The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - ‘Cultural Heroin’ and the Road to the Election

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Two guests join us today. First up, Jessica Tarlov reports live from the RNC. We hear about the overall vibe, the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump, and what we need to think about leading up to the election. Follow Jessica and her reporting, @JessicaTarlov.  Afterward, we hear from Reid Hoffman about Biden’s decision to stay in the presidential race, the state of AI, and “woke-ism” and its place in American universities.  We also get an update on Scott’s whereabouts.  Algebra of Happiness™: be humble & forgive yourself.  Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 308. 308 is the area code belonging to western nebraska in 1908 the first time square ball drop occurred at midnight true story for new years i bought myself one of those health trackers and while i haven't run yet this year i've masturbated for over 500 miles go go go Welcome to the 308th episode of the Prop G Pod. Whenever I do one of these jokes, I immediately click stop and look at the reaction of our production team. Because what I want is I want them to be offended and horrified, but sort of laughing under their breath. That's when I know I've hit

it. Other times, they just turn on the cameras, and they look at me like they're horrified, and I know I need to go back to the well. Anyways, in today's episode, we're mixing it up a little bit. To start off the news, we're bringing in our political Yoda, our sensei. Our sensei, our master of disaster, which is the political realm right now, in my opinion, the most interesting rising star in the world of political commentary, Jessica Tarloff. She'll be reporting from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. We'll hear her rapid-fire take on the vibe of the convention, the aftermath of the attempted assassination on Trump. By the way, I was actually behind Melania at an airport right after it happened, and I heard her screaming into a phone, you had one job. Too soon? Too soon? Actually,

actually, supposedly it was a hit commissioned by the Democratic Party, but they ordered it from Teemu, and it didn't quite work out. Anyways, discount hits, not a good idea. So we'll also be talking to Jessica about what we need to be thinking about leading up to the election. Afterward, we'll hear from Reid Hoffman about Biden's decision to stay in the race, the state of AI, and wokeism and its place in American universities. I absolutely love Reid Hoffman. I think he is the conscience and the voice of the tech community and the tech leader we need, if you will. I just, I'm so impressed with Reid. But first, I know what you're thinking.

Where's the dog? Where's the dog? He was in Munich. He was in München at a beer garden watching England beat, who did we beat then? Netherlands, right? And then got so excited that I took my son to Berlin where we watched the finals of the Euros. And we saw Spain go on to victory. An amazing game.

Good for Spain. I think they played the better match and deserved to win. But we had just an unbelievable time following Team England. The British people are just such a half-empty group of people. They're furious at what's-his-face Southgate, the manager, because they didn't win. And all they could talk about, I heard over, heard on the way back, is we can never win a trophy or a tournament. For God's sakes, they've gone to the final twice. And I mean, they just have such incredible talent. And I

absolutely loved watching England play, and I'm very grateful, and not that any of them listened to my podcast, but my God, Cole Palmer, Jesus Christ, was that exciting. They put the guy in a little bit too much of football here. They put the guy in, and I think the 70th or 74th minute, and within two minutes, he scored a goal. So back from Berlin in New York, it's about 140 degrees here, but it's always great to be back in the city. This is the start of my American summer. I'm back in the U.S. of A. I go to Colorado next Saturday, I think.

And then I go to off the coast of Massachusetts to Nantucket. Literally the whitest place on earth. Literally. I didn't want to like it. I think of myself as being more kind of Euro trash. And I went there 10 years ago and I've been every summer since. It is beautiful. It's essentially a sandbar in the Atlantic. You can let the kids go crazy. They can't get into too much trouble because it's an island.

Good food. Just absolutely love it. Anyways, enough of my privilege. I want to end this on a little bit of a deeper, more thoughtful note. I did one of my favorite things in Berlin. I did something called Fat Tire Bike Tours. I've done this every time I've been in Berlin and they take you around all these sites. And it's obviously very focused on World War II and the wall coming down. And I just find that shit fascinating. And what was so exciting for me is my 13-year-old son came with me and they take you to Hitler's Bunker, which is now a nondescript parking lot because they don't want to draw too much attention to it or turn it into any sort of shrine for when far-right fucking crazies start showing up and planting flowers or some shit like that. And they take you to a guard tower, and the guard towers that were erected to basically shoot anybody that was trying to escape to the west, given that there was an incredible brain drain. And it was actually, the wall was actually, for a short time, a good idea for East Germany, distinct of the human rights violations, because they were losing all of their human capital to

the West. But this was just, it was just such a fascinating, weird construct, and quite frankly, a flawed construct. But for example, when they had guards in the towers, they would switch them up and put them in different towers because they were finding if they spent too much time together, they too would make plans to escape. And so they made sure that they didn't get to know each other. But more than that, the thing that really struck me

on these tours is that if you look at Germany and Prussia for the last few centuries, it's been historically one of the most tolerant, progressive places in the world, an appreciation for art, music, very accepting and tolerant of different religions and people from different backgrounds, thriving gay community, political discourse, celebration of world-class academics, an appreciation for debate, democracy. And then it had this 12-year period where things really went, sideways is the wrong word, really went dark. And for me, it's a lesson that absolutely, in my view, that to believe that that can't happen here is to ignore history. And I find

that Americans, our optimism is our greatest feature, but also our greatest flaw. And that is we're under the impression that somehow our institutions would buttress us against some sort of demonization of immigrants, which I think is already sort of on a through most of society, and that is an incredibly progressive, tolerant, interesting, liberal, democratic society. And it's the economic engine of Europe. I love the whole work hard, play hard ethic in Germany. One of the things, examples that I just love about Germany is, I think in the US, we kind of bifurcate things for kids and things for adults. Disneyland is definitely for kids. It is the seventh circle of hell for adults. And then there's places that are just adults only. And I think Germany does a great job of threading the needle. My favorite thing is the beer gardens there. There'll be a beer garden and there'll literally be trampolines. So,

something for everybody. There's the kids and mom and dad go grab a beer. I think Germany is a fantastic or a wonderful culture. And every time I go there, I just have such a nice time. Anyways, Germany, an incredibly progressive and impressive society. But for 12 years, digress from that norm. And it happened fast. And it happened aggressively. And obviously, it happened violently. And there are a lot of lessons to be taken from that. And again, to believe that unless we remain steadfast and recognize that that can happen here, it will happen here. There's no reason if it can happen in Germany based on their historical reference in the bookends of that society, then it can absolutely happen here. All right, let's get Jessica on.

Breaking news, former President Donald Trump is safe and a 20-year-old shooter is dead after a shocking assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania yesterday afternoon. This afternoon, former President Donald Trump announced his pick for running mate, choosing Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to join him on the ticket. Two-thirds of Americans say President Biden should step aside, and that includes 60% of Democrats. So we are joined now by Jessica Tarlow. Jessica is a political analyst and a co-host on The Five, Fox's weeknight news program, and a regular guest here on Prop G. She is in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention. Jess, let's kick off with, just give us a general sense of the kind of the vibe there. Well, I first want to make clear to the listeners, I'm in an open environment. So if it's a little noisy or the sound quality is crappy, I apologize.

But I'm in the Fox workspace at the convention center in the midst of it all. And it has been a crazy few days. I arrived on Saturday, first day back from maternity leave and within half an hour of landing there was the assassination attempt on former President Trump and we were wall to wall through the evening and then Sunday, you know, getting into the swing of things. First segment back, talking about almost immediately, you know, who's to blame for this. Everyone kind of jockeying for their position, surrounded by people, very enthusiastic Trump supporters, as you can imagine. The great outfits are happening, the bedazzled hats, the cowboy boots, Make America, everything again, t-shirts and paraphernalia.

And then yesterday, first day back on the five and it's been intense and a whirlwind it's very exciting to be here and but it's a it's a little scary considering what happened um and i think that there's an air of that everywhere and everyone is feeling it uh security is massive i mean it, everybody is here from Secret Service down to the local police. And that's really what's hanging in the air, I would say, for everyone is this teeny bit of fear and then this massive excitement. Very enthusiastic bunch, to say the least. So, Jess, this is difficult. Or it's difficult for me.

But just trying to be as unemotional about this as possible. My sense actually killed and that the shooter wasn't successful. But he had the Mar-a-Lago case dropped against him. Eileen Cannon, the judge in Florida, did that yesterday morning right for the kickoff of the RNC. And he's walking on air. Part of why he moved up the VP announcement to have J.D. Vance, who's been a big hit around the convention here. J.D. Vance was Democrats' top choice in terms of who they wanted him to pick, because he doesn't bring a tremendous amount to the table. He doesn't bring a state that Trump wasn't going to win. He doesn't bring a set of policies that Trump didn't have. He's not more moderate than Trump. I feared it would be a Glenn

Youngkin, Marco Rubio, or a Nikki Haley. But definitely, you know, going in their direction. And Joe Biden, he had that good rally on Friday in Detroit. The interview with Lester Holt on Monday night was fine, but not enough to quiet everyone down. And I think if it's a toss up race right now, you'd have to at least go 51-49 in Trump's favor. So yeah, I would agree with you that it's with him right this moment. So a couple of things right there. J.D. Vance, my sense is, it's interesting that you said that that was the Democrats' pick they were hoping for. My sense is that it's actually a good pick for Trump. One, he's handsome. Two, he's young. He's a Marine veteran, and he'll be

a very effective attack dog for, which is generally, you know, kind of one of the key roles for the VP. What are your thoughts on the pick distinct of what the Democrats wanted or didn't want? Well, I think that that's all true. And right now what I'm focused on is the enthusiasm factor. So the race is still statistically tied. There were three major polls, our poll, the Fox poll, NBC, CBS, all within one to two points. That's margin of error. We're in a dead heat. The CBS battleground polls, really interestingly, were also within the margin of error. And we had seen some with with bigger distance that Biden was behind kind of three, four points versus being one to two points behind. So if you're looking at that and then you're considering the VP pick, yes, that story is completely compelling. I was a hillbilly elegy liberal myself when that came out. I thought it was incredible, book better than the movie, as it usually is. But J.D. Vance is not someone

that's likable. He's not liked at home in Ohio. He's not liked in the Senate. Mitt Romney, when he was being interviewed for something, said that there was like no one more detestable. I guess he forgot about Ted Cruz that day. But J.D. Vance is not someone that has warmed a lot of people up. And I think it is a signal to the future of the party. Right. J.D. Vance at 39 years old. And he's I guess he'll be 40 if they win by the time he's elected. But it's really a siren call that it's MAGA now and it's MAGA in the future. And that's the message that Donald Trump wants to send.

And that's a message that I think helps the Democrats that are managing to permeate the bubble about Project 2025 and what scariness, you know, lurks ahead for us if Donald Trump wins again. And J.D. Vance does nothing to kind of stop that. So that's why I think that it's a good pick if you are looking at it from the Democratic side. Based on what you're kind of feeling at the convention, do you have any sense of any policy shifts or messaging that you think they're going to go with based on what just what the speakers are talking about? I mean, these things are produced for TV, so they're pretty deliberate. Any insight you can glean from their strategy?

At least from the Monday night, besides Trump showing up himself, the big deal was Sean O'Brien, the union, that union boss, and that he is going to speak at both conventions. And he came in there with a speech that you would normally think you'd see at the DNC, and he made it at the RNC. And he got more applause for certain things that I, you know, I wouldn't have expected. And he was more generous towards Donald Trump that I would have expected as well. You know, they try to be, quote, nonpolitical, but endorsements happen.

And Joe Biden has made being on the side of the union workers a huge hallmark of his campaign, joining picket lines. He got, I think it's $90 billion reimbursed into their pensions, for instance. The fact that he showed up here and that he spoke that passionately and said Trump was a really tough dude, which, yeah, I mean, he got shot at and managed to get himself together and then pump his fist. I get it. But that's what really stuck out to me. That was like the outlier, you know, in a sea of faces that you would typically expect at an RNC event. Has anyone been a disaster in terms of the speakers? Like the vibe in the room, did it ever go really flat? Was anyone sort of underwhelming in terms of the lineup?

Yeah, it was. It was David Sachs, right? That's his name, the venture capital guy who's given a ton to J.D. Vance. And he kept waiting for applause or laughter, and none of it came because he just totally blew. So that was a big disappointment for people. But otherwise, everyone's been pretty happy. I mean, I've been here from the morning to night night and people are just jazzed to be here. They're excited when they're listening to some rando dog catcher from, you know, the middle of nowhere. So, you know, people are pumped. They're pumped about Donald Trump. And I was reviewing all of the terrible things that J.D. Vance has said about Trump from the past. And one thing stuck out. Comparing him to Hitler? Well, no, that did stick out.

And I made sure to mention that on TV. No, he called him cultural heroine. And I think that that's really apt and accurate and not surprising coming from, you know, a very smart guy who wrote a fantastic book and got himself into Yale Law School, which is no easy feat. And that, I can

feel that. And I'm obviously not going so far as to say, you know, people need to be deprogrammed. I know Democrats always get into trouble when they say things like that about Trump supporters. But people are addicted to the way he makes them feel. And this is like multiple arenas full of that addiction. Do you sense that cult-like addiction atmosphere is more intense than you would expect at the Democratic convention? Well, I mean, if you just look at the polling on enthusiasm behind these candidates, yeah. I mean, the DNC would seem more like a tea party, right? And this is

like a rager at a dive bar where everyone is having the time of their lives doing karaoke, right? But at this particular moment, I don't see the Democrat enthusiasm coming anywhere to match this. And I was listening to Frank Luntz talk about what he's seeing in the polling and focus grouping post-assassination attempt. And he said he doesn't think the race is going to move. And I agree with that. But where you will see the movement is in the enthusiasm. And we're looking at a situation where every single Trump voter is going to show up. And we have to be sure that every Democratic voter shows up. And I certainly can't guarantee something like that at this particular moment.

Talk a little bit about Project 2025, or what I refer to affectionately as Season 7 of the I certainly can't guarantee something like that at this particular moment. Talk a little bit about Project 2025, or what I refer to affectionately as Season 7 of The Handmaid's Tale. Do you get the sense they're trying to distance themselves from that? Oh, yeah. Are there folks? Say more. Well, Trump put out on Truth Social, I don't know anything about it. I mean, a thing that he's mentioned 312 times in, that everybody who worked with him has played an integral role in shaping. He says he knows nothing of. And I think that that's one of the points that Democrats have to keep hammering. Finally, the polling is reflecting an awareness

for this, which I have to say is, you know, no credit to the media on this. They have not been amplifying it, I think, to the level that it deserves. When you think about that, this is a man who has remade the courts, right? The Supreme Court is gone basically forevermore. And if Trump wins again, you could see a couple justices just retiring, right, to let him get in another Amy Coney Barrett or two. But he has nothing to hold him back, right? This is the revenge term. He has four years to do whatever he wants. And he's made clear multiple times what it is that he wants to do. We know where he stands on immigration. We know where he stands on bodily autonomy, that he's fine. If you say, leave it up to the states, that means that it's just fine, like in J.D. Vance's home state, to have such a

prohibitive abortion ban that a 10-year-old who got raped has to go to Indiana for care. So I think that we have to do a better job talking about Project 2025 all the time. It should be more than 50 percent of people who know what it is. But the fact that Trump said, I don't know anything about this, means that he's scared shitless about the impact of this on the election. What impact, if any, will the RNC have on Biden's campaign? It feels as if the calls to the president to withdraw from the race have at least there's been sort of a pause on it. Do you think it picks back up? And any thoughts on where that stands? Well, there are two big reports in the last couple of days. There's Adam Schiff at a fundraiser where he said, if Biden's top of the ticket, I think we lose the House and we

don't regain the House and we lose the Senate. And then on Monday, Politico was reporting, I think it was Rachel Bade's piece, that Nancy Pelosi has been working the phones, that she cannot stand this chatter, the Democrats don't care about what happens. I'm sure you saw this in Axios, that they've resigned themselves to another Trump term, and Nancy Pelosi is not having any of that. And if there's one consistency in life, it's that if Nancy Pelosi is working against you, you're in a lot of trouble. So I think that it might be on the surface quiet, and a lot of that has to do with the assassination attempt, right? I mean, you have to give someone at least a few minutes after something like that happens. But I don't think that it's really quiet. And what he aimed to

achieve with the Lester Holt interview, I think felt short. And one of the answers that stood out the most to me besides the conversation about the bullseye, you know, putting Trump in the bullseye and the rhetoric quote coming from both sides, which I don't think these are comparable at all. But Lester Holt asked him about, you know, who's making the decision if you were to step aside? And he just said me. And it sounds like a man alone on an island. Right. And maybe Hunter and Jill are there. But I had never heard him talk that way. And he was defiant, you know, saying me. And that isn't the usual ethos of Joe Biden. And that is certainly not the ethos of the Democratic Party or what we purport to be. And there are rumors that the DNC might hold an early vote

on making him the nominee and do that virtually. People are pushing back against that idea. I think it would be a big mistake to make people feel like post-debate, they don't have any agency in what happens going forward to November. Jessica Tarloff is a political analyst and a co-host on the Five Foxes weeknight news program. She joins us from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Jess, as always, it's great to hear from you and enjoy yourself. And we'll look forward to catching up soon. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. We'll be right back for our conversation with Reid Hoffman.

Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, investor, and strategist. Reid, where does this podcast find you? I am just outside Seattle. Question mark. You've become sort of this elder statesman of the tech community and what I'll call center-left politics. What are your thoughts on the state of what I think my family would call senior moments in the thing. And that obviously, you know, legitimately causes a bunch of concern. You know, I obviously, you know, if you kind of asked me, you know, which am I more concerned about, a bad debate with senior moments or a lying felon who doesn't care about the country. I have a clear point of view about which one is more disqualifying for being president. But it's obviously, you know, I don't mean to paper over the concerns because, you know, I think probably everybody would prefer people who are 20 years younger contending for the presidency. It's just a question of,

do you express your age through slowness, but kindness and care or demented lying? So a lot of this comes down to, I mean, we'll know this will either happen or not happen, I think, in the next couple of weeks, just logistically. I mean, time is on both Biden and Trump's side now that if Biden, for whatever reason, doesn't succumb to the pressure or, I mean, at some point it becomes logistically infeasible to replace him, right? And I think his view right now or his perception is right now the path to presidency would be, I'm not him, meaning Trump. The thing that I think would force him out, and I'm curious if you you believe this is true is if there was a dramatic reduction in donor money and you're a whale you are in the your flight you're at a rare altitude both in terms of your own personal giving but also the people you know um i'm when what i bucket the fundraising into whales such as yourself, porpoises such as myself, they give tens of

thousands but not millions. And then the small, you know, small money donors, they call them minnows, but a lot of minnows can make up, you know, a formidable force. But what I see is the porpoises are in full revolt. The people I speak to are not only signing letters to try and ask to get them to step down, but starting to try and think about the next wave of candidates and commit money to supporting them. What is happening among the whales in terms of their giving? Are they holding back? Are they taking a wait-and-see attitude? Are they rallying around the president? What's going on at your altitude? I would say that they're just like the porpoises and, you know, uh, I'd actually

rather be, you know, in the, in this, in the bestiary, I'd rather be, you know, you porpoises and dolphins. You'd rather be flipper. Yes, exactly. Um, but I would say that it's the same, you know, amongst the, the whales is a, there's a deep concern about if you're showing fatigue now, and it's four months of a very grueling path, you know, what does that look like? And does that give Americans, you know, not the right sense of what the vigor of, you know, I care about kind of everyday Americans, and I care about, you know, people other than myself. You know, what does that present like? And I'd say that the whales are also, wait and see is probably too passive, but very concerned with what the forward path looks like. And so therefore are, you know, I'd say donations have slowed down a lot from that. Now, on the other hand, of course, you know, one of the things that was very interesting to me about kind of looking at the post-debate was how much grassroots went way up. And it may be, you know, a function of, you know, seeing Biden as he is, a very decent man who cares about other people. You know, so I always worry a little bit about, you know,

what the perspectives are and make sure that you can see, you know, what is the everyday American or the youth perspectives and not just, you know, kind of from where I sit. But to put a fine point on it, you're one of the deepest voices in the Democratic Party right now. People listen to you, Reid. Where are you today? Do you feel the best course of action People listen to you, Reid. Where are you today? Do you feel the best course of action would be to mature battle tests and support and rally around another candidate,

or for us to stop this and rally around Biden? Well, I would like to see Biden show the vigor of campaigning that he is going to need to see. It's not just like the ABC interview, but maybe call it the ABC interview every day. If we see that, then I think we should be, you know, rallying around Biden and stopping this discussion. If we don't see that, if this is just the, you know, look, you know, he's dedicated his entire life to public service. This is everything he's done, and it's contributed massively. But if it's like, look, I can only imagine what running at his age is like. If it's like, look, I'm too tired for this, then it's like, then I think we should, you know, kind of open up the field. But you do still think it's a possibility that he can demonstrate that type of vigor in a short enough time to give people an option that it's not a run-out-the-clock strategy that you think that they're...

No, I would oppose a run-out-the-clock strategy. My voice, and as much as my voice matters in any of this stuff, is come be vigorous now. You wrote a pretty powerful piece. I think I read it in The Economist talking about that Silicon Valley business leaders who are endorsing Trump because they believe he is better for business. What is the sentiment you've been hearing and how exactly why do you think Trump is better for business because he's a business person, he lowers regulation, he's lower taxes, all the classic things that, you know, people say, hey, that's good for business. But what they miss is what's fundamentally critical for business is kind of a stable society, a rule of law society, you know, kind of open markets and good relationships with other countries for, you know, kind of products and services. And in all of that, Trump is essentially a disaster.

And so part of the reason I wrote this piece for business people was to say, don't, you know, kind of think, oh, 1% or 2% differences in tax rates matter. Don't think that, look, and I actually appreciate, it's one of the things, like, people say, are you objective about Trump? And it's like, yeah, actually, I think one of the things that he did well was to say, hey, if you want a new regulation, remove an old regulation. I think that's a good refactoring of regulation stance, but don't think that's what's most important for business. What's actually, in fact, important for business is kind of rule of law and stability, and Trump basically attacks all of that. And I kind of came of professional age in the Valley, but I don't feel as if I'm in touch with it because I've been gone so long. And this might be a reductive analysis, but I find there's this frightening vein or ideology

in the Valley of kind of this techno-libertarian notion that government is bad and that if we could just let smarter people run the company, defer to the markets, and specifically if the markets could kind of defer to the technology leaders, that we'd all be better off. And I find it very disconcerting given that I don't think these individuals recognize how blessed they are by some of the underpinnings of M. Blessing's rule of law, an incredible business ecosystem. Am I being dramatic here? Is there sort of a concerning vein of this sort of techno-libertarian

within the Valley? No, I don't think you're being dramatic. I basically completely agree. It's one of the reasons why, you know, kind of I argue for the value of government, the value of better government. There's never great government. There's always inefficiencies there, but the difference between, you know, call it B and B plus can actually make a very big difference. And I think the libertarian thing, which by the way, comes from, in some places, comes from places that are not terrible, which is like, hey, we can build amazing new companies, amazing new technologies. Those can make a very big difference. I agree with all of that very strongly. But the notion that it's like, oh, government is bad or gets in the way,

it's like, well, actually, in fact, if you look at everything that our Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, you know, can create comes from many different platforms that government has enabled. It isn't just rule of law. It isn't just a peaceful society. It isn't just a, you know, kind of university system and technology system and funding of these technologies that then, you know, get created into companies. But it's the very kind of the system that we can deploy our products and services and hire talent and offer, you know, kind of stock, you know, for sale. and all of that's within a government-regulated environment. So I frequently argue vociferously with, you know, what I refer to as techno-libertarians. So let's switch to AI. Where are you most bearish and bullish when it comes to use cases and applications? Let's see. So on the bearish side, what I would say is that there's a couple things. One is it's hard to know exactly where to be bearish over time because I think Ethan Mullock in Co-Intelligence said something that's a good maxim, which is the worst AI you're ever going to use is the AI you're using today. And there's a bunch of things that are kind of being developed. Now, I think people being overly Pollyannish about, oh, you know, AI is going to solve fusion for us in three

years is, I think, you know, a mistake in various ways. In the positive sense, I think that it's funny, even with all the hype, I think it's to some degree understated relative to if you think about the fact we are language creatures and that everything we do is in, but you have sales, you have manufacturing, you have financial analysis, you have meetings, you have decisions, all of which there's going to be essentially co-pilots for. And so I'm very bullish across all of this productivity. That doesn't mean that it doesn't come without challenges in terms of how jobs change and, you know, all the rest. But I think that the amplification here is really big. And what's more, it doesn't even get to like, you know, all the rest. But I think that the amplification here is really big. And what's more, it doesn't even get to, like, you know, the two kind of cases that I usually use is I have a line of sight to having a tutor and a medical assistant on every smartphone that, you know, is kind of there for every human being who has access to a smartphone, which is, you know, amazing human

elevation. But I also think it gets interesting in terms of, you know, what does it mean for, you know, drug discovery or other kinds of places where the deeper uses of language and predict the next token can actually apply to things that make a huge difference for the quality of human life. So overly, very, very bullish, bearish on Pollyanna's short-term claims. One of the concerns I have, and I think a decent number of people share, is that technologies either go to existing players or new players, and it feels with AI that while there's some new brands, it feels as if the majority of the

spoils are going to not only existing players, but a small number of existing players. You were a co-founder in Inflection, which got, my understanding is, got sold to OpenAI. You're on the board of Microsoft. Amazon's an investor in Anthropic. It all feels very incestuous. Are you at all worried about the concentration or increased concentration of wealth and power to even a smaller circle of companies and individuals in what is probably the next big technology? Well, there's multiple questions there, so I'm going to kind of unpack them a little bit. One, Inflection is still a going company. I had a board meeting a couple weeks ago. It did a business deal with Microsoft, which involved a license. And Mustafa Suleiman went over to build agents for them because we pivoted away from agents to B2B stuff.

And so there'll be a bunch of stuff. And that's just a small thing. Well, I actually think the actual truth of the matter is the rewards, everyone's investing pretty heavily, but the rewards haven't really started showing up yet. I'm not concerned by that. Some people then say, well, hey, you're doing all this investment. Why isn't the reward showed up, you know, this quarter? And the answer is actually, in fact, the most interesting things are the things that compound over 10 years versus, you know, something makes a difference and, you know, you invest this year and your profit margin goes up next year. So I don't think the awards actually have been divided up that much yet. Now, what is showing is that one part of the revolution that we're in

here is a scale compute revolution. And the ability to drive scale compute is mostly not very much of a startup game. There's a reason why, or if it is a startup game like OpenAI, it's adjacent to large companies. So you've got OpenAI, which is adjacent to Microsoft. You've got Anthropic, which is adjacent to Amazon, you know, et cetera, as essentially what's driving them. And that does mean that there is some limitation. That doesn't mean that that's a necessarily critical problem because there's all kinds of places where you say, well, I would like to, you know, create a startup of a desktop search company, and you can't really do that. What you want for the vulnerability of companies to be taken is with new technologies, new platforms, new other

kinds of things as ways of doing it, not necessarily by going at their strengths. Now, that being said, I think the deepest, most implicit part of your question is, is there startup opportunity here that can build new pillars of strength that are not being subsumed to a smaller number of companies? And I think the answer is absolutely yes. I think that startups not only can use a ton of the different models that are being built, but also, you know, they're going to have the opportunities to build, you know, pretty amazing companies because we have multiple large language models that are being built but also you know they're going to have the opportunities to build you know pretty amazing companies because we have multiple large language models that are competing with each other like if it was just one large language model that would be a concern because then you kind of say hey we're going to try to grab all the economics ourself but you not

only have google and microsoft and open ai competing with each other but you have multiple other folks trying to come into the entry there and And you can look at what Anthropic and Amazon are doing. And so I think there's a lot of startup opportunity. And I'm putting my money where my mouth is as an investor at Greylock and personally and starting Inflection and all of this. So I actually think that the very last point, I think this is probably the deepest point that you and I have some interesting zones, or one of the deep points, I don't know if it's the deepest, of conflict in, is that I actually think we're, you know, call it five and that this, the ecosystem will actually, it's not going to be one apex predator killing everybody or you don't think it's going to be consolidation. You think that it'll spawn new giants? Exactly. Do you think there's a bit of a bubble? I don't, it's hard to argue that AI is going to have a seminal impact on business and the economy and society. Do you think we might be in a bit of a bubble as it relates to valuations? Well, it's definitely, which we always get in new technology waves, which is people go,

we know there's going to be a huge impact, they're betting on tons of companies. And so it creates a valuation increase across a lot of companies. And then in retrospect, you go, well, that was clearly a bubble because a number of those companies, that valuation increase was incorrect, right? But on the other hand, part of how the market functions is to say, hey, we know we're all kind of putting our bets on which ones are going to be, which ones are going to be the enduring big ones, which are going to be the new big ones, and which ones are not going to hit the wave. And so I think to some degree, there's a significant number of companies, which will show in retrospect, have their valuations bid up in ways that I disagree with. I didn't buy, right? I don't do shorts. I just don't think I build things for long, but I kind of don't buy those

valuations. On the other hand, of course, the whole game is, well, which ones actually have copped this? And this will be the next technological wave that's bigger than, you know, the internet, mobile, cloud computing, because it compounds all of them. It amplifies them to the next level. People have outlined a bunch of potential dangers from AI, whether it's sentient or concentration or self-healing weapons or it being used for mis- and disinformation. What risks do you think are underhyped, if any, and which ones are overhyped? So I think the ones that are underhyped are,

and tend to get masked by a number of things, you know, this is, you know, with my book Impromptu, I basically said this is amplification intelligence as a way of looking at it versus artificial intelligence and kind of human amplification and bad actors being amplified. So whether it's cyber criminals, terrorists, rogue states, you know, it's one of the things that, you know, has me, you know, very concerned about what these things are like in the kind of the, in the cyberspace realm, to use a dated term, but to think, you know, we have a bunch of equivalent of open warfare going on, you know, across the internet in hacking and in security where, you know, governments aren't really doing much about that. And, you know,

what can AI do to amplify that, I think, is, and I mean governments collectively, as in kind of, you know, international treaties that are being written and enforced. And so I think that's the underhyped and the area that I'm most focused on. I think the overhyped one is kind of versions of the super intelligent robots are coming for us, because I think it's the humans with the robots that are much more concerning immediately than the super intelligent robots. And I'll give you a small example. Last year, I was asked to sign this 22-word statement that a bunch of people I love and trust and admire signed, which is, you know, AI is an existential risk along with climate change, pandemic, etc. And the reason I didn't is because AI is also the only one of this list that has massive things in the positive buckets, how to solve pandemic, how to be looking for asteroids, how to be, you know, computing, you know, energy grids to try to reduce, you know, carbon footprints and energy chains. I actually think the whole existential risk superintelligence is not an absolute 0%.

But if you ask me to say, is superintelligence risk of AI more likely, all a terminator, or is the Earth being hit by an asteroid more likely? I'm not sure which one I would put as more likely. If you were to advise, hopefully, the Biden or a blue administration around AI, do you think that they're headed in the right direction in terms of, I mean, so far there really hasn't been regulation. There's been sort of like this regulation manifesto of like, this is what we might do. What would your advice be around government involvement or regulation or lack thereof with respect to AI? Well, I think the Biden administration has done a really good process, which is first bring the companies in, sweat them for voluntary commitments, work really hard, push them very limited, like, okay, what happens with, you know, high compute models and so forth, rather than trying to solve every imagined problem.

Because, you know, for example, if someone come to you and say, okay, I want approval for a two-ton death machine that someone can get drunk and run over a kid with, they'd say, well, here's a hundred things you should fix. And one or two of them, seatbelts, you know, airbags should be on the list. But then there's a hundred other things. So you only really get there by working your way through it. So I think the administration, you know, has done a good process on this. And I do think that our tool set for navigating both great opportunity and human elevation and preventing the challenges get stronger as we're building stuff. And so I think we want to be very focused and limited until we actually are really blocking the real harms. We'll be right back. you're an investor and a couple of the things you've invested in are you funded eugene carroll's

defamation suit against president trump and now you're helping finance smartmatics case i'm just curious it's it feels like it's a new wave of investing. I don't know if you pioneered it or Peter Thiel did, but it's a very interesting means of, I call it investing. I don't know what the term would be, but walk us through your thought process for why you decided to do it and talk a little bit about the Smartmatic case and why you've decided to get behind it. It feels a little strange and I wish, you know, I didn't feel the need to be doing what I was doing here, but it's very much rule of law and high-functioning democracy. And, you know, part of the thing here is to say, look, we should always be resolved to as strong

a rule of law system as possible. part of that's by the way for example every single scholarly and any source of integrity says the 2020 election was fair right it was fair doesn't mean it was perfect but it was fair to the standards of every other election in modern history and so um so then you get to, okay, well, people who attack that are trying to degrade our democracy, degrade our trust and belief in rule of law. And by the way, that trust is part of how it functions. And so supporting the rule of law is the thing that has been, I'd say, fundamental across my democracy investing, but also in terms of saying, hey, let's have the legal system work. Because one of the things that you, as you saw with,

for example, the Dominion suit against Fox is, unlike when you're kind of litigating just a freedom of speech political thing, people can lie through their teeth and have no consequences. When you're lying through your teeth and saying, hey, the 2020 election was stolen and your texts show that you're lying through your teeth and that that's the influence that you as a news media organization are having upon the culture, beliefs, et cetera, of society, in a commercial case, you're allowed to be held accountable by a jury, by a system of law, by depositions and inquiry, by showing what your actual communications are to each other about how you're lying with this. And I think that's part of what's really important. And so people say, well, but that's, you know, I've heard the

that's lawfare. And it's like, look, the whole point about our legal system and having 12 jurors, like, for example, the 12 jurors who convicted Donald Trump unanimously of 34 felonies on doing hush money payments and covering it up for political purposes for sleeping with a porn star. Both the prosecutor attorneys and the defense attorneys helped select the journey. There were probably several Trump voting jurists amongst that anonymous thing. And one of them even said that they get a lot of their news from Truth Social. And that's a jury system. And so the rule of law in a jury system is the thing that I'm very much supportive of. And investing might be the right term, but it's really investing for truth, right? And the jury system is a proxy for getting the truth. I apologize for hopping around here, but I wrote down a series of questions I wanted your thoughts

on. I'm just really curious to get your thoughts on what you or your general impressions and what you think can and should be done regarding some of the activities we've had on some of our elite universities. And if you think the government or the federal government should be playing a more active role, if this is something that is a signal of something deeper and more mendacious or more troubling in the U.S. But I'm curious what Reid Hoffman's thoughts were when you saw what was going on on our campuses. Well, I've been concerned about it for a number of years. And, you know, that same techno-libertarian group, you know, yells about wokeism very loudly. And I, by the way, agree. I think that the point of a university is to be intellectually challenged.

It's, you know, part of, you know, what I loved about my, you know, of you know what i uh loved about my you know undergraduate at stanford where you know peter thiel and i would argue a tremendous amount and so forth and i think that a lot of that lack of kind of rigor and thinking is a problem like for example the most idiotic thing that i i think i've heard you know said out of someone on the campus is, you know, from the river to the sea, I'm anti-genocide. And you're like, from the river to the sea is a genocidal comment. You may not be informed enough to know, like understand that there is, there's kind of genocide and abuse in lots of different vectors here and it's very complicated and that you know like defending um the fact that we have centuries not just world war ii

of you know genocide you know masking and anti-semitism and a lot of the way that the various arab influences including the iran Iranian sponsorship of the Hamas attack, is based on genocidal impulses, you know, like, be a little bit more educated and informed and sophisticated in your compassion. So as we wrap up here, and you've been generous with your time, Reed, you've checked a lot of boxes you it sounds like you have a really a really positive relationship with your spouse you're obviously hugely successful professionally and economically you're have a lot of influence on a national stage like what boxes are left for you if you think in 10 or 20 years there's a few things

a few boxes i'd like to check either in indelelible link, things you've already done, but you want to do more of, or new boxes. What are those things? Well, I mean, I, you know, every major public interest technology thing in Silicon Valley, I've been somehow associated with, usually, you know, like it's, you know, Board of Kiva, Board of Mozilla, et cetera, because they're trying to figure out how we build technology, scale technology for society is an irrelevant thing. Also, you know, helping the folks who stood up the USDS and US Digital Service and, you know, CTO office. So I think technology for humanity and society continues to be a very strong interest. And how do we do that? And by the way, I'm not anti-corporation. I just want to get broader than, right, as a way of doing it. questions around philosophy and kind of how do we know who we are as human beings and as society, who we should be. And like, for example, a question on artificial intelligence is how does it

change our epistemology? I mean, I think, you know, a lot of our epistemology has been driven by the printing press and books and kind of sharing information that way, what kind of new knowledge artifacts will, you know, AIs be and engender? And what does that mean for what it is to be human and kind of philosophy? And those would be some gestures at some stuff that I'm, you know, continuing to work on. But, you know, part of, I think, what it can be amazing about life is, you know, continuing to work on. But, you know, part of, I think, what it can be amazing about life is, you know, discovering something, you know, that is, ah, you know, it's this thing that I should be doing. And so staying active in order to find those.

And final question, Reid, a lot of young men listen to this podcast, and I know you don't have kids, but you've been married for 20 years. What advice would you have to young men who are recently married about being a good partner? You know, I think it's to be serious about it, to think every week, every month, how could I be a better partner? Have conversations and explicit conversations with it. You know, sometimes people find that very awkward, but you kind of go, hey, we have, call it, you know, a date night a month where we talk about like, how could we be better with each other in the relationship and allow kind of like, yeah, this didn't kind of work that well, and this

could be better and so on. And to bring that thing, just like you get better at everything else that involves care, intent, skills, and bring that. That's great. Reid Hoffman is an accomplished entrepreneur, investor, and strategist. He's been at Greylock, where he focuses on early-stage investing since 2009. Reid is also the co-author of Blitzscaling and several New York Times bestselling books, including The Startup of You and The Alliance and Masters of Scale. He also hosts the podcast Masters of Scale. His two main priorities these days are one, using AI to benefit humanity, and two, protecting U.S. democracy. He joins us from his home in the great state of Washington. Reid, you are an outstanding voice for the tech community and a really wonderful role

model for young tech business leaders. I very much appreciate you and appreciate your time today. Well, likewise. And thank you. I love what you're doing and, you know, whatever I can do to help. Thanks very much, Reid. Algebra of happiness, there's so many conspiracy theories where people are trying to draw so many hollow or somewhat specious conclusions or lessons learned from the attempted assassination of President Trump. And the thing that immediately struck me was that there's this graphic showing that if he had just rotated his head two inches clockwise versus

two inches counterclockwise, the bullet would have penetrated a skull in his brain and he'd be dead. I mean, this is just your life, wherever you are right now is a series of small, random happenings, fractions and inches that determine where you are today. And what I would suggest you do and I'm trying to do is just take stock of all the wonderful things in your life, whether it's you have some people in your life that love you and more importantly, let you love them, whether you live in a democracy, whether you have opportunity to kind of pursue what you want to do, whether you have rights, you have some economic security, whatever it might be,

your blessings, recognize that your blessings, a lot of them are your fault and are a function of a series of fractions and inches and things that you may not even have registered at the time around how lucky you are. And at the same time, when things go poorly, recognize it's a series of small things that are small happenings that were outside of your control and to forgive yourself. I've thought literally up until recently, up until my kind of 40s and 50s, that all of the good things in my life were 90% me and 10% the market and all of the bad things that happened to me were 10% me and 90% the market. The reality is it's probably somewhere around 51% things outside of your control

and 49% you. And what's the learning here? When things are going really well, be humble. And when things aren't going well, forgive yourself. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer

and Drew Burrows is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropGee Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our PropGee Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.