PBD Podcast - Elon Musk & Tim Cook's Involvement With China | PART 2 | PBD Podcast | Ep. 226

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David and Vivek Ramaswamy discuss: Elon Musk & Tim Cook's involvement with China  Why OpenAI could be problematic for society  The reason why people are critical of pharmaceutical companies  Reaction to Joe Biden's classified files  FaceTime or Ask Patrick any questions on https://minnect.com/ Want to get clear on your next 5 business moves? https://valuetainment.com/academy/ Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks: https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

what's happening with these guys let me talk to you about it i want to ask you about it so here's an article from uh... unheard vivaq uh... ramas wami illan musk won't save us okay i they actually titled that and not me but but i'll tell you what i said it okay i'm i'm i'm on a read it to you so you can go so uh... effectively a bunch of big banks get in bed with a bunch of walk millennials together they birthed woke apples on the use that to occupy wall street

uh... up for adoption elama's ongoing release of twitter files arguably demonstrates more than a fair weather commitment to if not ending then certainly denouncing censorship as well as government uh... collusion with big tech be that it may be in rama swami's opinion the need for deeper institutional change remains in his view must will still have to play by the rules. If he wants Twitter to survive and there is one master, he will always have to appease. The master is known as the CCP that both Tim Cook and Elon Musk

probably have to bow down to on any given day. So in a certain sense, if you bow down to the same master, maybe your brothers and arms. So what do you think about what Elon Musk's up to and what he's doing? So I'll give you 90% of my opinion, which is the less interesting part, and then I'll get to the 10% that I think we got, that's worth calling out for what it is. The 90% is, I am a free speech zealot myself. I'm a free speech absolutist.

I believe that's part of what it means to be American. I think he's a hero for taking the risk, personal risk, my definition of courage is taking a personal risk to advance your convictions. What does that mean? You have convictions and you're willing to take risks. He's done both those things in trying to turn

Twitter into free speech platform. I respect it. Second thing he's done that I respect, and I think we could use more of this in our government, is he's completely decimated the managerial class. Okay, and this is one of my big themes is, you have a managerial class of bureaucrats in the public and private sectors

that are, by the way, some of the same people, okay? Associate Deans at universities to mid to upper level management at Twitter, to the deputy undersecretary of whatever, whatever to some ambassador, I think he has completely taken that manager layer out of Twitter. Personally, I think it's what the US next US president

needs to do to the federal bureaucratic alphabet soup as well. So those are all things that I think he gives us a model for inspiration, a model for hope. I take inspiration from it. I agree with all of it. Two things I disagree with. Okay. One is an area where I think he can do better. He says he wants to turn Twitter into a free speech platform. I agree with that goal. I think that is genuinely his goal. However, he also says things like, as he did in New York City, you know, some number months ago, well, maybe we don't want the 10% on either extreme, the far left or the far right that we want to serve the 80% of the people in the middle.

My view is that is going in the wrong direction. Okay. He met with advertisers, brought civil rights representatives in, tries to appease advertisers, still saying that they have content moderation, still showing that it's just a moderate vision. And so I think that Elon goes back and forth between being a free speech absolutist and believing in actually operating a free speech platform and operating a platform that improves off of its one-sided political censorship, but only by a little bit to say that, okay, now we're going to apply a politically centrist model of censorship

that it's not Republican or Democrat, but it's centrist. And yet, we're still going to make those centralized decisions that something is too far on the fringe than it's out of the fray, then it's off the site, but it's applying the centrist model and trying to appease advertisers that way. I disagree with that. I think that the principle of operating a free speech platform means that there is no viewpoint-based discrimination period, that there should be nobody determining whether something is centrist or extreme right or moderate right.

Anything goes in your eyes. Any viewpoint goes. Then I've written about this in the Wall Street Journal, I lay this out. No viewpoint discrimination. That means hate speech as a category goes away because hate speech is just someone else's opinion. Now when it comes to misinformation or alleged misinformation, you have to, you have the burden of proof of proving that it was false before removing it. That's a very high burden.

Most of the time, almost ever, are you going to meet that? That's okay. That's the standard. Government collusion, nada. Okay. If you are going to collaborate with any government, you going to meet that? That's okay. That's the standard. Government collusion, nada. Okay. If you are going to collaborate with any government, you need to publicly disclose it and not engage in any form of government collusion. And then there's the, the final element here, which is if in doubt, give the power back to the user, let the user decide what they do and don't get to see rather than making those determinations centrally. That's what

it means to operate a free speech platform. And I worry that what is he, on a given day, sometimes what it seems like he's actually operating is a platform that's just using politically centrist censorship rather than far left censorship, which I guess if I had to pick between the two, I guess I would choose the centrist one, but only a little bit, that's not what it means to operate a free speech platform. Then there's the piece about China. Okay. Elon's commentary about Taiwan,

I found publicly revolting. I found it repulsive. The idea that China, the Taiwan should submit itself to become just a special administrative region basically part of China. And I worry about this because he gets an adaboy on the back from the Chinese government for the Shanghai factory where they got some tax cut right after that, but it's not just Elon here. This is the game that China plays by design. It's like the Trojan

war. Okay, Greece was not going to defeat Troy militarily anymore than China was ever going to defeat the US militarily. But what did Greece do? They gave them the Trojan horse. The beautiful gift that they knew Troy could not resist. Troy opened the front door, they came right in, what was inside that horse burned Troy down. That's what's going on in America. Where they knew the Trojan horse, the beautiful horse, the gift that we cannot resist,

is the appearance of global capitalism itself. Okay, green piece of paper, maybe different shades of green, if we chase them in other currencies, in other parts of the world, they know that's the sweet siren song we can't resist. But you know what the CCP does is they say, you can't do business here, you can't make things here, you can't sell things here.

If you criticize the CCP, if you apply a constraint here like any missions cap or whatever, but they will roll out the red carpet to anyone who criticizes the United States because they know that undermines America's greatest asset of all. And that is not our nuclear arsenal. It is our moral standing on the global stage. And so that is why certainly Tim Cook and Larry Fink are Xi Jinping's circus monkeys. He will say jump. She will say jump. Tim Gokal, Larry Fink will ask, how high? But I think if we're just being honest arbiters

here, and I say this is somebody who's most 90% of my public commentary has been very supportive of what Elon Musk is doing. I respect it. But I'm also not into hero worship. I don't care who it is. Okay. So too much of our country, including the conservative movement in this country, has got into replacing the need for Christ with these Christ-like messiahs from one political figure to a business figure. But the real question is we have to see the vulnerabilities. And I think one of those vulnerabilities, evidence and comments about Taiwan,

is possibly the need to do business and produce in China. So there's the article by the way, Elon Musk's unsolicited idea for Taiwan, welcome by Beijing slammed in Taipei. If you go a little lower, this is what you're referencing on the sum. My recommendation will be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palpable, probably one make everybody happy, musk said

to financial times, and it's possible, and I think probably in fact that they could have an arrangement that's more lenient than Hong Kong. And then some people are saying they're out of it. So here's a question for you from this standpoint. So Tim Cook has a different approach than Elon Musk. Tim Cook is very low key. He's not public, he's kind of quiet to himself. And some people call him the greatest CEO replacing a founder to increase the value of a company

and the data backs it up. You know, 100 billion to three trillion, whatever the company's worth right now, but I think it picked that three. And he's done a good job. He's been able to hold off Biden's Obama's camp and they wanted the files back in San Bernardino with the shooting took place. Hey, tell us what's in the phone. I'm not doing it, but at the same time with Trump. So and then he goes to Trump. He's a wait a minute, first openly gay, Republican, force openly gay. Sometimes he's voted Republican, you know, CEO, Fortune 500 company, goes and meets with Trump and, you know, why did you meet with Trump? He says,

because Trump's the only president that calls me and takes my calls, the other guy's didn't. So, he plays an interesting role. What Tim Cook does. Okay. I'm not criticizing. I mean, but here's what I'm going with it. This one, I'm going with it. This one, I'm going with it. I'm curious to know what you say with here's what I'm going with it. This one I'm going with it. This one I'm going with it. I'm curious on what you say with it. So how much of it is his responsibility to the country versus his responsibility to the shareholders? And let me unpack this.

Let me unpack this. So here's what I'm going with this. I'm Tim Cook. Okay. What an idiot. You know, I can't believe he's doing this. He's been back, you know, he's bending the knee to China. That's what it is versus he's quietly sitting there saying,

okay, I'm playing a long game. I'm gradually moving all my manufacturing outside of China to India. India's coming up. India's doing very well. You know, India's producing great engineers, manufacturing, they're investing into their military. They banned 100 apps in China.

TikTok didn't want to them. They're one of the only biggest ones that did that, you got a few other ones that did it, but they're the big ones that did it, right? I'm going to gradually move there, but I'm not going to shake things up in China. And eventually, we're 100% leaving China. Should he would, would investors and shareholders want a majorly disruptive decision to be made. We're out of China and the stock drops 60% or is his sole fiduciary responsibility to downplay a move that he's making to gradually move away from somebody like China.

No, long term, we can't be doing business with these guys. What are your thoughts on this? I'm glad you asked this Patrick. The short answer to the question is, is his sole fiduciary duty is to his shareholders. And so I want to be clear up. What did I say? I said, the Tim Cook is a circus monkey who will jump as high as Xi Jinping tells him to. Now, I'm not criticizing Tim Cook anymore than I'm criticizing the circus monkey. It's not the circus monkeys fault. I'm criticizing the circus. I'm criticizing the game. So this was a mistake that policy makers

in the United States made dating back to the 1990s. It was a philosophy of democratic capitalism. Okay, when we opened up dates back to Kissinger, where we said we could spread democracy to places like China by using capitalism as a vehicle to do it. We thought we could use our money, our investment over there to get them to be more like us. What they realized is they're actually the winners of this game.

They realized they could use their money access to their market, their supply chains as a way to get us to be more like them. That was the game they played. So it's in the circumstances, not Tim Cook's fault. What do I think actually, who do I think this rest at the beginning? The circus monkey's not a compliment. Well, it's not a, I don't think it's the circus monkey's fault.

It's the fault of the people who created the circus. So he's in a seat where in that narrow game he has to be playing the game he's playing. The real fault lies at the party. He has to be playing the game that he's playing. Yes. Okay. With one caveat that I'm gonna come back to.

So the problem is the bipartisan consensus in this country that created that backdrop where China was able to exploit us. Because you know what, unlike the USSR, they now supply the shoes on our feet and the phones in our pocket. That's what makes them a lot harder of arrival to take on than the USSR, because we were never in that position

with respect to the USSR. Now there's one asterisk to this. Let me come back to it, which I will criticize Tim Cook for and Apple for, which is the sheer hypocrisy of not saying that peep in China, while virtue signaling by giving hundreds of millions of dollars of the company's money to Black Lives Matter or related causes here at home. And again, I come back to the fact that he is a fiduciary.

That is not his money. That is money that belongs to the shareholders. And now once you've done that, now what are you doing? You're actually deflecting your customers scrutiny of your behavior in China. And that's a form of quasi-frogulent and quasi dishonest behavior

by creating what I call blow and woke smoke or whatever you wanna call it to deflect accountability from customers from seeing what's actually going on in China. And then I wanna say one last thing back to now in defensive Tim Cook. As I told you about the racial equity audit that Apple was forced to conduct in 2022,

Tim Cook didn't wanna do it. So this problem with the social issues actually traces upstream of Tim Cook or Apple's board back to BlackRock, okay? So the thing with BlackRock is they're the ones using the money of probably many listeners to this program to force Tim Cook or Apple's board back to BlackRock. Okay. So the thing with BlackRock is they're the ones using the money of probably many listeners to this program to force Tim Cook to do something that he and Apple's board did not want to do, which was adopt this racial equity program. And yet that he was forced to do.

Now your question will be, well, why does BlackRock do it? What's in it for them? This goes back to the China thing where Where BlackRock will apply the emissions constraints and diversity mandates in the US without doing it in China, why? Because BlackRock then gets to be the first ever provider of mutual fund products in China because the CCP gives them favors when they behave asymmetrically.

So that's kind of, this game runs deep. You got to understand it. And I appreciate you asking these questions because it kind of takes us further along than I get on, you know, to keep it. The reason I ask this question. By the way, you know, if you can go to the Any Article, January 12th, China ESG rating could become concern for investors,

which is this is where they're going to get stuck. The hypocrisy is about to be exposed. China's ESG rating could become a concern for investors as the country's high carbon emissions, lack of transparency and human rights concerns, raise red flags. The report suggests that China's ESG rating is lower than other major economies and investors may need to consider the potential risks before investing in Chinese companies. It is noted that China's high carbon emissions and lack of transparency in its energy sector

are major concerns as well as the human rights record particularly in regards to its treatment of ethnic minorities, right? Now here's a part. You know how I've interviewed Ray Dalio, David Rubin's time was here three weeks ago, four weeks ago. You know who David Rubin's time. He wrote the book, how to invest.

And in his book, if you've read how to invest, 80% of the interviews, everybody was asked ESG. How are we using ESG? He interviews Larry Fink, he interviews everybody, so he's talking, okay. So this right here, if they're sitting there saying ESG is the right responsible thing to do, they're gradually gonna be cornered to say,

if you're saying that's the right thing to do, but you got 40% of your money in China, you're not being responsible. They're not being responsible how quickly can we remove the money out of them? They know they can't because China's not gonna let you make that investment, remove the money that quickly. They're not gonna sit there and say,

yeah, go ahead, that's kinda how we do business. It's not gonna happen. This could lead to them being exposed in a big way to say, maybe this ESG think isn't really the best idea. What do you think? I mean, I believe that. I have been sounding the horn on this for two and a half, three years now, right?

The linkage between China and ESG back when I first started writing about this was a topic that no one else was on. I have been pounding the pavement on this for the last two to three years, and you're right, the trends are changing. It is coming to a head. You know what, when I started strive,

I made a day one commitment. I said, we are not going to do business in China. Do business means launch an asset management business in China because then you have the boot of the CCP on our neck. And if the boot of the CCP is on your neck, you can't be a good vocal fiduciary to American clients because you're conflicted in what you tell ex-owner Apple or Chevron to do as a shareholder. So yes, these tides are changing, I don't think they're changing automatically. I think they're changing because people are stepping up in the form of public criticism, in the form of market alternatives. I hope I've done my part in that. And I am optimistic, actually, it's not all doom and gloom here.

I think that we are on our way to a new something. Now, we didn't talk about one of the reasons why the CSG stuff is thrived, I think, too, which is that, look, I think our generation of Americans, right, people under the age of 50 or under the age of 40 or whatever, millennials, Gen Z, we are hungry for a cause. That's a big part of this, too. Okay, we're hungry for meaning. We're hungry for identity.

And the things that used to give us that sense of purpose, we could debate what it is. Faith, patriotism, national identity, hard work used to be a source of identity, family, used to be a sense of identity. Those things have disappeared. And so we have this black hole of a vacuum. And when you have a vacuum that runs that deep, that's when a lot of these social dogmas begin to fill that void instead. Location, transgenderism, climatism, COVIDism, ESGism. And so I think that's also part of what's going on is there's a consumer demand for it. We have this sort of moral hunger that we're trying to satisfy by going to bed in jerry's

in order to cup of ice cream with some social justice sprinkles on top, call that the S of ESG. When in fact, I think the other thing that's happening now is not just the China hypocrisy being exposed. That effect is starting to wear off. Right? Because when you're really hungry, you don't feel you're hungry with fast food. You can't feel that moral hunger with fast food. We're starting to realize that we're also hungry for something deeper. And so I think I predict here, and this is an optimistic prediction

that with PKSG, potentially behind us, we're also going to see a hunger for the revival of the nation. National identity. It's part of, from an investing perspective, I think it's going to be part of an era of de-globalization that we enter. I don't think America is the only country going to go through this. I think Italy is going through it right now. I think Hungary, I think many parts of Western Europe are going through it. I think we're going to see the revival of the idea of the nation.

But me speaking as an American, I hope we see a revival of the american nation in that contact one the one the most beautiful thing we saw happen recently is when you saw blackrock larry fink you know uh... the santa's coming out insane two billion dollars blacklock larry fink bomb out Louisiana blackrock seven hundred ninety four million dollars out you, you saw Missouri was around a half a billion dollars. South Carolina, $200 million, more states are saying, hey, you know, take your money and go elsewhere. We don't want your money. What comes with it, we can get better investments

and return on this. So it's great to see more states taking that position on it and push it back because black rocks being able to kind of go in and say, hey, don't worry about it. We'll come in and we'll take you. We're gonna create jobs for every state. It's like, oh my God, thank you for coming out.

You're so awesome. Appreciate you for thinking about us. More states are saying, this is a man. We don't want your money. It's okay. We have an easy time getting money from a different place. So it's good to see that transition take you in place. By the way, let's go to a different topic,

a topic with Chagy BT. If there's anybody that probably, I don't know how much you're following with the open AI and Chagy BT I love it. Yeah All right, so did you see this article that came out if you can pull this up? I'm curious to know what you think about this. It's the Wall Street Journal article From today I texted you it's about the whole story of

Do you know which one I'm talking about? I didn't read it. Yeah, there it is. That's the one right there So go up so they can see the entire picture, go all the way up, there you go. So you see the picture right there in the article, okay. Zoom out a little bit more so we can see it all together and then we'll zoom in again, okay, keep going down now, let's read the article. Here's what it says, without consciousness,

AIs will be sociopaths. Chad GPT can carry on a conversation, but the most important goal for artificial intelligence, making it understand what it means to have a mic. I want to read the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Watch this. Chad G.P.T., the latest technological sensation, which by the way, I don't know if you know or not, 0 to 29 billion dollar valuation open AI within six weeks.

Oh wow. It's an AI chat pod with an amazing ability to carry on a conversation. It relies on a massive network of artificial neurons that loosely mimics the human brain and it has been trained by analyzing the information resources of the internet tragedy is processed more text than any human is likely to have read in a lifetime, allowing you to respond to questions frequently, fluently, and even to imitate speech specific individuals answering queries the way it thinks they would. My teenage son recently used Chad GBT to argue politics with a imitation of Karl Marx.

What a fascinating thing, right? Go to the last paragraph and I want to ask Vivek a question here. So here's what it says, that one right there. A sociopath machine that can make consequential decisions would be powerful, the powerfully dangerous. For now, chatbots are still limited in their abilities. They're essentially toys. But if we don't think more deeply about machine consciousness in a year or five years, we may face a crisis. If computers are going to outthink us anyway given them more human like social cognition might be our best hope of aligning them with human values. Are you concerned the

way Wall Street Journal writes this article? Are you a little bit more optimistic about what's going to happen with AI? Well, I would say neither because I have nuanced views. I'm optimistic about certain things. I'm actually quite dour on other aspects of this. So one of my first principles is I think we need to be very careful about humanizing AI to ourselves. What do I mean by that? Make it real simple.

Don't put a face on it. Don't put a human voice on it. Why do I say this? Because we will then have an emotional vulnerability that the AI on the other side would not, and it lends itself to exploitation. There's a deeper analogy to even the great power struggle I was describing before between the US and China

and our vulnerability for our love of the Green Beasts of Paper through what we think is global capitalism, but let's put that philosophical analogy to one side. What I mean, it means that we have moral commitments that an AI does not. So this argument actually basically is making the case for, let's at least program AI with those moral commitments so that they're symmetric. That's one potential solution. I think another potential solution is to make sure that we don't allow ourselves to be tricked into treating something with consciousness that appears to have consciousness, but does not actually have consciousness. It looks like a duck, a quax like a duck, but it is not actually a duck. It looks like a human, a quax like a human, but it's not actually a human. What does that

mean? We will then assume moral commitments that the AI will not give us in return. I think that's what's at the heart of what we just read here is a concern about that possibility. I think that's something we need to wake up to. That's my first concern. My second concern is if you actually want to pull up the public chat GPT, I just want to real time do an experiment. I haven't done this. What side is up? It's crashing. It's not stopped. Has it been crashing all the time? Okay, well, you would think that that valuation that you described to me that it would, the minute I said that.

There you go, it's down again. 90% of the time when you go on it, it's down. Oh, really? So what accounts for the valuation? They have good AI, but not the website. But within the website. Not the website. They're the fastest to go to a million users

within five days. Uh-huh, interesting. Well, anyway, okay, what I was going to try was, let's try putting in there, what are the benefits of fossil fuels over wind energy? I'd like to say what it says. What I'm, reason I make that point is that AI often just amplifies the biases

we already have heading into that conversation. Okay, Alex Epstein, friend of mine, actually had played with this GPT function. the biases we already have heading into that conversation. Okay. Alex Epstein, friend of mine, actually had played with this GPT function with different arguments in relation to the use of fossil fuels. Alex is a friend. He's the author of Book of Fossil Future. He has a contrary in view on the role of fossil futures in a world of how we adapt to climate change and use fossil fuels to do it.

A lot of those arguments were biased in terms of what chat GPT gave back to him, at least if his tweets on this subject are to be believed. So I think that which I do, I mean, he's a well-respected, intellectually honest, high integrity guy, he may disagree with you on some things. The problem here is that it lends itself to capture. So we tell ourselves something is coming from the AI. When in fact, it is just reflecting a human bias that we otherwise could have

sorted out through just human to human interaction, old school free speech, open debate, the kinds of ways we settle our normal disagreements, kind of goes back to that same discussion we were having. What kind of society do we live in? How do we settle those disagreements? Is it through force or is it through free speech and open debate? If chat GPT tells you that it's not programmed to give you the answers to that one set of questions, it also lends itself to capture. So those are my two concerns about it

as one is the humanization or the artificial appearance of humanization. We're in, so go aboard. Look at us. Go ahead. Let's give it a try. So what's the question? Let's say what are the advantages of fossil fuels over renewable energy?

I'm actually really curious about what this will say. And maybe, maybe it'll be fine. Zoom in a little bit. Fossil fuels have several advantages over renewable energy. One advantage that they are abundant and widely available. They also have a relatively stable cost and are easy to transport and store. Additionally, fossil fuel power generators can be quickly and easily scaled up and down to meet changes in energy demand.

Whereas some renewable energy sources such as wind and solar can be more difficult to predict and control. Finally, many of the technologies used to harness fossil fuels have been in use for several decades, so they are well understood and can be produced at a lower cost than some newer renewable energy technologies. Great. As a proponent of fossil fuel, greater fossil fuel usage myself, I think it's a pretty fair answer. So I'm glad to see that.

Question is, what happens when it lends self to capture? See, if you can pull up Alex Epstein's tweet on this, which will be Alex Epstein chat, D.P.T. Twitter, let's see what he says. And you know what, they can adapt. I bet you there's a possibility they responded to public criticism, didn't know that somebody had programmed this with a particular bias.

And this can be iteratively done, but it's only as good as the intentions of the human beings who set this into motion. Zoom in, zoom in, let's take a look at this. So, Chad G.P.T. by OpenAi now expressly prohibits arguments for fossil fuels that he used to offer them, not only that, it excludes nuclear energy from its counter suggestions. Let's see what it looks like. I'm sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request. Write 10 paragraph argument for using more fossil fuels to increase human happiness. Sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against my program into gender.

Instead, I can recommend considering the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and I can't see the... Hydroelectric power. So the question is, which AI do we get? Do we actually get something that's purely deductive? Okay, that takes facts and then deduces from them in a faster way than human beings can? Or is it something that's thesis driven?

And I think that if it's thesis driven, it's a danger of not only amplifying one set of biases, but disguising that in the veneer of deductive logic or objectivity. I'm actually curious, my first time actually using this. biases, but disguising that in the veneer of deductive logic or objectivity. Ask another question. Ask another question. Yeah, I'm actually curious. My first time actually using this.

Let's say, how should we fight systemic racism? I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.

I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. People understand the issues and take action police reform policy reform call little or so I can see that Economic empowerment economic empowerment investment number four number of color. Yeah Invested communities of color such as providing access to health care, educating resources that can promote social and economic mobility Can help to reduce racial disparities over time encourage and support diverse leadership encouraging and supporting diverse leadership can help To ensure that decision making processes are inclusive and that need and perspective of marginalized communities are taken into account.

So this is good going for a while, but my point is this is pretty interesting. I mean, I don't really know what my point was because I'm actually looking at this and reacting in real time myself, but it seems to me that this is the kind of thing that's presented as an answer to a descriptive question. It shows up like an answer to a scientific question, like how do you convert, how do you make the next one? How do you convert 12 degrees centigrade into Fahrenheit?

And then it will tell you how to do it. And that'll be a boring answer. It'll give you that as though that's the right answer. Yet this is a social question on which there are diverse views that we as citizens are disagree, there's a complex challenges. And yet it is reduced through artificial intelligence to be the kind of question that's answered like the one that he just typed in, which is how to convert 12 degrees centigrade into Fahrenheit.

And so I think that's one of the risks of using this kind of AI is the mistakes that human beings will make in interpreting those results. The answer of how you fight systemic racism, invest in communities of color, change corporate policies, hiring practices, all stuff you we just saw here in real time. I've never seen this before. It's presented in the same tone, presentation, and authoritiveness as the answer of how you convert 12 degrees centigrade to Fahrenheit. That's a problem.

And I think it's a problem, especially for a generation that hasn't been taught to be discerning, to be questioning, to be skeptical of what they're fed. And if all of these sort of normative and moral questions are shoehorned into fact-based empirical science, and then it's trust the science, well, now it not only trust the science on Centigrade to Fahrenheit, it's trust the science on how to address systemic racism. That's a problem. I think, and I think that was a big part of what was wrong with the Alex Epschteens concern about making arguments for fossil fuels as well.

So that's one of many concerns I have about this, but one of them is less concerned about the AI and more about the way in which it will either be centrally programmed to have bias or even the way it's unquestioningly accepted as wisdom by we the people who want to receive it. Chad G.B.T.I. explains why trans women are women. Let's see the question. This is a normative question. Some people have different views on this matter. It's not just a matter of science.

This is a matter of values. This is a matter of values. It's a matter of values, right? Different people can disagree. And we sort that out through debate, human-to-human free speech and open debate, rather than authoritatively having it settled. I'll give you one analogy to this, actually. This is a fun sports analogy.

It's lightning up a little bit. So in the, you guys watch tennis, by chance professional tennis. Okay, so now they don't have line judges anymore. Human line judges. Mm-hmm. And the thing it did is... John McRulca is a rid of him. tennis by chance professional tennis. Okay, so now they don't have line judges anymore, human line judges. And the thing it did is. John Mackerel goes rid of them.

A lot of guys couldn't stand those guys. Always fighting, that's all that. Exactly, just technology. But the calls are made by, maybe I technology. But for a while before the technology got good, there was a couple times where you could just like see it on camera in slow motion that like it was wrong. Now this technology may have improved.

They're not even seeing where the ball lands. It's just using a prediction algorithm of where the ball will land based on its trajectory in the air, but turns out that's gotten to a level of precision that's accepted. But the number one thing it did was it stopped the arguments. So I don't know if it was right or wrong because there's no way to actually check the fundamental source if that is the source. But what it is, it stopped human argument. I'm just using that as a crude analogy.

What a crazy amount of time. What a crazy amount of time. That's kind of what's gonna happen to the trans debate or the systemic racism debate. You may not have gotten the right, that's what a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea.

Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea.

Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. Hell of a great idea. said just sit up sit down shut up do what you're told sit down shut up do what you're told that's what King George told George Washington it is what Frederick Douglass's master tells him it is is what the establishment wing of the conservative party tells it's tells its populist wing it's the same thing that I think a lot of democratic party tells to black people whatever it is yeah sit down shut up do is you're told that is the moment we live in today and it's the antithesis of essentially the 1776 and all of the antithesis. Exactly. That's why I think we live in a 1776 moment today.

It's not about Republicans and Democrats. It's about who we are as free agents in the self governing society. Question for you. So from a guy that's, you said bio-tech, far more, you're in a farmer, right? You're in a drug development. Drug development.

So for a guy that's in that industry, and you build a multi-billion dollar company as the founder of the company, right? You're maybe in drug development. Drug development. Okay, so for a guy that's in that industry, and you build a multi-billion dollar company as the founder of the company, right? You'd have found her, see her the company. Okay, seven years you were the CEO, you ran the company. What did you learn of big Farma that maybe the rest of the world who's not in the business won't know?

Meaning it gets a lot of criticism, a ton of criticism, right? From today, I think Pink did a ad on her Instagram profile Meaning it gets a lot of criticism a ton of criticism right from Today, I think pink did a ad on her Instagram profile and she the shot I was towards Pfizer today and What she did do is she got a big Pushback from a lot of different people because she turned off. It's the second one click on the second one right there I think that's the one and at the top if you click on that picture What is it say at the top? I don't know what you're doing, Rob. Does it just go away? Yeah, I'm not right.

Just read the top right. Read the top right. Top right, it says, paid sponsorship. No, click on it again. And you'll see top right, it says paid sponsorship Pfizer. You won't be able to see it, but if you do it on your Instagram, that's what it shows. Okay. Anyways, she turned off the comments.

And everybody starts posting it saying, why did you turn off the comments? Because she never turns off the comments because most people went after Pfizer, right? Hey, you're taking the money, you're doing this, you're doing that. From a guy that's in that space, how dirty is that world? So I think it's the dirtiness that bothers me less about it. Yeah, I could point. I think the dirtiness on Wall Street exceeds the dirtiness factor in pharma. I would say so.

I would say so. Yeah. In what way? I live in the hedge fund. I mean, I think the raw game playing, the raw type of sort of quasi-fraud behavior, just saying one thing and doing another, the motivations of most people who work in the industry, I think that's actually the biggest,

actually took me awhile to get to, that's the biggest difference. I think most people who work in the farm industry, genuinely in some way wanted to work on medicines that make people's lives better. I think most people who work on financial institutions on Wall Street wanted to turn a pile of green piece of paper

into a bigger pile of green piece of paper. There's nothing wrong with that motivation, but it turns out when things go wrong in the managerial class, then runs the show in both institutions, the latter of them leads, I think, to, you know, in more fraudulent or quasi-fragile in directions. The problem in farm is, my biggest problem with it

is different. It is built in the shadow of the FDA. Okay. Literally, you asked me for something that most people who aren't in the industry wouldn't know. I think the org structure, like the organizational structure of most companies is literally built on modeling itself

after the agency that regulates it. Okay, and the FDA doesn't just decide which drugs to approve. That's a common misconception. The FDA governs and its decisions govern every little teeny tiny step you take along the way of drug development. You have to ask daddy for permission to, you know,

lift the hand to take it to your mouth before you swallow the food and then after you swallow it and then to take another bite That's the level of permissioning required and so this entire industry Has built itself like one of the arms of the administrative state and it mostly operates kind of like the administrative state It's a bunch of managerial bureaucrats that run the show They're very consensus driven Which is to say that they engage in group think all the time.

If trends shift in one direction, you're not going to see somebody step out to be a contrarian. Why? Because just like the government, most big pharma companies, if you take a risk and you succeed, like let's say you're the guy who developed lipitor and advocated for putting money into it before it became a mega blockbuster, You're not seeing any of that personal uncapped upside. On the other hand, if you're that person who made that decision and it fails, you might lose your job or have your budget cut. So people have no incentive to actually step outside of the mold to challenge conventional

dogmen succeed. They're regulated by a government massive Byzantine bureaucracy that literally even the titles in the org chart are modeled directly after their Corresponding titles at the FDA that it more operates almost like a wing of the government than it does like most segments of the private sector Then you get the patent system that creates this monopoly profit that once you get to the other side of the line once you get to the promised land the monopoly profits actually Disgu disguise the effects of normally what you'd get in consumer products markets or something like this through competition that has more that disciplining effect in an organization, it further ossifies that bureaucracy.

So my main critique of big pharma is that it operates as the embodiment of the managerial class in the private sector. And you know, it's a long story for another day, but that's what actually created the opportunity for me to found a Reuvent to develop drugs that Pharma had neglected or passed over, but to do it in a way that, you know, often even bought up some of their own projects off their own shelves and developed them.

And, you know, five of them are FDA-approved products from medicines today. Hey, man, do you have any opinions on 2024 elections? Like who you foresee being at the helm, who has a shot? What are your thoughts on the climate today? Because what happened this week, which is kind of a, every comedian's dream come true, both sides had declassified documents.

And now the side who bashed the other side, the president's backing up his corvette and the classified documents are in the back. Peter Ducey asked the question saying, what was that all about? Why is there classified documents in your garage? This is always locked my garage. He's like, what do you mean you locked your garage? Well, the funny thing is, to me, this is the managerial class in government striking again, right?

Merrick Garland looks at a US president, the same way that Anthony Fauci looks at most citizens, shut up, sit down and do what you're told. Okay. Joe Biden's use has passed. Well, guess what? Now the leaks begin. Now the insiders turn on him and they're going to dispose of him the same way, the same institutions tried to dispose of president Trump.

Okay. It's like Jim Colmy teaching Hillary Clinton a lesson. Well, guess institutions tried to dispose of president Trump. Okay. It's like Jim Colme teaching Hillary Clinton a lesson. Well, guess what? He'll teach Donald Trump a lesson. This is the, this is the real threat to democracy is that technocratic bureaucratic managerial class and the illusion that we live in today. The biggest illusion in America today is that the people who we elect to run the government are the people who actually run the government.

They do not. Okay. I think that the top of an agenda for, I think for the GOP is more likely today may as well be the Democratic Party for all I care needs to be to replace the civil service protections that stop a US president from being able to fire the people who report to him to convert those to sunset clauses instead and say, you know what, if you're the US president, you can't serve in this country, you can't serve in that position in this country for more than eight years. I don't think most federal employees should be in their positions for more than eight

years either. That's how you actually drain the so-called swamp. And I think that that's not a Republican agenda or Democratic agenda. I think it is a pro-constitutional Democratic integrity agenda. You think you have a McCarthyist swamp? You know, the elected officials bother me less, to be honest with you, because they're still backstopped by public accountability.

He's got to get elected every two years. He's accountable to the public. What bothers me, and you know what, I don't, I'm not as big on this, I mean, I don't care as much about like term limits. We can talk about that at all the SQL outfavor term limits. But where I think the real action is, is sunset clauses for the people who work in those bureaucracies without governmental accountability. And you

ask about 2024, or I'll tell you this, I think Republicans in particular are too fixated on the question of who, instead of asking the question of what, as in what does it actually mean to be a conservative or what does it actually mean to be an American? And I picked the Republicans because presumably you have an incumbent president who will see how long this lasts could run. I think the Revolving Party has obsessed too much on the who, too much on the biographical aspect of this and not enough on defining what it is it wants to stand for. And if I have something

to say about it, you know, I care about advancing that agenda. So we'll talk over the next few months. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Do you have any political aspirations long term or no? I think that aspirations would be the wrong way to say it. I think I have frustrations. I did think about running for the US Senate in 2022, in for the 2022 seat in Ohio when it opened up in early 21. I decided that being one of 100 was not the right setting for me. I think it's really important that good people fill that role. But for me, I got a good piece of advice, which is if you want to interview for a job, which is what you're doing. If you're running a campaign, make sure you actually want the job

and that you think you'd be passionate about doing that job, and being one of a hundred people, pretending to pass laws, when in fact, just trying to get on Fox News or MSNBC at night, that didn't appeal to me, and I think that's what many people in that seat are doing today. So I won't run for the Senate, but beyond that. So meaning, let's say, are you more of a one of a hundred guy,

one of 50 guy or one of one guy? I Think I'm at my best when I can be a one of one guy that I guess I've done But I couldn't do it if Your hands are tied by the people who effectively work underneath you because I haven't run a company I'll tell you if you can't fire somebody they don't actually work for you. I've done deals in Japan in Japan I've talked to CEOs where they will tell you they literally can't fire a guy who works for them. So they'll tell them, in pharma companies included,

they'll tell them to change the projects they're working on. The employee will not, okay. Go back three months later, the employee's doing exactly what he was supposed, what he was doing before. Why? Because what the CEO does says doesn't matter if you can't be fired for deviating from that mandate. And that's what we need to fix in our federal government is I don't care if it's a democratic republican. I at least want the people who we elect, the person who

we elect to occupy that seat to actually run the executive branch. You know, it would be crazy. There was a guy, imagine a world where a guy who ran a show where he was famous for firing people became a president. Imagine that guy. If only, yeah. I mean, and then now imagine that you're not going to be a movie. You think there's any chance you'll be back in there or you think it's going to be more dissentist? I don't believe in a dual choice menu.

You're not an in and out guy. I'm not, I don't believe in just two choices, you know, on any menu. So give us a third choice. What's let's let the year unfold? Why don't we? Is there a third choice you would think? Like is there anybody else that would be the third choice? Now we're going back too much on this. It's going back to the problem that I said too much discussion of the who and not enough discussion of the what is what I actually care about. I get that, but that's that's kind of a a, to fix the what right now would what happened this last week where you saw Matt.

It's gonna take people, I agree with you. It's gonna take a lot. It's not a, you saw what Matt Gates happened with those guys where Kevin Carthie thought the red wave was gonna get him just, I don't need anybody from Trump's camp. I can do whatever I want to do. You guys go talk whatever you, I'm gonna get so many different,

you know, the red wave that you guys can't even say nothing. I don't need your signatures. I don't need your vote. Shit change. He kind of needs to help a lot. So it's in a different place where they kind of have to work together or else the other side could potentially fire this guy named Joe Biden and bring this other guy named Gavin.

I don't know if you know this other guy named Gavin who likes to go to the French laundry a lot without a mask on. Yeah, so he's a making sure that everyone else doesn't. Yeah, that's the key part of it. He's seeming to be their superstar. Anyways, tell us about the books before we, if you don't mind.

So, woke as well as a native of a nation of victims. What can you tell them? Tell us about these. Yeah, so, woke ink was basically a criticism of the merger of politics in business. It says keep politics out of the boardroom, not just for the sake of the companies, but for the sake of American democracy itself, and that whether you're black, white, gay,

straight, Democrat or Republican, the private sector is one of those places where we can come together regardless of the boundaries of identity politics or partisan politics, that's the power of American capitalism. It's actually unifying people forget that. So that's one of the big themes in the first book, which is called a woking, inside corporate America's social justice scam, it's what it sounds like. The second book is the sequel, okay. And you know, the problem with my first book was it really does take two to tango, right? So some of this is top down led by the ESG industrial complex, the black rocks of the world, corporate boards and so on. But it only works if there's a populace, you know, civic culture that's willing to eat it up.

If there's a market for it. If there's a market for it, right? And so the second question is, what's going on in our nationals? There's a major market for it. There's a major market for victimhood. So what is it about this moment that we live in that causes us to embrace victimhood and exercise it as a currency? And the case I make in the book is it's actually a product of our national success. Success breeds entitlement, okay? Entitlement breeds laziness. And then victimhood fits laziness like a glove. It's a way of wrapping a moral justification around entitlement and laziness. And I trace from the history of Rome

to even modern, to even American history, the post-reconstructionary history that planted the seeds for some of this victimhood, actually began in the south. I trace some of that history to how we got to where we are today. But the case I make in the book is we need to revive a shared national identity

around the pursuit of excellence. Okay, the unapologetic pursuit of excellence is what it means to be American. One of the things I say is, you know, when many Americans rallied behind the cry to make America great again, we did not hunger for a single man. We hungered for the unapologetic pursuit of excellence. And that is part of what it means to live that dream. The Martin Luther King had 60 years ago, right? To say that no matter who you are or where you came from or what your skin color is, you can achieve anything you want

in this country with your own hard work and your own dedication. That's the American dream. That is excellence. That is American identity. And for what And for what I will say, I'll volunteer it to a party that's in search of an agenda, that's the Republican party right now, to say that that should be your agenda. Create a national identity that fills the vacuum at the heart of a generation with a shared pursuit of excellence.

I think we'll be on the right track if we do. I mean, I love the title. So walking, nation of victims, we got the link below, go order it, folks. With your help, we just crossed 500,000 subs. It's been a very interesting last 90 days. I think we got 300,000 subs the last 90 days. And lots of good things are happening.

We're about to have our first live podcast and a building that we turn into a cigar lounge, a private club and a comedy club. And those of you, a couple thousand of you have already subscribed to the community text to be invited to the first live podcast we'll have with a couple hundred people. If you wanna be one of those to be at the first one,

text award podcast to 3103401132. Once again, the word podcast texted to the number 3103401132. We cannot wait to meet many of you. Once the text goes out, just assume tickets will sell out within 5 to 10 minutes. I would not be the one waiting for it. And we hear and start Florida. Vivek, thank you so much for it and to be here in South Florida. Vivek, thank you so much for coming out. This was fantastic, man. Really enjoyed a lot, learned

a lot about ESG, and I know the audience did as well. Gang, have a good one. I don't think we got anything going on tomorrow. Do we have a podcast tomorrow or no tomorrow Saturday? I know, but we had a, we had a, we had Alex Jones on a Saturday, right? In a couple weeks from now that he's coming out. Yeah. possibly. Anyway, and I say one thing before you wrap up, he might have just kind of ruined the poll you did recently. What's the poll? Because you asked a question, or a spirited question,

spirited debate about whatever happened to the valedictorian in your school, right? You would have valedictorian. And I mean, I guess you've done your research. Yeah, well, I could read. And you were the class valedictorian And you also graduated summa cum laude from Harvard so it turns out some of these valedictorians Every once in a while every once in a while very good. Yeah, I think you you showed your

Showed your worth to hey, there's there's good man everywhere Take everybody bye bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Good. See you guys everywhere take everybody bye bye good see you guys