The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 42 | Blake J. Harris | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Episode Date: June 22, 2019

Glenn sits down with Blake J. Harris, best-selling author of "Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that Defined a Generation," which is currently being adapted for television by Legendary Entertainment, and producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Scott Rudin. He has written for ESPN, IGN, Fast Company, and the AV Club as well as makes a regular appearance on Paul Scheer's "How Did This Get Made?" podcast. His latest book, "The History Of The Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality" which details his inner workings at Facebook. However, due to the political nature of the book, Harris was blackballed from interviews subsequently burying this bestselling author at 33,000 and after joining Glenn on his radio program, he skyrocketed up all the way up to No. 3. In this interview, Blake J. Harris reveals a truly shocking story about Mark Zuckerberg and what really happened to Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On paper, today's guest and I are an odd couple for a podcast. We come from different places politically, but our common ground is the search for truth. When truth becomes subservient to our tribe, we're all doomed. My guest on this podcast is a rare breed, a nonfiction writer who tries to report the truth rather than trying to score political points. His work focuses on technology and entertainment, future kind of technology topics. He's the best-selling author of console wars, Sega Nintendo, and The Battle That Defined a Generation. That book is being developed for TV by producer Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.

His latest book is called The History of the Future, Oculus, Facebook, and the revolution that swept virtual reality. It is a fantastic book that tells the dramatic story of a guy named Palmer Lucky. He's the founder of the virtual reality company, Oculus, that eventually ran. and a foul of Mark Zuckerberg in Facebook for having the wrong political worldview. This is fascinating no matter who Palmer Lucky was for in a presidential campaign. But it is also a timely story that reveals the dark side of big tech politics that no one in mainstream media has bothered to dig into. Until my guest today, he's not a guest that you will see really on any mainstream media.

He was an A-list guest for his last book, They can't even find the alphabet for him now. So what is the history of our future? Will we be truth tellers? Or will we remain caged by our own tribalism? Our guest for that answer is Blake J. Harris. So if I would have told you that you would be sitting at this table with me in 2019, if I would have said that to you in 2016, what would you have said?

I would have said the evil. Glenn Beck we're talking about? Something like that. Right. Right. But then again, and I'm sure we'll get into it, but if I've learned one thing over the past few years working on this book, it's to definitely be skeptical of what you read about people in the media. So actually by 2019, I'd say, I'd be very interested in meeting Glenn. I don't think we'll get a log on much. But we did. Yeah, I don't have a problem. In fact, I just have to start with complimenting you, how rare you are to find somebody that actually will tell the truth when it personally hurts. There's, you know, I, you know, I know a lot of people like, no,

I'll tell the truth. But when it comes down to it, no, they won't. No, they won't. Because they have an agenda or because in your case, you're going to be destroyed. That's what was facing you. We're going to destroy you. How hard is that to tell the truth? I still don't think it's my job. I mean, it seems hard for other people to do it, and I don't think I'm that special of a journalist. I really appreciate the compliment.

But when I signed up to write this book or to be a storyteller and a journalist telling nonfiction stories, that's just what you do. You do. So it never really even occurred to me, you know, in terms of considering the consequences, thinking about that, you know, the media that had loved me for my first book would hate me for this one or that I would face pushback from Facebook or any of that stuff. My response was just, all right, I need to line up my next book and make sure it's not based on getting access to a tech company.

Not, not, hmm, maybe I should massage the truth to make it. There was never any time that you thought this is not worth it. Not to lie, but just to not tell the truth. truth. No, and that's, I don't, I think that's less about my integrity and more just about Palmer in two ways. Seeing what happened to Palmer lucky, seeing how much he became hated in Silicon Valley. Yeah.

So, you know, seeing how hated Palmer was and the vitriol directed him from the media, from the people, as I told you in that email, like, it was never going to be that bad for me. So I felt like, I can't complain if he. didn't complain. And then the other is just his character. I know him probably better than almost anyone in the world at this point talking to him every day for the last few years, you know, except for maybe his girlfriend, now fiancee. And I just, I couldn't, I needed to do right by him. You know, I needed to get the story out. Yes, he supports a politician that I find very objectionable. But, but the thing that did bond me in Palmer, the reason why I've,

in retrospect, believe I was selected to tell the story and got this incredible. access from Oculus and Facebook is because I really always bonded with Palmer over our mutual love of the First Amendment. I thought that, you know, we had conversations about it in, in terms of a virtual reality, like, you know, in a virtual environment, what should the rules be, you know, should it be, I remember what time we're talking about, like, should it be like a my house, my rules thing? So plan if you want to use a lot of four-letter words, that's fine. But, you know, everyone sets it up. And these were things I didn't really think about because I also took them for granted. Like, I think a lot of people do and we can't anymore. So yeah, it was tough. It was excruciating at times. It was exhausting.

For me, the hardest part was less the reception or lack of reception or the impact on my career potentially or actually. But it was, it was seeing Facebook lie to my face systematically. You were a fan of Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah. And Facebook. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have like a, You know, like a number one fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I thought, like, also going back to your question of how would I have felt meeting you back before I knew you and just from what I read, you know, I do really admire entrepreneurs so much.

So, so even like Alex Jones, who I find pretty vile. Like, I'm like, you know, he's put together a pretty good business with Infowars. I kind of admire that. Yeah, I mean, it is like a little cartel in a way. Right, right. So, yeah, I don't know if I really admire it. But like, I really admired. for his sticking with his mission of connecting people for setting up this company?

I will tell you that I met Mark and was at Facebook and I've got my problems with Facebook, but he's a genuine feeling kind of guy. You don't see him when you meet him and you're talking to him. He really seems like, look, we're just trying to do the right thing. You know, and this is the company that we're doing and this is how we're trying it. And I, you know, why would I want to edit anybody's speech? would I want to do any of that? I don't want to control all that. And you believe him. And I've stuck up for Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, until recently, I took a lot of heat.

I don't, that's not. No, that's not what's happening at Facebook. So you had mentioned when I was on the show that you had stuck up for Mark and that you had the same feeling about him that I did and I would have went to bat for him. And then you said, you no longer believe him. When did that start to change for you, that you became skeptical of what he and Facebook were? just the actions of what they were doing. You know, it just doesn't, I'm sorry, you can only say, oh, that was a mistake or that was just an oversight. You can only say that so many times before you go, you know, I don't think so. And I'm growing concerned.

And I want to talk about this later with his insistence on, I want regulation. No entrepreneur ever says, I want the government regulation. And I have a theory and I want to pass it by you. All right. Yeah. As we go. But let's start with Palmer. Sure.

Palmer is, this is the greatest American. This is, you don't think of Steve Jobs being able to start Apple again. You don't, I mean, what's his name from Microsoft? Bill Gates said, you couldn't start Microsoft today. So you don't think of somebody in a little trailer who's just got this crazy idea being able to become a Titan overnight. Right. And it's so Palmer for anyone who's read the book or knows Palmer that it was a camper trailer

parked in his parents' driveway in Long Beach and not a garage. Because, you know, now there's this fabled idea that Apple was started by the Steve's in a garage and everyone sort of copies it, homage. But, you know, the whole thing with Apple was think different. People are thinking similarly to think differently. You know, Palmer really is an original. Love him or hate him. You're not going to find another Palmer lucky.

and for me as a writer, what better way to start the story than with this kid? How old was he? He was 19 years old. And by the way, this is a tangent, but I was pulling up the novel that I wrote in college when I was 21 and reading it over the weekend just because I was going through all stuff

and I was like, this is such garbage. This guy thought he was smart. And I was like, wow. And I was two years old than Palmer when he started this billion-dollar company. Yeah, yeah. So I forget that at times, you know, because he's so precocious. And he's just also so himself, you know, we'll get into it later.

But a lot of people, the ones who've still talked to me about Palmer, they usually say, they try to excuse his actions and say, oh, but he was very young donating to this Trump organization. You know, like he'll learn or he'll mature. And I was like, we can agree whether it was a good decision to do that or not. But I'm pretty sure 40 years from now, it's going to be the same guy, especially now that he has money because he is himself. and that, as a writer, you know, those are the people that you...

They're interesting. Yeah, they're very interesting. So he, when did he start tinkering with things? How, I mean, how did he... Yeah, it's a good question. So, you know, the book starts in April 2012 when he's discovered by John Carmack, this legendary programmer that viewers and listeners might know from creating games like Doom and Quake and first person shooters and he's a pioneer in that genre.

But I always kind of found it fascinating and almost a little unfair to him that, um, that the book starts in 2012. That's when he founds Oculus. But there's also this whole other story of the three years that led to this thing. We talked about it being like this great American dream story, the American dream in 2012 or 2019. And it's, you know, you start with like the product, the thing. And to get to that thing now that he had to go through three years of working on this.

So he started in 2009. But can I put that in perspective? Tesla came to the United States. He spent decades toiling and working. I mean, things have changed so much that somebody with a good idea can't take it to market pretty much finished in three years. Yeah. Or actually, things have changed so much that you can sell it for billions of dollars before even finishing the product, which does feel like a very America in the 21st century sort of story.

But you're totally right to it. And that's why I love the story, not just because I think Palmer is this incredible character and a great proxy for our times and just a great inspiration, but because it is an ensemble story, you know, without Brendan Areeb, his partner, who becomes the CEO and makes the initial investment. How old was he? Brendan is a couple years old than me. I'm 36. So he must have been like 32 or so. You know, I remember. Did they know each other?

They didn't know each other. And that's like a credit to Brendan. Brendan received a tip, you know, is described to the, you know, it's described to book as like the scene from back to the future where Marvin Barry calls up says you to listen to this new sound and like he got he gets this call that you know you got to check out this Palmer lucky kid he dazzled at this video game trade show and and Brendan before even trying a demo it already invested like $200,000 which I think you could say he's either a true believer or he's a serial risk taker and I think it's a little bit of both but they really hit it off they had a dinner together that was chronicled in the book and really sort of foreshadowed a lot of what was to come.

And I remember the first time I met with Brendan after I was given this access and he asked me back, this was February 2016, you know, what's your vision for the book? I said, it's way too early. Especially it was way too early. I had no idea where it was going. But I said, I kind of imagine it's the marriage between you and Palmer, between the entrepreneur and the inventor. And, and, you know, I think it's interesting to think that it still would have been the same invention, but without people like Brendan, without an endorsement from John Carmack, without all these people coming together, it wouldn't have been successful. It wouldn't have been successful in this way. And then, you know, Palmer's the one who's on the cover of wire,

the cover of Time, the cover of popular mechanics. So people think it's a one-man show. That leads to some resentment amongst the group. Right, right. But at least that was positive media coverage compared to what was to come. Yeah. So tell me, tell me about Oculus. and how big of a leap this was for the industry? Sure. So, you know, Oculus is a virtual reality company. Palmer's, you know, one of the great things about this book that I didn't have this luxury with my last one,

which was from the 90s, was that all the stuff was archives or a lot of the stuff was archived. I ended up getting emails and other private exchanges, but, you know, he had an original website for Oculus and described this as his tilt to try to make virtual reality happen. virtual reality had failed so many times over the past several decades. Why? Because it was for a lot of reasons. I mean, first of all, I would say that Oculus did sell the Facebook for $3 billion,

but they're not even necessarily success now, even with all those resources. But largely, technology, it was very expensive. That was a huge barrier. And then it's this chicken and egg problem. You're selling a virtual reality headset or goggles or glasses or whatever you, however form factor it's going to be. And that's the hardware. But the hardware is worthless without the software. That's why Magic Leap sold their products out to producers first.

Right, exactly. And that was something I mentioned Brendan Arib, the CEO. That was one of his ideas with, you know, originally Palmer's plan was to start to do a Kickstarter and only sell this to people who were enthusiasts like him. And there was, you know, less than 100 people in the world who cared about virtual reality. And Brendan wasn't saying, oh, let's sell it to Blake and Glenn just yet.

Let's sell it to the producers. Let's sell it to the developers. So that way we'll create this ecosystem and trying to solve this chicken egg problem. And that was no easy proposition. But that, in hindsight, was one of the things that underratedly was a big part of the success, knowing your customer. It's also a good thing to contrast to now, which I'm sure we'll get into with Mark and what his vision for VR. But the biggest problem I would say for Oculus right now is that they don't know their customer.

The way that it's been phrased to me is that Mark would rather sell a million headsets to the right people. and by right means like a demographically representative group of people, then he would to sell 10 million units today to the actual demand, which is, this happens with other companies too now. It's not really capitalism. It's like activism slash capitalism, where you're not trying to supply demand,

you're trying to create assertive demand, not in the way of like where Steve Jobs would say, you know. So tell me the difference, tell me the difference between that and, a fashion designer that just will not make size 12 dresses. I mean, isn't that kind of the same thing? They want their product on a certain look, and they don't want it on, you know, the average everyday person. No, it's a good comparison. Especially because, you know, if you look at the thinking with how Facebook has

proceeded with VR and AR and AR's augmented reality. When I talked to the executives back before I was blackballed, they, you know, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they're, they had a sample size experience of one major success starting Facebook. And so they often thought about VR in terms of Facebook. And one thing that they talked about was that Facebook, unlike MySpace or Friendsster, or these other social network companies, Facebook had an almost equal mix of men and women. and that was enticing.

You know, basically social media network is like a party and you're saying come on in. So in that respect, you know, designing the dresses for fashionable people is there is a comparison to be made. Though I feel like the motivation is different here. I think that so much of the rhetoric at Facebook and some of their decision and a lot of their decision making seems based on inclusivity and, you know, it doesn't...

When you say inclusivity, what you really mean is exclusivity, making sure that only a certain group get it and not another group. Right. I mean, like I spoke with a lot of, in addition to people at Oculus and Facebook, I spoke with a lot of developers,

a lot of white male developers, and they were explicitly told that Facebook was not looking in that direction for, for, you know, that sort of creator, which is crazy because they're actually creating something. You won't, like, you'll never,

even know what these people look like. I guess it trickles down in some way maybe to their aesthetic. But really, I mean, this is obviously a much larger cultural question, but it's just so weird that you could watch a movie like The Godfather now and say, you know,

this is Francis Ford Coppola made this and people would have a different opinion than if you say Tina Fey made this. I mean, like, it shouldn't really matter. Look at Game of Thrones. You watch Game of Thrones and then you see the guy who wrote Game of Thrones. You're like, Well, that doesn't match.

Right. You know what I mean? It doesn't. What difference does that make? Right. And this is an issue that I care about a lot, and we are probably pretty aligned on because I come at it from the perspective as an artist, as a creator.

Yeah. I want to write about people like Palmer. I want to write about interesting people of all ethnicities, genders. I don't care. So to feel, you know, it does seem more and more like if I were to write a book with a female protagonist I would be concerned about some sort of appropriation or anything along those lines, which is really antithetical to why I got into storytelling. Yeah.

And antithetical to what we've always been taught from Martin Luther King. Right. Touch me by the content of my character. You know, just judge my work. Not what, what are you looking at me for? Right. And that's, you know, I will say that part of, you know, part of, this is a great example. this story. You asked me, you know, like, it was, I had a bite my tongue at times when I was writing

it because while conveying the subjective perspectives, I conveyed why people like Trump and I don't like Trump. But that is partly why I wanted to write. I wanted to get inside other people's heads. I wanted to understand that. And it made me a better person for it, or at least I'm a happier person for knowing that. And it's just been kind of saddening. Like, like this experience really did open my eyes to just always thinking about that Martin Luther King Jr. quote and talking to, I mean, I guess now there's, at the time, I think that like a lot of liberals, I was kind of blind to the big divide between maybe a new left or a very progressive left and more of a classical liberal or people like me who had always voted Democrat and getting into

the more of the cultural issues. And, you know, this really opened my eyes up to that. And when I talked to my, some of my ultra-progressive friends and bring that quote up, it's always just, there's this asterisk, like, well, yeah, eventually that'll be the goal. But we have to, you know, offset all these years of oppression. And I'm, like, I'm sympathetic to try and offset that. But like, do you have a formula? Like, what is it? And it's more just like, well, we'll know when we see it. I mean, I don't know. This is not pornography where we just know when we see that. And you got, you know, hundreds of millions of people in this country. I don't think people are going to be cool with a, we'll know what we see it perspective. Yeah. And it, and, and, you know, it's, and, you know,

It's not changing hearts. It's hardening hearts. It's hardening hearts. Right. You got to, it's, you know, we, we, we worked so hard to break down barriers between us. And we were nowhere near finished by any stretch of the imagination. But we had made some really good progress to where I really believe, um, a majority of people, 80% really just didn't see color.

They just didn't. I mean, you're, you're good at what you do. I don't really care. I don't really care. And I think that a lot of that is reversing now. But people are seeing white. They're seeing black.

They're seeing handicapped. We're just categorizing people into groups instead of saying, we're all human. Now, what do you bring to the table? Right. And that's something that I'm sure you were aware of and had your pulse on much earlier than I did. And that has really become clearer to me in the past few years. And it's really disconcerting. partly too because, you know, as a journalist, you know,

objectivity is my North Star. And then I hear people, some of these terrible journalists, or just skeptics say, well, there's no such thing as objectivity. And then it's like, we can argue whether that's true or not. And then they just basically respond like, well, all the rules are out. So we can be as subjective as we want to be. And I agree that maybe there's no such thing. is true, there's probably

a thing it's true objectivity, but it's, but it's a goal. Yeah, it's a goal. It's, I've met with journalists, and this is, this is the norm. I met with people who come in knowing what they're going to write, and then all they're doing is just

right. The bad lips thing. Yes, it is. That's not a journalist. A journalist could come in and say, I think I know what's going on. Are you willing to see it from a different perspective? If you walk up to something and you're like, that's not what I thought. Are you willing to say it? Many are not. Right. And I'm sure we'll get really into the journalism aspect of it because that is one of my big

takeaways from this. But I just think about that objectivity being my North Star and the more experience I have, the more I feel this way. It's not like, oh, I become more jaded. There's no such thing as objectivity in terms of colorblindness because you said 80% of people are color. blind. I don't know. I know. You were just throwing, but like, I mean, we're not now. Whatever the number is. Yeah. I'm sure, or I'm not sure, but I'm open to the idea that on some subconscious level, these things do impact us, but that doesn't mean that the rules are thrown out. That's still the goal. I thought the goal was still colorblind. You know, it's amazing to me. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and in doubt

by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. people say the opposite about that that Martin Luther King did. Martin Luther King said, live up to that standard. That's our mission statement. This is, this is, hey, King, we got to part ways because you don't even know who we are. You think we're like you. We're not like you. We have this whole different idea.

We think this. And so we're going to create a government that tries to do that. Right. Okay. If we could accomplish that, it's time for a new mission statement. You know what I mean? It's time for a reach of a goal. This is such a reach for a goal.

We're throwing this out and saying, well, that won't work. Well, wait. Of course it's never worked, but are we getting closer or farther away? Right. No, you're totally right. And it's that. There's something aspirational about it. It's a mission statement.

And I'm. definitely not ready to burn down the house and try to start a new mission statement. I think it's a good challenge. I think it's a good comfort that that's the goal, that that's what hopefully society is trying to provide you with. But there's a lot of people who just seem to have this mentality that it seems foreign to me where it's like, well, if not everyone, you know, not everyone has life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or doesn't have it equally. So we need to go back to the drawing board. And then you have to get to the opportunity cost also of, okay, well, okay, maybe this isn't the best way. But what's the better way?

Oh, well, we'll figure that out. Churchill said this is the worst system except everything else that's ever been done. And it's true. It's true. I feel, I agree. Yeah. All right. So I want people to read the book because it's a fantastic book.

but it changes halfway through because you're telling this great story of this entrepreneur and tech and how it's all working and then Donald Trump appears right yeah I mean

of course I could never prognosticated Trump would be part of the story just because I didn't think he was going to be running for president though to Palmer's credit you know we talk about visionaries as people seeing the world differently and sort of being a little head of the curve

I still think it's amazing that in March 2011 Palmer posted online that Donald Trump was thinking about running for president in the 2012 election that he was very supportive of that and thought it would be a great idea. I remember he said that to me the first time. I was like, wait, this is from 2015. And he's like, no, no, no. It's from 2011. I was like, I remember seeing him come down the escalator going, this is crazy.

Yeah. This is crazy. But he saw it way in advance. him and and I think Peter Thiel not as soon, but Peter Thiel is one of the other people that I, you know, spoke with. So some degree because he's on the Facebook board, but, but you know, it talked about his Trump support. And, you know, these are the kinds of people who you, there's, of course, a luck aspect to the success of entrepreneurship. But then you see, all right, these people see things differently in a way where they can feel something becoming a part of the zeitgeist before other people do. So when we saw Trump come down on the escalator, I'm like, oh my God.

this guy's going to be a joke. Good fodder for the daily show. Nope. They see actually how it can resonate. And speaking of Peter T. The other thing I was thinking about the other day that I thought was interesting was, you know, Mark Andreessen, another famous venture capitalist from Andreessen Hurwitz. He had given an interview, not with me, but it was a, I think it was a podcast.

You know, something I listened to in 2017. This was shortly after Palmer was fired from. Facebook and he talked about how the that this is a guy who knows everyone in Silicon Valley and he said there's only two people I know in Silicon Valley who are publicly Trump supporters or who are willing to say that they're Trump supporters Palmer lucky and Peter Thiel and that's obviously a problem for a lot of reasons because I think that there's more than two that are just we're unwilling to say it but it's interesting to me that now here we are in 2019 less than two years after he said that and both Peter and Palmer are out of Silicon Valley and it's not because they don't like the geography there

It's because there's other stuff going on. So he posts his support for Donald Trump. And it's not crazy. Is it when he first comes out and says I'm for Donald Trump, it's not, he's not like. Well, it was crazy back in 2011 because who would. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I mean, when this story really starts to take, he's sold his business to Oculus. And he's not like, you know, in the Trump gear and, you know, walking down Facebook, you know, with flags and going.

No, no, he's actually, he is much more like how I remembered politics when I was growing up, where I remember I once asked my home economics teacher, which I would suspect is not really a class anymore, even though I thought it was very useful to learn those skills. And I remember asking her who she voted for in the election. I guess I was in eighth grade, it must have been 96. And she got mad at me. Like, that's a very personal thing to ask. We don't, you don't ask people about politics. And that's sort of Palmer's mentality, which once he was, you know, it was determined that he was a villain. Everyone thought, oh, that's him being sneaky. He doesn't want to talk about his politics.

No, that's just, he doesn't think that matters. He was there to do virtual reality stuff and do cool tech stuff. That was irrelevant. But, yeah, he had no qualms with publicly being a Trump supporter not long after the escalator introduction of Trump. You know, one of the things I find fascinating that it's not in this edition of the book, but I will put in a later edition. because I'm still getting information. More information. Fortunately, no contradictory information, but I'm still getting other cool details that I want to include is that in April of 2016,

Palmer went to a Trump rally in Costa Mesa. And the reason I know that is not just because he told me, but because there was an NBC video talking about protesters outside of the rally, and Palmer was one of the people interviewed as like, you're at this Trump rally, what was it like? Or what was the protesters like? So he had no problem being...

He wasn't hiding. Yeah, he wasn't hiding. Exactly. It wasn't hiding it. He knew this was going to be on the news, potentially millions of people to see it, potentially no one. But he had no problem hiding it. And then we flash forward to five months later when he makes this $10,000 donation to an organization. And he does it anonymously, which people then say he did it because he was sneaky about it or he was trying to cover it up or whatever they say. And you have to ask yourself, well, then what changed over the five months?

And the answer is Peter Thiel. The answer is that in, you know, in between that was the Republican National Congress. convention in 2016. Peter spoke there and came out as a Trump supporter, as a gay man, Trump supporter. And people on Facebook want, so many people on Facebook wanted to get him fired from the board of Facebook for the only reason was just that he was a Trump supporter. Shouldn't shouldn't? I mean, I was not a Trump supporter at that time. And, uh, and I saw that. And I thought, I don't understand what Peter is seeing here. But what a cool moment. What a cool moment for a gay man successful to stand up in front of a whole bunch of people that supposedly hate gay people.

And he's got this warm reception. And he speaks openly about it. This is a great thing. May not like his candidate, but this is a good moment. I totally agree. Because some of my reluctance over the years to embrace Republican candidates or, you know, why I wouldn't be tempted to the dark side was because so many of my close friends are homosexual and there was always felt like for various reasons that they were unwelcome.

I think that's, I think it's still a work in progress, but it's changing. And one thing I want to mention that speaking of Peter is, you know, I feel like someone might say, oh, Glenn and Blake, you guys are being hypocrites. You say that identity politics is all the stuff and then you're, you giving Peter extra credit because he's a gay man or that you know no I think there's something to recognize when somebody breaks a wall and and Donald Trump and Peter Thiel broke a pretty big wall for sure pretty big wall totally agree but but it just reminded me of something that Peter once said to me where we were talking about diversity and he said he's like don't get me wrong I think diversity um I'm not going to be verbatim putting him here but he but he you know the just

was that he said diversity is important. It's just on the list of like 40 things, on the list of things to make a company successful, it's like the 40th most important. So it's not that we should pretend like diversity is irrelevant. We just need to get our priority straight. And I think that there's a lot of merit to thinking about things that way. And diversity really only counts when it affects your thinking.

If I'm, if, uh, I can't relate to being a gay man. okay, diversity is important because they'll have a different viewpoint. You know what I mean? But we're looking for exactly the same viewpoint just in a different body. Right. It doesn't make sense. It's like, you know, it's like if GM makes every car exactly the same just puts

different bodies on it. It's a Ferrari. No, it's not. It's a GMC truck. No, that's really an analogy. And one thing that's kind of sad, scary, no, more so sad. But you think, like, the idea of group think is not that crazy because we're all humans. We all want to, you know, there's fear and shame that kind of push us in these directions.

We want to be accepted members of society. So it makes sense why we have this instinct. But it's so weird to me that in Silicon Valley, where you had Steve Jobs and this sort of this think different ethos, this rebellion mentality. And now it's like everyone's rebellion. but I just imagine like 50 Fonzie's. And it's like, yeah, we're all rebels. Exactly same kind of rebels, eh. Right.

And so it's like, really? And that's what I found really fascinating with this book, among many aspects of why I was happy in retrospect that it did swerve the way it did. Because I thought of Silicon Valley as this renegade place of people who thought differently. And it's like, no, no, no, think differently. But as long as it's the same way. And then, you know, if you're thinking about just, taking a step back of like, you know, America has always been, you know, such a great place for innovation and, and, you know, it's not a shock that a lot of these

tech companies have been homegrown and thrived here. But what does that mean for the future of technology and our leadership or of the younger people out there that, you know, they're probably not going to be as likely to go to Silicon Valley to disrupt if you have to disrupt. in a certain way and not really disrupt. But it also is, you know, it's why cloning eventually is really bad after a while because there's no diversity at all.

And then it just dies out because it's just, it's not capable to adapt to anything else. If you're not, if you're not including everybody in that, it, it's ripe for disease. Right. That makes sense? Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, because it was a few years ago when you met with Facebook and with Mark. But I did, I feel like I remember you saying, like there was some talk about, oh, there should be a certain number of conservative people on the news council.

And then it was, then you were like, no, then we're just doing the exact thing we stand against. And so I actually remember really respecting you saying that because that was a great point. I got into a lot of trouble for it. But I sat there and I'll ever forget, I was sitting right here with Mark. big long table and all these people. And they started in on, well, we need to have quotas for people. And I looked down there and I looked at Mark and I'm like, no, we don't need quotes. No.

Yeah, conservatives. Finally, we're on the side of quotas. Let's just talk to each other. Right. Let's just get to know each other. How about you not, not hire conservatives if they happen to be the right person? Right. You know what I mean?

How about you just recruit for the best person? Right. And that's where the book really did just become about discrimination. And like I think I said earlier in this conversation I told before, like, you know, it's not that I think Palmer is an incredible human and he's going to go on to do successful things. But I've had people say, oh, why should I feel bad for him? He's a multi, multi, multi, multi millionaire. He's now as another company. And my point is not to make you feel bad for him.

It's to see that he just represents something that's happening in so much. any other ways, but he's a visible example. And he's an example that after, you know, 500 pages, you'll at least understand where he's coming from. And how many people have had this happen to them on a much smaller scale that don't have billions of dollars, you know, millions of dollars. There's a lot. There's a lot.

And more and more all the time. Right. And the different, and one of the key distinctions to me, anecdotally with the discrimination against conservatives in Silicon Valley, is that at least before this sort of became more of an issue and people realized it was wrong to discriminate or at least that they shouldn't publicly say it is a lot of people have no problem saying it like it was just like oh well we know the conservatives are the wrong runs right um whereas they would never say that about someone of a different gender or a different religion because they at least had the tact to say to say the

right thing but but this was like it was so it was so beyond the pale to be conservative that they don't even have to you know put on the airs of the formalities of that that's a valid way of looking at the world. So when did you, because when this started happening with Donald Trump, let's just tell a little bit of the story. Palmer is told to write something that he didn't believe by Mark Zuckerberg. Why don't we go there and then tell me where you came in where you're like, wait, well, what are your first inkling that you're thinking?

Sure. Hold it. Am I? Nah, this can't be it. Right? Yeah. Well, so, okay, so I'll tell it from, I'll give some very brief background that in, you know, September 22nd, 2016, or I'll even just tell it from my perspective. I get a bunch of text messages on September 22nd, 2016. It's 9 o'clock from May, 6 o'clock Pacific. And it's always people. PM. Okay. So it's the evening of the 22nd, a few days after Palmer had just turned, I think, 23, but, or 24. And, and I got all these messages being like, oh, your book's in trouble. because there's a Daily Beast article with the headline about Palmer.

The headline is Facebook billionaire secretly funding Trump's meme machine. And between that article and then the 50 other articles that spewed up over the next 24 hours from your outlets, these weren't just like random blogs. It was business insider, wire, the verge, all these places. They were saying that Palmer had been funding this troll army that was making memes and that everything you'd seen that was misogynistic, anti-Semitic, hateful that Palmer was like ground you know patient zero that he was like funding this thing which was and let's go back because it's my understanding and reading the book that he was actually just

responding to something that the left was doing putting up these billboards that were if Trump were so rich how come he didn't buy this billboard like that and so he was just like that's funny and I'm on the other side and we should do that too right it was so it wasn't it It wasn't a mean machine, and it wasn't, these were not bad things that they were putting out, were they? I mean, I guess it's the eye the beholder, but he donated to an organization called Nimble America. In the entirety of Nimble America's existence, which had been started only five days before this happened. All they ever did was put up one billboard in Pennsylvania with three words, too big to jail and a character of Hillary Clinton's face. You know, like it was, you know, if you have a problem with that, and I have a problem with that,

that I have a problem with you because that is like as tame as people. I mean, when, you know, Adam said, if Jefferson is elected president, your children's heads will be on pikes and blood will run through the street. So, I mean, too big to jail is. Yeah. So we're definitely not even in that territory. And one of the interesting things, and so this organization, Nimble America, was founded by an individual who I interviewed several times throughout the course of the book.

because I was really curious about his perspective. He was the one who started this. And I don't, you know, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he uses a pseudonym, I provided a pseudonym for him in the book because he didn't want any professional consequences. But I will say that after years of speaking with him and interviewing him for the book, I finally met him in person last, a week and a half ago. And, and I met him and his wife and his two kids. And his, his, his wife is Filipino.

He, he, he, he's described in every article as a white supremacist. And I guess maybe some white, supremacists could have Filipino wives. That seems unlikely to me. But like, he's not a white supremacist. I will bet my life on that. I am always shocked, even with Palmer, I'd have journalists, the ones that were still willing to speak with me, say, I remember one conversation that after two hours, I just thought was the biggest waste of time, but they say, so is Palmer white supremacist? And I say, I can't tell you what it's in his heart. But as someone who knows him, better than it was like in the world. Absolutely not. There's, and there's no evidence to support

this. And then they would, I would explain how, here's what Nimble America actually was. Here's why that's ridiculous. Here's, you know, the first few people that Palmer hired at Oculus were an Indian guy, an Asian guy, a bisexual guy. Like, like, if you're looking for hate, Palmer's not the source, not the guy. And then after two hours of this one particular conversation, the guy says, yeah, but what's the smoking gun? And I was like, the smoking gun to disprove something that's not true. There's no such thing exists. And then he walked away skeptical and I was like, wow, I just spent two hours talking to this guy.

Why? He clearly was, there's nothing I could say that could change his mind because he's certain of something, even though he hasn't done the research. And that's, I guess, just goes to me. Yeah. How do you, that had to have boggled your mind because you knew a lot of these people. You respected the journalists and they knew you. They know you're not a dope.

You've got a good reputation. And you're saying, no, no, guys, you got it all wrong. How? I mean, it really sucks, because this happened to me, too. It sucks when you find out the guys you hold up and go like, oh, come on, we're all great guys. Right. All of a sudden, you're like, okay, no, I'm not with them.

That sucks. Right. Yeah, I felt a little bit prepared for that because I saw what happened to Palmer and I could, you know, like I said, anything that happened to me I knew would never be as bad as him. So having this, wasting two hours of my time, realizing that this approach was not persuasive to someone like him, not the worst thing in the world.

Maybe that helped sharpen my knives for, you know, information in the book. Another thing that I thought about a lot was George Orwell's book Animal Farm. He wrote an original forward for the book that was not included, and I don't think it's still included, that, you know, the whole book is about essentially the dangers of totalitarianism and and and and and and and right wing nationalistic thinking but he talked in this forward about the dangers of liberal totalitarianism and how it's much more subtle and how he wanted to you know he had wanted to say some critical things about um the left and you know he was a democratic socialist i think or socialist but like he wanted to say

some critical things in the same spirit that I sometimes do to help the cause. And people, publishers didn't want stuff published. They basically were like, that's just not done. Like, we don't do those things. And so there's this like this chilling effect of people know not to, like, they know to ignore me because I'm not towing the party line. And to your question about what it was like, you know, I mean, it's not fun. you've been through it, I'm sure, much worse than I have.

But it also is sort of like affirming like, okay, I am spending, you know, 80 hours we work on this book. I'm doing something important here because I'm not going to maybe change that guy's mind. Hopefully I will, but I'm going to change other people's minds or at least I'm going to get the truth out there. And I think that some people will actually go through the metamorphosis that I did that actually saw, you know. What it was.

Yeah, what it was, saw through. the lies in the media and that really is just a matter of like it's all so much people will talk so much about empathy for others and empathy at least to me as a storyteller is like just understanding the perspective of someone else and so um as long as they're not acting at bad faith i'm generally you should i think you should be respectful of different opinions and and and i do think that the book um which you've helped get into so many more people's hands um the reviews are much better than my first book. And my first book had very good reviews, but like, you know,

a lot of... Very successful. Yeah. But people seem to be loving it and then seem to be, the message is getting through. And I think that's important. How did you get... How did you get so much access to emails that should never have been seen? Well, I guess the good thing about...

startups is that there's usually multiple founders and they usually end up not on not not end up up being the best of friends and they all want to make sure that they get their stake of the credit and you can work amongst them to try to to get what you need that that that I guess is not necessarily true of the stuff at the end of the book like mark um I guess we didn't even get to it but but you know at the end after these articles inaccurate articles came out Palmer wanted to write a statement saying that he supported Trump and these articles were wrong he was not allowed to post that statement. Instead, he had a post a statement that was written by Mark saying that Palmer supported Gary Johnson, which was not true. And that was a whole other, getting, finding out the truth on that

was a whole other thing. And I guess I failed to really answer your question, but what it was like for me. So I knew that Palmer at that point was a Trump supporter. I found it hard to believe that he had given money to something hateful that seemed out of context. But, you know, I got to be open to the possibility. So I, so I did my research. I talked to him about whatever he was a allowed to talk to me about because there was, you know, I do have a good relationship with him, but for legal purposes and for at that point keeping Zuckerberg secret purposes, there was a lot that he couldn't say. But I do remember being very surprised that he would say he's a Gary Johnson supporter when he wasn't because, because honesty is so important to Palmer. Like he, he really is

like a principal person who'd rather, you know, go down fighting, you know, but standing on a principal than sort of like sell out a little bit and get his objective. And then the other thing I noticed was that, you know, because, like you mentioned, I got so many emails in the course of writing this book, and sometimes people would give me, you know, to avoid a paper trail, they would take photos of the emails and send them to me, and then I would transcribe them. And so I had a lot of practice transcribing email chains that often Palmer was on. And I hated the fact that he does such an annoying thing. He uses two spaces after a period, which is an old school, a typewriter.

thing you you you I had so much respect for you because I wrote you an email and you wrote back and you said this is how I knew Palmer yeah didn't write the email because you do the same thing I put two spaces between the paragraph I think you use like three spaces sometimes but yeah but yeah but yeah and I know and I noticed that palm that the that every Facebook post Palmer had ever done prior to that had two spaces after a period but this one that said that things that didn't sound like they were coming for him, was had one space, which was a mistake that Zuckerberry and Facebook team made. That said, at that point, I didn't think like, aha, this is a who done it, and it probably goes to the top. I just assumed that Palmer, like,

worked with the PR team there and sort of gave them more of the autonomy. I assume that he was on board with this. I didn't realize it was against as well, and that it went all the way up to mark. And then what ended up happening was like flash forward a year or so later. And I'm working towards the end of the, you know, the latter half of the book. And I had these great relationships and contacts at Facebook and Oculus. And I said to them that I need, you know, Palmer is no longer the company. I believe he's fired, but you guys say he exited and won't say anything. But either way, I need to provide some explanation for what happened. I can't just say, you know, this guy who's been the main character for 400 pages. Oh, now he's not here. So I really impressed on them how

important it was that I got more information and that they seemed to, I would assume they went back and huddled and they were like, okay, we got to give this guy a story. And I got a story of how Palmer chose to leave. And it was given to me not just by one person, but by several people in a systematic way that was meant to definitely provide me with a false conclusion of what happened and give me confirmation. You know, I'm a journalist, so I have one, two, three, four people saying the same thing. And, and as I think I mentioned, you on a show, and Palmer couldn't talk to me about this. So they had nowhere to go. So even if I thought stuff was fishy, I couldn't say, Palmer, this is fishy? Is this wrong? He said, like, I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to talk to you

about that. So I was, you know, my spidey sense was like, something's wrong here, but I didn't know how to get to get to the truth. So as you know from reading the book, I have a narrative nonfiction writing style in which I don't attribute the quotes to the person that provided it to me, but to the actual speaker. You know, I want you to feel like you're in the room and in the minds of these people. And so I had a feeling that they were taking advantage of my writing style in that it would never trace back to them and that they were essentially laundering this misinformation through me, these executives at Oculus and Facebook that were telling me the same story that I believe was not complete or at least or might be false. And so I wrote, I guess you could call it like a fake chapter, a chapter that was just a straight up Q&A with one of these executives. And I told them, look, it was after Ted Cruz had asked Zuckerberg during the hearing.

about Cambridge Analytica stuff, he asked about Palmer and if Palmer was fired for political reasons and Mark said, no, that had nothing to do with it. And I said to these people that, you know, now there's like widespread speculation that politics has something to do with it. You guys have all told me that it had nothing to do with it. And I believe you, of course. But I don't, and I don't want the, this is a really important topic. So I don't want what's in the book to be Blake Harris author's opinion. I want it to be straight from the horse's mouth. So I'm going to do six chapters that are just Q&As with executives. Oh my gosh, brilliant.

And here's the first one. It's brilliant. And so, thank you. I was pretty proud to that. And so I sent that to them. And then immediately they got a call, like, or, you know, an email like, can you jump on the phone when you need to talk?

And that led to, within a matter of days, they told everyone at Facebook and Oculus to stop speaking with me. So that alone, of course, didn't confirm that my hunch was correct. But it did give me, a strong sense that I might be. And it gave me the ammunition to go to a lot of people that were at Oculus and Facebook who

felt that Palmer had been wronged, but hadn't been willing to speak with me or hadn't been willing to get me documents because they were fearful of losing their job. But once I said, like, look, here's the lie or here's the information I'm being told that I think is a lie. This is what's going to be in the book unless you guys help me. And they really did step up to the plate. And I always appreciated that it was people, Trump supporters. and Hillary supporters.

Like people were volunteering this information to me, not because they were trying to help the team, but because they felt that what had happened, the Palmer was wrong. And after seeing what they got me, I completely agreed. And I had trouble believing that it really, that Mark personally wrote the statement.

I mean, like, how did you verify that? Trying to make sure I protect people. Anyway, I can say that, there was an email that came from, there was an email that came from the general, the general counsel at Facebook that went to Palmer's attorneys, um,

that said, here's the statement. Mark personally wrote this. Wow. Um, or it was, I guess to be specific, they said it was drafted by Mark himself. So to, to,

in case that might mean something different. But like, and I was just like, oh my God. That I, I, I, I, I couldn't believe that. I couldn't, I, one couldn't believe that Mark would really do that, that he would micromanage this and, and force an employee to lie. I also couldn't believe that he really had such a problem with the truth. And then I also just couldn't believe that he was so stupid or his lawyer so stupid to put it in writing. Like, if you guys are going to be, you know, your digital mafiosas, at least, at least be good. Yeah. At least be good.

So he loses his job He loses his baby Oculus What's the future of Oculus Let's start there What's Facebook is a good question Not really

Well it's It's hard to even Agree or not with the Facebook Is you know Like we see all these scandals With Facebook come out But at the same time, they've had pretty good earnings reports and their stock has rebounded. So I can, this is speculation, like not coming from sources, but I can also just see Mark and Cheryl and the leadership team there being like, who cares?

Yeah, we get some bad ink. But like, it's not affecting our bottom line. Let's just keep doing this stuff we've been doing. What's to stop them? Why would Mark Kuzukabberg be repeatedly asking now for regulation? I think it's, I mean, he's a smart guy. He sees the writing on the wall. There has to be some form of inter, or it doesn't have to be.

I think that he sees that it's very likely that there's going to be some form of intervention or regulations. Some, somebody's going to step in on a governmental level. And one, it's good for him to be out front. And more importantly, all those things that he asked, Um, you know, like, all the things that he asked are going to help Facebook and Google and hurt small competitors. Because it's the small competitors that aren't going to be able to comply with this stuff or that aren't going to be able to keep up. It's exactly what FDR did with the big three automakers that put everybody out of business because he went to the big three and said, what do we need? What do we need? What do you need? Let's, let's come up with some regulations.

And they did. And they came up with everything that they could do that the small guy couldn't. and put them all out of business. I didn't know that. I'm going to look more into that because it sounds exactly like that. It is. It is. Look at the number of cars, you know, Auburns. Look at the cars that were made up until the big three automakers got together.

Same thing with BF Goodrich and Goodyear tires. They put great tire companies, a great tire company, I think, in New Jersey, out of business that had a cheaper tire and a better tire, but because of the new regulations, they were out. which brings me to kind of a frightening scenario that I want to run by you. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon. They have more information on us than we would have ever dreamt that we would just hand over. I remember saying, you know, government asked for me, my fingerprint. I'm not giving my fingerprint.

They're not fingerprinting people, but I'll give it to Apple. Right. I'll stand there and give my face, you know, my facial recognition. What are we thinking? Well, it's crazy, okay? So now when regulation comes in, they can come in and they can, they're going to be the experts that Washington calls. Washington knows they need them because it's just such a powerful tool. Right.

Amazon and everybody else knows they need Washington. so they start to partner, you're looking at a very different America. When you have, it is every, it's everything I always made fun of of liberals. I used to be like, can you stop with a corporation?

You know, the dystopian, you know, 2045, everyone works for the corporation. You're like, oh, shut up. It's what's happening. It's what's happening. And Facebook doesn't have,

to worry about the Bill of Rights. Amazon doesn't have to worry about it. Google doesn't have to worry about it. Because the Bill of Rights apply to the government. Right. And if they decide to ban you, and you can't buy products, you can't speak, you can't do all the

things that China is currently doing, but it's just being done by a corporation. Right. No, it's a good point. It's a good concern. One of my favorite television shows of all time it's not how to survive the one, but it's called psych, and it's about a psychic detective

on the USA Network, and there were police consultants who were allegedly psychic, and I always just thought it was interesting, because you know, the police has certain rules and protocols they have to follow, but consultants, it's a new, you know, they decided to walk into that apartment and obtain some stuff, and that's like exactly the scenario

you're describing where the U.S. government, hopefully they're following the rules and guidelines, but, you know, there's a mutually beneficial relationship to be had between them and the big tech companies, so you know, maybe backstere getting scratched. Maybe they're getting what they need. And so I think Mark is aware of that.

That's part of the reason also that, that, you know, he wrote that op-ed in the Washington Post asking for regulation. And then the other reason, too, is, like, it's just asking other people to do your job. You know, they're banning people. Facebook has not shown themselves to be, you know, caring that much about principles. They're more reactive.

I mean, even the people they banned, it's not like those other people saying the worst things. It's just easy targets. And so, you know, people on Twitter always say, oh, Jack, how are you letting this happen? Or, oh, Mark, why are you letting this happen? How great would it be from Mark and Jack? They're like, look, it's not us. It's the government. Those are the bad guys.

We're the good guys here. And that gets also to the accountability issue, which is a huge part of this and a huge part of my concern about the future of Silicon Valley. And the other thing I think is interesting is like, you know, like, you said, like, oh, the years 2045 and everyone works for the corporation. Why would they hire us? They'll have robots. Like I think about, you're talking about the big three automakers.

I don't know the exact numbers, but I imagine that their workforce was in the hundreds of thousands at the heyday, and they were, you know, some of the biggest companies in the United States. And now you have Google and Facebook, some of the biggest companies in the United States. Their workforce is so small.

Like that, you know, that's part of the answer of where the jobs are going, is that we don't, not as many jobs. That makes it, to me, that has made it, I've talked about this for years, that that makes the collusion between tech and government so huge. Because at one point, I mean, tech has a goal and I think it's a great goal. 100% unemployment. Nobody has to work, you know? Okay. But that's not the goal of politicians. Their goal is 3.6 or, you know, zero percent unemployed. So they're going to, in the opposite direction. At some point, somebody's going to realize, those shops aren't coming back. Right. Okay? When that happens, the politician is always the

weakest in the chain, and he's going to need a bad guy, and he'll say, well, it's those people in Silicon Valley, and they're evil AI or AGI, and they're building these robots, they're putting you out of work. They're not going to be waiting for pitchforks.

these people know what they're doing, they know what these guys will do, they'll come together. They have to to protect each other. And it leaves a lot of people out. You know, it's corporate socialism. They get wealthy and they do everything else while we get scraps. I'm not an avid reader of dystopian fiction, but I do feel like the sense I get from stuff nowadays is that there is this vision of corporate socialism where, you know, people associate more with, like, being a citizen of Google than they do of being a citizen

of New York or the United States. Or the human race. Right, or the human race. And, and, you know, like, that, that's where stuff, the fact, like, the fact that Facebook is developing a cryptocurrency, which, you know, cryptocurrency alone is a fine thing. It's a tool, like, all technology. But, like, what are they? what's their plan here?

And it does feel like they are thinking of themselves as a government. And that might be good or bad, but it is bearers repeating what your point that, like they're not bound by the same rules as actual government officials. Right. They can silence anyone they want. And they have, you know, like just they,

they did a recent wave of bands a week or so ago. And, you know, like, like Milo, you know, Alex Jones again, I guess. Like Laura. Well, what was really frightening is they went a step further. They said, if you support them, if you're a supporter and you are actively defending them, you also could lose your status on Facebook. Right.

And that gets closer to my fear. I mean, it would take a lot for me to be persuaded that de-platforming is a good strategy. He's a horrible strategy. Like Alex Jones maniac, but he's entitled to speak his truth. Let me use this. Because Alex Jones actually claimed in 2004 or five that I was a CIA operative that was put into the media to cover up 9-11. Okay. So, and don't ask me any questions on that or I'll have to kill you.

So I have no love for Alex Jones. The same thing with Lewis Farrakhan. But Lewis Farrakhan has been around my entire life. And he's been saying crazy things. Right. And I like to hear those crazy things because he's saying them to a lot of people. Right. You know, I want to know what he's saying.

Same thing with Alex Jones. I don't agree with it. I think it's dangerous. But I want to know what he's saying to people. Right. And know that he's got an audience. you just make these people disappear. We have no idea.

And by the way, it's my responsibility to check it out or to not listen to those things I don't like. Isn't it? Right. Yeah, I mean, I would be more sympathetic to Facebook taking actions if it was like, you know, you cultivated the Glenn Beck page on Facebook and you're being bombarded with people who you don't want in there who are, like, making it your problem.

You know, like it's not like they can, there's, you know, like you have to confront it Alex Jones if he's posting on your page. I still don't know what the solution is, but what I find interesting is that they are doing this, you know, removing these hateful citizens, you know, in the name of like trying to reduce extremism.

That's, you know, like reduce hate, reduce extremism. And, and reading, you know, like the manifestos of the New Zealand shooter and some of these recent attacks, like at the synagogue in San Diego, I know we're not supposed to read the manifesto because it's supposed to pretend like doesn't exist. But like I find that I'm curious

where do they think they're, where do they think they're coming from? And paraphrasing here, but like they think that they have mentality somewhat similar to Alex Jones where they feel like the mainstream media is hiding things from them and that there's a conspiracy against people like them. And so is removing Alex Jones or Milo going to make them? Yeah, that is. Isn't that going to radicalize it even more?

It's like, you know, there's this great movie out. And I don't know how close it is because I don't follow England enough. But Benedict Cumberbunch, Cumberbatch, Cumberbun, whatever his name is. They're all acceptable. All acceptable. The handsome Sherlock Holmes guy. I actually really love him as an actor. But he's in it.

And it's called Brexit. And I saw it and I was like, they're going to make the Brexit people all look like racist. And I watched it. And they did, for me, at least as an American overseas watching it. I think they did a really good job. They showed that pocket of people that were racist. And that was one group. And then there was this other group that just felt like, hey, nobody's listening to me.

Nobody's talking to me. They're calling me this. And I'm not that. You know what I mean? This is happening. There are identitarians out there who are very dangerous. But there are also people who are like, you know what? I'm Swedish and I'm okay with the I'm not saying Sweden is the greatest of all time.

It's just my country and I'm not a racist for for flying my Swedish flag. You know what I mean? There are tons of people on both sides of the aisle that feel that. And the example now with Brexit is, oh, maybe we should have another referendum. Maybe we should have another vote. Because you didn't like the first one? That's not what it works. Right.

And we're doing the same. kind of thing. We're creating a much bigger problem. I was against Donald Trump and I couldn't understand. I could not understand my audience. I was so angry with my audience and I've always said I loved my audience because I do. They're some of the best. I love them a lot. Yeah, I know. Thank you, audience. Yeah. They're great people. They're great people. I couldn't understand when they went for Donald Trump because I was so blind on what I saw in Donald Trump. And I, I, was so angry with them. And it took me about six months after the election before I realized,

you don't actually love your audience. You say you do, but you don't. Because if you loved your audience, you would have said to them, this isn't like you. What the hell is happening in your life? Something big must be happening in your life. And when I got on the air and I said that to them, I found out they're scared to death about what's happening to their country.

They're terrified about what's happening in their country. And a lot of the stuff they're worried about are the same things that many Democrats. I don't talk about politicians. I'm talking about Democrats who live in our communities. They're afraid of the same kinds of things. And they don't know what to do. And no one's listening to them. So when somebody steps up and says, I'm just like you, even if he's not.

And he's very much not. Or it appeared that way. No, you're totally right. And I'm glad I'll check out the Brexit movie, not just because I like Benedict Cumberbatch. But I'm glad that they didn't just paint it in broad strokes of, oh, if you were Brexit, you're racist. Because to your point, there are people like that fringe small percentage.

But, like, I did the same thing. I was devastated the night that Trump won the election. But I also took it as like, I had hoped everyone would and said, okay, like my team didn't win. What happened here? Because I don't think that half the country are idiots. Like, what are they seeing that I'm not seeing?

What are they caring about that I'm not caring about? And I remember, like, I reached out to some people on Twitter who was like, you know, all you Democrats, you think I'm a racist because I care about this. And I was like, hey, I don't think you're racist. Or, you know, I'm sorry if I felt like, if I come across that way. And I remember telling me,

my friend John and I said, you know, I showed in some of these conversations I had and I was like, there's a lot here that we're not getting in the media that actually is very reasonable and certainly not with malice. Like we, what is happening here? And he said, oh, wow, you're doing the thing that we all said we were going to do, which is reach across the other side and actually talk to them. Whereas everyone else said that maybe for a brief while and then they just doubled down on collusion on we're smarter than them. They should. They should. shouldn't have a vote anyway or what do they know? And that's probably been one of the sadder things these past few years.

I can't, I can't. I've asked this at both sides. Imagine a world where the next election, your side, whichever side it is, wins everything. You got the House. You have the Senate. You have the White House. You pack the court with 40 new judges that rule exactly the way. way you want, 50% of the country is not going to want to live that way. What's your plan?

That's a great, great question, great point. Does both sides diametrically opposed? Well, you're going to have to become a totalitarian and you're going to have to, you're going to have to teach those people. Or you're going to have to say, you know what, let's go back to the Constitution, because we hold these things to be self-evident over here, and you guys work it out. I kind of feel like my initial answer, which is kind of like a joke answer, is like a reverse civil war.

I feel like so many of my fellow liberals are like, well, then we don't want you. Like, start your own country where it's like, no, you know, we fought a war hundreds of, 75 years ago, to unite the country, to stay united, you know, United, we stand, divide, we fall. But now it's like, no, if you're not on board with this, idea we don't want you it doesn't it's it's antithetical to everything the united states is supposed to be

i mean we are supposed to be united states i don't really care what california does i really don't i don't want to live there i've wanted to live in california my whole life but as a business person i'm not living in california okay it'll it'll bankrupt me to live in california i don't want anything to do with it. So I don't care. San Francisco, poop in the streets all you want. I think you're wrecking a good city, but go ahead. Somebody else wants to

carry, you know, open carry firearms down the street. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. I may or may not want to live there either. But that's for each person to decide. It's fascinating to me that Vermont

very little news. 2011. You know what they did? They started their own state universal health care, okay? A state-run universal health care. Did everything that they wanted the government to do. They did it. You know what happened? 2014, out of money.

Doesn't work. Had to increase taxes, I think, by 20 or 30 percent, the governor's like, that's crazy. We can't do it. So they stopped. Okay. The reason why we're asking the federal government to do things is for one reason. Why these states, California has a right to do it, do it.

These states don't have the right to do one thing the federal government does, and that's, no. Print money. Oh, I thought it was the Second Amendment stuff because, you know, like I'm sure California would like to ban guns, but that at least. Right, but what I'm saying is you're right. You can do any program you want. We should have 50 different laboratories.

And it's in Texas. If I saw something that was working, if Vermont could have made a go of that and it actually worked and it gave good health care and it was cheaper and it wasn't degrading the health care, I'd be in. I'd be in. Yeah, I actually wanted, you're so knowledgeable about the history of the country and this is a very broad question. But just like, of course, your understanding of, like, I remember growing up and seeing that movie,

the Warriors, like the Warriors come out and play and you got all these different gangs in the New York, like the baseball furies. And I remember thinking like, oh, that's kind of like the United States. You got like everyone's doing their own thing and it works for them. When did people start so aggressively looking for a federal solution

to saying like, let that state do it and if it works, it works, if it does it. Also, it's not my problem. Like, I don't need to get involved in this. It started with Theodore Roosevelt. It got really bad with Woodrow Wilson. The worst president ever. He was massively racist, horrible, horrible individual. And then it kind of reversed itself for a little period of

time with Calvin Coolidge, who I think is one of the best presidents of the 20th century. And I think it was, I think it was Coolidge. No. It was Hoover that came in and there was a big storm that had happened and wiped out some part of some southern state. I don't remember what it was. And so the federal government for the first time sent in aid. And the trucks came and the people in the town actually stood at the town road with shotguns and said, turn your federal trucks away. We don't want your help. Wow.

Theodore Roosevelt, I have up in the vault in the library, I have a promotional piece from Theater Roosevelt's presidency. And it's about this big. And it's a teddy bear. Okay. And it has bullseyes all over it. And it was made. for kids. And the reason why I was made for kids is he was trying to

start a campaign to put a shooting range in every elementary school. Do you know why America rejected it? This is how much we've changed. Costs too much? They said,

don't you dare tell us what we're supposed to do in our schools? So we've fundamentally changed. That's why we had the Bill of Rights and, you know, FDR, Cass Sunstein, Barack Obama even talked about it, changing the Bill of Rights to a document of positive liberties instead of negative liberties. The Bill of Rights in the Constitution is meant to be the state's best friend, the locals' best friend. The government cannot ever do these things.

You want to do them great. The federal government can never. do these things. Okay. We've tried with FDR and his new deal. He tried to flip this and say here's what the government must

do. That changes this fundamentally. And that is what is forcing us to live a certain way. It's like, I hate do you travel much? No, I'm sort of a reckless writer. I traveled a lot in the 80s.

overseas and then I did again here in the last 10 years. The difference is crazy. I don't like it. I mean, you go to Rome. You might as well go to Epcot because it's the Ann Taylor and oh, look, there's the gap. It's no longer Rome. You go to our towns now all across America, same mall, same shop, same everything. We're all alike.

We've erased the uniqueness of, of. of each individual state and everything is just the same. Right. We weren't meant to be that way. I mean, that's like a whole other bag of worms that's tough because that's like, that's like, like the, like you see with Facebook and Google and Amazon, it's like the monopoly. It's like, you know, I feel like 10 years from now you'll go to Rome and say like, oh, Blake, there was no Ann Taylor. There was just like a little kiosk who buy stuff on Amazon. Right.

Like that's like, right. But you know what? Amazon has given us a bigger Etsy, has given us a bigger market to look at. I want to buy real cricket bats. I don't know where I would have bought those before, but I can, you know. So it's given us that wide diversity, which is really good. But when you fold it into the government and we all have. have to have the same things.

What's right in Amarillo, you know, New Mexico is not necessarily what's right for Seattle, Washington. I feel like it's like people who didn't have siblings or something. Like, like, you know, I have a younger brother. And when I was a kid, you know, anytime he got something, I wanted it. Or, you know, like I judge myself by him. And then I grew up and I assumed most people there where it's like,

I just hope he has what's best for him. It's not going to be the same as me. I don't really care. Like as long as it's good for him, I don't, it's not my business. That's not, I guess, like, I guess it probably is very tribal, like the wide people. Like, it's a victory to impose that will to,

to feel like you're taking action out of it. Because I don't actually know why people would care so much. I don't think they do. I think we've been pushed into tribes so hard that we feel under attack. and so anything outside of our tribe is an enemy. When that's not true. I don't care what you do.

I mean, I was painted as a anti-gay marriage guy for, I don't know how long. Pend Gillette came out of my show with Fox, tried to trap me, and he was like, so, but why do you have a problem with gay marriage? And I'm like, I don't. What? I don't. I haven't had a problem ever with gay marriage. I'm a libertarian.

I believe nobody has a right to tell me who I can marry. And I don't need a license or a blood test. Thank you very much. You know, Margaret Sanger and Woodrow Wilson for giving us those kinds of things. Thank you to Reconstruction for giving us the marriage license so we don't marry the wrong race. Abraham Lincoln didn't have a marriage license from the state. George Washington didn't have one. Why do I need one?

I don't need one. Now I can live side by side with everything. everybody, I'm fine. Just be cool, do your thing and I'll do my thing and can we just all get along? Yeah, I suggested to do a friend the other day that he should start the Rodney King Alliance just to try to get more people to get along. That was also my big takeaway too from feeling, going from feeling dispirited by the election results to trying to feel inspired and bettering myself and just thinking like, we are all in this together. I, like, I want the best for this president that I didn't believe in.

I definitely not rooting against him. I want you guys to be happy. We all win if he wins. And same with Barack Obama on the big issues, on the big issues. And I also do believe that more that we're just really hearing from the more vocal minorities, not ethnically minorities, but just like we're hearing from the loud vocal minorities. And I think that there is like 60 to 80% of people more so in the middle that are like, yeah, let's actually get along. I don't want to fight with you.

But when the journalists on both sides, especially on the left, are in that 10% fringe extremists, we need to control everything. It needs to be this. If it's wrong, if it's not way, like that is really slanting the way that people are perceiving reality. Are you hopeful for the future of that this? will there this a phase we're going through? I think I'm a hopeful person in general, so that's sort of a bias that I have. And then I'm hopeful because

I've yet to encounter a situation and maybe I just haven't had many where I actually talk to someone who should be my enemy, whether it's you or whether it's the guy who founded Nimble America. And when I actually talk to you or him or any of these people, there's so much common ground.

and we want 95% of the same thing. And importantly, they are not or you are not what I had in my head believing that you were. And then the other thing that has me hopeful is whether it's people reading this book or just me talking to them about what happened and explaining it. Whenever someone actually is willing to give their attention span to have the conversation, they are persuaded. It is like a tribal instinct to hate this person or like this person. But if you actually say, hey, why do you hate that person?

that person. One on one, most people are willing to say, yeah, I guess you're right. If the other side did that, I'd be mad too. I think that people, I still believe in humans, I guess. So we just need to figure out easier so than done way to get our better angels and to actually want to have that solidarity, because there are people out there that want to blow up the system that think that, you know, that fighting and arguing is, you know, emotionally arguing, not debating. is this solution because the other side just needs to be defeated. Last topic. When I first had you on the air, your book was at 33,000.

And I don't think I knew this until you were on the air, that you just couldn't get anybody in the mainstream media to talk to you about this book. And you are an accomplished author. I mean, you have one of the best books of the last decade out and it's being made into a TV show or movie. Well, that's understandable. Yeah, so I wrote this book about Sega Nintendo called Console Wars that is the all-time

best-selling video game book, and it's a small field, which is part of why I wrote the book and part of why people really liked it. And it's being made into originally a movie now a TV show with Seth Rogan and Jordan Voigt-Roberts is directing. So, like, you know, on paper, I was everything that a gaming journalist should like, like, you know, someone who actually got this to a mainstream audience, someone who's spent years doing the work. Like, I actually did the work. And I was very well liked. I was, you know, named one of the 50 most admirable gaming people from one of the, you know, these big magazines in 2014 when my book came out. Yeah. Then it didn't happen. So, yeah, 33,000. It was, you know,

the book was selling okay at first few weeks and then a Bolivian until you changed my career. So, so you went to back. So has it changed? from them now that it came back up, did you find anybody else that was, they were willing to take a look at it? That's an excellent question because the book, you know, we went from 33,000 to number two on Amazon. I had every book. I would send this to my friends and they'd be like, oh, number two in what category?

I'm like the category of every book in the U.S. Like, I had a catcher in the ride, head of the fountain head, ahead of, you know, Michelle Obama's book for a short while. And it was a national bestseller, USA Today Bestseller. And the week after it was, you know, named a bestseller, I put together an email working with the publicist at HarperCollins who published the book. And we, I gave her the names of like 150 journalists and tech in the gaming world who were, are, were my friends or who, you know, these were like personal.

emails like people who I had had conversations with and said you know let's let's make another effort to reach out to them can you send them an email um basically saying that this book is a bestseller now um it's the highest ranked of a video game book has ever been and and and and say you know um i think she wrote something like you know what it's been getting headline you know it's been getting attention because of the political discrimination aspect but in addition to that there's also topics like, you know, the game company, Epic, just launched a store and there was some internal documents from him talking to Zuckerberg. And so there was like five other topics that are super timely related to gaming and tech. And I was like, oh, I have an even better idea.

Since Facebook is obviously the most interesting topic, I said, you know, a source had given me a cell phone recorded video of the day that Mark came to Oculus when they were being acquired for $3 billion. And he gives a speech, which is the prologue to the book, but the actual actual video and I said, I've never shared this with anyone. Why don't I put that up on Vimeo and we'll include a link. And if reporters are not going to report this then we have no hope.

Because this is like a video no one's ever seen. Of Zuckerberg. Of Zuckerberg. And Palmer even joked to me after I told him I sent this email because he, we were curious. Are the journalists going to finally acknowledge my book? And Palmer made the point that

a couple weeks earlier all these same outlets have been reporting on what was in Mark Zuckerberg's garbage. And so Palmer said, if they don't report on this video, let it on the book, then they would literally rather report on what's in Mark's garbage than any of the stuff that isn't, that I spent years researching. And still, not a single person report on it. And I should say, you know, that is the mainstream tech and gaming press. coming on your show and the success of the book reached you know you have such a devoted group of listeners and so many of them wrote nice letters to me so many of them bought this book and

supported the book and liked the book and it also led to other conservative pundits hosts having me on their show so they've been really accommodating and there's been people here and there um that have had me on there uh i had a good conversation with the guy uh david No? Hopefully David Rubin. Okay. James O'Keefe mentioned the book on his show the other day, and I'm hoping to speak with Dave because Dave actually...

I'll call Dave for you. Dave's a good friend. Thank you. Dave's, you know, for me, I'm definitely still considering myself a liberal, and I always think it's weird where when you question that people, you know, like Dave's called right or alt-right, even though he, no, he's a gay guy. Like, and then, you know, same thing with Joe Rogan and then, same thing with Joe Rogan and, and Sam Harris and all these people.

But I remember, like, you know, this has been sort of a journey for me of becoming more tolerant and sort of understanding what it means to be liberal, conservative. And Dave's video, why I left the left was really eye-opening for me. It did talk about the Martin Luther King Jr. quote that I think about a lot.

And that was a very persuasive video. And there's a lot of people on the left now who feel like Dave or like myself. And I think, think we can do better than that. But anyway, yeah. Oh, I was going to say I was on this geek's guide to the galaxy, which we had a good conversation, and I thought it was funny that the podcast is actually produced by Wired,

though like they have no involvement. But so they ended up putting it up on their webpage, and I was like, oh, finally, I got on Wired after they refused to have me on anyway, I kind of snuck on there. And during the conversation, we talked about how Wired wouldn't have me on. but yeah and I just want to take another moment to thank your listeners they're the best they are the best they are the best like thank you thank you so much Glenn just a reminder I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people