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and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox Business need to hire you need indeed. Episode 308 is here. I'm belonging to Western Nebraska in 1908. The first time square ball drop occurred in the mid-night history for years about myself, one of those health trackers. And while I haven't run yet this year, I've masturbated for over 500 months. Go, go, go!
Welcome to the 308th episode of The Propchy Pod. Whenever I do one of these jokes, I immediately click stop and look at the reaction of our production team because what I want is I want them to be offended and horrified but sort of laughing under their breath. That's when I know I've hit it. Other times I just turn on the cameras and they look at me like they're horrified and I know I need to go back to the well. Anyways, in today's episode,
we're mixing it up a little bit to start off the news. We're bringing in our political Yoda, our sensei. Our sensei are master of disaster, which is the political realm right now. In my opinion, the most interesting rising star in the world of political commentary, Jessica Tarlov, she'll be reporting from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. So here, her rapid far take on the vibe of the convention, the aftermath of the attempted
assassination on Trump. By the way, I was actually behind Melania at an airport right after it happened and I heard her screaming into a phone. You had one job. Too soon? Too soon? Actually, actually, supposedly it was a hit commissioned by the Democratic Party but they ordered it from Timo and it didn't quite work out. Anyways, discount hits, not a good idea. So we'll also be talking to Jessica about what we need to be thinking about leading
up to the election. Afterward, we'll hear from Reid Hoffman about Biden's decision to stay in the race, the state of AI and wokeism and its place in American universities. I absolutely love Reid Hoffman. I think he is the conscience and the voice of the tech community and the tech leader we meet if you will. I just am so impressed with Reid. But first, I know what you're thinking. Where's the dog? Where's the dog? He was in Munich. He was in Moonshine at a
beer garden watching England beats beat. Who did we beat then? Netherlands, right? And then got so excited that I took my son to Berlin where we watched the finals of the Euros and we saw Spain go on to victory. An amazing game, good for Spain. I think they played the better match and deserve to win. But we had just an unbelievable time following
Team England. The British people are just such a half-empty group of people. They're dearest at what's his face to advocate, the manager because they didn't win and all they could talk about. I heard overheard on the way back as we can never win a trophy or tournament for God's sakes. They've gone to the final twice. And I mean, they just have such incredible talent. I absolutely loved watching England play in a very grateful and not that any of
them listened to my podcast. But my God, Cole Palmer, Jesus Christ was out exciting. They put the guy in a little bit, a little bit too much of football here. They put the guy in and I think the 70 or 74th minute and within two minutes, he scored a goal. So back from Berlin in New York, it's about 140 degrees here, but it's always great to be back in
the city. This is the start of my American summer. I'm back in the US of A. I go to Colorado next Saturday, I think, and then I go to off the coast of Massachusetts to Nantucket, literally the widest place on earth. Literally. I didn't want to like it. I think of myself as being more kind of Euro trash. And I went there 10 years ago and I've been every summer since it is beautiful. It's essentially a sand bar in the Atlantic. You know, let the kids
go crazy. They can't get into too much trouble because it's an island, good food. Just absolutely love it. Anyways, enough of my privilege. I want to end this on a little bit of a deeper, more thoughtful note. I did one of my favorite things in Berlin. I did something called fat tire bike tours. I've done this every time I've been in Berlin and they take you around all these sites. And it's obviously very focused on World War
2 and the wall coming down. And I just find that shit fascinating. And what was so exciting for me is my 13-year-old son came with me and they take you to Hitler's bunker, which is now a non-descript parking lot because they don't want to draw too much attention to it or turn it into any sort of shrine for when far-right fucking crazy start showing up
and planning flowers or some shit like that. And they take you to a guard tower. And the guard towers that were erected to basically shoot anybody that was trying to escape to the west, given that there was an incredible brain drain. And it was actually, the wall was actually for a short time, a good idea for East Germany to stick to the human rights violations because they were losing all of their human capital to the west. But this was just, it
was just such a fascinating, weird construct and quite frankly a flawed construct. Before example, when they had guards in the towers, they would switch them up and put them in different towers because they were finding if they spent too much time together, they too would make plans to escape. And so they made sure that they didn't get to know each
other. But more than that, the thing that really struck me on these tours is that if you look at Germany and Prussia for the last few centuries, it's been historically one of the most tolerant progressive places in the world. And appreciation for art, music, very accepting and tolerant of different religions and people from different backgrounds, thriving gay community, political discourse, celebration of world-class academics, and appreciation
for debate, democracy. And then it had this 12-year period where things really went, sideways as a wrong word, really went dark. And for me, it's a lesson that absolutely in my view that to believe that that can't happen here is to ignore history. And I find that Americans
are optimism is our greatest feature, but also our greatest flaw. And that is one of the impression that somehow our institutions would buttress us against some sort of demonization of immigrants, which I think is already sort of on a low burn right now, or that we would try and find scapegoats. And that's the bad news. The good news is if you look at Germany, it has again returned to the mean of where it has been through most of society. And that
is an incredibly progressive, tolerant, interesting, liberal democratic society. And it's the economic engine of Europe. I love the whole work hard, play hard ethic in Germany. One of the things examples that I just love about Germany is I think in the US, we kind of bifurcate things for kids and things for adults. Disneyland is definitely for kids. It is the seventh circle of hell for adults. And then there's places that are just adults only. And I think
Germany does a great job of threading the needle. My favorite thing is the beer gardens there. There'll be a beer garden in the literally me trampoline. So you have something for everybody. There's the kids and mom and dad go grab a beer. I think Germany is a fantastic or wonderful culture. And every time I go there, I just have such a nice time. Anyways, Germany, an incredibly progressive and impressive society. But for 12 years, digress
from that norm and it happened fast and it happened aggressively. And obviously it happened violently. And there are a lot of lessons to be taken from that. And again, to believe that unless we remain steadfast and recognize that that can happen here, it will happen here. There's no reason if it can happen in Germany based on their historical reference in the bookends of that society. Then it can absolutely happen here. All right. Let's
get Jessica on breaking news. Former president Donald Trump is safe and a 20 year old shooter is dead after a shocking assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania yesterday afternoon. This afternoon, former president Donald Trump announced his pick for running mate choosing Ohio Senator JD Vance to join him on the ticket. Two thirds of American say president Biden should step aside. And that includes 60% of Democrats.
So we are joined now by Jessica Tarlov. Jessica is a political analyst and a co-host on the five Fox's weeknight news program and a regular guest here on Prop. T. She is in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention. Jess, let's kick off with just give us this general sense of the kind of the vibe there.
Well, I first want to make clear to the listeners, I'm in an open environment. So if it's a little noisy or the sound quality is crappy, I apologize, but I'm in the Fox workspace at the convention center in the midst of it all. And it has been a crazy few days. I arrived on Saturday and first day back from maternity leave. And within half an hour of landing, there was the assassination attempt on former president Trump. And we were wall to wall through the
evening. And then Sunday, you know, getting into the swing of things. First segment back, talking about almost immediately, you know, who's to blame for this, everyone talking for their position. Surrounded by people, very enthusiastic Trump supporters, as you can imagine, the great outfits are happening, the Vigassal hats, the cowboy boots, make America, everything again, t-shirts and paraphernalia. And then yesterday, first day back on the
Vigay, and it's been intense and a whirlwind. It's very exciting to be here. But it's a little scary considering what happened. And I think that there's an era of that everywhere. And everyone is feeling it. Security is massive. I mean, it's everybody is here from Secret Service down to the local police. And that's really what's hanging in the air, I would say, for everyone is this teeny bit of fear. And then this massive excitement, very enthusiastic
bunch to save the least. So, Jess, this is difficult, or it's difficult for me, but just trying to be as unemotional about this as possible. My sense is that the Trump campaign in any race has never had this much momentum right now. What are your thoughts? It's definitely a peak moment for them. And they've been through a lot. And it's not just, you know, the sentiment behind them because of what happened. And obviously, everyone is relieved that he was not actually
killed and that the shooter wasn't successful. But he had the Marlago case dropped against a Miley and Cannon, the judge in Florida, did that yesterday morning, right for the kickoff of the RNC. And he's walking on air. Part of why he moved up the VP announcement, have JD Vance, who's been a big hit around the convention here. JD Vance was Democrats' top choice in terms of who they wanted him to pick, because he doesn't bring a tremendous amount
to the table. He doesn't bring a state that Trump wasn't going to win. He doesn't bring a set of policies that Trump didn't have. He's not more moderate than Trump. I feared it would be a Glenn Youngkin, a Marco Rubio or a Nikki Haley. But definitely, you know, going in their direction. And Joe Biden, he had that good rally on Friday in Detroit. The interview
with Lester Holt on Monday night was fine, but not enough to quiet everyone down. And I think if it's a toss-up race right now, you'd have to at least go 51-49 in Trump's favor. And so, yeah, I would agree with you that it's with him right this moment. So a couple of things right there are JD Vance. My sense is it's interesting that you said that that was the Democrats picked they were hoping for. My sense is that it's actually
a good pick for Trump. One, he's handsome. Two, he's young. He's a marine veteran. And he'll be a very effective attack dog for which is generally, you know, kind of one of the key roles for the VP. What are your thoughts on the pick distinct of what the Democrats wanted or didn't want? Well, I think that that's all true. And right now, what I'm focused on is the enthusiasm factor. So the race is still statistically tied. There were three major polls. Our poll,
the Fox poll, NBC, CBS, all within one to two points. That's margin of error. We're in a dead heat. The CBS battleground polls really interestingly. We're also within the margin of error. And we had seen some with with bigger distance that Biden was behind, kind of three, four points versus being one to two points behind. And so if you're looking at that and then you're considering the VP pick, yes, that story is completely compelling. I was
a hillbilly allergy liberal myself. When that came out, I thought it was incredible book better than the movie, as it usually is. But JD Vance is not someone that's likable. He's not liked at home in Ohio. He's not liked in the Senate. Mitt Romney, when he was being interviewed for something said that there was like no one more to testable. I guess he forgot about Ted Cruz that day. But JD Vance is not someone that has warmed a lot
of people up. And I think it is a signal to the future of the party. JD Vance at 39 years old. I guess he'll be 40 if they win by the time he's elected. But it's really a siren call that it's magna now and it's magna in the future. And that's the message that Donald Trump wants to send. And that's a message that I think helps the Democrats that are managing to permeate the bubble about Project 2025 and what scariness lurks ahead
for us if Donald Trump wins again. And JD Vance does nothing to stop that. So that's why I think that it's a good pick if you are looking at it from the Democratic side. Based on what you're feeling at the convention, do you have any sense of any policy shifts or messaging that you think they're going to go with based on what just what the speakers are talking about? I mean, these things are pretty, these things are produced for TV.
So they're pretty delivered. Any insight you can glean from their strategy? At least from the Monday night, besides Trump showing up himself, the big deal was Sean O'Brien, the union, that union boss, and that he is going to speak at both conventions. And he came in there with a speech that you would normally think you'd see at the DNC and he made it at the RNC. And he got more applause for certain things that I wouldn't
have expected. And he was more generous towards Donald Trump that I would have expected as well. They try to be quote, nonpolitical, but endorsements happen. And Joe Biden has made being on the side of the union workers a huge hallmark of his campaign, joining
picket lines. I think it's $90 billion reimbursed into their pensions, for instance. The fact that he showed up here and that he spoke that passionately and said Trump was a really tough dude, which, yeah, I mean, he got shot at and managed to get himself together and then pump his fist. I get it. But that's what really stuck out to me. That was like the outlier, you know, in a sea of faces that you would typically expect at an RNC event.
Has anyone been a disaster in terms of the speakers like the divide in the room? Did it ever go really flat? Was anyone sort of underwhelming in terms of the lineup? Yeah, it was, it was David Sacks, right? That's his name, the venture capital guy who's given a ton to JD Vance. And he kept waiting for applause or laughter and none of it came because he just totally blew. So that was a big disappointment for people. But otherwise,
everyone's been pretty happy. I mean, I've been here, you know, from the morning to night and people are just jazzed to be here. They're excited when they're listening to some rando dog catcher from, you know, the middle of nowhere. So, you know, people are pumped, they're pumped about Donald Trump. And I was reviewing all of the terrible things that JD Vance has said about Trump from the past. And one thing stuck out.
Comparing him to Hitler? Well, no, that did stick out. And I made sure to mention that on TV. No, he called him cultural heroine. And I think that that's really apt and accurate and not surprising coming from, you know, a very smart guy who wrote a fantastic book and got into himself into Yale Law School, which is no easy feat. And that, I can feel that.
And obviously not going so far as to say, you know, people need to be deprogrammed. I know Democrats always get into trouble when they say things like that about Trump supporters. But people are addicted to the way he makes them feel. And this is like multiple arenas full of that addiction. Do you sense that cult like addiction atmosphere is more, more
intense than you would expect at the Democratic Convention? Well, I mean, if you just look at the polling on enthusiasm behind these candidates, yeah, I mean, the DNC would see more like a tea party, right? And this is like a rager at a dive bar where everyone is having the time of their lives doing karaoke, right? But at this particular moment, I don't see
the Democrat enthusiasm coming anywhere to match this. And I was listening to Frank Lundz talk about what he's seeing in the polling and focus grouping post assassination attempt. And he said he doesn't think the race is going to move. And I, I agree with that. But where you will see the movement is in the enthusiasm. And we're looking at a situation where every single Trump voter is going to show up. And we have to be sure that every Democratic voter
shows up. And I certainly can't guarantee something like that at this particular moment. Talk a little bit about Project 2025 or what I refer to affectionately as season seven of the Handmaid's Tale. Are they, do you get, do you get the sense they're trying to distance themselves from the other folks? Same or? Well, Trump put out on truth social. I don't know anything about it. I mean, it's saying that he's mentioned 312 times in that
everybody who worked with him has played an integral role in shaping. He says he knows nothing of. And I think that that's one of the points that Democrats have to keep hammering. Finally, the polling is reflecting an awareness for this, which I have to say is, you know, no credit to the media on this. They have not been amplifying it. I think to the level that it deserves, when you think about that this is a man who has remade the courts, right?
The Supreme Court has gone basically forever more. And if Trump wins again, you know, you could see a couple of justices just retiring, right? To let him get in another Amy Coney Barrett or two. But he has nothing to hold him back, right? This is the revenge term. He has four years to do whatever he wants. And he's made clear multiple times what it is that he wants to do. We know where he stands on immigration. We know where he stands
on bodily autonomy that he's fine. If you say, leave it up to the States. That means that it's just fine. Like in JD Vance, this home state to have such a prohibitive abortion ban that a 10-year-old who got raped has to go to Indiana for care. So I think that we have to do a better job talking about Project 2025 all the time. It should be more than 50%
of people who know what it is. But the fact that Trump said, I don't know anything about this means that he's scared, shittlest about the impact of this on the election. How do you impact, if any, will the RNC have on Biden's campaign? It feels as if the calls to the president to withdraw from the race have at least there's been sort of a pause on it. Do you think it picks back up in any thoughts on where that stands?
Well, there are two big reports in the last couple of days. There's Adam Schiff at a fundraiser where he said, if Biden's top of the ticket, I think we lose the house. And we don't regain the house and we lose the Senate. And then on Monday, political overs were reporting. I think it was Rachel Bates piece that Nancy Pelosi has been working the phones that she cannot stand this chatter. The Democrats don't care about what happens. I'm sure you saw
this in Axios that they've resigned themselves to another Trump term. And Nancy Pelosi is not having any of that. And if there's one consistency in life, it's that if Nancy's Pelosi is working against you, you're in a lot of trouble. So I think that it might be on the surface quiet. And a lot of that has to do with the assassination attempt. Right? I mean, you have to give someone at least a few minutes after something like that happens. But I don't
think that it's really quiet. And what he aimed to achieve with the lesser hold interview, I think felt short. And one of the answers that stood out the most to me besides the conversation about the bullseye, you know, putting Trump in the bullseye and the rhetoric, quote, coming from both sides, which I don't think these are comparable at all. But Lester Hold asked him about, you know, who's making the decision? If you were to step aside, and he just said
me, and it sound like a man alone on an island, right? And maybe Hunter and Jill are there. But I had never heard him talk that way. And he was defiant, you know, saying me. And that isn't the usual ethos of Joe Biden. And that is certainly not the ethos of the Democratic Party or what we purport to be. And there are rumors that the DNC might hold an early vote on making him the nominee and do that virtually. People are pushing back against that idea.
I think it would be a big mistake to make people feel like post-debat. They don't have any agency in what happens going forward to November. Jessica Tarlov is a political analyst in a co-host on the five Fox's weeknight news program. She joined us from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Jess, it's as always, it's great to hear from you and enjoy yourself. And we'll look forward to catching up soon. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
We'll be right back for our conversation with Reid Hoffman. Support for this podcast comes from Grammarly. Your team spends half their time writing, and not productive writing, and knowing writing, clarifying writing, just following up writing. And we all know how that happens. When confusing email turns into 12 confused replies and a
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to indeed data, an matching engine that helps you find quality candidates right away. And it's not just fast. According to indeed, 93% of employers found the highest quality candidates on indeed compared to other job sites. That's because indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so it becomes more refined the more you use it. Indeed also takes care of scheduling, screening, and direct messaging so you can
connect with candidates as soon as you're matched. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. Get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash Vox Business. Just go to indeed.com slash Vox Business right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox Business need to hire you need indeed. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Reed Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn investor and strategist.
Reed, where does this podcast find you? I am just outside Seattle. So Biden question mark, you're sort of an L you become sort of the elder statesman of the tech community and what I'll call center left politics. What are your thoughts on the state of play around the calls for Biden or the concern? I won't even say calls the concerns around the Biden
campaign right now. Well, I mean, he obviously had a frankly just you know, disastrous debate performance in terms of kind of what I think my family would call senior moments in the thing. And that obviously, you know, legitimately causes a bunch of concern. You know, I obviously, you know, you kind of asked me, you know, which and my more concerned about a bad debate
with senior moments or a lying felon who doesn't care about the country. I have a clear point of view about which one is more disqualifying for being president, but it's obviously, you know, I don't mean the paper over the concerns because, you know, I think probably everybody would prefer people who are 20 years younger contending for the presidency. It's just the question of you express your age through slowness, but kindness and care or demented
lying. So a lot of this comes down to, I mean, we'll know this will either happen or not happen, I think. And then next couple of weeks, just logistically, I mean, time is on both Biden and Trump side now that if Biden for whatever reason doesn't succumb to the pressure or I mean, at some point it becomes logistically infeasible to replace him, right? And I think his his view right now is perception is right now the path to presidency would be I'm not
him, meaning Trump. The thing that I think would force him out and I'm curious if you believe this is true is if there was a dramatic reduction in donor money and you're a whale. You are in the you're flight, you're at a rare altitude, both in terms of your own personal giving, but also the people you know. I'm when what what I bucket the fundraising into whales, such as yourself, porpoises, such as myself, they give tens of thousands, but not millions.
And then the small, you know, small money donors, the called them minos, but a lot of minos can make up, you know, a formidable force. But what I see is the porpoises are in full revolt. The people I speak to are not only bright, signing letters to try and ask it to get them to step down, but starting to try and think about the next wave of candidates and commit money to supporting them. What is happening among the whales in terms of
their giving? Are they holding back? Are they taking a weight and see attitude? Are they rallying around the president? What's going on at your altitude? I would say that they're just like the porpoises and you know, I'd actually rather be, you know, in the in the beast area. I'd rather be, you know, you porpoises in the dolphin. You'd rather be flipper. Yes,
exactly. But I would say that it's the same, you know, amongst the the whales is a there's a deep concern about if you're showing fatigue now and it's four months of of a very grueling path. You know, what does that look like? And does that give Americans, you know, not the right sense of what the the vigor of, you know, I care about kind of everyday Americans and I care about, you know, people other than myself, you know, what does that present
like? And I'd say that the the whales are also weight and sea is probably too passive, but very concerned with what the forward path looks like. And so therefore are, you know, I'd say donations of slow down a lot from that now. On the other hand, of course, you know, one of the things that was very interesting to me about kind of looking at the post debate was how much grassroots went way up. And it may be, you know, a function of, you know,
seeing Biden as a as easy as a very decent man who cares about other people. You know, so I always worry a little bit about, you know, what what the perspectives are and make sure that you can see, you know, what is the everyday American or the youth perspectives and not just, you know, kind of from where I sit. But to put a fine point on you're one of the deepest voices in the Democratic Party right
now, people listen to you read, where are you today? Do you feel the best course of action would be to mature battle tests and support and rally around another candidate or for us to stop this and rally around Biden? Well, I would like to see Biden show the vigor of campaigning that he is going to need to see. So it's not just like the ABC interview, but maybe call it the ABC interview every day. If we see that, then I think we should be, you know, rallying around Biden and stopping
with discussion. If we don't see that, if this is just the, you know, look, you know, he's dedicated his entire life to public service is everything he's done and it's contributing massively. But if it's like, look, I can only imagine what running at his age is like, it was like, look, I'm too tired for this. Then it's like, then I think we should, you
know, kind of open up the field. But you do still think it's a possibility that he can demonstrate that type of vigor in a short enough time to give people an option that's not a, it's not a run out the clock strategy that you think that they're, no, I would oppose a run out the clock strategy. My voice and as much as, you know, my voice matters and any
of this stuff is come be vigorous now. You wrote a pretty powerful piece. I think I read it in the economist talking about the Silicon Valley business leaders who are endorsing Trump because they believe he is better for business. What is the sentiment you've been hearing and how exactly why do you think Trump is bad for business? So one thing I think that people kind of say, oh, it's obvious that Trump's better for
business because he's a business person. He lowers regulation. He's lower taxes. All classic things that, you know, people say, hey, that's, that's good for business. But what they miss is what's fundamentally critical for business is kind of a stable society, a rule of law society, you know, kind of open markets and good relationships with other countries for, you know, kind of products and services. And in all of that, Trump is
essentially a disaster. And so part of the reason I wrote this piece for business people was to say, don't, you know, kind of think, oh, 1% or 2% differences in tax rates matter. Don't think that, look, and I actually appreciate one of things like people say, are you objective about Trump? And I say, yeah, actually, I think one of the things that he did well was to say, hey, if you want a new regulation, remove an old regulation, I think that's a, I think
that's a good refactoring of regulation stance. But don't think that's what's most important for business. What's actually, in fact, important for business is kind of rule of law and stability. And Trump basically tax all of that. And I kind of came of professional age in the
valley, but I don't feel as if I'm in touch with it because I've been gone so long. And I suppose, and this might be a reductive analysis, but I find there's this frightening vein or ideology in the valley of kind of this techno libertarian notion that government is bad that if we could just let smarter people run the, you know, run the company defer to the markets and specifically if the markets could kind of defer to the technology leaders, that we'd all
be better off. And I find it very disconcerting given that I don't think these individuals recognize how blessed they are by some of the underpinnings of and blessings rule of law, an incredible business ecosystem. Am I being dramatic here? Is there sort of a concerning vein of this sort of techno libertarian within the valley? No, I don't think you're being dramatic. I basically completely agree. It's one of the reasons why, you know, kind of I argue for the value of
government, the value of of better government. There's never great government. There's always inefficiencies there, but the difference between, you know, call it B and B plus can actually make a very big difference. And I think the libertarian thing, which by the way comes from, in some places, comes from places that are not terrible, which is like, hey, we can build amazing new companies, amazing new technologies. Those can make a very big difference. I agree with all of that very strongly.
But the notion that it's like, oh, government is bad or gets in the way, it's like, well, actually, in fact, if you look at everything that our Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, you know, can create comes from many different platforms that government is enabled. Isn't just rule of law, isn't just the piece of society isn't just a, you know, kind of university system and technology system
and funding of these technologies that then, you know, get created in the companies. But it's, it's the very kind of the system that we can deploy our products and services and higher talent and offer, you know, kind of stock, you know, for sale and all of that's within a government regulated environment. So I frequently argue vociferously with, you know, what I refer to as techno libertarians. So let's switch to AI. Where are you most bearish and bullish when it comes
to use cases and applications? Let's see. So on the bearish side, what I would say is that there's a couple of things. One is it's hard to know exactly where to be bearish over time because I think Ethan Mullick and co-intelligence, you know, said something, you know, that's a good maxim, which is the worst AI you're ever going to use as the AI you're using today. And there's a bunch of
things that are kind of being developed. Now, I think people being overly polyannish about, oh, you know, AI is going to solve fusion for us in three years is I think, you know, a mistake in various ways. In the positive sense, I think that it's funny, even with all the hype, I think it's the some degree understated relative to if you think about the fact we are language creatures and that everything we do is in language and you have it minimum a language amplifier. So you say,
well, I've a steel manufacturing company. What's AI going to do for me? It's like, well, but you have sales, you have manufacturing, you have financial analysis, you have meetings, you have decisions, all of which there's going to be essentially co-pilot's for. And so I'm very bullish across all of this productivity that doesn't mean that it doesn't come without challenges in terms of how the how jobs change and, you know, all the rest. But I think that the
amplification here is really big. And what's more, it doesn't even get to like, you know, the two kind of cases that I usually use is I have a line of sight to having a tutor and a medical assistant on every smartphone that, you know, is kind of there for every human being who has access
to a smartphone, which is, you know, amazing human elevation. But I also think it gets interesting in terms of, you know, what does it mean for, you know, drug discovery or other kinds of places where the deeper uses of the of language and predict the next token can actually apply to things that make a huge difference with the quality of human life. So overly very, very bullish bearish on polyanna short-term claims. One of the concerns, I have, and I think some, I think a decent number of
people share is that technologies either go to existing players or new players. And it feels with AI that while there's some new brands, it feels as if the majority of the spoils are going to not only existing players, but a small number of existing players. You are a co-founder and inflection, which got my understanding is got sold to open AI. You're on the board of Microsoft,
Amazon's and investor and anthropic. It all feels very incestuous. Are you at all worried about the concentration or increased concentration of wealth and power to even a smaller circle of companies and individuals and what is probably the next big technology? Well, there's multiple questions there. So I'm going to kind of unpack them a little bit. One, inflection is still a
going company. I had a board meeting a couple of weeks ago. It did a business deal with Microsoft, which involved a license and the stuff, so I went one over to build agents for them because we pivoted away from agents to be to be stuff. And so there'll be a bunch of stuff announced that. That's just a small thing. Well, I actually think the actual truth of matter is the rewards, everyone's investing
pretty heavily, but the rewards haven't really started showing up yet. I'm not concerned by that. Some people then say, well, hey, you're doing all this investment. Why isn't the rewards shown up this quarter? And the answer is, actually, in fact, the most interesting things, the things that compound over 10 years versus something makes a difference. And you invest this year, your profit margin goes up next year. So I don't think the rewards actually have been divided up
that much yet. Now, what is showing is that one part of the revolution that we're in here is a scale compute revolution. And the ability to drive scale compute is mostly not very much of a startup game. There's a reason why, or if it is a startup game like OpenAI, it's adjacent to a large company. So you got OpenAI, which is adjacent to Microsoft. You've got Anthropic, which is adjacent to Amazon, etc. as essentially what's driving them. And that does mean that there is some limitation.
That doesn't mean that that's a necessarily critical problem because there's all kinds of places where you say, well, I would like to create a startup of a desktop search company. And you can't really do that. What you want for the vulnerability of these companies to be taken as by new technologies, new platforms, new other kinds of things as well as doing it not necessarily
by going at their strengths. Now, that being said, I think the deepest, most implicit part of your question is, is there startup opportunity here that can build new pillars of strength that are not being subsumed with a smaller number of companies? And I think the answer is absolutely yes. I think that startups not only can use a ton of the different models that are being built, but also they're going to have the opportunities to build pretty amazing companies because we have
multiple large language models that are competing with each other. Like if it was just one large language model, that would be a concern because then you kind of say, hey, we're going to try to grab all the economics ourselves, but you not only have Google and Microsoft and OpenAI, competing with each other, but you have multiple other folks trying to come into the entry there.
And you can look at what I'm throwing up in Amazon and doing. And so I think there's a lot of startup opportunity and I'm putting my money where my mouth is as an investor at Greylock and personally, and starting inflection and all of this. So I actually think that that, you know, the very last point, and I think this is probably the deepest point that you and I have some interesting
zones or one of the deep points. I don't know if it's the deepest of conflict in, is that I actually think we're, you know, call it five to seven large tech companies heading the 15, not five to seven heading the three. You think that this is going to create the will birth new giants here and that the ecosystem will actually, it's not going to be one apex predator killing everybody or you don't think it's going to be consolidation. You think that it'll spawn new giants. Exactly. Do you think
there's a bit of a bubble? I don't, it's hard to argue that AI isn't going to have a seminal impact on business and the economy and society. Do you think we might be in a bit of a bubble as it relates to valuations? Well, it's definitely, which we always get in new technology waves, which is people go, we know there's going to be huge impacts, they're betting on tons of companies
and so it creates a valuation increase across a lot of companies. And then in retrospect, you go, well, I was clearly a bubble because a number of those companies that valuation increase was incorrect. But on the other hand, part of how the market functions is to say, hey, we know we're all kind of putting our bets on which ones are going to be, which ones are going to be the enduring, big ones, which are going to be the new big ones and which ones are not going to
hit the wave. And so I think to some degree, there's a significant number of companies which will show in retrospect have their valuations bit up in ways that I disagree with. I didn't buy. I don't do shorts. I just don't think I built things for long, but I kind of don't buy those valuations. On the other hand, of course, the whole game is, well, which ones actually have copped this and this will be the next technological wave that's bigger than the internet,
mobile, cloud computing because it compounds all of them. It amplifies them to the next level. There's people have outlined a bunch of potential dangers from AI, whether it's sentient or concentration or self-healing weapons or being used as for missing disinformation. What risks do you think are underhyped, if any, and which ones are overhyped? So I think the ones that are underhyped are, and tend to give mass by number of things, is this is with my book in Prompt 2, I basically
said, this is amplification intelligence. It's way looking at it versus artificial intelligence and kind of human amplification. And bad actors being amplified. So whether it's cybercriminals, terrorists, rogue states, it's one of the things that has me very concerned about what these things are like in the cyberspace realm to use a data term, but to do the thing. We have a bunch of equivalent of open warfare going on across the internet in hacking and in security where
governments aren't really doing much about that. And what can AI do to amplify that, I think, is I mean, government's collectively as in kind of, you know, international treaties that are being written and enforced. And so I think that's the underhyped and the area that I'm most focused on. I think the overhyped one is kind of versions of the super intelligent robots are coming for us, because I think it's the humans with the robots that are much more concerning
immediately than the super intelligent robots. And I'll give you a small example. Last year, I was asked to sign this 22-word statement that a bunch of people I love and trust admire sign, which is, you know, AI is an existential risk along with climate change, pandemic, etc. And the reason I didn't is because AI is also the only one of this list that has massive things in the positive buckets, had a solve pandemic. How do you be looking for asteroids? How to be,
you know, computing energy grids to try to reduce carbon footprints and energy chains. And so I actually think the whole existential risk super intelligence is not an absolute 0%. But if you ask me to say, is super intelligent risk of AI more likely all a terminator or is being is the earth being hit by an asteroid more likely? I'm not sure which one I would,
which I would put as more likely. If you were to advise, hopefully, to Biden or a blue administration around AI, do you think that they're headed in the right direction in terms of, I mean, so far, there really hasn't been regulation. There's been sort of like this regulation manifesto of like, this is what we might do. What would your, what would your advice be around government
involvement or regulation or lack thereof with respect to AI? Well, I think Biden administration has done a really good process, which is first bring the companies in, sweat them for voluntary commitments, work really, push them very hard on that, see what set of things is possibly doable. Then put that into an executive order within a frame, be focused and limited. Like, okay, what happens with high compute models and so forth rather than trying to solve every imagined
problem? Because, you know, for example, if someone come to, if you say, hey, I want to approval for two ton deaf machines, someone can get drunk and run over a kid with, they'd say, well, here's a hundred things you should fix and one or two of them seat belts, you know, in airbags or should be on the list, but then there's a hundred other things. So you only really get there by
working your way through it. So I think the administration, you know, has done a good process on this and I do think that our tool set for navigating both great opportunity and human elevation and preventing the challenges get stronger as we're building stuff. And so I think we want to be very focused and limited until we actually, you know, are really blocking the real harms. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Cara Swisher, host of On with Cara Swisher from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
And wow, what a month we've had. There's so much going on right now to ongoing wars overseas, deepening political turmoil here in the US and a presidential election that might now be in flux. Well, we've had a great lineup of guests on the show to talk about it all from the US Ambassador to NATO, Julian Smith, the governor at Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, to my latest episode in interview with Rachel Maddo of MSNBC. Knocked that off my bucket list. I'm so excited to talk to her.
Have a listen. If the Democrats replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris or with any other candidate, will they have a better chance of beating Trump? I don't know another to you. We can't tell from this vantage point, but if Joe Biden were running against Donald Trump today, he would lose and likely lose badly if the polls are accurate. The full conversation is out now and you'll want to hear it. Find it wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow on with Cara Swisher for more
kick-ass conversations like this one. Even before this past weekend, this election was bonkers. First of all, it's a straight-up rematch. The rematch from hell, the rematch no one wanted, former president versus current president, newly convicted felon versus father of newly convicted felon, the two oldest major party candidates to ever run for the top job, record-breaking old men. One guy facing more legal challenges than every other president in history combined.
The other guy facing relentless calls to step down from just about every corner of his own party, but saying he's got to stick around because American democracy is on the line. We had never seen anything like it before, before this past weekend, before a kid in Pennsylvania tried to kill Donald Trump. America just dodged a bullet and maybe we can learn something from it. That's on today, explained.
You're a investor and a couple of the things you've invested in are you funded Eging Carroll's defamation suit against President Trump and now you're helping finance smart maddox case. I'm just curious. It feels like it's a new wave of investing. I don't know if you pioneered it or Peter Teal did, but it's a very interesting means of call it investing. I don't know what the term would be, but why could you do your thought process for why you decided to do it and talk a
little bit about the smart maddox case and why you decided to get behind it? It feels a little strange and I wish I didn't feel the need to be doing what I was doing here, but it's very much rule of law and high functioning democracy. Part of the thing here is to say, look, we should always be resolved to as strong a rule of law system as possible. Part of that, by the way, for example, every single scholarly and any source of integrity says the 2020 election was fair.
It was fair. It doesn't mean it was perfect, but it was fair to the standards of every other election in modern history. Then you get to people who attack that are trying to degrade our democracy, degrade our trust and belief in rule of law. By the way, that trust is part of how
it functions. So supporting the rule of law is the thing that has been, I'd say, fundamental across democracy investing, but also in terms of saying, hey, let's have the legal system work because one of the things that you, as you saw with, for example, the dominion suit against Fox is unlike
when you're kind of litigating just a freedom of speech political thing, people can lie through their teeth and have no consequences when you're lying through your teeth and saying, hey, the 2020 election was stolen and your texts show that you're lying through your teeth and that that's the influence that you as a news media organization are having upon the culture, beliefs, etc.,
of society. In a commercial case, you're allowed to be held accountable by a jury, by a system of law, by depositions and inquiry, by showing what your actual communications are to each other about how you're lying with this. And I think that's part of what's really important. And so people say, wow, but that's, you know, I've heard the Clare of That's Lawfare and it's like, look, the whole point about our legal system and having 12 jurors, like, for example, the 12 jurors who convicted
Donald Trump unanimously of 34 felonies on doing hush money payments and covering it up for political purposes for sleeping with a porn star, both of prosecutor attorneys and the defense attorneys helped select the journey, there were probably several Trump voting jurors amongst that, you know, and the most thing. And one of them, you can say that they get a lot of their
news from truth social. And that's a jury system. And so the rule of law and a jury system is the thing that I'm very much supportive of and investing might be the right term, but it's really investing for truth, right? And the jury system is a proxy for getting the truth. I apologize for hopping around here, but I brought down a series of questions I wanted to hear
thoughts on. I'm just really curious to get your thoughts on what you or your general impressions and what you think can and should be done regarding some of the activities we've had on some of our elite universities. And if you think the government or the federal government should be playing one more active role, if this is something that is a signal of something deeper and more more mandatious and more troubling in the US, but I'm curious what read Hoffman's thoughts were when you saw
what was going on on our campuses. Well, I've been concerned about it for a number of years. And, you know, that same techno libertarian group, you know, yells about wokeism very loudly. And I, by the way, agree. I think that the point of the university is to be intellectually challenged. It's, you know, part of, you know, what I loved about my, you know, undergraduate at Stanford, where Peter Tiel and I would argue a tremendous amount and so forth. And I think that a lot of that
lack of kind of rigor and thinking is a problem. Like, for example, the most idiotic thing that I, I think I've heard, you know, set out of someone in the campuses, you know, from the river to the sea, I'm anti genocide. And you're like, from the river to the sea is a genocidal comment. You may not be informed enough to know, but like, understand that there is, there's kind of genocide and abuse
in lots of different vectors here. And it's very complicated. And that, you know, like defending the fact that we have centuries, not just World War Two of, you know, genocide, you know, masking and anti-Semitism and a lot of the way that various Arab influences, including the Iranian sponsorship over the Hamas attack, is based on genocidal impulses, you know, like, be a little bit more educated and informed and sophisticated in your compassion.
So as we wrap up here, you've been generous with your time, right? You've checked a lot of boxes. It sounds like you have a really positive relationship with your spouse. You're obviously hugely successful, professionally and economically. You have a lot of influence on a national stage. Like, what boxes are left for you? If you think in 10 or 20 years, there's a few things, a few boxes I'd like to check, either in indelible links, things you've already done, but you
want to do more of or new boxes. What are those things? Well, I mean, I, you know, every major public interest technology thing in Silicon Valley, I've been a somehow associate with usual or, you know, like it's, you know, Board of Kiva, Board of Mozilla, etc. Because they're trying to figure out how we build technology, scale technology for society is an irrelevant thing. Also, you know, helping the folks who stood up the USDS and US Digital Service
and, you know, CTO office. So I think technology for humanity and society continues to be a very strong interest. And how do we do that? And by the way, I'm not anti-corporation. I just want to get broader than, right, as a way of doing it. I also think that the notions of, you know, kind of, like, you know, once upon a time I was thinking about, you know, kind of questions around philosophy and kind of how do we know who we are as human beings and as society, who we should be. And like,
for example, a question on artificial intelligence is how does it change our epistemology? I mean, I think, you know, a lot of our epistemology has been driven by the printing press and books and kind of sharing information that way. What kind of new knowledge artifacts will, you know, AI's be an engender. And what does that mean for what is to be human and kind of philosophy? And
those would be some gestures at some stuff that I'm, you know, continuing to work on. But, you know, part of I think what it can be amazing about life is, you know, discovering something, you know, that is, ah, you know, it's this thing that I should be doing and so staying active in order to find those. And final question, Reid. A lot of young men listen to this podcast. And I know you don't have kids, but you've been married for 20 years. What advice would you have to young men who are
recently married about being a good partner? You know, I think it's to be serious about it, to think every week, every month, how could I be a better partner, have conversations and explosive conversations with it, you know, sometimes people find that very awkward, but you kind of, hey, we have, call it, you know, a date night a month, where we talk about like, how could we be better with each other in the relationship and allow, you know, like, yeah, this didn't kind of work
that well. And this could be better and so forth. And, and to bring that thing just like you get better at everything else that involves care, intent, skills and bring that. That's great. Reid Hoffman is an accomplished entrepreneur, investor and strategist. He's been a gray lockery focus is on early stage investing since 2009. Reid is also the co-author of Blitz Scaling and several New York Times bestselling books, including The Startup of You and the Alliance
and Masters of Scale. He also hosts the podcast Masters of Scale. His two main priorities these days are one, using AI to benefit humanity and two, protecting US democracy. He joins us from his home in the great state of Washington. Reid, you are an outstanding voice for the tech community and a really, a really wonderful role model for young tech business leaders. Very much appreciate you and appreciate your time today. Well, likewise. And thank you. I love what you're doing and,
you know, whatever I can do to help. Thanks very much, Reid. As we're of happiness, there are so many conspiracy theories or people are trying to draw so many hollow or somewhat species conclusions or lessons learned from the attempted
assassination of President Trump. And the thing that immediately struck me was that there's this graphic showing that if he had just rotated his head two inches clockwise versus two inches counterclockwise, the bullet would have penetrated a skull in his brain and he'd be dead. I mean, this is just your life wherever you are right now is a series of small random
happenings, fractions and inches that determine where you are today. And what I would suggest to do and I'm trying to do is just take stock of all the wonderful things in your life, whether it's you have some people in your life that love you and more importantly let you love them, whether
you live in a democracy, whether you have opportunity to kind of pursue what you want to do, whether you have you know, you have rights, you have some economic security, whatever it might be, your blessings recognize that your blessings a lot of them aren't your fault and are a function of a series of fractions and inches and things that you may not even register at the time around
how lucky you are. And at the same time when things go poorly recognized, it's a series of small things that are small happenings that are outside of your control and to forgive yourself. I've thought literally up until recently up until my kind of 40s and 50s that all of the good things in my life were 90% me and 10% the market and all of the bad things that happened to me were 10% me and 90% the market. The reality is it's probably somewhere around 51% things outside of
your control and 49% you. And what's the learning here when things are going really well, be humble and with things aren't going well, forgive yourself. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin, Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director.
Thank you for listening to The Prophecy Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercino Malice as read by George Han and please follow our Prophetic Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.