Latest / Giant Ideas / Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang: AI Needs Universal Basic Income

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Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang: AI Needs Universal Basic Income · Giant Ideas

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask an investor to make an investment based on something that happened 100 years ago, they'd laugh you out of the room.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then if you say, hey, what's gonna happen to jobs, they'd be like, oh, 100 years ago this happened.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be like, what?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like 100 years ago, you know, we didn't have smartphones, didn't have anything.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to Giant Ideas with me, Cameron McLean, and me, Tommy Stadlin.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're co-founders of Giant Ventures, which builds and backs purpose-driven companies.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: At Giant, we're lucky to meet extraordinary people with giant ideas that are changing the world.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast brings you behind the scenes access to those ideas and the inspiring stories of the people behind them.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: We explore how one giant idea can kickstart a billion-dollar company, shape culture, and transform life as we know it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Today on the Giant Ideas Podcast, we are joined by Andrew Yang.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Andrew first gained global attention running for US president in 2020, running as a political outsider with a signature policy of universal basic income, also known as UBI, where he proposed$1,000 per month for every adult American to offset job displacement by automation.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: This was years before AI was a mainstream conversation, and a time when fewer people were talking about AI's impact on society and jobs.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: He ran for mayor of New York City and co-founded the Ford Party, a new political party in America, aiming to bridge partisan divides.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Today's focus is on his new company, Noble Mobile, which wants to radically reduce the cost of mobile data for Americans and get them using their phones much less.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's an extension of the work he's done for years, looking to help Americans become more financially secure.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew, welcome to Giant Ideas.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, guys.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you're one of the strongest proponents of universal basic income.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: You put it front and center of your presidential campaign, and you're one of the few people who's actually run a UBI pilot.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us what UBI is and what do you think of it today?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The shorthand I use that people will get is uh it's capitalism where income doesn't start at zero.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm a hundred percent certain that AI is going to replace millions of workers here in America and around the world, uh, and that the adjustment is going to be wrenching and painful and too much for many people, maybe many societies.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So putting money into people's hands is going to be vital.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and universal basic income is an idea that I did not come up with.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's been with us since the founding days of this country.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Thomas Paine was for it, Martin Luther King Jr.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: was for it and was championing it when he was assassinated in the 1960s.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's an old idea made new again, I suppose, by the fact that AI is here and getting uh twice as strong and smart and fast every six months or so.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to come back to your strong conviction that AI is going to replace that many jobs.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: You say that with a lot of certainty, but uh what did you learn from the pilot on UBI that you that you ran?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: That cash works.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that people become mentally healthier, less stressed out, uh, domestic violence goes down, optimism goes up uh for kids, qualities like conscientiousness and agreeableness go up, um, which are two massive indicators of professional success and educational um attainment.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you had folks um spending money on very positive, wholesome things.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was not a lot of uh, let's call it like illicit substances or some of the things that people are afraid of.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And these findings have been replicated in many, many different environments uh around the world.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm friendly with an organization called Give Directly that some of your listeners might be familiar with, but it's putting money in the hands of folks in the developing world and the outcomes there have been awesome and tremendous.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it works here in the US.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if people look at the data, I think they'll be very impressed.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Andrew, when we talk about universal basic income, is the clue in the name, is it truly universal?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it should be something that is just a blanket, for example,$1,000 a month uh payment to everyone, or should it be means tested?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it should be universal myself.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are different ways to fund it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that said, uh, I like it in all of its forms.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh if you look at the population, um, new moms is an example, uh, folks who are homeless is an example, um, people coming out of foster care.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've seen income programs uh directed in all sorts of ways.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if you were to go society wide, universalism is a um big positive um because you take out the um reporting um incentives where people are like, oh, I don't make that much, like you know, because you you you want to get the money.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you get rid of any stigma.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can fund it in ways that people who don't need the money um are sending money in the other direction, for example, through an AI tax or uh luxury consumption tax like yachts, fine jewelry, stuff like that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm a fan of the U and UBI.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: One parallel idea that has gained a lot of traction in the last year or so is something Brad Gerstner, the investor at Altimata, has been very involved in, which is the idea of giving every child in the US an upside in equity and US equities.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, his view, I believe, is that people have just got way out of whack with inequality, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so the rich are getting richer, and you've got to have uh everyday Americans much more bought into the US economy, and therefore you want to give them a thousand dollars invested in you know the US stock market over time because otherwise people feel disconnected from uh I guess democracy and and the US journey.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is that version of it something you support?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: If not, why?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it an alternative to UBI?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does that fit in with your idea?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, putting money into people's hands uh at birth, it's great.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna compound for uh 18 years until they get a hold of it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it does make you feel like you're a stakeholder in the economy uh and the country.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm a huge fan.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the principles actually are quite similar in parallel.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can see them where putting money into people's hands helps empower them, make them a participant.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and if it starts at age zero, great.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and how do you think these services uh like UBI or what Brad's doing relate to public goods and public services?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do they replace them?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do they sit underneath them?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I see them as both and.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it's not like if I give you this thousand dollars when you're born, uh you don't need roads.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but like that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: There uh that there are uh at this point layers to what people are going to benefit from.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we should be trying all sorts of innovations and seeing what works.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: So why isn't it happening?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the US, it's not happening because our political system actually insulates most of our leaders from uh real need to solve problems, and you're seeing it show up in polarization, uh, inanimus and hostility.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that stuff makes me deeply sad.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I gave a TED talk last year that tries to break this down in numbers, but the simplest way to understand what's happening in America is that the approval rate for Congress is around 17%, and the re-election rate for individual members of Congress is 94%.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the reason for that is that 90% of the districts are drawn to be either quite blue or quite red and are not competitive in the general election.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the way to stay in office is just to not piss off your own party, particularly the 11% of the more ideological that vote in that party's primary.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you have an incentive structure that ends up pulling folks to the side.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's more about keeping your own team uh well fed ideologically than solving the core problems.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I mean, obviously the US is running a huge, huge budget deficit at the moment.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: How would you suggest financing UBI?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Where would you pull, where would you pull from?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you probably saw recently, Dario Amade, the CEO of Anthropic, raised his hand and said, A, we're gonna get rid of a lot of the entry-level white-collar jobs via AI through Anthropic and other companies.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And B, you should tax us.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine the CEO of a major AI firm just coming clean and being like, guys, you should just freaking uh put an AI tax because uh the jobs are going um the way of the dodo bird.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I I think that our legislators should take him up on it.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's pretty obvious.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, he's not um saying something that's necessarily great for him and his shareholders, but it does happen to be the truth.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I appreciated that out of Dario.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh if you're going to produce trillions of dollars in new value, um there are ways for that value to flow through people's hands.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting you you bring up the Dario example.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: One of the other leaders of one of the other even larger US AI companies who we had on the show, uh, off the record said to us, look, the wealth creation that AI is gonna create is gonna make you know the social media guys look like pygmies.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna have to tax us AI giant 80, 90% to try and capture some of those dollars because it is also gonna have huge impact on employment.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about that, which you know is is clearly one of the big drivers why you would need something like the UBI.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I I guess are you convinced that we're gonna see very, very large scale unemployment in the US and Europe?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, like how big is large scale and what kind of time frame do you think we're working on for that to happen?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just use Dario's numbers.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like Dario thinks uh half of entry-level white-collar jobs are going to go away in the next three to five years, uh, and that would spike US unemployment uh to 10% plus.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so let's just take that as a baseline.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I think uh he's right.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And how do people take that set of affairs um very, very poorly?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, like if you spend four years getting a college degree and you have tons of debt, and then you're doing a job at your local cafe uh or uh you know dog walking or whatever the um non-college degree requiring job you're occupying, um you're probably pretty frustrated and angry.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you apply that at scale.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, to get uh a little bit political with you all.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: One of the preconditions for revolution in a country is something called elite oversupply, which is that there are too many um folks who kind of have uh elevated expectations relative to the opportunities.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that's a state of affairs that will be uh very much real in the US and other Western countries.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really interesting.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most a lot of people will respond to the idea that this new wave of technology is gonna destroy jobs and say, well, we've been here before.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Every time there's a transformative technology, the industrial revolution, printing press, you know, you name it, cars.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: People always say that it's gonna take away jobs, and then actually the new technology enables humans to do bigger and better things and jobs don't go away.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I think actually if you really don't drill into it, what tends to happen in those big sort of industrial revolutions and changes is that the transition period gets very, very messy.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: You have things like revolutions, political revolutions, you have really, really bad periods for working people.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And those were with technologies which uh weren't as transformative as AI is, right?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And AI is is if it works to the extent people think it's gonna work, is gonna be much more disruptive than those technologies.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel that people are badly underestimating what is about to happen to employment?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we we've never had AI before uh come online before.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've never had it affect so many industries at the same time.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And to the illustration uh you drew, things got very, very messy uh and hairy and unruly and even violent during the Industrial Revolution, where in the US we have a holiday called Labor Day.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and Labor Day was inaugurated because of uh riots where um people were killed um in a set of railway strikes.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so uh holiday for labor was born.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so people are like, oh, it's gonna be like that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, last time included violent riots, so you're saying violent riots?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's I mean, uh it people um I find this line of argumentation to be eminently ridiculous, honestly, because if you were to ask an investor um to uh make an investment based on something that happened 100 years ago, they'd laugh you out of the room.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then if you say, hey, what's gonna happen to jobs, they'd be like, oh, 100 years ago this happened.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be like, what?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like 100 years ago, uh, you know, we didn't have uh smartphones, didn't have anything.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like what are you talking about?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just so intellectually lazy that in one area they would completely dismiss reference point as woefully out of date and stupid.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then in another context, they'd be like, oh yeah, let's draw upon that experience um because they're not even digging into what happened a hundred years ago.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: As you can tell, it frustrates me to no end.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's just really um yeah, it's just really self-serving and lazy.
• 14:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a fair point because the companies of today, the AI companies, look nothing like the companies of those days either.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's a false analogy.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: What are all these people going to be doing then?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the other big question is you give let's say UBI happens, and what are all the people who are no longer employed because of AI, who are given UBI, how do they spend their time?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are they doing things like Wikipedia, where you know there's a great experiment in people voluntarily working on a public good in a creative way?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is it exciting kind of intellectual pursuits like that?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Are they just chilling?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's your experience on the experiments that you ran?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: A.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then B, if you sort of look forward to rolling this out across the US, what will it allow people to do with their time?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: What do you hope it will expect it will allow people to do with their time?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I want to be realistic.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, let me say like, here's what you hope.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: What you hope is that um people start businesses, uh, people establish creative endeavors, people get together uh and um build what their community needs, uh, that there's all sorts of generative, wholesome dynamism um that occurs.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that will definitely happen.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh on the flip side, um, you know, like starting a business might not be in the cards for a majority of people.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of people want to show up and have a job or job-like uh position for themselves.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I'm someone, one of the biggest misconceptions about me and universal basic income is that I think that people benefit from having structure, community, purpose, training, like all these things that jobs provide.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the I the ideal situation is that we create uh a vibrant environment where people are kicking off new projects and other people are showing up and then uh taking jobs because there's so much new business formation or uh charitable organization uh growth in a given community.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I don't think that money magically gets you there.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you'd want to have other mechanisms in place to bolster health and wellness, caring and nurturing, arts and creativity, growth, innovation, um, all of the above.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that the challenge is enormous.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's something that I call the human-centered economy.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you have uh an economy focused on capital efficiency in an age of AI, this is not a whole lot for a lot of people to do, just being very, very honest.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you need to do then is say, okay, like, well, what do people want to do?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: What do we need more of in these communities?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh energize that, um, whether it's by uh traditional means um or having uh uh like these new measurements actually show up um in your output.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that that to me was like the major opportunity is um imagine if you had in the US as an example, you say, look, we're gonna reward organizations that make our kids smarter or healthier.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um right now that doesn't exist in the US.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I make kids smarter and healthier, um maybe I can find a way for certain um certain families to pay me.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh but generally speaking, and this by the way goes back to our earlier question about like why is isn't this happening in the US?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the US is spending a lot of money on things that are not uh necessarily delivering.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so if you can actually make it so that entrepreneurs get rewarded uh for delivering, then you have a real chance.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that, but that sounds like a almost yeah, a total refounding of how we ascribe value in the capitalist system, definitely in America.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is exactly right.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: To the extent that I've got a like a massive idea, so you can tell I'm pumped about it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like that like that this is our only way out of this mess.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you insist on saying, look, we're just gonna make it, you know, GDP is the measurement, it's like we lose because AI is just gonna be much, much better at producing gross economic output.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then if you change the measurement to something around like uh human flourishing, then like, hey, like how do you measure that?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have to start thinking.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it gets much more um modern.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think America will lead the way on that?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe it's more likely uh a European country might might lead the way?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, shoot.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, you know, like I was trying to speed us up in in uh the um most dramatic way I I could think of, which was to run for president.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um but right now, if you ask me which country is uh gonna be at the forefront, I mean I certainly hope it's the US because I'm here.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I would very much take it if you were to to point to like some uh European country uh that um would get its act together faster.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that I mean I'm I'm I'm with you.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I I think this is where the world needs to head.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess the counter argument would be when we've tried to ascribe value that sits outside the dollar and kind of financial value creation, whether it's been ESG or other other metrics, it's it's quickly become you know subjective and and therefore run into challenges.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess we'd really have to think how we would uh measure uh value, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean a part of it has to come down to or we or we just take the view, hey, we all kind of know look know what value looks like as humans.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um if it's directionally correct and people don't need to make money, people are gonna feel good about it, other people will see them and and they'll feel good about how other people are seeing them, that that's all fine.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Or you could get I could take the other view and say, no, we need to figure out how to measure value in a way that's not financial, but that can lead us down tricky paths, I guess.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I love the this line of questioning.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to me, we should do the best we can uh at these measurements so that you can point to them and be like, sure.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one thing that's obvious, it's just um uh lifespan or like quality adjusted life years.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, like if if I can um if I can make, for example, like you know, millions of Americans uh healthier in a particular decade of life, I should be a billionaire.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like and though those are measurements that I think a lot of people would accept.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you you want to you want to do the best you can um because it it is subject to um perverse incentives, just like anything else.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so but you but you can't not try based upon it it being tricky.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um because if you don't try, we're fucked.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just being very honest about it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: You're a very credible person to push this line of argument because you are a formal entrepreneur.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You are an entrepreneur, right?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you understand the profit motive, you understand value creation, you understand how powerful a force that can be, and has been for America and for the world and for capitalism.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, maybe we're on the we're on the precipice of a new dawn.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's worth it's worth pushing that line of thinking and and uh seeing where it leads us.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, th thank you.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you guys are savvy and get it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um I actually as I'll tell you this, you know, insider baseball type thing, but I I was on a national news broadcast and uh the anchor and I were having a conversation about this topic.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows AI is gonna come and disrupt the work um opportunities.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then he said, How are we gonna build this new economy?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I described where we have to go.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, Um, I'm not smart enough uh to even attempt that sort of endeavor.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't believe I don't have the ego either.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then I said to him, It's like, well, that's just the difference between you and me.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: I love that, Andrew.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: I won I won't I won't name it, but we had an entrepreneur at one of our events um and he said uh something something similar, which was uh some people people will tell you it's impossible, and you should think it might be for you.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought excellent.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will say this anchor did get a good laugh.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay, yeah, I can see that.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can see why.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and he you know, he appreciated it.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew, um, let's go back a little bit to US politics.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: You you talked about that TED talk you gave, which I think is one of the most popular of all time, why US politics is dead and how to fix it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Very briefly, why is US politics dead and how are we going to fix it?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh US politics is broken because the incentives are askew.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the way to fix it is just to fix the incentives, um, which is not easy, but can be done.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the way to fix the incentives is to move to nonpartisan open primaries coupled with uh instant runoff or ranked choice voting.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you would have proper incentives where if you could get uh the sane majority on board, then you win.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: As opposed to right now, you get the extreme ideological minority.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in the US, all of these mechanisms are run at the state level.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you would have to change the way the primaries work in let's call it six to eight US states, which is feasible if you spent a couple hundred million dollars.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that that was the case I made.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy to say people are yet working on it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like uh the equivalent of regulatory capture in politics, political capture in a way.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: If they sort of cornered the system.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this also does aggravate me where everyone can see in the US it's not working.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and uh people are frustrated about it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you point out, it's like, you know why it's not working?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the the that state's set up over there, and like we should do something about that.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, like shouldn't we just be mad at the other side?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, didn't you just tell me that this stuff's not working?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um like like America, um, Americans, um, for the most part, let's just say they they enjoy sports, and uh politics has become this blood sport, uh, and and they're more eager to to participate in the blood sport than they are to go to the refs and be like, yo, this game is uh rigged.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: This game is not rigged in terms of your winning or losing, though it it is that too.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it's like the purpose of this game um uh is theoretically for us to get good policy and and uh elect leaders we're excited about and it's not doing those things.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh it's kind of interesting, guys, because like I'm I'm the child of immigrants here in the US.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: My parents immigrated here from Taiwan.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um my dad's a physicist, my mom um is a statistician.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that's like the lens I have to American politics.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, you guys, like this this system's just really badly designed and and and the setup's stupid, and it's going to give us stupider and stupider results.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm happy to say there are more and more people wising up, being like, oh yeah, that is right.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the incentive structure is what it is.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so you have to raise like uh you know an independent movement.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh it is growing all the time, um, but we've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: You ran for president in 2020, created the forward party.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's one marker of just how changed America is since 2020, is that that year I think you had support from people like Elon Musk and Sam Altman.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now those folks are kind of lining up behind President Trump, literally lining up at the inauguration in some cases.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Just take that example.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how has that happened?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: How has there been such a shift in direction?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that say about Silicon Valley specifically?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Which is an idea we've been exploring with people like Nick Clegg, who was number two at Meta, obviously, and the Deputy Prime Minister here in the UK, and Jacinda Arden, the former prime minister of New Zealand, in this current series of giant ideas.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, like, how does the center recover and is there a path back for the center?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think uh I think what's happened with Silicon Valley is very much a byproduct of uh this um bifurcated choice that's been presented, which um to me is a bad setup.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you rewind to 2024, uh the Biden administration's in charge and a lot of techies uh didn't love some of the things that were coming out of the Biden administration.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you um are the then opposition crew, uh people like shrug, I don't like who's in power, so I guess I'm going to decide with these guys.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, if you were to have a more nuanced conversation, it's like, hey, what do you like, dislike, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in the in the US, you just have these two choices.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't like what's happening now, then like you're in the opposition.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, you know what's happening right now?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: The party in charge is getting less and less uh popular because uh the shorthand in America is shit sucks, and I'm gonna get pissed at whoever's in charge.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so if yeah, and now it's productive, like uh we just play you lose, I lose while we're all doing the losing.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so you had Silicon Valley as a combination of um, to me, it was a lot of it's like anti-establishment, anti-institutional bent.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like, hey, fuck you.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be regulated by you guys.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are dumb.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like who's who's who's over here?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, let's go over here and like let's get on board.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, okay, now you're in charge.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're in charge if we just uh like are nice to you and show up to your stuff and give you a certain amount of money and like pledge to invest a certain amount of money and then you let us do what we want.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the dynamic.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh you know, here we are having this conversation in uh 25-26.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like you want to be a bridge between those two worlds still, as you were at one point, or you know, change change is gonna come from elsewhere?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like I I'm uh like I think I'm someone who's trying to find solutions, and I don't want to um throw anyone under a bus, you know, because like to my attitude is like, look, tomorrow we're all still gonna be here, it's all still gotta live together.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, what can we do that we can all get on board with?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do think that there are massive excesses out of big tech that are getting uh less and less popular, um, and that they're overplaying this hand.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there there is going to be like a swinging of the pendulum.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and people should get wise to that, you know, like the pendulum just keeps on um going back and forth.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and some of the things that people think are wise now are going to look unwise uh if there's an yet another change of power, which in this system um uh with a level of anger and frustration, uh, you know, seems quite likely.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: A cliffhanger to end part one, Andrew.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back next week with more on the person behind the idea and also on your next company, which you're working on right now.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks so much for joining us, and we'll be back for part two.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome episode with Andrew.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Guy's done so many different things, um, has a really unique perspective.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think, Tommy?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think the thing that jumps out on me the most with Andrew is this thing about AI is gonna take all the jobs.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's convinced of that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very clear about it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's right for what it's worth, and I think it's the number one thing that politicians should be talking about.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: It should be all over the media.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: There is this huge wave, the coming wave, as Mustafa Zilliman, our other guest, uh, the founder of DeepMind put it when he came on the show.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh people are totally sleeping on it.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he is very convinced about it, and I think if you talk to a lot of people in the Silicon Valley, they're pretty convinced that AI is coming for jobs in a big, big way.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh it's powerful when Dario, the CEO of Anthropocrit, one of the biggest AI companies, is out there saying it, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he has no he has no you know ulterior motive for saying that.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, if anything, it hurts his business.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: What did you think?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: I love his vision of a more human-centered capitalism where we ascribe value or you know, um to people and activities that aren't necessarily driving economic value, but are driving some other form of value for uh individuals, for society, for the community.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is where the world's headed, but I think the devil's in the details that can be difficult to do in practice because uh value can be subjective.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that will ever happen?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You seem pretty skeptical in the interview about him making that happen or anyone else making it happen.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of that's gonna come from some incredible we're gonna have to restructure how we uh organise society.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that has to really be a bottom-up new form of value creation that goes on both at an individual level and and you know at kind of a philosophical level.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not quite sure I can see where that's gonna come from, but you know, maybe an impressive you know leader will will redefine it or maybe we'll define it bottom up from the communities themselves.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not entirely sure.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's two ways I think his UBI thing can happen.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think one is a dystopian version where there's mass unemployment because of AI, there's not huge GDP growth, and UBI is a kind of glorified way of saying that we need a lot more benefits for people on employment.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not a good version for the world.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the the more utopian version is that there is untold wealth creation from AI.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Mustafa Sullivan talked about this when he joined us about you know, there's gonna be free food, abundant energy, there's gonna be this magical world that AI creates and uh no one has to work anymore.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you can just hang around like making computer games or creating Wikipedia.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's like the utopian version that a lot of Silicon Valley clings to.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of intuitively struggle to see that to be true.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um ultimately I'm an optimistic person, so ultimately I do think if we it won it won't be that way for everyone, but if we give more people opportunity, they will go create more things, more inventions will happen, um, it will be more abundant, I think.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: More from Andrew next week.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna hear about the man behind the ideas.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's had a crazy life, son of immigrants in the US, and ran for president.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna tell us all about what it actually is like to run for president.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see you next week.