This Week in Startups - Coinbase chases NFT billions + Peter Thiel “The Contrarian” with author Max Chafkin | E1305

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

First, Jason covers Coinbase's announcement of their new NFT platform (2:06). Then, Bloomberg's Max Chafkin joins to discuss his book, "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power" (19:57). It's a wide-ranging discussion about Peter's life, business, and politics as well as a debate over the way Max framed him in the book.

Okay, happy Friday, everybody. We've got a great show for you today. I'm going to talk to author Max Chafkin about his new book, The Contrarian, Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. The interview gets a little heated. I challenge him on two very sticky subjects. The first being he mentions many times in the book that Peter Thiel has people around him who are white supremacist. Not saying Peter Thiel's a white supremacist, but the people around him are white supremacist. And then the other issue I talk about, Well, I'll let you get to that when you hear the interview. But first, I'm going to cover Coinbase's new NFT platform and the blowback they're getting from some recent hacks. And should customers investing in crypto assume some level of risk in their account security? I think so, right? If you're going to be in a situation where nobody's in charge and it's a distributed system and it's easily hacked, well, maybe you should expect that you will get hacked. But Coinbase and Robin Hood are both investing massively in phone service.

support and customer support, which is a great idea. Okay, let's get to the show. This week in startups is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. A business is only as strong as its people and every hire matters. Post your first job for free at LinkedIn.com slash twist. Belay. Get back to doing what only you can do, growing your organization and leave the rest to BELAY. Learn how by texting Twist to 55123 or visit belaysolutions.com slash twist for a free ebook called Rise Up and Lead Well by Trisha Siotino, CEO of Belay and Zendesk. Qualifying startups can join the Zendesk for Startups program and get six free months of Zendesk products. You'll also get access to an exclusive community of startups for advice and connections. Visit zendesk.com

slash twist today to get started. Okay, on Tuesday, Coinbase announced that they will be launching an NFT platform and the waitless group to over one million users in just 24 hours. So here's the quote from the Coinbase announcement, just as Coinbase helped millions of people access Bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way, we want to do the same for NFTs. Right now, OpenC is the largest NFT marketplace, if you remember. And according to DAPR, a site that tracks decentralized app data, OpenC had 261,000 users over the past 30 days. So that seems like a small number in terms of, you know, the overall internet.

But I can tell you for an early stage company, like an NFT company, to have a quarter million people trading on the platform, that would be a huge number. So I don't know if that 261,000 users actually made a trade where they visited the site. Very hard to tell from what DAPRID are saying there. So this is one of the things that's always hard about metrics in our industry. People will say they had users. To me, a user means they're logged in. So are these actually logged in users or when I perused OpenC two or three times last month,

am I counted? And then were they not just logged in users, but did they actually do a transaction? Because if they're users, that means maybe 10% did a transaction. so it'd be 25,000 people making transactions, and you could actually work and back and forth. Now, for those of you don't know what an NFT is, non-fungible token, it's an object, typically like an image or a video.

That is a keepsake that could have some other rights associated with it. Sometimes you buy it as a piece of art. Sometimes you buy it to be part of a club and a membership in a club, and maybe that membership will have some downstream effects. Now people are talking about them, not just as baseball cards, or not just as a membership card,

like you're in a private club like Soho House, but maybe it's a, has some utility to it, like it's a sword in a game, and you use it in Diablo, but you can take the same sword and use it in Fortnite. Perfect example. And so there is some concept of these NFTs, these objects,

obviously being tradable on the blockchain, being traded, peer-to-peer, in an easy fashion, and being one of one, and maybe even having rights to it. So my understanding is, I think with the board ape group, you get the rights to your monkey and you can then make art with it or t-shirts. I believe that's the case.

Either way, this NFT waitlist means Coinbase is like great companies when they add a vertical. It's one of the great things about having scale. Once you hit scale, you can add another adjacent category. You could be Uber and you add Uber Eats or Uber Freight. Now you're hitting the ground running. You've got some amount of users. technology, team, playbook, cash that you can deploy to make it even faster and easier to do the next vertical Airbnb experiences. Eventually Airbnb, they've talked about having an airline.

Each of those things becomes easier when you are Amazon and have books and then you do DVDs and then you do home appliances. You get the idea. And so, and Robin Hood obviously started drinking Coinbase is milkshake and with their 20 million accounts, which obviously I have shares in Robin Hood. which if you had dinner with me, you'd know in the first 15 minutes. And those Robin Hood added crypto, right? So now all of a sudden, boom, crypto has become a meaningful part of what they're doing. So there's a singularity that's occurring. All of these financial products will have margin loans, 401ks, 529s for college, bank accounts, checking, cash payments.

It's just going to all be one thing. So Coinbase, Robin Hood could eventually be part of Google, Amazon, or Apple or be the equivalent of those companies. That's my belief. I believe Coinbase and Robin Hood are destined to become trillion-dollar companies or be a major piece of a trillion-dollar company. How amazing would it be if your Amazon account was connected or your Apple account was connected to your Coinbase account

and that was, you know, Coinbase was owned by Apple or Robin Hood was owned by Apple? What an amazing future that would be, right? You're using Apple Pay, plus you've got your 401k and your checking in your bank account right here. I mean, that would be extraordinary. And by the way, you know, the Apple watch, I hated for a long time.

I got the six because my Fitbit kept breaking and I was just tired of dealing with Fitbit customer support. Literally every time I call Fitbit, they're like, yeah, you're out of warranty. I'm like, it's 18 months old. This thing is broken. It just turned off. Like, this is the fourth time.

I've bought 20 Fitbits. And they're like, yeah, sorry, it's the not under warranty. And then I go tweet it and I add mention it because I don't get the answer I want customer support. And then immediately seven people DM me, I work at Fitbit, we'll send you a new one. And I'm just tired of pulling the microcelebrity card on Twitter.

So I just bought an Apple watch. And I miss my Fitbit. I'll be honest. I liked it better in many ways. But the one thing I will say is that when you double tap this or just press this button and you can just Apple pay, oh my Lord, I am picking places to go based on Apple Pay because it's so delightful. I just go bink and then get your little alert. I was in Italy. Bing, pink, pink.

I was just buying shit everywhere. I loved it. And that, I think, is the future. I think we're going to see Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon want to own one of these companies or compete with them. And you see it with Apple Pay, Google Pay. So it's going to be really interesting. In other news, it's Coinbase World. We're just living in it.

Come back on the program, Brian, want to talk. In other news, we invited, I know you guys keep asking me to have Brian back on. We've invited him 10 times. We've got radio silence right now. So maybe I said something. I don't know. Sometimes I'm honest, candid. Or maybe he's just tired of the press because the company's 20s.

so well, he's super busy, but I'd love to have you back on Brian and chop it up. In other news, CNBC reporter on Tuesday that Coinbase was facing blowback on its new live customer support phone service, which they launched this month. Obviously, Robin Hood announced their launching 24-hour, seven-day-a-week phone support for their 31 million users. Wow, they have 31 million users? Oh, wow. Co-Robbinshood. According to the article, Coinbase's phone support only deals with customers whose accounts are locked. This is obviously useful for people who have been hacked, and hacking is the big issue. And CNBC this week, I don't know if you heard it, they went kind of all in with stories of people who were hacked, who lost all their crypto. And this led to a lot of regulation

talk. If this happens at a bank, you don't lose your money. If it happens at a crypto company, sadly, you do. And so if you want to trade virtual money and you want to be a rebel with your NFTs and not have to report on your taxes and do everything in the gray area. Well, don't be surprised when you get hacked and there's no recourse. That's the concept here. It's decentralized. Nobody's in charge. Oh, your money he got stolen?

Okay. Well, why don't you go to whoever's running this decentralized network? It's like, oh, well, it's a decentralized network, Jake out. Nobody's running it. Okay. So you chose to buy imaginary money. And that imaginary money has no. guard rails. You're screwed.

Fire beware. You know, people are taking their crypto and putting it into safety deposit box, cold storage, whatever. If you're going to do this and have any kind of money, you're probably going to want to be across five different accounts and have it locked. Before we get into the ad, I just want you to go to LinkedIn.com slash twist right now, LinkedIn.com slash twist, and post your first job for free.

What a deal. Incredibly supportive of you, LinkedIn, to give that free job to our listeners. And you know, small business owners are busier than ever. The time spent searching for and interviewing wrong candidates, let's face it, bad candidates, takes away from growing your business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs has made it easier to get the candidates worth interviewing faster. And they're giving you your first job for free. Create a free job post in minutes on LinkedIn jobs to reach the world's largest professional network of over 770 million people.

Use screening questions to get your role in front, of only the most qualified people, then quickly filter and prioritize who you want to interview and eventually hire. We love LinkedIn jobs at launch and inside, and in 2021, we've hired a third producer, a curriculum designer, and a few more researchers, and we're doing all that hiring on LinkedIn. We love it, and we're still hiring. So, here is your call to action one more time. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the right candidates worth interviewing faster. Every week, we only 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn. So post your job for free.

Free, F-R-E at LinkedIn.com slash twist. That's right, LinkedIn.com slash twist to post your first job for free. Turns and conditions do apply because you've given you something for free. All right, let's get back to this amazing episode. And obviously there's a steep learning curve here. So, you know, if you have a phone support like Coinbase and you have to take phone calls, I mean, you're going to be on the phone for hours. It was like the PC companies in the early days.

It was like, you know, I'm Dell and I'm doing a phone support and you're calling me about Microsoft Word problems and it's like, well, we're not Microsoft Word. And like, my computer's not working. It's like, we made your computer, you're using software. Like, that's kind of where crypto is. People might have a problem with their NFTs or their Dogecoin or Ethereum.

And it's like, this isn't Coinbase's problem. And we're not here to take all these calls and spend an hour on the calls. But what I would say is you're, there's a lot at stake in these accounts. So of course, there's going to be thousands of people getting hacked all the time. And according to a Rortez article from October 1st,

at least 6,000 Coinbase customers had their accounts hacked between March and May of this year. That's just a couple of months. So it's a big target. Coinbase explained that the issues has unauthorized third parties exploiting flaws in their SMS account recovery process. The hackers then accessed accounts and stole crypto. Coinbase spokesman said,

we immediately fixed the flaw and have worked with these customers to regain control of their accounts and reimburse them for funds they lost, if they lost it from that specific hack. There are many other hacks, obviously. this is where some reasonable amount of regulation will have to come into play and it will be great for Coinbase, for Circle, for any of the legit players. This regulation is going to drive more customers and more lock-in. Because if there was a need to have like FDIC insurance for if people lose their money kind of thing

and say the first 100,000 of your crypto is guaranteed to be protected, that would drive people to use these services and create more lock-in. So there's a bunch of bumps in the road like this. It's just part of running a company. I know it's really, if you read just the mainstream media, you know, they have a very anti-tech bias right now because tech has stepped in it a bunch of times and tech is a lot bigger than it was.

We don't have to relitigate the entire mainstream media versus the press. Some people believe it's because, like, you know, biology believes it's because the mainstream media is losing to Facebook and Google, so therefore they hate the tech industry because they, you know, drank their advertising milkshake. I don't buy that as much as I think tech has gotten really big. And people are woke now. They're socialist. The climate in the country is anti-corporate, for whatever reason. And I think the media is reflecting that in a large way. In fact, they're hiring people who are anti-tech or who, you know, have an ax to grind with tech. I mean, even the New York

Times is hiring people who are, you know, explicitly. anti-tech who personally attack tech leaders, you know, in vicious personal ways, because it's how they feel, which is fine. But I mean, it really is creating this sort of mistrust in the mainstream media when they cover stuff because all companies that are growing have problems. High-scale companies that grow have problems. I mean, you saw this with rental car companies. You've seen it with hotels. You've seen it with cable companies. If you grow really fast, AOL, you're going to have bumps in the road. Really, I judge all these. companies by how quickly they resolve the problem, how quickly they take action.

And if you look at Coinbase, look at Robin Hood, man, they realize they got a problem with customer support and they are going all in on it. They're going to spend tons of money, hire tons of people, and they're going to look at their call centers as a way to build trust and to grow their businesses. And that's the right move. In fact, when I interviewed the founder of JetBlue, David Mealman, and I actually had him on the cover of one of my magazines back in the day. He said, you know, JCal, we had all of our, we had all of our contemporaries with call centers in India and Manila and the Philippines, whatever.

And there were cultural barriers. People didn't like talking to people with accents at the, you know, if you remember that time period, it was, you know, a little bit xenophobic. But also there was just lost in translation moments. He said, I am hiring people, work from home, moms and dads in Salt Lake City and the country, basically. and we just tell them they have to have a separate room with a closed door. They have to have a T1 line or whatever, DSL, you know, and we'll pay for it. And then they get to work whatever shifts they want. He basically created the gig economy.

And that's why JetBlue was so loved because he told everybody like Tony Shea, rest and peace, from Zappos, that those were times to bond and learn and to create a connection with your customers. And I think that's what Coinbase and Robin Hood will learn is that the money they spend, yes, it's going to reduce their profitability, but long term it's going to build. customer loyalty. If you can talk to your customers, my lord, get on the phone and talk to them. And if you can talk to them when they have a problem, oh my God, even better. Because that's a chance for you to turn it around and turn them from a detractor on the net promoter score to a promoter. You want to get them from being a detractor. They hate you. Not just to being indifferent,

but to be like, oh, my God, you remember that customer support experience where the person was so good that you're like, I'm going back to that restaurant. They comped our desserts. They gave us a free after-dinner drink. Oh, my Lord, the chef came out and apologized and explained the problem. I love that restaurant. Like, for me, that's the greatest. As I get older, like, just seeing flawless, amazing service to me is so inspiring. That's what I've been working on with the syndicate.com, actually.

And trying to actually bring here to this weekend startups with the meetups. I want to do more high-touch stuff where we get to meet folks. That's where I'm doing the Nody Gang and the live streams. I was like, podcasting is strange in that you have, You produce it, you distribute it, and there's just no connective tissue. Like, where's the connective tissue? Like, we never built into the podcasting standard comments. Like, why aren't there comments in podcasting?

Shouldn't that be a standard? Can somebody ask Dave Warner to make a standard for podcasting where any podcast episode in my feed, you could comment, and there's a second feed of the official comments. So there should be a way to link each episode to a comment thread that the podcaster controls on an open standard. and then if you're on Spotify or iTunes, it's the same RSS feed of comments. What a brilliant idea.

Why doesn't that exist? A common comment thread. And then if you posted from Spotify, it would authenticate your Spotify account and you would be a Spotify user, said something. Somebody build that and put it into the Open standard. Just think about how great that would be

if people could put comments, you know, or at minute 52, I could post a comment. Man, that'd be incredible. I mean, I know it could be chaos too, but so that's, I think, One of the things any great business leader, entrepreneur learns when they're running these

businesses is, yeah, don't hide from your customers. Like run to the customers, not away from them. Okay. So now let's get to this little dicey, edgy interview I deal with Max Chapkin, who is the author of an interesting new book? I wouldn't say great, but definitely interesting. The Contrarian, Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. We get into it.

I challenge him a little bit specifically on. his repeated claims in the book that Peter Thiel is white supremacy adjacent and that Peter Thiel has a affinity for young, attractive men. And it gets a little heated, a little challenge, but he was a great guest, and I very much enjoyed the book. And I know people in Peter Thiel's orbit do not like the book. So it's a great interview. I might be getting a little blowback of why I did this interview even for my personal circles.

We'll see. Stick with us. For so many leaders, there's a moment in your personal and professional life where you realize you're in your own way. Yes, you're the blocker. You know you need help, and that's exactly where Belay comes in. But delegating your bookkeeping to someone can be intimidating and scary. Imagine, though, how your business would transform if you didn't have to worry about producing reports and balance sheets. If you had more time, energy, and focus to work on things that only you can do, like your product. or hiring. You could achieve bigger goals because you have the freedom to focus on what

matters. Belay the incredible organization revolutionizing productivity with their virtual assistant service for growing organizations can help you. That's why they're giving our listeners a free download of the cost of not doing your bookkeeping. Your finances are not the place to be experimenting, holding your breath, fingers crossed, and hoping for the best. So if you're ready to wave the white flag on handling your red and black margins, let one of Belay's experience remote bookkeepers help. Get back to doing what only you can do, growing your organization, and leave the bookkeeping to Belay. Just text Twist to 55123 or visit belaysolutions.com slash twist for your free download of the cost of not doing your bookkeeping today.

All right. Next up on the program is the author of a new book, The Contrarian. Peter Thiel in Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. I just finished the book, and the book moves briskly through lots of the well-documented life and career of an obviously quirky teal, somebody I know, not personally, but somebody I know all the people around. So it was a unique read for me, having known 90% of what's in the book. And it goes through all the obvious stuff that we here in Silicon Valley know, the Stanford Review, PayPal, C-Firmary. states, the Teal Fellows, investing in Facebook, creating Palantir. These are all efficiently chronicled by the author Max, which really catches the audience up on what we hear in the technology industry witnessed up close and personal.

And the book starts building its case that Peter Thiel is brilliant, dangerous, and powerful. And maybe even that he's a white supremacist or maybe dabbles near that line. and maybe the author dips into his being enamored with young men. Insiders in the tech business will probably laugh at the contrarian's overestimation of Teal's power, while New York's media circles and the woke left will salivate at some of this positioning. But in the final act, the author shifts from what we largely know, and that's been recycled from some of the known sources of information from Gawker to the books written about PayPal and he hits some really new information and certainly was new to me and has broken some news.

And that's the section where he talks about Cambridge Analytica, Rand Paul, Trump, and you start to learn that maybe a lot of what we witnessed with Trump was, should have been or was predictable in this path that Peter took from the Stanford Review being bullied as a little boy for being smart and a nerd all the way up until his, what I would consider his Icarus moment, supporting a nationalistic candidate, and then maybe using the insights and data that he gained as an investor in Facebook to put the most polarizing unqualified president in the White House in history, or at least help. T.L. hasn't become exactly irrelevant in the technology industry, but he's no more influential

or powerful than the other dozens of billionaires here. He's just a lot more quirky, and the book really does a great job of catching people up on that, and then showing where it eventually wound up. So welcome to author Max Chafkin. Thanks, Jason. Wow. What a, what a, what? What an intro. I mean, I feel like you've given me, you know, several things I have to push back on. But, but, but really appreciate it. Really appreciate reading. And, yeah, excited about the conversation. So let's just start with the, you know, obvious question. Why, this is your first book? Or have you written books? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's my first book. So why did you pick Peter Thiel as the subject of your first book and something that I'm assuming you spent three or four years working on?

Yeah. Well, so, so. I'm really interested in the story of how Silicon Valley became what it is, right? And when I mean like this, you know, it went from, you know, being important and culturally relevant, you know, in the 1990s, but kind of like a sideshow still, even during the tech boom, to being, you know, I would argue, the most important economic center in the world, the most important cultural center in the world. And maybe it's not quite the most important political center in the world, but it is, but obviously it's becoming more relevant politically than it was. And the story of how does this kind of outsider industry become so important in our lives. And that's, you know, that's anyone who's been covering tech, right? Like, that's the story we've all been writing. And, you know, just when I was thinking about, you know, who's been involved in that story, I think Peter plays a big role, right? As you say, And I totally agree. There are other people you could, you could sort of tell the story of Silicon Valley through somebody else. And there have been like these other very important figures.

But I think Peter's trajectory is pretty unique and pretty interesting. You know, PayPal, I think even people who know about it, even people talk about the PayPal Mafia, I think they kind of underrate just how influential it was. Not in terms of, I mean, of course, it's influential in the ways that like, you know, it's how people move money on eBay and it's this big valuable payments platform. but I mean in terms of creating kind of a playbook for like how startups are built. And I think, so I think Peter is really important there.

I think he's really important in Facebook, you know, one of the defining companies, you know, maybe the defining company of the last 20 years. You know, Peter and Elon, of course, have a complicated relationship, but, you know, that relationship has been really important to both them. And I think, you know, it's hard to make. imagine SpaceX. Like, I think SpaceX, you know, maybe probably succeed, would succeed if Peter hadn't invested in it, but... Certainly would have, yeah. But he played a big role in making sure that at a very difficult time in kind of the business trajectory of Elon Musk when during the

recession stuff, you know, he was there. I think Founders Fund just played this a huge, not just in terms of finding important companies, but in terms of like articulating kind of an intellectual case for startups and a very specific kind of you know, startup building philosophy. I think say the same thing about zero to one. And so I think like all that just by itself, right,

would be enough to justify a book because he's an important figure. But what did you pick him? What is it about him that made you interested? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then there's then there's what happened in 2016 where where Teal, who is, as I said,

this important figure does something that I think people probably who knew him weren't hugely surprised by, but the outside world was surprised because how does a venture capitalist, somebody who's obsessed with the future, obsessed with, you know, bringing about change and a very

specific kind of change, end up endorsing basically a reactionary. And how does an immigrant get behind somebody who's running a candidacy that's basically a nativist candidacy? How does a gay man get behind somebody who's from political party that has been super hostile to gays and lesbians. And I think there's like a really interesting and complicated story you can tell,

but like that contradiction I thought is really interesting, right? And I'm somebody who is interested in kind of in those kinds of contradictions. And that's what drew me to it initially. And as I dug deeper, you know, I do think that, you know, for all the reasons I articulated at the beginning, Peter's important. But he also saw something that was pretty important with Trump, even if you can disagree with his, you know, decision to support Trump. But he engaged politically at a time when I don't think as many people in tech were engaging politically. And he was kind of a head there too.

And I think even if you regard the Trump thing, as I, you know, it sounds like from your intro you do, as a disaster, you know, huge mistake or something, I think you have to also agree that it was kind of brilliant in a way as an investment. And so anyway, I think the combination of... Why would it be brilliant as an investment? I mean, it's basically made him a pariah in the tech industry. So why would it be a brilliant investment? No, I don't think it's... I think it's certainly... When I say that, his business is investing in companies and had nine out of ten founders

who would have taken his money before supporting Trump, I think wouldn't. I mean, people, of course, you definitely hear that. But, but I mean, people are still taking his money. I think that... Well, it's not just that I hear it. It's that I'm one of the most... active investors in the world, so I see it. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I look, I, I, I respect the point of view.

I'm just saying, I think, if you look at his net worth, if you look at how his companies have done, you know, in that time, he's still making a lot of big investments. Maybe they're not the same investments that he would have made. I think it's like a, this might be the one thing that we'll get to obviously, um, this seems like an interesting jumping off point because I think that's, you're a New York media guy, right? Like, uh, worked a fast company. You're a career journalist. Yes. How old do you? Uh, I'm 39. 39. So you've been around, you actually remember the dot-com boom. You were graduating high school at the time. We're in college. Yeah, man. I was reading

wired and, uh, yeah, you know, I remember it. So it's, it's just a very interesting to read your perspective of it as an outsider or a journalist from New York versus being here in it. Um, because I did think it's, I was actually very impressed with. how accurate the stories are, having witnessed them firsthand from, you know, the Stanford stuff, into PayPal. I think all of that you nailed. I think this concept that he is extremely powerful and influential was the part I was like, huh, or that people were scared of him.

You mentioned in the book that people feared him. And I'm curious where that came from, because I think over, since before Trump, slightly before Trump, he became less relevant in so. Valley because he was less active in actually investing directly in companies. And, you know, he had kind of handed off founders fund to Brian Singerman and the crew over there. Luke obviously had left to start his own fund. So I think his kind of power base, he kind of gave up, right? So do you, where did you get this perception that he's feared in Silicon Valley? I mean, I heard it from many, many sources. And I think, um,

Chris, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can, I can understand that somebody like yourself, I don't think you have a lot to hear from Peter Thiel. But I think if you're a startup founder, there is a perception that, you know, that sort of breaking with, you know, that the sort of PayPal Mafia consensus, either on politics or in some ways on tech, you know, makes you difficult to fund.

And I recognize, like, I think there are people, and I talked to, you know, former teal fellows who kind of explained to me, people both who disagree with Peter's politics and those who agree with them. And, you know, I heard how Teal fellows kind of have to navigate it, right? Because they recognize that some investors, some potential investors don't agree with Peter and don't, you know, would never, you know, invest in his companies. But I do think there's enough of a kind of conservative community, even there, you know, even in the belly of the beast, where I don't think he's quite, you know, the pariah that you're kind of paying him to be. Well, I wouldn't say pariah. I think you, the number of investors in Silicon Valley is so great

that, you know, one investor just really doesn't have any sort of lock on it. Even Sequoia, even Kleiner Perkins, even Andreessen Harowitz, the scale of Silicon value is so much different today that it's not like a small circuit it was, you know,

which you describe with, you know, Right. Zuckerberg going to Peter Thiel instead of going to rule off, you know, and going to Sequoia. At that time, yeah, it was a small circuit. You know, there were a dozen firms you probably would take your consumer startup to. Now it's 1,200, you know. It's literally 100X. Zendesk is the go-to tool for customer support.

And they also offer a suite of tools designed to remove the difficulties of sales software. You can get access to Zendesk suite of sales tools. plus their industry-leading support software, free for six months as part of Zendesk for startups. You'll also get access to Zendesk's community of startup founders and partners and dedicated onboarding guidance and support. Here's a little testimonial from one of my portfolio companies, Steasy, they sell software to learn how to dance.

Steezy uses Zendesk Explorer and their ticket tagging system to track which features their users are most excited about. Then they relay that info to their product team, which is just brilliant. For Steezy, Zendesk creates a positive relationship with members, and it empowers them to contribute to Steezy's growth. So, here's your call to action, the old CTA in the business. Get six months of Zendesk for startups free at Zendesk.com slash twist. That's right.

To qualify, you must have under 50 employees, have raised a series A or below, and be a new Zendesk customer. What a great deal. You can get that six months of Zendesk for free at Zendesk.com. start building an amazing customer experience at zendesd.com slash twist. There seems to be this repeating accusation and or insinuation in the book that Peter is either a white supremacist or likes to hang out with white supremacists or people who've previously been white supremacists. Let me just ask you outright. Do you think Peter Thiel is racist and a white supremacist? I don't think he's a white supremacist.

and the book doesn't say that. No, and clearly it doesn't, right? I didn't say it did. It kind of says like this person was a white supremacist. This person was previously, and he seems to Chuck Johnson. He's next to them all the time. I think he has, you know, at various times in his career, associated himself and chosen to associate himself with really provocative people,

people who are deliberately poking it in the eye of the system. And those people have, and this goes all the way back to the Stanford. review and the diversity myth. And, you know, and I think in, in many of those cases, right, there's two ways to see it. And you can either see some of these things as free speech stunts or as something more insidious. I think, like I said, I don't think, I don't think white supremacy is a big part of his ideology. But he does seem to be at least comfortable enough with it that, that like, you know, that, that, that he's not worried about these kind of

slightly trolly or provocative things. And, you know, he's definitely Yeah. He comes up six or seven times in the book, specifically around South Africa's apartheid in the early days, which I didn't actually know that story. Yeah. Maybe you could tell that story.

And does that feel to you to... What I took away from the book is after the six or seven mention of it, that you were kind of saying, listen, he's white supremacist adjacent, right? which maybe is just the people around him are, you know? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think he is definitely at times kind of played footsie with some very radical ideas. Let me speak to the, to the South Africa thing, because to me, that, I mean, I can tell you the story, right?

Yeah, tell us the story, because I don't, this is a story you actually talk to the woman who was the principal in it, right? Yeah, there are two people who have accounts like this, one of whom is, is, is, is, on the record in the book and one of whom has published a medium post. They're both, you know, I think very credible. The medium poster, you know, is a very successful, you know, Stanford graduate was a long time Stanford administrator. But let me just say a couple of things here. Peter Thiel had a very unusual childhood. He moved around a lot and, you know, he's talked about being an outsider and he was an outsider, right? Not just not just because of his sexual not just because his parents are German,

but because they moved all the time, right? And he did live in South Africa and Southwest Africa, which now modern day Namibia at the time was a, you know, an apartheid state. And I don't think that makes him somebody who defends apartheid or anything like that. I do think that probably coming to Stanford in, you know, the mid-80s. And I'll remember in the mid-80s, apartheid was a huge issue on college campus. It was like the defining sort of like left-right issue. And I think Peter's talked about this.

He's talked about feeling like, you know, basically on the outs at Stanford, right? He's at this very liberal institution. And I, look, this is not, I'm, I, this is my read on it. But I imagine that some of those apartheid protests may have felt very personal, you know. And not because, not necessarily because you are agreeing with it or something like that, but because, you know, it's just your fan, you know what I mean? Like, I think it, I think there's a possibility that, you know, that, that that might have contributed to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the personal nature of it in the same way

that if you were born in South Africa, you know, in a white person, you might take it personally, even if you weren't trying to, like, so tell the, maybe it would be helpful here to tell the story of what happened specifically because he had some pretty, so there were, you charged comments about apartheid, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the anecdotes, they, they both amount to, um, black women at Stanford who had heard that Peter had very extreme politics and who confronted him about apartheid. And I think it was kind of going around that he was, you know, he spent time in South Africa. And Peter made a comment or made comments to the effect that, and I don't have this in front of me, but I'll just summarize, you know, it's an economic system and we shouldn't meddle

with the economic systems of, you know, other countries. Now, look, the black people in South Africa were doing better than the black South African country is. that were run by black people. And I think that these comments are abhorrent. Teal has denied them and said he doesn't remember talking about them and that he did not support apartheid. I think if you look at what else was being written, not by Peter Thiel, but but like the Wall Street Journal editorial page, like those comments are not as far outside of the

mainstream as one might imagine they are today. I mean, this was like, this was like a pretty common thing that right wing people were arguing at the time. So, so I don't think it's actually as crazy as like, you know, having lunch with Mayo Unopolis or whatever. I think it's, I think it's actually more, you know, more of a piece of a time. And I think it's important to talk about that stuff, you know, and, and, you know. How did the black women, the two, what you said was two black women who you talked to, who responded to, what was there? or one of them, I guess you read the blog post or one of you talked to you, talked to both.

What did they tell you about those situations and how they felt? I mean, they told me that it was horrible. I mean, you know, it's, I think, and I think that's the part of the story that that prompted them to talk to me, prompted them to speak publicly. Because, of course, it's not just a political statement.

It is a statement, when you're, when you're making a statement to a black person who's in front of you, right? that that that has a personal quality to it. And I think that was the, that was what was upsetting. Um, and I think,

um, like I don't think, first of all, as I said, he's denied it. I don't think, you know, one or,

you know, even a couple mistakes or whatever should define somebody's, you know, life or beliefs and, and things like that. Um, uh, but I do think that,

you know, you know, it speaks to a, to kind of where he was at the time, which is somebody who was, um, you know, pretty political and really committed to, you know, political provocation. And, you know, again, even if those stories aren't true, I think that assessment, it, you know, is true.

And I should say, I do, I believe the stories. Yeah. I mean, at that time, it's people who were from South Africa were pretty sensitive about this issue in the transition they were going through in South Africa. And a lot of the people in the West were saying, we're not going to play Sun City, and it was a very big cause celeb at the time where literally every rock musician was saying, don't go to South Africa. So it was a pretty charged anti-apartheid. It wasn't just anti-apartheid. I think it felt to people in South Africa of anti-South Africa. And so maybe there was a little bit of that

if this in fact did happen. The quote from the book, Maxwell said she was taken back as he explained. Matter of fact, that the country should not be held to moral standards of American students without any point acknowledging that Maxwell as a black woman might find this offensive. He said it with no affect, recall Maxwell, this is possibly the creepest thing about it. And you go into that affect a whole bunch. And then you also talk about, hey, with the PayPal group, it was all men. And then it was a sort of insinuation about, you know, surrounding himself with a lot of young men in the Peter Thiel Fellows. was something that also is mentioned, I think, four or five times in the book, this, you know,

surrounding himself with attractive young men. What's the thought there? I mean, I'm not, there's no, that, that's not an innuendo. I mean, it's just an observation. I mean, I think Peter has, like, an intellectual type, and it's like a, like, hyperverbal, super provocative, a man who is from an elite background, but who's willing to, like, criticize. But who's willing to, like, criticize those elites. But also young and good looking, you say in the book. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's, I mean, you know, like, I think the, the archetype here is like

Josh Hawley, right? Like, Josh Hawley is, like, classic kind of, like, kind of guy, I think, who, who would appeal to somebody like Peter as like, as like an intellectual. I'm not talking, again, not speaking sexually here. I'm talking about as somebody who he thinks has a, has an impressive platform, et cetera. You know, Holly is, you know, handsome. kind of all-American good looks, hyperverbal, and yet, and from these elite institutions, knows how to talk the, you know, knows how to talk that, that lingo, and also, of course,

is totally willing to just, you know, jabbed in their face. And I think that's the, you know, that's the, you know, that's the, to the extent that he's interested in influence, like, that is often the, the vector that you see for influence. Some people believe that the Gawker, instances kind of cracked Peter or tilted him to a certain extent maybe got him off his game

and maybe was when he stopped being focused on investing in startups and maybe got more I don't know if I say off track and you seem to sort of chronicle that and I remember that very well as well

since I took some hits in Valley Wag quite unfairly and they were lying scumbags. So, you know, I'm sort of curious to you as a media guy, how you feel about Gawker itself. And if you think Gawker was, you know, what was Peter right about Gawker?

Because I know the media, and I, listen, I'm a unique case here because I started as a New York journalist. I'm a New Yorker who worked in media, and then I'm living in the Valley. And I know I'm not friends with Peter. I've probably hung out of Peter five times. But I have a lot of mutual friends around him, obviously. Absolutely.

And so I'm wondering your thoughts on Gawker itself. You personally, do you think Gawker's as a publication crossed the line too many times and that it was virtuous for him to go after them? Or do you think it was absolutely horrible that a billionaire could shut? Because the view of the New York media is it sucks that a billionaire tech person can shut down a publication. And then the view of anybody who was subject to Gawker, a value egg is, well, they're lying and they're attacking people. and they're posting revenge porn so these people should go out of business.

What do you think personally? So, well, I just want to push back on a couple of things there just real quick. Number one, I actually don't think it pushed him off his game startup-wise. I think it pushed him off his game hedge fund-wise. You know, like that was true, yes. Yeah, yeah, it coincided with the kind of breakup of Clarium

and I actually think it may have pushed him more back towards the kind of like the startup world and away from the hedge fund world in a way, partly because the whatever, the fund didn't do well. The other thing I want to say is, the characterization that the media, you know, loves Gawker or something is totally not true. I mean, basically media people,

most of, like, elite media people hated Gawker, right? Because it went after them all the time. And when you saw the Peter Thiel thing, there were lots of famous journalists, like, you know, basically applauding. So, like, I don't think, again, I, it's, the media is definitely not a monolith on this. No, definitely not. Personally, and especially at the highest levels of the media,

the media people who really, really matter, like they were sending Peter congratulation emails. They weren't sending him. Fascinating. You know, like, you know, and they were giving him the well done. Yeah.

So, okay, so what do I think personally? How do you think about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So I think a lot of what Gawker published was abhorrent. and that wasn't journalism and would by the standards of 2020 not be considered journalism and would not be published. Like, I'm an editor, right, at Bloomberg, and I would not let somebody publish, you know, Peter Thiel is totally gay people for lots of reasons, right? But I think, you know, the idea of announcing to the world somebody's sexuality, like, before they're not ready to do so, is not cool. It's not something we should do, and it's not a very good defense to say, well, he was out to his coworkers and to his friends, right?

Because, like, that's a different situation. I also think Gawker did some important journalism. And I think that at the time, they were right about certain things. Harvey Weinstein, no. Not just about, like, the, not just about that kind of thing. I'm saying, like, they were covering Silicon Valley as a power center. before most people really realized it was a power center, and they were right about that.

And they did, and as you said, there was some good journalism. I think basically, like, look, I think that smart people can kind of disagree about whether Peter was right to feel aggrieved enough to, like, you know, take legal action against Gawker. Where I start to feel uncomfortable is the, is like,

the secret campaign by a billionaire to destroy a media company through this kind of backdoor, totally brilliant. I think you got to respect it from like a, you know, kind of gamesmanship. Like Peter is an excellent chess player. Like, he had his people. He funded a group of people to look through every story on Gawker and Valleywag, find the aggrieved parties, and figure out which of those cases were viable, flood the system with lawsuits. I think maybe he did five or six.

well it's never been exactly clear how many he funded you'll see in the book it's pretty careful because we don't actually know right like how many he funded and how many he incurred there's a sense I think that he may be encouraged some but may not may not have actually you know anyway the way he explained it to me yeah was I am funding it for people who have no recourse because if you were unless you have over 10 million dollars 20 million dollars to sue gocker gawker can keep lying about people and Gawker did lie about people. Gawker can keep posting revenge porn. They posted revenge porn. They could out the CFO of a giant media company for being closeted and having Trist allegedly with a male escort while married. I mean, you remember this long list of horrific things they did. Yeah. And I'm

dancing around the specifics. But he said, I'm doing this for all of them and myself because they shouldn't exist. Is there any validity to that argument to you as a media guy? I mean, I understand the argument. I just think that there's a very strong argument on the other side that by doing it, you create a lot of problems if you want to live in a free society. And the problem is that once this has been done, and more than just doing it, right, I think part of the problem when you're talking about incentives is the way he has talked about it since including kind of bragging about it, talking about it

like it was this awesome thing. You're creating a permission structure for other billionaires to do the exact same thing. How many times does it happen since? Well, I mean, it hasn't happened, but we don't know. And there have been lots... No, you would know. There'd be a lawsuit. We would know.

It took eight years for this thing to... It took eight years for this thing to percolate. It hasn't been. No, but has there been a publication that has... There have been tons... I can tell you, for a fact, there have been more... There are more pre-publication letters now written to news organizations than there were before. Charles Harder has gone on to a very successful career doing this kind of thing. Now, again, in each of those cases, I think you can talk about the specifics, and I don't know.

Like, you know, he sued the Daily Mail over some, you know, this coverage of Melania Trump, which I think was pretty terrible. So I don't know. but there definitely has been... Who's that guy again, Charles? What was his last name? I forgot it. Charles Harder was the lawyer. Harder, yeah. Yeah, yeah, who represented Hogan and who has, you know, kind of...

Which they won, by the way, right? Like, they won it hands down easily. And that's kind of why it was such a brilliant sort of chess move, because they found this case where, like, it was so clear cut. And they had a jury in Tampa. Hulk Hogan is from Tampa. They had, like, you know, there's just, like, no universe where, like, they could lose that case. And you can totally see why the jury found the way they did. Because,

because, you know, they're being asked a very narrow question. And it's pretty clear that Gawker had done something wrong. And, but I think that it has, it has long-term implications that are bad. And I think, and I, and I, and I'm afraid that it was partly kind of by design, because the, the goal of a case like this, isn't just to publish, to punish Gawker. It's to send a message to anyone who might be tempted to... How many times did Peter do this before Gawker added him? How many times did he do it before? He sued a publication into a live in.

I mean, I don't know. Hopefully none. Zero, yeah. How many times has he done it since? Again, I don't know. Hopefully no. I mean, I can tell you, I can tell you that... The point I'm pushing back on this is because I think media people like to put up this,

you know, united front of like, oh my God, this has a chilling effect. But the fact is, this would never happen at Bloomberg. This would never happen

at the New York Times because New York Times wouldn't print revenge porn or out people or otherwise lie about them or invade their privacy. So I think it's like maybe a circle of the wagons of the media,

which listen, I'm part of the media. I get it. But I also think Peter Thiel, I think that what you nailed in your book, and I'll give you credit on this one explicitly because I witness this because I know Nick personally

I know, I don't know Peter all that personally, but, you know, obviously I'm around him, and specifically talk to him a number of times about this because I was attacked by Gawker many times. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I competed against Denton with Weblogs, Inc. So I know I'm personally, and I'm actually, she considered myself kind of friendly with Nick, would go to lunch with him any time and have. You know, I think that what you nailed is this is a story of two gay men who had two different perceptions about being closeted. and a third gay man, Owen Thomas, who was, as he told me, having his own struggles at the time, who was going absolutely insane writing crazy stuff for Valleywag, a lot of which he now regrets. And that really is the beginning and the end of it.

If Peter didn't feel so strong, if Denton didn't feel so strongly about outing people and the hypocrisy of being gay and closeted, in 2010, whenever this happened, 2008, 2010, I can't remember the exact date. And Peter hadn't been so scared of losing his Saudi LPs. This really was about the end game of, you know, being gay in American society in some ways. So, yeah, I mean, and I think that I want to say two things. I mean, one is, you know, as you've kind of hinted in all sorts of ways, the book, I think it's a, it's a journalistic book. and I think it's fair, but it's critical at times of Peter.

And I made no secret about that when I was working on the book, and I was never threatened by Peter or anybody who was purporting to represent him. He didn't make my life easy, but he didn't try to stop me. And I think, you know, to your point, right? Like, that's not something that is to his credit. And I think it's good. I also know that, you know, talking to sources, right, they know about this, they talk about Gawker, right? Because, you know, Peter is a very powerful guy.

And, and while, like, you have articulated, like, a very clear, like, explanation of, like, why he did this and why he's never going to do it to anybody else. He would never do it to Bloomberg. Like, it's not necessarily clear to a whistleblower that that's the case. And we're talking about somebody who now, you know, has a great deal of power, you know, for better or worse. And I just think it's, it's not a great situation. and maybe it's fine for Peter, right? But it's not a great situation when we've created basically a playbook and a permission structure

by which any billionaire can intimidate, you know, free media. Well, here's a way for free media not to get them in trouble. Don't print revenge porn. Of course. But, I mean, this is where your argument breaks down so perfectly.

Like, you're kind of making this into, you know, like Peter Thiel is going to do this to all journalists and journalism's got this existential crisis. if journalists don't break the law, they would not be sued out of existence, the end. And, you know, and I approach this, I did the book, obviously, you know, I'm not, you know, are you scared of Peter?

People keep asking me that and I keep saying the same thing, which is, yeah, but I'm scared of every billionaire because anyone could do this thing. No, I mean, you know, that's the truth. And, like, I'm not a billionaire. Like, I don't know what the, you know, how, you know, and I think like my, and I have a big, institution behind me, right? Like, I work for another billionaire. So, so, so, you know, I obviously have,

and I'm published by a major publisher, like, there are a lot of reasons why I don't, you know, why I wouldn't be afraid. But, but I do think, I think it's really important that people are free to talk to journalists. I think, like, what is happening with this Facebook whistleblower is really important to our society. And I worry that if you get too many, if you get another Gawker, whether's Peter Thiel or somebody, Rupert Murdoch, or whoever, that, that, that, you you were going to start to erode, you know, freedom in this country. And if we rode freedom in this country, you're going to erode freedom in the whole world. So I think it's not a good thing.

Yeah. Okay. Let's go on to what happened at Facebook, I think, is super critical. The Cambridge Analytica stuff all the way up to Jared Kushner and the relationship with Trump, I think, is the most interesting. Let me ask you, knowing what you know, you spoke to hundreds of people for the world. this book, I think? Yeah, 150, yeah, people closely connected to Peter in one way or another. So knowing what you know, do you think Trump would have been elected?

Or what is the percentage chance? Trump would have been elected if Peter had never supported or gotten involved in the 2016 election. I think he increased Trump's chances, like, in a real way, but not like, it's not like he doubled Trump's chances, right? I think it was like, you know, 10%? 10%, something like that, yeah. I mean, my view is that when I heard this talking to people in the Trump world, right?

Peter was very valuable to them because, of course, all billionaires are valuable to politicians. But Peter was especially valuable to Trump because Trump did not have kind of like business credibility. Like say what you want about Peter, right? Like, I mean, he's controversial. And he was even controversial before the Trump thing. But he has like a certain amount of cred that is like a little bit more than like the average. Trump world person. So like, if you remember,

that's an understanding. I'm being very kind now. You're being pretty kind there. Remember the RNC, right? It was like, Chachi from Happy Days and like a bunch of real estate guys, some of who were in, and like half of those guys are like have been indicted or would be.

Anyway, um, it literally is a clown car. It's like it's the grifters and the washed up criminals. We'll do a 10K speaking gig for any, you know, Russian affiliated. you know, syndicate.

I mean... And then you have this, like, serious, very serious venture capitalist who is really respected, respected by people like me in media. Like, of course, Peter has his, you know, there are people who don't like him in media, but he's legit.

Yeah. And so he was valuable to them. And for that reason. And that, like, that's why he had the, like, prime time speaking slot on the last day of the R&C, the day, you know, when Trump spoke, I think that that speech, while he might have been a little uncomfortable

with talking about his sexuality, I think it was like a really important, I think it was an important moment in the Trump campaign. I think it was an important moment like in the history of America. Like a really cool moment, frankly, where because a gay man spoke of that. Yeah, and not just because he spoke, but because of the way he was received, right? He was applauded. There was a standing ovation.

You go back to the last R&C when somebody, a gay person talked about their sexuality on stage and like half the convention was like, you know, taking their hats off to pray, you know, for the, for the guy's soul. Right? So like big change from that, you know, from one to the other. And I think like in and and and having and the fact that it was Peter, somebody who has not been super comfortable, you know, he's not like somebody who's like wearing his identity on his sleeve. I think all that made it very powerful. And powerful, you know, both for Trump voters, but also probably for, you know, independence. And some Democrats, you know, Trump, a lot of Democrats voted for Peter. I mean, for Trump. But, but the really more important thing I would say is, if you remember October, Access Hollywood tape. comes out, right? Yep. At that point, Trump's candidacy was not looking good.

It was terrible. Yeah, all the, like a lot of mainstream Republicans were backing away. The donor class is like nowhere to be found. And, and the two things happened,

one of which is like WikiLeaks, right? And I think that probably helped Trump a lot more than Peter Thiel. But I think Teal coming in making a, you know, $1 million plus donation,

a pretty big donation, you know, in terms of as far as these things go, and giving a speech where he kind of tried to contextualize, you know, and put into context the remarks to defend them, essentially,

where he didn't defend Trump for saying, you know, grabbed him by the pussy, but what he said was, hey, you know, we gotta take this guy seriously. Yeah, he has some, you know, seriously, not literally.

That was the teal catchphrase. And I think, you know, that was, that had some influence. And it, and in terms of both, like, changing the news cycle and,

and, so I think, I think all that made like a, a significant difference. I don't know. Again, I think Trump, you know, there were a lot of things that went well for Trump and not sure. Maybe could have done it without Teal, but it was a very close election, so. Um, it does seem like Zuckerberg, um, has been influenced by Peter Thiel in an outsized way. Peter obviously liquidated his Facebook shares. He doesn't think Facebook is the most important company in the world. He's been pretty clear about that. Yet, um, He still seems to have his ear, and he seems to have walked him into the White House and created a pretty, a chummy relationship.

And it does seem like Zuckerberg's taking a page this very week, maybe even yesterday when we're taping this, from Trump's playbook, which has never apologized, go on the offensive, attack the messenger, which is what they're doing with the Facebook whistleblower today. So what do you think the impact Thiel had on Zuckerberg is? obviously Teal had a big impact on Sean Parker, a friend of mine. Yeah. Who obviously had a big impact on Zuck. Do you think Zuck is actually a Republican? Do you think he actually voted for Trump? Do you think he's more aligned with Trump than, say, Hillary?

I think that. Or Joe Biden. Okay. So I don't, I think that Zuck's politics are pretty hard to parse. I would guess that, you know, his politics seem to be Facebook. It's like Facebook is. Share price. His political view.

Share price. But I do think that Peter has had a really important influence on him. I mean, I think the business influence is very clear, right? Like you can see the ways, and Zuckerberg has talked about this, the ways in which kind of Teal's view of building startups had an impact on Facebook. And I think you see in the kind of Facebook, like move fast, fast, break things. Like, that spirit, I think comes to some extent from the PayPal Mafia. I think you could even, you're probably going to think this is a little crazy, but I think it's not, like, I think you can draw a line by some of these, from some of these provocateurs that Peter has been around to Zuckerberg. I mean, Zuckerberg is in his own way, not all that different from like, you know, Keith Rabeoy or something. Like he's, he's like sticking it in the eye of Harvard. Remember, you know, he was, he was fighting with Harvard over this, you know, whatever the precursor. Yeah, yeah, the Facebook precursor. And like, he's totally like another one of these kind of like, you know,

bad boys, right? Like, and I think... I'm CEO, bitch, his card. 100%. Yeah. So, I think there's that. And I think, um, it's pretty clear that, okay, so, maybe not pretty clear. It's like clear as mud that he has somewhat, his some pretty libertarian views. I mean, we've seen some of them come out. And basically in terms of the way he thinks about, um, you know, speech and like,

like, what is Facebook's responsibility to society? I mean, it seems like he basically thinks that the answer is none, um, or, or something close to none. Um, and that it's important to, to take that position. in order to maintain freedom or something along those lines. I think that is probably has a lot to do with Peter's influence. And as you said, I think that Peter played a really important role kind of in the Trump era with Zuckerberg. So Zuckerberg, if you go back to 2016, right,

he was getting hit really hard over this kind of mini, this is like a really stupid story, but like it was a big deal at the time, the trending topics thing. They had like created this little sub-exing, sidebar and no one was even looking at it, right? But like it, but it got spun up into a big to-do in conservative media. And conservative media, I think rightly, since an opportunity here to like, you know,

in kind of like the classic sort of bright bar, like let's let's try to move the Overton window kind of thing to sort of after Facebook and say that they were going, you know, discriminating its conservatives. And that became like politically very salient. you know and that would have been really bad for Mark Zuckerberg because Donald Trump as we know is like not averse to like sort of meddling in the business world to you know you know to he likes to shake cage to swing a bat

exactly he takes everything personal and you know there are people in Trump's world who are talking about some like very extreme things with respect to tech Peter helps arrange this kind of peace summit in 2016 where he had like Glenn Beck and a bunch of other well-known conservatives and they make peace that you know Zuckerberg says, A whack pack.

Yeah, Zuckerberg says, to be, it's, you know, it isn't the kind of far right, right? It's like mainstream,

you know, like Glenn Beck is as far right as I think. Maybe Tucker was there. Yeah, but no Wightkebuk, but no Breitbart. No Breitbart,

no Milo. Right. Who's that weird character with the beard? You go into a bunch of details with Charles. No, Charles Johnson.

No, Charles Johnson. I thought that was a very interesting part of this. We'll get to that in a second. But anyway, they do that summit.

they kind of make peace and then they start showing up on the trending list and now they were on the trending list too much. Yeah, yeah. And so there's this kind of, there's this, whatever, there's this kind of peace accord where Zuckerberg kind of says, hey, you know, I'm for free speech and you have like Glenn Beck does a, you know, post saying, you know, Facebook's okay, man. And this is, remember, Glenn Beck was like really going for like reconciliation at that during that, during that time. Or relevance. Yeah, okay. And, and, but, But so I think that helped. And I think there was, and I think that probably influenced, you know,

Facebook's reluctance in 2016 to really kind of figure out what was going on on its platform. I mean, you know, there are lots of other possible explanations. And I think, you know, with a company like Facebook, it's a mistake to like see any one, you know what I mean? It's probably like three or four different things at once. But I think they had, there was definitely political incentive to like let stuff go on on the, on the platform. And then I think, you know, going into 2020, like, I don't know who Zuck voted for, but I think he was way more afraid of the Democrats than he was afraid of Trump, because Trump had

been very good to Facebook for the most part, right? Facebook had been growing. Yeah, like Trump every now and then he gets on Twitter and says something obnoxious, but Zuckerberg obviously has a good friend and board member who's kind of in the inner circle. And Trump hasn't really done anything to Facebook. Yeah, that's where taking Trump. seriously, not literally, actually applies. He could say whatever he wants, but what is he actually doing to break up big tech? The only thing he really did was say,

we're going to kick TikTok out, you better find a deal. And that set in motion, that whole Oracle, Microsoft, you know, we got to find a deal for TikTok. That actually was the only thing he did against tech that had teeth.

I mean, Jeff Bezos would like to bring up a couple of things. But, yeah, I mean, you know, there's the Jedi deal. Oh, the Jedi deal, yeah. I mean, that was a big deal. Like, again, disputed. But I think some Amazon people would, would beg to differ. But, and we could probably come up with some other other things.

I mean, you know, I think in general, Google was more closely scrutinized during the Trump years than still given a pass. Apple given a huge pass. Yeah, yeah, it hadn't. Well, it seemed like maybe if Trump had been reelected, they were starting to build to, there was like cases built. I don't know. It seems like maybe there might have been something that could have happened if Trump hadn't been

reelected. But, sorry, if Biden had won the election. But anyway, so I. I think the association with Teal helped Zuckerberg. And I also think it helped Peter. I mean, I think being that power broker between Zuckerberg and Trump, two of the most powerful people in the world, is like a pretty good place to be.

And it's pretty clear that they don't, that he and Mark Zuckerberg do not see eye to eye. And yet, you know, and yet he's still on the board. And I think the reason he's on the board is because he creates, value for Mark Zuckerberg by being like the conservative on Facebook's board. Also it would be a huge scandal.

If Zuckerberg wanted to fire Peter Thiel, like can you imagine like the cancellation? You know, I mean, it would be a little prisoner's dilemma there. And for Peter, I think, you know, I think I'm sure there is a combination of there's probably some loyalty, right? You know, personal loyalty.

Even if he has, you know, even if he has mixed feelings about the company, right? Like, you know, they do go way back. And I also think like it's a, it's a pretty important position he has. I mean, he, very few people have any influence over Mark Zuckerberg and Peter has some. Kat Charles Johnson is an interesting one. I actually had him on this podcast and I turned the episode off when I realized he was a white nationalist or a scumbag. I had interviewed him because he was doing a lot of interesting technical stuff and I thought the researcher was like newsworthy kind of moment. Not that I'm endorsing it, but I just thought it on a journalistic basis. It'd be interested to hear this kid's take on it.

But then I saw him doing that white privilege sign and everything. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm turning that. I literally turned the episode off because I was like, I just don't want to even give this kid any air. But from your book, Charles Johnson, an increasingly influential figure associated with members of the young alt-right. The movement was that once troll is silly and dangerously extreme members of the movement flirted with racism, even Nazism. anything to break a liberal outrage. And he seems to have had Peter's ear for a couple of years there. Who is this character?

Is he important? Does Peter still associate with him? Because he seemed to be a pretty dark character. So, yeah. So Johnson, as you say, was this, was one of these, you know, provocateurs. He has, you know, pretty much moved away from, you know, he's, you know, renounce the all right. He says he's a Democrat now.

It says he's a Biden supporter. Really? Yeah, yeah. You maybe haven't got to that in the book, but it comes. Yeah. He, I think, was somebody who was like a lot of these teal figures, right?

Like very successful at kind of, you know, at these kind of crazy provocations. And I think he was an entree to that world, to the all right movement, which like was very important, I think, and helped propel, um, helped propel Trump to, to office. And, and, and, you know, kind of grew out of, I would argue, kind of grew out of the Ron Paul movement. And I think, you know, that's, that was the role that Johnson played, um, at least initially in, in Peter's world.

And, you know, and I think, um, you know, he doesn't, Peter does not have like a traditional, like, political shop. It's changing, right? But like, he doesn't, he doesn't have like a, you know, like a D.C. guy, beltway guy. But, uh, and so, so I think there was kind of an ad hoc approach. Um, and, you know, Peter has invested in a couple of Johnson's companies, uh, Clearview AI, Clearview AI, Pat the Found the Foundation. Yeah, which is an interesting, um, which is an interesting one because, you know, Clearview AI, uh, Facebook does not like Clearview AI, right? It's pretty weird, um, that a Facebook board member, um, is an investor in this company.

Clearview, I scraped every image of people off of Facebook, Instagram, whatever, put them into a database, and then allows police, a law enforcement, to search for those individuals doing a reverse image search episode 1100 of this podcast. Johnson has another company.

It's a genetic genetics company. He told me that Peter is an investor in that one as well, and that's a recent one. So they've continued to have at least some contact in the in the in the in the in the last couple of years. But my sense is that they're there they were more they connected more over

you know kind of the alt-right and the gawker stuff. Johnson was another another person who felt aggrieved and maybe this I you didn't bring it up but it may have been part of why you connected because because the big gawker had written this this kind of like satirical post defecated on the floor floor and Johnson you know sued them and and and Johnson as I talk about in the book, was involved in this campaign to go after Gawker, including helping to kind of round up. You know, a lot of these all right guys were involved in the Gawker thing, right? Like Cernovich, they were, they were cheering on Peter. Yeah. And some of that was basically

like surrogates and like amateur researchers, as I think how I would describe them. They're on Twitter, you know, advocating for this. So they're creating, you know, some kind of groundswell amongst that constituent while trafficking and information they get in their DMs to kind of help be these like internet sleuths is how I would describe it I think. Yeah, I mean, and I think like the whole

like the funding mechanism of the all right is not entirely clear. There's another Peter Associate who was who was pretty involved in the all right, this guy Jeff Gesey, who again, he's another one who has kind of moved away from some of the whatever, the sort of most extreme parts of the all right. I think

you know, the alt-right also post-Trump, you know, it got a lot scarier than it was when, you know, during the election, right? And I think, and I think Peter, if he were going to defend himself, would sort of say that basically, you know, he wasn't, he did not embrace, like, the worst parts of the all, right? As I say in the book, he, you know, of course, Richard Spencer, the, you know, Nazi was involved in this movement. He tried to get a meeting with Peter. Peter did not meet with Richard. Spencer. There's a line. He does not want to meet with an actual Nazi, but these folks would, you know, they were adjacent. This is kind of how I described it at the beginning of the pod. And I think that's probably still accurate, which is, you know, Milo Unopolis is next to Richard Spencer. Charles is next to Milo.

And then Peter's hanging out with Charles. And maybe, I think you mentioned maybe he met with Milo unoplas once or something. Yeah, I think he met with Milo, yes. And he was definitely, you know, having dinners with people who were involved in the kind of, in this kind of like activist movement, both in terms of this sort of online, uh, Trump thing, but also, you know, some of the kind of a tech activism that was happening in conservative circles, you know, around James DeMore. And, you know, we've seen, uh, anyway, I, I think there was a sort of a, um, a universe of kind of people and, and a movement that,

that he was, you know, whatever, at the margins on as a, as a, as a sometimes, but most, sometimes a patron, but mostly, you know, somebody who was, you know, just being encouraging or something like that. Peter sat with you for an hour for the book or something, you mentioned? We met off the record, yeah. Off the record. While you were writing the book or? Yeah, yes, yes. And you had met him before that?

Yeah, a couple times. I mean, like I said in the intro, you know, he was, he's around every deal that like, I mean, I know, I know you're pushing back a little bit on this characterization, but I do think he was around, you know, one way or another around a lot of the, you know, kind of important stuff that was happening. Um, you know, I, I think there's probably between our two positions or like the East Coast position of his footprint here, you know, I could understand the perception being larger than it actually seems because he's larger than life and his vocal. And then there's other people who are incredibly quiet and never, you don't even know their names because they've made it a secret who they are and they invest literally a hundred times as much money a year as he does. And there's a dozen people I could mention who put to get put to work a magnitude. more than Peter in many, many more companies. So nobody here is really scared of him, but I think that that's a New York perception,

or a media perception largely, and the people you mentioned who might be scared of him, like, yeah, the T.L fellows or the people in his orbit, he might have an undue influence on. So I could see that, actually. It's just maybe not as much in the day-to-day of Silicon Valley where a founder is working on stuff. But to that point, how did he feel about you writing the book?

I know he didn't participate in the fact-checking. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to share any details from whatever from the, from the off the record conversation. My sense is, and well, I'll say what's the point? Let me just say this. What's the point of the off the record for you just to make sure you're not completely off base and there's something? Oh, no. I mean, I want to hear to talk to the record. I know, but what does the off the record do for you?

It's just that if you can get it, you take it as a journalist. Yeah, I mean, so. And what are you hope to accomplish an off the record discussion? well I mean number one right like I wanted him and like still right like I still want him to talk to me or other journalists like on the record like I think I think that he's um you know he's he's he's he's very secretive of course and you know he doesn't do that many interviews when he does do interviews they're often with very friendly um friendly people you know people who are up ideologically uh anyway um he I'm ideologically the opposite but yeah sure I understand

what you're saying. He would do most favored nation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and and I think, whatever, that's his prerogative as a, as a rich guy who can command an audience. But I was trying, of course, was trying to, you know, I want to talk to him on the record. I think, you know, it's

always, first of all, it's, it's really good practice like, journalistically. And I think like, you, you definitely want to hear from the person. And so, so part of the reason to have an off-the-record conversation is is to make the case for that in person and to explain. got it. To explain, you know, here's what I want to do.

Here's what I think. And you can learn stuff in that meeting, right? Because, like, you're able to ask questions. You know, I think, and there's also always a possibility, right, that they come back and say, actually, you know, that was such a great conversation, Max, that, you know, I'd love to put it on the record. But I just thought, you know, I just think, like, you know, it's also very good to, like, just meet somebody face to face.

Like, you learn, you know, you learn something about them. Maybe you don't learn everything. but like you learn more than you would if you didn't go to the meeting. So I would always take the meeting and you know, and of course I was disappointed that he didn't want to talk to me on the record,

but you know, I understand. And I knew, you know, from the beginning that, you know, that it was kind of a toss-up. And, you know, had, as you said, at the end of the process, sent, had a long, sort of back and forth with his, you know, PR guy where I presented

like all the fact-checking questions. a very long list, and he said he didn't, he didn't comment. And I think, I think that's cool. I feel like, you know, in some ways, of course, I wish he'd talk to me and there are questions I really want him to answer. I hope someone will get him to answer, even if they're not me. But I also think that, like, he's got, he's got his platforms. And if you want to know what Peter thinks, like, you can buy his book. It's a really good book, zero to one. And you can watch his speeches. And, and I did. And, you know, that, that, of course, informed the book and I, and I tried to, you know, use his words wherever I could. Um, uh, and I also think sometimes like asking someone, a direct

question is not necessarily the best way to, to learn, learn something. I mean, if you ask somebody, like, how do you actually get stuff done or something like that? You know, sometimes, some people are very good at, like, uh, articulating an answer, but other people aren't, especially people who are kind of introverted, um, you know, kind of like Peter. So, so I, I feel like, you know, I don't think, it's not like I think the book is better for, for not, you know, having him on the record. I wish he was on the record. But I also think, you know, it's a different story and it's a story that I still think is valuable. How do you deal with just author to author?

How do you deal with people wanting to be off the record and then knowing that what they're telling you is accurate and not an axe to grind? Because somebody like Peter obviously has a lot of axe grinders out there since he's so polarizing. Yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to, you have to. to do it in the in and in the way you would do it in a normal situation which is uh look for corroboration um explore motivations um people often um take notes or or you know have have nowadays right they have text correspondence and things like that so so you know often there are ways that you can um you can corroborate people's memories and and you can corroborate people's memories by um by talking to other people so it's the same i mean you know it's it obviously involves a lot of human

judgment the same way if you were just in a private capacity like talking to three different people and in trying to figure out okay well what what actually happened. You're a fan of his? Do you think he's a good person? Well, I tried to not because a lot of people, you know, feel the books got in, you know, I should say a lot of people. A lot of the reviews or, you know, some of the feedback has been, you've got an axe to grind. I don't know that I buy that necessarily. The two, things I felt were weird in the book, were the six or seven mentions of white supremacy from his childhood all the way up to the people who's associating with. And then you're constantly

mentioning young boys who are attractive, or young men, I should say not boys, young men who are attractive, which I felt like you were insinuating, not pedophilia, but in a proclivity for, you know, of age young men is the way I read it, that you were trying to sort of, that you were trying to insinuate something with that, like he's trying to surround himself with good-looking men. And you said he did want to have good-looking men around you, but for me, for a different reason. He wants the iconoclastic outspoken ones. But are you, do you consider him like a force for evil in the world and you don't like him? Do you feel he's just a fascinating character? I'm curious if you have an axe to grind. Do you have an axe to grind?

I guess it would be the way I would say it as blatantly as possible. No. No. You know, first of all, okay, I'm going to push back a couple things. Number one, books got a lot of great reviews the Amazon media people in the East Coast to yeah the enemy I know I got it Gawker okay who hate that what he did to Gawker

you know there are a lot of Amazon reviews that are like you know the the subject is like cry more and the only comment is beta journalist or something like that and it's like seven people found this helpful you're like okay well thanks guys the reviews on Amazon are a little bit that's not I'm asking you

personally like do you have an extra grind so you can say I'm giving you opportunity to say, no, I don't have an Instagram. Yeah, so I don't. And I went into this. A lot of people say, like, oh, do you like him or not? And, like, I've tried to withhold judgment because I want, what I wanted to do in the book is cut through the mythology, right? There's a lot of people who see him as this, like, Iron Randian superhero. There's a lot of people who see him as this, like, evil right-wing billionaire who's, you know, whatever. And I think like there are there's truth in both of those stories. And I think,

but both those stories are really incomplete. And they, they not only sell Peter short, but they sell everybody involved short. I don't think it's like a really great way to, I think people should be more, should think critically, even about their heroes. And I also think people should look at even people they consider villains with empathy. And, and there are aspects of Peter's worldview that I find deeply, disturbing. What's the most disturbing one? I think his views on democracy are the one thing that I would like to have, like if I had an interview with him, like that's what I would want to ask him about. You kind of believe his democracy doesn't work, right? And that authoritarian or a benevolent

dictator is a better approach. Right. And that's the thing. So you talked a lot about white supremacy. And I do think it's worth pointing out that he has had some associations with some people who have made problematic statements and things like that. But I think what he's really is is like a techno supremacist, right? Where like it's this idea that, you know, the world would just be better if it were run by like some kind of like CEO king. Capitalists basically like founders. It's kind of Ann Randian, right?

It's kind of objectivist. Yeah. Let's let the builders build and then let everybody else stay out of the way. Yeah. And this is where I mean, I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree with your assessment of that. I do disagree with that. Yeah.

And like, you know, one of these characters, you haven't brought up, brought him up, but one of these characters who's kind of dabbled in white supremacy, who I think is one of the more disturbing of Peter's associations, this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who is, you know, he's started a company that Peter was an investor and a teal fellow co-founded this company. You know, he has dabbled very close to the edges of, you know, of some really dark stuff. And, you know, he thinks that we should replace our democracy with an American Caesar. and that is that that that idea is taking off in a lot of circles a lot of circles where Peter runs a lot of people that he is you know close to are pushing that idea and that idea

I think is really worthy of interrogation and and like personally I do not like it um I believe in the constitution I'm going to go with you that I'm a fan of democracy as well and if you dovetail it with the Trump presidency um you many would argue that that was, you know, he was acting autocratic or authoritarian at times. And the fact that during the January 6th, uh, insurrection or protest, whatever you, however you want to frame it, um, he was literally trying to overturn an election. So there's a straight line for you. Teal backs Trump. Trump. Trump loves Teal. Trump did not want to leave office after losing the election. I mean, it's not so far fetch what you're saying. Well, and so, so like, and to me,

that is an important question to ask because I think like Peter has had a big influence in lots of other ways, right? Like I think there's a there's a really important business story. This is kind of a business book mostly. But but the but the potential it's a little it's a little worrying when you look at somebody like Mark Zuckerberg who has I think you know more power than almost any other human being in human history. He's been really influenced by by Peter in in business respects. I think in some political respects, and I think it's worth asking, like, do you believe in democracy, Mark Zuckerberg? Do you believe in democracy, Peter Thiel? Because those people, because they're making important decisions. And I think it's possible, you know, whatever. I think it's worth knowing

answers to the question. I think it's worth asking those questions in a critical way. And I think one way to like ask them in a smart way is to try to be, like I said, to try to just like, try to accept the things that are good about somebody and be clear right about the things that that you don't like. Yeah, the white nationalist associations, you know, if you're going to be part of that alt-right, they seem to have, it seems like the precursor to the alt-right was the Tea Party, and then you had on this other side, white supremacists who kind of joined the alt-right. and it's some kind of weird amalgamation of people who are conservative and upset with society in some way, whether they're insales or Nazis or whatever.

And unique brand of scumbags. I don't want to keep coming back to this, but, you know, on the white nationals thing, I don't think Peter's a white nationalist, but I think he saw some of them as useful. And I think, you know, you got to ask, like, there's a choice there. And I'm not sure that's a choice that I agree with. Well, I mean, to his credit, he wouldn't meet with the people who were known. And then I think one of the things that was interesting during this period, because I had known Milo Yonopoulos from the blogging days in the 2000s. He had copied what we did at Weblogs Inc and what Denton did at Gawker and created his own blog network.

and he was known as being like a cheeky, you know, flamboyant, gay columnist. I think he had worked at the Guardian or the Times of London or something. I can't remember which one. And he was legit. Like he was a legitimate, if not quirky, you know, thing. The columnist, provocateur, of course. And then he just went straight grip.

I think this was all like some giant grift where they just started making so much money. And, you know, these unknown, rich, alt-right people were sending money to them, Bitcoin to them, whatever. I heard Charles, that guy Charles Johnson just made tens of millions on Bitcoin or something

or 10 million on Bitcoin was that somebody told me I bought it early. But I think they, like watching Milo Unopolis, I was going to have him on the podcast. It was like, oh, hey, J-Cal, I knew you from whatever. And I was like, yeah,

he's like, oh, I'm doing town. I'm doing this new thing. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, what is this guy doing? Like, he is way out there now. And so it's almost like that Trump presidency pre-election alt-right moment uncovered and revealed who was actually, you know, part of this. Yeah. I mean, I think,

so, but I think it's important to say that a lot of this stuff is still going on. Well, like the, you know, the sort of alt-right as we understood it, you know, in 2015, 2016, is basically gone. But there is this authoritarian movie. that is very important and that you know you hear and that is represented you know on Fox News and in some of the most I mean I don't say like the it's like in the upper echelons of conservative media and and and there is like it's not it's not really at the fringe of the Republican Party anymore it's it's pretty much the center of the Republican Party and Peter I think is making a play to be that the patron to that to that movement and maybe

that's because it's like an opportunity or something like that. But, you know, he's like going to be a major, he is already, you know, a major donor for 2022. And I think he's seen within that world as, you know, as one of a handful of rich guys who could be, you know, a potential donor, basically like Coke brothers. The way the Koch brothers kind of had like served as as patrons to, and and it sort of took over the Republican Party, you know, decades ago. And you had this like industrial company industries and this kind of political project that the free markets, libertarian stuff, that that really changed the course of the Republican Party and helped kind of remake the modern GOP. I think Peter is doing something kind of similar with the sort of Trumpist Republican Party where you have this post-industrial, it's not a post-industrial company, right? but like he's a post-industrial guy.

He's got, you know, investments in tech companies. Yeah. And he's, you know, pushing, you know. The hillbilly elegy guy is running, right? Absolutely, yeah, with 10 million bucks from Peter behind him. And Blake Masters, who's, you know, been one of Peter's, like, right-hand guys, is running for Senate in Arizona. Yeah. With another 10 million bucks.

And those candidacies are, you know, they're running in the Trump lane. And who knows? Maybe, you know, maybe they're going to moderate or, and it's all, I'll, I'll, totally unclear whether they're actually going to win because like I think there's some question about whether jd vance really appeals to like regular people or it's just somebody that like is good at getting elites you know spun up uh but you know they it's it could they could have a lot of power in the senate uh after 2022 especially if um if republicans retake the senate yeah i thought the uh also interesting in your book was peter's sort of thoughts on immigration

um i thought they were more severe than they actually were I mean, he was not for closed borders. He was for the point-based system that Canada, Australia, and a number of other very reasonable countries go by, which is, hey, if you've got a PhD, native spaker, whatever you could bring to the system, that would be positive. We score up a certain number of points to bring you in. So do you think he's xenophobic or as rational as Canada and Australia about,

immigration? I think that his positions on immigration are very far outside of the American mainstream. I don't know where that comes from necessarily, but I think it's pretty far outside the mainstream. He's given money to this group, Numbers USA. You know, Numbers USA is, it's pretty far out there. They're in favor of getting rid of, you know, most categories of immigration and kind of just focusing on immigration as a way to like basically populate tech companies with

like workers who are not paid very well and are well that was actually the H-1B visas were a scam for IT companies to get they were scam for IT companies

to get Indian IT workers to come to the US and then if they don't do exactly the amount of overtime and, you know, whatever their bosses tell them, they work for half as much, twice as long. And if they get fired, they have 30 days to find a new job or leave the country, and they have families. So you think about, it's basically this modern day indentured servitude in probably about half the cases. In the other half, it's legitimately somebody with unique skills, right? So, you know, and I think there are all kinds of ways you do

the points thing, right? The points thing could be done in a very very. very liberal way, right? Where it's, you know, you're not actually, you're not, you're not, you're not shutting out a lot of people who we currently are, are letting in. And then there's, there are ways that you can do it that are sort of much more strict. What I can tell you is, kind of the standard. I mean, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, all do it this way, but you're right. The devil's in the details, right? Like, well, and, and I would also argue, like, you know, I'm an American. I mean, I think, I think the American system of, immigration, it has a long, it's, you know, it's different than, than those systems. And, and I think

there are a lot of people who would argue it's one of the things that makes us, you know, who we are. And, and so, so I don't know. I mean, you know, drastically changing immigration policy in a way, you know, I mean, Peter is more hawkish on immigration, I think, than like, what Donald Trump did. Wow. He's further to the right. Yeah. Well, what did Donald, I mean, Donald Trump didn't do all that much. So, yeah, no, again, it's back to Donald Trump. Donald Trump saying a bunch of things and then not doing stuff. I mean, I think he's further to the right than like your average Republican on immigration. Now, what he would probably say and what somebody's defending him would say is like, you know,

the Republican Party's been totally taken over by the global. There would be, there's a response of that. But I think he's, you know, he's in the kind of like ban on, you know, hard right faction of, the Republican Party on immigration, the kind of right populist thing. Which is. Because in the book you say he was advocating for the point system. in that, yes, in that meeting with, you know, with all the, with all the tech CEOs. That's when, you know, but you're saying he might have another position, which is more hardcore.

Well, I mean, like I said, I think there's all kinds of different ways to implement that point system. And, you know, there's a way to do it that feels like it's continued, it's like not that different from our current one and one that is much more extreme. And I would say, you know, he probably would lean to a, you know, more of an overhaul. And, you know, as I made the point in that, in that, I mean, I think there's a lot of hypocrisy on immigration in tech, you know. A lot of companies were kind of making these public statements about how, you know, there were all immigrants and, you know, making these public statements of opposition to Donald Trump. And they got in that meeting with Peter and Donald Trump and they weren't, you know, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't, opposing anything, right? They just, they were mostly just trying to make sure H-1B would be intact, you know? and not losing half of their customer base.

I mean, that was really the fear here was if you were Zuckerberg, if you were Google, if you were Tim Cook, the real abject fear was Trump has divided the country so much. Are we going to lose all the Republicans? Are they not going to want to use iPhones? Are they going to start a Republicans don't use iPhones? Are they going to do Republicans don't use Facebook? That was the fear. I mean, I think it's the capitalist out here who are in charge of these companies.

about the share price and not alienating any customers, which is how the NBA and Disney look at it too, by the way. We don't want to lose the Chinese customer base by criticizing them. We don't want to lose Republicans in the United States by criticizing Trump. But I'll just share one more anecdote. I mean, you know, this is in the book. But, you know, Peter supported Ron Paul in 2012, right? That was very interesting. Yeah, yeah. And the libertarians... That was a great part of the book, by the way, because nobody really knows that stuff. Yeah, it's really fun because like, first of all, the Paul people are like really excited and then like, and they were kind of disappointed because, because like, although Peter, I think, you know, liked things about Paul, like, I don't think he was quite the doctrinaire, you know, Paulite that they had hoped for.

Anyway, after, after 2012, right, in the, in the Ron Paul world, there was like a thought that, okay, Rand is going to be the next, you know, the next guy in this movement. And Peter is going to be our big backer. He was the, you know, really the only rich guy. who had supported Paul. And as I report in the book, Peter gets off the bus. There's other stuff going on in Paul World, but the main thing that happened outside of Paul World

is Rand Paul gave a big speech where he basically broke with the kind of nativist wing of the Republican Party. He articulated a, you know, something that was probably tonally a little bit closer to George W. Bush or something like that.

He gave, he said, he said, you know, we needed, you know, was sort of hawkish in politics, but he gave the speech and he spoke in Spanish. It was seen, you know, in the in the world of the right as he went too far. You know, Bright Bart was really mad about it. And that's when Peter got off the Ron Paul bus. And, and it's possible that there was something else. You know, maybe maybe there were other calculations going on with with Peter and why he wouldn't

why wouldn't want to support Rand Paul. But, but you know, my reporting suggests that the immigration position, the softening on immigration was part of it. I mean, I think he's hawkish, immigration. A lot of the country is. It's, you know, probably 25% the country agrees with him. Yeah. Well, listen, congratulations on the book. It's a great read. And I highly recommend people

read it. Even if you know, Peter, I think it's a good thing to read to kind of see the full picture and wish a great success with that. I hope you get the interview. I'd be very entertained to see the two of you talk. And yeah, make it happen, man.

Well, anyway, thank you for having me. I'm not that close to him. to be totally honest, I've probably been in the same room with him 25 times. I've probably had a conversation with him a dozen times maybe. But, you know, like, I would say significant conversations for an hour or something like that. And I know everybody around him, obviously, best friends with, you know, a couple of his, you know, PayPal folks. So, you know, the stories are very interesting, I think, to, and I think I was like sort of checking, like, correct, correct, correct, correct. when I was going through your book of the earlier parts

and then towards the end when you get into this you know Ron Paul stuff and Trump stuff I think really interesting stuff. Well thanks and thanks for having me. Thanks for asking you know such insightful questions and yeah hopefully hope we can do it again sometime. Yeah, all right. We'll see you all next time on this week and start us.

Bye bye.