<v Speaker 2>you do?

0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.960
<v Speaker 3>You know, I just do not believe that this guy

0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.280
<v Speaker 3>is actually this angry about it.

0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:17.480
<v Speaker 6>No.

0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.480
<v Speaker 2>Well, and that's part of why I really appreciate what

0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.399
<v Speaker 2>Chafkin does here, because like, once you read like, oh

0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.679
<v Speaker 2>and all of this was funded by some like shady

0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.040
<v Speaker 2>right wing think tank that gave them forty grand to

0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.639
<v Speaker 2>write a book to like because the funders hate colleges

0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.560
<v Speaker 2>and liberal professors. Oh okay, so this is made up, right,

0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.399
<v Speaker 2>Like you were paid to be angry about this. That

0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.159
<v Speaker 2>plays a role in why Peter is doing all of this,

0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.159
<v Speaker 2>for sure, last the late nineteen nineties demanded more of

0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Peter than a full time devotion to the culture war trenches.

0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.800
<v Speaker 2>After quitting his law career, he'd been forced to live

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.000
<v Speaker 2>with mom and dad for a while, which I think

0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.120
<v Speaker 2>was a miserable experience for him, and then he'd finally

0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.440
<v Speaker 2>managed to get himself set up in a shitty little

0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.960
<v Speaker 2>apartment thanks to all of those think tank paychecks. Peter

0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:03.920
<v Speaker 2>was not happy with this life. He was not about

0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:05.760
<v Speaker 2>to live as a poor man or even just a

0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.320
<v Speaker 2>moderately comfortable conservative intellectual. He wanted to be one of

0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.840
<v Speaker 2>the rich founders, plucking a young, angry man like he'd

0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.800
<v Speaker 2>been from obscurity and funding them in their quest to

0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.080
<v Speaker 2>write bullshit. And in order to become that kind of guy,

0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.719
<v Speaker 2>the only way to make the money he needed was finance.

0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.840
<v Speaker 2>So he decides he's going to launch a hedge fund

0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.920
<v Speaker 2>from his friend with a friend from his magazine days

0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.639
<v Speaker 2>at Stanford using money that he had begged from friends,

0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.359
<v Speaker 2>family and friends of family. Now, he'd been trying to

0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:37.560
<v Speaker 2>trade derivatives up to this point, and that had not

0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.600
<v Speaker 2>made him a bunch of money. The fact that he's

0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.480
<v Speaker 2>able to get enough money from friends and family to

0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.320
<v Speaker 2>start a hedge fund is evidence again, this is not

0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.960
<v Speaker 2>a poor kid. This is not even a middle class kid, right,

0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:50.879
<v Speaker 2>No matter what a lot of provoles came from a

0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.120
<v Speaker 2>middle class family. I'm sorry if your family has enough

0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.720
<v Speaker 2>money for you to start a mutual fund with their

0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.880
<v Speaker 2>donations or hedge funds, sorry, like that's you know, you're

0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.520
<v Speaker 2>not necessarily like millionaires, but your family and friends are

0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.720
<v Speaker 2>of a different certainly, Like if I had wanted to

0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.320
<v Speaker 2>start a hedge fund at this age, my family and

0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.399
<v Speaker 2>friends would not have been able to pay into it

0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.720
<v Speaker 2>right like they were struggling to pay rent. Peter was

0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.840
<v Speaker 2>not initially good at running a hedge fund. In his

0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.520
<v Speaker 2>first year operating, the Nasdaq went up by forty percent,

0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:28.520
<v Speaker 2>and Peter's fund lost money betting instead on currency. Part

0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.200
<v Speaker 2>of this is because this is something Chafkin points out,

0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:35.520
<v Speaker 2>Peter's kind of obsessed with George Soros, and George I

0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.479
<v Speaker 2>think kind of around the time Peter's getting into hedge funds,

0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.480
<v Speaker 2>makes a fortune shorting the British pound and like kind

0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.840
<v Speaker 2>of fucks up the currency of an entire nation with

0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:52.040
<v Speaker 2>his you know, his betting right, and Peter both hates

0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.119
<v Speaker 2>Soros because they're very different ideologically, and also wants to

0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.240
<v Speaker 2>be like him because he sees he wants that kind

0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.400
<v Speaker 2>of like Soros is this right wing bugbear, this monster

0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.760
<v Speaker 2>in their nightmares, and Peter wants to be that for

0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.080
<v Speaker 2>the left right. So he's betting on currency, but he's

0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.560
<v Speaker 2>just not any fucking good at it right. So it

0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.679
<v Speaker 2>gradually dawns on Peter that he probably isn't going to

0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.440
<v Speaker 2>earn a reputation as one of the great hedge fund founders.

0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.840
<v Speaker 2>And while he struggles with this, he watches the news,

0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.320
<v Speaker 2>which is endlessly celebrating this is the end of the nineties, now,

0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.760
<v Speaker 2>this parade of stories about guys like Marc Andreesen who

0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:34.159
<v Speaker 2>made early dot com fortunes. Peter's obsessing over this, and

0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.480
<v Speaker 2>he's supplementing his income with lectures at Stanford, so he's

0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.720
<v Speaker 2>writing about how evil the higher education system is and

0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.000
<v Speaker 2>also reliant upon it for some of his money. When

0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.840
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen ninety eight at Stanford, he is a run

0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:48.879
<v Speaker 2>in with someone who would be a crucial part of

0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.159
<v Speaker 2>the next and most profitable phase of his life. This

0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.920
<v Speaker 2>someone's name was Max Levchin, and Max was a twenty

0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.560
<v Speaker 2>three year old student at Peter's alma mater who showed

0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.239
<v Speaker 2>up one day for a lecture on currency. The two

0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.040
<v Speaker 2>hit it off and wound up talking about Peter's hedge fund.

0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.560
<v Speaker 2>Max mentioned that he was considering an investment in a

0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.960
<v Speaker 2>company that made software for palm pilots. Now, no, you

0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.399
<v Speaker 2>know what a palm pilot was? Yes, I think we

0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.959
<v Speaker 2>I have to step back and explain this for our

0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.120
<v Speaker 2>zoomer audience because they're not going to have any fucking

0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.840
<v Speaker 2>idea what I'm talking about. Imagine a smartphone that can't

0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.760
<v Speaker 2>call people, or text people or like map your way

0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.240
<v Speaker 2>to you know, it doesn't have a GPS. You also

0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.080
<v Speaker 2>you can't message in it. You can't like use the

0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.919
<v Speaker 2>Internet at all really on it in most functional ways,

0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.280
<v Speaker 2>and there's not any games on it. It also doesn't

0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.639
<v Speaker 2>have a camera. Basically, it's a small computer that keeps

0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.600
<v Speaker 2>track of your calendar and if you can find out

0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.080
<v Speaker 2>how to download a book in nineteen ninety eight, it

0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.280
<v Speaker 2>can kind of be a shitty e reader, right, those

0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:51.280
<v Speaker 2>are the things that palm pilots are doing at this

0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:52.080
<v Speaker 2>point in time.

0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:54.399
<v Speaker 3>Those are also one of those things like you had

0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.160
<v Speaker 3>to use one of the like it's got to stainless.

0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.199
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh, they're fucking they're awful. It really is like

0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.200
<v Speaker 2>Steve Jobs hated the palm pilot because he very rightly

0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.479
<v Speaker 2>was like, this is never going to take off as

0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.040
<v Speaker 2>a product because it sucks. It's a piece of shit.

0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.000
<v Speaker 2>The only people who like these are like people with

0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.640
<v Speaker 2>disposable income who like want to impress folks by having

0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.200
<v Speaker 2>an electronic gadget that most people don't have. Right, they're

0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.720
<v Speaker 2>just now that there's not uses for all palm pilot,

0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.440
<v Speaker 2>But it's not an indispensable device in the same way

0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.119
<v Speaker 2>that a smartphone will become, right, Like, you really can't

0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.280
<v Speaker 2>exist in a lot of the modern economy if you

0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.280
<v Speaker 2>don't have a fucking smartphone. Palm pilots are never that.

0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.879
<v Speaker 3>But indispensable. However, in masturbation.

0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:41.560
<v Speaker 2>Jokes, yes, yes, also also that right, that was Oh god, yeah,

0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.160
<v Speaker 2>what a time that was. They really laid that one

0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:48.639
<v Speaker 2>up for us perfectly. Yep, So Palm pilots are a

0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.199
<v Speaker 2>dead end tech wise, but they also are They're not

0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.879
<v Speaker 2>a failed product entire They do make money for a while,

0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:58.320
<v Speaker 2>and there's there's a lot in Palm Pilot development that

0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.399
<v Speaker 2>is going to feed in later to smartphones and the

0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.960
<v Speaker 2>smartphone app ecosystem, right, and that's going to be relevant because,

0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:09.639
<v Speaker 2>like Max and Peter, they start talking about, like we

0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.879
<v Speaker 2>want to create like an app for Palm pilot users,

0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.320
<v Speaker 2>and specifically initially what PayPal is is Max and Penier

0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.680
<v Speaker 2>being like, what if PalmPilot users can send each other

0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.040
<v Speaker 2>io use, right, Like what if there was a way

0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.840
<v Speaker 2>to do that? And Peter's his interest kind of evolves

0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:29.439
<v Speaker 2>into what if we use Because they're looking at the

0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.760
<v Speaker 2>internet and palm pilots have some ability to connect. It's

0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:35.679
<v Speaker 2>a nightmarish pain in the ass compared to just like

0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:38.760
<v Speaker 2>the way your smartphone works, they do have a way

0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:44.320
<v Speaker 2>of connecting. Peter is start is starting to look at

0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.800
<v Speaker 2>this digital infrastructure that's being built up in this period,

0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:50.879
<v Speaker 2>and he gets this. He gets this fascination with the

0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:54.479
<v Speaker 2>idea of what if we create a digital bank that

0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:59.440
<v Speaker 2>can separate money from the state, Right, So he sees

0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:03.440
<v Speaker 2>PayPal not as just a business, but as an act

0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:06.520
<v Speaker 2>of revolutionary praxie. If we're looking at like Peter as

0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:10.119
<v Speaker 2>like a capitalist Lenin, this is his equivalent of like

0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.760
<v Speaker 2>the banks that Lenin had Stalin rob in order to

0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:16.000
<v Speaker 2>fund the revolution. Right, PayPal will allow us to take

0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.080
<v Speaker 2>money from the state and build up our own war

0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:23.560
<v Speaker 2>chest in order to destroy this liberal nanny state and

0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.359
<v Speaker 2>create our libertarian paradise. It's a weapon, right, Peter sees

0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:31.800
<v Speaker 2>PayPal as a weapon time. Yeah, that is what he claims.

0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:34.160
<v Speaker 2>I can't tell you what he believed at the time.

0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:37.200
<v Speaker 2>All the reporting on him, and this is what people

0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:39.000
<v Speaker 2>who knew him said, is that like, yeah, he saw

0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.159
<v Speaker 2>this as like this is a way to separate money

0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:44.800
<v Speaker 2>from the state. So I think it is probably credible

0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:46.439
<v Speaker 2>that he sees this as an act of kind of

0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:48.840
<v Speaker 2>revolutionary praxie.

0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:50.520
<v Speaker 3>Wild. Yeah.

0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.480
<v Speaker 2>In a two thousand and seven article for Fortune Magazine,

0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.360
<v Speaker 2>Jeffrey O'Brien wrote, Teel figured a web based currency would

0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.200
<v Speaker 2>undermine government tax structures. Getting there, however, would mean taking

0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:04.959
<v Speaker 2>on established industries commercial banking, for instance, which would require

0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:09.080
<v Speaker 2>financial acumen and engineering expertise. That's one of the earlier

0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:12.000
<v Speaker 2>Like this is a revolutionary thing for him, Right, I

0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:15.480
<v Speaker 2>want to undermine the government by building this web based currency.

0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:18.359
<v Speaker 2>And obviously that's not what PayPal becomes. PayPal is just

0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:20.159
<v Speaker 2>a way to like send your friends money. You know,

0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:24.760
<v Speaker 2>it is not separated cat. But also Peter is not

0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.200
<v Speaker 2>involved in PayPal after he sells it, as we'll talk about.

0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:28.920
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:33.040
<v Speaker 2>So one benefit of founding a company like PayPal was

0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:35.840
<v Speaker 2>that Peter and his partner could bring into work for

0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:39.520
<v Speaker 2>them anyone they wanted and exclude anyone who annoyed them.

0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:41.679
<v Speaker 2>And as soon as the company gets off the ground,

0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:45.280
<v Speaker 2>it becomes clear that, like this is non negotiable for Peter, right,

0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:47.600
<v Speaker 2>Like A big reason why he likes the idea of

0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:50.680
<v Speaker 2>being a founder is he can kind of make his

0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:52.840
<v Speaker 2>own clubhouse and say no girls allowed.

0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:53.240
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:56.240
<v Speaker 2>And that's more literal than you might think. I'm gonna

0:25:56.920 --> 0:25:59.600
<v Speaker 2>read something that Levchin told Forbes in that two thousand

0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:02.440
<v Speaker 2>and seven interview. This guy came in and I asked

0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:04.320
<v Speaker 2>what he liked to do for fun. He said, I

0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:07.240
<v Speaker 2>really enjoy playing hoops. I said, we can't hire the guy.

0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:09.719
<v Speaker 2>Everyone I knew in college you like to play hoops,

0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:18.119
<v Speaker 2>was an idiot. Wow, no basketball guys, Sophie would not

0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:22.960
<v Speaker 2>have done well at PayPal. Nope, I know that hurts, Sophie.

0:26:23.000 --> 0:26:25.000
<v Speaker 2>I know that you really had a lot writing on

0:26:25.040 --> 0:26:27.760
<v Speaker 2>a PayPal career in two thousand and seven, So I'm

0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:32.280
<v Speaker 2>sorry it would have been you know what else has

0:26:32.320 --> 0:26:34.840
<v Speaker 2>a lot writing on a PayPal career and I don't

0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:37.480
<v Speaker 2>think it's going to work out for them. Is our sources,

0:26:39.240 --> 0:26:44.800
<v Speaker 2>our sponsors, sponsors, Jesus Christ, My head's not on straight today, Sophie.

0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:45.760
<v Speaker 2>You can tell that.

0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:49.640
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's not much different than any other day.

0:26:49.680 --> 0:27:00.800
<v Speaker 2>But yep, well, hey, no, I'm normally breaking dads and

0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:05.800
<v Speaker 2>we're back. Okay, let's so, let's let's get back into

0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:09.840
<v Speaker 2>the Peter Teel story. So the early PayPal company culture

0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:12.840
<v Speaker 2>is obsessed with work, but it also carries a little

0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:17.680
<v Speaker 2>of Peter's growing antipathy towards college educations. One early employee

0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:20.840
<v Speaker 2>claimed that the big difference between Google and PayPal was quote,

0:27:20.880 --> 0:27:24.720
<v Speaker 2>Google wanted to hire PhDs. PayPal wanted to hire people

0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:27.480
<v Speaker 2>who got into PhD programs and dropped out.

0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:31.800
<v Speaker 1>That is so interesting. Uh huh, that is so interesting.

0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:36.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's this. And again, Peter's not a dropout,

0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:39.280
<v Speaker 2>right like he not like, like, for example, jobs, right.

0:27:39.280 --> 0:27:42.359
<v Speaker 2>He's not somebody who decides college isn't for me and

0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:44.800
<v Speaker 2>bounces to do his own thing. He gets a degree

0:27:44.840 --> 0:27:47.879
<v Speaker 2>and fails. So it's interesting that he's like, I am

0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:50.320
<v Speaker 2>only going to hire people who were, like I guess,

0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:52.960
<v Speaker 2>slightly more on the ball than me about realizing college

0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:57.240
<v Speaker 2>wasn't where they wanted to be. I guess PhD programs.

0:27:57.240 --> 0:27:58.679
<v Speaker 2>You have spent a lot of time in college at

0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:00.840
<v Speaker 2>that point. I don't know. You can you can interpret

0:28:00.840 --> 0:28:04.600
<v Speaker 2>that how you want. Levchin describes early PayPal employees as

0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:09.159
<v Speaker 2>geeky guys who quote didn't get laid very often. The

0:28:09.240 --> 0:28:14.680
<v Speaker 2>least surprising thing I've ever heard about payment. If you're

0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:18.919
<v Speaker 2>wondering what companies employees were fucking like crazy, PayPal's not

0:28:18.960 --> 0:28:25.240
<v Speaker 2>going to be your first bet. Obviously it's Yahoo. I

0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:28.320
<v Speaker 2>was gonna say Licos, but nobody's gonna remember Licos either.

0:28:31.240 --> 0:28:33.840
<v Speaker 2>So here's another quote from that Forbes article. In the

0:28:33.880 --> 0:28:36.280
<v Speaker 2>early days, when it came time to hire a high

0:28:36.359 --> 0:28:38.920
<v Speaker 2>ranking female engineer, she turned out to be bad at

0:28:38.960 --> 0:28:42.520
<v Speaker 2>ping pong. Levchin took that as a lack of competitive flare,

0:28:42.600 --> 0:28:46.040
<v Speaker 2>but grudgingly hired her anyway. She quit within six months.

0:28:46.320 --> 0:28:52.640
<v Speaker 2>Peter na never fails to rub that in. He grumbles, Oh, man, Peter,

0:28:52.800 --> 0:28:54.720
<v Speaker 2>like she can't play ping pong, There's no way she'll

0:28:54.760 --> 0:28:57.680
<v Speaker 2>fit in here. I think you guys were just committed

0:28:57.680 --> 0:28:59.200
<v Speaker 2>to making sure she wouldn't fit in there.

0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:00.800
<v Speaker 3>Now.

0:29:02.000 --> 0:29:03.640
<v Speaker 2>One thing I find interesting is that for all of

0:29:03.680 --> 0:29:07.240
<v Speaker 2>Peter's obsession with hierarchy, particularly as the rest of the

0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:10.200
<v Speaker 2>world is concerned, he doesn't appear to have actually been

0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.360
<v Speaker 2>that kind of manager. In other words, he is not

0:29:13.480 --> 0:29:15.920
<v Speaker 2>a like super dick, am I have to be in

0:29:16.000 --> 0:29:18.480
<v Speaker 2>charge only my way or the highway kind of guy.

0:29:18.760 --> 0:29:21.120
<v Speaker 2>He actually a lot of people say it was kind

0:29:21.120 --> 0:29:23.600
<v Speaker 2>of a very good manager in this period of time.

0:29:24.280 --> 0:29:26.640
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to read another quote from Forbes here. His

0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:30.200
<v Speaker 2>hallmark management emo at PayPal was the all hands, open

0:29:30.240 --> 0:29:33.960
<v Speaker 2>book session, customer logs, revenue flow, fraud, losses, burn rate.

0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:36.800
<v Speaker 2>He display it all for every employee to see. This

0:29:36.920 --> 0:29:39.960
<v Speaker 2>access to information, coupled with the lack of offices, created

0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:42.640
<v Speaker 2>a flat structure where any idea could win the day.

0:29:43.240 --> 0:29:45.080
<v Speaker 2>And that's not a bad way. That's a very effective

0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:47.200
<v Speaker 2>way of running things. That's probably part of why PayPal

0:29:47.400 --> 0:29:49.760
<v Speaker 2>works out, and it's interesting to me that like as

0:29:49.800 --> 0:29:54.280
<v Speaker 2>obsessed ideologically as he is with hierarchy, Peter tends to

0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:57.400
<v Speaker 2>run things as more of like an open book, flat

0:29:57.520 --> 0:30:00.440
<v Speaker 2>organizational structure where we're all just kind of sitting together

0:30:00.480 --> 0:30:02.680
<v Speaker 2>and bullshitting and like arguing and whoever can make the

0:30:02.720 --> 0:30:06.320
<v Speaker 2>best point, that's the idea that takes off. That's interesting

0:30:06.320 --> 0:30:06.520
<v Speaker 2>to me.

0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:08.800
<v Speaker 3>As long as you're good at ping pong.

0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:11.920
<v Speaker 2>As long as you as long as you fit into

0:30:11.960 --> 0:30:14.800
<v Speaker 2>his idea of the elites that he wants, right, And

0:30:14.880 --> 0:30:17.440
<v Speaker 2>maybe that is that I respect other people who I

0:30:17.480 --> 0:30:19.720
<v Speaker 2>see as being at my level, and so I can

0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:23.960
<v Speaker 2>work with them on a kind of approaching an even basis,

0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:25.560
<v Speaker 2>just I can't respect anyone else.

0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:29.400
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, as long as long as you speak Orkish.

0:30:29.080 --> 0:30:32.600
<v Speaker 2>Play, Yeah, Yes, as long as you can read the

0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:36.360
<v Speaker 2>runes on the Gates of Moria and hate basketball, you

0:30:36.400 --> 0:30:41.400
<v Speaker 2>can be in Peter's clubhouse. So you will note that

0:30:41.600 --> 0:30:44.200
<v Speaker 2>around the same time this is all happening, a guy

0:30:44.240 --> 0:30:46.640
<v Speaker 2>who's in the news occasionally. Some of you may have

0:30:46.640 --> 0:30:48.680
<v Speaker 2>heard of him. He's an obscure figure, but he comes

0:30:48.760 --> 0:30:51.840
<v Speaker 2>up now and again named Elon Musk started another company

0:30:52.200 --> 0:30:55.800
<v Speaker 2>named x dot com now not the not the social

0:30:55.840 --> 0:30:58.920
<v Speaker 2>networking site that we all refer to buy that name

0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:02.400
<v Speaker 2>at all times. Of course, No, this was actually a

0:31:02.440 --> 0:31:07.160
<v Speaker 2>different company and EARLIERX dot com. And the gist of

0:31:07.200 --> 0:31:09.640
<v Speaker 2>the story, I'm actually not going to talk a lot

0:31:09.680 --> 0:31:13.800
<v Speaker 2>about Musk and Teal at PayPal because in terms of

0:31:13.840 --> 0:31:16.760
<v Speaker 2>like popular culture knowledge of these guys, half of it

0:31:16.840 --> 0:31:19.080
<v Speaker 2>is the big fight that they had at PayPal. Right,

0:31:20.120 --> 0:31:23.280
<v Speaker 2>Musk and Teal had both started payment companies that were

0:31:23.280 --> 0:31:26.640
<v Speaker 2>doing very similar things, and the market was not big

0:31:26.720 --> 0:31:29.320
<v Speaker 2>enough to support them both as independent companies, so they

0:31:29.360 --> 0:31:33.520
<v Speaker 2>had to merge in order to be valid as a business. Right,

0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 2>And the two don't get along and wind up like

0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:38.479
<v Speaker 2>finding But like that's that's the thing that gets reported

0:31:38.520 --> 0:31:40.160
<v Speaker 2>all the time. I just don't think it's that interesting.

0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:43.400
<v Speaker 2>It's also as behind the bastards goes the fact that

0:31:43.440 --> 0:31:46.600
<v Speaker 2>Peter Teal is a dick to Elon Musk, not really

0:31:46.680 --> 0:31:52.080
<v Speaker 2>evil to dislike Elon Musk. Yeah, I feel like we

0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:54.960
<v Speaker 2>can understand why Peter might not have gotten along with

0:31:55.000 --> 0:32:01.160
<v Speaker 2>Elon Musk. But the the basically what's happening here is

0:32:01.160 --> 0:32:04.200
<v Speaker 2>that both of these companies X and PayPal are funded

0:32:04.240 --> 0:32:06.720
<v Speaker 2>by a lot of VC money and they're kind of

0:32:06.800 --> 0:32:09.040
<v Speaker 2>lighting it on fire. At this point the company, neither

0:32:09.080 --> 0:32:12.160
<v Speaker 2>company is in the black, and the belief is that like,

0:32:12.200 --> 0:32:14.200
<v Speaker 2>the only way they'll get there is if they merge,

0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:16.800
<v Speaker 2>and this does work. This is an effective They get

0:32:16.840 --> 0:32:18.960
<v Speaker 2>kind of pressured into it, but this is an effective

0:32:19.120 --> 0:32:23.880
<v Speaker 2>like way to build a business. Now, Elon becomes the

0:32:23.920 --> 0:32:28.200
<v Speaker 2>CEO for a period of time, but he and Peter

0:32:28.400 --> 0:32:32.000
<v Speaker 2>do not get along, and Peter orchestrates a coup against

0:32:32.120 --> 0:32:35.360
<v Speaker 2>Musk while Elon is on vacation. I'd relate that in

0:32:35.400 --> 0:32:37.600
<v Speaker 2>more detail, but again, who can blame him?

0:32:37.920 --> 0:32:38.240
<v Speaker 3>Now?

0:32:38.520 --> 0:32:41.600
<v Speaker 2>The specific conflict seems to have arisen because Elon has

0:32:41.600 --> 0:32:45.040
<v Speaker 2>this obsession with moving the company off of Unix and

0:32:45.120 --> 0:32:49.479
<v Speaker 2>towards a Microsoft platform, whereas Teal and his ogs are

0:32:49.520 --> 0:32:52.160
<v Speaker 2>all very much like in the Unix tank, right and

0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:54.680
<v Speaker 2>so like that's kind of the root of a lot

0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:57.200
<v Speaker 2>of the conflicts between them. But the larger issue is

0:32:57.200 --> 0:33:00.400
<v Speaker 2>that there's just a personality clash. They don't like each other.

0:33:00.800 --> 0:33:02.880
<v Speaker 2>And one of the things that's really funny here is

0:33:02.880 --> 0:33:05.200
<v Speaker 2>that is as much as both of these guys suck,

0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:09.000
<v Speaker 2>and they're both current like right wing influential, right wing

0:33:09.080 --> 0:33:13.480
<v Speaker 2>like monsters, they both had each other's number twenty years ago,

0:33:14.000 --> 0:33:18.240
<v Speaker 2>like their criticisms of each other are perfectly valid. Chafkin

0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:21.400
<v Speaker 2>quotes a colleague who talked to each man about the

0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:24.840
<v Speaker 2>other during this period, and this colleague said, Musk thinks

0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:27.720
<v Speaker 2>Peter is a sociopath, and Peter thinks Musk is a

0:33:27.720 --> 0:33:31.959
<v Speaker 2>fraud and a braggart. Hey, guys, you're both right. You

0:33:32.040 --> 0:33:32.400
<v Speaker 2>did it.

0:33:35.600 --> 0:33:36.360
<v Speaker 3>Incredible.

0:33:36.680 --> 0:33:39.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's not bad, all right.

0:33:41.440 --> 0:33:45.160
<v Speaker 3>I can't wait for the next Trump administration when they're yeah,

0:33:45.320 --> 0:33:49.120
<v Speaker 3>that's gonna be to dismantle the state.

0:33:49.720 --> 0:33:53.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kind of an either no matter

0:33:53.440 --> 0:33:56.520
<v Speaker 2>who wins, we lose or or maybe the mister burns

0:33:56.600 --> 0:33:59.440
<v Speaker 2>so many diseases that it kind of keeps the structure

0:33:59.520 --> 0:34:00.160
<v Speaker 2>propped up up.

0:34:01.640 --> 0:34:04.120
<v Speaker 3>I guess yeah.

0:34:05.120 --> 0:34:08.360
<v Speaker 2>That's that's your call. Yeah, okay, okay, I again, I

0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:10.719
<v Speaker 2>think it's Alien four, but nobody's going to understand my

0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:14.640
<v Speaker 2>references to Alien four. So what I do think that

0:34:14.680 --> 0:34:18.279
<v Speaker 2>you can probably understand all politics via one of the

0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:22.360
<v Speaker 2>Alien movies, as long as it's not the David Fincher one.

0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:27.360
<v Speaker 2>You know, let's just keep Alien three shovel that aside,

0:34:27.480 --> 0:34:33.320
<v Speaker 2>you know, Alien Resurrection, Alien Aliens, all good politics. So yeah,

0:34:33.360 --> 0:34:36.879
<v Speaker 2>I think it's funny that these guys very clearly get

0:34:36.920 --> 0:34:41.160
<v Speaker 2>who each other is in such a strong way, and

0:34:41.200 --> 0:34:42.759
<v Speaker 2>they kind of they seem to have had a little

0:34:42.800 --> 0:34:45.799
<v Speaker 2>bit of a rapprochma, in part because Peter is later

0:34:45.880 --> 0:34:50.240
<v Speaker 2>going to save SpaceX with an investment kind of. But uh,

0:34:50.719 --> 0:34:54.200
<v Speaker 2>once Peter ousts Musk, the two are at arms. Lincoln,

0:34:54.239 --> 0:34:56.600
<v Speaker 2>they hate each other for years, right, They are very

0:34:56.640 --> 0:34:59.920
<v Speaker 2>clearly enemies for a while. After this, Peter takes over

0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:02.800
<v Speaker 2>Muscus CEO, and in this role he has a couple

0:35:02.800 --> 0:35:05.640
<v Speaker 2>of strengths. He's noted by his employees as being a

0:35:05.760 --> 0:35:08.120
<v Speaker 2>very supportive manager. He's the kind of guy who will

0:35:08.120 --> 0:35:10.160
<v Speaker 2>give you a ton of freedom in the world to

0:35:10.239 --> 0:35:13.080
<v Speaker 2>explore and try stuff out. Now, the downside of this

0:35:13.200 --> 0:35:17.400
<v Speaker 2>is Peter actually doesn't like confrontation. He's terrible at firing

0:35:17.480 --> 0:35:20.080
<v Speaker 2>people if he brings someone in, in part because I

0:35:20.120 --> 0:35:23.640
<v Speaker 2>think he mostly hires people he likes. If they're bad

0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:26.400
<v Speaker 2>or they fuck up, he'll shuffle them around. But he

0:35:26.480 --> 0:35:29.439
<v Speaker 2>doesn't tend to just let people go. He's really bad

0:35:29.440 --> 0:35:32.680
<v Speaker 2>at that actually, which is interesting to me. Now, one

0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:34.960
<v Speaker 2>of the big successes PayPal has in this period. As

0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:37.480
<v Speaker 2>a result of Peter's management style is that they develop

0:35:37.719 --> 0:35:42.360
<v Speaker 2>innovative technology aimed at fighting online fraud. From a fairly

0:35:42.400 --> 0:35:44.880
<v Speaker 2>early point in the business, around the year two thousand,

0:35:45.239 --> 0:35:49.080
<v Speaker 2>PayPal had started dealing with Russian scammers creating shell accounts

0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:52.759
<v Speaker 2>with stolen credit card numbers using bots. It actually goes

0:35:52.800 --> 0:35:54.839
<v Speaker 2>back quite a while. This is again happening before nine

0:35:54.880 --> 0:35:57.719
<v Speaker 2>to eleven. Teal didn't want to crack down on this

0:35:57.760 --> 0:35:59.680
<v Speaker 2>in a way that would make the service harder to use,

0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:02.520
<v Speaker 2>because it being easy to use was part of the appeal, right,

0:36:02.880 --> 0:36:05.240
<v Speaker 2>So instead, what they needed to do is actually figure

0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:08.839
<v Speaker 2>out where these networks were and shut down the network surgically.

0:36:09.239 --> 0:36:12.560
<v Speaker 2>So he has Levchin design a program that forced users

0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:15.520
<v Speaker 2>to copy letters displayed over a background that made them

0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:20.000
<v Speaker 2>impossible for machines to read. This becomes the capture system, right.

0:36:20.040 --> 0:36:22.680
<v Speaker 2>We all know that that is comes out of PayPal.

0:36:22.880 --> 0:36:25.160
<v Speaker 2>Levchin is the guy who codes it, but Teal is

0:36:25.160 --> 0:36:29.040
<v Speaker 2>a big part of like why we get capture now,

0:36:29.040 --> 0:36:32.000
<v Speaker 2>that's obviously very influential. We've all had to do god

0:36:32.080 --> 0:36:34.680
<v Speaker 2>knows an infinite number of these fucking things. But that

0:36:34.719 --> 0:36:37.960
<v Speaker 2>innovation alone only puts a dentt in the online like

0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:40.799
<v Speaker 2>fraud problem. So near the end of two thousand, a

0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:46.000
<v Speaker 2>PayPal employee named John Kolthanak, who's a former military intelligence man,

0:36:46.360 --> 0:36:49.480
<v Speaker 2>started building what we today call the crazy board. Right

0:36:49.520 --> 0:36:51.839
<v Speaker 2>where he's he's trying to like do the little like

0:36:51.960 --> 0:36:54.720
<v Speaker 2>string like time bits of string to pictures of different

0:36:54.800 --> 0:36:57.719
<v Speaker 2>like fraud networks, try to map out these accounts of

0:36:57.760 --> 0:37:00.120
<v Speaker 2>fraudsters who are attacking PayPal. And he does this. It's

0:37:00.160 --> 0:37:02.759
<v Speaker 2>all kind of in a very like isolator, in a

0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:06.080
<v Speaker 2>very like labor intensive way, like building this like map

0:37:06.239 --> 0:37:08.319
<v Speaker 2>is a real pain in the ass, but he does

0:37:08.360 --> 0:37:12.480
<v Speaker 2>eventually isolate the main culprit of the botnet, you know,

0:37:12.760 --> 0:37:16.280
<v Speaker 2>defrauding them, a guy nicknamed Egor who had taken twenty

0:37:16.320 --> 0:37:19.520
<v Speaker 2>million dollars or so out of PayPal. Now, when this

0:37:19.640 --> 0:37:21.960
<v Speaker 2>worked out, this is a very effective method of getting

0:37:21.960 --> 0:37:24.640
<v Speaker 2>this guy, they decide, like, we need a way to

0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:28.400
<v Speaker 2>automate this process. Right, it's too slow to build a

0:37:28.440 --> 0:37:31.400
<v Speaker 2>crazy board the way call Thinek had, So let's have

0:37:31.520 --> 0:37:34.919
<v Speaker 2>Levchin code, a system by which you can map out

0:37:35.640 --> 0:37:38.920
<v Speaker 2>links between different groups of bad actors, so you can

0:37:39.000 --> 0:37:44.680
<v Speaker 2>build an actual physical understanding of these networks in real time. Right,

0:37:45.600 --> 0:37:48.800
<v Speaker 2>this app to build this kind of a crazy board

0:37:48.880 --> 0:37:54.839
<v Speaker 2>system is what becomes Palantier, right, yeah, yeah. Levchin calls

0:37:54.880 --> 0:37:57.959
<v Speaker 2>the program Egor because of this guy that Kothanek had caught,

0:37:58.000 --> 0:38:00.440
<v Speaker 2>and he builds this program and it's for PayPal to

0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:03.319
<v Speaker 2>stop fraud. This is what becomes Palenter. This is the

0:38:03.360 --> 0:38:05.680
<v Speaker 2>core of Palenteer, right, it comes from Igor.

0:38:05.920 --> 0:38:06.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:12.239
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, very interesting stuff. Yes, and we will be talking

0:38:12.280 --> 0:38:15.560
<v Speaker 2>a lot about Palatineer in Bart three. Teal's management style.

0:38:16.200 --> 0:38:18.560
<v Speaker 2>So again, if you're looking at this, this is both

0:38:18.640 --> 0:38:22.400
<v Speaker 2>like you should be hearing that music, like we can

0:38:22.440 --> 0:38:24.880
<v Speaker 2>see the evil coming up here, but also this is

0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:28.200
<v Speaker 2>evidence that like Peter's management style isn't bad. These are

0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:30.360
<v Speaker 2>effective outcomes that make a lot of money.

0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:30.640
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:38:30.880 --> 0:38:34.640
<v Speaker 2>He is capable of motivating and managing people and giving

0:38:34.680 --> 0:38:37.120
<v Speaker 2>them the freedom they need to innovate. You know that

0:38:37.719 --> 0:38:41.160
<v Speaker 2>you have to acknowledge that about the guy totally. Yeah.

0:38:41.200 --> 0:38:43.560
<v Speaker 2>But that said, he also has a lot of blind spots,

0:38:43.640 --> 0:38:46.000
<v Speaker 2>and these are well described in this quote from that

0:38:46.120 --> 0:38:50.200
<v Speaker 2>Forbes article. In two thousand and seven, PayPal's losses were multiplying.

0:38:50.280 --> 0:38:53.200
<v Speaker 2>It battled Russian fraudsters who are filching millions by cribbing

0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:56.320
<v Speaker 2>credit card numbers. Customer service complaints flooded the phone lines

0:38:56.320 --> 0:38:59.480
<v Speaker 2>and inboxes, where often dealt with by simply not answering

0:38:59.520 --> 0:39:03.600
<v Speaker 2>the phone doing a mass deletion. Louisiana temporarily banned PayPal

0:39:03.640 --> 0:39:06.560
<v Speaker 2>from doing business in the state. MasterCard threatened to pull

0:39:06.600 --> 0:39:09.640
<v Speaker 2>the plug because of the high number of chargebacks. Peter

0:39:09.719 --> 0:39:12.880
<v Speaker 2>Teel didn't know what a chargeback was, said Jawed Karim,

0:39:13.280 --> 0:39:15.560
<v Speaker 2>an early engineer who went on to found YouTube with

0:39:15.600 --> 0:39:18.399
<v Speaker 2>fellow alumni Chad Hurley and Steve Chin and then sell

0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:20.600
<v Speaker 2>it to Google. That's one of the fundamental things of

0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:24.040
<v Speaker 2>any credit card payment system. Chargebacks almost killed the company.

0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:26.959
<v Speaker 2>So there's also, in this very libertarian way, he doesn't

0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:30.719
<v Speaker 2>understand very basic aspects of reality that are central to

0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:34.120
<v Speaker 2>the thing he's trying to do, and it nearly kills them. Right, Like,

0:39:34.160 --> 0:39:36.160
<v Speaker 2>you don't know what a chargeback is and you are

0:39:36.239 --> 0:39:40.240
<v Speaker 2>running a payment processing company, Like that's a big, big

0:39:40.280 --> 0:39:44.319
<v Speaker 2>blind spot, right, I know what a chargeback is, and

0:39:44.360 --> 0:39:46.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm just a guy who was bad at having a

0:39:46.040 --> 0:39:47.000
<v Speaker 2>credit card.

0:39:47.200 --> 0:39:51.279
<v Speaker 3>You know. Right. But he's not very far removed from

0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:51.839
<v Speaker 3>just being like.

0:39:52.080 --> 0:39:55.239
<v Speaker 2>A punt right, right, And when you understand that is

0:39:55.320 --> 0:39:57.520
<v Speaker 2>his background, right, that he doesn't really have a life

0:39:57.560 --> 0:39:59.560
<v Speaker 2>outside of not making it as a lawyer and then

0:39:59.600 --> 0:40:02.120
<v Speaker 2>being a wagon pundit. I get while you've got some

0:40:02.200 --> 0:40:03.120
<v Speaker 2>blind spots, Peter.

0:40:04.360 --> 0:40:08.359
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, so that's really interesting about the Palin board, Like, yeah,

0:40:08.480 --> 0:40:12.440
<v Speaker 5>that that you know, I mean, I grew a giant company,

0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:15.480
<v Speaker 5>you know, almost by accident out of.

0:40:15.480 --> 0:40:16.040
<v Speaker 3>The zone one.

0:40:16.400 --> 0:40:18.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, And and that is like one of the

0:40:18.320 --> 0:40:22.080
<v Speaker 2>more interesting stories with with Teal, right, because it doesn't

0:40:22.120 --> 0:40:23.080
<v Speaker 2>come out of this.

0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:25.200
<v Speaker 3>The fact that.

0:40:25.160 --> 0:40:27.399
<v Speaker 2>He's after nine to eleven able to see like, oh,

0:40:27.440 --> 0:40:30.200
<v Speaker 2>you know, this thing we've used to stop networks of scammers,

0:40:30.719 --> 0:40:33.200
<v Speaker 2>you can probably sell to the government to try to

0:40:33.200 --> 0:40:36.160
<v Speaker 2>stop terrorists right after this big attack. You know, that's

0:40:36.200 --> 0:40:42.319
<v Speaker 2>a that's that's some genuine insight. So PayPal, you know,

0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:46.520
<v Speaker 2>it struggles with profitability, but they eventually break even after

0:40:46.560 --> 0:40:48.759
<v Speaker 2>about one hundred and eighty million had been poured into

0:40:48.800 --> 0:40:53.880
<v Speaker 2>the idea. Now under Elon and Peter Teal, PayPal is

0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:57.640
<v Speaker 2>never profitable, right, they hit break even, and as soon

0:40:57.640 --> 0:40:59.719
<v Speaker 2>as they hit break even, they carry out an ip

0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Right immediately after their IPO, the company is sold to

0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:06.879
<v Speaker 2>eBay for one and a half billion dollars, and Peter

0:41:07.040 --> 0:41:12.080
<v Speaker 2>leaves instantly right the financially successful portion of PayPal's history,

0:41:12.120 --> 0:41:14.240
<v Speaker 2>he is not around for him. In fact, the first

0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.160
<v Speaker 2>thing he does after living is he basically he sets

0:41:17.200 --> 0:41:19.560
<v Speaker 2>up he's going to set up like a venture capital fund,

0:41:19.600 --> 0:41:22.839
<v Speaker 2>and he's going to short PayPal. Right, he sells this

0:41:22.920 --> 0:41:25.479
<v Speaker 2>thing off and he's like, I'm immediately going to bet

0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:30.080
<v Speaker 2>against it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He has absolutely not at all,

0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:32.520
<v Speaker 2>no loyalty or anything like that. Right, Like, he gets

0:41:32.600 --> 0:41:34.600
<v Speaker 2>his money and he gets out, I am done. I

0:41:34.719 --> 0:41:37.320
<v Speaker 2>have no more interest in this idea, right And I

0:41:37.400 --> 0:41:39.399
<v Speaker 2>think in part because it's become clear at this point

0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:41.120
<v Speaker 2>by two thousand and two, PayPal is not going to

0:41:41.239 --> 0:41:44.520
<v Speaker 2>destroy capital like destroy or so Kim. PayPal is not

0:41:44.560 --> 0:41:46.920
<v Speaker 2>going to destroy like liberal democratic governments. It's not going

0:41:46.960 --> 0:41:49.440
<v Speaker 2>to create its own currency system. It's just going to

0:41:49.480 --> 0:41:51.920
<v Speaker 2>be the way people use spend money on the internet.

0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:56.360
<v Speaker 2>And that's not interesting to him right now. Part of

0:41:56.400 --> 0:41:59.320
<v Speaker 2>why I think he gets into this like shorting, betting

0:41:59.360 --> 0:42:02.040
<v Speaker 2>against this thing he'd helped to build, is that two

0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:04.120
<v Speaker 2>thousand and two is also right after nine to eleven,

0:42:04.600 --> 0:42:07.160
<v Speaker 2>and Peter is one of many Americans who kind of

0:42:07.320 --> 0:42:10.360
<v Speaker 2>loses his mind over nine to eleven, Right, this is

0:42:10.400 --> 0:42:14.719
<v Speaker 2>a deranging moment for him, and it also like it

0:42:14.840 --> 0:42:17.040
<v Speaker 2>fucks up the fact that he has this need to

0:42:17.160 --> 0:42:21.120
<v Speaker 2>be seen as a contrarian, as separate, as above the herd, right.

0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:23.880
<v Speaker 2>And it's interesting to me that for all of that,

0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:26.520
<v Speaker 2>he is very much in line with like regular people

0:42:26.680 --> 0:42:28.720
<v Speaker 2>like my parents. When it comes to just like losing

0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:31.920
<v Speaker 2>his mind over this terrorist attack, it terrifies him. He's

0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.239
<v Speaker 2>going to participate in a program by the Bush White

0:42:34.280 --> 0:42:37.560
<v Speaker 2>House to bring Silicon Valley movers and shakers in closer

0:42:37.640 --> 0:42:40.600
<v Speaker 2>contact with the Republican Party. This is the first he

0:42:40.680 --> 0:42:43.160
<v Speaker 2>had a lot of his friends from PayPal, people that

0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:46.360
<v Speaker 2>like had kind of seen him as like he's a libertarian,

0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:49.920
<v Speaker 2>He's a Silicon Valley libertarian, but like libertarians were very

0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:53.680
<v Speaker 2>anti Bush in this period. And the fact that Peter

0:42:53.840 --> 0:42:55.680
<v Speaker 2>is willing to get in out of the Republican Party,

0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.359
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people is like, oh, I don't really

0:42:58.520 --> 0:43:01.239
<v Speaker 2>know this guy like I thought I did. This does

0:43:01.320 --> 0:43:04.120
<v Speaker 2>not make sense where the person I thought Peter was.

0:43:05.160 --> 0:43:08.080
<v Speaker 2>And you know, some of what's going on here is

0:43:08.120 --> 0:43:10.799
<v Speaker 2>that the tech bubble has burst in this post nine

0:43:10.800 --> 0:43:13.400
<v Speaker 2>to eleven period right, the period immediately after the attacks

0:43:13.440 --> 0:43:16.319
<v Speaker 2>from the US is invading Afghanistan and spinning up towards

0:43:16.400 --> 0:43:19.880
<v Speaker 2>invading Iraq is a bad time for big tech. The

0:43:20.000 --> 0:43:22.239
<v Speaker 2>dot com bubble had burst, and the economy in general

0:43:22.320 --> 0:43:24.279
<v Speaker 2>had shit. The bed is partly as a result of

0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:27.359
<v Speaker 2>the attacks. Peter, who has always had a good gut

0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:31.280
<v Speaker 2>instinct for the momentum of the moment and culture, opted

0:43:31.360 --> 0:43:33.879
<v Speaker 2>to spend a lot of the next two years kind

0:43:33.920 --> 0:43:37.120
<v Speaker 2>of fucking around, right. He like he gets from two

0:43:37.120 --> 0:43:39.360
<v Speaker 2>thousand and two to two thousand and four that like, there,

0:43:39.840 --> 0:43:41.800
<v Speaker 2>this is not really a great time to be investing

0:43:41.920 --> 0:43:44.640
<v Speaker 2>in most things. And he's also he's just sold his

0:43:44.760 --> 0:43:47.160
<v Speaker 2>first company. He's mega rich now, so some of what

0:43:47.280 --> 0:43:49.880
<v Speaker 2>he's doing is just, you know, he's kind of idly

0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:53.480
<v Speaker 2>shorting his old business the US economy. But he's also

0:43:53.600 --> 0:43:56.439
<v Speaker 2>just kind of like doing the very understandable thing, which

0:43:56.520 --> 0:43:59.960
<v Speaker 2>is partying for a while, you know. So this is

0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:01.880
<v Speaker 2>also where Peter, you could kind of see this as

0:44:01.920 --> 0:44:04.920
<v Speaker 2>he's getting some space and he starts to find himself

0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:08.520
<v Speaker 2>during this period. Chaff Gin rights that as CEO of PayPal,

0:44:08.600 --> 0:44:11.600
<v Speaker 2>Peter had dressed down in a T shirt and old jeans,

0:44:12.080 --> 0:44:13.759
<v Speaker 2>but as soon as he sold off his interest in

0:44:13.800 --> 0:44:16.480
<v Speaker 2>the company. Quote now Teal had a wardrobe full of

0:44:16.600 --> 0:44:20.000
<v Speaker 2>suits and a silver Ferrari spider three p. Sixty read,

0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:22.040
<v Speaker 2>he told The New York Times magazine would have been

0:44:22.120 --> 0:44:25.239
<v Speaker 2>over the top. He purchased a ten thousand square foot

0:44:25.320 --> 0:44:27.600
<v Speaker 2>mansion in San Francisco and filled it with art, but

0:44:27.680 --> 0:44:30.600
<v Speaker 2>also conference rooms, a day to night lounge, and a

0:44:30.719 --> 0:44:33.040
<v Speaker 2>kitchen meant for buffets. It was a place to work

0:44:33.120 --> 0:44:36.600
<v Speaker 2>and host work, but chaf gin rights. There were no keepsakes,

0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:40.640
<v Speaker 2>no magazines, and no family photos. Teal's homes, as one

0:44:40.760 --> 0:44:43.600
<v Speaker 2>visitor remarked, referring to the Presidio mansion and a grand

0:44:43.640 --> 0:44:46.520
<v Speaker 2>apartment that Peter acquired in New York City, looked like

0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:49.520
<v Speaker 2>stage sets and it's hard to tell someone actually lives

0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:53.200
<v Speaker 2>in them. I feel like that's just being mega rich.

0:44:53.800 --> 0:44:55.560
<v Speaker 2>You've got enough be able to keep everything clean all

0:44:55.640 --> 0:44:57.919
<v Speaker 2>the time, and you want a lot of nice star yeah.

0:44:58.560 --> 0:45:02.439
<v Speaker 2>Teal invested money in an eye club called Frisson after

0:45:02.560 --> 0:45:05.640
<v Speaker 2>one of his friend friends bragged about a different nightclub

0:45:05.719 --> 0:45:08.440
<v Speaker 2>in New York City that had co ed bathrooms and

0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:13.400
<v Speaker 2>so uh. Frissan is largely based around its co ed bathrooms,

0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:16.080
<v Speaker 2>which are designed to provide couples with an easy way

0:45:16.160 --> 0:45:19.239
<v Speaker 2>to fuck in a public bathroom because some people want that.

0:45:21.120 --> 0:45:24.279
<v Speaker 2>That's at least, you know the allegation from Chapkins book

0:45:24.320 --> 0:45:27.160
<v Speaker 2>that like he builds this night because a friend is like, yeah,

0:45:27.200 --> 0:45:29.080
<v Speaker 2>there's this fucking club in New York and you have

0:45:29.239 --> 0:45:31.160
<v Speaker 2>sex with your girlfriend in the bathrooms.

0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:32.279
<v Speaker 3>And Peter's like, I.

0:45:32.360 --> 0:45:34.120
<v Speaker 2>Need to own one of those in the in the

0:45:34.200 --> 0:45:35.239
<v Speaker 2>West Coast.

0:45:36.000 --> 0:45:40.359
<v Speaker 3>Uh, Silicon Valley. It's yeah, yeah, bathroom fuck.

0:45:40.480 --> 0:45:45.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you've invented fucking in a club. Bathroom. Congratulations. Peter

0:45:45.200 --> 0:45:48.120
<v Speaker 2>like comes in one day dressed as Steve Jobs, Like,

0:45:48.200 --> 0:45:52.239
<v Speaker 2>I've had an incredibly great idea doing cocaine in a bathroom.

0:45:53.200 --> 0:45:55.600
<v Speaker 2>This is going to revolutionized partying as.

0:45:55.520 --> 0:45:59.640
<v Speaker 3>A rich guy for san is like the name of

0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:05.080
<v Speaker 3>like a USA Networks, Uh like rom coms version of

0:46:05.160 --> 0:46:10.080
<v Speaker 3>a club. Yeah, it's like that's when the guys from

0:46:10.200 --> 0:46:10.920
<v Speaker 3>suits went to.

0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:16.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, definitely. Now it also hosted fine dining, and

0:46:16.480 --> 0:46:20.200
<v Speaker 2>I gotta say it works for a while, although in

0:46:20.320 --> 0:46:23.600
<v Speaker 2>a way that's creepy. In retrospect, Chief Gen makes hay

0:46:23.680 --> 0:46:27.160
<v Speaker 2>out of the celebrities that became regulars. Quote Lars Ulrich,

0:46:27.520 --> 0:46:34.120
<v Speaker 2>Robert Redford, Kevin Spacey, what a party?

0:46:36.080 --> 0:46:37.200
<v Speaker 3>Robert Redford? Cool?

0:46:37.600 --> 0:46:40.880
<v Speaker 2>Fine, yeah, Robert Redford, He's really the sandwich.

0:46:41.280 --> 0:46:44.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeh, super cool. Yeah, Lars Ulrich and.

0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:50.920
<v Speaker 2>Kevin Lars Alway in the period oh God, because it's

0:46:50.960 --> 0:46:57.480
<v Speaker 2>also like that's like page yeah yeah, Lars Alric space

0:46:58.719 --> 0:47:02.080
<v Speaker 2>God because yeah, that's like peak angry at fucking nabster.

0:47:02.239 --> 0:47:05.279
<v Speaker 2>Lars Ulrich and I don't and I'm not gonna make

0:47:05.360 --> 0:47:08.320
<v Speaker 2>allegations about Kevin Spacey, given to how litigious he is,

0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:11.640
<v Speaker 2>but like, read something about Kevin Spacey. Just just read

0:47:11.719 --> 0:47:15.279
<v Speaker 2>something about Kevin Spacey and then make a guess what's

0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:21.680
<v Speaker 2>going on in the bathrooms of Frassan casting for great movies? Obviously,

0:47:23.719 --> 0:47:26.520
<v Speaker 2>so he tries his hand at publishing in this period

0:47:26.600 --> 0:47:29.560
<v Speaker 2>two and you are not going to guess what magazine

0:47:29.640 --> 0:47:30.280
<v Speaker 2>he launches.

0:47:30.920 --> 0:47:32.120
<v Speaker 3>What what sport?

0:47:32.440 --> 0:47:35.680
<v Speaker 2>Would Peter Thiel launch a magazine based around in two

0:47:35.760 --> 0:47:42.360
<v Speaker 2>thousand and two or four something like that school squash?

0:47:42.680 --> 0:47:44.360
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, squash.

0:47:44.520 --> 0:47:45.399
<v Speaker 2>Okay, you got a guess?

0:47:45.440 --> 0:47:48.840
<v Speaker 3>Noah, I mean I thought you were giving us like

0:47:49.239 --> 0:47:51.000
<v Speaker 3>the foreshadowing with Ping Pong.

0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:54.600
<v Speaker 2>No, that would have been very I would have respected

0:47:54.640 --> 0:47:56.040
<v Speaker 2>the hell out of that if he had tried to

0:47:56.080 --> 0:47:59.359
<v Speaker 2>get a Ping Bong magazine off the ground about all

0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:03.120
<v Speaker 2>the time, Pickle, no, not pick I don't know that exists.

0:48:05.400 --> 0:48:08.800
<v Speaker 3>Just like Ping Pong won a slightly large record anywhere.

0:48:08.920 --> 0:48:16.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Frisbee, it's ping pong for dads. Frisbee, Frisbee, no ball.

0:48:17.440 --> 0:48:20.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm satisfied that none of you guessed. The magazine he

0:48:20.320 --> 0:48:24.280
<v Speaker 2>launches is named American Thunder, and it's it's about Nascar.

0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:30.160
<v Speaker 1>That sounds like, sounds like a dirty magazine.

0:48:31.440 --> 0:48:32.120
<v Speaker 3>It may have been.

0:48:32.239 --> 0:48:37.320
<v Speaker 2>It was a little bit pornographic. This is a psyop.

0:48:38.719 --> 0:48:40.440
<v Speaker 3>Oh, yeah, he is.

0:48:40.960 --> 0:48:43.360
<v Speaker 2>He does this. The goal of this is he starts

0:48:43.400 --> 0:48:46.239
<v Speaker 2>a NASCAR magazine and he hires only his right wing

0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:49.040
<v Speaker 2>think tank friends to write about in it, and their

0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:52.880
<v Speaker 2>goal is to use NASCAR's cultural cachet with like regular

0:48:53.000 --> 0:48:57.640
<v Speaker 2>conservatives to push more of their extremist like libertarian ideas

0:48:57.960 --> 0:49:02.560
<v Speaker 2>to Republicans. Right, that's the goal of American Thunder. And

0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:05.680
<v Speaker 2>it's wild to me he puts ten million dollars into

0:49:05.760 --> 0:49:09.360
<v Speaker 2>this magazine despite the fact that he is not interested

0:49:09.440 --> 0:49:13.400
<v Speaker 2>in Nascar. He brings his old Stanford Review buddies in

0:49:14.239 --> 0:49:17.320
<v Speaker 2>and the first issue, rather than like talking about NASCAR

0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:19.839
<v Speaker 2>in a meaningful way, has like an essay about how

0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:22.279
<v Speaker 2>the magazine is not going to embody any sense of

0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:26.759
<v Speaker 2>political correctness, which at this maybe today that would work.

0:49:26.760 --> 0:49:28.600
<v Speaker 2>At this point in time, the kind of people who

0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:31.439
<v Speaker 2>buy a NASCAR magazine really just want to read about

0:49:31.480 --> 0:49:35.600
<v Speaker 2>Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhart. You know, like just sit

0:49:35.719 --> 0:49:38.640
<v Speaker 2>in your rants, know.

0:49:38.680 --> 0:49:42.000
<v Speaker 3>This, What if hold on, hold on? Wait, okay, what

0:49:42.400 --> 0:49:45.920
<v Speaker 3>if he had done that but with pampon that would.

0:49:45.719 --> 0:49:50.719
<v Speaker 2>Be incredibly funny, just like a red pill.

0:49:50.800 --> 0:49:52.399
<v Speaker 3>Everybody throw ping pong.

0:49:52.719 --> 0:49:56.000
<v Speaker 2>His Ping Pong magazine is entirely about the gold standard.

0:49:58.480 --> 0:50:02.200
<v Speaker 2>There's just a forty five pay ranton here about euthanizing

0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:04.160
<v Speaker 2>the poor. I was trying to buy a new racket.

0:50:05.760 --> 0:50:10.600
<v Speaker 2>I still don't know what kind of table again. Yeah,

0:50:11.440 --> 0:50:13.320
<v Speaker 2>so yes, this is It seems to have been a

0:50:13.360 --> 0:50:17.160
<v Speaker 2>badly disguised tempt to attempt to propagandize to normal working jos.

0:50:17.160 --> 0:50:21.000
<v Speaker 2>And this is embodied well by the magazine's Real Guys column.

0:50:21.280 --> 0:50:24.360
<v Speaker 2>And here's how Chifkin describes that it was written not

0:50:24.520 --> 0:50:27.440
<v Speaker 2>by an auto journalist but by the online editor for

0:50:27.520 --> 0:50:30.480
<v Speaker 2>The Weekly Standard, who devoted his first column to the

0:50:30.560 --> 0:50:35.719
<v Speaker 2>idea that ESPN had been emasculated by namby pamby political correctness,

0:50:36.280 --> 0:50:38.960
<v Speaker 2>the grub page where a normal magazine would have struck

0:50:39.000 --> 0:50:42.200
<v Speaker 2>the barbecue recipes included in its inaugural column.

0:50:42.440 --> 0:50:43.040
<v Speaker 3>Incredible.

0:50:43.280 --> 0:50:47.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, a possibly tongue in cheek anthropological discussion of why

0:50:47.520 --> 0:50:52.360
<v Speaker 2>household cooking should be considered women's work. Everyday cooking is ature.

0:50:52.440 --> 0:50:54.839
<v Speaker 2>A few men ever get around to, or even care

0:50:54.920 --> 0:50:57.160
<v Speaker 2>to get around to. We are grateful that this is

0:50:57.200 --> 0:50:59.799
<v Speaker 2>how things have worked out. So grateful we'll even help

0:50:59.840 --> 0:51:03.440
<v Speaker 2>with the dishes from time to time. Fuck, I just

0:51:03.520 --> 0:51:06.000
<v Speaker 2>tell people how to fucking make a barbecue sauce.

0:51:06.160 --> 0:51:06.319
<v Speaker 5>Man.

0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:10.919
<v Speaker 2>Come on, somebody needs this in their NASCAR magazine.

0:51:11.880 --> 0:51:13.280
<v Speaker 1>Up Jesus Christ.

0:51:14.200 --> 0:51:17.040
<v Speaker 2>So it says a lot about the economics of magazines,

0:51:17.080 --> 0:51:19.320
<v Speaker 2>because like, if somebody hands me ten million dollars to

0:51:19.480 --> 0:51:21.640
<v Speaker 2>start a media company, I think I can do a

0:51:21.719 --> 0:51:25.480
<v Speaker 2>lot with ten million dollars. Peter's magazine is bankrupt by

0:51:25.480 --> 0:51:27.600
<v Speaker 2>the end of two thousand and five. It lasts about

0:51:27.640 --> 0:51:30.719
<v Speaker 2>a year, So that's a pretty I think even with

0:51:30.880 --> 0:51:33.000
<v Speaker 2>magazine money, that's a pretty You know more about this

0:51:33.080 --> 0:51:34.640
<v Speaker 2>than me, no, but that seems like a pretty fast

0:51:34.719 --> 0:51:35.239
<v Speaker 2>burn rate.

0:51:37.000 --> 0:51:39.839
<v Speaker 3>I mean, good on him, you know, good on him.

0:51:39.880 --> 0:51:43.800
<v Speaker 3>I'm sure there's some lavish photo shoots, definitely, you know,

0:51:44.840 --> 0:51:46.320
<v Speaker 3>featuring Camille Pallia.

0:51:46.719 --> 0:51:53.120
<v Speaker 2>Uh, you knows favorite intellectually, yeah.

0:51:54.200 --> 0:51:58.759
<v Speaker 3>After on top of a stock car. Yeah, I'm sure

0:51:58.800 --> 0:52:03.040
<v Speaker 3>there's some real like you know, a lot of like

0:52:03.360 --> 0:52:08.280
<v Speaker 3>nineties technology devoted to like you know, Mussolini U photoshopped

0:52:08.440 --> 0:52:11.560
<v Speaker 3>into you know, Dale Earnhardt's machine.

0:52:12.160 --> 0:52:15.360
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if we got because Dale Earnhardt famously like

0:52:15.600 --> 0:52:18.120
<v Speaker 2>helped lead a crusade against like the use of Confederate

0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:23.120
<v Speaker 2>flags at NASCAR events. I wonder if there's an angry

0:52:23.239 --> 0:52:25.760
<v Speaker 2>column about that in this I don't remember the exact

0:52:25.880 --> 0:52:27.919
<v Speaker 2>year that that happened, though, Uh.

0:52:28.520 --> 0:52:30.080
<v Speaker 3>It's like bring back to General Lee.

0:52:30.480 --> 0:52:32.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I wonder if that was a cause for

0:52:32.840 --> 0:52:33.400
<v Speaker 2>these people.

0:52:33.880 --> 0:52:35.920
<v Speaker 3>Do you know that dukes of hazard guys were in

0:52:36.000 --> 0:52:37.279
<v Speaker 3>there somehow? Yeah?

0:52:37.400 --> 0:52:43.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Jesus Chris Peterteel's NASCAR magazine. The issues of that

0:52:43.440 --> 0:52:48.359
<v Speaker 2>have to be a collector side at this point. Ready, Yeah,

0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:51.759
<v Speaker 2>American Thunder is bankrupt by the end of the year.

0:52:52.160 --> 0:52:54.399
<v Speaker 2>Forssan lasts a little bit longer and makes it till

0:52:54.400 --> 0:52:57.080
<v Speaker 2>two thousand and eight. Now, the fact that he's pouring

0:52:57.160 --> 0:52:59.920
<v Speaker 2>money into these and all of them are lost lostly,

0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:02.640
<v Speaker 2>you could say it doesn't hurt him. He's got plenty

0:53:02.680 --> 0:53:05.320
<v Speaker 2>of money, and neither of him have been about making

0:53:05.360 --> 0:53:08.960
<v Speaker 2>a profit. Both were away scheme, There were schemes to

0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:13.040
<v Speaker 2>gain influence, right. The nightclub was a way of like

0:53:13.160 --> 0:53:16.080
<v Speaker 2>setting him up in like the popular, like cool hip,

0:53:16.480 --> 0:53:19.560
<v Speaker 2>celebrity set, and this magazine was an attempt to gain

0:53:19.600 --> 0:53:20.920
<v Speaker 2>influence with the working class.

0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:21.200
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:53:21.880 --> 0:53:24.200
<v Speaker 2>So the fact that neither of these make money doesn't

0:53:24.239 --> 0:53:26.480
<v Speaker 2>disturb Peter. But he also knows that he's not going

0:53:26.560 --> 0:53:29.239
<v Speaker 2>to be able to coast forever off of his PayPal money.

0:53:29.360 --> 0:53:31.279
<v Speaker 2>And you know what, we here aren't going to be

0:53:31.280 --> 0:53:33.440
<v Speaker 2>able to coast forever off of the money we already

0:53:33.520 --> 0:53:35.800
<v Speaker 2>have from ads. So why don't you listen to a

0:53:35.880 --> 0:53:42.279
<v Speaker 2>couple more You're back?

0:53:42.360 --> 0:53:44.440
<v Speaker 1>That was beautiful, Thank you, thank you.

0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:46.279
<v Speaker 2>I thought that was one of my better one of

0:53:46.360 --> 0:53:51.920
<v Speaker 2>my better plugs. So by this point, Peter Thiel, you know,

0:53:52.000 --> 0:53:53.719
<v Speaker 2>kind of the period he's trying all this stuff out.

0:53:53.760 --> 0:53:57.600
<v Speaker 2>He's also started a new company, an investment firm called

0:53:57.680 --> 0:54:02.319
<v Speaker 2>Clarion Capital, which had been founded in two thousand and two. Now, Peter,

0:54:02.480 --> 0:54:04.680
<v Speaker 2>not long after Clarium gets found and is going to

0:54:04.719 --> 0:54:07.000
<v Speaker 2>get in on the ground floor of investing in Facebook.

0:54:07.040 --> 0:54:09.560
<v Speaker 2>He gets a ten percent steak in the company, but

0:54:09.680 --> 0:54:12.319
<v Speaker 2>that deal is also structured in some ways as a loan.

0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:14.200
<v Speaker 2>This is one of those things that's covered a lot

0:54:14.239 --> 0:54:18.480
<v Speaker 2>in the social network right. Basically, he puts the steak

0:54:18.520 --> 0:54:21.480
<v Speaker 2>in the company to which allows Facebook to survive in

0:54:21.560 --> 0:54:23.200
<v Speaker 2>its early days, but he does so in such a

0:54:23.239 --> 0:54:28.920
<v Speaker 2>way that in order to make the company viable, Zuckerberg

0:54:29.040 --> 0:54:31.279
<v Speaker 2>has to ice out one of his other founders who

0:54:31.320 --> 0:54:33.440
<v Speaker 2>has like a twenty seven percent steak in the company,

0:54:33.480 --> 0:54:36.880
<v Speaker 2>which he does. This is Zuck's big first betrayal, and

0:54:37.080 --> 0:54:39.400
<v Speaker 2>you can see Peter is kind of like the puppet

0:54:39.480 --> 0:54:42.000
<v Speaker 2>master in it. Now again, these are all the kids

0:54:42.000 --> 0:54:44.719
<v Speaker 2>who started Facebook. So the fact that they are backstabbing

0:54:44.760 --> 0:54:47.839
<v Speaker 2>each other at Peter Teel's incitement, I'm not really all

0:54:47.920 --> 0:54:50.280
<v Speaker 2>that interested in. It's like a mark of human evil.

0:54:50.440 --> 0:54:51.880
<v Speaker 2>That just seems like the kind of thing that was

0:54:51.920 --> 0:54:56.160
<v Speaker 2>always going to happen at Facebook. But you could see

0:54:56.200 --> 0:54:59.560
<v Speaker 2>that like Peter's the guy who corrupts Mark Zuckerberg. I

0:54:59.600 --> 0:55:01.560
<v Speaker 2>don't know, I think that's really accurate. I think Mark

0:55:01.640 --> 0:55:05.239
<v Speaker 2>was always willing to be corrupted, but that's one version

0:55:05.280 --> 0:55:05.880
<v Speaker 2>of the story.

0:55:06.920 --> 0:55:07.080
<v Speaker 3>Now.

0:55:07.719 --> 0:55:09.839
<v Speaker 2>The play by play here has been covered and off

0:55:09.880 --> 0:55:12.960
<v Speaker 2>in movies in our own episodes on Marky Mark. What

0:55:13.080 --> 0:55:15.800
<v Speaker 2>I did learn reading Chaefkin's recitation of events is that

0:55:16.000 --> 0:55:18.719
<v Speaker 2>Peter is kind of he kind of fucks up his

0:55:18.880 --> 0:55:22.359
<v Speaker 2>Facebook investment. He gets in early on the ground floor,

0:55:22.440 --> 0:55:25.320
<v Speaker 2>and he does make money, but he loses his He

0:55:25.640 --> 0:55:27.960
<v Speaker 2>gets in on this first round and makes a profit,

0:55:28.320 --> 0:55:30.560
<v Speaker 2>but when it comes time for the second another round

0:55:30.600 --> 0:55:34.560
<v Speaker 2>of investments, he thinks the business is overvalued and like

0:55:35.000 --> 0:55:37.480
<v Speaker 2>like one hundred and seventy million, like, he thinks Facebook

0:55:37.560 --> 0:55:43.320
<v Speaker 2>is overvalued, and so he fails to roll his investment forward.

0:55:43.680 --> 0:55:46.439
<v Speaker 2>And as a result, despite being famous as this early

0:55:46.520 --> 0:55:50.200
<v Speaker 2>Facebook investment investor, he doesn't make much money off of Facebook.

0:55:50.200 --> 0:55:50.239
<v Speaker 3>What.

0:55:50.840 --> 0:55:54.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he really does not make shit compared to what

0:55:54.200 --> 0:55:56.719
<v Speaker 2>you would expect, right for normal people. He makes a

0:55:56.719 --> 0:55:58.800
<v Speaker 2>lot of money off of Facebook, right, but for what

0:55:58.960 --> 0:56:01.320
<v Speaker 2>you would expect in base he does not make a

0:56:01.400 --> 0:56:04.959
<v Speaker 2>lot because he kind of bows out of subsequent rounds

0:56:05.000 --> 0:56:07.200
<v Speaker 2>of investment because he doesn't believe in the company.

0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:11.040
<v Speaker 3>Right. He's really his whole, his whole thing. Okay, So

0:56:11.360 --> 0:56:14.439
<v Speaker 3>like investment number one PayPal, which he then.

0:56:14.560 --> 0:56:19.440
<v Speaker 2>Sells right, kind of shorts yeah, and.

0:56:19.480 --> 0:56:22.360
<v Speaker 3>Then Facebook, which he does put money in, picks the

0:56:22.400 --> 0:56:24.680
<v Speaker 3>founders against one another maybe if they're easy to do

0:56:24.760 --> 0:56:27.520
<v Speaker 3>it anyway, and then doesn't really believe in it, so

0:56:27.719 --> 0:56:29.640
<v Speaker 3>doesn't really maximize his.

0:56:29.920 --> 0:56:32.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and this is it's not It would never be

0:56:32.920 --> 0:56:35.440
<v Speaker 2>fair to say Peter has bad instincts because he is

0:56:35.600 --> 0:56:38.520
<v Speaker 2>right about a lot. He's right if there's something in PayPal,

0:56:38.920 --> 0:56:41.280
<v Speaker 2>but he's wrong about how much there is in PayPal.

0:56:41.400 --> 0:56:43.560
<v Speaker 2>And this is actually going to be a real pattern

0:56:43.640 --> 0:56:48.120
<v Speaker 2>in his investments where he'll understand something important but not

0:56:48.400 --> 0:56:51.040
<v Speaker 2>to the extent that allows him to actually make much

0:56:51.120 --> 0:56:53.719
<v Speaker 2>money off of it, right, Or he'll he'll get a

0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:56.680
<v Speaker 2>guess right, but he won't commit to it to the

0:56:56.760 --> 0:57:00.480
<v Speaker 2>extent that allows him to really profit from it. And

0:57:00.680 --> 0:57:04.239
<v Speaker 2>I think that's a really interesting aspect of him, right,

0:57:04.360 --> 0:57:07.319
<v Speaker 2>that he he has these good instincts in some ways,

0:57:07.360 --> 0:57:10.120
<v Speaker 2>but that he also consistently fails to follow up on

0:57:10.239 --> 0:57:13.440
<v Speaker 2>them enough. I find that very interesting and actually honestly

0:57:13.800 --> 0:57:16.120
<v Speaker 2>kind of relatable, like as a guy who's made some

0:57:16.240 --> 0:57:20.640
<v Speaker 2>of his bones predicting things, and also I am aware

0:57:20.680 --> 0:57:22.520
<v Speaker 2>of the things that I have been wrong about. I

0:57:22.680 --> 0:57:26.959
<v Speaker 2>really find that kind of like, like, I get it, Peter,

0:57:27.160 --> 0:57:32.760
<v Speaker 2>It's it's hard, actually, you know. So, as he's exploring

0:57:32.840 --> 0:57:35.400
<v Speaker 2>life as a venture capitalists and kind of the early aughts,

0:57:35.760 --> 0:57:39.480
<v Speaker 2>Peter continues his involvement with Stanford organizing a symposium on

0:57:39.720 --> 0:57:43.800
<v Speaker 2>politics and the apocalypse and this is these are this

0:57:43.920 --> 0:57:46.680
<v Speaker 2>is prior to two thousand and eight. So the housing

0:57:46.800 --> 0:57:48.680
<v Speaker 2>crisis is coming up. This is another one of those

0:57:48.720 --> 0:57:53.040
<v Speaker 2>good predictions. Peter sees the housing crisis coming up. He

0:57:53.240 --> 0:57:58.880
<v Speaker 2>sees that economic like crumbling, but he as opposed to

0:57:58.960 --> 0:58:01.080
<v Speaker 2>just being like, oh, there's a house collapse. It's going

0:58:01.160 --> 0:58:03.240
<v Speaker 2>to be a real problem and there will be some

0:58:03.400 --> 0:58:06.160
<v Speaker 2>financial opportunities as a result of that problem, which like

0:58:06.240 --> 0:58:10.640
<v Speaker 2>the big short guys also right, Peter sees the collapse coming,

0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:14.000
<v Speaker 2>but he assumes the whole system is going to crumble, right,

0:58:14.480 --> 0:58:17.200
<v Speaker 2>Like he thinks he literally thinks the housing collapse is

0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:21.840
<v Speaker 2>going to destroy the entire US government basically, right, what yeah, yeah,

0:58:22.120 --> 0:58:25.040
<v Speaker 2>So again he's like, you're right, but not in the

0:58:25.120 --> 0:58:27.840
<v Speaker 2>way that allows you to like, but you also like

0:58:28.000 --> 0:58:30.000
<v Speaker 2>are wrong in a way that means that you can't

0:58:30.040 --> 0:58:34.120
<v Speaker 2>really profit off of the initial rightness there, right, you

0:58:34.280 --> 0:58:37.640
<v Speaker 2>see the problem and then you massively over extend it

0:58:37.720 --> 0:58:40.200
<v Speaker 2>because of your ideology, and so you fuck up at

0:58:40.240 --> 0:58:42.560
<v Speaker 2>profiting from this moment in American history.

0:58:43.360 --> 0:58:47.680
<v Speaker 3>So he like y two ks yes, yes, yeah, in

0:58:47.800 --> 0:58:52.360
<v Speaker 3>mind what ye do the mind say? Civilization was supposed

0:58:52.360 --> 0:58:54.000
<v Speaker 3>to be destroyed like twelve.

0:58:54.360 --> 0:58:56.160
<v Speaker 2>Twenty twelve, so that was that was going around at

0:58:56.200 --> 0:58:56.919
<v Speaker 2>this point in time.

0:58:57.560 --> 0:59:01.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he was just a little for the Mayan apocalypt.

0:59:01.200 --> 0:59:04.840
<v Speaker 2>Yah, maybe Kevin Space he told him about the Mayan

0:59:04.880 --> 0:59:07.000
<v Speaker 2>apocalypse during a dinner at SAD.

0:59:11.080 --> 0:59:14.880
<v Speaker 3>So he thought that. He's like, Okay, there's all these

0:59:14.960 --> 0:59:19.040
<v Speaker 3>like derivatives or problematic housing rate you were giving mortgage

0:59:19.080 --> 0:59:24.160
<v Speaker 3>launches too many people. Therefore collapse of all Western yes, civilization, Yes.

0:59:24.360 --> 0:59:26.520
<v Speaker 2>And I think it's because he sees that banks and

0:59:26.520 --> 0:59:28.640
<v Speaker 2>stuff are going to go under, but he doesn't see

0:59:28.680 --> 0:59:30.800
<v Speaker 2>that the government is going to respond in any way

0:59:30.880 --> 0:59:34.080
<v Speaker 2>to bail them out and prop up the system, right,

0:59:35.480 --> 0:59:39.040
<v Speaker 2>which is such an interesting shortcoming to not see that,

0:59:39.160 --> 0:59:41.240
<v Speaker 2>like the people running the system have a sense of

0:59:41.320 --> 0:59:44.440
<v Speaker 2>self preservation, right, like whatever you say about it, like

0:59:44.560 --> 0:59:46.960
<v Speaker 2>Obama and or you know, even if it had been

0:59:47.000 --> 0:59:49.000
<v Speaker 2>bushes like. None of them had a desire in the

0:59:49.320 --> 0:59:53.640
<v Speaker 2>entire financial system collapsing. You know, no, definitely not yeah.

0:59:54.760 --> 0:59:57.040
<v Speaker 2>Writing in twenty twenty one for The New Yorker about

0:59:57.080 --> 1:00:02.680
<v Speaker 2>this Politics and the Apocalypse Symposium, Anna Winer summarizes Teal's contribution,

1:00:02.920 --> 1:00:06.680
<v Speaker 2>later published in an essay titled The Straussian Moment was

1:00:06.760 --> 1:00:09.480
<v Speaker 2>built on the premise that September eleventh had upended the

1:00:09.760 --> 1:00:13.800
<v Speaker 2>entire political and military framework of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

1:00:14.120 --> 1:00:18.640
<v Speaker 2>demanding a re examination of the foundations of modern politics.

1:00:19.080 --> 1:00:21.480
<v Speaker 2>The essay drew from a grab bag of thinkers. It

1:00:21.640 --> 1:00:24.560
<v Speaker 2>mediated on Thomas Hobbs and John Locke, and then combined

1:00:24.640 --> 1:00:28.640
<v Speaker 2>ideas from the conservative political theorists Leo Strauss and Karl Schmidt,

1:00:28.800 --> 1:00:31.800
<v Speaker 2>who wrote about the inadequacies of liberal democracy, with the

1:00:31.880 --> 1:00:35.120
<v Speaker 2>work of Girard to offer a diagnosis of modernity. A

1:00:35.240 --> 1:00:37.480
<v Speaker 2>religious war has been brought to a land that no

1:00:37.640 --> 1:00:41.880
<v Speaker 2>longer cares for religious wars, Teele wrote, Today mere self

1:00:41.960 --> 1:00:44.800
<v Speaker 2>preservation forces all of us to look at the world anew,

1:00:45.120 --> 1:00:47.920
<v Speaker 2>to think strange new thoughts, and thereby to awaken from

1:00:47.960 --> 1:00:51.400
<v Speaker 2>that very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and

1:00:51.480 --> 1:00:56.520
<v Speaker 2>amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment. There's so

1:00:56.960 --> 1:00:59.520
<v Speaker 2>much there. There's so much there.

1:01:00.160 --> 1:01:03.600
<v Speaker 3>First of all, this guy is fucking messy. Yeah, you know,

1:01:03.760 --> 1:01:08.760
<v Speaker 3>it's this guy is out of fucking control. Yeah. Like

1:01:09.320 --> 1:01:13.160
<v Speaker 3>the whole point of terrorism is to overreact, and this

1:01:13.320 --> 1:01:14.560
<v Speaker 3>guy wants to overrea.

1:01:14.720 --> 1:01:15.800
<v Speaker 2>We have to overreact.

1:01:15.960 --> 1:01:16.160
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

1:01:16.520 --> 1:01:20.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's so hard that he wants to overturn the Enlightenment. Yeah,

1:01:20.880 --> 1:01:23.840
<v Speaker 3>it's like, well, what the fuck?

1:01:24.720 --> 1:01:27.760
<v Speaker 2>I think it's because he's writing about like, America doesn't

1:01:27.800 --> 1:01:30.120
<v Speaker 2>care for religious wars, but we've been forced ones. Like

1:01:30.360 --> 1:01:34.680
<v Speaker 2>but Peter, you're a Christian culture warrior, right, Like you

1:01:34.840 --> 1:01:37.840
<v Speaker 2>have these very weird ideas about Christianity and morality that

1:01:38.000 --> 1:01:40.280
<v Speaker 2>you are kind of trying to force on people through

1:01:40.360 --> 1:01:44.400
<v Speaker 2>your politics. That's a religious war, right like that To

1:01:44.480 --> 1:01:47.040
<v Speaker 2>say that America doesn't care for religious wars and then

1:01:47.080 --> 1:01:50.240
<v Speaker 2>to look out at twenty twenties US politics is a

1:01:50.440 --> 1:01:55.800
<v Speaker 2>wild thing, right, and it's it's, yeah, just a fascinating

1:01:55.920 --> 1:01:57.520
<v Speaker 2>statement for him to make, right.

1:01:57.480 --> 1:02:00.600
<v Speaker 3>This idea that like yeah, yeah, I mean, look, all

1:02:00.720 --> 1:02:03.720
<v Speaker 3>the problems that we had after nine to eleven, or

1:02:03.760 --> 1:02:10.000
<v Speaker 3>a lot of them were because fragile men like him overreacted,

1:02:10.680 --> 1:02:13.959
<v Speaker 3>freaked the fuck out, treated it like a religious war

1:02:14.160 --> 1:02:17.680
<v Speaker 3>rather than as you know, some kind of active terrorism,

1:02:18.000 --> 1:02:21.200
<v Speaker 3>treated as some kind of like apocalyptic conflict. Yeah, we

1:02:21.320 --> 1:02:25.520
<v Speaker 3>have to engage in this clash. Yeah, oh my god.

1:02:26.880 --> 1:02:30.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's it is. That's part of what's interesting

1:02:30.120 --> 1:02:31.720
<v Speaker 2>to me is that again, for all his desire to

1:02:31.800 --> 1:02:35.840
<v Speaker 2>be seen as this like contrarian standing apart from the herd,

1:02:35.920 --> 1:02:39.440
<v Speaker 2>he's just a neo cod like in this period at least, like,

1:02:40.280 --> 1:02:41.960
<v Speaker 2>how else do you look at this? Right, Because like

1:02:42.040 --> 1:02:44.240
<v Speaker 2>a big part of him after this point and in

1:02:44.320 --> 1:02:48.520
<v Speaker 2>this post PayPal period is he's still scared and frightened

1:02:48.520 --> 1:02:50.800
<v Speaker 2>of nine to eleven, and he is obsessed with the

1:02:50.920 --> 1:02:53.560
<v Speaker 2>idea that nine to eleven has proved we need to

1:02:53.640 --> 1:02:56.360
<v Speaker 2>give up freedom for security. This is where he really

1:02:56.440 --> 1:02:58.560
<v Speaker 2>jettisons a lot of those libertarian ideas.

1:02:58.640 --> 1:02:58.760
<v Speaker 3>Right.

1:02:58.800 --> 1:03:02.640
<v Speaker 2>He describes the acecluse attempt to protect civil liberties in

1:03:02.720 --> 1:03:06.400
<v Speaker 2>the post nine to eleven period as an unviable anachronism.

1:03:06.920 --> 1:03:10.080
<v Speaker 2>He acknowledges that the twentieth century included a great deal

1:03:10.120 --> 1:03:13.200
<v Speaker 2>of programs that claimed to exist economically to develop the

1:03:13.240 --> 1:03:16.919
<v Speaker 2>Third World, but really just extracted or put more hash

1:03:16.960 --> 1:03:19.320
<v Speaker 2>in the cash in the hands of dictators. But he

1:03:19.400 --> 1:03:22.120
<v Speaker 2>also argues that this doesn't explain why people from the

1:03:22.160 --> 1:03:25.080
<v Speaker 2>global South would want to attack the rest the West.

1:03:25.480 --> 1:03:28.400
<v Speaker 2>His reasoning way of looking at Osama bin Laden is

1:03:28.440 --> 1:03:31.840
<v Speaker 2>that this is a rich kid, right, and so all

1:03:31.920 --> 1:03:35.160
<v Speaker 2>of these arguments about how we can stop terrorism and

1:03:35.240 --> 1:03:37.920
<v Speaker 2>we can stop these kind of conflicts between the West

1:03:38.000 --> 1:03:41.680
<v Speaker 2>and other parts of the world by increasing economic development

1:03:41.840 --> 1:03:45.280
<v Speaker 2>in those areas are bullshit because Osama bin Laden was rich,

1:03:45.640 --> 1:03:51.680
<v Speaker 2>and like what much like the fact that Osama, like Osama,

1:03:51.800 --> 1:03:56.640
<v Speaker 2>did not start the conflict that he was a part

1:03:56.720 --> 1:04:00.200
<v Speaker 2>of here, right, and like the fact that he is

1:04:00.240 --> 1:04:02.320
<v Speaker 2>a rich kid, it makes sense in the way that

1:04:02.440 --> 1:04:05.000
<v Speaker 2>like you, Peter, were a rich kid who decided that

1:04:05.080 --> 1:04:08.720
<v Speaker 2>you want to destroy democracy, right, Like that is the

1:04:08.880 --> 1:04:12.960
<v Speaker 2>class of people who tend to become revolutionaries often come

1:04:13.240 --> 1:04:15.440
<v Speaker 2>from a degree of financial privilege, because those are the

1:04:15.440 --> 1:04:18.320
<v Speaker 2>people who have the time and the space to think

1:04:18.400 --> 1:04:21.760
<v Speaker 2>about stuff like overthrowing the system in the moment, and

1:04:22.000 --> 1:04:24.160
<v Speaker 2>you have the resources to go about doing it. This

1:04:24.320 --> 1:04:26.960
<v Speaker 2>is not an uncommon story in history. The fact that

1:04:27.080 --> 1:04:30.160
<v Speaker 2>bin Laden becomes this kind of guy is no weirder

1:04:30.280 --> 1:04:33.160
<v Speaker 2>than the fact that Peter becomes this kind of guy right,

1:04:34.080 --> 1:04:40.120
<v Speaker 2>game recognizes game, and like the fact that osamban Laden

1:04:40.200 --> 1:04:42.120
<v Speaker 2>was not an a grief poor person doesn't mean that

1:04:42.200 --> 1:04:45.440
<v Speaker 2>the economic betrayal of the global South isn't an important

1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:47.720
<v Speaker 2>factor in geopolitical instability. It's a lot of what Peter

1:04:47.760 --> 1:04:51.920
<v Speaker 2>says is that, like, you can't stop instability and conflict

1:04:52.360 --> 1:04:56.040
<v Speaker 2>by helping to improve living standards in poor countries. Because

1:04:56.080 --> 1:04:58.200
<v Speaker 2>Osama bin Laden did nine to eleven.

1:05:03.880 --> 1:05:06.040
<v Speaker 3>It's like two sentences have nothing to do with you.

1:05:06.240 --> 1:05:12.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, peterbelievable. Yeah, it's it's shot and it's such

1:05:12.400 --> 1:05:16.040
<v Speaker 2>bushy and logic. Again for this guy who really wants

1:05:16.120 --> 1:05:18.000
<v Speaker 2>to stand apart from the herd. This is just the

1:05:18.280 --> 1:05:20.360
<v Speaker 2>kind of shit my parents were saying in two thousand

1:05:20.400 --> 1:05:20.800
<v Speaker 2>and five.

1:05:21.480 --> 1:05:24.880
<v Speaker 3>It's also like completely wild. Then this guy goes on

1:05:25.040 --> 1:05:31.840
<v Speaker 3>to basically be like one of Glenn Greenwald's big Yeah. Yeah,

1:05:32.000 --> 1:05:38.960
<v Speaker 3>it's like some weird like twisted orseship. Also, it's like

1:05:39.200 --> 1:05:42.160
<v Speaker 3>this guy, so this guy is basically just like more

1:05:42.760 --> 1:05:46.880
<v Speaker 3>Christian Dick Cheney, more techy Cheney.

1:05:47.240 --> 1:05:50.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, more techie, and probably more Christian. Yeah, you're probably

1:05:50.520 --> 1:05:51.480
<v Speaker 2>that's probably accurate.

1:05:52.160 --> 1:05:52.880
<v Speaker 3>More for song.

1:05:53.360 --> 1:05:55.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, with more for song, Yeah, a little more Kevin

1:05:55.720 --> 1:05:58.200
<v Speaker 2>Spacey too, probably Yeah, no, no, no, that's not an

1:05:58.200 --> 1:05:59.120
<v Speaker 2>allegation we're making.

1:05:59.520 --> 1:05:59.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:03.080
<v Speaker 2>So Deeals analysis I think is inch deep here because

1:06:03.120 --> 1:06:06.400
<v Speaker 2>he's in this period, and I'll say somewhat understandably because

1:06:06.400 --> 1:06:09.800
<v Speaker 2>everyone was entirely focused still on nine to eleven. Now,

1:06:10.320 --> 1:06:12.960
<v Speaker 2>the problem for Peter is that, and this is kind

1:06:13.000 --> 1:06:15.760
<v Speaker 2>of what Bin Laden like. Peter falls into ben Laden's

1:06:15.800 --> 1:06:19.960
<v Speaker 2>trap perfectly here. He sees nine to eleven as this

1:06:20.160 --> 1:06:24.280
<v Speaker 2>singular incident, and it clearly terrifies him. And he writes

1:06:24.360 --> 1:06:26.560
<v Speaker 2>that this proved to him and proved to the world

1:06:26.600 --> 1:06:29.840
<v Speaker 2>that quote, a tiny number of people could inflict unprecedented

1:06:29.920 --> 1:06:32.720
<v Speaker 2>levels of damage and death. And this is why everything

1:06:32.760 --> 1:06:35.680
<v Speaker 2>about liberal democracy, about civil rights has to change, Right,

1:06:35.800 --> 1:06:38.200
<v Speaker 2>is that now we know it's possible for a small

1:06:38.320 --> 1:06:40.840
<v Speaker 2>number of people to kill a large number of people, right,

1:06:41.760 --> 1:06:43.880
<v Speaker 2>and that that completely changes the game.

1:06:44.320 --> 1:06:44.480
<v Speaker 3>Now.

1:06:44.960 --> 1:06:47.680
<v Speaker 2>I don't think Peter's being entirely honest here, because that's

1:06:47.760 --> 1:06:50.800
<v Speaker 2>not what scared him about nine to eleven. The twenty

1:06:50.840 --> 1:06:53.840
<v Speaker 2>first century has been a century of aaron drone strikes

1:06:53.880 --> 1:06:56.959
<v Speaker 2>of small numbers of people murdering large numbers of people

1:06:57.040 --> 1:07:00.440
<v Speaker 2>in countries all over the world. Peter doesn't care these

1:07:00.520 --> 1:07:02.760
<v Speaker 2>dead people because he's never going to get stuck in

1:07:02.840 --> 1:07:03.520
<v Speaker 2>a war zone.

1:07:03.840 --> 1:07:03.960
<v Speaker 3>Right.

1:07:04.400 --> 1:07:07.040
<v Speaker 2>That's part of why he got a New Zealand citizenship

1:07:07.080 --> 1:07:08.760
<v Speaker 2>for himself, Right, it's because he's not going to be

1:07:08.760 --> 1:07:12.120
<v Speaker 2>anywhere close to a war. Nine to eleven shatters pedter Tiel.

1:07:12.240 --> 1:07:14.560
<v Speaker 2>Not because it proves that small numbers of people can

1:07:14.680 --> 1:07:17.560
<v Speaker 2>kill large numbers of people, but because it proved that

1:07:17.680 --> 1:07:19.960
<v Speaker 2>a small number of people could kill a lot of

1:07:20.160 --> 1:07:20.760
<v Speaker 2>rich people.

1:07:21.120 --> 1:07:21.240
<v Speaker 3>Right.

1:07:21.840 --> 1:07:24.240
<v Speaker 2>And I'm not doing all justifying nine to eleven thing,

1:07:24.280 --> 1:07:25.720
<v Speaker 2>but like nine to eleven is a strike on the

1:07:25.800 --> 1:07:29.200
<v Speaker 2>financial center of the country. A lot of CEO's businessmen,

1:07:29.280 --> 1:07:32.480
<v Speaker 2>people who are executives at big companies die in that attack,

1:07:33.560 --> 1:07:36.240
<v Speaker 2>an attack on the World Trade Center. Peter can see

1:07:36.320 --> 1:07:39.040
<v Speaker 2>himself as being a victim of that. He very well

1:07:39.160 --> 1:07:41.960
<v Speaker 2>might have been in the World Trade Center, right, Like

1:07:42.440 --> 1:07:44.640
<v Speaker 2>that is the kind of thing that could have affected him.

1:07:44.720 --> 1:07:47.680
<v Speaker 2>And that's why this scares him. Right, It's not that

1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:49.800
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people are a small numbers who can

1:07:49.880 --> 1:07:51.840
<v Speaker 2>kill a lot of people. It's that I am not

1:07:52.080 --> 1:07:56.600
<v Speaker 2>safe as a wealthy businessman, right, Like someone could kill me.

1:07:57.160 --> 1:07:58.480
<v Speaker 2>That's why this fucks him up.

1:07:59.280 --> 1:08:04.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's interesting that, like, you're the degree to which

1:08:05.040 --> 1:08:08.560
<v Speaker 3>the people that really freaked out over nine to eleven, like,

1:08:09.120 --> 1:08:11.160
<v Speaker 3>none of them actually lived in the places where nine

1:08:11.160 --> 1:08:13.640
<v Speaker 3>to eleven happened. No, Like I say, this is a

1:08:13.720 --> 1:08:16.400
<v Speaker 3>New Yorker, Like New Yorkers did not freak out over

1:08:16.520 --> 1:08:21.040
<v Speaker 3>nine to eleven. Like, but people you know from vugging

1:08:21.840 --> 1:08:27.280
<v Speaker 3>uranium mind South Africa who relocate to Palo Alto there

1:08:28.000 --> 1:08:29.040
<v Speaker 3>to lose a mind.

1:08:29.680 --> 1:08:31.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because oh my god, I might have been in

1:08:31.960 --> 1:08:35.240
<v Speaker 2>a place that was My entire life is about separating

1:08:35.320 --> 1:08:38.320
<v Speaker 2>myself from the masses and gaining a sense of safety

1:08:39.320 --> 1:08:42.000
<v Speaker 2>as and like value as a result of that. And like,

1:08:42.120 --> 1:08:44.840
<v Speaker 2>I could have just died like everyone else. I also

1:08:44.920 --> 1:08:47.560
<v Speaker 2>think that's why he's so scared of death. It's not

1:08:47.760 --> 1:08:51.760
<v Speaker 2>just the cessation of his own being, but death inevitably.

1:08:51.880 --> 1:08:54.720
<v Speaker 2>The fact that you will die, this is true of

1:08:54.760 --> 1:08:57.479
<v Speaker 2>all of us, links you to everyone who ever has

1:08:57.520 --> 1:09:00.320
<v Speaker 2>and ever will live, right, it is one thing we

1:09:00.439 --> 1:09:05.000
<v Speaker 2>all have in common. Everyone will die. And Peter hates

1:09:05.080 --> 1:09:08.360
<v Speaker 2>the idea that he has anything to do with everyone else,

1:09:08.439 --> 1:09:10.519
<v Speaker 2>that he has every something in common with the rabble

1:09:10.800 --> 1:09:14.800
<v Speaker 2>that there is a thing that inevitably, inextricably binds him

1:09:14.920 --> 1:09:19.040
<v Speaker 2>to a poor man in fucking Deli. Right, they're both

1:09:19.160 --> 1:09:21.600
<v Speaker 2>gonna die, and in fact, that guy living on the

1:09:21.600 --> 1:09:24.080
<v Speaker 2>street of Delhi might live longer than Peter, just because

1:09:24.120 --> 1:09:27.759
<v Speaker 2>you know, shit happens. Right, Peter could be the victim

1:09:27.800 --> 1:09:30.679
<v Speaker 2>of an attack someday and then maybe he'll be outlived

1:09:30.680 --> 1:09:31.559
<v Speaker 2>by a poor person.

1:09:31.760 --> 1:09:31.880
<v Speaker 3>Right.

1:09:32.160 --> 1:09:35.880
<v Speaker 2>Peter cannot handle this reality. It drives him mad.

1:09:36.720 --> 1:09:42.200
<v Speaker 3>My brain is fried right now. Yeah, I'm just I'm

1:09:42.320 --> 1:09:45.120
<v Speaker 3>trying to make the logical inferences to this dude makes

1:09:45.240 --> 1:09:48.480
<v Speaker 3>and I'm having trouble doing it. Like I don't understand,

1:09:48.800 --> 1:09:50.920
<v Speaker 3>Like there are people, tons of people I disagree with,

1:09:51.320 --> 1:09:52.680
<v Speaker 3>and I see how they get from A to B.

1:09:53.400 --> 1:09:57.400
<v Speaker 3>This is like from A to the symbol for you know,

1:09:58.520 --> 1:10:01.920
<v Speaker 3>for boron or something. I don't understand where, like where

1:10:02.000 --> 1:10:03.280
<v Speaker 3>it is is even coming from.

1:10:03.880 --> 1:10:08.560
<v Speaker 2>It's yeah, yeah, because it is confusing. I think, what

1:10:08.680 --> 1:10:12.599
<v Speaker 2>if I had to describe it, it's oppositional defiant disorder

1:10:13.160 --> 1:10:17.160
<v Speaker 2>with main like merging with main character syndrome. Right, Like

1:10:17.600 --> 1:10:20.240
<v Speaker 2>that's that's that's kind of how I would look at

1:10:20.400 --> 1:10:24.120
<v Speaker 2>Peter here now. Later in that same essay. He thinks back.

1:10:24.200 --> 1:10:27.560
<v Speaker 2>He goes back to the philosophical writings of Gerard on mimetics,

1:10:28.120 --> 1:10:30.639
<v Speaker 2>arguing that the need to keep up with your neighbors

1:10:30.760 --> 1:10:33.840
<v Speaker 2>leads to an ever escalating rivalry. He declares that the

1:10:33.920 --> 1:10:37.160
<v Speaker 2>disturbing truth of mimesis has been suppressed, and in the

1:10:37.240 --> 1:10:41.280
<v Speaker 2>same breath notes that envy is a mortal sin and Catholicism. Now,

1:10:41.320 --> 1:10:44.559
<v Speaker 2>the conspiracism is weird here, but it's no weirder than

1:10:44.600 --> 1:10:48.200
<v Speaker 2>what theater Teal goes on to claim about ape anthropology.

1:10:48.560 --> 1:10:51.400
<v Speaker 2>This is again an essay about nine to eleven. At

1:10:51.439 --> 1:10:53.960
<v Speaker 2>the core of the mimetic account, there exists a mystery

1:10:54.240 --> 1:10:56.680
<v Speaker 2>what exactly happened in the distant past when all the

1:10:56.800 --> 1:10:59.759
<v Speaker 2>apes were reaching for the same object, when the rivalry

1:11:00.000 --> 1:11:05.680
<v Speaker 2>between memetic devils threatened to escalate into unlimited violence. I

1:11:05.680 --> 1:11:07.640
<v Speaker 2>don't know at that moment occurred. Peter, what are you

1:11:07.720 --> 1:11:08.679
<v Speaker 2>fucking talking about?

1:11:08.800 --> 1:11:08.920
<v Speaker 3>Man?

1:11:11.040 --> 1:11:14.559
<v Speaker 2>Stop this shit? Stop reading Gerard? What the fuck are

1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:15.320
<v Speaker 2>you talking about?

1:11:15.439 --> 1:11:15.760
<v Speaker 3>Bat? Really?

1:11:16.000 --> 1:11:17.280
<v Speaker 1>Stop reading Gerard.

1:11:17.600 --> 1:11:19.080
<v Speaker 2>What he's saying here.

1:11:19.160 --> 1:11:19.320
<v Speaker 3>Is that.

1:11:21.080 --> 1:11:24.240
<v Speaker 2>There's this because like we get our we want things

1:11:24.320 --> 1:11:27.080
<v Speaker 2>because we see other people having things or wanting things,

1:11:27.120 --> 1:11:30.720
<v Speaker 2>and that like forms throughout this memetic process, like our

1:11:30.800 --> 1:11:35.160
<v Speaker 2>system of desire, and that like you know, this truth

1:11:35.200 --> 1:11:39.000
<v Speaker 2>has been suppressed by the secret masters of the world

1:11:39.120 --> 1:11:41.720
<v Speaker 2>to someun extent, And there's this mystery of like, well,

1:11:41.800 --> 1:11:45.240
<v Speaker 2>how did you know, how did we avoid this like

1:11:45.720 --> 1:11:49.320
<v Speaker 2>kind of escalating sense of like jealousy and rivalry for

1:11:49.520 --> 1:11:52.639
<v Speaker 2>things escalate into this unlimited violence that would have destroyed

1:11:52.640 --> 1:11:54.920
<v Speaker 2>the species. And the answer is, we figured out how

1:11:54.960 --> 1:11:59.760
<v Speaker 2>to scapegoat individuals in order to like stop from mass killing. Right.

1:12:01.640 --> 1:12:04.360
<v Speaker 2>And Peter has to think in this way because he

1:12:04.479 --> 1:12:07.920
<v Speaker 2>has this very narrow view of anthropology that's informed by

1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:11.240
<v Speaker 2>Girard's writing, and this concept Gerard has of like war

1:12:11.360 --> 1:12:14.479
<v Speaker 2>of all against all, right, and that the only way

1:12:14.520 --> 1:12:17.560
<v Speaker 2>to avoid this is to gradually drive the combatants to

1:12:17.640 --> 1:12:21.720
<v Speaker 2>gang up against a scapegoat. Right now, among other things,

1:12:21.720 --> 1:12:23.240
<v Speaker 2>if we're just talking about ape, and if we're talking

1:12:23.240 --> 1:12:26.519
<v Speaker 2>about anthropology, this is all ignoring the degree to which

1:12:26.640 --> 1:12:30.160
<v Speaker 2>primates work together and collaborate, which is also like as

1:12:30.280 --> 1:12:32.720
<v Speaker 2>much a war and conflict is certainly a part of

1:12:32.760 --> 1:12:36.439
<v Speaker 2>primate evolution. You can find like apes, different kind species

1:12:36.479 --> 1:12:38.920
<v Speaker 2>of simians go to war with each other in like

1:12:39.000 --> 1:12:41.120
<v Speaker 2>a very recognizable way. You can see that with like

1:12:41.240 --> 1:12:45.920
<v Speaker 2>chimpanzees and the like. But they also collaborate and work together, right, Like,

1:12:46.479 --> 1:12:48.760
<v Speaker 2>just picking the one side of things like how they

1:12:48.880 --> 1:12:51.560
<v Speaker 2>fight for resources and ignoring how they team up in

1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:54.439
<v Speaker 2>order to get resources and make a better life for

1:12:54.520 --> 1:12:57.840
<v Speaker 2>themselves is kind of cutting out half of existence.

1:12:58.439 --> 1:13:02.560
<v Speaker 3>This Yeah, it's like what do you only watch like

1:13:02.640 --> 1:13:04.640
<v Speaker 3>the first ten minutes of two thousand and one on.

1:13:05.280 --> 1:13:08.640
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, yes, that's his That's the whole basis of

1:13:08.760 --> 1:13:12.400
<v Speaker 2>his like understanding of like mimetic reality. It's like, yeah,

1:13:12.720 --> 1:13:13.360
<v Speaker 2>monkeys fight.

1:13:15.000 --> 1:13:16.479
<v Speaker 3>It's so weird.

1:13:17.439 --> 1:13:18.439
<v Speaker 2>It's really fucking no.

1:13:18.600 --> 1:13:20.600
<v Speaker 1>And I have had the same face of just like

1:13:21.160 --> 1:13:23.000
<v Speaker 1>ugh the last ten minutes.

1:13:23.560 --> 1:13:26.599
<v Speaker 2>Again, studying philosophy is sometimes a problem.

1:13:27.640 --> 1:13:31.479
<v Speaker 7>This guy needs to take one walk in the woods. Yeah,

1:13:31.720 --> 1:13:36.120
<v Speaker 7>Like this guy needs to like, I don't know, like

1:13:36.840 --> 1:13:38.439
<v Speaker 7>read one other book.

1:13:39.120 --> 1:13:42.320
<v Speaker 2>It's a fucking having that experience of life. He'd been

1:13:42.360 --> 1:13:44.680
<v Speaker 2>in like a car wreck as a younger man, and

1:13:44.760 --> 1:13:47.280
<v Speaker 2>it had like a bystander come and pull him out

1:13:47.320 --> 1:13:50.080
<v Speaker 2>of the ray could have changed his whole impression of humanity.

1:13:51.280 --> 1:13:53.559
<v Speaker 2>But instead he's like, we're all apes and we need escapegold.

1:13:53.600 --> 1:13:55.719
<v Speaker 2>Everyone's going to break down and be fighting and killing

1:13:55.760 --> 1:13:57.559
<v Speaker 2>each other unless we like and you kind of get

1:13:57.600 --> 1:13:59.880
<v Speaker 2>the idea that like, oh, so this war against Islam

1:14:00.160 --> 1:14:03.000
<v Speaker 2>you see as like a scapegoat, and maybe now these

1:14:03.120 --> 1:14:06.759
<v Speaker 2>kind of attacks you're you're kind of working on against,

1:14:06.840 --> 1:14:10.600
<v Speaker 2>like the trans community, against all these different enemies of conservatism.

1:14:11.400 --> 1:14:13.320
<v Speaker 2>You see this as like we I have to give

1:14:13.439 --> 1:14:16.920
<v Speaker 2>people a scapegoat in order to stop them from taking

1:14:17.000 --> 1:14:19.599
<v Speaker 2>the things I have, because they're they're going to want

1:14:19.640 --> 1:14:22.680
<v Speaker 2>the things I have because like they've been influenced mometically

1:14:22.760 --> 1:14:25.599
<v Speaker 2>to desire the same things that you know, I have received.

1:14:25.880 --> 1:14:28.800
<v Speaker 2>I think that's like a really kind of a core

1:14:28.920 --> 1:14:32.360
<v Speaker 2>aspect of his understanding of how the world works, such

1:14:32.400 --> 1:14:36.320
<v Speaker 2>a person. At the end, at the ending of this article,

1:14:36.439 --> 1:14:39.960
<v Speaker 2>this very weird article, Peter comes around to the subject

1:14:40.000 --> 1:14:45.040
<v Speaker 2>of monarchy, arguing myth transfigure the murdered scapegoats into God.

1:14:45.200 --> 1:14:48.200
<v Speaker 2>So human beings created scapegoats so we could avoid murdering

1:14:48.240 --> 1:14:51.240
<v Speaker 2>each other, and then we turned those scapegoats into our

1:14:51.320 --> 1:14:56.120
<v Speaker 2>early pagan deities, which is like, again, weird. I don't

1:14:56.120 --> 1:14:58.599
<v Speaker 2>I don't get that at all. I guess there's there's

1:14:58.680 --> 1:15:01.240
<v Speaker 2>like some Greek gods who that kind of makes sense

1:15:01.360 --> 1:15:06.000
<v Speaker 2>for right, like Prometheus maybe, but that I don't know

1:15:06.080 --> 1:15:08.720
<v Speaker 2>how how is zeus a murdered scape where it's the

1:15:08.800 --> 1:15:12.280
<v Speaker 2>murdered scapegoat that's the basis of that? Or like I

1:15:12.360 --> 1:15:15.720
<v Speaker 2>don't know, man, I think you're maybe like where's a

1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:18.639
<v Speaker 2>how does a Hurrah Mazda fit into this kind of shit?

1:15:18.760 --> 1:15:20.640
<v Speaker 2>Like that just seems like a weird statement by a

1:15:20.680 --> 1:15:22.679
<v Speaker 2>guy who hasn't read a lot about world religion.

1:15:23.479 --> 1:15:26.320
<v Speaker 3>I feel like this whole fucking thing is like dude

1:15:26.439 --> 1:15:29.720
<v Speaker 3>was on ketamine and just like writing down whatever came

1:15:29.800 --> 1:15:32.240
<v Speaker 3>to mind, like whether it linked together or not?

1:15:33.000 --> 1:15:36.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know, yeah, because it

1:15:37.320 --> 1:15:42.000
<v Speaker 2>just doesn't. It feels very college level philosophy to me.

1:15:42.200 --> 1:15:44.800
<v Speaker 2>And it also feels like a guy who's trying to

1:15:45.040 --> 1:15:49.320
<v Speaker 2>justify being an asshole to other people and manipulating them

1:15:49.400 --> 1:15:51.800
<v Speaker 2>as like this is the only way that human beings work?

1:15:52.080 --> 1:15:55.680
<v Speaker 3>Wait, is he the scapegoat? Like is poor little I

1:15:55.720 --> 1:15:57.280
<v Speaker 3>think he's afraid he could be.

1:16:00.439 --> 1:16:02.960
<v Speaker 2>I think he's afraid he could be. Right. I think

1:16:03.080 --> 1:16:05.400
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of what's going on here, is that, like

1:16:05.560 --> 1:16:09.479
<v Speaker 2>fundamentally he is try it part of why he's into right,

1:16:09.520 --> 1:16:11.599
<v Speaker 2>wing politics is he wants to make sure he never

1:16:11.760 --> 1:16:14.000
<v Speaker 2>is that there's got to be a scapegoat, and it

1:16:14.120 --> 1:16:16.280
<v Speaker 2>might be him if he's not careful. So he's going

1:16:16.360 --> 1:16:17.559
<v Speaker 2>to make sure it's someone else.

1:16:18.120 --> 1:16:23.640
<v Speaker 3>Right, So it's cruelty, is the point, but like in

1:16:23.680 --> 1:16:24.200
<v Speaker 3>a good way.

1:16:25.000 --> 1:16:31.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yep, I think that might be it anyway.

1:16:32.280 --> 1:16:36.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this is the stun silence that means right now.

1:16:37.920 --> 1:16:40.160
<v Speaker 3>I mean, this is fucking dark and weird, even for

1:16:40.280 --> 1:16:40.639
<v Speaker 3>this show.

1:16:40.680 --> 1:16:44.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry, Yeah, it's it's it's getting into Peter Thiel's head.

1:16:44.280 --> 1:16:46.439
<v Speaker 2>Is not a comfortable place to be. I don't like

1:16:46.560 --> 1:16:46.960
<v Speaker 2>it here.

1:16:47.680 --> 1:16:51.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's not just a weirdo. He's a sicko.

1:16:51.760 --> 1:16:55.640
<v Speaker 2>He is a sicko. He's a sicko or all of

1:16:55.760 --> 1:16:58.080
<v Speaker 2>this is part of some cunning lie that he told

1:16:58.120 --> 1:17:01.000
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of interviewers over years and case he's even

1:17:01.120 --> 1:17:03.200
<v Speaker 2>more of a sick times too.

1:17:04.120 --> 1:17:10.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah there's Stephen King. Yeah yeah, he's creating like that

1:17:10.280 --> 1:17:12.599
<v Speaker 3>weird hotel in Colorado or whatever.

1:17:12.880 --> 1:17:15.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's not Stephen King.

1:17:15.800 --> 1:17:18.640
<v Speaker 1>Nobody's Stephen King. Stephen King isn't even Stephen.

1:17:18.439 --> 1:17:24.960
<v Speaker 2>King, No, not since he quit the blow. Well that's

1:17:24.960 --> 1:17:27.559
<v Speaker 2>why we're not going to get a Kujo sequel anytime soon,

1:17:28.479 --> 1:17:32.360
<v Speaker 2>unless there's Yeah, oh I do want to see Peter

1:17:32.479 --> 1:17:37.600
<v Speaker 2>Peter Teal right, oh man, that could have been his

1:17:37.760 --> 1:17:39.200
<v Speaker 2>that might have been what made him, would have made

1:17:39.240 --> 1:17:39.599
<v Speaker 2>him happy?

1:17:39.720 --> 1:17:43.000
<v Speaker 1>And what We're only halfway through the saga, Robert uh huh.

1:17:43.240 --> 1:17:46.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh cool. We haven't even gotten really to Palante here,

1:17:46.840 --> 1:17:50.920
<v Speaker 2>We've just laid the groundwork. Wait, maybe Trump is Kujo

1:17:51.000 --> 1:17:54.280
<v Speaker 2>to Yeah, Trump, Trump's his Kujo. That's right, that's right,

1:17:54.720 --> 1:18:00.200
<v Speaker 2>And that Peter Teal doesn't remember writing him. Yeah, it's

1:18:00.240 --> 1:18:01.719
<v Speaker 2>my favorite Stephen King fact.

1:18:03.280 --> 1:18:04.479
<v Speaker 3>Is that true? Yeah?

1:18:04.600 --> 1:18:06.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think the quote from him was something like,

1:18:06.720 --> 1:18:08.519
<v Speaker 2>Kusho is a great book. I wish I could remember

1:18:08.600 --> 1:18:08.960
<v Speaker 2>writing it.

1:18:09.080 --> 1:18:09.240
<v Speaker 3>It was.

1:18:09.479 --> 1:18:11.800
<v Speaker 2>It was when he was really on the stuff, you know,

1:18:13.240 --> 1:18:16.200
<v Speaker 2>for him? Yeah, hell yeah, man. That's how you know

1:18:16.320 --> 1:18:18.920
<v Speaker 2>you're one of the greats. If you write Kusho while

1:18:18.960 --> 1:18:20.240
<v Speaker 2>fucking snowblinkes.

1:18:23.640 --> 1:18:24.600
<v Speaker 3>That's incredible.

1:18:24.840 --> 1:18:30.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's fucking awesome. Everyone go read the Stephen King book. Noah,

1:18:30.400 --> 1:18:32.000
<v Speaker 2>you got anything you want to push.

1:18:32.920 --> 1:18:35.439
<v Speaker 3>Now, you can find me at Noah Shackman. That's n

1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:38.160
<v Speaker 3>O A H s h A A c h T

1:18:38.439 --> 1:18:43.400
<v Speaker 3>A man on your social platforms I write for a

1:18:43.439 --> 1:18:46.320
<v Speaker 3>bunch of different places, is Rolling Stone, Wired, New York,

1:18:46.400 --> 1:18:49.439
<v Speaker 3>Meg and even got some for The Times coming up.

1:18:49.680 --> 1:18:55.759
<v Speaker 2>Hell yeah, hell yeah, excited, Thank God, No no, And listen, folks,

1:18:55.800 --> 1:18:58.680
<v Speaker 2>if you're at home, don't do cocaine. Just go to

1:18:58.800 --> 1:19:02.000
<v Speaker 2>your nearest gas station and asked them for whatever pill

1:19:02.240 --> 1:19:04.240
<v Speaker 2>has the most amphetamines in it.

1:19:05.240 --> 1:19:07.120
<v Speaker 4>That or don't take it.

1:19:07.200 --> 1:19:09.800
<v Speaker 2>There's one called addies like add are all, but it's

1:19:09.960 --> 1:19:15.080
<v Speaker 2>just a ship lit a caffeine and B twelve. Oh yeah,

1:19:15.439 --> 1:19:17.960
<v Speaker 2>the kind of ship that's legal to sell as energy

1:19:18.040 --> 1:19:28.360
<v Speaker 2>pills is amazing. Creative is the best. Imagine if someone

1:19:28.479 --> 1:19:31.760
<v Speaker 2>imagine if someone took OxyContin and then just made it

1:19:31.880 --> 1:19:35.040
<v Speaker 2>so it couldn't easily kill you, and also it was

1:19:35.120 --> 1:19:38.120
<v Speaker 2>sold unregulated in every gas station in the United States.

1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:42.800
<v Speaker 2>That's creatim That's good stuff. Yeah, it's what I take

1:19:42.840 --> 1:19:48.760
<v Speaker 2>it all the time. It's wonderful. Love it's it's a

1:19:48.840 --> 1:19:51.720
<v Speaker 2>little bit caffeine, a little bit pain killery, but it

1:19:51.760 --> 1:19:54.840
<v Speaker 2>won't shut down your lungs like it's not a central

1:19:54.880 --> 1:20:01.880
<v Speaker 2>nervous system. Depress it. It won't kill you in the

1:20:02.000 --> 1:20:05.160
<v Speaker 2>same way that opiates d It's great.

1:20:05.400 --> 1:20:05.840
<v Speaker 3>I love it.

1:20:06.600 --> 1:20:08.599
<v Speaker 2>Be careful with it, though, folks, it is a drug.

1:20:12.040 --> 1:20:14.719
<v Speaker 6>Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1:20:15.120 --> 1:20:18.360
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1:20:18.560 --> 1:20:21.760
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