Latest / Love Conquers Fear / #19: From Freedom to Abundance: The Future of Business & Humanity with Alexander McCobin

Transcript

#19: From Freedom to Abundance: The Future of Business & Humanity with Alexander McCobin · Love Conquers Fear

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  Capitalism is a revolutionary concept.
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  It's created the idea of a positive sum game, which is how
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  we get to the concept of abundance in the 1st place.
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  Only once. The concept of people really
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  trading with one another without constraints of government that
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  we started to see this exponential rise instead of
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  living and GDP. And that's because we shifted
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  from a mindset of the only way to become wealthy is to take
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  from others with a fixed pie to 1, where we can grow the pie and
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  people can do better off by actually helping other people do
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  better off. The introduction of artificial
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  intelligence is going to lead to businesses caring much more
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  about the values and the principles of the people that
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  they work with, jobs that people relied upon in the partnerships
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  they had before with other human beings.
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  They're going to give that to AI, all the valueless
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  activities. But more importantly, every
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  person is an end in and of him or herself because we have the
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  capacity to ascribe value to other things.
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  We are a source of value in the world, and that's what makes us
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  fundamentally different from artificial intelligence.
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  What is this reality we're in? If we're living in a simulation,
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  we'll just call that we're living in the reality created by
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  a God that we don't understand and accept that that is a
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  religious belief unto itself, and the pursuit of answering
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  that question is what we are here to do.
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  Welcome back everybody to the Love Conquers Fear podcast.
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  I hope you enjoyed the last episode with Jamie Metzl.
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  I thought it was a lot of fun and afterwards we had an amazing
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  dinner with his girlfriend and some also Henry Crown Fellows.
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  And I am still here in New York City as you can see, same setup.
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  This is a nice podcast studio right here in New York called
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  Theorist Studios, and I am very happy to welcome a very longtime
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  friend, one that I got to know from Conscious Capitalism.
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  So everyone, I'm very proud to welcome Alexander Makoben to the
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  podcast. Welcome, Alexander.
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  It's good to have you on, man. Brett, thank you so much for
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  having me. It's great to be here.
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  And you know, Alexander, just just by way of background, I was
• 2:16
  on the board of directors of the conscious capitalism movement.
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  John Mackey, one of my best friends, recruited me on he's
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  the founder of Whole Foods and wrote the forward to my first
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  book, The Entrepreneurs Essentials.
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  And he really fell in love with Alexander as a CEO candidate to
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  succeed our CEO. I did as well.
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  And I'll never forget the boardroom discussion where we
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  ultimately decided to go with Alexander.
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  It was it was an interesting discussion.
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  It was very passionate people there on the board really cared
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  about getting it right. And we absolutely did get it
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  right. And Alexander has gone on after
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  really helping the conscious capitalism, moving a lot to do
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  really, really amazing things. And we're going to unpack all
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  that. So.
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  So, Alexander, what are you up to now?
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  Well, Brett, I First off can't thank you enough for helping
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  recruit me to Conscious Capitalism.
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  It was an incredible experience getting to work really closely
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  with you, John, and hundreds of other business leaders committed
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  to elevating humanity through business.
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  And I only left Conscious Capitalism because I saw an
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  opportunity for us to take this concept to the next level.
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  Having a nonprofit is a powerful way to start conversations and
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  inspire people with ideas. But you actually stepped off the
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  Conscious Capitalism board because you became so busy with
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  data dot world actually building a conscious capitalist business.
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  And I kept seeing. We just it was just acquired on
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  7/7 which gives me the freedom to do what I'm doing.
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  Now that's right and congratulations that you were
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  living out the principles of conscious capitalism.
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  And I started to realize so many other members of the of the
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  network wanted to do the same thing.
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  You can't just keep going to meetings and talking about this
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  in the abstract. You wanted to go and actually
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  build a conscious capitalist business.
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  And so now I am running a network called Liberty Ventures
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  that is explicitly bringing together business leaders who
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  are committed to advancing the principles of capitalism very
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  similar to conscious capitalism, and actually helping them scale
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  their businesses so that they're able to create real value in the
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  world and generate wealth, and through that, be able to make
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  the world a freer and more prosperous place.
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  Yeah. Well, and you know, it was you
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  that got me a ticket to go to Necker and meet with Richard
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  Branson. And that happened in March of
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  this year. And I'll always thank you for
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  that. I'll never forget, you know,
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  flying in with John Mackie for it and us having very deep
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  spiritual conversations. And then and then arriving and
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  there was this guy running to us from the dock with his shirt
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  off. And I'm like, wow, that's so
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  cool. They have such nice people that
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  work here. And then I'm like, Oh my gosh,
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  that's Richard Branson. I think everybody in the boat
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  was just their minds blown. Talk about a guy who literally
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  is like a dolphin just flowing in the water.
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  You know, everybody comes to him on Necker Islands, just 74 acres
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  big, and he has this Temple of the Elders and some of the most
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  amazing discussions happen there.
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  And he gets to learn from everybody and teach, too.
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  He's an incredible teacher. But I will never ever forget
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  that trip and I will always thank you for that.
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  Well, I can't thank you enough for coming out to that and
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  contributing so much to that event.
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  And I agree. One of the amazing things about
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  Richard is not only is he incredibly smart, obviously,
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  given how successful he's been, it's also evident in the way he
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  set up Necker. As you said, that is his home
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  and he gets other people to come to him to spend time with him
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  and give him ideas for how to build his bit, his network of
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  businesses and everything he's doing.
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  But he is also just one of those charismatic individuals I've
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  ever met in my life. He brings everyone in, he finds
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  a way to connect with them, and he's able to hold so many ideas
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  in his head at the same time. It really is a sight to behold
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  and he is an incredible person to get to spend time with.
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  He really? Is, I mean, you know, there,
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  there are a lot of standout moments for me on that trip, but
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  I want to hear from you what the standout moments were for you
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  and then I'll I'll share mine. So my moments whenever we go to
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  Necker, because this is an annual event, I feel really
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  privileged to get invited to organize an event at Necker
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  Island every year, which is what we do to bring the community
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  together. It's only there are only so many
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  beds on the island, so it's limited to about 50 people, but
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  it's really high quality individuals.
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  And so the special opportunities for me are actually just the
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  intimate conversations, walking on the beach or after dinner,
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  playing a game of chess with someone and getting to go in
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  depth into what they're working on and find ways to support
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  them. That's what I love about the
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  trip every year. Yeah, I mean, there, there were
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  so many things that stood out to me because for me this is my
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  first time to go. And you know, the first thing
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  that stood out was how many spiritual things happened for me
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  out there. I'll give you some examples.
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  We were having dinner on the first night.
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  And as you know, I deeply believe in God, but God is the
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  same word I would use for consciousness or source or the
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  universe, whatever this force is that loves us and is rooted in
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  love. I think that's the definition of
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  love. And sometimes, you know, you get
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  hit over the head with messages. And so we're at the dinner and
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  we're talking about lots of different books.
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  And a couple of people there bring up the book The Alchemist,
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  and then Richard Branson jumps in and he's like, Brett, you
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  have to read The Alchemist. I can't believe you haven't read
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  The Alchemist. It's an amazing, amazing book.
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  And we have this really cool conversation about it.
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  I go back to the hotel room. All the products in the hotel
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  room, guess what they're branded as?
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  Do you remember? Yep, they're all.
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  Alchemist. They're all alchemist.
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  I'm like, OK, that's interesting.
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  Then I'm on the plane, you know, coming back and there's a line
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  and The Alchemist, which I, you know, when you read a book and
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  you go over a line like 50 times and you don't know why it like
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  makes sense later there is a line I kept going over, over and
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  over again. It's always darkest before the
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  dawn. It's always darkest before the
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  before the dawn. And an Alchemist is one of those
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  books that if you read it every decade in terms of your life
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  wisdom, you would get different messages.
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  Because it's really profoundly wise.
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  I mean, I, I'm sure quite sure, you know, I'm 53 when I read it.
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  When I'm 63 or when I'm 73 I will get different messages.
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  It's not that the book changes, but we change with it, and
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  there's so much to mine from it. Yeah, absolutely.
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  And then that line in my personal life actually played
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  out multiple times and I held faith because of that line.
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  And sure enough, all the things worked out.
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  But I also have realized that I read over that line so much
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  because it's a meta thematic for where we're at with humanity.
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  And we'll we'll unpack that in a second.
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  Second thing that really jumped out was a synchronicity that I
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  had with with Fred Lafranc, who is now cancer free, thank
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  goodness. And he has his own podcast, I
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  think it's called The Mystic and the Executive, if I'm not
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  mistaken. But it just launched and I want
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  to give a shout out to that. I'm definitely going to have
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  Fred on Love Conquers Fear. The audience is going to love
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  that. Yeah, well, he's, he's, he's
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  amazing. But Fred is telling me the
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  story. He's really struck by this talk
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  I gave at at Necker. I gave a talk on the hard
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  problem of consciousness in the accelerating age of AI, quantum
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  computing, robotics. And I think people are surprised
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  that it took a spiritual turn. They weren't expecting that.
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  And a lot of people came up afterwards and really thanked me
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  for that, including Fred. And Fred, you know, he was
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  talking to me about a synchronicity.
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  I mentioned the book The Celestine Prophecy.
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  And ever since I've read that book, I've seen more
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  synchronicities. Like sometimes they see multiple
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  times a day, like things that are undeniable, like
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  synchronicities that would be so improbable to happen.
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  And I look at those, the signs of the divine.
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  And, and so Fred's telling me a story about a synchronicity just
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  trying to blow my mind and he's talking about it Joe Dispenza
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  workshop that he went to and he's unpacking that.
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  And he's like, you know, I keep on running into the same guy at
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  the workshop and he's like, there's 3000 people there.
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  And this guy is just an attendee.
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  And like, you know, I just run into him like 5 * 5 times in,
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  in, in these different huge, you know, 3000 group settings.
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  And he's like, and I forgot to ask him what his number was
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  because I, I just thought there's, there's something,
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  there's a reason I keep running into this guy and he keeps on
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  having these amazing connections with him.
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  Then there at the last session, the last session for the
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  workshop, which apparently a really cool, John's been to one
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  with his wife Debbie. And he told me it's
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  transformational for them. And I've read Joe Dispenza's
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  book Break in the habit of being yourself.
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  It's it's a really good book. You know, his, his word for God
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  in that book is the greater intelligence of the quantum
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  field. And if you really work with
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  that, then it'll manifest, you know, some amazing things in
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  your life. And he's got all these exercises
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  to go through it in the workshops, unpack that.
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  And he's like, I'm the sixth time he runs into the guy again
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  and he's like, I'm not missing the opportunity now.
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  And so he asked him, he gets his, he gets his name and number
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  and he starts telling me it's this guy John.
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  And he's like, you know, this guy John, you know, it's, it's
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  really incredible. You know, he has this, he has
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  this eye disease. And he's like, you know, I
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  connected him with this amazing hedge fund guy for, you know,
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  working on, you know, trying to help him through this, this,
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  this eye disease, which is supposedly incurable.
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  And he tells me, you know, John starting a company.
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  I'm like, Fred, I'm like, hold on a second, Are you talking
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  about Jason Carp is the guy you introduced him to?
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  And he's like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, I am.
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  He's like, you know, Jason Carp? I was like, not only do I know
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  Jason Carp, but I'm an investor in John's company and friend.
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  Mine was blown because he's like, what?
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  You're part of the synchronicity.
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  And I was like, yes, I was like, we are, we are part of this
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  story. And I love John.
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  I love Lauren and. And by the way, you know, that
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  was that was episode 9 of this podcast interviewing John and
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  Lauren together and we're really proud investors there.
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  And it just literally blew Fred's mind.
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  He just he and my mind, I mean, because, because I realized I
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  was part of it. Another big stand out.
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  It's where I where I met William Steele and I became an amazing
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  individual company and we should give a shout out to to him and
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  what he's doing with a cross-border trade and really
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  helping, you know, farmers, especially in this time.
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  It's really, really important, you know, creating a whole SAS
• 13:34
  solution around that. And really proud I not only
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  invested, but I've joined his Advisory Board and I'm really
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  looking forward to seeing him here.
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  And he, Deborah loves him. By the way, Deborah is a tough,
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  tough judge and she absolutely loves him.
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  So it's very happy that I'm involved in that one.
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  There's this one time where William came over and we thought
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  it was going to be a 30 minute pitch, you know, to Deborah to
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  get her on board. They spent like 2 hours together
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  and it was just, it was just incredible.
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  And then the fourth thing was just kind of a fun thing in that
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  all over the island there are tons of exotic animals.
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  And Richard Branson says there's more than in the Galapagos on
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  Necker. And it's just crazy, like how
• 14:20
  all these animals have come in. It's like a rescue, like people.
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  Like a rescue it is. It is actually reviving some
• 14:28
  species on the island that were never facing extinction.
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  Before, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you'll be walking
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  down the path and all of a sudden you'll see a turtle
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  that's the size of like a small car.
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  It's like what's going on here and Kangaroos everywhere.
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  And so if anybody listening to this gets a chance, go.
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  I'm so glad I went and I'll never regret going in and I'm
• 14:52
  sure I'll go again at some point.
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  I hope so. And I want to diverge from
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  Necker a little bit there, but to talk about the power of
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  synchronicity. And when that reveals, because
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  those stories are so powerful and I think they also reveal the
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  importance of each of us being open to opportunities and taking
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  action in life for that synchronicity to reveal feel
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  itself. I mean, when you're talking
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  about the story with Fred, he didn't just sit by and go, oh, I
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  didn't get this guy's number to guess that's it.
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  He thought to himself, I'm going to find him.
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  I'm going to go up and ask him for that again.
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  And then he was proactive in saying, I'm going to make this
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  additional connection for you. And that led to the
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  synchronicity with you and everything that happens in the
• 15:31
  world. I find some people misunderstand
• 15:34
  what synchronicity is all about and how everything is connected.
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  They think it's about the universe happening to them, when
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  really it's about participating in all of the opportunities in
• 15:43
  the universe. And as you put that energy out
• 15:46
  there, the energy comes back as well, and the opportunities are
• 15:49
  created through taking that action.
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  I'll give you an example of that in my life and I'd love to hear
• 15:56
  an example of that in your life. One this one, one that's really
• 16:02
  special to me. And I know you're on the cusp of
• 16:04
  getting married. And so I want to honor that with
• 16:07
  this story is I had this recurring Teenage Dream true
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  story like like where this beautiful woman's walking to me
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  from the ocean onto the beach towards me.
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  And I kept waking up and I had this like 8 to 10 times.
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  And I had largely kind of forgot about the dream.
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  It was something that had happened.
• 16:29
  And I had AI had a girlfriend for a long time off and on in
• 16:34
  college, but I had met Deborah in our freshman year.
• 16:38
  She had blown me off and, and I thought, well, probably
• 16:41
  unreachable. And in our senior year we got,
• 16:45
  we got together, we were the only ones at a country bar that
• 16:49
  weren't drinking alcohol. So we thought that was
• 16:52
  interesting. And, you know, both very
• 16:54
  dedicated to taking care of the vessel, taking care of our
• 16:57
  bodies. And and we started to talk and I
• 17:01
  asked her out. She said yes, asked her to marry
• 17:04
  me. Six months later.
• 17:07
  Fast forward to our honeymoon. We hike up to this remote beach
• 17:12
  in Greece. It was it was 1.
• 17:15
  You had to hike over the cliffs to go to.
• 17:18
  And I'm on the beach and I fall asleep and I kind of wake up and
• 17:23
  I'm in that half kind of in between dream and real estate.
• 17:28
  And I see her walking up from the water and I realized it was
• 17:34
  that dream and it was literally the woman in the dream because
• 17:37
  the woman in the dream in always came into focus.
• 17:40
  And then I'd wake up and it was her.
• 17:43
  And I had the free will, right? I could have married my
• 17:47
  ex-girlfriend, which I knew was not right for me.
• 17:50
  Or I could have instead gone for the dream.
• 17:54
  And I would always tell people before, before I remembered
• 17:58
  that, you know, on the beach that day and you can ask her
• 18:02
  about this the next time you see her.
• 18:05
  I would always tell people that she was my dream girl and I was
• 18:09
  going to marry her. I'd tell people that at the gym.
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  I'd tell people that like before we got married and they'd be
• 18:14
  like, dude, so far out of your league, it's never going to
• 18:17
  happen, you know? And, and I did, I can honestly
• 18:21
  tell you not just I married my dream girl, that I literally
• 18:25
  married the girl from my actual dreams.
• 18:28
  And I've told very few people that story.
• 18:31
  I appreciate you showing that everybody that's listening to
• 18:33
  this, but. That is fantastic.
• 18:36
  I love that you're living out your dream here, that's what.
• 18:38
  It but I had the free will. I had to act.
• 18:41
  Exactly And you know my my soon to be wife and I met on a dating
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  app and so the synchronicity for us wasn't just that we connected
• 18:49
  there, but actually it involved me pushing ahead because
• 18:52
  initially she ghosted me for a week.
• 18:55
  He did not respond to my initial messages after she's did it
• 18:58
  first and then that a week went by, thought there was an
• 19:00
  opportunity but I decided to reach out again and she
• 19:03
  apologized profusely. She had gotten busy at work and
• 19:05
  then we went out on our first date.
• 19:07
  It required me to take the next step in order to actually make
• 19:12
  that happen and for us to put a lot of work into our
• 19:15
  relationship then, given where we both were in our lives.
• 19:18
  But synchronicity, again, just doesn't just happen to you.
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  You have to go and make it happen in life.
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  Yeah, you do. You have You have the free will.
• 19:26
  And there are a lot of times in your life where literally the
• 19:30
  right solution for your life can be staring at you in the face,
• 19:34
  but you have to act on it and you have to be bold enough to
• 19:38
  act on it. But if you, if you get good at
• 19:40
  reading your own internal energy, however you want to look
• 19:43
  at that. I look at that as spiritual.
• 19:45
  But other people could just look at it as just that kind of 6th
• 19:48
  sense we get from when we're interacting with someone.
• 19:51
  Can you trust them or not? But if you get good at reading
• 19:54
  that energy, you'll make the right decisions, you know?
• 19:57
  And anytime I've been hurt in my life, it has been when I refuse
• 20:03
  to acknowledge that energy. I mean, I've, I've definitely
• 20:07
  made some doozy of mistakes before, you know?
• 20:10
  We all have, and I know you're very spiritual.
• 20:13
  I know you're also a deep reader, so you perhaps you've
• 20:15
  read up on Stoicism as well. It's some.
• 20:18
  Stoicism I love. I mean, Stoicism and Vedanta and
• 20:21
  the Dao, they're all so similar. Absolutely.
• 20:24
  There's some deep fundamental truths there, and I think it was
• 20:26
  Aurelius who said that most of the harms we experience in life
• 20:31
  are experienced only in our heads.
• 20:32
  We've done it to ourselves. It's about our mindset set in
• 20:36
  perception with this, and that's the unlocking move, to be open
• 20:39
  to the synchronicities of the world, to the open to the
• 20:42
  opportunities available to us and then being willing to take
• 20:44
  action on them when we see them and not see the challenges we
• 20:48
  encounter as harms, but opportunities for us.
• 20:51
  Yeah, yeah. All spirituality at its root is
• 20:54
  about manifesting love, helping each other and deprogramming
• 20:59
  like being able to realize that suffering as a teacher.
• 21:02
  You know, Benjamin Franklin, one of his famous lines that
• 21:05
  actually Arthur Patterson was the first one to share this with
• 21:07
  me. He was he he's been a long time
• 21:09
  mentor of mine, has been a venture capitalist since 1972.
• 21:14
  He's a Co founder of Excel Partners.
• 21:16
  And he wrote me one time. You'd always write me short
• 21:18
  emails. It sometimes would take me like
• 21:20
  a week or two to dissect, you know, especially as a young CEO
• 21:23
  back then. He wrote me one which said pain
• 21:26
  is instructive. Benjamin Franklin.
• 21:28
  And he actually wrote my favorite entrepreneur of all
• 21:31
  time. And he did that.
• 21:32
  He didn't know it. One of my proudest moments in
• 21:35
  going to the Warden School was, you know, knowing that I was at
• 21:39
  the school that Benjamin Franklin had founded, you know,
• 21:42
  the the University of Pennsylvania.
• 21:44
  You're here where? We're fellow alums and it's
• 21:46
  great to see Franklin all everywhere there statues of him
• 21:49
  and and you can feel the energy at the school from being there.
• 21:53
  Have you ever read Advice for a Young Tradesman?
• 21:56
  A long time ago at this point. Yeah, it's it's incredible.
• 21:59
  I mean, it's worth a reread. He he was a stoic.
• 22:03
  He. Really was, yeah, he he was, he
• 22:05
  was very much in control of his emotions.
• 22:09
  He wasn't ruled by his emotions, which a big that's a big part of
• 22:12
  Vedanta. It is, and it's important that
• 22:14
  you said it's about being in control of 1's emotions.
• 22:17
  It's not being unemotional as people straw man stoicism to be
• 22:20
  sometimes, right? It's experiencing the fullness
• 22:23
  of emotions, but also knowing there was a time and a place for
• 22:26
  each one and not being ruled by them, but being able to rule
• 22:29
  over our own emotions. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:31
  Franklin was one of the absolute best at that.
• 22:34
  Yeah, well, and, and, and you know, I've seen you on stage now
• 22:37
  many times and you bring out an emotional response in the
• 22:41
  audience because you are manifesting love and you're
• 22:45
  manifesting this deep connection.
• 22:47
  And so, so I already know how how good you are at that.
• 22:50
  So let's talk about what's what's going on this week.
• 22:53
  You know, we're we're about to go to a theater together and
• 22:57
  then there's an amazing conference and I'm honored to be
• 23:00
  speaking at it. Thanks to you.
• 23:01
  I'm honored to have you out. And you know, this really is a
• 23:04
  perfect build on from you talking about being driven by
• 23:07
  love, because I believe love comes from each of us having a
• 23:11
  sense of purpose and what what we want to create in the world,
• 23:16
  whether that's a certain relationship, if it's a certain
• 23:18
  ideal, if it's a certain community that we're building
• 23:21
  up. That's what love is, just a
• 23:23
  sense of life and that's coming from why we're here.
• 23:26
  And for me, it really is building the the network, the
• 23:30
  ecosystem of capitalists who believe in the principles of
• 23:34
  capitalism. And over the next three days,
• 23:37
  we're going to be with over 400 investors, executives and
• 23:40
  entrepreneurs who all passionately believe in
• 23:43
  capitalism as an expression of a free society and want to live up
• 23:47
  to its principles. And so we're going to be at at
• 23:51
  Look cinemas. We're owned by one of our good
• 23:53
  friends, Brian Schultz, who, you know, unconscious capitalism as
• 23:56
  well, hearing from speakers like Vivek Ramaswamy, who was a
• 24:00
  successful business person before he started to get into
• 24:02
  politics, as well as people like Tim Draper from Draper and
• 24:06
  Associates in venture capital or Brock Pierce in the crypto
• 24:08
  space. And the point of this is not
• 24:11
  just for them to talk about what they're accomplishing in their
• 24:14
  individual businesses or for people to learn how to be
• 24:17
  successful in business. That's a component of it because
• 24:20
  if you're running a company or a fund, you need to get returns.
• 24:24
  You need to take care of everyone, but it's also about
• 24:27
  the way that one is successful in business.
• 24:30
  And each one of our of our speakers and people who are here
• 24:33
  are going to talk about how they're being a representative
• 24:36
  of capitalism, how they're impacting everyone who is a
• 24:40
  stakeholder in their business and how they're leveraging this
• 24:44
  work to teach others about what capitalism really means because
• 24:48
  it is done so much for advancing human prosperity over the last
• 24:53
  250 years. And we are coming up on the
• 24:55
  250th like the anniversary of capitalism.
• 24:58
  Then 1776 we got 2 great documents, the Declaration of
• 25:03
  Independence and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, both in
• 25:06
  the same year. That's, that's incredible
• 25:09
  because I, I've, I've of course read The Wealth of Nations.
• 25:13
  I miss the fact that it was the same year.
• 25:15
  Just a few months before the Declaration of Independence, it
• 25:18
  absolutely is. And so as we enter the 250th
• 25:21
  anniversary of America next year, I think it's also
• 25:24
  important for us to recognize that the 250th anniversary
• 25:28
  really of capitalism as we understand it today and it's
• 25:31
  still evolving. And we should reflect on what
• 25:35
  capitalism has accomplished and extending human lifespans and
• 25:39
  promoting the quality of life with average per capita GDP
• 25:43
  increasing by over 1400% in in all these incredible things.
• 25:49
  And what's it going to look like for the next 250 years, both in
• 25:53
  America and in the system of capitalism as it evolves around
• 25:56
  the world going forward And with America, hopefully as a leader
• 26:00
  of that for the next 250 years, as we have been for the last
• 26:03
  250? Yeah, the best is the best ever
• 26:05
  presentations. I think you would agree with me
• 26:08
  on what I'm about to say that I've seen on capitalism are John
• 26:11
  Mackey. He's absolutely.
• 26:12
  Terrific, unbelievable. And, you know, he talks about
• 26:17
  the systems, the competing systems of socialism, communism.
• 26:22
  He shows you the data, and it's undeniable, like, how much
• 26:26
  better capitalism is. And really, capitalism at the
• 26:30
  root stands for freedom, whereas the other systems are more about
• 26:36
  a government trying to portion out the distributions in a way
• 26:43
  that's very heavy-handed. I mean, communism the most
• 26:45
  heavy-handed and socialism a little bit less, but democracy
• 26:49
  being the most free. And it really is, you know,
• 26:52
  capitalism really is the best invention, I think, of humanity
• 26:57
  because, you know, John goes through the numbers.
• 26:59
  Obviously these numbers are in books like Enlightenment Now by
• 27:02
  Steven Pinker, one of my favorite books of all time, that
• 27:06
  it's lifted billions of people out of starvation, out of
• 27:10
  poverty in the world. And it is, it is ultimately the
• 27:14
  model, I think, that we get to the transcendence to get into
• 27:19
  the age of abundance for all. It absolutely is because
• 27:23
  capitalism is a revolutionary concept.
• 27:25
  Actually it it's created the idea of a positive sum game,
• 27:30
  which is how we get to the concept of abundance in the 1st
• 27:32
  place. Up until 1776, if you look at
• 27:36
  the per capita GDP of the world or GDP of the world, it was
• 27:39
  pretty much flat. For most of human history.
• 27:42
  It was only once the concept of people freely trading with one
• 27:47
  another without constraints of government, without the
• 27:49
  government saying what people should be purchasing or how or
• 27:52
  what they should be developing, that we started to see this
• 27:55
  exponential rise instead of living and GDP.
• 27:59
  And that's because it's we shifted from a mindset of the
• 28:02
  only way to become wealthy is to take from others with a fixed
• 28:06
  pie to 1 where we can grow the pie and people can do better off
• 28:10
  by actually helping other people do better off by building
• 28:14
  thriving businesses that benefit everyone.
• 28:17
  And that is a revolutionary perspective of how we interact
• 28:20
  with one another and that we've still been perfecting there.
• 28:24
  This is actually why I think what we're doing with Liberty
• 28:27
  Ventures and Principal Business is so important, is that there
• 28:30
  are still a lot of business people who don't get that
• 28:33
  positive sum game in capitalism. They do think in terms of a
• 28:38
  fixed sum that for them to do better, they have to take from
• 28:41
  others instead of creating value where everyone is better off.
• 28:44
  But that's the core of capitalism.
• 28:47
  That's the unlocking move to hit the Age of Abundance.
• 28:50
  So, so I want to, I want to talk about libertarianism for a
• 28:54
  moment. And the reason I want to talk
• 28:56
  about it is that it was brought up yesterday when I recorded
• 29:01
  with with Jamie Metzl, you know which, which by this time people
• 29:05
  have seen that episode and he was pretty against
• 29:09
  libertarianism. And I didn't want to make it
• 29:12
  like an overly political because really that's not the point of
• 29:16
  love conquers fear. I think we, we have to
• 29:19
  transcend, you know, tribal politics, not just in the US,
• 29:23
  but globally, where humanity needs to unite and we need to
• 29:27
  realize that we're 99.9% the same from ADNA perspective.
• 29:32
  And we are being tested right now.
• 29:35
  But again, there's, there's there's a lot of people that are
• 29:38
  watching this, which are very anti Biden, who when I say it's
• 29:45
  always dark as before the dawn, The Alchemist quote, they're
• 29:48
  thinking of Biden or there's people there anti Trump that are
• 29:52
  thinking of Trump when I say that.
• 29:55
  And I'm curious, like, how do you, what would be your defense
• 29:59
  of libertarianism? So I am a small L libertarian,
• 30:04
  and that's an important distinction because it doesn't
• 30:06
  mean I'm affiliated with the political party.
• 30:08
  It's about the philosophy of libertarianism.
• 30:11
  Admittedly, I don't really like having terms anymore because I
• 30:16
  think people bring their own definitions to these terms into
• 30:19
  these conversations and often straw man them and so don't
• 30:22
  understand what we're talking about.
• 30:24
  So when I say libertarianism, I'm talking about of political
• 30:29
  philosophy based on the principle of liberty, that every
• 30:33
  individual is an end in and of him and herself and has the
• 30:38
  agency to make decisions for themselves in what kind of life
• 30:42
  they want to lead. So long as it does not interfere
• 30:45
  with imposing that on other individuals, infringing upon
• 30:48
  their rights, committing force against them basically.
• 30:51
  And the reason I believe that is, is really simple.
• 30:55
  I think it is abundantly self-evident that each person is
• 31:00
  an end in themselves. You have the ability and the
• 31:03
  right to decide what you want to do with your life.
• 31:06
  Just as the gentleman here recording us to do.
• 31:09
  Just as everyone listening does. And I do as well.
• 31:12
  And the infringement on our ability to make those choices
• 31:17
  for ourselves by other human beings is a violation of that
• 31:21
  basic principle. And so there are a lot of
• 31:23
  questions of how do we scale that up to a larger social
• 31:28
  construct that respects those choices for for every individual
• 31:32
  as much as possible. But the difference between
• 31:35
  libertarianism and other political philosophies out there
• 31:37
  is that at a certain point, most other hilosohies tend to say,
• 31:41
  well, we can't actually let people make choices for
• 31:43
  themselves for X or Y reason, or these choices are inappropriate
• 31:47
  for them to decide for their selves.
• 31:50
  And I just don't take that next step.
• 31:52
  And that leads to a, a philosophy that generally is
• 31:55
  considered socially liberal and fiscally conservative, or those
• 31:59
  two sides align with that. And I actually think that
• 32:03
  general approach is the basis of America and what most people in
• 32:08
  America do believe. It's then a question of
• 32:11
  political feasibility, which can be really difficult for small
• 32:15
  libertarians. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:17
  And I, I, I agree with literally everything you said.
• 32:21
  I mean, the, the, the place where people jump in and kind of
• 32:27
  attack libertarianism as they attack the externalities.
• 32:30
  So they're like, well, if everybody just has pure freedom,
• 32:34
  then why are there such polluters, right that, that
• 32:39
  pollute in rivers? And shouldn't there be some laws
• 32:42
  against those? And why are there other
• 32:46
  externalities with capitalism which which do create, you know,
• 32:51
  a lot of oppression of a certain group or a certain a certain
• 32:55
  segment of the population? I mean, those are, those are
• 32:58
  the, those are the areas where people attack it.
• 33:02
  That's. One of the lines of attack, but
• 33:04
  there's a really simple answer to it, which is that those kinds
• 33:07
  of externalities, pollution that infringes upon other people's
• 33:10
  rights, aren't covered by libertarianism.
• 33:12
  Those are infringements of people's rights.
• 33:15
  And so there should be rules that make sure that that's not
• 33:18
  that pollute, that excessive pollution is not happening.
• 33:20
  We have to define what pollution is in the 1st place because
• 33:24
  technically all sitting here breathing is putting carbon
• 33:26
  dioxide out in the air and we don't want to limit that.
• 33:29
  But that is absolutely covered by libertarianism.
• 33:32
  It's actually a great organization called the Property
• 33:35
  and Environmental Research Council out out out in the
• 33:38
  western US. I forgot if it's Montana or
• 33:41
  Colorado. That explicitly is about how we
• 33:44
  protect the environment from a free market perspective, and
• 33:49
  actually how more market friendly policies are often more
• 33:53
  effective actually at protecting the environment than simply
• 33:56
  coming in and wanting to regulate it or impose policies
• 34:00
  upon businesses for how to do so.
• 34:02
  Right. You know, I think that's a
• 34:03
  brilliant answer. And the reason reason I'm reason
• 34:06
  I'm asking you these questions for the context for people
• 34:09
  listening to this is you ran Students for Liberty.
• 34:12
  And part of what was so appealing to me and John and and
• 34:17
  other people in that boardroom at Conscious Capitalism where he
• 34:20
  made the decision is we had a competing candidate who was
• 34:24
  terrific, honestly was really terrific as well.
• 34:27
  But but they hadn't done anything at that type of scale.
• 34:33
  And that was ultimately the argument I made in the closed
• 34:37
  door board meeting where I said, you know, first of all,
• 34:40
  principles wise, I think I think these two are very equivalent,
• 34:45
  both really good people. And secondly, like experience
• 34:50
  matters and like the experience of actually building Students
• 34:53
  for Liberty to be such a big impact is kind of freaking hard
• 34:57
  to do. Like to do that as a college
• 34:59
  student and do it at the level you did it.
• 35:02
  So I knew that you probably get these questions all the time
• 35:06
  back then. I can't imagine like being on
• 35:08
  many campuses. And I'm sure I'm sure you did
• 35:10
  get attacked. We absolutely did, and I always
• 35:13
  find these conversations to be really fruitful.
• 35:16
  I love talking about political philosophy, about business,
• 35:19
  about capitalism. It's really important to have
• 35:21
  these debates, and my time at Students for Liberty really did
• 35:25
  help prepare me for conscious capitalism and for liberty
• 35:28
  ventures now, especially in helping me shift out of
• 35:31
  academia. I was going to become a
• 35:33
  philosophy professor back in the day, but thankfully, after
• 35:36
  starting to build up Students for Liberty, became so enamored
• 35:39
  with organization, building and working with people in real
• 35:42
  life, not just talking about ideas in the abstract.
• 35:45
  That has shifted away. And I started off being really
• 35:49
  driven by ideas alone by reading the the philosophers, reading
• 35:54
  Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, but as
• 35:59
  building up Students for Liberty, I became really
• 36:01
  passionate about the impact of these ideas and philosophies
• 36:05
  have on people's actual lives. I worked with young people who
• 36:10
  were facing corruption in their countries.
• 36:12
  And so a 19 year old in Brazil started to organize protests
• 36:15
  that started to draw 10s of millions of people to the
• 36:18
  streets and ultimately led to the impeachment of the president
• 36:21
  for those for that that corruption.
• 36:25
  I had to help students in the Gambia during the middle of a
• 36:28
  coup taking place in their country escape because the new
• 36:31
  regime that was coming in saw them as a threat to because they
• 36:37
  stood for the Prince for principles of liberty, because
• 36:40
  they had already been outspoken against the individual who's
• 36:42
  taking, who's about to take charge and had to help them flee
• 36:45
  their country. I helped our student leaders who
• 36:48
  were being arrested for holding protests around the world get
• 36:51
  out of jail. And it really instilled in me
• 36:55
  this sense that these are not abstract ideas, these very much
• 36:59
  are about the lived experiences of individuals.
• 37:01
  And these ideas matter because they influence what people
• 37:06
  experience in their lives. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:08
  I mean, I think that's, that's so well said.
• 37:10
  And and, you know, the, the, the base state of humanity is it
• 37:14
  craves freedom. And, you know, they're one of
• 37:17
  the things I was exposed to in the Henry Crown Fellowship,
• 37:21
  which, you know, it's a two year program and we go through
• 37:23
  essentially re education now as adults.
• 37:25
  You know, I, I got in the program, I think at age 44, if
• 37:29
  I'm not mistaken, might may be age 43, But, but basically, you
• 37:34
  know, I got into the program and, you know, one of the, one
• 37:37
  of the big things you do is you read like, what is Thomas Hobbes
• 37:41
  have to say about controlling people?
• 37:43
  Well, Hobbes in view is that people can't be trusted and you
• 37:46
  got to put like, you know, real oppression on them and kind of
• 37:51
  force them to do the right thing.
• 37:53
  But then the Eastern view, at least the ancient Eastern view,
• 37:58
  I'm not talking about today's, you know, China tends to be all
• 38:02
  about the divine nature of us all and the communal, you know,
• 38:07
  spirit that comes out and the belief in the beauty within us
• 38:12
  all. So it's very anti Hobbs in and
• 38:16
  this has been the debate throughout history.
• 38:18
  We did study a lot of Plato and Aristotle too, which was really,
• 38:22
  really fascinating. The one book I recently read,
• 38:25
  which I give a shout out to a couple of episodes ago, if you
• 38:28
  haven't read it is, is really, really amazing.
• 38:32
  It's it's the best acted book I've ever heard on Audible 2.
• 38:37
  It's called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
• 38:39
  Have you ever heard? Of that great recommendation.
• 38:41
  OK, so you've absolutely OK, cool.
• 38:43
  We didn't, we didn't, we didn't pregame anything on that.
• 38:47
  Have you listened to it on Audible?
• 38:48
  I. Actually did listen to it on
• 38:49
  audible. Oh my gosh, it's amazing.
• 38:51
  I mean, I think very well formed voice actors on it.
• 38:54
  And it really is. I mean, well, why don't you say
• 38:57
  what it is? Because, you know, it really is.
• 38:59
  It's all about Plato and Aristotle and about Western
• 39:02
  rational thought and and it also is about the discovery of the
• 39:06
  soul. It is and it's this deep, almost
• 39:09
  personal reflection by by the main narrator in the book who's
• 39:13
  traveling with his son across the country and they're going by
• 39:16
  motorcycle and him really trying to understand what the world is
• 39:21
  made of. Is it?
• 39:22
  And just thinking that it's not just the mind body dualism of
• 39:25
  Descartes, but there's this third concept of quality in
• 39:29
  there that really connects everything in the universe and
• 39:33
  unpacking what that means. It is a great introduction to
• 39:36
  philosophical exploration that people can use to then start to
• 39:40
  explore everything else. Because at the end of the day,
• 39:43
  it's about thinking deeply in the world, moving past the
• 39:47
  superficial of just going through our daily lives and
• 39:50
  understanding what the what really drives the world, what
• 39:54
  drives our connections with other human beings.
• 39:58
  And this isn't something to do again, just in the abstract.
• 40:01
  It's something I think people should do because it affects.
• 40:04
  Our very lives, it's the way we relate to one another and to the
• 40:07
  world, and it gives us a perspective of how to create
• 40:11
  more than we are able to do if we're just following the money
• 40:15
  or if we're just following the instructions that have been
• 40:18
  given to us by our parents, by our schooling, or by bosses in a
• 40:22
  certain institution. Yeah.
• 40:24
  I mean the capitalistic interpretation of it I would
• 40:27
  have is that it really is about people over profit, which we
• 40:31
  know from the conscious capitalism movement.
• 40:34
  When you put people over profit, actually that is a much durable,
• 40:39
  much more durable, better long term business by far than if you
• 40:43
  put profit over people. Well, let's let's clarify this
• 40:46
  here, because it's not about putting people over profit.
• 40:48
  It's not about putting profit over people either.
• 40:50
  It's about recognizing that those are interconnected with
• 40:53
  each other. Exactly.
• 40:53
  Profit is an incredibly good thing.
• 40:55
  It is the lifeblood. Of business.
• 40:57
  Oh, you know that you can't survive.
• 40:58
  Without it, that's right. And, and what it represents is
• 41:01
  value creation or a part of the value created by a business,
• 41:05
  because a lot of profit is left on the table by good businesses
• 41:08
  giving away to, to its customers and others because it needs them
• 41:11
  to be a part of it. So I, I think it's, it's about
• 41:14
  understanding that interconnection of all the
• 41:16
  stakeholders in a business. That's a part of conscious
• 41:18
  capitalism, in that the best way to maximize profit is to take
• 41:22
  care of people. I think really well said and and
• 41:25
  you know, the the point of the book where it really emphasizes
• 41:29
  quality, I would I would say that's also synonymous with
• 41:33
  intentionality. And like when you put that that
• 41:37
  loving energy into a business or out in the universe, I mean, I
• 41:40
  think everybody would agree that John Mackey, who's very much a
• 41:45
  fierce defender of being libertarian, is absolutely a
• 41:50
  loving leader. I mean, like Whole Foods is an
• 41:54
  incredibly loving company. I don't know about the Whole
• 41:57
  Foods today. I I I can't really a pine on
• 42:00
  that cuz I don't. But the one John the.
• 42:01
  Leaders, but the one that John built that got acquired by
• 42:04
  Amazon in a historic transaction.
• 42:09
  You know that company was rooted in deep love in the whole planet
• 42:13
  foundation and and now he's on on his next venture, which is
• 42:17
  called love life. That's right.
• 42:20
  And and that one is also deeply rooted in love.
• 42:24
  And this is the amazing thing about capitalism.
• 42:26
  It, I think it is fundamentally based on love because it is
• 42:29
  based on principles of respecting the individual agency
• 42:32
  of others, of wanting to create real value for them, knowing
• 42:35
  that they need to choose which businesses they not only patron,
• 42:38
  but that they work at or they partner with.
• 42:41
  And every entrepreneur that is wildly successful absolutely
• 42:46
  loves their business and their people and what they're doing.
• 42:49
  Like John, like you and others, there's the sense that business
• 42:53
  is all evil, greedy, faceless corporations just trying to to
• 42:58
  get one number on a on a piece of paper or on computers these
• 43:02
  days to go to be bigger at the end of the day than in the
• 43:05
  morning really comes from a bureaucratization of capitalism.
• 43:09
  It comes from business schools and analysts that are trying to
• 43:12
  replicate a lot of systems that we have a government actually,
• 43:16
  and bring them into business. But entrepreneurs who are
• 43:18
  starting things anew, who are trying to solve real problems in
• 43:22
  the world, and those who take over businesses that bring that
• 43:25
  mindset, they're coming in with a love and passion that we were
• 43:29
  talking about before to actually developing their businesses and
• 43:33
  making people's lives better off.
• 43:35
  How do you think about this moment with AI and business?
• 43:39
  I mean, it is, it is a moment where, you know, the whole point
• 43:43
  of doing this podcast is to is for me to lay it all on the line
• 43:47
  and really do the best job I can to, to help humanity make it to
• 43:52
  what I'm calling the age of abundance for all.
• 43:54
  And you know, I've been a technologist, as you know, I've
• 43:57
  been programming since I was 7. I had never seen this type type
• 44:00
  of pronounced exponential curve ever.
• 44:03
  I mean, it's, it's just, I mean, we've, I guess we've always been
• 44:06
  an exponential curve, but we're now in the upward slope.
• 44:10
  And to me, a week of tech progress right now feels like a
• 44:14
  year, 10 years ago. And I have lots of theses on how
• 44:20
  it's going to play out in business and most of them very
• 44:23
  positive, but there will be some real disruption too.
• 44:26
  But that's that comes that comes with any type of movement,
• 44:30
  including capitalism. How do you think about this
• 44:32
  moment in business? So.
• 44:34
  Specifically with. AII the number of things that I
• 44:38
  believe are what others have talked about on this podcast and
• 44:40
  people here all the time as well, I completely agree with
• 44:43
  you. There's an exponential growth in
• 44:45
  technology happening right now unlike anything before.
• 44:48
  I think this is going to unlock opportunities to be productive
• 44:52
  that we can't even imagine right now, and that it's going to be a
• 44:57
  fundamental shift in the way that we work and relate to each
• 45:00
  other because AI is going to be able to take care of so many
• 45:03
  things that human beings have to do today.
• 45:05
  And we've experienced this kind of transition to a certain
• 45:08
  extent before you take the invention of ATMs in the 80s and
• 45:12
  the fear people had that this was going to eliminate jobs in
• 45:15
  the banking sector. When in actuality, for every,
• 45:19
  for every teller job that was removed by an ATM, 8 new jobs
• 45:22
  were created in banking that they could spend their time
• 45:25
  thinking about higher level problems for the bank.
• 45:28
  I think we'll see that with AI. The, the insight that I'm not
• 45:32
  hearing from many people that I believe, that I fundamentally
• 45:34
  believe is that the introduction of artificial intelligence is
• 45:38
  going to lead to businesses caring much more about the
• 45:43
  values and the principles of the people that they work with than
• 45:46
  ever before. And this, the reason why is a
• 45:50
  combination of the AI being valueless.
• 45:54
  It's just another tool out there that's going to be able to get
• 45:57
  so many things done. And so the jobs that people
• 46:00
  relied upon and the partnerships they had before with other human
• 46:03
  beings, they're going to give that to AI, all the valueless
• 46:06
  activities and just producing things.
• 46:08
  But more importantly, people are going to have the opportunity to
• 46:12
  reflect a lot more on what they're really trying to build
• 46:15
  in the world, what their purpose is, and the way that they relate
• 46:18
  to other human beings. And they're going to, we're
• 46:20
  going to value those relationships so much more than
• 46:23
  ever before, especially making sure they're real people to
• 46:26
  begin with and they're people that we can work with over the
• 46:28
  long term. So I think building networks and
• 46:32
  relationships with others who share the same values as you in
• 46:36
  business is going to become wildly important.
• 46:39
  And people are going to spend a lot more time actually figuring
• 46:42
  out who they trust, who they are able to build the future they
• 46:46
  want to see exist with. And they're going to be driven
• 46:49
  much more by those values than just the dollars and cents of
• 46:52
  what they're doing. You know, I love what you said
• 46:55
  so much there because another way to talk about that is that
• 47:01
  it is going to allow companies to climb the Maslow hierarchy.
• 47:05
  Like absolutely, you know it. And, and we know that when you
• 47:08
  climb the Maslow hierarchy, what happens?
• 47:11
  You become much more self actualized.
• 47:13
  You become much more of a whole person.
• 47:15
  You have time because you're not dealing with just incredible
• 47:20
  scarcity. Now it is true that all
• 47:22
  companies that really embrace AI are going to be climbing that it
• 47:26
  is also true. You know, one thing I'm really
• 47:29
  clear eyed about both in in in the book I'm writing as well as
• 47:33
  this podcast is there is going to be disruption There for sure
• 47:37
  going to be companies that seek to be more efficient, that let
• 47:41
  go of people. The smarter companies in my
• 47:44
  opinion will think about redeployment and new revenue
• 47:47
  opportunities versus just cost cutting.
• 47:50
  But I do think we're going to have the greatest margin
• 47:53
  expansion lift and SPS and P500 in the next, you know, five
• 47:57
  years and we've ever had at any point in history.
• 48:00
  But the smartest among them will think about entering new markets
• 48:03
  that they've always thought about and you know, doing more
• 48:06
  stuff as a company and as opposed to just taking the same
• 48:10
  exact markets and business model and just optimizing the cost
• 48:13
  structure. There's no real imagination in
• 48:16
  that. I mean, one of the things we did
• 48:18
  at at dated out world to, you know, make sure that we were
• 48:22
  very resilient from margin perspective as we applied that
• 48:25
  book. The goal by Goldratt, another
• 48:27
  great book, a great book, right. If if people haven't read that,
• 48:30
  it's just about how to optimize a factory floor and see where
• 48:34
  your bottlenecks are. But you can apply it to any
• 48:36
  process. And so we applied it to every
• 48:38
  process in the company. Look for the bottlenecks
• 48:40
  automated those away with AI. Guess what?
• 48:44
  The explosion of creativity in our company occurred while we
• 48:50
  were dramatically increasing our margins.
• 48:53
  And that's that's one of the things I love the most about
• 48:55
  this moment is that the barrier to creativity is absolutely
• 48:58
  being shattered right now. That's right.
• 49:01
  And where does creativity come from?
• 49:02
  This gets back to what we were talking about before with what
• 49:06
  it actually gets up. What makes us unique as human
• 49:08
  beings, and yes, stems from my libertarianism, that every
• 49:11
  person is an end in and of him or herself because we have the
• 49:14
  capacity to ascribe value to other things.
• 49:17
  We are a source of value in the world, and that's what makes us
• 49:21
  fundamentally different from artificial intelligence.
• 49:24
  And that's what's going to become so much more important as
• 49:27
  more tools are available for us. We really need to think deeply
• 49:30
  about what we're using those tools to create, how we direct
• 49:34
  them, the creativity that we're using to build new systems, new
• 49:38
  institutions, new products and services for people.
• 49:40
  And all of that comes down to values.
• 49:43
  What do we value creating in the world that we push for and that
• 49:48
  requires us to be much deeper thinkers about what the human
• 49:51
  experience is life, what abundance even means in the 1st
• 49:55
  place, so that we're able to leverage this incredible power
• 49:58
  to create a better world rather than actually use it to destroy
• 50:02
  the world. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:04
  So it sounds like you're pretty positive we're going to enter
• 50:06
  this age of abundance for all? I am very.
• 50:09
  Positive I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.
• 50:10
  I'm just reading the reading the room that that you know, you're
• 50:15
  you are a humanitarian at heart and it very much it seems like
• 50:20
  you very much believe we're going to use these technologies
• 50:23
  overall for good and enter that that age.
• 50:26
  What, what would your probability be?
• 50:28
  I'm at 95% that I'm 95% certain that we make it.
• 50:33
  I don't like the fact that we have so many nuclear weapons
• 50:36
  that are very real and could be used to to destroy the world.
• 50:41
  We have 50 times the amount of nuclear weapons today that we
• 50:44
  would, we would need for humanity to destroy all the
• 50:49
  major cities and send us into nuclear winter for, for a
• 50:52
  decade. And it would be a horrible,
• 50:54
  horrible reset for, for all of humanity.
• 50:58
  But I am positive that we're going to navigate even that.
• 51:02
  We've navigated all of that to date.
• 51:05
  We navigated smallpox. We navigated, you know, 50 to
• 51:09
  70,000 years ago, we were down to 800 to several thousand
• 51:13
  humans and we pulled together and ultimately survived.
• 51:18
  So what? What's your probability you
• 51:20
  think? I think 95% is a really good
• 51:23
  number because there's always a chance things can go wrong.
• 51:25
  We always have to worry about that.
• 51:27
  But to build on everything you're saying, it almost sounds
• 51:30
  like you're quoting from one of my favorite books called The
• 51:32
  Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.
• 51:34
  I haven't read it, it's been recommended many times.
• 51:37
  You need to read this that because he gives you even more
• 51:40
  examples of all the times in in recent human history that where
• 51:44
  everyone thought humanity was about to disappear or that
• 51:47
  something was going so fundamentally wrong we would
• 51:50
  never recover. And yet humanity always has.
• 51:54
  And that's because we are creative agents.
• 51:58
  We are able to to figure out what problems exist and find a
• 52:03
  way to correct it. And doesn't mean that we always
• 52:06
  will. There's always a risk.
• 52:08
  That's why there's a 5% chance of failure here.
• 52:10
  Absolutely. But we should be optimistic
• 52:13
  because humans. It's because humans have the
• 52:16
  capacity to solve problems. That's what it means for us to
• 52:20
  be individual rational agents. And this is a new tool that is
• 52:25
  going to accelerate our ability to take care of people's lives.
• 52:28
  You know, it's not going to be a panacea.
• 52:30
  It doesn't mean every problem is solved and that everyone is
• 52:33
  living a dream life already. There are always problems in
• 52:36
  life, but it doesn't mean it's the end of the world either.
• 52:39
  Right, right. Yeah, I, I'm going to finally
• 52:42
  read that book. I, I'm finishing a number of
• 52:47
  books right now, which I'll distill on the next podcast.
• 52:50
  I'm like 30 minutes away from, from, from finishing one, which
• 52:54
  I'm amazed by, by this guy, Jeff Burningham, who I'm going to
• 53:00
  have on the podcast. It's, I think it's called the
• 53:02
  last book that a human will ever write.
• 53:06
  And it's about the AIH and this moment that we're in.
• 53:09
  And, and it's it, I've had some fascinating discussions with him
• 53:12
  already. I reached out to him as well.
• 53:15
  I make friends with all these authors, you know, I just like,
• 53:17
  we'll reach out, I mean. Well, you make friends with
• 53:19
  everyone. Well, they're happy to, you
• 53:21
  know, they're happy to respond. I mean, you know, people put
• 53:24
  this light out in the world and and they want they want people
• 53:27
  to read it. So what are you personally doing
• 53:31
  to make sure that we make it? That's what this network is of
• 53:35
  in Liberty Ventures is all about.
• 53:37
  It is bringing business leaders together who already understand
• 53:41
  that capitalism is based on certain principles that has led
• 53:44
  to its success and its key to its future and want to work with
• 53:48
  others who share those principles.
• 53:50
  But also educate more people about this to get more business
• 53:53
  leaders like John, like you, like those who are speaking out
• 53:57
  at the summit this week to go out and share their stories with
• 54:01
  more people, to inspire them to be optimistic and to want to
• 54:05
  solve the world's problems. To leverage AI and capitalism
• 54:09
  and other tools available to make other people's lives better
• 54:12
  off and to be driven by those values that I think is really
• 54:16
  critical to us fulfilling the potential of this technology.
• 54:20
  But also for people to just lead fulfilling, purposeful, loving
• 54:25
  lives, frankly, to understand they have the choice of living a
• 54:28
  loving life or not, and if they do, they need to act on it and
• 54:31
  they need to work to fulfill that purpose that serves other
• 54:35
  people. Well, and, and, and you know,
• 54:36
  one of the things that that I think you're not giving yourself
• 54:40
  enough credit for is Liberty Ventures is pretty amazing.
• 54:43
  Let's talk about some of the companies you're in there.
• 54:46
  So we're only 2 1/2 years old, but we have a network of over
• 54:50
  25,000 investors, executives and entrepreneurs.
• 54:52
  And that's where we are first and foremost where if we are a
• 54:55
  network that brings people together.
• 54:57
  But some of what we do in the network is investing.
• 55:00
  We've had the opportunity through our to support a number
• 55:04
  of incredible companies. I'll just say to that are later
• 55:07
  stage people might have heard about that.
• 55:08
  I love 1 is Angel Studios, which is a movie and television
• 55:13
  production house out of Utah that's taking on the Netflix is
• 55:18
  of the world in Hollywood and so forth.
• 55:20
  Just went public recently. They are doing phenomenally well
• 55:23
  with a radically different approach focused on good
• 55:27
  character building content, driven by their members actually
• 55:31
  looking at scripts and treatments and voting on what
• 55:34
  they want to see produced. And I, I'm really excited for a
• 55:38
  film that's coming out next year called Young Washington that
• 55:40
  they're doing that is highlighting the 250th
• 55:43
  anniversary of America. It is an example of the kind of
• 55:46
  good character building concept they're putting out there.
• 55:49
  But the, the other one that people may have heard of is a
• 55:52
  company called Boom Supersonic started by Blake Scholl.
• 55:55
  I first heard about that from Scott Galloway.
• 55:58
  It's incredible. He's a huge fan.
• 56:00
  I didn't. I don't know him personally.
• 56:02
  I've met him briefly but but he talked about it a lot on the
• 56:07
  Pivot podcast. So we'll go out and visit Blake
• 56:12
  and and Booms are in D1 day. I just got to visit in person
• 56:16
  for the first time this weekend. I'd love to, but the story with
• 56:19
  Boom is that Blake was was a really smart compsci engineer,
• 56:24
  started a company, got acquired by Groupon and after spending a
• 56:28
  lot of time helping people get discounts on trips and
• 56:31
  meaningless things, he was for him.
• 56:33
  He was pulling his hair out saying what am I doing with my
• 56:35
  life and left. Decide he would find his own
• 56:39
  purpose, what he loved and realized he loved aviation and
• 56:42
  asked why have we actually started traveling slower in the
• 56:46
  last 30 years? We used to have a supersonic
• 56:48
  travel, can't we do that again? Figured out a way to do it
• 56:52
  better than the Concorde before, or I think it was 1112 years
• 56:55
  ago, started the company out of his, out of his mom's basement.
• 56:59
  And now they've developed the first private privately
• 57:03
  developed supersonic jet pass the sound barrier earlier this
• 57:07
  year. They're planning to be in
• 57:09
  production in the next 4 years. And is is literally making
• 57:13
  humanity move faster. And these are two totally
• 57:17
  different companies, and the people that are going to be out
• 57:19
  at the summit are all from wildly different industries and
• 57:22
  in different stages of their business.
• 57:23
  But what unifies them is that the founders of Angel Studios,
• 57:27
  Blake, the founder of Boom, you and everyone else who's a part
• 57:30
  of the Liberty Adventures Network, understand the
• 57:33
  capitalism is fundamentally good.
• 57:35
  And it's good because it's based on these certain principles and
• 57:37
  a way of doing business that unleashes human potential for us
• 57:42
  to add value to other people's lives.
• 57:44
  And the more we lean into that, the more humanity is better off
• 57:47
  and the more successful everyone in business as as well.
• 57:51
  And that's the kind of network that we are building out here.
• 57:54
  Those are the kinds of business leaders that we're bringing in
• 57:57
  and finding ways to support and help succeed.
• 57:59
  You know, and so well said and and, you know, full circle
• 58:02
  moment, like Blake had to have the free will to say, I'm tired
• 58:08
  of looking at these screensavers and these posters of what the
• 58:13
  Concorde was as a relic of human history.
• 58:17
  And like, let's bring that back and make it better.
• 58:20
  You know, I can't wait to get on one of those.
• 58:24
  I'm still waiting to ask Richard Branson about this.
• 58:27
  You know, it's one of the first people to pay for Virgin
• 58:29
  Galactic. I pay for that in full in 2013.
• 58:34
  And he told me on Necker he was like, don't worry, it's coming.
• 58:38
  You know, maybe so maybe next year I'll, I'll be one of those
• 58:42
  kind of astronauts. You know, it's, it's not the
• 58:44
  full thing. Like you're not, you're not
• 58:46
  really risking like going into interstellar space or going to
• 58:50
  the moon or something. But, but you know what I think,
• 58:53
  I think you and I will be able to easily do that in our
• 58:56
  lifetime. It that's, that's going to
• 58:59
  happen too. It's just a, we're in such an
• 59:01
  exponential curve that the possibilities are so unlimited.
• 59:06
  Again, the greatest risk is we have to transcend this mindset
• 59:10
  of scarcity and fear. And that's a tall order because
• 59:15
  we've been wired that way for a long, long time.
• 59:17
  We actually dealt the majority of human history.
• 59:20
  We did, you know, we've been around for 250,000 or 300,000
• 59:24
  years. And you know, whether you read
• 59:26
  Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, maybe it's in the
• 59:29
  Rational Optimist as well. You know, we dealt with real
• 59:33
  scarcity. I'm not like the stuff we're
• 59:35
  dealing with today, but like real, real scarcity.
• 59:38
  You know, like the country of Chad, you know, which I'm
• 59:40
  profiling in the book. And I know you've been listening
• 59:43
  to the podcast. So you know about my story about
• 59:46
  the Uber driver who is in the country where their GDP is $660
• 59:51
  a person versus 85,800 in America.
• 59:54
  That's that's real scarcity. It, it absolutely is.
• 59:57
  And the other thing with human history is that again, we were
• 1:00:01
  living in a real 0 sum world for most of that history.
• 1:00:04
  There was no technological advancement.
• 1:00:06
  There was no opportunity for people to get value by creating
• 1:00:09
  value for others or it was very limited.
• 1:00:12
  And if you go back to the ethical frameworks that were
• 1:00:14
  established before capitalism, I think that's where a lot of
• 1:00:18
  people. A lot of people are stuck in
• 1:00:21
  that old world 0 sum mindset for their ethical views of why they
• 1:00:25
  don't like people just because they're wealthy.
• 1:00:27
  They think that the only way to become wealthy is to take from
• 1:00:31
  others instead of create for others.
• 1:00:33
  Whether you're going back to the story of Robin Hood taking the
• 1:00:36
  rich give to the poor, he was taken from the tax man and
• 1:00:38
  giving it back to the people because that it was literally
• 1:00:40
  just taking stuff from them. Or even if you go back to Jesus
• 1:00:44
  saying that it's more likely for a rich man to go through the eye
• 1:00:48
  of a needle or camels to go through the eye of a needle than
• 1:00:50
  a rich man to get into heaven. Well, he was also criticizing
• 1:00:53
  tax collectors back then. And it was also a world where to
• 1:00:56
  become rich, you were taking from others.
• 1:00:58
  Capitalism began the shift by allowing for technological
• 1:01:02
  development and for people to do well by creating wealth for
• 1:01:06
  others in the 1st place. And AI is just going to
• 1:01:09
  accelerate that. But there's so much for us to
• 1:01:12
  improve our ethical framework to go along with this economic and
• 1:01:16
  technological change that's happening as well.
• 1:01:18
  So why don't, why don't we go different direction just for a
• 1:01:21
  moment, because I think, I think you and I have at this point
• 1:01:24
  really we've discussed capitalism.
• 1:01:27
  People know where we stand on that and that we're both fierce
• 1:01:31
  defenders of it and that the world has been made much better
• 1:01:35
  with it. And I think John Mackey is going
• 1:01:37
  to be proud of us and listening to.
• 1:01:39
  I think so. Thank you, John.
• 1:01:42
  I am going to have him on the podcast he has he has already
• 1:01:45
  agreed and I'm fortunate to be having lunch with him in a
• 1:01:50
  couple of weeks. He's one of my best friends and
• 1:01:52
  I know, I know he's a massive fan of you and, and huge shout
• 1:01:57
  out to him and all that he's done to really put light in this
• 1:02:00
  world. So I, I actually had on the way
• 1:02:03
  to Necker, I had some of the most deep spiritual
• 1:02:07
  conversations of my life with John.
• 1:02:11
  John is actually very a very spiritual person and he's he's
• 1:02:17
  he's pretty open in his book. The whole story that one of the
• 1:02:21
  catalyst for him to see the unity of all things was
• 1:02:25
  psychedelics. That's, that's certainly been a
• 1:02:27
  catalyst for me. I'm just curious like from a,
• 1:02:31
  from a spirituality perspective, kind of where do you, what do
• 1:02:35
  you think is the nature of a reality and where do you stand
• 1:02:38
  on just your beliefs around all that?
• 1:02:42
  So this is something that I'm going, I'm going through a
• 1:02:45
  spiritual journey myself right now and I, I've had a very
• 1:02:50
  interesting path to get here. Growing up baptized Roman
• 1:02:53
  Catholic, raised Lutheran, became radically atheist in 7th
• 1:02:57
  grade, stayed with that for a long time, started to question
• 1:03:00
  some things. Spending time with conscious
• 1:03:03
  capitalist started to really open me up to a spirituality to
• 1:03:06
  begin with. And in the last few years I've
• 1:03:08
  been on this exploration and I'm not quite sure where I sit with
• 1:03:12
  this yet. I'm actually curious to to talk
• 1:03:14
  with you about this Bretton. But one thing keeps coming up
• 1:03:17
  for me in terms of what reality really is.
• 1:03:21
  And it even that stems from our conversation about capitalism,
• 1:03:25
  because what I think is incredible about that system is
• 1:03:28
  its ability to unlock untapped energy.
• 1:03:31
  Not not just physical power, energy that we use for the
• 1:03:35
  lights and for people to watch this, but the energy of us being
• 1:03:39
  alive and being able to create more energy with our purpose and
• 1:03:43
  to help other people in the world.
• 1:03:45
  And there seems to be something about this universe being energy
• 1:03:50
  that connects everything, that leads to us being able to do so
• 1:03:53
  much and being able to create more energy for people, which is
• 1:03:57
  really driven by loving others and having a purpose that makes
• 1:04:02
  us want to get out of bed in the morning, that makes us want to
• 1:04:04
  do things to help other people out.
• 1:04:06
  There seems to be some kind of important connective tissue with
• 1:04:09
  that concept in particular that I'm really wrestling with right
• 1:04:13
  now. Yeah.
• 1:04:13
  You know, one of the one of the things that I think makes me a
• 1:04:18
  little bit unique in this perspective is I've approached
• 1:04:22
  it with a very scientific brain. So my my best subject growing up
• 1:04:26
  was mathematics. My grandfather was a very famous
• 1:04:30
  mathematics professor at UT Austin.
• 1:04:32
  That was his entire career. He grew up during the Great
• 1:04:35
  Depression, oldest of his siblings father deserted the
• 1:04:39
  family. The father was an alcoholic.
• 1:04:41
  I never knew him. And ultimately, you know,
• 1:04:46
  decided on a more conservative path in college to kind of play
• 1:04:52
  it safe because he had dealt with real scarcity.
• 1:04:54
  I mean, helped his mom raise his siblings, you know, and, and put
• 1:04:58
  himself through UT often tutoring people and subjects he
• 1:05:02
  didn't know. And, and he, he, he tested me
• 1:05:05
  over and over and over again with mathematics.
• 1:05:08
  And so you can say that I developed a very rational mind.
• 1:05:13
  I grew up programming again since I was 7 thanks to my mom.
• 1:05:19
  Huge shout out to her. You know, may may she be resting
• 1:05:23
  in in peace and power. Unfortunately, I have many
• 1:05:26
  experiences communing with her soul now, which is really
• 1:05:30
  awesome. We can get into that as well as
• 1:05:33
  my dad. So you know what, what I what I
• 1:05:37
  now believe kind of approaching this with that type of mind is
• 1:05:41
  that the more I dig into the nature of consciousness through
• 1:05:45
  lots of books. You know, one of the most recent
• 1:05:47
  I read on that is Anika Harris's book Lights on which she's she's
• 1:05:51
  married to Sam Harris, who's a very famous atheist.
• 1:05:54
  And she concludes that book. It's an audio only book that her
• 1:06:00
  beliefs after this wandering through, talking with all these
• 1:06:04
  different consciousness researchers, and she's got a
• 1:06:07
  really kind of profound background, very scientific
• 1:06:10
  background to approach this is that she believes consciousness
• 1:06:14
  is fundamental, meaning that everything is derivative from
• 1:06:18
  that. There's some fundamental
• 1:06:19
  property that's embedded in the fabric of the universe which
• 1:06:24
  will take you to spirituality ultimately.
• 1:06:28
  When I've dove into quantum physics, I have seen the
• 1:06:32
  synchronicities between ancient spirituality, which has been
• 1:06:36
  really, really cool. And, and, and there's a lot of
• 1:06:39
  people that really are patriarchs of that field who
• 1:06:42
  became very spiritual as a result.
• 1:06:44
  You know, Max Planck very famously became extremely
• 1:06:47
  spiritual after inventing a lot of the basis for, for quantum
• 1:06:53
  physics. And as I discussed on episode 2
• 1:06:56
  of this podcast with Mark Gober, who's written seven books and
• 1:07:01
  was an atheist and, you know, Princeton grad, you know, near
• 1:07:05
  top of this class, like just, you know, brilliant mind and
• 1:07:08
  really became much more spiritual as a result of being
• 1:07:12
  exposed to this idea, which he completely thought was
• 1:07:15
  laughable. That consciousness is something
• 1:07:18
  our brains receive as like an antenna.
• 1:07:21
  He's like, that can be right. And he just went total meta
• 1:07:24
  analysis, using his Wall Street analyst skills to really dive
• 1:07:28
  into it and concluding that it was right and then changed his
• 1:07:31
  life as a result. By the way, he moved to Austin
• 1:07:33
  recently. And I know you're moving to
• 1:07:34
  Austin now with your I love to with your Beyoncé.
• 1:07:38
  And I cannot wait till you and Camilla are in Austin and we'll
• 1:07:42
  certainly have you over. We'll have a lot of fun.
• 1:07:44
  I'm going to get you very network there.
• 1:07:46
  Not that you ever have a problem with getting network, but but
• 1:07:49
  we'll, we'll work on that. So you know, the, the diving
• 1:07:53
  into quantum physics, you know, it really shattered like
• 1:07:57
  Einstein's paradigm because Einstein came up with quantum
• 1:08:00
  entanglement. He was a he, he came up with it
• 1:08:03
  through mathematics. That was his path to get there
• 1:08:06
  because the scientific instrumentation didn't exist,
• 1:08:10
  but it broke the speed of light. He's like, how can 2 particles
• 1:08:14
  become quantumly entangled by forces we don't understand and
• 1:08:18
  synchronicity, you know, turn. And this is this is part of why,
• 1:08:25
  you know, the ancient prophets all thought that the universe
• 1:08:29
  was unified and we're all connected.
• 1:08:33
  And anybody that has done a deep meditation, psychedelics, a
• 1:08:38
  silent retreat or just had some kind of spiritual awakening,
• 1:08:43
  they have all seen that the universe, universe is bathed in
• 1:08:47
  love and light. And we are connected in this way
• 1:08:52
  that, as Michael Pollan says, and how to change your mind is
• 1:08:55
  ineffable. It's, it's indescribable.
• 1:08:58
  And you know, I'm Jewish and, and being Jewish, you know, the
• 1:09:02
  Kabbalah, you know, the word for God is INS often and there's
• 1:09:06
  these 10 qualities of the divine.
• 1:09:08
  And seven has always been my, my divine number.
• 1:09:12
  And it actually took Ahmad Rabbi who told me that seven in
• 1:09:17
  Kabbalah in the principles of divine means, very determined,
• 1:09:23
  very perseverant and ultimately very resilient.
• 1:09:28
  And I thought that kind of describes how my life has been.
• 1:09:32
  So I thought that was a really cool synchronicity being an
• 1:09:35
  entrepreneur now for so long since I was 24, you know, being
• 1:09:39
  53 now and now now on another entrepreneurial journey with
• 1:09:43
  this being act one of a four part act with love conquers
• 1:09:47
  fear. So I have become much more
• 1:09:51
  spiritual. But I got there also by science.
• 1:09:55
  I got there both pass and you know, after Einstein passed
• 1:09:58
  away, we proved that quantum entanglement is real.
• 1:10:02
  I mean, quantum computing does not work without it.
• 1:10:04
  It, it has to be real because it's been tested scientifically
• 1:10:08
  over and over and over again. And we know that there's some
• 1:10:11
  type of field that connects everything.
• 1:10:13
  You know, that's been proved with the, with the, with the
• 1:10:17
  Collider, you know, at CERN. So it keeps kind of pointing
• 1:10:22
  back to the same thing. There's some kind of unified
• 1:10:25
  force in the universe that's rooted in love.
• 1:10:29
  And that our definition of love, I think comes from whatever that
• 1:10:34
  is. And and you know, one of the
• 1:10:36
  things being a Jew is we assume that God is so far beyond our
• 1:10:43
  comprehension that we can't even understand the nature of God.
• 1:10:46
  And the, the science fiction novella I wrote called The
• 1:10:49
  Lattice, even even by the year 2085, it's not like they pinned
• 1:10:54
  down what God is out. Of course we ever will, you
• 1:10:58
  know, because, because I mean, as far as we know, like the more
• 1:11:01
  we discover through the James Webb telescope and everything
• 1:11:03
  else, this universe is so infinite.
• 1:11:07
  It's just boggling, you know, how infinite it actually is.
• 1:11:11
  And if it has a border, I'd like to know that would be very
• 1:11:14
  announceing that would that would make the simulation
• 1:11:16
  theorist very happy, right? Because then there'd be like,
• 1:11:19
  see, I told you there's a border on it.
• 1:11:21
  There is a program here and you know who knows?
• 1:11:24
  I I I don't believe in simulation theory but but I also
• 1:11:27
  have unpacked that with other guests.
• 1:11:29
  But but the concept of simulation theory, I think is
• 1:11:31
  just so close to actually believing there is a God there.
• 1:11:34
  There is a God creator that is created this yes.
• 1:11:38
  And I don't quite understand why they don't just take the next
• 1:11:40
  step to believe in your God. And I'm actually, I'm literally
• 1:11:43
  on the path right now of exploring this after spending
• 1:11:46
  the summer reading the Bible in full, the Quran in full, the the
• 1:11:49
  Vedas in full, and I'm working through.
• 1:11:51
  Have you heard the Gaeta yet? I read that years ago,
• 1:11:54
  absolutely, and it just seems like the logical next step that
• 1:11:59
  if we're living in a simulation, we'll just call that we're
• 1:12:01
  living in the reality created by a God that we don't understand
• 1:12:05
  and accept that that is a religious belief unto itself.
• 1:12:08
  It is why? Why isn't that?
• 1:12:10
  Yeah, no, definitely. And, and, and by the way, they
• 1:12:13
  point out the same thing to me. They're like, look, you believe
• 1:12:15
  in God, which means by definition you believe in a
• 1:12:18
  simulation. So, so it actually goes, it's
• 1:12:20
  circular, it goes, it goes both ways, you know, whatever was
• 1:12:25
  this power that took the universe from this infinite
• 1:12:30
  compressed state of no entropy and boom, just spread it out.
• 1:12:36
  And, you know, and then life eventually happened on Earth in
• 1:12:40
  around 4 billion years ago. You know, one of the things that
• 1:12:42
  we've we've discovered is that this is, you know, scientific
• 1:12:46
  fact. People can look this up with
• 1:12:48
  ChatGPT or whatever their favorite model is.
• 1:12:51
  If you use statue PT to look this up, I would suggest
• 1:12:53
  thinking mode because then I'll go in and annotate.
• 1:12:56
  Perplexity is really good at doing that as well.
• 1:12:59
  Is that a lot of the water that we have in the oceans actually
• 1:13:04
  comes from Interstellar and it's older than the sun, Did you know
• 1:13:07
  that? I did not actually.
• 1:13:08
  Yeah, it's a really fun scientific fact to look up.
• 1:13:12
  We have, we're very ancient water overall in the oceans and
• 1:13:16
  we know that life started in the ocean.
• 1:13:18
  So of course it's very probable. And, and as we've discovered
• 1:13:22
  with comments, you know, the, the four letters of DNA, you
• 1:13:26
  know, it's just like code literally comes from the stars
• 1:13:30
  too, because we found comments that are super ancient that have
• 1:13:35
  the same DNA signatures that we have on Earth.
• 1:13:38
  So that's kind of interesting. So, so I mean, you know, given,
• 1:13:42
  given all that, like, what do you think what she thinks going
• 1:13:46
  on here? Like, what is this?
• 1:13:47
  What is this reality we're in? You know that that you and I are
• 1:13:51
  in right now. I to be honest, I don't know
• 1:13:55
  what what it is, and I both think that we'll never know, but
• 1:14:00
  that searching to better understand the reality that
• 1:14:02
  we're in is our purpose here. That's how we're able to lead
• 1:14:05
  better lives. That's how we're able to be able
• 1:14:08
  to accomplish so much more. And the pursuit of answering
• 1:14:11
  that question is what what we are here to do.
• 1:14:15
  And sometimes it's not so much having the right answer as
• 1:14:19
  really understanding what the right questions are to ask it.
• 1:14:23
  I think Peter Hill's been talking about this recently,
• 1:14:26
  that there or, or Elon Musk can forget which one, that there's a
• 1:14:29
  lot of wisdom in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the
• 1:14:31
  Galaxy. And one of the key lessons there
• 1:14:33
  is that the answer isn't what we should be looking for all the
• 1:14:37
  time, just figuring out what the right question is.
• 1:14:39
  What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?
• 1:14:42
  What is reality that we're in? I don't know, but I want to keep
• 1:14:46
  studying and searching for it. And I think that's what we
• 1:14:49
  should be pursuing. And tying that back in with our
• 1:14:51
  conversation about AI in the age of abundance.
• 1:14:54
  Well, the more we ask that question, the more that we come
• 1:14:57
  up with better and better answers, the more we are going
• 1:15:01
  to be able to live an abundant life now.
• 1:15:03
  And whatever happens next will happen next.
• 1:15:05
  And hopefully we're able to create more value for for
• 1:15:09
  everyone else. We're able to live better lives
• 1:15:11
  together in this crazy thing called life just because we care
• 1:15:15
  about that question and we keep pursuing really understanding
• 1:15:19
  the universe that that and the reality.
• 1:15:21
  That we're in, well, I've, I've done a tremendous amount of
• 1:15:24
  reading at this point and I'll, I'll tell you what I think it
• 1:15:27
  is. And extremely humble in this
• 1:15:32
  sense of, you know, there's so many things we don't know and
• 1:15:35
  that I don't know if we'll ever know.
• 1:15:39
  But I think what this reality is, is Earth's like a school for
• 1:15:43
  our souls and that the whole purpose of life from lifetime to
• 1:15:47
  lifetime is to ultimately grow our consciousness, manifest more
• 1:15:53
  love, continue to rediscover over and over again how to
• 1:15:57
  become more human, upgrade ourselves using the technologies
• 1:16:02
  we already have, like learn how to deprogram, etcetera, help
• 1:16:07
  each other to the greatest extent that we can.
• 1:16:11
  And ultimately that to obey the the laws of the universe, which
• 1:16:17
  is it is deeply rooted in love. And I think that that's the
• 1:16:20
  purpose. And, and this is in that sense,
• 1:16:25
  you know, we're coming into the physical vessel to do that.
• 1:16:29
  And I do believe there's some cosmic divine order that's
• 1:16:34
  beyond our comprehension in this physicality that you and I are
• 1:16:38
  in right now, that ultimately when we cross, we'll see you
• 1:16:41
  again. You know, there there's this
• 1:16:42
  famous line, I think it was either Ebert or Siskel, like
• 1:16:47
  when he was dying on his deathbed, his last words are
• 1:16:51
  like, Oh my gosh, like it was all just, you know, a dream or
• 1:16:56
  just just completely different than what I was assumed.
• 1:17:00
  And and anybody that's had a near death experience, what they
• 1:17:04
  call the other side, they call it the ultra real and they call
• 1:17:08
  this less real than that. And it really kind of shakes
• 1:17:13
  them a bit to their core. But it they ultimately conclude
• 1:17:18
  that the best thing to continue to do in this life is to lean in
• 1:17:21
  even harder into love. And it makes them more embodied
• 1:17:26
  in their physicality because they realize radiating even more
• 1:17:30
  love is in line with the cosmic order of all things.
• 1:17:34
  So it, you know, whether that's true or not, I believe that very
• 1:17:39
  much that's true. I've had experiences that have
• 1:17:41
  confirmed that some that, that that is true in a way that I
• 1:17:46
  can't fully comprehend it. It it's a great way to live
• 1:17:50
  life. You know, it's a great, great
• 1:17:53
  way to live life, even if even if you're just an atheist and
• 1:17:55
  it's like it's just natural selection, you know, still,
• 1:17:59
  that's a great way to live life because we are all on one
• 1:18:03
  planet. We've got to, we've got to take
• 1:18:04
  care of each other and we have to manifest as much love as
• 1:18:07
  possible. Here, here, and you're living it
• 1:18:10
  out Breath. You're a great example.
• 1:18:11
  Well, you are too, brother, and I really love this.
• 1:18:14
  And I just want to say from above my heart, thank you so
• 1:18:16
  much for, you know, both changing my life, really
• 1:18:21
  manifesting a lot of love. I'm a huge fan of what you're
• 1:18:24
  doing with, with your summit here.
• 1:18:26
  I'm honored to be a part of it and a huge fan of Liberty
• 1:18:30
  Ventures and, and all of the light you're putting out there
• 1:18:34
  in the world, you know, and I know you're going to be
• 1:18:36
  successful and just like you always have been, you know,
• 1:18:39
  because you're driven and you live a life of purpose and, and
• 1:18:43
  so I really admire that a lot about you.
• 1:18:45
  And there's more that I can more that more that I appreciate
• 1:18:49
  about you, Brett. You've done so much more for me
• 1:18:51
  that I can put in the words here and that were tell everyone
• 1:18:53
  else. But really, thank you for doing
• 1:18:55
  this, just being this incredible example for the rest of us to
• 1:18:58
  emulate. Well, thanks so much brother.
• 1:19:00
  It means a lot to me. Thanks everybody for tuning in
• 1:19:04
  and get ready for the podcast. Hitting the road, going to San
• 1:19:08
  Francisco after this for Ted AI. I've got two of the best
• 1:19:12
  investors in the world that I'll be recording out there, and I
• 1:19:17
  can't wait to share those episodes with you.
• 1:19:21
  Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for all of the comments
• 1:19:24
  you're putting out there, people that are sharing this.
• 1:19:27
  I get text a lot, a lot of direct messages too, and that
• 1:19:32
  really fills me up. I'm doing this purely for
• 1:19:34
  impact. I'm really trying to put as much
• 1:19:37
  light out in the world and inspire all of you.
• 1:19:40
  Maybe there's companies that you want to get involved in that
• 1:19:43
  have been profiled here or you just want to start leading more
• 1:19:47
  of a life of love. It's going to take us all.
• 1:19:49
  Team humanity all the way. Thanks so much.