The Exorcist Files - AI, Stewardship & Discerning the Spirit with John Kim

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Investor and businessman John Kim has studied AI extensively. As a Christian he has prayed about AI extensively. What role if any does AI play in the future of the Church? In our first of episode addressing the topic, Ryan interviews John Kim, a prominent New York businessman who shares what he thinks the future is going to look like as Christians grapple with a technology that is changing the foundations of how we work and create.Thank You To Our Sponsors!Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to:  https://www.wildalaskan.com/EXFILES.Get 15% off OneSkin with the code EXFILES at https://www.oneskin.co/EXFILES Right now save up to 30% on mattresses and up to 35% on everything else when you go to Casper.com. https://Casper.com.For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at Mengotomars.com.Join Exodus90 for their St. Michael's Lent Challenge starting August 12th. Go to https://Exodus90.com/exfiles for a free trial.Sign up for the Vault to support the show and get access to the dramatic episodes a day early! https://Exorcistfiles.supercast.comFollow us on IG at https://instragram.com/exorcistfiles and https://www.instagram.com/TheBetheaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I remember asking God, like God, they've refused our offer. We must have heard wrong. As a result, I think we just need to raise our offer by a little bit. And we heard the loudest growl out of my stomach. And then I get a call from the broker. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the show where we podcast our concerns on God. And we raise our hands in prayer like we actually do care. I'm your co-host, Ryan Bithay.

and today we are getting into AI, eschatology, mammon, and how to lean on the Holy Spirit to make wise decisions. Our guest today was actually featured on another podcast where I interviewed him with my lovely co-host Abby, and his interview has garnered almost 8 million views and downloads, probably even more than that by now. He is a prominent financier and investor, an avid Facebook commentator on the New York Knicks, PGA, and soccer. He's also a pastor. He has a PhD and is the man who, put the MIT in smite, the AI in praise, and the earn in discern. And yes, I'm aware that's not spelled exactly the same. His financial returns are so good. His fund has become known as a

hedge of protection fund. Please welcome the seventh-th-th-th-th spiritual John I've ever encountered, my dear friend, John Kim. Thank you for having me, Ryan, and thank you for that is definitely a first for introductions, but I'll remember that indefinitely. We aim to please. And even though they're not a sponsor, I will now do the ceremonial, the ceremonial popping of my Waterloo. People wondering what the secret is to my bubbling effervescent personality. Waterloo, Guava Berry. When think sparkling water, think Waterloo.

If someone's listening from Waterloo, sponsor us. Okay. Got to do it. We've got to get the plugs on what we can. All right. John, I have so many questions for you, but we're going to start with just a little of our ecumenical icebreaker, which we ask all our guests. I actually have no idea how to classify you in any Christian tradition.

You are, I think, like a Pente-Catholic and a Baptist, Orthodox, pragmatist, and a Jedi warrior. I love that you've always been a mystery to me. So I don't know how to even phrase this, but what is something, you are not Catholic from my understanding. So, John, what is something you deeply appreciate about your Catholic brothers and sisters? Well, I would say the Catholic tradition, I am a vineyard person, which I can go into later, but I would say about 15 years ago in my journey with God, the best of the Catholic tradition became sort of entered into my world, particularly through monasticism, organizations like the Jesuits, the Benedicts, the Franciscans, and I was utterly fascinated that.

Whereas in Protestantian evangelicalism, it seems like there's people who work in the church and then there are lay people. But in the Catholic tradition and also in some of the other high church traditions, there was this notion of orders, people who wanted to follow God with a very high degree of intentionality. And I was really taken by that. And so I would say, I would say the Jesuit, the Ignatian tradition has had as much of an impact on my spirituality and life with God as anything candidly in the Protestant tradition. And so, and I continue to receive tremendous, it's a real blessing to interact at any in all times with Catholic brothers and sisters. Amen. Awesome. Well said. Now, I want to start because this is such a wild story. You've shared it before, but some of our

listeners may not be aware of it. And it is so relevant to everywhere we're going to go today because we are going to be getting into AI and just being a good fiscal steward and just all the areas that you've had a tremendous impact in. But you are, and you would be the first to say, the recipient of supernatural grace and a huge blessing from God. and I love that about you. And so would you mind giving us your testimony of how God actually does renew the mind? Well, just to get a little bit of context, and I do say this with the utmost in sincerity and humility, but I was a valedictorian of my high school class without candidly.

I was just sort of enjoying life, but school came relatively easy to me. And then similarly, I did my undergraduate up in Cambridge at Harvard. And it also felt all things considered, like it wasn't like a terrible, you know, the trajectory as far as difficulty goes, did not, was not materially different from what I experienced in high school. And then I went to, right after I finished my undergraduate, I went down the river, down to Charles River to do my PhD at MIT. And that was sort of the reality kind of hitting the wall moment. I distinctly remember those first several weeks. I'm sitting in these lectures. And for the first time, I can barely understand my lecture notes.

I can barely do the problem sets. And I'm sitting there at this point, so much of my identity was wrapped up in being a good student and excelling academically that I was, you know, really in the midst of a bit of an identity crisis. And so I just came to faith a couple months prior to starting my PhD program. And it was probably like week four or five. I'm in the MIT Student Center of my PhD program. And I'm in another night where I can't understand my lecture notes, I can't do a problem set. And I just put my head down. And again, you have to kind of excuse the fact that I've been a Christian for a couple months at this point.

So I just turn my head down and I say, God, if you're real, you just got to do something. Please do something and help my brain. I mean, it was a very raw, utter, you know, there was nothing elegant about this prayer. And then, you know, honestly, I don't recall if it was the next, certainly wasn't the next day, but it was certainly over the course of the next couple weeks, it was almost like all of a sudden everything that was confusing, everything that was incomprehensible, everything that was really beyond the scope of what I could do,

it just all made sense. And I went from the guy that could barely, you know, that was constantly bugging his classmates to try to get some help. I went kind of became the person that people went to when they had questions. And so, you know, that all happened in the span of about, a couple months. I kind of almost, I remember some of the most vivid details like it was yesterday, but that was really the first time I encountered the presence of God in a very real and tangible way. You know, it wasn't just about a cool thing that happens in church. This was at the very center of

who I am, what I do, and God met me in a time of pretty extreme needs. So, yeah, that was about 30 years ago now, fall of 1995. Wow. Okay. So, like, do you think God, just basically came in and rewired your brain. Is that what happened? That's how I describe it to people. I don't know how else to explain it. I think so many people, you know, when they hit that wall and they get to the point, I mean, you know, it happens, you know, it happens to athletes when they hit a space where all of a sudden everyone's bigger, faster, stronger, and quicker than them. You hear people talk about that as a transition to higher levels of competition. And that was candidly, like the closest, That's how I would describe it.

And so, you know, I tried to study harder and harder. I did everything I can. And that prayer that I uttered at the MIT Student Center was somebody at their wits end. And so the only thing I could explain, because nothing is not like I changed my diet. I didn't change my routines. But I went from, you know, something totally like the penny just dropped. The coin just dropped in the slot shortly thereafter. And so I can only attribute it to God.

doing something in my mind that up until that point I was unable to do. That's so interesting too because scripture has places where it shouts, where it states explicitly, and then whispers. We spend a lot of time talking about like the Nephilim or kind of just like whispers of what did this one verse mean. And yet in James, you have literally explicitly written, like let any who lacks wisdom, you know, ask for it. Then of course you have Solomon's entire testimony.

And I just have to think, I asked for a solution to the process. but not God, give me the supernatural wisdom, renew the mind, because if it's true that we have the Holy Spirit inside of us and have access to this, that would be such, I mean, that also seems to be explicitly stated promise. We should ask for it more. I mean, it's just, do you find that? It's often we don't ask for the wisdom, but we ask for the outcome. Yeah, and I think, I think you highlight something that's important there, Ryan, which is God is not, to the best that I understand, just some giant spiritual vending machine, right? I think there are certain moments in our lives when there's something that God does.

He sort of breaks into the kingdom of God just breaks in. And we should ask for these things. And I think it's important to always have like a posture of humility when these things happen. And candidly, as I've reflected back on this over the many years, each time I candidly, I appreciate the way when I get to talk with you about this. because actually what it does is it alerts me to the manner in which how that one incident was not just some transactional thing that happened between God and I. It was actually something that he did and he consistently even built upon.

It almost like set me on a new spiritual trajectory. And so that's, you know, again, it's impossible to reduce any of these things down to a simple model or if this than that. But I think it is, I do notice how when these kinds of things happen, we should ask for them, but we should also be aware of the manner in which when God does something like this, it's about more than just that moment. And I can certainly testify to that. I could expound upon that if you'd like, but there's something about the way that what that moment was and how it's sort of almost been repeated.

And sometimes with, you know, not the same ostensible, obvious result, but it led to sort of a pattern in a way of living and a way of being, which, you know, I'm still trying to practice and uncovered to this day. Now, you had this experience and God revived the mind. Did that motivate you? Because one of the things that I appreciated, as you shared on your other interview in Heaven Meets Earth, is that you were one of the people. And I remember because we met at a business conference and they were like, and I told

them, like, what do you think about John Kim? It was like, oh, he told me the Holy Spirit kind of helps lead his investment decisions. Like, he's not supposed to say that. And I love that because it makes sense that if we, We are stewards. And I mean, you look at the Old Testament and David's like, Lord, should I go fight the Philistines? Yes, you should. In fact, the only time David gets into trouble, it seems, is when he doesn't ask.

So as someone who's had enormous success will freely admit that it is a result of God blessing and offering that. What is your general stance and wisdom on asking the Holy Spirit, discerning investments and business decisions? Yeah, I mean, I think that if the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, and I do believe that's true, then there's no decision, whether big or small, whether a high level or low level, strategic or tactical, there's no decision that is outside the boundaries of the wisdom and the sort of omniscience of God. And it behooves us to ask him. And it behooves us to go to him with a posture of prayer, with an open-handed humility. I mean, again, you asked me earlier about what I could say about the Catholic tradition.

The Ignatian tradition has a lot to say about what it means when we enter or explore weighty decisions and have true, you know, they call it Ignatian indifference. What does it mean to abstract ourselves from our own hopes and desires? And of course, anytime somebody's in the business world or in the investment world, we want our decisions to work out. We want these things to lead to investment returns, to profitable results, to winning in all its shapes and form. And I think there's something about the process of really trying to seek the face of God and God and seeking what does it mean to acquire godly wisdom and godly discernment with respect to a decision that has to be made. Sometimes there are mundane decisions like, should I invest in this?

How much should I invest in it? And then oftentimes are also more sort of nuanced and complicated things. Should I hire this person? What might it mean to bring this individual into this sphere, into this enterprise? You know, what are the implications of that? I think we've got to bring all these things to God. And that doesn't mean we leave all of our natural, you know, hard-earned and acquired sort of skill set. But what it does mean, and I will testify to this, the real consequential decisions really fall outside the boundary of what you can learn at places like Harvard or MIT or Stanford or textbooks or even business case studies. And I think being a discerning person and being able to access the divine imaginative. It turns out to be pretty central, I think, for this kind of decision-making. Well, you touched on something then, you know, and I want to get into a little bit, maybe this is a good segue way to get into AI because we've had so many listeners

write in and ask about what our role is, what is the role of AI? Does it play an eschatological role? It's changing the fabric of how we work and operate. You're someone who is invests in companies, very familiar, professionally have to be very involved with it. Let's start at a high level. How should a Christian think about AI? and its impact on humanity, dignity of work, and our future ways to make a livelihood.

Yeah, I mean, this is the topic of the day, and rightfully so. The first thing I want to say is every Christian that shows up and wants to be faithful with their public life, the first thing they have to deal with, they have to live in the realm of reality. The reality is that AI is by a wide margin, in my opinion, the most consequential technical development. of my lifetime. It is coming at a breathtaking pace, the economic incentives that are in place, not just for the frontier labs that you all know about, like Open AI, Anthropic, Google, Facebook, and whoever, but even the sovereigns, even that it's in the national interest of nearly every major government to get their arms around this technology because there's no part

of our lives, not just the economics, not just warfare, every area of our lives. Every area of our lives will be touched by this. And it is coming. And there's no way to, quote, stop it. I mean, that's the one thing that, you know, I understand that there are Christians that feel like there's so much danger and rightfully so. But what you can't do is you're not going to stop this from coming. So with that as the foundation, at least the approach that I've adopted is I view AI as a tool. It is a tool. So God created man and then man created this tool. We were created by God out of love. Man created AI as a tool to help us.

And so if we properly think about AI as a tool, no different than any other technology, no different than the hammer or the wheel, the question we should be asking ourselves is, how can AI be deployed to advance the ends and purposes that God has for us as his children? God's ends and purposes for us as his children, I don't believe they've changed at all since the day he created us. Obviously, the technological frontier, the economic possibilities, the pitfalls and dangers have changed over time, and we have to be cognizant of those. But I'm actually optimistic about the possibilities of what AI can do for us as a society. And I think Christians need to be very much in the game. And the last thing I just want to say is you don't need to be an AI researcher, you don't need to work an anthropic or open AI. The beauty of this technology is that I think all of us, and especially those with a redeemed view, a kingdom-centric view of what is possible, have a huge role to play. And there's high-impact things that all of us can do.

So we can't exit the game. We have to be very much in the game. and if we bring the best of our tradition to this moment, I actually think we will help not just a church, but society very, very broadly, because this thing is coming for us, whether we like it or not. When people greet me with the proverbial,

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So let me ask you this. I had my first experience of the day where someone showed me content and I just thought it was bad, but I didn't know it was AI. And it was pretty jarring for me because I have clung to maybe the best way to put it, the hope that there will always be sort of the Gladwellian blink mentality that I'll be able to discern the difference between AI, the, you know, the uncanny valley. But beyond that even, My hope is that as a Christian, I would have a competitive advantage because I have a Holy Spirit that is indwelling in me and that will react to art and content that is made by humans operating in the Amago Day.

Do you believe that is a competitive advantage for Christians or do you think this technology will ultimately get to a place where it is indiscernible? and I'm because I'm thinking about the humanity that goes into producing art and content and whether or not humans, when they interact with that, they're picking up on something that's almost, you know, multidimensional. There's a metaphysical significance to it. You know, that's a fascinating question. And I understand your instinct. Unfortunately, I would say AI today is the worst it'll ever be. And whatever you experience there, the sense that, wow, I wasn't able to immediately tell.

Because in the early days, that was sort of, you could sort of tell, right? I mean, the way the kids say, you know, they would almost immediately tell, oh, that's an AI or you're behaving like an AI even. And so I think, though, I actually feel like, again, the pace at which this is improving and the almost deterministic way in which the trajectory is just sort of laid out before. all the frontier labs. I don't know. I would say that maybe a particularly discerning person would be able to tell, but the masses already, and we saw this already at social media, it's very hard to tell what's fake news, what's something that was put in front of you that was

fabricated and the algorithm just amplified versus what is actually real. So what I will say to this, though, is the following. And again, this is why I'm optimistic. I always ask myself in a time when AI is encroaching every sphere of life, making intelligence and content and maybe even creativity abundant and cheap. The question is what is scarce? What is rare in a world where AI encroaches on so many spheres? It's a big question, but one area that rings very true for me is that human presence will be scarce in the age of AI. And so while you might not be able to tell what's in AI when you're watching a screen, you can absolutely tell if you're in a room with real embodied persons made in the image of God. And I'll just actually say that it's super interesting that in the

gospels, in the book of John, it opens by saying that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So the God of the universe, who has access to all the things, omniscience, omnipresence, all the things that technology promises chose to come into a specific time, a specific place, into a specific culture. He chose embodied presence and the limitations associated with that for his redemptive plan. And I think that while, again, we may not be able to tell on a screen or in some digital media on what's AI and what was created by a human, what we can tell is when we are in the presence of other embodied persons made in God's image. And I think that's where, I think that's what the demand and the human heart will long for that.

And I think we as Christians have a lot to say about what it takes to fulfill that deep desire. So, you know, like, for example, the scriptures are ontologically just special in the sense that they are words, but they are words that when we read them, there's some promise that happens or something metaphysical that happens. And it's just, it's ontologically different. Do you think that when humans create art and everything that goes into art, art, et cetera, that art becomes ontologically different than art that is created by AI, and that difference will be discerned by people. Because I'm with you that it's an amazing tool for

efficiency when I'm having just lots of thoughts and just, you know, kind of just throwing them out on a page, and it helps me just organize everything. It's wonderful. So in that sense, it's filtering. But as far as generative AI, which is probably where I'm most concerned about, do you think that human-made art will be ontologically different as it is as a human kind of, acting as like in the Imago day of creating something, that that would actually confer some ontological difference to the art made versus the generative art that a human would just look at and go, man, there's something it's like stirring inside a beat. Do you think that's possible? Well, I think there's a question underneath that that I just want to make sure I have clarity on.

So let's say somebody sings a song with just their voice without any, and it's all acapella. We would say, oh, they are singing entirely as a human, right? Now, what if somebody is singing with a guitar, right? There's now an instrument, something that was made by man that has entered into the scene, okay? And, you know, some guitars are better than others, but let's say there's a very, very well-crafted guitar that really amplifies that person. Now let's take it to another level. There are these, I mean, again, I don't know much about this, but I see them online. there are DJs who know how to mix and create,

and they use sort of digital tools to create a really interesting environment. And some of these DJs are considered real artists for the manner in which they can use technology to create rooms and environments. Now, AI is a particularly, it's certainly a leap forward, and it's an aggressive implementation of this trend. But what happens if tomorrow's artists are people who've trained Claude or trained ChatGBTGPT with a particular kind of insight? Maybe they've prayerfully considered how to create their Claude.mD file or their Claude Skills file. And therefore, you can tell the difference between what the AI creates again. What if there's a huge difference between how an AI prompted by a real artist versus somebody who's, just sort of messing around. I just think some of these lines are a little more blurry than we choose

to admit. And so it's a little hard to just say, does it mean that, you know, we as Christians who are encountering and conversing with the Holy Spirit should we be able to tell? Again, it begs a question like, what is, what does it mean for something to be a human? There's no such thing as just purely human generated art anymore. Like that, I feel like that train left the station a while ago as well. Yeah. And you do, bring us to such a piano is a piano in some sense, but, you know, if we're looking at Amadeus, right, and you have, you know, Mozart sitting at it versus the other guy who's, you know, half is talented and jealous. His name escapes me. It's like Salieri, right? Salieri. And both of them

have the same piano. One is putting, they're both putting in different inputs. One is putting in the inputs of Mozart and it comes out an entirely different product. We wouldn't accuse him. We would say, oh, Mozart's a genius. So he's learned how to use that tool. And both of them have ostensibly had access to the symphonies of their day, have had access to the same opportunities to study. And so, yeah, so in that sense, you could say, if you wanted to, you know, play devil's advocate, you'd say, well, the AI is sort of like a much more advanced piano, right? I would actually, I mean, if I were to extend that analogy forward, what you just said, I would agree with. I mean, I know there was an AI generated artist last year. I think the name was Solomon Ray that there were a couple songs that hit the top of the gospel

Billboard charts. People didn't find out until after the fact that it was an AI generated song. And it created a lot of consternation among actual Christian artists who maybe work in a more traditional form. And again, that was actually one of my thoughts was that, you know, I was telling, you know, worship leaders and Christian artists who were, you know, very, very much upset when they heard that this was happening and I just said, look, many of you guys are beneficiaries of technology that came prior. And so in some sense, this is what AI is. Again, it's an accelerated. It's a drastic step forward. But it might be a difference of degree more than a difference of kind. So I think it's an open question still, how to think about that. I found a great quote on sleep the other day.

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And he goes up in gospel and the blues. And so he listens to that. And he sort of that totally influences his sound and decides to run with that. An artist fast forward 60 years, the body of available music and the tools to be exposed to all that music. I mean, I'm wondering how many records Elvis had versus, I mean, I had a growing up, I had a device that had, you know, 10,000 songs. minute, right? So now my exposure via technology to vastly more inputs and influence is available. And so is this the next logical extension of that? It's kind of sounds like what you're saying. It's like, hey, now it's just filtered better. And it can be used for that. And then, I mean,

you're a math, you're a math doctorate here. So at some level, right, music is also math. So it tends to be, I would imagine, the most susceptible to computer influence, right? Because a computer could, and I'm crum wrong here, but mathematically, could you run in a number, analysis on the top pop songs and find correlations in particular notes and numbers that would say, hey, generate for me patterns that would work like this. And then a musician or artists could then take those patterns and use it for inspiration. I, again, I'm not a formal musician and I'm not well versed in the industry. But I would be shocked if that kind of analysis hasn't been happening for decades, I will tell you that in the future, we are definitely going

to see AI-generated content that is able to anticipate the kinds of reactions it is trying to get out of the people that are viewing it. And so this is, I mean, again, this is, again, as Christians, we have to just deal in the realm of reality. This is happening. I mean, this is going to happen whether we like it or not. And it's really the only question that's relevant for us is, what are we going to do about it? I do want to say, like, just with a quick nod to the whole difference between humans as persons made in God's image and embodied presence. That's not just a theological construct. In the future, I am 99% sure that a robot will be created that can play golf perfectly. And it will be able to assess its surroundings and hit perfect drives, basically hitting the

physical limits of how far a golf ball could be hit on the putting greens. It will be able to assess slope, wind, you know, green hardness and so on and so forth to make every single putt. Nobody wants to call Scottie Schaeffler. Yeah, that's why they call Scottie Schaeffler. He's got good golfers are considered robotic, right? But nobody wants to go watch a bunch of robots play golf or a bunch of robots play basketball. They want to watch embodied persons do that kind of thing because that's what makes it something. Now, things like Formula One are kind of at the intersection, right? Because like the team of engineers that can build the incredible.

But at the end of the day, the driver is a huge. So it's both the sort of like technical talent as well as the incredible driver is what makes. So these things are always mixed. But at the end of the day, we need a significant human element to get us interested in watching those things. And I think that's, I think that analogy extends beyond. just live sports and live concerts to just sort of the greater realm of what does it mean for us to gather as embodied persons in a particular place and giving our attention to one another.

Again, I think that's what's going to be scares and that's what we should be leaning into. Is it also, I mean, I don't want to be a doomsday, but I know there's concern we're not going to have that many jobs. Would that just take us back to worst case, do we just go back to the time of the early church where most of us are farmers. And I mean, because I sometimes try to contrast about what I feel entitled to in my modern era of like house, spouse, wealth and health. And I think about, wow, for so much of human history, it was just get by. And ironically, in the doomsday scenario, right, AI creates, or one version of the doomsday scenario is that there's abundance because AI just helps generate so much stuff.

And there's just a lack of things to do. so we end up in a weird, like, hybridization of the egregarian, like, you know, feudal society that we have. We have a couple AI overlords, you know, that we listen to on the All In podcast, and then we're all just, and then we're all, you know, just doing our best to figure out what we can do. But, yeah, what do you think about AI and the job's future and kind of, maybe some of the stuff the Pope recently put out about, you know, human dignity and AI's role in honoring work, which is a huge blessing from God. Yeah, let's just go back 200 years. And roughly 80% of the U.S. labor force was involved in agriculture. And today, it's close between one and two percent. 75 years ago, you had roughly just under 40% of the U.S. labor force was involved in manufacturing.

Today, it's about 8%. We've drastically reduced a number of people in farming and in manufacturing over the last couple hundred years. And yet, we have more food and we have more stuff than we know what to do with as a society. This is a story of economic progress. This is what, when they use the term, you may have to be familiar with the term creative destruction. What used to take 10 people now just takes one or two. And as a result, the job of the economy is to figure out how to gainfully redeploy those other seven to eight, eight to nine people.

And we've actually done a fairly decent job of that over the last couple hundred years. Now, no guarantee will continue. But I think that perspective is important and it matters. And it actually presents the opportunity. that people of faith have to be creative and forward thinking in this moment. Yeah, so let me ask you that. What is the creative advantage a Christian has, for lack of a better term, in this AI dominant world?

For those who are indelved by the Holy Spirit, access to the mind of Christ, maybe we all don't get PhDs from MIT, but he does give gifts in many ways. And so, yeah, how would you encourage a Christian to think through a world where there may be, whether short term or long term, a lack of traditional job? and how to honor God since, you know, redemption, part of the redemptive plan is through work. Yeah, I mean, this is the, maybe the question that we as a church are facing right now. And I think it's a question that the whole of the church, we have to ponder this together. The pastors, the theologians, the marketplace leaders, the people, you know, this is a collective effort.

I think just foundationally, you know, people of the scriptures, people of people of the kingdom, there are two things that I think we are grounded in and the world is looking for a grounding in this moment. We're grounded in the fact that we have a very clear sense of what it means to be human and we have a very clear sense of what is reality, because all reality is derived and determined from God. Armed with those two things, and we also have a tradition that actually values human presence. Now, look, I know a lot of the church, especially the Protestant evangelical church, has, you know, sort of gone about this sort of, how do we grow, how do we scale? And, you know, there are ways in which it's kind of, you know, maybe pushed against some of the things about to say, but the best of the church, and I'm using the capital C church here, has a tradition of gathering,

has a tradition of rhythms, of sort of sacred rhythms, of opening up our homes and having meals around a table. I think that we know more about community, presence, trust, these kinds of terms. I think we have a better sense of this because it's ingrained in our tradition, not because we're smarter, not because we're better than anyone, but even with all the ways in which, you know, the church has flaws and is broken, we have certain practices and traditions that give us a clue as to what matters most in this moment. Now, some things should be done within the the context of the church, i.e., like what I'll call a non-for-profit type of organizational structure, but then other things should be done in the context of a business.

I wonder what hospitality looks like in the coming age. Like, what does it mean to create physical spaces where hospitality, a certain kind of hospitality and a certain kind of experience that is really filled with human presence? Like, what would it mean to create businesses and spaces like that? Because again, those will be in high demand. I mean, I already see it among the younger generation. I know they spend a lot of time in their phones and there's a lot of doom scrolling going on. But I do think that the demand for real human attraction, we see it in the prices of live concerts.

And, I mean, the Nix tickets. I mean, that's a little bit of an oddity right now because Nix fans are starving right now. But live sports is another thing. As much as I love watching TV on live sports, there's something about being in a room and cheering on your team with fellow fans. These are the kinds of experiences. These are the kinds of things that I think we're going to be, we should have a natural advantage in thinking about how to build, not just companies, but I'll just say, generally speaking, organizations that are leaning into these things. Because again, these are the things that will be scarce in the coming age where AI becomes to infiltrate every

area of our lives. And so it's perhaps one of the hopeful notes we think about, you mentioned, the agricultural percentage of the demographic, you know, producing that food went seismic, exponentially down. And yet we have so much food that you were explaining to someone 100 years ago that the other crisis we're going to have is we're going to have too much food and we're going to be able to preserve it. We're going to eat too much and not move. And so we'll have that issue. And so what then gives rise to is, you know, Michelin Star restaurants and creative ways of, you know, preparing that food. And now we have dozens of amazing food shows that, you know, showcase ingredients that create a supply chain from hell around the world.

I think about what goes into my smoothie in the morning. It was like 9 G, I think, you know, how many of the G20 are represented in my smoothie to get me the ingredients I need there? And it's just so fascinating. So in this abundance that could happen, we have to think through hopefully what could, you know, if there's an abundance of certain materials that are,

how can we, you know, use them to serve our fellow man and, you know, create new opportunities from those, from that abundance, right? Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's definitely one of those questions that I think about quite a bit, which is, if we do have abundance, what will we do with that? Like, just as a society. You know, I'm not a particularly, I don't travel. I haven't traveled the world.

And so, you know, this is definitely sort of a novice take. But I spent a week in Spain earlier this year in the seaside town that was just, you know, maybe 100 kilometers north of Barcelona. I was candidly shocked at just the way people lived in this town. I mean, first, I was shocked by the fact that I had the best sort of coffee and croissant I've ever had in my life for just over three euros. So it was like $3.40. U.S. dollars. And you couldn't get that for $10 in New York City.

It would probably be like $15 to get a coffee and croissant that good in New York City. I was staying in a hotel that had an oceanfront view. It was a beautifully appointed hotel. I think the price was maybe about 100 euros per night. So it costs less than the Hampton Inn or Orlando that I was staying in just a couple months prior. And the people that inhabited this place, you know, they were working class Spanish folk. So there was something about the quality of life. They maximized our lives.

Even the way the town was laid out and the way that people were interacting with one another. There was something deeply human. You know, there's that old adage. like, what does it mean to have enough? Or, you know, there are stories about, I don't know exactly, I'm going to butcher all the details, but like when people, there was somebody, some finance here was hosting a party and an artist asked his fellow artist, what do you think about the fact that he made more last week than you'll make in your lifetime?

And the other artist responds, well, I have something that this guy, our host will never have. And he goes, what's that? It's like, enough. Contentment is an interesting virtue. I don't know how you propagate that. society-wide. It feels like an utterly, you know, impossible problem to solve in the United States where everybody is so keen on getting ahead. But I literally witnessed in Spain in the little town,

seaside town called La Scala, where I stated for four nights. I feel like there was almost a prophetic picture of what things could be like in an age of abundance if there's this notion where we value human connection, value human presence. And we, uh, we, uh, work to live as opposed to living to work, which is kind of how things feel in the United States. Book your tickets to Spain. I wish we had a sponsor. I'm going to say, wow, 100 euros a night. Wow. And then croissants. Don't tell the French because I didn't know Spain was known for its croissants. That's amazing. Well, you know, I wanted to get into Mammon Bay 2. And, you know, so full disclosure, right, you're someone who's done very, very well. And we know this because you have a building in Manhattan.

and from my last real estate class, I understand that real estate in Manhattan is not an inexpensive thing. You've done very, very well. You'd be the first to attribute it to God. And actually, for those who don't know that story, too, perhaps you could, you know, give us the cliff notes. You have made a pretty big bet on a huge company. And part of the discernment process for that was actually inviting God into that process. And you'll be the first to say, results may vary. I'm sure when you file your K2s, you know, if the sin is listed as a liability because it would obscure, obfuscate the Lord's voice. But walk us through a little bit of like that story and how you kind of came into means and then I want to get into for those thinking, oh man, I just want that you can talk about the experience of what that actually is like and what it does to your spirituality. Of course. Yeah. And again, I just want to connect it to what happened back at MIT like that moment that I felt like I, that God,

did something inside my mind. And that was a good, you know, 15 years prior to the story I'm about to share. And so, you know, back in 2011, there was this little company called Tesla that very few people knew about. And Elon Musk was not nearly as well known as he is today, likely to become the first trillionaire, at least on paper in several days when SpaceX goes public. But there was this little company called Tesla that was on the verge of bankruptcy. They were trying to make the electric car, all known right now, but back in 2011, there was a long line of companies that were attempting to make electric cars that have gone bankrupt. And pretty much the consensus among Wall Street was that this would be just like every other company. What happened was we had the ability to take a test drive

one day right outside their Palo Alto offices because we had a small window of time. And that was an interesting experience. I'm not a car guy, but I could tell this was a special device. And it encouraged, it led to me and my team sort of going on a journey of trying to understand what is it about this company that could make it special. Now, again, I didn't just ask God, should I buy this stock or not? What I asked God for was a roadmap for how I should analyze this company. This was not the kind of thing I would normally do. A company that has real bankruptcy risk was not the kind of thing I normally get involved in. And so what happened was really, I feel like God revealed a roadmap of questions and analysis that I should undertake.

So not should I own this stock or not, but more, here are some questions you should be asking. And that led to an interesting sort of research process, which honestly, it was sort of satisfying just as an intellectual exercise, but it led to us concluding that this was, there was something very special here, that the crux of their innovation, this was, again, not obvious. as to people, you know, 15, 16 years ago, which was that the real innovation that Tesla had at the time was their ability to get roughly 210 miles of range out of a set of batteries that are no different than the batteries that went into your iPhone. That was really the crux of their innovation. Every other electric car manufacturer had all the other attributes, all the other benefits,

but they just couldn't. It was, they could like the, I think it was the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt, all had like 50, 60 miles of range. And so the real key was their ability to overcome range anxiety. And that turned out to be a data mining, more of like a data sciences problem, than a strict mechanical or electrical engineering problem. And so it also encouraged us to think that this advantage could be durable for a reasonable period of time. That won't be durable indefinitely, but for enough a period of time that it led us to become very aggressively, aggressively purchase a stock. And so we sold it long before it became whatever it is today.

But it is probably, you know, I mean, I'm going to guess that it's probably the most successful investment, you know, just from a P&L perspective that I've ever made in my life. Do you wish you had held it at all? No. I do care about, I am a valuation conscious investor. And so when it became, I mean, and it continues to, you know, Elon's a very good storyteller. And so there's always a significant premium that we're not necessarily comfortable with. But yeah.

No, he does. We're happy with what happened. Yeah. Elon does bring an interesting multiplier. That just is a completely proprietary thing. It's like, I hope one day to get to a name level where it's kind of good Mark Cuban does sometimes. He'll invest in something, go on the news and talk about why he loves it.

And then that has to affect the stock. You know, I always wonder, like Elon puts money into anything. It's like, if he started a pager company, I'm pretty sure Bloomberg would run an article that's like, pagers are coming back. right like new you know we're returning to a simpler time right again this is probably goes beyond the scope of this podcast but i will say that elan's a highly controversial person anyone who's accrued the kind of wealth and power that he's accumulated is going to be scrutinized and at least 40% of the country will be programmed to despise him but there's quite a bit to recommend and so yeah

certainly not an Elon musk fan boy but there's a lot to admire about kind of what he's done and so So no, he had a wall of people even back then that were the primary his handler. So I met the people on their best revelations and their CFO at the time. But yeah, never got to meet him personally. So, John, what is your advice to, again, so you did really well. The Lord blessed you. What is your advice right now for those who want to be a better steward? If the idea is that, and actually let me start with this.

As a Christian, do you believe that we have a obligation? to wherever possible do well in the marketplace if we're called the marketplace because we if we earn our money, we can be good stewards of it and help, you know, participate in the kingdom. Then I'm being a very crass example here, but say I'm competing with someone else. And it's like, well, if I can get those dollars, I trust, hopefully, that I'm going to be a good steward and tithe and sew into the work of God versus an extreme example of someone who just is collecting a bunch of money and blowing it on things that we might,

as a Christian consensus, say, not furthering the kingdom of God. So do Christians have a obligation to have called the marketplace to try and be as close to 10-town stewards as possible? I think Christians have a responsibility to be faithful in the marketplace. Sometimes faithfulness will mean pursuing trajectories that are not as highly compensated and as economically rewarding as others. However, in my experience, faithfulness and a diligence and an attentiveness to being outstanding and extraordinary at the particular at our vocations will lead to significant economic reward. And so I don't want to say that we should be pursuing that with the goal of stewardship in mind. I think we should be pursuing faithfulness and excellence in its own as its own virtue.

And sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes if we do those things well, there will be significant economic reward. And I do think at that point, the question of stewardship is absolutely central. And, you know, there's no handbook on stewardship per se. At least I'm not aware of one. It's talked about constantly in the scriptures, but it's talked about in parables and it's talked about with some abstraction. I think that every Christian who is fortunate enough to experience significant economic reward must go on a journey of what it means to be a faithful steward. And, you know, I know I sound like a broken record, but the journey of faithfulness as a steward is really a journey of what it means to become close to God, to develop an intimacy with God, and developing the

ability to hear God's voice. Because if you have a significant pile of finessexious, you. resources and need to be steward and deployed, there is going to be no shortage of people who are telling you how that should be deployed, well-meaning people. There are experts and podcasters and God knows how many people out there that have thoughts on what you should be doing. And some of that, again, much of that is useful. But at the end of the day, I think these are choices that have to be made with a small circle of trusted people, but ultimately, You know, these things are decisions that are made in solitude with the Lord. Because we have to stand in front of God that will come in day where we have to stand in front of God and give an account.

And to do that well, I think we just have to, along the way, we have to become very good at sensing what God is doing. You know, I always say, you know, Jesus only did what he saw the father doing. That's one of my top five most interesting things that Jesus said, because it sort of implies that there are many, many good things that might not be what the father's doing. And so now we're in again, we're coming full circle here, the Ignatian tradition of discernment. What does it mean to discern well? What does it mean to be able to sense what God is doing? And then to join in to see whatever financial resources we have as joining in on something that God is doing. And not like money is not the primary actor.

Money certainly facilitates. Money can accelerate. But the primary actor is that God is doing something. And our job is to actually really develop that sense of what God is doing. You touched on something, and I guess I have to correct myself or check myself, is that, like, our goal is to be obedient and faithful, not successful, but success will come from those things because do you find that, especially in American Christianity, there's an implicit assumption that if you are doing well economically as a Christian, it must be because you're living a life pleasing to God. And if things are not going well, it must be, like, do we all turn into Job's friends, like when someone's going through economic hardship? And it's like, man, are you praying? enough? Are you doing this stuff? All good things, right? And of course, God does use downturns and things to get our attention. But do you find that there's that kind of understanding that your actions like works-based, you know, salvation is alive and well, an American evangelical tradition?

I would, and I would say the answer is a resounding yes. I, in my own sort of way, have contributed to this. So this is a, I'm not casting judgment on some sort of, you know, abstract institution, like even in my own life, I know how much. And, you know, what it does is it makes me humble in a way whenever we read the scriptures and we hear Jesus scolding the Pharisees for, I mean, at the core of it, so much of, I think his frustration is we just can't help but to have a legalistic, if this, then that kind of mentality. Like, if we do this, then God will do that. And that really does go back to, you know, the very beginning in the garden, like this desire for control, this desire to reduce things down to a way that we can then determine outcomes and have mastery over uncertainty, mastery over nature. And so I think the church is as guilty as anyone, you know, how do you generate a crowd?

Well, you know, you put somebody who's won, who's been successful. And, and again, I don't, you know, this is not any one person. fault. In many ways, this is sort of an institutionalized dysfunction. But it is something I'm very aware of is that there's sort of this latent prosperity gospel, this latent health and wealth. There's a latent, if this, then that. It's so much of what we do. It is hard, but it is something I'm trying to mitigate that as much as possible. So, John, you have a son, Samuel, and great name. And hopefully he says, speak now, Lord, your servant is listening. Hopefully he says that to his father, his father. I don't know if he says that. He might be a teenager now, so I don't know if he

says those kind of things. But what advice, you know, using him is he is a teenager and definitely does not say those things. All right. And hopefully you're not Eli in this analogy either. So I trust you're better off than Eli as a father. But what advice are you giving him and saying, hey, this is how I want you to think through. And then maybe that's a good composite for all our listeners out there, especially younger folks who are saying, hey, the world looks, it's scary right now. AI is changing things. I think of all the recent grads that just walked a few weeks ago and thinking through, I mean, you hear about these ceremonies where they're booing Eric Schmidt, they're booing. I made an AI joke at a event I hosted recently and it was supposed to be a joke.

Instead, I got applause because they were happy that I was making fun of it and dissing it. And I was not ready for, and this is an older audience. So it's very interesting to see. But what advice are you giving Samuel and others right now? You mentor a lot of people about how to think through being a good steward, job security. Yeah, what do you, what's the wisdom from John here? Yeah, no, these are very much at the forefront of my mind. My son is 15, so he's got a little bit of time to sort this out, but exactly. I noticed all the graduates that were booing at any time AI was mentioned. That wasn't just to Eric Schmidt. That was a pretty, that was a nationwide phenomenon. When I talked to young folks in their, you know, their 20s, thinking about entering

the labor force, just at a very practical level. I think that, how would I put this? It's very important to, well, there's a sense in which the days of being good at having a skill and then having someone recognize that skill and then tell you what to do with that skill, I think that's a tough, that's going to be a tough sell going forward. I try to encourage young people as much as possible, like beyond becoming familiar with a tool like AI. What they really have to be good at is problem solving. They kind of need to be entrepreneurial. Like, classically defined, an entrepreneur makes the decision to, as opposed to having

a boss, they're trying to read what the marketplace is saying. And of course, the market doesn't tell you what exactly what it wants, but they're trying to solve problems and address things in the market and trying to fill that gap. That's very good. different than somebody telling you what they want done. And so this is in many ways, I think, I think there's no shortage of demand of workers who know how to problem solve, who know how to, they don't need to be experts in AI, but they need to be able to say, hmm, this organization has a problem. How am I going to go about helping solve that problem? And that requires like a more, it's a different kind, it's a different set of skills than just becoming good at one thing. Like,

So obviously the proverbial example is if you're a good coder, well, guess what? There's not a lot of demand for just good coders, but there's actually quite a bit of demand inside of software entities for people who are good problem solvers. Good problem solvers are not just writing code. They're using AI. They're thinking about the business overall. They're able to think abstractly and apply interdisciplinary thinking to a problem. And so I think that's sort of what I'm trying to push both my son as well as just young people towards. And a lot of that is around having confidence and a lot of that is around having social skills. And again, you know, I do bring a lot of these things back down to like, what does it mean to be secure in who we are as children of God, as people of the scriptures to be non-anxious? These things are all connected, actually. But, I mean, that gives you a little bit of a window into how I'm thinking about this for my son and for young folk today. And then as far as following John's wisdom to discern.

God's voice and how to implement maybe some Ignatian discernment into, hey, how do I pick a calling or a vocation? Money comes in. Lord, it's yours. And because I have friends, even, you know, Abby, who you met when we did have meets earth. Like, you know, it can be frustrating at times, but she just prays about everything from even like what seat to sit on in an airplane. And I found people go, that seems extreme. And I go, well, sure, but then you think about it and you go, I mean, God tends to show up in proportion to the amount of his invitation into our lives. And if he is the alpha and the mega, you would want him as much as possible. So that really, that really impacted me because I thought if I can take, I've done that now.

There's two flights and both get me into the time that works. I go, Lord, is there someone you want me to sit next to? And I thought, well, if that's extreme, you know, Jesus tended to reward extreme pursuit of him. So, yeah, that's my shout out to turn that. But what would you say to people to invite the Lord into their decision-making, processes, especially as it comes to stewardship and wealth and work. Yeah, look, there's a part of what Abigail does that I do admire as well. I know that, I don't know if that's practical for everyone.

It requires like maybe a certain kind of disposition, and if you gravitate towards that disposition, I agree. I like to simplify this in the following way. I think we need just enough structure in how we go about discerning and hearing God's voice so that the voice of God and the presence of God can mess things up and mess with us in the context of that structure. So I think that what I mean by that is like God can break in at any moment. But of course, I think if we structurally orient our days, if we structurally orient our lives and the rhythm of our lives, that there are ways in which it maximizes, I think, the likelihood that God.

So if we're not, you know, if we organize our mornings around certain habits, that are, shall we say, more analog than digital, like walks, quiet spaces, paper Bibles instead of Fibles on phones, paper journals instead of the iPad and the pen. Look, I know I'm an old guy, so I'm trying to be a little bit. But like cultivating those spaces where it's more likely where, you know, there's just something about the mornings and a cup of coffee and a paper Bible and a paper journal that, at least for me, feels like I'm better situation. to be able to hear from God. And a croissant's on the ocean, right?

That helps too. That helps too. But I spend a lot of time encouraging young leaders and young people in general to cultivate the habits that promote a life where hearing God's voice on the regular becomes just sort of just how we live. You know, it's not like, oh my gosh, I'm in a crisis. Of course, like when they're a crisis or when they're big things, like, you know, maybe we pause everything.

But I think our life of faithfulness is built on those decisions that are not like the cat, you know, sort of all encompassing, but those like small moments where we decide, this is how I'm going to spend my mornings. You know, every morning I'm going to carve out, you know, this amount of time to make sure I'm just present before God, before the rush of everything in my day just sort of comes in. Yeah. Well, I know you too. In your schedule, John, you, for someone as busy.

and is difficult to get a hold of as I've experienced with you. I feel a little bit better because tell the listeners about you have long periods of scheduled divine boredom that allow you, which makes it slightly less offensive that you don't call me back. But I was really impressed that you carve out lengthy time to walk and pray like it's like God is scheduled in your calendar. Like a primary like top top, you know, LP and a fund, right? And I have to admit that I probably violate my commitments more often than I would when I would like. But I definitely do my best to just have these long blocked out periods of time of uninterrupted, which really means it's mostly not being in front of any digital device,

which means that I can't be reached. And I'm not tempted to check an email or I'm not tempted to go, oh my gosh, a thought just came into my mind. let me iterate on this with Claude or ChatGPT, like whatever your digital temptations are, it's become, yeah, I mean, I think for a long time now, it's a virtue that I keep coming back to. It definitely takes on different forms, but just to disengage with the digital distractions and even with other humans, embodied persons, and to find myself, whether it's to go for a long walk or to sit in the courtyard of our building when I know that there's nothing that's, you know, where I can't be interrupted.

There is real value, maybe more value than ever to being bored, to even working through. You know, I always tell people, man, those first, you know, 15 to 20 minutes, like I actually need to just put a clock down and to just say, I am not going to, I'm going to be tempted because the thoughts are just coming at a furious pace. But those first 15 to 20 minutes, you just have to say, that's sort of like your down payment. If you're going to spend a couple hours in silence and solitude and pursuing the contemplative life, you know, you just, those are the investments you need to make. But boredom is great.

It's almost necessary. And the scriptures tell us, Jesus often withdrew to lonely places. Because I imagine he had more demands on his time than anybody, you know, than, you know, Elon Musk or the, you know, president of the United States. And so he withdrew to lonely places. I think that's an essential part of what it means to be a functioning person in this moment. John, what is something as a fruit of this exercise? How have you learned to discern God's voice?

Does he show up as a thought? Is it somewhere that kind of invades out of nowhere? And then maybe an example or two of something that's thought, huh, I think that's God. I'm going to act on that. And it was proven correct. You know, I've got a set of devotionals. But again, this is not a marketing thing when he's a stretch. there's this thing called the handbook to prayer, which is really just praying scripture back to God.

And I think there are millions of versions of this. So this is not just a prayer guide that is structured enough, but basically repeating God's word back to him. And there's also one of my favorite devotionals comes from, it was actually my wife first sent this to me. It's from Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sparrow. Just these simple daily devotionals that are topically engaged, but are absolutely, again, just rooted in God's word. That practice, and very recently, I, you know, I was involved in a situation with one of our major portfolio companies where there was like really a major breach in trust and confidence between, you know, myself and the lead founder. And it was, you know, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, but this one

really got to me because, you know, I just felt like I'd been, I'd been my best self. I'm not always at my best. But in this situation, I feel like I was at my best. And my instinct, as a type A, sort of aggressive person, like, I want to solve this. And I want to be able to, I want to be able to do something about it. You know, there was a scripture, I think it's Exodus, I think it's Exodus 1414, where the Israelites are running from the Egyptians. And it says, you need only be still, the Lord will fight. And it's a simple scripture. But it was timely in that moment because I basically, and it's very hard for someone of my personality. I just said, you know what? I'm actually going to be still right now. I'm not going to try to find a solution or make a set of calls or somehow strategize. I'm

just going to let this thing play out and trust that God is doing something. Now, it took quite a few months, but I think there's real healing there. And again, I always want to say your mileage may vary, But I think that it's the most recent example of a very charged moment where I think the ability to locate myself in the biblical narrative to be reminded of the scriptures, what the scriptures have to say, and the timeliness of this devotional kind of resulted in me taking a course of action that, you know, I suspect that if I followed my default tendencies and I would have been found a way to justify my defaulted tendencies. but I think, you know, God arrested my attention with that devotional and with that scripture. And so far, I think the fruit of this has been apparent and I hopefully be even bigger in the future. And of course, he doesn't just speak through scripture to you, John. He also speaks through your gut biome and your gastrointestinal duress. Could you talk to us a little bit about trusting your gut with real estate investing?

This was, well, I'm really good with dates. So this was in 2004, you know, my wife and I, we were thinking about moving to a bigger place to accommodate some of the things we wanted to get involved in, some of the hosting that we felt like we were being called into. And so we found a place that was perfect for our needs. We had this moment, my wife and I, where we were trying to figure out what price to bid. And so, you know, we started with a price that was somewhere near the list price. And I said, God, if this is the number, please reveal it that it is so by having an audible

sound come from my belly. I know this sounds totally crazy. But there's a long time ago. I'm just like trying stuff. It's okay. You're Gideon at this point. I think God. Yeah, you're Gideon.

I think God would go to death. Yeah, exactly. And then I gradually started to lower the price little by little. And then finally, there was a price that was pretty far below the asking price. And then both my wife and I heard the audible sound. And then we basically put that in front of the realtor. They kind of said we appreciate it, but we're not going to transact at that price. We were very confused, as you might expect.

We felt like we heard something from God. We went back into prayer later that evening. And, you know, I remember asking God, like, God, they've refused our offer. We must have heard wrong. As a result, I'm going to, I think we just need to raise our offer by a little bit. And we heard the loudest growl out of my stomach. And my wife was just like, oh, my gosh, it is very clear that God does not want us to raise our price. And so, you know, we basically.

We were really confused. You know, we tried to do this in as faithful a way as we can. And then, you know, my wife was just leaning into some of her prophetic instincts at this time. And she's just like, look, this was a Sunday evening. And she just said, look, I feel like God just said to me that, you know, just to wait three days. And I was like, all right. So we waited Monday, nothing. Tuesday, nothing.

Wednesday. It was around 10.30 a.m. I was actually, this shows how long ago this was. I was AOL instant messaging with my wife about a separate matter. And then I get a call from the broker saying that if we're still interested at that price, we'll have a deal. And I remember texting her, OMG, to my wife. Wow. At that moment, on the third day, we get the call back from the broker. And that was, we lived there, you know, for 10 years. That's candidly where we started to do a lot of the things that have sort of received its sort of fuller bloom here at Corum Deo, this sort of multi-purpose facility we have here in New York City. Wow. But like I said, I mean, I think the beauty of when God speaks and when God does these prophetic things, it's the gift that keeps giving. Just like coming back to MIT, it just changed a trajectory of my life with God. It was about more than just that moment.

Even this thing with my stomach rousing and this real estate purchase, it's about more than just that transaction. It was about the kind of life of hosting and gathering that it sort of put us on that is now, in many ways, kind of what we're doing a major part of our lives here in New York City today. So, yeah, when God gives, when God interacts with us prophetically like that, it turns out to be about more than just that moment. Wow. That's amazing. Also, it gives you pause, right? If you got a really prophetic wife, you better be careful. I think of Gahazi coming back from Neiman and Elisha's saying, where have you been? And he's like, I've been here the whole time. And he says, did my spirit not go with you?

So be on your best behavior, John. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I know we've got to get you out of here. Let me ask you this, John. As someone who has just been blessed, a lot of means, talk to me a little bit about Mammon, the love of money, what you've seen, how its effects on people, and then maybe to people who are thinking, gosh, I'm just barely getting by. And it looks like they have it all. There's a downside or there's, I should say there's a cost to having a lot of money.

I've seen it, having worked with a lot of people, immense wealth. And can we just get some reflections on just the love of money and being a follower of Christ and kind of what you've experienced with it? Yeah, I mean, there's so much to say, but just to be concise for a moment. I think the scriptures speak about the love of money. I think and Mammon, I feel like, is about more than just money. It's sort of this all-encompassing, I think maybe power is the real proxy that people are going for. And money is certainly one of those things that if you have, it's a good proxy for power.

And I think that's really where the danger resides because it's not just about people who accrue significant financial wealth. There are so many other forms of power. in this day and age that people are pursuing. And I just think that there's something about, this is why silent solitude in the contemplative life is so, again, it's not the cure-all. But I feel like when you regularly engage in these sort of monastic rhythms that basically remind you of the importance of simplicity,

of the quiet life, I don't know, for me and for people that, And, you know, the folks that are sort of in the community and the spaces that I inhabit, I've just sort of noticed that, you know, whether you have significant power and resources, or whether you have or you don't have them, you know, the temptation's always there to have more. But I think that these rhythms of rest, these rhythms, these monastic rhythms that are ancient, again, not complicated, not, they're not new. They're kind of making a little bit of a comeback with some thinkers and writers that are somewhat popular in the church these days. But I think, I mean, those tend to be, for me, the simplest ways to curb some of these instincts and curb some of these temptation.

And I'll say this in particular for men, for young men that are in this lot. I think friendship is the, I think being genuinely known, which I know it's hard, especially for leaders and for people. who are growing in authority and favor with God and man. It can feel lonely, but it's important to be known. In fact, I might even argue that the best antidote to becoming a sociopath or somebody who is like consumed by power is actually just to be known, to be genuinely known by a group of people. That in of itself somehow does something to us, I think, spiritually.

It mutes some of our worst instincts because I think these things thrive in isolation. So be known, be very well known. You know a lot of rich people, John, since you get to do life with some of them. Does money buy happiness? Or, you know, is it, we're paying with broad strokes here. But you live in Manhattan, the city where just living there requires a certain level of competence. It's tough. But any observations on having interfaced and intersected with some of the wealthiest people in the world?

I can definitively say it does not. I mean, I came from the world of hedge funds and private. equity and my guess is that the divorce rates are a lot higher in buy industry than in the national average. I think that, or at least that's sort of like my sense. And yeah, I mean, in many ways, many of the folks that I've, you know, been in vocational life with for a long time, I mean, they're living proof that, you know, they have the resources to buy whatever they want. And yet, they're always searching. They're searching for more. Now, they don't always direct it into ways and trajectories where you might find better answers. So they run a lot of

experiments, and there are many experiments you can run these days. I know it's a cliche, but it turns out that the scriptures have a lot to say about where contentment comes from, and not just like the proverbial life with God, but even the kinds of habits, the kinds of relationships, you know, the kinds of things that we anchor our lives on that are more likely than not to lead to the contentment. It's hard to tell somebody who, because there's always somebody wealthier than you in New York. That's one thing. So it's hard to know, like, where does even the concept of having enough? Like, where does contentment even come from, right? Especially when it's that drive for more, that was usually what led to the success that of most of my peers. So I'm preaching to myself at this

Amen. We all need to. All right, John, last question. I'd be remiss if I'd ask you, and I'll lump these two together. We've had a lot of UFO talk and then AI talk. And you hear AI, it's funny, both of those seem to have a plausible role in eschatology. But let me, I'll just take each one of those. So one, do you think AI could plausibly be involved in the eschatology end times? And then also, what's your thoughts on the UFOs? Could it just be a demonic deception? because I've been asking myself, what would actually cause humans to worship something, right? Not like you're really good, not like LeBron James, you're amazing, but you're still a human. Like, I'm not going to call you God. Like, what would actually cause a human being to say, yes, like, I worship you?

I don't have a lot to say about UFOs. I know there's been a lot more talk about that stuff recently, but I've not totally investigated. But it would not surprise me if things, I understand the nature of the question based on the little that I've read. I have a little bit more to say about it with respect to AI. I will say that, well, for starters, I remember a Tim Keller sermon when, you know, he's talking about the end times. And I think he's quoting the first or second Timothy where, you know, the end times, it'll come like a thief in the night, which basically was Tim's way of saying we shouldn't have obsessed too much about when this is going to happen. At the same time, there are certain clues that clearly the scriptures give. And the one

that is most germane for me right now is the manner in which the frontier labs in AI, and this is just all, I'm not revealing anything private in what I'm about to say, like, you just read the kinds of papers and the kinds of interviews that a lot of these organizations have given. And it's pretty clear that the techno optimist in Silicon Valley believe that we're creating something that's a higher being than humans. And I just think that, yeah, I'm just, There's something in there that reveals something about like the character of the end times. Now, like, I don't think too much about like, is it imminent? I think about with AI, and I say this a lot, I think more in terms of Genesis than Revelation.

I think about AI as a tool. I think about God's command to fill the earth and subdue it. I think a lot about how AI is in many ways a modern day sort of representation of the Tower of Babel, where, you know, the scriptures tell us that speaking one language, nothing they attempt to do will be impossible for them. That's what an LLM is. And LLM has flattened all data into one language, the language of tokens, which when you apply transformer-based neural networks on top of that, that's why you get something that is so powerful.

But I think about what it means to reverse the curse of the Tower of Babel. And, you know, in the New Testament, it's all about scattering. In the Tower of Babel, they wanted to gather and build a tower to the heavens. They feared being scattered, understandably, because it was right after the flood. I'm imagining this is where the kind of picture, in my mind's eye, is a community of Christians that are scattered in every sphere in government, in nonprofit, in business, in technology, and non-technology. But it's the scattered people of God with a real redeemed vision of what it looks like to fulfill our calling as sons and daughters of the king. And to continue to build signposts at the kingdom of God. God is at hand. I don't know if that delays the end times, but I do know that that's sort of

in general. I take the calling from Genesis 1 to fill the earth and to subdue it very seriously. And I think the picture of scattered believers, the church scattered, occupying every sphere of private and public life and demonstrating that the kingdom of God is at hand, that's the picture that I want to see. Amen. John, we could talk until Christ comes back. But we don't. have them much time. Or maybe we do. We don't know. Who knows? But John, can you swear under oath that you are actually on the call right now and it's not your AI avatar? We're not quite there yet, but I am training an AI to replicate my thoughts. This is me.

I don't know how we would verify this. We need some. There's a totem. We need like inception. Everyone needs to have a totem that will be able to authenticate and say this is who I am. You know, I mean, actually, in my family, we actually started talking about doing just like a private password totem because we've already had one call come in where someone tried to use my voice while I was traveling to tell my dad that I needed money. Wow. Yeah, that's an easy one for the AIs to replicate because getting your voice replicated is not that hard. Especially if you're a podcast host and there's copious amounts of it and you're an extrovert. So we'll invite John back to discuss my new peer-reviewed paper, are extroverts more at risk for AI-induced geriatric fraud.

The answer is a resounding yes. So on that note, John, J.K., thanks so much for joining us, and I hope you'll come back and talk to us soon. And as long as I have a job on a podcast that can't create me. I love this because I tell people, too, tell you agree with this as we go out, own your likeness. Like, if you're at all in that world, like try and get your likeness down and brand it because AI can't replace you as of now. So if you want to create a brand around

yourself, you know, at least for now with the copyright laws, you can still have yourself, right? Indeed. Indeed. It's always a delight talking to, Ryan. I mean, I know we're doing this in this podcast format, but it's super, I really enjoyed doing this. So I'm really happy anytime you want to continue this with any topic, hopefully in two weeks, we'll be talking about how the NICs have delivered on a 50-plus year promise. But in case they don't, we'll talk about something else. Well, for anyone who doubts the veracity of generational curses, as have been documented in the show,

they need look no further than certain sports franchises, right, John? That is for sure. That is for sure. Absolutely. Well, thank you for listening, folks. This is John Kim. I'd tell you where to find him, but you can't, unless you seek him with your whole heart.

We'll put some links to anything he's done that he'll permit us. but at the very least, hopefully we can find a hotel wreck in Spain for you all. So God bless you all, and thank you for listening.