The Ben and Emil Show - PP Episode 12: Tech billionaires are building a secret city

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

We dive deep into the ambitious and insane new cities that tech billionaires are trying to build from scratch. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, folks, we've got a new studio, as you can tell. We've signed a limited contract with British Petroleum. No, BP. British Petroleum. Oh, okay. I thought it's a BG for British government. No, no, BP. BP.

You'll be seeing a lot more from us. Watch the oil space because somebody's got to take their money. We're the newest oil influencers. Yes, we are. Like I said, watch this space because there is more coming. but yeah no this is our new studio that they paid for and those sweet sweet oil dividends business is good in the oil industry

business is good and we are here in support of their new green initiatives like what what's their big one oil powered bikes oh yeah the green initiative walkways trees

all powered by oil yeah I mean can what can't it do. It really is used for everything. Your precious Nalgine bottle made with petroleum products. Fuck. Yeah. Did you think about that? Did you ever think about that? What's a green water bottle I could get? I could just start carrying it in reusable bags. Plastic bags? Yeah, but that's made with petroleum also. But at least it's reusable. Yeah. I mean, this just goes back to the age-old problem of the burden falling on us, the consumer.

the humble consumer instead of... Sure, but we're going to address that with our new BP money. Yeah, the BP money, man. It is flowing like oil. What? We got to get a studio, I think. This is nice. Yeah.

Well, I mean, we do have a studio this one that's brought to you by B.P. Let's tell them what we're really doing here. We're in London. We're in London. Doing a live show. Yeah. And in order to keep the content coming to you... We've taken this BP money.

They flew us out here They insisted They I'm trying not to get to For the audio listener We're in we're in like a I'm very corner Yeah we're where it's very corner centric

And we're It's so comfortable and cozy You guys have no idea this This table is made out of like squishy felt This wood is really nice They got a great TV in here I wish the audio listener could see it

Yeah But they can't So they just got to fucking suck it up as usual If you're on a run a walk or a jog or driving in your car. Give us a honk of the horn. Open up that YouTube.

Open up that YouTube. Watch it while you're driving. Watch it while you're running. Yeah, watch it while you're driving. If you're driving to Tesla, you can do it. You can do it. Why? Because they got full self-driving.

It works. Yeah. Well, we got a lot coming to you today. We're going to be talking about how housing is more affordable than ever. Oh, yeah. Things are getting really good if you're in the market for a house. Things are getting so good. We're going to be talking about vibes out

They're kind of a bit of a continuation a little bit. We're going to be continuing the vibes talk a little bit. Yeah. I mean, because everything is essentially about vibes. And these California, these tech nerds who are... They're going to... They're doing God's work. They're going to save us all.

They're going to solve all of our problems. I believe that they can save us all. Do you? Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, we'll find out. Chamath Palahapitia. He's the man in the arena.

Have you been following that, by the... No. I saw Jason post something. Chamath. He did the AI face and he put it on Daniel Craig. James Bond. Yeah. By the way, I just have to do a quick aside.

I did not know, you know Rachel Weiss and Daniel Craig are together. Sure. She left her husband. Darren Aronovsky. Darrenovsky for James Bond. As a, as, as, that hurts my soul. because you're Darren Aronovsky it's like oh man my hot hot wife left me for James Bond I mean he how do you recover from that he seemed to recover just fine I believe he was

he that he was coping I assure you he was coping he did not get over Rachel Weiss leaving your sorry Jewish ass for it's okay okay you don't get over that for James Bond Ari and nasty I'm gonna make a bad movie about this young woman I'm sleeping and call it mother. I never saw it. I never saw it either. Yeah. Oh, God, what a caveat. How did we get there? What were we just? Jason Calacanis.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So Chamath, if you haven't been following along, Chamath, Pallahabatia, the granddaddy of the special purpose acquisition corporations, SPACs that were all the rage in 2020 and 21, who fleeced so many retail traders by just, he was, he was saying that he's like, that I'm the next Warren Buffett. I'm investing in all these companies like Virgin Galactic and SoFi and Clover Health and all these other, a handful of other SPACs that he helped bring public. And he basically just cleaned up.

He made hundreds of millions of dollars for doing nothing. Yeah. For just attaching his name. Liquidated his entire positions, just dumped the bag on retail holders. Oh, they were doing that with crypto too. They were getting like initial coin offerings with Solano. and then, like, joking about being like... Did you just call it Solano?

Jeez, dude. It's Solana, isn't it? No, I don't know. No, it's Salana, for sure. But, and then just fully bragging about being like, oh, yeah, we... I sold that. Well, so some random Twitter guy tweeted him and gave him shit for it.

And Chimath said, basically just said, like, fuck you. I didn't tell you what to do. Like, the fact that you followed me, it's your responsibility. And then he said, I'm just a man in the arena. I'm in the arena. I'm...

The arena of investing? Yes. And people were making fun of him because he posted a selfie one time in a full-length mirror of him wearing his little basketball shorts and his running shoes. And he's just got chicken legs. And it was really funny. People are just knocking the guy being like, man, I'd be scared to death. See, this guy's legs coming at me in the arena. Oh, I thought he was actually going to...

I thought he was pulling a Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. I thought he would challenge him to... Oh, no, no, no. He was just saying, hey, give me a break. I'm just... I'm just another investor guy, but I'm in the arena. I'm doing work. I'm doing things.

Do you consider yourself in the arena? I don't know. If anything, I'm like... If I'm in the arena, I'm like the guy cleaning the urinals. I see that for you. Man, I... Speaking of... every time I go to like a baseball game or any kind of big event or like an airport

and there's just every urinal just I don't know what it is about men but there's just always a puddle of piss below the urinal I don't know you don't notice that I do notice there's piss everywhere but yeah I always kind of assumed it was a plumbing problem pubes like you're obsessed with the pubs you've talked about the pubs every time Every time you see a public toilet with a few of you get... I'm just like, not again. Speaking of an arena... So that'd be me in the arena, but what?

Speaking of arena is what? I was going to tell you how I was in the bullfighting ring in Barcelona. You went to a bullfight? No, no, I didn't go to a bullfighting arena. I went to the, like, bullfighting arena. Got it. But let's talk about it in the bonus episode. Okay, yeah, because we don't...

This otherwise just becomes a two guys in a mic podcast. I wish Mike was here. That'd be a great name for a podcast with two guys and a third guy named Mike. Two guys in a mic. Oh, man. Also, there's no podcast where it's two guys and one mic. That's ridiculous. That would be a horrible show.

Yeah, it'd be terrible. Jeez, we'd be just kicking it back and forth. Bruce Springsteen and Little Stephen Van Zant the whole time. That's a very specific reference. How long have we been at this? I don't even know. Oh, I don't know if we have a timer. Yeah, we don't have a...

Oh, we have a lovely guest producer, Hector, on the ones and twos. Yeah. Hit that sound effect. Give us a... Do, do, do. Yeah, he probably did. He's a little shy. He probably did.

Wait, Hector, how long have we been at this? Jesus Christ. Okay, let's get into it, man. We've got to get into this. We've got to fire this out. Okay, so... More Americans are ending up homeless at a record rate. Well, so, look, we want to talk about the vibes.

The vibes are last week, if you've missed it, the lovely Kyla Scanlon, the most requested guest was back on the show. And we were talking about how, you know, there's a lot of economic data pointing to things are actually getting a lot better. But people still feel bad about the economy. And, you know, we were talking about, well, there's all these stats that maybe suggest that things are not so good for Americans. And in the, you know, in the time since we recorded that, there's been a lot of data coming out about homeownership, home affordability, and homelessness. And I mean, yeah, one of the biggest ones was the Wall Street Journal did a report on homelessness is a, like, there's a record rise in homelessness right now. So, you know, the data so far this year, homelessness is up roughly 11% from 2022, a sharp jump that would represent by far the biggest recorded increase since the government started tracking comparable numbers in 2007.

The next highest increase was a 2.7% jump in 2019. So, yeah, pretty huge. And the majority of that is older, older Americans, right? I don't know. I believe it is. I believe it's people at or near retirement age. which is doubly concerning right so and this is all uh you know with the the problem here is the high housing costs and there was a big report in bloomberg about um while this is happening u.s housing

affordability has hit an all-time low so it's harder than ever to afford a home they're talking about you know buying a house in the u.s has become a luxury a redfin report released Friday shows the median home mortgage payment in the U.S. hit $2,605 a month in July up. Ready for this? 19% from a year ago and the most expensive ever. Yeah. So mortgages, I mean, mortgage rates

just hit 7.09%. So it's more expensive than ever to get a mortgage. You've got a bunch of people who secured mortgages at those historically low rates that they enjoyed just a couple years ago of like 3% and under. so if you're those people obviously you don't want to sell your house because then you've got to get another mortgage at triple the almost triple the amount a little over double the amount so you're not going to do that and then you've got oh man I mean when you're talking about the they did a breakdown in the Wall Street Journal about like they gave a little example about you know how much these interest rate spikes are going to impact. how much you'll be spending. So they say, take a borrower who buys a $500,000 house with a 20% down payment rate.

With a 4% mortgage rate, that person can expect to pay about $290,000 in interest over 30 years for their $400,000 loan. According to a mortgage calculator by bankrate.com. With a 7% mortgage rate, the borrower could pay about $560,000 in interest. Jesus. Christ. Just an interest. Mortgages are said, that's why I never. Oh, they say, listen, folks, I could have bought a house a couple years ago. And I didn't.

Oh, here comes Ben's bragging hour. I mean, back when I had enough money to put down and down payment. No, I know. I remember being so pissed because you told me after the fact. And I remember you said the place had a, like, ADU. It had, it was a duplex. And I was like, dude, I would have lived in your ADU. Yeah, it was a two bedroom on top, a two bedroom on bottom.

And then like a pool house. And I just thought, that's too scary. I don't know how to buy a house. I don't know what to do. It has to be perfect. And it wasn't perfect. And I, it was like. Dude, it would have been perfect.

Me and the poolhouse? I have such poolhouse energy. You do have major... I know a guy who lives in a pool house. That's what I want. Yeah? You do have major poolhouse. Is that house still on the market?

No. I think it's almost doubled in value. So do I want to jump off a cliff? Yes. Will I? No, I'm too scared. So what's also hurting that, or obviously a detriment to housing is

supply is obviously Right Houses are in short supply So you've been seeing building housing Housing construction stocks are on the rise I believe Warren Buffett just took a big stake And I want to say DHA

I think is the ticker A home builder stock Man I just saw this one I think it's VRS was the ticker symbol. It's like a $6,000 a share. It's one of those ones that just never did a split. It just blew my mind.

It's just one of those ones where you're like, I've never heard of this stock. And yet it's just been on a fucking... Do they have a huge market cap? No, it's like $20 billion. But still. And then, so what else is leading to it? This housing crisis.

Say it with me? Airbnb. Airbnb. Man. So that's... That's one thing that pisses me off so much is how Airbnb has, it's contributed so much to this shitty housing situation. Like Austin is a great example.

Austin, Texas, you look at a map of like downtown Austin, and there's so many fucking Airbnbs. And I wonder where we'd be if Airbnb did not exist. My favorite thing is when I'm at a party and a guy explains to me how he's investing his money and he makes it seem like it's like the craziest thing ever he's just like yeah

I buy the house and then I rented on Airbnb and they pay my mortgage I'm like no I get how it works I saw this it reminds me of the the buildup to the housing crisis where they were just like

repackaging and repackaging packages of repackaged mortgages and just selling those and just it was like a nesting dollar kind of situation, you can, if you can't afford to buy a house yourself, anecdotally, I just, this is just something that I saw that another one of these hustle culture guys was touting. Oh, is it where you go in with a group of people?

Not even. You just, you just, you can list a property on behalf of the, of the owner. Just say like, hey, you own this home. I'll put it on Airbnb for you, for which I will. take like a 20% commission and then if you do that like five times you're making $140,000 a year blah blah blah blah just I think that's just TikTok bullshit another route you could go this is huge okay this is a lot of people say we're just doom and gloom I've got by the way we're not going to be all doom and gloom this oh I know we've got

some there's some big stuff coming but this one also a lot of people might not have thought about this. What? Just have rich parents. Yeah, did you ever think of trying that? So Forbes had a funny, they called it Nepo homebuyers. About 40% of homebuyers in their, young homebuyers, people in their 30s under are using family money for a down payment. 40%?

Nearly 40%. But it doesn't specify just how much money. 38% of recent homebuyers underage. 30 used either a cash gift from a family member or an inheritance in order to afford their down payment. They're not saying how much, but I mean, either way. Also, I can't hate on that. On a half a million dollar house, you're talking about 20% down, 100 grand.

Yeah, I would take it. Yeah, I'm not blaming anyone who did it. I mean, it is, I'm almost positive that every person I know my age who owns a home received. Really? Like, when I was reading this, I was like, going through. Name them. Call them out right now. Who? They readily admit, they're like... Yeah.

Because I'm like, damn, how'd you... And they're like... Because of... Yeah, my family helps. Yeah. Yeah. I don't... I mean, it's just...

Who among us? Who among us living in New York City, L.A., high cost of living areas, is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Certainly not. I said the fly. Yeah, at one point, you did. I could have been your fucking pool house. Yeah, it was really nice.

It was... I remember distinguishing. thinking, I could sunbathe in the nude out here and nobody could see me. It was that secluded. Well, I would see you. It was like in the hills of Eagle Rock. From the pool house. Yeah, you could see me. You wouldn't even need binoculars. You'd just be right there. You'd be naked too. I'd invite you out. Come on buddy. I saw, I did see on TikTok, this woman was touting the most, she said it was the most affordable housing market in America. And it was upstate New York. And there's like this three-bedroom two-bath house, beautiful house built in the 1880s.

So you know it's just loaded with ghosts. And it's on like 5,000 square feet, plot of land. $99,000. Whoa. And I thought, hot diggedy damn. I could buy that. And then I'd just do nothing with it. Do nothing.

I'd Airbnb it. And have them pay my mortgage. And then, yeah, I mean. Oh, you're Airbnb being Airbnb as a spooky. haunted. Ooh, spooky house. Come have a spooky experience. Come have a spooky experience.

Yeah, that's a good idea. And people are giving you one-star reviews. Like, nothing spooky happened. Spooky B&B. So then you start upping your game. You're going over while people are there, rattling. Oh, yeah.

Turn it off. Do you ever see the, okay, man, I swear to God, I can't get through a single episode without referencing a TikTok. There's just great. It's so good. It's totally me energy. Guys in his basement and he's got the,

just the main power, thing to the house and the captain he just well it's like it or maybe he's just in front of the fuse box but he goes my teenage daughter is upstairs in the living room sleepover playing on a Ouija board with her friends and he like turns off the lights and you just hear these little girls scream and then he turns it back on he turns it off and you hear and scream again it's so good uh thank you for sharing that with me ben you're welcome but it does remind me Like, I wonder if housing markets that were totally decimated, like in Detroit, for example, are ever going to come back. Because there's, like, full on just abandoned houses or ones that have been foreclosed on that you can buy.

I don't know if you still can for like $15,000. That was a long time ago. I don't think that's the, I don't think that's. Now they're all like craft breweries and coffee shops. Tattoo and coffee shops. Yeah. Leather apron stores. You can go buy a fucking.

leather apron. Those kind of stores, like, they exist in downtown Los Angeles. You'll drive past and you'll see, like, we only make craft shirts for crafts people. It's like, okay, who, who are they? How are they buying enough leather aprons for you to afford the $8,000 a month in rent that you're paying and be able to, I just don't. There's a lot of shops in cities where I'm just like, who? Yes.

you go on owl mode you're just going who who who who it drives me it nuts me drivel man it nuts me drivel man it nuts me drivel well so

one solution to this housing crisis and as we know perhaps the worst place in America for it is the Bay Area there are some Silicon Valley guys who have their own

solution they are they are going the what is it the market will We'll take care of it. Oh, yeah. The free market's going to fix it. The free market, man.

I don't know. It's a pretty expensive market, if you ask me. There's nothing free about it. What is free about this market? So, I mean, this is something that's been, you know, the dream of a lot of big tech guys for a while is building their own. Big tech guys, man. We're talking 400, 500, 500 pounds. These guys are huge.

These big tech guys. They've wanted to get away from the riffraff. they wanted to get away from the riffraff and also and I can't blame them for this they want to get away from the red tape bureaucracy of the government because part of the thing is to build in a place like San Francisco it's a joke you know about the million dollar toilet right do you remember that the million dollar toilet it was in San Francisco it was 1.7 million dollars in years of design. review to build one municipal toilet, one public toilet. And it was, this story was like national news because it underscores government overregulation, overspending, just like the unnecessary slog that it is to get anything permitted and all that shit. It costs them $1.7 million to build a single public restroom.

And that's just, yeah, it speaks to how impossible it is. if you want to get anything done these days. So part of these... Right, but so for a lot of... These have been like dreams of theirs, right? A big one, people might have heard of the Seasteading Institute. Oh, well, tell us, what is the Seasteading Institute? So this is, look, this is from the New York Times.

The practical need for more space has at times morphed into lofty visions of building entire cities from scratch. Several years ago, Y Combinator, the startup incubator announced an initiative with dreams of turning empty, land into a new economy and society years before that peter teal the paypal co-founder and billionaire facebook investor invested in the cesteading institute an attempt to build a new city on lily pad like structures in the in the law and tax-free open ocean the law and tax-free open ocean i'm looking at their their website right now cstetting dot org reimagining civilization with floating cum i got it's cut off by the it's cut off i know i know floating cum floating calm communities i think but i got kicked out of the sea staying institute i actually i killed

a man on the uh on my lily pad and i thought hey i thought this was a lot of law free thought this was law free man i thought this was a law free community yeah did you know that part of the bitcoin maximalist philosophy is to build their own cities as well i believe on the ocean oh remember uh they're called citadels bitcoin or crypto island or whatever yeah but no These are Specifically, they're called Citadels where they have imagined I mean, doesn't that sound

so great to live with a bunch of neck bearded gorks? No, it actually sounds horrible. Especially without laws? Neck beardy dogs. I would just move there and rob them then. Wait, I wanted...

Give me all your crypto. So they have a bunch of these islands. They said the following projects are making floating cities a reality. Their founders were inspired by the seasetting institutes messaging and are committed to the great the eight great moral imperatives

what are the eight great moral imperatives enrich the poor great cure the sick awesome love it feed the hungry we love that clean the atmosphere yes restore the oceans okay live in balance with nature

this is becoming like that meme of Vince McMahon in the WWE world they're all like power the world and live in peace the only thing we're missing is like free french fries just free all the time they're all these huge lofty uh so at first at first blush it makes me want to be shit talking this and and making fun of these guys but this is exactly the kind of thing that we would i guess prefer our billionaire class to be doing like hey do something

useful for society and they're like okay we will let's try to build if i'm gonna channel jeff Bezos, let's build a floating ocean. Is the ocean builders in Cologne, Panama, really what we need them to be doing? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Are they enriching the poor? Are they...

And also, to the avid commenter out there, no, I am not defending them. I am not saying they're... Don't respond to the comments. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But I just... I don't like being a negative Nancy at everything.

Dude, I'm moving to the fucking Arkhouse. The Arkhouse? Cool. I'm glad you're showing me. we'll get it up on the thing But so it's definitely nothing new This idea of billionaires Wanting to create their own cities from scratch There's another one called Tolosa

Which is which is one Dude the vibes are insane in Tolosa Tolosa is it was conceived by Walmart US e-commerce president and billionaire Mark Lour In a statement when he announced his resignation from Walmart He expressed his desire to construct a quote city of the future, based on a reformed version of capitalism. And he referred to his design philosophy for the city as equitism,

described as a new model for society where wealth is created in a fair way. It's not burdening the wealthy. It's not increasing taxes. It is simply giving back to the citizens and the people, the wealth that they helped create. Sounds like a noble cause. It does. He started asking himself, with all the progress we've made in the last hundred years, Well, he also spelled it wrong

It's all the progress we've made in the last 100 year Good start, Mark Yeah Why are so many people still barely getting by So we started asking ourselves How can we do better Jesus Christ What if we did it different

That's the thing, it's all like What if we did it differently? What are you going to do? But also look at your tenure at Walmart That's where it starts My brother My brother in Christ The call is coming from within the house

you know Jesus Christ people are so disconnected Wait where's the one Is Tulosa the one that's in the desert I believe that that's Oh yeah yeah

That's the one that they wanted to start in the desert In well either in In Appalachia or the American West desert Which is Arizona Like Don't do it in the desert It's too hot there That's the big problem

With the desert Is that it tends to be arid And unfriendly So we thought If we bought, say, 200,000 acres and built a city of 5 million people, then those acres would go from being worth nothing to being worth about a trillion dollars. And if the community sold the land and created an endowment, similar to a university or a hospital endowment, they could earn $50 billion a year.

$50 billion that would go back to the citizens in the form of health care, education, jobs, training, affordable housing, and more. It's just that easy. We're calling this new economic model, equitism. Yeah. with the mission of creating a more equitable future. Wow, where'd you come up with that one? Okay. So look, these are, a lot of these are...

It's like that episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns creates, he gets broke and then he creates a recycling company. But it's, it ends up being evil all the same because he like kills whales or something. I can't remember how. But it's like, yeah, you almost. I almost got it, I guess. Like, kudos to you for trying, sir. My favorite thing is when tech guys, like, accidentally invent taxes.

They're like, it's a community. And we all pool money and then we use that money to, like, pay for resources. And we're like, taxes? And they're like, no, no, no, no. You're being stupid. You're an idiot. No. Honey, no.

It's an endowment, okay? That the city collects from its citizens. And then we reinvest. that into the community. And they're not taxes, okay? All right. But, so a lot of these are big dreams for these guys. But someone has been...

There's a big one that's been taking place. Making some real moves here. Yeah. Okay. California forever, they call it. Well, if you've never heard of Flannery Associates... I've never heard of Flannery Associates. A lot of people have not until recently. It sounds like...

Flannery Associates sounds like a... It sounds like an LLC that you... you would use to start like an Irish pub. Flannery Associates, LLC, for my Irish pub. Flannery Associates. Come on, dude. I know. Cheap.

Cheap. Yeah, very cheap. Anyway. Flannery Associates. And now a lot of their dealings have been coming to light, mostly through a lawsuit, but the New York Times did a big story on them. And they, and so they have kind of come out. out and start to be like, hey, we're here.

But so they were started by, it's either Jan or Yan Shramek. Did you ever think it might be neither of those and Jan? What did I say? Jan or Jan. Yeah, it was, Jan. I think it might be young. Yeah. Yeah.

God, I wish I had a time machine. I'd do anything to go back. That's okay. 36, 36 year old former Goldman Sachs trader and failed startup founder. I love, so he's one of those big brains who, you know, he blames his, his failures on, not on, not on himself, but the people just weren't ready for it, you know. What was the startup lady? His first company was an education software provider called Better. He moved to the Bay Area where many of its customers were and sold the company in 2015.

After that came Memo, social media service for ideas and learning that never caught on in a blog post, Mr. Schramick and his co-founder, Carl Betts, blame the modern world's lowbrow tastes for memo's failure. No, it's the people who are wrong. Their tastes aren't refined enough. We just were not ready for memo. It turns out most Americans don't even know what a memo is. Can you imagine? Right. It was probably just like another fucking note taking out.

So this flannery associates is the brainchild of this guy. Yeah, he was a European guy. Like, he really missed the walkable streets of Zurich and was like, which we can fully get behind. Hey, look. We're in our little. little European getaway here. We love public infrastructure. We love walking around.

Yeah. We can we can empathize with Mr. Schromich. Well so he got all these investors together and secretly over the last several years had been buying up parcels of land in California. But nobody knew who was doing the buying. Very secretly. Like to the point of alarming

people thinking it was China. People had no idea what was going on. So even like this is all in Solano County near the Bay Area. and like so fairfield empty farmland yeah but there's like there's there's there's developments there and you know but for the most part this land is not zoned for residential stuff but so he they're

buying up so much tens of thousands of acres uh one of the biggest cities there fairfield california the mayor there uh said they were seeking property buying so much land so fast that it spooked locals they had no idea who the buyer was or the plans it had in mind The mayor started posting about the project on Facebook several years ago, and she got a call from a farmer about some mystery buyer making offers throughout the county. In an interview, Ms. Moy, the mayor, said she had gone to the county assessor's office and found that Flannery had purchased tens of thousands of acres. For as little as $5,000 an acre, too, which blows my mind.

That's what part of the lawsuit is about. Apparently, they're saying that now property owners are banding together and being like, let's drive up the prices of these. Yeah, Flannery is saying, you can't do that. You're trying to build us for more money. It's like, bitch, that's your free market at work. Right. You want to come in?

Your demand. Your demand is so great. Well, guess what? The supply's going down. Ergo, the price is going to go up, bitch. Right. So they were sending these landowners, these huge offers, and giving them some sweetheart deals. You know, you were going to be able to retain some income from their wind turbines when those go up.

Yeah. And then, yeah, so no one had any idea who was behind this. Apparently, the FBI was looking into it because they were like, who the fuck is buying up? Well, we know exactly who now. It's the investors include, obviously, Mr. Mortz himself. Wait. No, no, no. Mr.

Mr. Oh, God, I can't say his name anymore. Ceramic. Seramic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael Moritz, who's a venture capitalist, is one of the investors. Reed Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder. Mark Andreessen.

Oh, yeah. It's a real who-s-dixon. Patrick and John Collison, the guys who founded Stripe, the payments company, which is yet to go public. Lorene Powell Jobs, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross. Yeah, so it looks like it's about $800 million that they've invested so far. By the way, I, Mark Andreessen used to follow me on Twitter. And now you're blocked? And then he unfollowed me because I was high one night and I was tweeting at him.

he was like arguing with someone on Twitter and I responded and I said hell yeah fuck him up Mark fuck him up that's my boy Mark and then I saw that he had unfollowed me and I was like fuck blew it I could have invested in

California forever so now they are ready to well and that's we should say part of their problem is that as Ben was saying a lot of this is not properly zoned right so you know they've interviewed residents and and city officials from Salana County who are kind of like I don't know why they're spending all this money like none of this is zoned for this so the land

that Flannery has been purchasing is not zoned for residential use and even in his 2017 pitch Mr. Moritz acknowledged that rezoning could clearly be challenging a nod to California's notoriously difficult and litigious development process to pull off the project the company will almost certainly have to use the state's initiative system to get Solano County residents to vote on it. The hope is that voters will be enticed by promises of thousands of local jobs, increased tax revenue, and investments in infrastructure like parks, a performing arts center, shopping, dining, and trade school. And so that's just what they intend to do, right? They're trying to get Solano residents rallied around the new, the dream. Right.

So they've been texting them and emailing them with Paul. Poles, gauging their opinions. One asked them to rate the favorability of several names, including Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Flannery Associates. Dude, you got to change it. Well, they have. So they're rebranding. So what do you think of these names? Donald Trump, Joe Biden.

How about Flannery Associates? Like, just trying to gauge. Sounds like a LLC formed for a pub for an Irish Pope. Is that? Yeah, it would include. So they have, they've rebranded. So Flannery Associates is the parent company, but they are now California Forever. California Forever, baby.

California Forever. You can go to California Forever.com starting a conversation about eastern Solano County. I have to say a lot of the, they use a lot of the imagery that reminds me of those guys that piss you off so much about, you know, the guys who post like, we used to be a real country. And it's like people eating at a barbecue or whatever. Oh, yeah. And it does kind of allude. to that. And so they have a picture of, you know, right now, it's just a dusty ass.

No one's using it. Yeah. But we want to turn it into, there's going to be, I mean, this picture with the, with the streets, with the American flags, it's very much like. It looks gorgeous. It looks like, listen, this is one of those things. I'll tell you what. I don't. I don't want to say it.

I would live there. I don't see any people of color in this picture. Oh, yeah. There might be one black guy in the back there. But that just might be someone in a shadow. I mean, and that's always my, that's always my first thing is like, are you guys going to have weird, restrictive covenants on these houses? What do you guys really want your own private city for?

Yeah, I actually, they really are no black people in these. Oh, no, there's a black lady here. There's kind of going on there. But, excuse me. Geez, Louise. There's some... I will say it does look like they have the picture of the guys installing the solar panels.

Yeah. They do look like people of color, which I think that might be how they're imagining there. It does say a lot that instead of changing existing infrastructure and laws, it's more viable to just start from fucking scratch. Oh, it's so funny. Like all these guys live in a... Live in a right near a walkable city that is probably pretty desperate.

for is San Francisco walkable? It's famously incredibly hilly. It's very walkable. What are people just going to be got quads like rugby players? Definitely. They love to fucking bike around. Yeah, don't fuck with anybody in a I don't know

ball kicking challenge. Yeah. Don't challenge anyone to a ball kicking contest in San Francisco when it becomes walkable. Because brother, their quads are going to be absolutely throbbing like that gentleman we saw we both were like damn that guy's a horse

we saw this dude was a freaking locomotive yeah he was probably six foot four probably at least two stone two tree trunks yeah how many stone we talking six stone two you know how much a stone is nobody knows Hector can you hit us do you know how much a stone is

and I was preparing for you to say about 22 kilos and then I was like I don't know what that is either I think it's 14 pounds. 14 pounds? Well, this guy, however many a lot of stones is, this guy, and he was wearing glasses too. Wow, I nailed it. It's 14 pounds.

Wow, Jesus Christ. Dork. But anyway, so California Forever is much like its predecessors, its forefathers. And it has some lofty goals, you know what I mean? So they have some design principles here. Ultimately, this is about practical ways to improve the day-to-day lives of the people who already or will one day live in Solano County. We are committed to five principles about what to build.

Damn, I love it when they list out principles, so I know exactly what they're about. What are they about? Can you give me your five principles? Yep. Here, I'm going to pretend that I'm one of these Solano, skeptical Solano residents who's thinking about selling my crappy land. And you're one of the guys. Well, just remember, sir, you are going to get some windmill dividends.

You're going to get some revenue from our wind turbines. I'm listening. So tell me about these principles First principle Principle number one You're going to like this ready Create good paying local jobs And paths to get those jobs

For Solano's residents Okay cool My son is a deadbeat needs a job Perfect And we have some like vague shit for you too This project can bring new employers to Solano And independently create thousands of permanent Good paying local jobs

In construction, energy services And other industries As long as there's like a Starbucks and a Habit burger We're gonna have we're going to have careers and services. Awesome. Okay. What's principle number two? Oh, you're going to like this. I know you're going to like this, sir. Build walkable neighborhoods and new paths to homeownership. Awesome. We're going to build homes of different sizes and price points integrated in the same walkable neighborhoods with homes, shopping, dining, and schools all within

walking distance. I'm listening. We're also interested in exploring new paths to homeownership for Solana residents through down payment assistance programs and other solutions. There's going to be other solutions. As long as there's other solutions, I'm on board. What's principle number three? Help solve regional infrastructure needs, including energy, energy, transportation, water, and wildfire protection. Yeah. Do you like that one? All of those things have been plaguing my land for years. This one's big too. What? Four? Is this four? Yeah. Protect and support Travis Air Force Base. There's a huge Air Force base. Yeah, Travis Air Force Base. We love it here. I love that thing.

So it's critical to both our national security and to Solano County. Yes. We fully support its mission and always will. Of course. Did you not see this bumper sticker on Mike Prius? I did. It says, I will always support Travis County. Yeah. And I break for Travis

AFB. I break for Air Force pilots. Go, what's the fifth one? Because I'm pretty much on board at this point. Protect Solano's open space and prime agricultural lens. I was just going to ask if you guys are going to protect the open spaces. That's awesome. Okay. You can buy my parcel. You're in, huh?

I feel like I'm in a fucking Oregon Trail video game where it's like, would you like to barter? Who's in charge of this fucking shit? Oh, wow. There's a frequently asked questions. One of them? Who's in charge of this shit? No. What about water? Yeah. I mean,

is it Colorado River water? Right? There is no path to building a new town without securing adequate water supplies. We anticipate that water for an approved project would consist of multiple sources that we have obtained or that will be more fully developed. This whole thing is so fucking half-baked. Well, I mean, that's the thing with ambitious ideas. You got to start out, you got to dream big and then the reality can be constructed around it. These billionaires can afford to buy all this land and then answer these questions later.

Ooh, what? Why did you operate in stealth mode for so long? Why did you need to buy so much land? Because we had to do it in secret. Otherwise, they would have jacked up the prices. We knew that to build a complete sustainable community. We would need to assemble a large holding. The only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation was to not share our specific plans until we finished acquiring the properties.

We are now excited to move on to the real work of building a thoughtful and consensus-minded plan for Eastern... So they're done. They're done buying the land. They hit their like 50,000 acres. They're ready to fucking build a town, dude. That's interesting. As long as we can get this fucking zoning done? I, okay, so forgive me because I am still an ignorant person,

and this is obviously such a dense, ambitious project that I can't fully know everything that all the negative impacts that this could possibly have. But this is something where, hey, I hope that they succeed because it would house a lot of people, it would give people, you'd house a lot of people, you'd have work for a lot of people. It could be a blueprint for actual municipalities and states and local governments to learn from and implement changes to hopefully make this thing catch on over the next fucking hundred years.

I hope they succeed. And in the coming decades, we're all living in warring tech city-states. And I'm about to, I'm living in Tulosa, about to go to fucking war. Yeah, with the C-Station, C-Stead. With California forever. It'll be like a real-life prisoners of Catan. What's it called? Settlers of Catan.

Right, right, right. Or Catan, depending on who you ask. What would be your job in the... What would be my job? In the tech community. Would you be in services? I'd be a ditch digger for sure. I'd just be digging those ditches, man.

I would want to do some kind of hard labor or something. You want a hard labor in the tech city? Easy to medium labor I want to get out there and work with my hands I'd make you know what I'd do I'd open a leather apron shop You would be the downfall of the city They'd be like shit we have useful stuff

We have useless stuff here We've become what we hated A leather apron shop We've become what we aspired to defeat But the rent would be so cheap probably I do wonder I don't think it's I just can't imagine

That it's going to be an affordable You're telling me Yeah Tech billionaires are trying to attract people looking for affordable housing. Yeah, that is a good question. I mean... You're telling me they're trying to make this huge investment so they can... Because on the one hand, they're saying that they want to solve these problems,

which I do believe that they're interested in doing, but they're also touting it as this major once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity. Because obviously they're not going to go into... They're not just inherently, what's the word I'm looking for? Not good. What's the smarter word for good? Beneficent. Benevolent.

Benevolent. What did you say? Benevolent? Yeah, they're not just benevolent. You know? They're, they're, yeah, they're trying to, even Paul Newman's, Newman's own salad dressing probably made a bit of a profit because you got to pay people. I don't know where I pulled that one from. Newman's own is a salad dressing company started by...

I think they were like donating a lot of that money. No, it was like 100% of the profits. Truly one of the only, like... Yeah, yeah, it was all going to... Yeah. What was the nonprofit that it was... Or what was the... Stuff that was going to?

Was it like the Make a Wish Foundation? I don't know what Paul Newman was up to. Damn. If I had one wish, if I was one of those cancer kids making a wish, I know I would fuck it. I would probably have the stupidest wish and then regret it and be like, can I have another shot, please? I'd be like, can I just get an ice cream?

I don't know. That would be your wish. My wish is for like, can I have sex with like a Playboy mom? I think, yeah. It's going to be sex stuff. Should we wrap up the this stuff and do some earnings stuff real quick? Yeah. There was some interesting things coming out of earnings.

Dick's sporting goods had like their worst day ever. You know why? Because they, well, they blamed it on retail theft. But who the fuck is going and breaking into dick's sporting goods and running out with, what, baseball bats? You know what they need to do? What? Move their dick sporting goods to California forever. We've got no retail theft in California forever.

That's true. There's no retail theft. You know what I actually think is going to happen? I think because of all this retail theft, they're going to move to a moment. model where it's basically going to be like one of those liquor stores where everything is behind the plexiglass but not like that no no no just retail stores generally are going to move to where you you pick the item that you want and a worker like it's basically all behind a wall all behind and it comes out like on a conveyor belt where like okay this is your item that you want you pay for it first and it comes out and then you get it and you'll leave it.

so that you can't, it's not just on shelves. As ridiculous as that sounds. It's not ridiculous, because it existed before. It's not ridiculous. It's just like, we're never going to do the thing where we're like, okay, let's think about why we have so much theft. Like, what the hell's going on? Let's maybe think about some of these root issues and how we can solve that. It's always just like, how can we design these stores so it's more difficult to steal.

Yeah, but I mean, which is an easier problem to tackle? Oh, yeah, sure. And it's also, if you're the store, it's like, you've got to stay in, I mean, it's having an actual real effect. Yeah. And it's, on the face of it, you're going, well, fuck these companies. But then when it starts to amount to, when it's substantial amounts, that affects the company's bottom line. Well, what's the first thing that they do when their bottom line starts getting it? They lay people off.

People lose their jobs, entire stores shut down. Like the one, the Nordstrom. And then we start stealing more baseball bats. And baseballs, because you can't just have the bats without the balls. And then you're talking gloves, batting gloves, the pants. Kitchers, catchers masks? Kitchers masks, kletes. I was thinking it was a different game with kitchers.

But yeah, so Target also had earnings, and it would appear at first that those boycotts for the gay stuff worked. Do you think that's not what it was? I don't know. I think it's a combination of just people cutting back and, yeah, it's probably a little bit of the, the boycotting shit sure worked with Budweiser. Yeah. I mean, it really did affect them. God, did you see. Disney is getting affected too. Did you see? Disney's at like a 10-month low or 10-year low, I think, on their stock.

That fucking worm, Ted Cruz. Oh. Drink the beer. Oh, well, yeah, I've got that pulled up to talk about, wait, did I have that pulled up? Yeah, in the bonus. Ted Cruz is, Ted Cruz is cool. we're going to be covering that in the bonus Patreon.com slash paypigspod

It's it's unbelievably cringy But yeah Dix took a big hit And yeah did you see that Nordstrom Shut down their flagship store in San Francisco It's like a four story Well so that's what's the

You've been there for decades Apparently IKEA is They're they're doing these new stores Where they're not the gigantic IKEA Because going to IKEA is like If you just want one thing It's an absolute disaster. You have to, like, walk through the entire fucking store.

But so they've made smaller stores, and they've started putting them in other cities. They are much scaled back, like most popular items, much easier to just go in and grab something. And they're apparently putting one in San Francisco. It's going to open soon in that area where everyone is fleeing, like all retail business. That'll revitalize it. I mean, they seem confident that the store will... Work, I'd imagine, I don't know. And it's one where you just go in and say,

hey, I want the Fjorg's alarm, and it comes out on the conveyor belt? Yeah. Or is it just... Do you guys still have those Bladstroms? No, I said Fjorgstrom. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Just call it a fucking desk, man. Well, they're all Swedish. Yeah, I know, but know your audience. I think they're crushing it with their audience. Probably, yeah. Because Americans are, like, wow, what a kitching fun name. It's called a Fjorgstrom.

Wow, yeah. I'm going to pay $300 for a bed made out of Balsa Wood. I don't, uh, I don't fuck with IKEA. Me neither. Yeah. It's, uh, every time I've ever used one, I'm like, it's dog shit. Although I do wonder how they're more expensive items fair, because maybe the quality significantly goes up at the price.

Who knows? Who can be sure? I do find them, can I say this? Um, no. No, I'm sorry. We ran out of time. Go ahead. What?

I find IKEA's very comforting for some reason. What do you mean? Like, the smell? No. Just being in them. I go, this feels nice. I like it in here. I haven't been in one in a long, long time.

The singer of my old band when I was... You gotta get... You don't want big ticket stuff there. But the basics? Yeah. Can't beat it. Yeah. The band that I was in when I was a teenager

our singer worked at an IKEA and I remember we performed at the IKEA but it was at like midnight it was a why big because it was like a big

meeting that they it was like their annual meeting at that particular IKEA so all the employees you got the annual IKEA gig it was huge how many people

it fucking sucked I don't know like a hundred of these IKEA employees and I remember I was just tired and I was like man I'm 16

I got high school and I'm performing at the IKEA in Orange County It was just I can see your negative feelings towards IKEA Well and also just I'm not about to go walk through A massive big box store just to get a You do it once

When you move into a new place and you're like Okay all the dumb shit You go get it Yeah But also I just don't trust anything anymore I don't trust that, like on Wayfair, you go on and you see the whatever kind of thing and then you go on this other website and it looks like the same exact thing, but it's got a different name and it's a slightly different price.

I just, I don't trust fucking anything. I just don't trust anything. Wayfair's a mess, though. Yeah, Wayfar is a mess. Remember when they got accused of being a shipping, shipping children? Yeah, because there was like one cabinet that was like $30,000 in the Q&M people were going, it's because it's code that means you get a kid you can buy a kid on wayfair that's why it's $30,000 there's a kid in there is that the going rate I mean how much would you pay for a human

how much I don't want to answer the question because I don't know I couldn't afford one let me tell you that I mean I know body parts like you probably you could sell a kidney for like five grand or something on the black market seems low yeah it seems low. Maybe that's a smoker's kidney. Or like the, if you're in the prime age, you could probably get a lot. Yeah, you know, you can, you can get away with one of them. So why did God give us two? Answer that, Christians. I would tell one for... Redundancy? Well, then why not give us two hearts, huh? If it would cover my student loans, I would tell one. You would tell a kidney. Why not? Wow. So you heard it here, folks. He wouldn't donate one to someone in need. He

would rather sell it. I think that's a good place to end the episode. I'm the person in need. No, I think the person without a kidney is the one in need. They're still getting it. But they're buying it. Yeah. Yeah.

They're spending, well, that's a shame. How much do you want for it? I'll tell you off air how much I need. Well, folks, that's been it for us live here in the Queens country. God rest your soul. If you want to join us... I guess God didn't save the queen, after all. If you want to join us in...

The bonus? You can go to paypigs... Nope. You can go to patreon.com slash paypigspod. Yeah, we are working on our own website, though. Oh, it's so close. Yeah. We're going to chat about some crazy stuff.

I'm going to tell Ben about... I've been doing a little bit of traveling. I'm going to tell Ben about... about some funny stories. Oh, I ended up emceeing my friend's wedding. Damn, that sounds thrilling. I'm going to make fun of that German water sommelier guy because I got some questions, right? Do you have questions?

Yeah, I have questions. I'm just asking questions. Yeah. Oh, God. Anyway. You don't like that? You know? So thanks to everybody.

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And this is end. Very good. Bye. Thank you.