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Not Like Us: How Billionaires Think · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: From Placement Theory and KCRW, this is Question Everything. I'm
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Brian Reed. I'm kind of freaking out about how quickly
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: billionaires seem to be taking over. Every day, there's like
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a dozen new moves by Elon Musk and his newly
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: conjured Department of Government Efficiency, Doge. Go after spending, sure.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: But the richest person in the world never elected to anything,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: being given license to run roughshod through the federal government,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: which does nearly $ 21 million in business with his companies.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: It's scary. People who already have an immense amount of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: power are seizing so much more of it so quickly.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Trump has appointed at least 13 billionaires to his administration.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Thirteen.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The most ever. Let me just list their roles to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: give you a sense of the breadth here. There's Musk,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: but then there's also the education secretary, the commerce secretary,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: treasury secretary, the Social Security Administration commissioner, the NASA administrator,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: ambassadors to the U.K., France, and Turkey. the special envoy
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to the Middle East, ambassador to the Organization of American States,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the administrator of the Small Business Administration, and the AI
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and crypto czar. All of them bona fide billionaires. Depending
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: on how you count it, there's arguably 14 now since
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a co-founder of Airbnb recently joined Doge. And then, of course,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: there's Trump, a billionaire himself. This is the wealthiest group
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of cabinet members and top White House appointees we've had.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: even if you don't count Elon Musk's net worth in there.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: For comparison, Biden's cabinet was worth $ 118 million. Trump's first-term
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: cabinet was worth $ 3. 2 billion. This current group is worth
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: more than $ 400 million. It suddenly feels urgent to understand
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: this tiny class of people. There are like 750 people
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: who are billionaires in the U.S. I don't think I've
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: ever met one. How should we think about these guys?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And they are mostly guys. So, for this episode, our
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: executive producer Robin Simeon and I are heading back to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the wine store, Bibber & Bell, in Brooklyn, to talk
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: with reporters who know a lot about this, reporting daily
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: on Elon Musk and other tech billionaires who've interviewed and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: investigated the Kushners and Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. And
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the conversation wasn't what I thought it would be. This
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: group of reporters, they convinced me to take something seriously
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: about billionaires that before this, I always thought was kind
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of silly.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: There's this new breed of tech pro billionaire that really
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: want to get off the frigging planet.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Guys who I.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Think genuinely believe the world is ending one way or another.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Stick around. Welcome to the wine shop. We're just closing up.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Last customers and then we'll get started.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It's always tricky to introduce people for these segments. So
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to break the fourth wall for a second
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and just tell you who's here. let you hear a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: bit of their voice so you get the lineup, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: then we can jump right in. First at the wine
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: shop bar is Vicky Ward. This is Vicky. She's British.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: Hello. How do you do?
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Vicky has reported on Donald Trump and other wealthy New Yorkers.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: She wrote for Vanity Fair for years, which someone once
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: told me is a magazine about rich people behaving badly,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: which I think is about right. Vicky's written books about
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Lehman Brothers and the Kushner family. Next to Vicky is
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Edward Ongueso Jr.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Here's Ed.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Kind of cerebral.
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: I've been working on a few essays trying to figure
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: out how much money people are spending on data centers
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: and shit.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Ed's done tech criticism and financial reporting for places like
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Feist News and The Nation. A lot of his work
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: focuses on the growth and power of big tech companies.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Among other things, he's written very critically of Uber and
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Lyft and their impact on people working in the gig economy.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: His car broke down on the way to our recording,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: but he refused to call an Uber to get there.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: He doesn't use them. And my first question goes to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Forbes reporter John Hyatt.
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: We care deeply about our work having integrity.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: John Hyatt is on the literal billionaire beat at Forbes.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And since Election Day, that beat has narrowed to focus
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: specifically on Elon Musk. John, you're doing this daily, like
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you're on the Musk beat kind of specifically.
• 4:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: How are you approaching it day to day right now?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Because it does feel so intense.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Does he know you're on the Musk beat?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I doubt it.
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  Speaker 6: At least according to him, he doesn't read news media anymore.
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: He really only reads X. I mean, the approach I'm
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: trying to take is almost psychic in that I'm trying
• 4:35
  Speaker 6: to get into his head a bit. And unfortunately, the
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: way to do that is to read every tweet he authors.
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: And it's dozens of tweets every day. It can be
• 4:44
  Speaker 6: a dark place. In that sense, he is transparent to
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: an extent. Sort of his preconceptions, his biases, the way
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: he views the world, the media he interacts with. It
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: is all there on X. And to that extent, it
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: is an open book that you can read. Now, unfortunately,
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: we're seeing government be affected by X. It's become this
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: right-wing stew of misinformation. which is setting the discourse in
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: Republican circles.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I read your piece, by the.
• 5:17
  Speaker 7: Way, John, on Elon Musk getting the journalist wrong at the.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Wall Street Journal. I was like, you wrote it as
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: you should, so straight. I mean, you could have had
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: a field.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Day with that.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Basically, this was a journalist for which publication?
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: The Wall Street Journal's Catherine Long, who previously was at Insider.
• 5:35
  Speaker 6: Her first story for the journal just the other week
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: was about one of Musk's doge friends, his history of
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: racist posts on X. And there happens to be another
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: reporter named Catherine Long who had previously written about diversity
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: in video gaming.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: She works at Politico.
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: And one of the sort of internet alt-right accounts that
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: Elon follows took a screenshot of that article and said,
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: the same Wall Street Journal reporter who is trying to
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: corrupt your Doge effort previously wrote about, oh, God forbid,
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: diversity in the video game industry. But the politico Catherine
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: Long was a different person. And Musk was, you know, misled, frankly.
• 6:19
  Speaker 6: But of course, he's not going to backtrack and admit
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: he was wrong. I mean, this is the classic contradiction.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: Musk saying that X is the place where people should
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: get their information. And then he is being fed misinformation
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: on it, but just regurgitating it. But then it becomes
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: the information, right? And then it leads to hate mail.
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: Then it leads to real-world consequences. Why did you choose
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: that approach as opposed to, like, let's find some financial disclosures.
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: Let's see where his conflicts lie. Or, like, are you doing— but, like,
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: how are you approaching that more brass-tacks stuff? We've done
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: some coverage on his conflicts. Tesla, that's one of his
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: biggest conflicts, is just Tesla's reliance on China, its largest
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: gigafactories in Shanghai.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So— Musk in.
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: His sort of role as head of Doge, but also
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: a close confidant of Trump, you know, when it comes
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: to tariffs on China, you know, that would affect Tesla,
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: impact his bottom line. We've already seen Tesla's stock move
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: quite a bit just the last week as we're recording.
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: Musk's wealth is down like 30 or 40 billion in
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: just the last couple of weeks. But already we're seeing
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: the public sort of sentiment is that, oh, is he
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: too close to Trump?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Is this going to end badly?
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Doesn't it feel a little Shakespearean to you in that
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: one of them is going to get taken down?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, because their agendas are different, right?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Our last guest is Douglas Rushkoff. He's an author and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: professor and futurist, I guess, who studies, in his words,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: human autonomy in the digital age. He's written many books
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: all about money, power, and technology, done documentaries for Frontline.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: His most recent book is called Survival of the Richest,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. about ultra-rich people preparing
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: for the end of the world.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Trump is going to be true to the sort of
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: the Bannon, MAGA, people, red state thing. Then eventually that's
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: got to come into conflict with a monarch billionaire extracting
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: as much value as he can from our planet and country.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: That those, you know what I mean?
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: That those will come into conflict. 100%.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: This again, Vicki Ward.
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: Bannon is already clearly very, very, very worried. This is
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: not what national populists... I've been listening to.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Your show to hear it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: He actually was saying the same thing.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: He was like, why.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Bannon?
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Bannon, there was an interview that he gave where
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: he was saying, like, Feal, Musk are all white South Africans.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Again, Ed on Guaizo. By the way, Ed is quoting
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon correctly here, but Bannon isn't exactly correct. Peter
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Thiel lived in South Africa as a kid, but isn't
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: South African. The point here, though, is that there's a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: crew of Silicon Valley guys, including Thiel, Musk, and David Sachs,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: who are all influential in this administration, who each have
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: ties to South Africa.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: Why are we letting them come in and try to
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: restructure the way that society is running? Because they're coming
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: in with, you know, sort of bringing an apartheid system forward.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: bringing in funny ideas about, okay, this is how we're
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: going to reorganize our immigration system, right?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's basically saying these guys aren't our guys.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: Well, then he's like, you know, yeah, these guys aren't
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: our guys, but, like, our racists need to be prioritized here.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: You know, so it's like.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: So.
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the white South Africans want to do apartheid again.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: We just want to, like, build a wall.
• 9:47
  Speaker 8: We don't want international racism.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I pulled a list of the number of billionaires in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Trump's cabinet or his top appointees. It feels like a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: new level of emergency, but I'm just wondering if you
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: all agree or if you're a little more even-keeled about it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: Probably to state the obvious, but normally, you know, in
• 10:15
  Speaker 7: the normal order of things, the proletariat, you know, are
• 10:20
  Speaker 7: angry about the billionaires, and that's sort of normally how
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: politics works.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: But one of the reasons.
• 10:26
  Speaker 7: Trump's been able to do this is because it feels
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: like the rules of engagement have switched and the billionaires
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: are aligned with the proletariat and the enemy is government.
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: I mean, that's how Trump has very effectively sold it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: But it also feels like there's two different kinds of
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: billionaires now. There's the ones like Trump that want to
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: make a lot of money here and get a lot
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of land and build a lot of mansions. And then
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: there's this new breed of tech pro billionaire that really
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: want to get off the frigging planet or upload their
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: consciousness to something else.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Guys who I.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Think genuinely believe the world is ending one way or another,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that humanity is just the larval stage of the species,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: you know, living on this giant piece of dung and
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: that they're the ones who are going to sprout wings and.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Get off to the next thing. It's just that they
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: have to accelerate progress. you know, before Doomsday.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Doug, is there a piece of reporting or like an
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: interview or like just an experience in your work that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you're drawing on?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Well, for me, it was that I was called to
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: do this talk, you know, out in the middle of
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the desert for some kind of hedge fund. This is
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: in 2018. And it was to do a talk about
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: the future of the digital economy, you know, so I
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: prepared my good kind of quasi Marxist.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of an intellectual dominatrix.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Usually, I feel like I think they Invite me out
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: really just to yell at them about what they're doing
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: for a while.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: That's what they were looking for?
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Gorgeous fucking resort out in the middle of nowhere.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: In the desert?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: In the desert. It's somewhere. I'm NDA'd and now they're powerful.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get hurt. Oh, okay. Got it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: Understood.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: But no, it was like two hours from the airport.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: It was a huge amount.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: I took this long drive in a limo from the
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: airport and I'm thinking what kind of self-respecting rich people
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: are going to drive this far out?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And it's like just as we're going over the last bluff,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: there's a private airstrip with the G5s landing. Like, oh,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: this is how they got here, right? You know, not
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: on the southwest or whatever I flew.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: And, you know, they have little golf carts that took
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: people around and private like hot tubs in each room.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: So I go out there in the morning, you know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: with the guys with the Patagonia shirts take me out
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: to those little zippy things. And I'm waiting in the
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: green room for the guy to come with the mic,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: you know, to hook me up for me to go
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: out and do my talk.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And instead, these five guys come into the green room.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: But you thought you were going to talk to like
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a room full of people. And it was just like five.
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And they sit around this round table and then they
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: start peppering me with these questions about the digital future. Like,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: you know, virtual reality or augmented reality, Bitcoin or Ethereum.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm not the person you should ask about that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: They thought I was smarter about these things than I am.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Because what it really was, everyone thinks, oh, Rushkoff was
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: called out to this bunker to talk to these billionaires.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: No.
• 13:14
  Speaker 7: No.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I was at a hedge fund conference, which like had
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: a menu for the weekend of like, you know, cook
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: an omelet with emerald, right? Improve your golf swing with
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: this guy, you know, and learn your tennis backhand. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: then it's like, oh, Wednesday at noon to one, you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: have lunch with the futurist.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Douglas Rushkoff. So, oh, we'll have lunch with this futurist.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And what do they ask the futurist as well? Where
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: do we put our bunker, Alaska or New Zealand?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: What is leading them to wanting to know Alaska or
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: New Zealand?
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: They think there's something called, these guys call it the event,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: like the electromagnetic pulse or climate change or pandemic or
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: economic upheaval or social unrest, nuclear war that makes the
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: world uninhabitable and they have to go off to their thing.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: They're really asking, how much money do I need to
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: earn to insulate myself from the reality I'm creating by
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: earning money in this way? How much tech do I
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: need to escape from this planet that I've destroyed with
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: my tech.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: So, and I'm trying to tweak them. I'm trying to,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: you know, like, so you're gonna have a bunker? Say,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: how are you gonna keep us out if you.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Get one of these bunkers when we're all starving? Oh,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: don't worry, we've got Navy SEALs coming. You know, like,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: speed dial. I just have so little bunker training.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: How did you play it in the room, the opportunity
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to say some stuff?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I played it mean, mean rabbinical entertainment.
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: Tell me more.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: To say, how are you going to control your security force?
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: You know, and then one of them was like, oh,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: you know, well, I'm going to be the only one
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: who knows the combination to the safe where we keep
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: the food. I'm like, oh, well, Navy SEALs have no
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: experience getting information out of people, right?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: You're going to spend the entire.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Apocalypse getting waterboarded or something, right? And then, well, so
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: what I told them was that the way to maintain
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: control of your security force when the apocalypse happens is
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: to be really nice to them now. And I said,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: be nice to your employees, be nice to their families,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: be nice to their friends. And then one of them
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: finally said, well, that sounds good, but where does it stop?
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Because if you're nice.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: To everybody, then you've got to include everybody.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: These were five men?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Five men.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Very rich.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I looked them up.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: There weren't names. It wasn't like Musk or something. Four
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: were billionaires and one wasn't. But now when I see
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: them going to D.C., my genuine belief is they want
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: to deregulate the development of their stuff. You know, not
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: just to profit here on Earth, but really to use
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: our planet and people as the fuel they need, as
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: the first stage of the rocket for whatever's next, whether
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: it's living alone on Earth with a zillion robots or
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: whether it's getting to Mars and somewhere else.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Ed, what's the interaction you've had with a billionaire?
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Just like confrontations at events. That's pretty much it. I'm
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: really interested in Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. They both
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: are co-founders of Palantir, which is... this intelligence defense startup
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: that specializes in giving Western countries data analytic tools. Really
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: interested in like that network of individuals. And so there
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: was a conference I kind of gate crashed when I
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: found out that a few of them would be there
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: and it did not go well. I wasn't really able
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: to talk with them and turn the corner to ask
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: some questions. As some background, I think like when I
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: was younger, I was really interested in singularity, transhumanist stuff,
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: this idea of, oh, maybe if we have enough technology,
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: we can live forever, go to another planet. And so
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: whenever I see that influence, I'm very interested in trying
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: to reach out.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: What did you want to ask?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I mainly just wanted to ask if.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: They actually did believe in these things, because sometimes you
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: can't really tell if it is a talking point because
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: it's rationale for what you want to do with capitalism,
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: or it's if it's something you actually do believe and
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: you just, you know, because we're in capitalism, you have
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: to either hype it up or, you know, water it down. Exactly.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: He's like, do you really want a bunker or do
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: you just want a resort that's armed?
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: A question I have, like, like if I'm being honest,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: like anytime I kind of come across writing about some
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of the ideas that like transhumanism, for instance, my eyes
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: kind of glaze over on that stuff. And I'm just
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: curious as someone.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Who like the news consumer. You're not going to make
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: it to the next place, man.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, is it actually important for me to
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: understand this stuff if I do want to understand how
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: money is influencing the world? Yes. Do I need to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: actually understand all that stuff? Is it important or is
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: it its own kind of propaganda for them to misdirect
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: from just where the money is going?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Do you need to help me understand, first of all,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: what is transhumanism?
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: Transhumanism is this idea that we can, with enough technical knowledge,
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: know-how and development and experimentation, figure out ways to transcend
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: the biological limits of our bodies, figure out how to
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: copy your mind into some sort of pattern that can
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: exist perpetually beyond yourself, figure out new ways to use
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: technology to create new experiences, to create new types of
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: life forms, and to propagate other parts of the universe.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: And for Peter Thiel, that's in concert with us imitating Christ,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: going from zero to one as the title of his book, right? Becoming,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: leveling up, you know, getting off this level of the
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: video game to the next one. And everybody is down
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: here competing, and the answer to competition is to go
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: a level up.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: One way to think about this is that there are
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: like a package of ideas that inform modernity today where
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: we might think people generally should have certain rights, Certain protections,
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: social life should be organized a certain way, political life
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: should be organized a certain way, the economy organized other ways.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: Everybody has voting rights. Everyone has protection from, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: arbitrary violence being visited upon them by the state.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Everybody has some sort of set of liberal rights.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Basic human rights. Yeah, basic human rights, you know.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: An idea about equality.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, ideas about equality.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like, you know, people, like, question.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: whether or not we should have had universal suffrage. They
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: question whether or not the New Deal was as fascist
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: as Mussolini and Hitler.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: There's a long tradition. They're against that. And they're against
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: it because it will slow us down.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: The object of the game is for a few scouts
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: to get off the planet.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: It's for a few of us.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Only 20 have to make it to the transhuman level
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: to then spawn the trillions.
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: There's a flip side to, I think, The transhumanist thing where,
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: like people are saying, not all of them believe in it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: And another way, like you're talking about is a lot
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: of them just really do think the past 300 years
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: of reforms that have maybe raised the level of rights
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: that humans have have gotten.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: In the way.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: Of innovation, have gotten in the way of profits, have
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: gotten in the way of advancement, have gotten in the
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: way of all the things that allow us to produce more,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: to create more, to explore more. And if we were
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: to get rid of the civil liberties, if we were
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: to revert to more stable in their mind political forms
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: like dictatorship, we would then be able... to achieve such
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: a level of growth and advancement that it would make
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: up for living in a nightmarish world without much in
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: the way of rights or protections.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: It's which of their systems will be the one that
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: yields the fastest result.
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: And the other thing, you know, it's a game. They
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: don't like rules, right? I mean, Silicon Valley is not
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: about rules. It's about what you can do without the rules.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: It's not even really about money. It's about getting rid
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: of a framework. It's about getting rid of rules.
• 20:40
  Speaker 8: It doesn't sound like it's getting rid of framework to me.
• 20:43
  Speaker 8: To me, it sounds like it's embracing like the oldest,
• 20:46
  Speaker 8: most familiar kind of framework, which is like a bald
• 20:50
  Speaker 8: embracing of supremacy.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 8: And so if everyone else dies, that's exactly what the
• 20:58
  Speaker 8: goal is.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Which sounds so dark. Are you talking about mass destruction?
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: That you're the left.
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: It's horrific.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: All of these plug into a mindset where it's like
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: the world we have, the modernity we have, gets in
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: the way of me being able to maximize my ability
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: to live forever, my ability to do what I want
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: with my wealth, my ability to pursue the developments that
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: I want and invest in what I want.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: We should get rid of it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: And I have the resources to help us get rid
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: of it. Right.
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So you think it is important to understand these worldviews,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: these philosophies?
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: I think, because I think it's one of the big
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: tracks that leads into this kind of cesspool of to
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: save capitalism, we have to sacrifice democracy.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: We have to sacrifice liberalism.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: We have to sacrifice this form of modernity.
• 21:48
  Speaker 8: Can I ask kind of an emotional question of the group,
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: which is when you hear transhumanism How do you feel
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: about the word or the concept?
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: I think in like a thousand years when we solve
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: every political problem, we can start genetically engineering new forms
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: of human life. But until then, I'm not interested. A
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: good chunk of it comes down to these like, that's
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: current lot of tech billionaires. On the one hand, it's like,
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: these guys are exceptional in the sense that they pose
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: a novel threat, but they also are like chickens coming
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: home to roost. And the question is like, how much
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: of whatever solution it is to it, is owed to
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: the fact that they're a novel threat and how much
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: of it is because they're part of a deeper rot.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: And leshing out what the worldview is or the possibilities
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: of worldview is useful. Having a sense of what the
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: universe in which they operate within intellectually is helpful because
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: there's a tendency to be like, oh, maybe if we
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: just have a conversation, you know, things would be fine.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: But it's like, no, you're talking to someone who's, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: an African ear. Like they don't agree with you on this.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: You're in a different moral universe.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Can I top you up?
• 22:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: This one? Coming up, what do you do when Jeffrey
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Epstein threatens you while you're pregnant with twins? That's after
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a quick break. Welcome back to the show. We're at
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Bibber & Bell Wine Shop on a chilly February night
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: after closing time with four reporters who investigate billionaires in
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: this moment when billionaires have assumed a new form and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: level of power in our government. I wanted Vicki Ward
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to join us because she spent decades reporting on, among
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: other things, New York's upper class. And her reporting is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: interesting to me because she's kind of adjacent to those
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: circles herself. For instance, back in the late 90s and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: early aughts, She knew Jeffrey Epstein's partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Not well,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: but they'd bump into each other at parties, baby showers,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: which was especially awkward once Vicky started investigating Epstein's finances
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: for Vanity Fair. This was in 2002, years before Epstein
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking came to light. I wanted
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: to know what Vicky learned from her time reporting on
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Epstein and the world of the wealthy that he was
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: so effective in gratiating himself into.
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: Whether it's a bunker or whether it's, I mean, think
• 24:20
  Speaker 7: about Jeffrey Epstein and his island.
• 24:22
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: I don't know if he was a billionaire, but obviously
• 24:25
  Speaker 7: he acquired a lot of money very fast. And the
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: way he got away with his sex crimes for so
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: long was because he created these islands where his rules,
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: no one from the outside could penetrate these sort of oases.
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: You live life like that sort of in your own
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: world for so long, you begin to think, It's normal.
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: I mean, he really believed that society had it wrong
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: and that in years hence, everyone would realize that all
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: men should be having sex with 14-year-old girls.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: And it was the world that was wrong, not him.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You first spoke to him when you were working on
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a story in 2002.
• 25:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I was pregnant with my twin sons. And remember,
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: this was before anyone knew who Jeffrey Epstein was. He
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: was just an enigma who'd got all this money.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And the story at that point was about where the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: money came from.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: It was where did the money come from.
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: Once he realized that this piece in Vanity Fair magazine
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: was going to happen, he phoned me every day. I mean,
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: he tried to do what a lot of powerful people do,
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: sort of manage the story.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: But right away, I.
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: Knew he must have something to hide. I was just
• 25:39
  Speaker 7: reading books. It wasn't much, if anything, to read about him,
• 25:43
  Speaker 7: but I hadn't actually picked up the phone and yet
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: made a call. And my phone, it was the days
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: we had.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Landlines, went.
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: And the person on the other end said, you know,
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: Vicky Ward, this is James Kane. I'm the CEO of
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: Bear Stearns. Can you be in my office in two hours?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: How did he even know that you were doing this?
• 26:01
  Speaker 7: Well, obviously, Epstein had phoned him. I literally hadn't made
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: a phone call. So it is not normal when the
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: CEO of an investment bank drops everything off. You know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: I remember it vividly because I was pregnant and super uncomfortable.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I was sitting on a hard chair. And Jimmy Cain
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: droned on and on and on for two hours.
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: And then he took me on a great tour of
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: the bank and recently moved.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: And what was the point? He was just praising Epstein?
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: He wanted to tell me how important Jeffrey.
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: Well, Jeffrey Epstein had been fired from Bear Stearns many
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: years previously.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: And the reasons had been kept very under wraps.
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: And there had been, in fact, an investigation by the
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: SEC into insider trading and Jimmy Cain. had been Jeffrey
• 26:39
  Speaker 7: Epstein's mentor and there was all sorts of information which
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: I eventually dug up from the files in a law
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: firm's warehouse in Philadelphia at the 11th hour. There was
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: all sorts of stuff that Jimmy Cain did not want
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: me to find out. And so he wanted to tell
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: me that Jeffrey Epstein was a very, very important client
• 26:53
  Speaker 7: to the firm.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: He had not been fired. He was, you know, but
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: right then.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: What did you leave that meeting thinking?
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: What the F really happened.
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: I didn't know what it was, but I knew that
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: I was, and that was before you even began to
• 27:07
  Speaker 7: get a whiff of the girls, but I knew that
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: they really didn't want me to know something.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I just didn't know what it was.
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: Jeffrey epstein you know he would call me daily how
• 27:17
  Speaker 7: are you getting on i mean he thought he was
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: toying with me and.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: He'd say it kind of in like what kind of
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: oh if i don't.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: Like this piece of you know what you know i
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: know everyone in this city you know but where it
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: got creepy was we know i know every doctor in
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: this city where are you giving birth and then really
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: creepy you know if i don't like this piece i'm
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: having my witch doctor place a curse on your unborn
• 27:39
  Speaker 7: children and it was at that moment that i phoned
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: the lawyer of anti-fair and said i don't know what
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: we're Because we didn't know who he was. We didn't
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: know if he was, was he mafia? We had no idea.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: What's the most, I'm going to use two adjectives here,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: obscene or transfixing thing you've seen done with wealth?
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: Hmm.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: One comes to mind for me, so I'll jump in.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: And I won't use this individual's name because it was
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: told to me in confidence, but actually a pretty nice,
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: one of the nicer billionaires I've ever met and interviewed.
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: I spent a day with this person and they were
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: telling me about their family and their kids and they
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: were telling me about their yacht that they own. It's
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: like a massive yacht, you know, that they can take
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: anywhere they want. And he said very candidly, earnestly to me,
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: It's a great way to get the kids home to
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: hang out with us.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: They're in college or something? Yeah, they're older.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: They've moved on.
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: It's kind of yacht as way to spend time with family. Wow.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: I have one good story.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Go on. We refilled your glass.
• 28:56
  Speaker 7: This goes back to 2010. There is a Russian oligarch
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: called Oleg Deripaska.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Famous Russian oligarch.
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: Oligarch currently on our sanctions list and on the British
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: sanctions list. I run into him, as one does, at
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: a birthday party in Dubrovnik.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: That was perfect.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: So, and it was at the harbour and someone says, oh,
• 29:28
  Speaker 7: this is some big Russian boat.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Let's go explore. So we, against all my.
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: Better instincts, we get on this boat and And there
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: are all these guards with guns and it's like a
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: wedding cake. And it's literally like you'll be on a
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: James Bond villain's boat because men with earpieces and guards,
• 29:47
  Speaker 7: women who progressively are wearing less and less as you
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: climb the stairs and big ornate floors and we walk
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: up and up and up to the top floor.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: And there was.
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: Canadian billionaire who's now dead called Peter Monk and Oleg Deripaska.
• 30:06
  Speaker 7: And I introduced myself. I knew Peter Monk. I'd never
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: met Oleg Deripaska. And he's standing there with his two bodyguards.
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: And I said, hello, Oleg, Oleg, Mr.
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: Deripaska.
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: I'm Vicky Ward. And I was working at Fancy Fair
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: at the time. And he said, ah, yes, I hear
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: that you're the only person here who might be more
• 30:24
  Speaker 7: dangerous than me.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: So I've enjoyed that. What do you say back when
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: he says that? Well, I think I was a bit dumbstruck,
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: but he did. I will say, I'm not proud of
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: this next bit.
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: He eventually came off the boat with his bodyguards and
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: he said, would you like to dance? So I danced
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: with Ola Deripaska and the bodyguard.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: He was a terrible dancer.
• 31:00
  Speaker 9: At least back in the good old days, It was
• 31:12
  Speaker 9: even like Langone, right?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: The Home Depot billionaire has his name on the hospital.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Macy's has a parade.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Even after Macy's closes, that's always going to be, they
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: did things that somehow paid back to society rather than
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: like Bezos making a rocket ship for himself to get
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: off the planet. You know, it's like the good old rich,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: even if it was for egotistical reasons, at least what
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: fed their ego was feeding people on the ground.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Public library.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: You get your name, the Carnegie or whoever.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: They get their name on things that people are using,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: that the way that they feel like they're going to
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: live on is people are going to look at them
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: and like who they were.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Where do you think it slips away?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Where do you think that sort of ethos disappears?
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: This lot, the teal, the... you're transhuman.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Because, and I think it's because.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: You're people.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Because they, yeah.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But I think it's.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Because they've given up on us. They've given up on
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: this civilization.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: I think that's really interesting.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: They want to leave us behind.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: Also, they want to live forever.
• 32:17
  Speaker 8: And like, if you want to die and leave a
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: legacy behind, you say, put my name on a library.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: If you're going to live forever and you're going to
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: be that shitty to people, you better hope they're all gone, right?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Because you can't live forever and not get karma.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: It's so dark.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you, you know, On the other side, we've
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: been picking on sort of the right-wing billionaires, but the
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: left-wing billionaires that preceded the right-wing billionaires were kind of
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: just as bad. I was on an online chat during
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: the January 6th riots, and one of the people on
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: there was a.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Close to or probably billionaire, but lefties.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: We're all looking at it, all horrified, and he said,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I wish I could push a button and make them
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: all disappear.
• 32:59
  Speaker 7: Ooh.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Meaning all the maga, all the reds, if I could
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: just push a button and make them disappear, I would.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: So that technocratic- It's also just a way of thinking,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: like a way of thinking about power. Right, like who.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Was that in the Avengers movie that snapped this thing?
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: Oh, Thanos.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Thanos, and he makes half the universe go away. It's
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: that demigod thing, and you can have it in the
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: progressive Bill Gates-ian way of let's send mosquito nets to
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: all those people in Africa that are having malaria, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: they use them for fishing nets and poison the water and-
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: It's all that sort of demigod, I know better than
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: they do.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: I wonder where Trump fits in this, because I don't
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: think he's part of your trans.
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: I.
• 33:48
  Speaker 8: Don't think he is.
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: And in fact, I think given his age and knowing
• 33:52
  Speaker 7: him a bit, I think he is very, very... focused
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: on his legacy yeah he's thinking about what the history
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: books on this earth will write about him and that
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: could i hadn't thought about this till you raised all
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: this that could come into conflict i think.
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: He's focused on his legacy but i think it's coming
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: into conflict too with his sort of root financial motivations
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: right i think we saw this with The Trump meme
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: coin that was launched just as he was inaugurated.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And the Melania meme coin.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And the Melania meme coin. And the pastor coin.
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: And taking truth social public as well, though. I mean,
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: these are really just financial plays.
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: But isn't that part of his legacy, which I think
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: is different from putting us all on Mars?
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: Do you think he wants a legacy that is physical
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: and concrete and... you know, names on things or it's
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: something immaterial.
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: No, I do, because that's what he knows. He's a builder,
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: first and foremost, above everything else. And he's a very
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: proud builder.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: That's Vicki Ward, Ed Angueso Jr., John Hyatt, and Douglas Rushkoff.
• 35:14
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  Speaker 1: their work. Sign up at kcrw.com slash question everything. And
• 35:21
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• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and left a review on Apple Podcasts. After I asked
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: on the last episode, you really humored me there, and
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. If you haven't done it yet, please,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: it is not too late to review the show. We're
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: actually coming up on our six-month mark. So if you've
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  Speaker 1: been a dedicated listener, maybe shout out your favorite episode
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: so far. Next up on Question Everything, a special taping
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: of the show. in which I put myself into a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: weird physical position to question a disgruntled interviewee in front
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: of a live audience. Yes, let's do it. Yes, but Brian,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: would you mind? All right, let's do it. Let's do
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: this on your terms. All right, so how does this work?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: You just kind of, yeah.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: It's kind of humiliating, but then you get here, and
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: this angle is iconic.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Question Everything is a production of Placement Theory and KCRW.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Today's episode was produced by Zach St. Louis and Emily
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Malterre and edited by Robin Simeon. Our show is also
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: made by me and producer Sophie Casis. Neil Drumming and
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Jen Kinney are contributing editors. Alyssa Shipp helped book this episode.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Annika Robbins did our fact-checking, sound design by Brendan Baker.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Music by Matt McGinley. Sound engineering by Gabe Kroga. Our
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: stalwart host, Bibber & Bell Wine Shop in Brooklyn. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Tejela Jamera,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. See you next time.