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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage.

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Speaker 3: That is possible.

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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means

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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. I have a

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Speaker 1: fantastic interview I want to share with you that I

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Speaker 1: think is extraordinarly important given the way that tech oligarchs

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Speaker 1: have effectively taken over our government and are operating it

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Speaker 1: for their own ends. So you guys know me, Saga, Ryan, Emily,

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Speaker 1: the whole team. We've been covering AI, we've been covering Crypto.

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Speaker 1: We've been covering both the near term and the long

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Speaker 1: term effects. So everything from the immediate electricity price hikes

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Speaker 1: because of the data center build out, the way our

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Speaker 1: whole economy is apparently now just one big bet on AI,

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Speaker 1: the stripping up back of all regulations to rein in

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Speaker 1: or have any sort of democrat check on what these

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Speaker 1: tech oligarchs ultimately want, and then also the more dire,

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Speaker 1: longer term consequences of potentially shredding the social contract, eliminating

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Speaker 1: the need for all or most human labor, and ultimately

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Speaker 1: an actual existential threat to humanity itself. So my guest

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Speaker 1: is Jacob Silverman. He wrote an incredible book about how

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Speaker 1: this cast of characters has come to effectively stage a

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Speaker 1: coup of our democratic government and are getting everything they

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Speaker 1: want in Trump two point zero. His name is Jacob Silverman.

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Speaker 1: His book is Gilded Rage, Elon Musk and the Radicalization

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Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley. Elon Musk is in the title, and

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk is definitely in the book. But this is

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Speaker 1: really about everyone from Peter Teel, Sam Altman, Mark Andresen

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Speaker 1: David Sachs and how they made this. I guess you'd

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Speaker 1: call it a right wing turn, although their politics in

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Speaker 1: terms of economics have always been very self serving and

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Speaker 1: very libertarian. So in any case, if you have to

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Speaker 1: read one book over the holiday season to understand how

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Speaker 1: we got where we are now with regard to you know, crypto,

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Speaker 1: with regard to the wild wild West of AI development,

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Speaker 1: just off to the races with that I really recommend

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Speaker 1: this particular book. And with that being said, let's bring

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Speaker 1: in the guests, all right, guys, So it is my

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Speaker 1: pleasure to be joined today by Jacob Silverman, who is

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Speaker 1: author of a fantastic new book called Gilded Rage, Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley. He's an independent

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Speaker 1: journalist and also has a limited what four episode series

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Speaker 1: at the CBC was at ced DC that is called

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Speaker 1: The Making of Musk and focuses on some of the

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Speaker 1: topics in the book, but really hones in on Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk himself. So great to have you, Jacob, Welcome.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So I wanted to start with this

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Speaker 1: image actually from Trump's inauguration, which is when it really

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Speaker 1: set in for me that oh boy, we have a problem.

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Speaker 1: So this was the some of the billionaires and some

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Speaker 1: of the specifically tech billionaires who were lined up behind

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Speaker 1: Trump at his inauguration. Not lawmakers, you know, there were

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Speaker 1: some of those, but further back, these were the guys

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Speaker 1: that were in the front row. And so I'm curious

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Speaker 1: as someone who has been writing on the tech world

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Speaker 1: for about the tech world for quite a while and

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Speaker 1: really had your eye on the ball in terms of

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Speaker 1: what these guys have been up to. I'm curious what

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Speaker 1: you thought when you saw this lineup at Trump's inauguration.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's clarifying in some ways to see these guys

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Speaker 3: all line up together. I mean, this is the oligarchy

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Speaker 3: or the new oligarchy, out in the open, and I

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Speaker 3: don't think it's necessarily surprising anymore. I mean, I divide

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Speaker 3: some of these tech elites into kind of opportunistic group

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Speaker 3: and then some into the more died in the world

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Speaker 3: ideological people. But they're all kind of moving in the

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Speaker 3: same direction and seek the same favors from the Trump administration.

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Speaker 3: And if any of them ever had liberal politics, all

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Speaker 3: war them pretty thinly. So you know, I think that

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Speaker 3: it's a powerful image and also a good one for

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Speaker 3: the public to see in a way, because the people

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Speaker 3: who may have been powerful behind the scenes are now

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Speaker 3: very much to the fore, you know, going to the inauguration,

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Speaker 3: going to Trump's oval office and presenting him with gold gifts.

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Speaker 3: So you know, I consider it as a possible.

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Speaker 1: Book cover, Yeah, it would, it would be good. The

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Speaker 1: book cover you chose is also great, But it is

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Speaker 1: a powerful image. I mean, for me, it was really

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Speaker 1: striking because obviously there's been a lot to focus on

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Speaker 1: in Trump two point Oh, there was a lot to

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Speaker 1: focus on going into Trump two point zero. But you know,

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Speaker 1: you probably have understood this the whole time, even as

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Speaker 1: there is a lot happening. I feel like the tech

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Speaker 1: takeover is actually the central project of what is going

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Speaker 1: on here. You know, from the beginning, you've had executive

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Speaker 1: orders to roll back any Biden era regulation of AI development.

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Speaker 1: Obviously Trump going all in on crypto for his own

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Speaker 1: personal wealth and corrupt purposes, you know, Elon Musk with

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Speaker 1: Doge and the extraordinary and I think criminal acts that

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Speaker 1: occurred there. You know, just we were just covering on

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Speaker 1: breaking points that Trump just signed a new executive order

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Speaker 1: banning states from regulating AI at all for ten years.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder how you see this project in Trump

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Speaker 1: two point zero and how central you see it as being.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think there's been a total and in some

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Speaker 3: cases mutually very profitable alignment between the tech industry and

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Speaker 3: MAGA and Trump to a degree that I think a

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Speaker 3: lot of people didn't anticipate. You know, some people have

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Speaker 3: asked me, do you think that they sort of bit

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Speaker 3: off more than they could chew the tech industry or

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Speaker 3: they have any regrets. But so far, I think it's

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Speaker 3: working out very well for both sides. I mean, even

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Speaker 3: someone like Elon Musk, there hasn't been a lot of

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Speaker 3: blowback towards him. He still has his government contracts, there's

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Speaker 3: still that mutual dependency, especially through SpaceX and he's getting

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Speaker 3: new contracts through XAI. So, you know, the kind of

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Speaker 3: high tech corporate represented by Silicon Valley and their rhetoric

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Speaker 3: that somehow they can introduce efficiency and innovate the future

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Speaker 3: seems to be actually really amenable to the kind of

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Speaker 3: Trump authoritarianism and the things that they want to do.

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Speaker 3: And you know, more specifically, the Trump administration doesn't really

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Speaker 3: have an industrial policy or a way to bring back

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Speaker 3: manufacturing or the other things that they sort of vaguely

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Speaker 3: talk about. So just kind of handing it all over

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Speaker 3: to the tech industry and saying we'll invest in AI

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Speaker 3: data centers is a kind of a solution to that

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Speaker 3: and is exactly what the tech industry wants right now.

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Speaker 1: You write in the book that these guys are always

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Speaker 1: looking for an exit, and right now the exit and

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Speaker 1: this has been actually years in the making right now,

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Speaker 1: the exit they're looking for is basically from society overall.

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Speaker 1: And I mean most extreme example of this is Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk with his Mars fantasies. But I'd love for you

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Speaker 1: to elaborate on that concept and explain to people what

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Speaker 1: is it that these guys actually want.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exit is a specific word that you'll hear sometimes

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Speaker 3: from people on the tech right, especially people who might

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Speaker 3: style themselves as libertarian, like Peter tel for example. We'll

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Speaker 3: talk about there's an interview with him from a podcast

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Speaker 3: about how it's increasingly harder to exit, and he specifically

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Speaker 3: cites getting your money out of the US into Switzerland.

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Speaker 3: But it's a broader idea that you know, they are

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Speaker 3: very fed up with mainstream society. They don't want to

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Speaker 3: live with the rest of us. I mean, I talk

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Speaker 3: about this in more specific sense about Silica, about San

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Speaker 3: Francisco and the social problems there and how tech elites

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Speaker 3: reacted to it and really kind of gave up on

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Speaker 3: San Francisco as this failed city. But it also influences

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Speaker 3: things like charter cities or these initiatives to build these

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Speaker 3: kind of corporate fiefdoms, these little city states. And very

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Speaker 3: relevantly right now, there's one in Honduras on an island

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Speaker 3: called Roatan. The settlement itself is called Prospera. This is

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Speaker 3: funded by Peter Tile and Mark and Dreesen, other pretty

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Speaker 3: well known tech elites. It's basically a startup that under

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Speaker 3: a previous right wing government Honduras, not Joh, i believe,

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Speaker 3: but a different one allied with him, basically purchase a

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Speaker 3: small piece of this island from Honduras and then the

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Speaker 3: subsequent left wing governments challenge that in court and want

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Speaker 3: to take it back quite understandably, and Prospero is suing

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Speaker 3: the government of Honduras for more than the GDP of Honduras,

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Speaker 3: and someone like Joho and his party would probably be

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Speaker 3: much more minimal to preserving that relationship. So like that

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Speaker 3: is probably the most advance of these charter cities or

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Speaker 3: city states. But you really see that exit in all

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Speaker 3: kinds of forms. You know, it can be more metaphorical

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Speaker 3: or sort of figurative, with like a bureaucratic or legal exit,

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Speaker 3: like let's find out how to move fast and break

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Speaker 3: things and break the law. But it is also a

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Speaker 3: very specific idea that, as you said, extends to everything

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Speaker 3: from you know, founding new cities to going to Mars.

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Speaker 1: And I feel like AI is a version of that

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Speaker 1: exit as well. I mean they, I think believe, Well,

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Speaker 1: you can tell me, what do they think that the

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Speaker 1: AI future is going to look like and what sort

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Speaker 1: of power do you they expect to consolidate in their

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Speaker 1: own hands if their company is the one that wins

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Speaker 1: the race to superintelligence.

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Speaker 3: I think the tech industry has been operating on this assumption,

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Speaker 3: or at least article of faith, that if they keep

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Speaker 3: pouring resources into AI and into the basically the current

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Speaker 3: methods largely focused around LMS, that super intelligence or AGI

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Speaker 3: or whatever else they might want to call it will

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Speaker 3: somehow emerge. And there has been some admission even from

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Speaker 3: the industry recently that may not happen, that this may

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Speaker 3: not be the proper path for that. What we're more

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Speaker 3: likely to see is some sort of big bubble bursts

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Speaker 3: in the next year, perhaps or eighteen months, as these

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Speaker 3: enormous bets start being called in by perhaps some of

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Speaker 3: the lenders who are putting a lot of money into

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Speaker 3: data centers, or as a company like open ai can't

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Speaker 3: fulfill its promises and it's huge spending promises, so you

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Speaker 3: know it. For some reason, the tech industry has aside,

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Speaker 3: this is the only game in town, and right now

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Speaker 3: with a lot of money coming in from Middle Eastern

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Speaker 3: sovereign wealth funds and a lot of support from the

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Speaker 3: Trump administration and from Oracle and Larry Ellison, who you

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Speaker 3: know is probably the top Trump ally actually in the

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Speaker 3: tech world. In some ways this we're still going to

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Speaker 3: go down this path, and they're still going to spend

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Speaker 3: tens or hundreds of billions of dollars or as much

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Speaker 3: as they can over the next few years until it

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Speaker 3: kind of all blows up, and maybe Microsoft and Google

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Speaker 3: will be able to vacuum up the pieces. But that

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Speaker 3: is kind of how I see it going. And I think,

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Speaker 3: of course, when it does blow up, it's going to

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Speaker 3: affect the rest of us, even if you don't own

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Speaker 3: tech stocks. It's going to hurt the market, it's going

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Speaker 3: to hurt people's retirement accounts, and they'll be knock on

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Speaker 3: effects to the economy. But this is the kind of

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Speaker 3: alliance and bet that they're willing to make on almost

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Speaker 3: pretty much all our behalfs.

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Speaker 1: Right now, let's back up a little bit and talk

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Speaker 1: about some of the subject matter or the book, which

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Speaker 1: really tracks kind of how we got to this place,

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Speaker 1: and use Elon Musk as like, you know, a central

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Speaker 1: character to explain this reactionary radicalization and shift. Elon really,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of comes into his own as this

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Speaker 1: big time entrepreneur with a lot of help from Barack Obama,

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Speaker 1: and they were close, and he was you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of seen as a liberal democratic type of ally. Then

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Speaker 1: he shifts his politics over the years. Although one of

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Speaker 1: the questions I have for you is like how much

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Speaker 1: are these guys really changing their politics and how much

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Speaker 1: are they just moving with the wins and exploiting opportunities

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Speaker 1: as they see them. But let's just start with Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk and what his trajectory has been from you know,

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Speaker 1: close with Barack Obama to doge and you know, wielding

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Speaker 1: the chainsaw and being besties with Trump.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, as we could talk about. I think there are

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Speaker 3: people who in this group that were very political from

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Speaker 3: the start, but someone like Musk obviously did change. I mean,

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Speaker 3: you can even watch an interview with him on YouTube

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Speaker 3: from ten years ago or fifteen years ago and just

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Speaker 3: see a different disposition and different interests and a different

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Speaker 3: kind of psychological mind state, if you really want to

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Speaker 3: get deep about it, he doesn't seem like the same guy,

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Speaker 3: But specifically he was mostly a kind of centrist liberal.

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Speaker 3: He didn't donate heavily in the twenty sixteen election. He

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Speaker 3: didn't come out strongly for anyone. And I think there

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Speaker 3: are things both in the broader culture which I talk

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Speaker 3: about in the book, but also personally to him that

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Speaker 3: some of which he's acknowledged, and I think we have

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Speaker 3: to pay attention to as much as we are sort

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Speaker 3: of armchair psychologizing that change. And for one thing, he

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Speaker 3: started having more conflicts. A lot of this started, of

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Speaker 3: course during COVID, when there were these massive or rapid

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Speaker 3: upheavals in the culture and politics around social issues like

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Speaker 3: Black Lives Matter, or around quarantine and health care. And

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Speaker 3: some of these issues really were and also me too,

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Speaker 3: and some of these issues were not handled well. None

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Speaker 3: of them are really handled well by Silicon Valley elites.

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Speaker 3: And in the specific case of Musk, he really did

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Speaker 3: not like lockdowns. He did not like being not invited

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Speaker 3: to this EV summit at the Biden White House. He's

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Speaker 3: actually made a really big deal about that over the years,

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Speaker 3: and so his allies have. We should also note that

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Speaker 3: this is someone who during the first Trump administration resigned

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Speaker 3: from a Trump advisory board, you know, one of these

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Speaker 3: kind of meaningless advisory boards. But because Trump pulled out

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Speaker 3: of the Paris Climate Treaty, I mean this, there was

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Speaker 3: somewhat of an authent.

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Speaker 1: Them all today have that reaction.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there was an authentic like belief in climate

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Speaker 3: change at least there. And you know, then you cut

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Speaker 3: to the twenty twenty four cycle and he basically was

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Speaker 3: doing climate change denial on of Twitter spaces or x spaces.

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Speaker 3: Event during the twenty twenty four campaign cycle, we'll talking

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Speaker 3: to Trump and so you start seeing things like the

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Speaker 3: fight over his factory in Fremont, California, one of his

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Speaker 3: most important factories, when the government of Alameda County wanted

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Speaker 3: him to at least partially shut it down during the

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Speaker 3: height of COVID, and that this is when Mosque is

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Speaker 3: going on Twitter, which he didn't yet and was saying

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Speaker 3: that COVID was gonna be gone by the end of

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Speaker 3: April twenty twenty. You know, this was speaking of delusion

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Speaker 3: perhaps but also self interests. And it just kind of

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Speaker 3: goes from there and what happens also around this time

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Speaker 3: is that his child, Vivian Wilson, she comes out as

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Speaker 3: a trans woman, and she changes her name and in

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Speaker 3: her name change applications, says I no longer wish to

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Speaker 3: be associated with my father. Over the year, summer reporting

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Speaker 3: has emerged and she's since sort of come out also

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Speaker 3: as her own media figure person, willing to give interviews

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Speaker 3: to say that, you know, this guy bullied her for

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Speaker 3: being queer, and that I think really did break something

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Speaker 3: or change something in Musk. You know, he became very

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Speaker 3: openly transphobic after that. It became one basically his main

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Speaker 3: cultural issue into like lane cultural lane, into maga reactionarysm

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Speaker 3: It's something that he shares, I think with sort of

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Speaker 3: the broad sweep of maga people. Trump is amenable to it,

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Speaker 3: and he's talked about specifically, especially in that interview he

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Speaker 3: did with Geordan Peterson I think summer of twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 3: he said that the woke mind virus killed my son,

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Speaker 3: referring to his trans daughter. And so the idea of

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Speaker 3: this woke mind virus, which of course seems is very

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Speaker 3: silly and is silly in some ways, but is also

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Speaker 3: very real to him I think did come out of

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Speaker 3: his daughter coming out as trans and the broken relationship there.

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Speaker 3: So you know, that's why I talk about the political issues.

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Speaker 3: Of course, the broader trends in the culture, but also

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Speaker 3: some of these guys will go personal on themselves. You see.

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Speaker 3: It also even to a degree with someone like Bill

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Speaker 3: Ackman who says that Harvard turned his daughter into a communist.

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Speaker 3: I believe she wrote her thesis on something about Marxism.

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Speaker 3: Like that is actually something I think to listen to,

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Speaker 3: to pay attention. These people even think.

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Speaker 1: As sort of silly as it sounds, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: They think that that America's institutions, and especially it's liberal institutions,

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Speaker 3: have turned their kids into you know, lefty trans radicals.

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Speaker 3: Moscas said some things about la private schools where Vivian

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Speaker 3: went to school. So that's the mix I'm kind of

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Speaker 3: bringing here to the analysis.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. So there's you know, one part economic self interest,

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Speaker 1: there's one part some sort of you know, personal experience

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Speaker 1: or kind of like you know, what is experience as

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Speaker 1: a personal trauma. With Musk, you know, how much of

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Speaker 1: his radical I have a bunch of Musk questions, but

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Speaker 1: how much of his radicalization occurs after he buys Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and is you know, sort of I mean, Twitter has

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Speaker 1: now become its own radicalization machine, because it seemed like he,

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Speaker 1: you know what, had already made this shift. Of course

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Speaker 1: by the time he buys Twitter, but it also seems

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Speaker 1: like once he was swimming in the pools of all

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Speaker 1: this like constant great replacement theory, Nazi content, that he

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Speaker 1: just goes deeper and deeper and deeper in that direction.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's correct. I think you could

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Speaker 3: see him trending that way. I meant in tech, you know,

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Speaker 3: he's surrounded by people who are sort of tep at

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Speaker 3: social liberals, you know, billionaire philanthropic types, but you know,

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Speaker 3: mostly also care about the bottom line and their taxes.

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Speaker 3: So it's not like he was ever very steeped in

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Speaker 3: liberal much less lefty culture or anything like that. And

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Speaker 3: then when he starts to spending more and more time

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Speaker 3: online as a lot of us did. I mean, one

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Speaker 3: comparison I make is that we all know people in

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Speaker 3: our lives whose politics change, perhaps our own politics change

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Speaker 3: during COVID to one degree or another. And sometimes it's

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Speaker 3: your friend or your eccentric cousin who becomes kind of conspiratorial,

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Speaker 3: right ring radical and sometimes it is the richest man

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Speaker 3: in the world because he's online, as you said in

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Speaker 3: this same radioactive stew that a lot of us are

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Speaker 3: either in or trying to avoid, and you could see

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Speaker 3: it happening. You see who he's interacting with. There's been

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Speaker 3: some studies of this, perhaps not enough, but you know

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Speaker 3: that he's actually talking to Nazis and talking about the

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Speaker 3: great replacement theory, or at least amplifying it. So you know,

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Speaker 3: that is one thing in a way that's kind of

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Speaker 3: useful for analyzing what happened here to to Musk and

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Speaker 3: some of his peers, is that you can watch their

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Speaker 3: posts and watch how their online relationships played out, watch

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Speaker 3: how often he posted and with whom and we do have,

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Speaker 3: of course some understanding of that now. And really this

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Speaker 3: is you know, the black pilling of Elon Musk, the

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Speaker 3: same way it would be of anyone else on a

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Speaker 3: four chan like environment. But you know, of course it's

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Speaker 3: very different because of who he is, and because he

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Speaker 3: eventually does buy that platform and basically amplify all those

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Speaker 3: tendencies and features we're talking about, brings back the Nazis.

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Speaker 3: Tilts Twitter slash x to be an overtly right wing,

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Speaker 3: pro Trump platform, which of course has electoral implications, but

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Speaker 3: it's something that we can see happening right there.

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Speaker 1: You know, as someone on the left, you know, I

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Speaker 1: always I can't say maybe always, but for a long

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Speaker 1: time have seen these guys not as being you know,

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Speaker 1: really liberals or on the left. Obviously when it came

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Speaker 1: to economics, none of them ever were really I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're capitalists, like that's their thing, tech oligarchs, that's who

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Speaker 1: they are. But they wore a lot of social liberalism, which,

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Speaker 1: you know, given how much of our politics focuses on

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Speaker 1: culture war fights, gave them the semblance of being you know,

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Speaker 1: on the left or you know, an ally of the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party, at least for some of them. Some of

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Speaker 1: these guys have always been you know, Peter Thiel has

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Speaker 1: always been like a very ideological libertarian at least in

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Speaker 1: a certain sense. But so how much of it is

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Speaker 1: for which of these guys? Is it that they are

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Speaker 1: just sort of cynically exploiting the fact that like they

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Speaker 1: can get what they want out of Trump and he's

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Speaker 1: the guy in power right now, and so they're going

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Speaker 1: to come with their gold bars and they're gonna you know,

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg caught on a hot mic saying like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I hope I said the right number of how much

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Speaker 1: we're investing in the US, et cetera, Like how much

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Speaker 1: of it is just opportunistic And the next time there's

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Speaker 1: a Democratic president in the White House, they're suddenly going

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Speaker 1: to you know, oh my gosh, I was so wrong

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Speaker 1: about all these things. Turns out Trump was so awful.

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Speaker 1: And you know, President AOC, we're here to serve you.

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Speaker 1: What can we do for the country under your leadership?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I think, you know, I divide them and sort

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Speaker 3: of into a few tranches, and I think the opportunistic

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Speaker 3: ones are more like leaders of Microsoft, Apple, Google, you know,

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Speaker 3: meta like Zuckerberg, Like you said, he likes to sort

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Speaker 3: of blow with the winds or go where the winds

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Speaker 3: are blowing and reinvent himself a little bit every few years.

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Speaker 1: Or yeah, at that moment when he showed up on

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Speaker 1: Rogan with like his like chain and his after he's

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Speaker 1: doing this heavy T shirts.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god, So I'm wearing sort of a heavy sweasher.

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Speaker 3: So who am I to talk? But you know, he

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Speaker 3: is very and we heard it very well and very

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Speaker 3: vividly on that hot mic when he said to Trump,

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Speaker 3: I don't know what number you wanted me to say

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Speaker 3: about his data center investment, like how many hundreds of

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Speaker 3: billions of dollars? But you know, I think it's worth

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Speaker 3: also looking at you have the died in the wool

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Speaker 3: ideological conservatives and right wingers and p but like Peter

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Speaker 3: Teel or David Sachs who was his Teal's friend and

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Speaker 3: writing partner at college at Stanford and in the early

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Speaker 3: nineties they wrote this book called The Diversity Myth, which

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Speaker 3: was basically like an anti multiculturalist what we now call

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Speaker 3: an anti woke screed. And so you know, those people

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Speaker 3: have always been there, and Teal sometimes has been the

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Speaker 3: lonelier figure, especially during the twenty sixteen election. But I

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Speaker 3: think what we've seen is that yes, there is a

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Speaker 3: great deal of opportunism and of a typical like corporate

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Speaker 3: billionaire type, but there's also what a lot of people

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Speaker 3: in the Silicon Valley elite who are kind of ready

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Speaker 3: to be activated or ready to be radicalized in their

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Speaker 3: own way, I think, and were fed up with some

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Speaker 3: of this stuff. And even some of them who you know,

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Speaker 3: some of them went one direction and back again, like

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Speaker 3: I think of someone like Doug Leone, who's not a

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Speaker 3: household name necessarily, but he's a partner Sequoia, the most

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Speaker 3: important VC firm in the valley. He was a longtime

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Speaker 3: Republican supporter, supported Trump in twenty sixteen after January sixth

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Speaker 3: said Trump had to kind of had to go. Elon

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Speaker 3: Musk said the same thing in more gentle terms, and

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Speaker 3: that Trump should was a little old and should write

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Speaker 3: off into the sunset. But then we see these guys

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Speaker 3: come back and Doug Leon became a very vocal Trump

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Speaker 3: supporter in the valley. So you know, I think that

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Speaker 3: that specific cocktail of opportunism and ideology is important with

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Speaker 3: some of these guys. But you know, ultimately it is

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Speaker 3: about class, you know, as as you were kind of

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Speaker 3: alluding to, I think venture capitalists. Capitalist is in the

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00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 3: title for a lot of these people that we're talking about,

434
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 3: and so they are so primed to pursue authoritarian politics.

435
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 3: I think when it's presented to them so easily, like

436
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:49,880
Speaker 3: that is the world that they swim in in their

437
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:50,240
Speaker 3: own way.

438
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't you tease that on a little bit more.

439
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: Why it is such a logical fit that you know

440
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: this president who is you know, a core and just authoritarian,

441
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: like that is every instinct and his body thinks that

442
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: it should be basically legal to criticize him constantly consolidating

443
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: power in his own hands and in the executive branch

444
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: constantly you know, flouting the constitution, laws, etc. I mean

445
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: that is just like to the extent he has any ideology,

446
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: it's just like a lust to consolidate power and be

447
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: the you know, the boss. And I guess, I mean

448
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: the obvious thing is like here he is this ceo,

449
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 1: not nearly as successful as like an Elon Musk or

450
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, but he also has that CEO mindset where

451
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: it's like I should have total and complete control. So

452
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: is that where the alignment fits here? Why is the

453
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: authoritarian bent of this administration such as sort of natural

454
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: fit for tech oligarchs.

455
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:48,680
Speaker 3: Well, I think for one thing, it shows how thin

456
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 3: their support of freedom or individual liberty and free speech are.

457
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 3: But more importantly, this is a group of people who

458
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 3: deal with fabulous amounts of money and also just increasing amounts.

459
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 3: I mean, one change I try in the book is

460
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: that a lot of that money is now coming from

461
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 3: dictatorships in the Middle East. I mean it has been

462
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 3: for a couple of decades, but for at least, you know,

463
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 3: perhaps the last ten years, maybe a little bit less.

464
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia has been probably the biggest funder of tech startups,

465
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 3: with the UAE and Katark contributing a lot of money

466
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 3: to So you have people who vcs and tech CEOs

467
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 3: who venerate this founder led startup model where the founder

468
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 3: is the supreme decision maker, and they are getting billions

469
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 3: of dollars from people who are also have an authoritarian

470
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 3: mode of governance. And you know this is not just metaphorical.

471
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 3: I mean Ben Horowitz, who is Marc Andreessen's business partner

472
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 3: at Andresen Horowitz major venture capital firms, said at one

473
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 3: of these Saudi business summits a few years ago to

474
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 3: his Saudi counterpart, he said, you have a founder also

475
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 3: usually call him your highness, And I think you know,

476
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 3: at all levels there's this authoritarian mindset and way of

477
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 3: doing business that really appeals to them and that they've

478
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 3: honed with their Middle Eastern partners. And now you know,

479
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 3: Trump is more gearish and stupider and more easily bought

480
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 3: and stuff, but they they don't mind and you know,

481
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 3: so they're still willing to work with that, and his

482
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 3: authoritarianism hasn't encroached on them yet, you know, hasn't washed

483
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 3: up on their shores. Quite the opposite, as we talked

484
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 3: about earlier. You know, he is pushing AI because it's

485
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 3: sort of good for business or good for his pocket,

486
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 3: and that works for them for now. And so if

487
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 3: Trump's authoritarianism somehow turns against Silicon Valley or specific people, yeah,

488
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,919
Speaker 3: then they might have a problem. But right now, you know,

489
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 3: these guys think of themselves as kings or dictators of

490
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 3: their own little empires, so that works very well with

491
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 3: them when they can just you know, let Trump be Trump.

492
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how they used,

493
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: you know, politics in San Francisco to kind of workshop

494
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: some of their reactionary politics and what that looked like.

495
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:09,959
Speaker 3: So this is really starting around twenty nineteen, twenty twenty.

496
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 3: Of course, COVID is always a marker here when tech

497
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 3: elites really start getting fed up vocally, of course, with

498
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 3: San Francisco seeing it as kind of this failed city.

499
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,640
Speaker 3: I mean, you had articles coming out in national magazines

500
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 3: about how San Francisco was dead or could ever recover

501
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 3: from its doom loop. It's actually recovered in a lot

502
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 3: of ways in the last few years, depending on what

503
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 3: you're measuring. But that's a kind of different topic. But

504
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 3: you know, less the sense of, you know, philanthropy or

505
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 3: government reform, much less activism could fix this, and more

506
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 3: of a sense of, you know, we need massive intervention

507
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 3: and we need to kind of take control of the

508
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 3: political system. Now you have. So what happened was they

509
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 3: discovered recall politics, really, which is that especially David Sachs,

510
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 3: who a lot of us know better now as the

511
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 3: and ai zar in the White House who's profiting from

512
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 3: that role. But before that he was kind of another

513
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 3: VC in the PayPal mafia world and was always a

514
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 3: conservative but wasn't as active. He was the type of

515
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 3: conservative who would donate to Democrats in California just so

516
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 3: he had their ear, and to the point where he

517
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 3: started getting involved in recall politics though and being a

518
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 3: little more public and vocally radical, as I would say,

519
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 3: and first supporting this campaign to recall a couple members

520
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: of the San Francisco School Board, which had never happened before.

521
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 3: This really became a flashpoint over kind of woke politics,

522
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 3: identity politics, and conservatives in San Francisco and the business

523
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 3: world there really came out strong and put a lot

524
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 3: of money in this recall election. It worked, and then

525
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 3: you had the attempt to recall Gavin Newsom, which did

526
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 3: not work, but you had the sort of funny spectacle

527
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 3: of David Sachs both funding the election of Newsom and

528
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 3: then a year or two later trying to fund his recall.

529
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 3: But that's just how big money work now. And then

530
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 3: you had the recall Chase A. Boudin, and this was

531
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 3: really big because he was the DA in San Francisco.

532
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 3: He was the figurehead kind of the progressive prosecutor movement

533
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 3: with people like the LA and San Francisco das and

534
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 3: in the minds of San Francisco tech elites, he was

535
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 3: responsible for everything there from you know, kind of hate

536
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 3: crimes against Asian Americans during the height of COVID or

537
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 3: increase in property crimes. There was actually a decrease in

538
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 3: violent crime that was kind of sort of years in

539
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 3: the making and has increased and has continued beyond him.

540
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 3: But anyway, he was tarred as this person who had

541
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 3: left San Francisco's to die or cared more about, cared

542
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 3: more about criminals supposedly than crime victims, and the establishment

543
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 3: right made it a point to, you know, get rid

544
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 3: of this Soros da as they called him, but also

545
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 3: really the tech elites, and Sacks was the ideological and

546
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 3: at times the mon monetary leader here, donating millions of dollars.

547
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 3: I think at one point something like sixty percent or

548
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 3: more of all money donated to the recall effort of

549
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: Boudin was from Sachs. And they succeeded, and they succeeded

550
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 3: also in painting for at least for a while. Maybe

551
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 3: it's rolled back a bit, but this progressive prosecutor movement

552
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 3: as kind of evil or corrupt, and they were very vocal.

553
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 3: After that, Sax went on Tucker Carlson who thanked him

554
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 3: for saving democracy. This was on Fox News. He went

555
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 3: on Megan Kelly and said, this is a model that

556
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 3: we play.

557
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: Realized democracy had been saved, has greatiny.

558
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 3: Right by a billionaire's cash. And this also, I think

559
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 3: was very reflective, and he went to Megan Kelly and said,

560
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 3: we're going to replicate this across the country. And I

561
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 3: think this is also very reflective of one other trend

562
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 3: you saw on right wing politics, which is that elections

563
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 3: are going to be contested everywhere. You know, there's going

564
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 3: to be of course the normal electoral process, there'll be disinformation,

565
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 3: they'll be you know, at the ballot box, but also

566
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 3: afterwards with you know, election denial and then recalls whenever

567
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 3: recalls present an opportunity. And that's something that we've seen

568
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 3: more nashally, and I think that the money right wing

569
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 3: elite now sees as another way to pull on the

570
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 3: levers of powers. You know, you pour a few million

571
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 3: dollars into some local election that isn't used to seeing that,

572
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 3: and that is in a sense what happened in San

573
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 3: Francisco with some of these smaller elections, and that provided

574
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: this this model for them to go nationally and both

575
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 3: I would say rhetorically and as a matter of strategy.

576
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: How much of this was these guys being annoyed by

577
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: the activism of their employees, like finding their employees activism

578
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: and wokeness irritating to them very much.

579
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,479
Speaker 3: So, you know, again this is something where we can

580
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 3: go to the tape of these guys saying what they

581
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 3: actually believe, which is sometimes rather paranoid. Mark and Dreesen

582
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 3: has said in interviews that he was speaking to the

583
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 3: CEO of one of his portfolt Olio companies, someone he

584
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 3: had invested in, and the guy said, you know, I

585
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: think some of these young people from elite computer science

586
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 3: schools like Stanford and Carnegie Mellon are getting jobs at

587
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 3: our companies just to destroy them from within, because they

588
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 3: are Marxists and leftists. I mean, you hear anti communist

589
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 3: rhetoric from a lot of these guys, now, from Joe Lonsdale,

590
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 3: who is a right wing conservative and kind of a

591
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 3: younger member of the PayPal mafia, you could say. And

592
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 3: you hear from Mark and Dreesen talks about communism too,

593
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 3: like it's this weird almost fifties throwback red scare throwback

594
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 3: kind of thing, or even in an earlier era of

595
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 3: anti communist fervor. But so they do think. They do

596
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 3: both think this that people are kind of infiltrating their companies,

597
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 3: and they also at of just very fed up with

598
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 3: any visible form of activism. And a great example is

599
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 3: at Google, you know that Don't Be Evil company, that

600
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 3: they contributed to something called Project Maven, which still exists.

601
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 3: It's a big DoD project related to kind of drum

602
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 3: imaging and had targeting air strikes. And in twenty eighteen

603
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 3: a number of Google employees signed a petition and protested

604
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 3: against Google's participation this. They were doing image processing essentially

605
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 3: kind of AI image processing, and Google dropped the contract,

606
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 3: which wasn't that big at the time by Google standards.

607
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 3: And you cut to about six years later during protests

608
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 3: over Google's work for the IDF and Israel during the

609
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 3: ongoing war in Gouzea. But this started really in twenty

610
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 3: twenty fourth on the protests and Google fired forty people

611
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 3: in one day who participated in a silent protests in

612
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 3: an office that of course didn't disrupt anything. So the

613
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 3: ad to has completely changed, both within the ostensibly kind

614
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 3: of liberal companies. It's really worth watching what's happening in Microsoft.

615
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 3: They've had protests over the last few months. You know,

616
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 3: I've heard of people trying to emerge as whistleblowers, you

617
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 3: know about because there's a lot of internal surveillancebably violations

618
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 3: of labor laws. I mean, all the big tech companies

619
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 3: have insider threat programs, which is a term we started

620
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 3: hearing after the Stone revelations, which was something that was

621
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 3: supposed to only exist within the NSA or CIA or

622
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 3: something like that, Like you know, they are surveilling their

623
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 3: own employees and monitoring their activity very heavily. And then

624
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 3: you have the companies that are overtly ideological, like the

625
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 3: defense tech companies Palenteer on Durill and the people we

626
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 3: know associated with them who are saying, you know, building

627
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 3: weapons for the government is good, and Trump is great,

628
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 3: and we're glad to be here. And that's what the

629
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 3: company is about, is defending Western civilization. That's the kind

630
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 3: of rhetoric you also hear.

631
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: Now, can you talk a little about Alex karp Is,

632
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: the CEO of Palenteer. We were just watching some clips

633
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: of him at some conference where he seemed absolutely oh

634
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: it was with that what was it the deal Book

635
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: conference anyway, some like New York Finance conference or whatever,

636
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: And I mean just seemed like he was on crack

637
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: effectively and saying insane things. W kind of par for

638
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: the course for him. He's another one. He always pretends

639
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: like I don't know, you could tell me if this

640
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: is real or not, but he does the whole shtick

641
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: of like I was a liberal Democrat and they've just

642
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: completely gone crazy. Who is this guy? Where did he

643
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:14,919
Speaker 1: come from? What is his deal?

644
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a really representative figure I would say of

645
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 3: this type as this very jingoistic nationalist tech elite type

646
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 3: that you see in venture capital and in the more

647
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 3: defensive line sectors of tech. Now he does play that

648
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 3: song of oh I was a Democrat. I mean he

649
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 3: even claims to have been a Kamala supporter or a

650
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 3: Kamala supporter in the last election, which I'm a little

651
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 3: dubious about or what does that really mean? Given also,

652
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 3: you know the company he keeps, the work he does.

653
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and is there any evidence that you like, contributed

654
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: to her or anything like that, Not.

655
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 3: That I know of, but you know, I should go

656
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 3: back and check the donations. But yeah, he Anyway, he

657
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 3: routinely appears, let's say, very amped and pop and I

658
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 3: think also, you know, CNBC producers, I'm sure love this

659
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 3: stuff because the clips get passed around a lot, and

660
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 3: he'll do things like, well, some of the clips are

661
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 3: perhaps revealing where he talks about how he wants he

662
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 3: talks about short sellers who you know, want to try

663
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:16,959
Speaker 3: to short his company stock, how he wants to send

664
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 3: their coke dealers to their door. I mean, I wonder

665
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 3: where he got that idea to beat them up. How

666
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 3: he wants to drone his enemies like this is the

667
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 3: kind of thing he does every few months at the

668
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 3: very least, and now that there are also more of

669
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 3: these conferences where he can kind of preen and dance

670
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 3: around on stage. He originally comes from this background where

671
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 3: he was a PhD student in philosophy at a German university.

672
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 3: I mean, I believe you guys PhD and they refer

673
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 3: to him as doctor Karp sometimes at Pallantier, he supposedly

674
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 3: studied under Jurgen Haber Moss, a great German philosopher and intellectual.

675
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 3: I think that relationship has been overblown, but you know,

676
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 3: he was this intellectual of sorts, and somehow he ends

677
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 3: up in charge of the startup Palanteer, which is comes

678
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 3: from Peter Teel and Joe Lonsdale I mentioned earlier, and

679
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 3: is really I mean, there is a larger history here,

680
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 3: but of the kind of recent defense tech boom, this

681
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 3: company cannot be more important. I mean it is now

682
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,439
Speaker 3: a huge company on its own, one of the most

683
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 3: favored companies in Trump world, making so much money thanks

684
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 3: to the Trump administration. But it exemplifies and in the

685
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 3: figure of Karp, this new Proud very much like war

686
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 3: seeking tech elite who thinks that we need to build

687
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 3: weapons and surveil everyone and project power in order to

688
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 3: somehow deter aggression against the United States. I mean, they

689
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 3: operate according to a very crude logic, which is not

690
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 3: anything about diplomacy. It's just about this idea of dominance,

691
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 3: as The New York Times calls it, and projecting American

692
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 3: power making people afraid, you know, China will be too

693
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 3: afraid to attack us. And it's a very juvenile vision,

694
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,720
Speaker 3: but it's one that he's very willing to dispense at

695
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 3: a really rapid rate.

696
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think they also exploited, like genuine

697
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: issues with the existing legacy military industrial complex, which you

698
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: know where they are like they are incompetent and there

699
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: are massive cost overruns. So they're able to make this

700
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: pitch of like, oh, we'll be cheaper and will be

701
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: more nimble, and that's part of the appeal as well.

702
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 3: They're using that silicon valley, the traditional kind of silicon

703
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 3: valley model which even those use, yeah, which those use too,

704
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 3: like disruption bringing efficiency. They talk about how the prime

705
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 3: defense contractors, which is an industry term for you know,

706
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 3: Boeing and raytheon and those big ones are expensive entrenched,

707
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 3: and this is the something you hear from, you know,

708
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,839
Speaker 3: some liberal Democrats, more like centrist Democrats or anti trust

709
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 3: democrats even but they're not of course necessarily better and

710
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 3: then producing their own you know, ideological agenda. But it

711
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 3: works for them in a way. It's brought them into

712
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 3: the corridors of power. It's allowed them to start building

713
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 3: up these tracks. One thing I'd write about my book

714
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 3: is that, you know, there was that big meeting of

715
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 3: Trump and a lot of tech CEOs in November twenty sixteen,

716
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 3: right after the election at Trump Tower, and this was

717
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 3: one of those resident images where you had a dozen

718
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 3: or more top tech industry executives meeting with Trump and

719
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 3: not quite kissing the ring, but more like, well, we're

720
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 3: looking forward to doing business with you, and we have to.

721
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 3: So here we are, and all before cameras and Alex

722
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 3: KRP was there and Teal had set up the meeting.

723
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 3: Trump was praising Teal, but at the time Pallenteer was

724
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 3: a startup that was privately held and not gone public.

725
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 3: It was a valuable startup, but not nearly worth as

726
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 3: much as like Cisco or Facebook or Google or any

727
00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 3: of the companies represented there. And now, okay, maybe we'd

728
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 3: understand Alex Carping at the table, but I think if

729
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 3: you sort of track that arc from twenty sixteen to

730
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 3: now where it's it's a publicly traded company with a

731
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,879
Speaker 3: market cap of hundreds of billions of dollars, it really

732
00:38:55,920 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 3: reflects this what this era has become and that right

733
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,720
Speaker 3: wing tech and Trump Union has wrought.

734
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: It really seems to me, and you can tell me

735
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: if this is an accurate analysis based on your reporting,

736
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: that the sort of common thread with all the grievances

737
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: that these guys had, whether it was the employees daring

738
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: to speak up about like internal practices or contracts that

739
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,359
Speaker 1: the companies were involved with that they didn't want, whether

740
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: it was personal things like you know, Elon Musk's daughter

741
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:29,240
Speaker 1: being trans whether it was the Biden era policies around

742
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: crypto and policies at least some AI regulation, and of

743
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: course the antitrust direction with Jonathan Canter and Lena Khan,

744
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: the potential threats to you know, deal making and this

745
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:43,439
Speaker 1: actually having to undergo scrutiny, whether it was the COVID lockdowns,

746
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: all of this has to do with, like, I can't

747
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 1: just do whatever I want. You are actually like there

748
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: is some minor check on the power and fortune that

749
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 1: I can amass, and I find that completely unacceptable. And

750
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: so I'm going to you know, what you really sort

751
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: of make clear when you dive into the politics in

752
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 1: San Francisco in particular, but other cities as well, is

753
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: they see this sort of zeitgeist of Okay, we can

754
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: tap into cultural disaffection, but as a way also to

755
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: you know, consolidate this right wing shift and consolidate our

756
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: own power and really strip back the sort of any

757
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: sort of regulatory or other hurdles that are getting in

758
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: our in our way. I mean, it seems like, just

759
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,240
Speaker 1: to sort of summarize that, it seems like the common

760
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: thread here is we want as much power as we

761
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: can and even slight, little pesky annoyances within our own

762
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: companies or lives or operations are unacceptable, and we're going

763
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: to move heaven and earth to push all of those

764
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: out of the way.

765
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 3: Yes, someone recently summarizes to me is they don't want

766
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 3: to be governed, and yeah, we see that very much

767
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 3: in practice where they any criticism they cannot tolerate. You

768
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 3: see this especially people like Mark and Dreesen or Musk himself.

769
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 3: You know, some times it is baffling, I think are

770
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 3: striking to most normal people that you know, Like is

771
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 3: this it? Like was did Musk really get so angry

772
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 3: because he wasn't invited to abiden Ev summit? And like, yeah,

773
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 3: like you know, these are I believe them when they

774
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 3: say that, because these are people who are of course

775
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 3: surrounded by the most yes of yes men, and are

776
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 3: you and are not only yeah, as you described, they're

777
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 3: not only just so rich, but they there's a constant,

778
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 3: there's a greed and resource accumulation of drive that is

779
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 3: never ending. I mean, Musc has said that he needs

780
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 3: to be a trillionaire so that he can get to Mars.

781
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 3: I mean the ridiculousness of that vision and the very

782
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 3: much grounded in the laws of physics reasons why it

783
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 3: won't happen is the whole other thing. But like this

784
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 3: is the pretense of why he supposedly needs as much

785
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 3: money as possible, and they are no longer content with

786
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 3: the whatever might be the conventional checks and bounces and

787
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 3: regulations of the democratic system, and they certainly saw that

788
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 3: or thought that the the Biden administration in what we

789
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 3: would probably agree or some pretty modest reforms or you know,

790
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 3: effective in the forms of Lena Kon johnthan Canter. But overall,

791
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 3: you know, they weren't so aggressive. They didn't break any

792
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 3: up any companies are putting on it in prison, besides

793
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 3: some obvious crypto criminals. But this is all unacceptable to

794
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 3: them and they cannot deal with any of that. So,

795
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 3: you know, we talked about exit earlier. You know, they're

796
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 3: pursuing two lanes at once. Some of them want to exit.

797
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 3: At the same time, they're also willing to kind of

798
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 3: control the levers of power because they see a good

799
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 3: return on investment by pouring in money or allowing their

800
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 3: allies in the crypto industry to do the same. And

801
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 3: so that's where I think it ultimately amounts to, like,

802
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 3: you know, it's almost like the the Uber model of

803
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 3: going into a city and basically breaking local laws about

804
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 3: employment and transit applied to politics, that like, we are

805
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 3: just going to do what we want because nothing else

806
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 3: is tolerable. And we also saw that in an example

807
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 3: of Musk he opened that factory in Fremont, California, and said,

808
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 3: you can arrest me if you want. You know, he

809
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 3: did this whole hero thing like, don't arrest my employees,

810
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 3: but you know, arrest me if you need to. And

811
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 3: then a week later the Alameda County folded and allowed

812
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 3: him to basically run the Fremont factory.

813
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: How you were, I mean, it's a story. I'm sure

814
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: if you look at all these guys, I mean, Bezos

815
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 1: and Amazon, they also were like, yeah, we just don't

816
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: really think that sales tax should be a thing for us,

817
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: I mean all of them, you know, they see the

818
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: laws as optional at best. And Elon and SpaceX too.

819
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: You know, there's obviously, for good reason, a lot of

820
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: regulations and a lot of checks with the government and

821
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: inspections that you are supposed to go through before you

822
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: do massive rocket launches. And at times he was just like, ah,

823
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,279
Speaker 1: that's going to take too long. We're not doing that.

824
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that they

825
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: don't really see themselves as subject to the laws the

826
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: way that the rest of us do.

827
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think actually there's one particle in the book.

828
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 3: There's this leaked audio from Eric Schmidt, who I talk

829
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 3: about in the book is sort of an authoritarian bridge

830
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 3: figure because he's nominally a Democrat, but I think he's

831
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 3: important to sort of precursor to some of these guys.

832
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 3: And he basically says to a class of Stanford students,

833
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to make your own TikTok clone,

834
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 3: just do it with him ai and then get lawyers

835
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,399
Speaker 3: to clean it up later. Like that. That's very much

836
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 3: the attitude. Yeah, that that thought problem among some of

837
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 3: these people, and we see it, you know, manifested everywhere,

838
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,319
Speaker 3: and from their desire to have their own money to

839
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 3: their own islands and city states they want out well.

840
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: And the irony of them simultaneously like celebrating actually their

841
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: own law breaking and wearing it as a badge of

842
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: like were disruptors and we're founders and we're leaders and

843
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 1: all of this and also at the same time fixating

844
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: on law and order for you know, the common folk

845
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: is an incredible irony. I Mean, one thing I've always

846
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: found instructive about Elon Mush is you were talking about

847
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: his Mars delusions, Like this is a man not only

848
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: does he not think that our laws should apply to him.

849
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: He doesn't think that the laws of physics apply to him,

850
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: Like that's so much. He has this sort of like

851
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,320
Speaker 1: delusions of grandeur and main character syndrome.

852
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you talk to people like Adam Becker and

853
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 3: astrophysicist and journalists has a good book. You know that

854
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 3: stuff is never going to happen. You can no one

855
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 3: can can live on Mars, and the worst day on

856
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 3: Earth is going to be better than the best day

857
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 3: ever on Mars. But they this is where they become

858
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 3: aristocrats for people who feel entitled to lead or to rule.

859
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 3: And I also think this is where the fascism really emerges,

860
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 3: is that they think that the future that they were

861
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 3: promised has been hasn't been given to them, and that

862
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 3: they were promised you know, the famous line from Tela

863
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 3: and Founder's Fund is we were promised flying cars. We

864
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 3: got one hundred and forty characters like there. And this

865
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 3: is actually you know, you see some some analogs to

866
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 3: this in like nineteen twenties futurism and early proto fascism then,

867
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 3: which is that like this new Industrial Age was supposed

868
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 3: to give us utopia, was supposed to make everything incredible,

869
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 3: and it hasn't, and though they are as rich as

870
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 3: could be, they are very impatient and angry, and they

871
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 3: see the rest of us or any any critics, journalists,

872
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 3: the government, anyone who just doesn't understand and praise them

873
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 3: as impediments to that great future.

874
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: And that.

875
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 3: Also you can see that manifesting now with the refusal

876
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 3: to put any checks on AI or whether at the

877
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 3: state level and policy Trump's executive order, or in the industry,

878
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,760
Speaker 3: they all talk about how it concerns about AI safety

879
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 3: or bs like or at least among the like the

880
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 3: right wing tech people like they don't want anything to

881
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,959
Speaker 3: be held back because yes, it's about greed, but also

882
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 3: this idea that if only they could do what they

883
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 3: want and pour as much capital into these projects as

884
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 3: they want, somehow that better future might arrive. And and

885
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 3: that's what makes them, I think, or what provides that

886
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 3: final push into fascism in a way, because to do

887
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 3: that they align fully with the state.

888
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit of specifics with the

889
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: Trump administration, and you know, starting from the beginning, like

890
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: what was DOGE actually about? What did it actually accomplish

891
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: because we know that it didn't. I don't know if

892
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: they ever really cared about saving money, but it didn't

893
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: do that. It did effectively defenestrate and destroy significant parts

894
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: of the government. So is I mean, was that the

895
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,720
Speaker 1: primary goal was the goal to have lots of data

896
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: that Elon could feed into his LM. Like, how do

897
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: you see the project of DOGE and how we should

898
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: think about it?

899
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 3: Well, we definitely shouldn't think of it as a failure

900
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 3: by their standards. You know, it's a huge disaster. It

901
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 3: was probably a crime or a number of crimes. Yeah,

902
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,280
Speaker 3: and I think that the data side is very important.

903
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 3: That's one way in which it was probably a success

904
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 3: for Musk and others. I mean, there's been some good reporting,

905
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:03,799
Speaker 3: but there's just so much we don't know about what

906
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 3: they were doing inside the government, you know, I think

907
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 3: it's reasonable to we know that data was taken or

908
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 3: exposed in the form of everyone's social security information on

909
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 3: an unsecure server. This is we are of course survealed

910
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 3: by tech comanies all the time, but this is like

911
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 3: really important stuff. Someone who used to work at the

912
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 3: SEC told me, you know what, or texted me earlier

913
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 3: this year and said, dog is supposedly coming to the

914
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 3: SEC today. They are going to get their hands on

915
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:34,319
Speaker 3: so much sensive like private market data, things that the

916
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 3: government knows that industry doesn't know, you know, like important

917
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 3: big picture or even really graining their stuff, you know,

918
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,359
Speaker 3: things about the American economy or its people, or you know,

919
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 3: plans for the government, and that I think the value

920
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:54,320
Speaker 3: of that, especially when it can't be gleaned elsewhere, is huge,

921
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 3: and when there is this kind of data war fuel AI.

922
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 3: The other thing I wonder about, and this is you know,

923
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 3: we don't I don't have a lot to go on here,

924
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 3: but was any money taken because you had things like

925
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 3: doge operatives going into core federal payment systems, not just

926
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 3: you know, taking over an agency, but like the systems

927
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 3: that feed that disperse trillions of dollars, and so it's just,

928
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 3: you know, these are the kinds of things that under

929
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 3: normal government would be audited in some way, but obviously

930
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 3: the audits don't matter here. The inspector generals were all

931
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 3: fired illegally at the beginning of the Trump administration. So

932
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it succeeded in creating this disruption.

933
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 3: This may be a proof of concept that I mean,

934
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 3: at least there's some ideas probably that I think that

935
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 3: the tech right has about how to do it better

936
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 3: next time. But it showed that you can launch an

937
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 3: attack on the administry of state, you could profit from it,

938
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 3: you could get out some of the people you don't like,

939
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 3: and there would be no punishment. They you know, a

940
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 3: lot of people we you know, have have had to

941
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 3: be brought back by some of these agencies who they've

942
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 3: deemed them essential or things were just collapsing too much.

943
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 3: But still, you know, there's been especially in the whole

944
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 3: cell example, USA D or some of these other agencies,

945
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 3: but where the now Trump Institute of Peace. But you know,

946
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:11,400
Speaker 3: I think they got a lot of what they wanted

947
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,479
Speaker 3: and a lot of I think it's also worth noting

948
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 3: that a lot of those DOGE operatives are still kind

949
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 3: of scattered throughout government agencies or have government jobs. We

950
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 3: don't really know what they're doing. And some of them

951
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 3: are are still twenty two year olds with the resume

952
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 3: of cyber criminals who have incredible access.

953
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 1: Terrifying talk about the meshing of the work of ice

954
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: and this, you know, this tech world of palents here

955
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: being the most obvious example. But I don't think by

956
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: any stretch the only one. You know, why is this

957
00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: mass deportation effort important? Also for these tech oligarchs, especially

958
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 1: the ones focused on surveillance capitalism.

959
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 3: They've really discovered a love of government contracts and it's

960
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 3: because of their changing politics and of course because of

961
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 3: the money there and the government can be a very

962
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 3: reliable client. And it has been of course a deep,

963
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 3: you know, an intrinsic part of the tech industry for

964
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:10,879
Speaker 3: many years. But there's such big contracts being handed out now,

965
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 3: not for AI and other purposes, and of course for

966
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 3: any kind of technical services for expanding government agencies, and

967
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 3: that includes border patrol and ice and all the surveillance

968
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 3: and data processes and that goes with it. So you

969
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 3: have companies like Palenteer that are very proud to be

970
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:31,720
Speaker 3: part of this process that can get hundreds of millions

971
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:37,280
Speaker 3: of dollars worth of contracts. Salesforce has been a vendor

972
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 3: for this for the border patrol for years, I think

973
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 3: since at least the first Trump administration maybe And sometimes

974
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 3: you know, this just means like we're going to help

975
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 3: you recruit more people by through online ad campaigns and

976
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 3: ad targeting and stuff like that. I mean, it is,

977
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 3: it is important it's still work. You're still you know,

978
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 3: bringing in bodies for the modern data just stoppot. But

979
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 3: you know, there are all kinds of ways in which

980
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 3: these companies, some of which seems several degrees removed from

981
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 3: actually pulling people off the street. But there are all

982
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 3: kinds of ways in which these tech companies can provide services.

983
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 3: You know, they're all using Microsoft computer products pretty much

984
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,919
Speaker 3: can provide services to the government and to agencies like ICE.

985
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 3: So anytime there's a huge growth in one of these

986
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 3: agencies or not just you know there's huge growth in personnel,

987
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 3: but also new technical needs or capabilities, the tech industry

988
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 3: is going to be right there because the moral quandaries

989
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 3: have all been dispensed with, and they you know, they've

990
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,720
Speaker 3: chosen kind of a repression over diplomacy with their own

991
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 3: employees who are not all in line with this, and

992
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 3: I think that will be a source of rising friction.

993
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 3: But for now, you know, there's a lot of money

994
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 3: to be made here and they're perfectly happy to do it.

995
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 3: So you see it especially on anything related to data

996
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 3: management with a company like Palenteer, or surveillance and or

997
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:55,280
Speaker 3: just running the day day functions.

998
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think Palestine has been a you know,

999
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:00,800
Speaker 1: a test run or a test and ground for a

1000
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: lot of this tech as well, because on the level

1001
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,799
Speaker 1: of mass surveillance of Palestinians is just without parallel. So

1002
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,800
Speaker 1: you can bring this back home right now with regard

1003
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 1: to immigrants, and then I mean, you tell me if

1004
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,959
Speaker 1: this is too conspiratorial, Jacob. But what these guys want

1005
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: to do with AI, and perhaps they're delusional, very possible

1006
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:21,720
Speaker 1: they're delusional. It all just blows up in some bubble

1007
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: and we never really get beyond you know, making AI

1008
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 1: slot videos or whatever. The night marriage healthscape we live

1009
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 1: in right now is, we never get that far beyond that.

1010
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: But what they want to do is replace all human labor. Effectively.

1011
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 1: They want to rip up the entire social contract and

1012
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: redraw it from scratch for their own ends. They want

1013
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:44,800
Speaker 1: to be trillionaires. They want all the power in the world,

1014
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: you know, they want to consolidate more power than has

1015
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: ever been possible to consolidate in human history. That is

1016
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: their goal. And these are not stupid people, so I'm

1017
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: sure they're thinking about when that happens, people are not

1018
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:02,359
Speaker 1: going to be super happy about that. And so we're

1019
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 1: going to need massively powerful tools of surveillance and repression

1020
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,279
Speaker 1: to keep the peasants in line so that you know,

1021
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 1: we can all keep our heads.

1022
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. I don't think that's too conspiratorial.

1023
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 3: I think it matches a lot of things we've heard

1024
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,760
Speaker 3: from these people or even you know, reporting from people

1025
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 3: like Douglas Rushkov, a longtime tech writer and critic who

1026
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 3: has talked to some billionaires about their sort of doomsday

1027
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 3: island plans. And you know they do they need to

1028
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 3: kill the pilots who fly them to their doomsday bunkers

1029
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 3: so no one knows where they are. Like just bonkers stuff.

1030
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 3: But you know, Larry Elson has talked about in recent

1031
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 3: months that we are going to have perfect always on

1032
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 3: everywhere AI powered surveillance and everyone will be on their

1033
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 3: best behavior at all times, from you and me to

1034
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 3: police officers to anyone else. You know. Do they believe it,

1035
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 3: I don't know, but they act like they do. And

1036
00:54:56,400 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 3: in some ways, the nightmare scenario is not necessarily that

1037
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,359
Speaker 3: we get kind of a perfect AI dystopia and that

1038
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:05,839
Speaker 3: no one is working. We're all sort of turned into

1039
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:09,239
Speaker 3: goog for the billionaires. But it's in a way and

1040
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:11,799
Speaker 3: acceleration of what we have now, I think, which is

1041
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 3: that we get this really imperfect version where yeah, we

1042
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 3: do have the economic collapse, but it also is taking

1043
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 3: a lot of jobs and also is supercharging repression from

1044
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 3: you know, on a corporate level of course on a

1045
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,959
Speaker 3: government federal level. And it's still but it is also

1046
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 3: at the same time like deeply dysfunctional. You know, it's

1047
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:34,799
Speaker 3: all the AI will still be hallucinating, like it's not

1048
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 3: necessarily it won't even be sort of the perfect dystopia.

1049
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 3: It's just going to be a mess. And it will

1050
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 3: but it will enable forces of repression and fascism. And

1051
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 3: I think you're exactly right that they've made a choice.

1052
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:50,839
Speaker 3: You know, you can sort of embrace reform, you can

1053
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 3: try to make societies safe for capitalism or their vision

1054
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,280
Speaker 3: of runaway capitalism, or you can choose some kind of repression.

1055
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 3: And I think they essentially chosen the latter.

1056
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:06,239
Speaker 1: My last question for you, Jacob, is, you know, is

1057
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,879
Speaker 1: it sort of too far? Like if you did have

1058
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 1: some you know, future president come into office who wants

1059
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 1: to check these guys, wants to rein in their power,

1060
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 1: what would that look like? You know, do some of

1061
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:21,640
Speaker 1: these guys need to go to prison. In my opinion, yes,

1062
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 1: do they have any thought in their head about potential

1063
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 1: future consequences from you know, an administration that has a

1064
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:35,320
Speaker 1: different ideological valance. What is it possible at this point

1065
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,800
Speaker 1: to rain these guys back in and get them under control.

1066
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:42,799
Speaker 3: Well, I think that they to pull out one part.

1067
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 3: I think they do fear sort of Democrats, And I mean,

1068
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 3: I don't know to what degree now, but we heard

1069
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:52,919
Speaker 3: this a lot before the election, like must saying if

1070
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 3: she wins, I'm ft, you know, I'm going to prison?

1071
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 3: Will my kids be able to visit me? Like they

1072
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 3: were breaking a lot of laws, they're probably breaking more now,

1073
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:01,799
Speaker 3: I mean. And they also face just a lot of

1074
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 3: regulatory and civil litigation Musk especially, that was making their

1075
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 3: lives pretty difficult. And I don't think, yeah, their sense

1076
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:12,240
Speaker 3: of a binding by the law has gone any better.

1077
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:14,960
Speaker 3: The problem is we haven't talked a lot about Democrats here.

1078
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 3: I assure people that in my book, you know, I

1079
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 3: write a lot about how they've contributed this problem. And

1080
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 3: I think the Democrat Party is so fractured on some

1081
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 3: of the core questions here of tech power, you know,

1082
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:28,240
Speaker 3: is Silicon Valley an adversary, you know, very I think

1083
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 3: very few people in the Democratic Party actually see the

1084
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 3: industry or as leadership, as an adversary. They see it

1085
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 3: as somewhere they based. Does Yeah, I.

1086
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 1: Think the base does matter, and I think this will

1087
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: probably be a litmus test in twenty twenty eight if

1088
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: I had to guess, Yeah.

1089
00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 3: And I think the question is do you want to

1090
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 3: prosecute some of these people, break up the companies, do

1091
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 3: a wealth tax? Like you don't have to get too

1092
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 3: specific or means tester or wonkish or whatever. It's those

1093
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 3: few things, you know, besides also getting big money out

1094
00:57:57,240 --> 00:57:59,200
Speaker 3: of politics. I mean, there's a lot of wish casting here.

1095
00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 3: But you know, do you want not want to build

1096
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 3: more data centers and instead invest in healthcare and other

1097
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 3: public goods? You know, we are actually seeing right now,

1098
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 3: as you said, you're referring to a litmus test. We're

1099
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 3: seeing in I was in DC recently. There's some sort

1100
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 3: of I think it was a makeup election, but I

1101
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 3: saw some ads on TV about data centers and the

1102
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 3: Democrat advertising himself as against data center construction. Not totally

1103
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:26,880
Speaker 3: frauding of the mouth, but mostly you know, against it

1104
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 3: from a public interest standpoint, So like.

1105
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are general elections. The Utility Commission Board or

1106
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 1: whatever that thing is called. That was probably the clearest

1107
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:40,600
Speaker 1: cut data center backlash, and directly because of the way

1108
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: that electricity prices have been impacted. But yeah, you can

1109
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: see the politics here really on a cross partisan basis

1110
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 1: becoming pretty potent.

1111
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. And you know, people don't like

1112
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 3: that in their communities, and there's sort of a local

1113
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 3: aspect to this, where you know, there are Republicans who

1114
00:58:54,840 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 3: hear their constituents complaining about rising electricity prices or that

1115
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 3: the water's going away, and they don't like that either.

1116
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 3: But this does connect directly to the authoritarian politics of

1117
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:06,000
Speaker 3: the tech industry, where they are coming into like Texas

1118
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 3: or Georgia or Virginia and promising these like twenty or

1119
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 3: fifty billion dollar projects that are not going to produce

1120
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:14,600
Speaker 3: jobs in the long term and are just going to

1121
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 3: make most people's lives worse. So you know that that

1122
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:20,720
Speaker 3: kind of grassroots backlash as you described is here, and

1123
00:59:20,760 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 3: it's coming or intensifying, and there is a real opportunity

1124
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 3: for the Democrats to tap it. You know, the problem is,

1125
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 3: of course the Democrats, but Also, the Trump administration has

1126
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 3: kind of eroded or just kicked away so many important

1127
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 3: load bearing institutions that you know, the rule of law

1128
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 3: is really gone, and a lot of criminals have been

1129
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 3: just straight up released from prison that you know, there's

1130
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:47,360
Speaker 3: so much makeup work to do in a way before

1131
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 3: we talk about moving forward or even just like tamping

1132
00:59:50,840 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 3: down the power of these guys. I mean, I hope

1133
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:55,560
Speaker 3: those things can be done at once. I hope you know,

1134
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 3: there are prosecutions and breakup of companies and wealth taxes,

1135
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 3: big sweeping gestures that say there are other ways of

1136
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 3: relating to these people, like you don't have to surrender

1137
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 3: power to them.

1138
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just really reasserting, you know, a small d

1139
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:12,720
Speaker 1: democratic approach. You know that we're we're not going to

1140
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: just bow to this tech feudalism and you know, surrender

1141
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 1: all of our autonomy, even on issues like you know,

1142
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 1: local land usage and what we have in our backyards,

1143
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: you know. And one that's fully nimby when it comes

1144
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: to data centers, and they're trying to build too in

1145
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 1: my in my little rural area here. And I've seen

1146
01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 1: that there's been, you know, a backlash to that, which

1147
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:36,000
Speaker 1: is partly you know, from the concerance, the conservative area

1148
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 1: I live in. You know, a lot of the concerns

1149
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: are that are that sort of nimby, like we want

1150
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: to keep the rural character of the community and we

1151
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:46,280
Speaker 1: don't want this big thing built here from you know,

1152
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 1: Amazon and whoever else is coming in.

1153
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:50,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, it doesn't really add a lot

1154
01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 3: to the landscape. You're not like, you know, you're not

1155
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 3: really building a factory where even where a lot of

1156
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 3: people are working. And and I think that speaks the

1157
01:00:57,200 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 3: idea of like what are we getting for all this

1158
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,360
Speaker 3: that we've all the political power and the money that

1159
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 3: we've delegated to these guys, And I think that actually

1160
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:09,120
Speaker 3: provides almost a little note of optimism, which is that

1161
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:12,200
Speaker 3: they are not that popular and when they're as people,

1162
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:14,960
Speaker 3: as individuals and not the most charismatic personalities, a lot

1163
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 3: of their policies aren't and their business priorities aren't necessarily

1164
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:21,800
Speaker 3: popular and seem to be growing less. So so you know,

1165
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 3: that's where I think there is kind of room for

1166
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 3: optimism for the future or just political you know, focus

1167
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:30,920
Speaker 3: and strategy. Is that like when you explain this stuff

1168
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 3: to folks or when people see that they're just mostly

1169
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 3: getting AI slop and higher energy prices, and you know

1170
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 3: jerks on X who think that they should rule everything

1171
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:43,600
Speaker 3: for all of this, it's not worth it. And you know,

1172
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 3: hopefully the Democrats can tap some of those more kind

1173
01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 3: of grassroots candidates who get that.

1174
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:52,880
Speaker 1: I lie, I do have one more question for you,

1175
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:55,960
Speaker 1: which is JD vance like? Is he just I know

1176
01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 1: Teal was involved with Elon Musk, was influential in getting

1177
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: him on the ticket. Is he just like a puppet

1178
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 1: for these guys effectively? Is that how you see?

1179
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 3: I think so. I think he's an important bridge figure

1180
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 3: for the kind of new right, the religious right, because

1181
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:14,560
Speaker 3: he you know, he that as he's taken on multiple identities,

1182
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 3: that was one of them. But the VCS really like him.

1183
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 3: You know, they pushed hard, of course, to have him

1184
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,480
Speaker 3: be the VP. They all in front of Doug Bergham.

1185
01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 3: Apparently there was a dinner at David Sachs's house during

1186
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four campaign and the Bergram was kind

1187
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 3: of hoping he was a dark horse VP candidate, and

1188
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 3: all the tech guys there said, you gotta choose JD.

1189
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:36,560
Speaker 3: And you know he is Teal's guy. And he's a

1190
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:41,480
Speaker 3: former VC, and so I don't think they see much

1191
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 3: you know, daylight between their views and he may not have.

1192
01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 3: The question I think is like does he have sort

1193
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 3: of the unifying or rough charisma of Trump to like

1194
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 3: unify Nagar, you know, but that there may be abillity

1195
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:56,680
Speaker 3: there for something to fall apart. But the tech guys

1196
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 3: I think would be perfectly happy unless someone surprising emerges.

1197
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 3: You know that they try. They road tested DeSantis and

1198
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 3: Ramaswami and a couple other folks, but I think JD

1199
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:07,320
Speaker 3: is really their guy. I mean, some of them have

1200
01:03:07,400 --> 01:03:11,120
Speaker 3: money invested in him. Teel put money into his into

1201
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 3: JD Vance's venture capital firm.

1202
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, that reminds me. There are some great scenes there

1203
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 1: with the vivig Ramaswami in your first hand experience with

1204
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: him in the book that people definitely need to check out.

1205
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: The book Guys is Gilded Rage, Elon Musk and the

1206
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: Radicalization of Silicon Valley. Jacob Silverman, thank you so much.

1207
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:33,960
Speaker 1: Fascinating look at these extraordinarily powerful and malevolent, frankly characters.

1208
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so thanks so much for your interest