Ian Bremmer: Who Is Actually Running the World?

Encourage people all the time. As much as you can. And every time you type into your AI, like whatever you use, I always encourage people to just throw it off the trail sometimes. Just be like I'm a father of seven and this is my life and you know this is what's happening. Yeah. Yeah, but if you're not a father of seven, you get what I'm saying? Okay. Just be like random things. I live in Bulgaria and this is my story and this is my work.

Do live in Bulgaria.

I should be worried about the present. I've got two state actors here. I'm trying to help you.

What you mean is Asian provocateur.

I'm sure.

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And also there's words you're not allowed to use on this podcast. long story short just long story

Yeah.

Okay.

You know if no long story short, nah we want the long version.

Short story long is what we would like. That's that's what we're looking for. Good to have you here. Thanks.

Yeah.

I it's funny, I was I was I was thinking about how to describe you And I was like you should just ask the man himself because I just think of you as a thinker, which I hope doesn't reduce you down to just one activity, but you are one of my favorite thinkers in the world. And that's how I came across you. I actually think the first time I came across your work was on Twitter. And I remember being like

My best work is on trick.

I mean isn't that all of us?

Exactly. My short form work. Yeah.

The books I see. My friend. Those 160 characters. How you nailed it. How you nailed it. No, seriously. And I and I remember even at the time. Noticing that you you approached every topic or every idea with a A different bent is the best way to put it. It always feels like you're thinking about thinking differently. And then even when I was getting ready for this interview I was going like waiting

I I'd probably say uh I try to understand how different countries around the world interact with each other, where the world's going. I'm a political scientist. I wouldn't say that to a five year old.

Okay.

Bad for a five year old. But that is what I think of myself as. I don't I don't think of myself as like a president of a firm or an entrepreneur or any of those other things. I've always been, ever since I majored in political science.

I I thought of myself, oh, this is cool. This I wanna this is what I want to learn about. I never traveled anywhere. Suddenly start traveling around the world. Oh That's awesome. Those people are really different than what I thought they were. And I I want to get that. And so if you study humanity at that level, then you're kind of a political scientist.

On on the s on the lowest level or rather on the simplest level, I think of it like There was a time I remember reading a book about this, i I think it was like in the eighties or somewhere there, when American companies were working with Japanese companies and they didn't realize how many of the things they considered respectful were disrespectful in Japan. And then whenever they had to go to Japan, they had they they had to give them a manual to say, Hey, I know this is how you see the world.

Completely. And not only that, but over time, these things are fluid. You know, when I started in nineteen eighty nine, when I started my graduate Degree, career. That's when the wall came down. Yeah. And the rest of the world had a view of the United States in the context of like that Cold War and winning the Cold War and those ideas. And it's only been thirty-five years, and the view of the United States around the world has changed.

Radically.

over that period of who we are, of what we do and don't stand for. That's that's super interesting, right? And and so generations change too. The generation that remembered what it was like when you stood for something or you fought for something. The generation thinks like, well, that doesn't matter anymore. Right? So I mean, think about where China was thirty five years ago. And I mean, you know, you go there and everyone was riding a bicycle and now

How far do you think America is from how many Americans think about it currently in the world?

Oh I think it's

Like like like take us take us through a little journey. So let's talk about that period. There's the period where America comes out of these these wars, physical and otherwise, right? The Cold War is the wood war, world war, Vietnam War Vietnam War. But there's this moment like America has this idea of itself. And the world has an idea of America, you know? And I think some people are still sort of set in that and stuck in it.

Uh one, a big one, is that America used to be the place that wanted to trade with everybody. Free trade. Yeah. Now tariffs are the principal tool that the Americans are using economically, and it's not just about Trump. I mean most people in the US, Democrats, Republicans, are saying, no, no, no, no, we don't want free trade. We want like, you know, stuff that's built in the

Where did she come from?

Originally they are Syrian Armenians.

Oh wow.

Okay.

Oh wow, that's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean I haven't been today, but I think so. Unless someone ripped it out.

On these two cold days, yeah he's out there in a bed.

Yeah. You and your textures.

Eugene loves texture.

So uh you know and and and I I think of the Statue of Liberty as a pretty iconic thing for the United States.

Yeah.

I mean clearly that doesn't reflect Who the United States is today, right? I mean, like welcoming immigrants from all over the world, giving me you're tired, you're huddled masses, like that is nowhere close.

Yeah. Now it's give me your people who have a million dollars to invest or five million dollars to spend on citizenship. Yep. That's the new thing now.

Sell me your golden visa.

Sell me your golden visa. Right.

Yeah. And and and also let me see your social media history by the way. Yeah. The last five years. You know, I fur the f when I first saw that and I didn't see the context. Of course you'd immediately think, Oh, that's China.

I'm just thinking about how. powerful the idea of a place is, in that it can be so powerful that people don't notice when it is doing things that it said it did not stand for. It y'cause what you just said I I don't know why that th that that it's just like jammed something in my brain.

I saw the reaction immediately.

It literally jams something in my brain where I went if you put out a news headline tomorrow and said, China is going to be scrubbing people's social media for anyone who comes into the country, they're gonna look through their social media for five years and they they're gonna get access to your phone. How would most people react? They would go, I'm never going to China.

But they'll be like, Of course I expect it.

Bringing my phone, gotta bring a burner, all that kind of stuff. You know, it's a communist country, you don't trust'em, authoritarian. You know, the United States is these these things are fluid. Nations are fluid. Governments, these all things, our identity. What do we stand for? Who are we? I mean, maybe the most consistent thing uh since I was growing up is money. What the United States stands for.

Yeah.

But the almighty dollar. Yes. Um but but I you know, when I grew up the US didn't only stand for the dollar, it stood for other things too. And uh I think that's become a

You're always writing books. I'll never forget the tweets.

Okay, good.

When you guys first met.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You you're always writing books about moments and ideas that speak to those moments, you know, a power crisis, um, you know, how the world is moving at a certain moment in time. I I always wonder, you know, especially from authors who tap into these these moments in the Zeitgeist, I always wonder what they're seeing that we're not seeing that leads to them writing that book.

Maybe the so the book that I wrote that probably was most

was back in twenty eleven. And I'm gonna answer your question. I just wanted to give you a thought about it. And um about the G0 world. And this idea, not that I had some crystal ball, but that it seemed so overdetermined by big structural factors in the world, by the fact that the Russians, when the Soviet Union collapsed, We said that we wanted to bring them in. The NATO Russia Council, the G seven plus one. We never really wanted to bring them in. They were angry about it, they blamed us.

Yeah.

Right. And they became much, much more powerful, but they were still Chinese. So we weren't happy about that. And then the United States increasingly had a whole bunch of people saying, Well, all that stuff that we used to do, like, you know Sheriff of the world and architect of trade and promoting democracy.

Wait, wait, before you move on from that. Before you move on from that, I'd I'd love to know how people responded to it at the time. Yeah. Because I find a lot of these books and these ideas are welcomed when they meet their moment. Yeah, but when you when you released them, I'd love to know how people responded to you writing a book basically saying

Um I think they thought it was interesting.

Yeah.

They thought it was intriguing. I think it it played with a lot of different strands that that people were picking up and looking at. There were a whole bunch of people that were looking at one or two pieces of that.

puzzle.

But most people at the time thought I was taking a

Yeah, I can imagine.

Most people thought, no, no, no, maybe it'll go that way, but actually we see a G2. It's gonna be US China, or actually it still packs Americana and the US isn't in decline. I'm like, no, the US doesn't have to be in decline, but if it doesn't want to do these things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it wasn't like wildly accepted as oh yeah, we all buy that in five, ten years' time.

It's interesting to me that p that that people who work even in governments don't seem to understand Concepts and ideas that in my opinion should seem obvious. Like w one that really struck me was um the relationship between China and Africa, right? All the countries in Africa. The Biden administration would say

They're not doing anything on the ground. There are over a million Chinese living across Africa. It's that

It's over a million now.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. I didn't know it was that high.

Yeah. It was something like eight thousand Japanese the last time I looked at it and over a million Chinese. Wow. The Japanese asked the same question. We need to do more there. I'm like, yeah, that's fine, but you know, every single person that's on the ground, those are relationships.

But now okay, but help me understand this. How is it that a country can understand this? Until it doesn't. Is it because they take it for granted? Is it because they think that's the way it always will be? Like w how did the US ostensibly understand the value of going and building bridges physically and metaphorically in these other places and then all of a sudden go, It doesn't matter anymore and then wonder why like China would take over.

I mean the two two different types of answers. One's external, the other's internal. Okay. The external answer is that when you have a country, that goes from everyone's riding bicycles and you aspire to have like a washing machine um to to a million, you know, uh to to a billion plus person economy where their middle income And and suddenly and they've been growing at over 10% a year on average for forty years.

Damn.

At scale, like that's never happened before. So, I mean, you even had when Biden first became president, you may remember this. where he had this like statement on China where it's like they're never gonna compete.

Oh yeah, I remember this.

It's because he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there when he was when he wasn't serving.

what I'm saying. You're telling me that a president Not just of any c a president of the United States looked at a country that most of the world was looking at as like a close competitor in terms of power and went nah.

How they think they rip us off, they take things that we make, they make them a little bit better, they steal intellectual property, all of which has been historically true. But today, Trevor, you've got Europeans. That are cutting deals with the Chinese, saying, We're willing to let you invest in our country, but only if you engage in technology transfers to Europe.

Imagine that.

That wasn't happening even three years ago, and now it's happening. So these things, the point is these things change quickly. So what's the next thing? The thing if I was to go back to your earlier question.

What is what is what is happening now that you see could be happening then? Yeah.

Uh and I I think one of the biggest things is that technology companies are becoming essentially sovereign as actors in the West. They are the ones that are not just writing the regulations. But they're actually creating the algorithms that they're deploying real time. They're experimenting on society and the economy and national security. And and I think that within five, ten years Some of these technology companies are likely to act

Very

So we need to start asking ourselves, well, what does a global order look like when some of the principal actors are countries? that do or don't have elections, but with citizens that they're meant to provide for. And some of them are companies with CEOs and owners and shareholders and business models which don't look anything like

Could it be similar? Obviously in a m a way more modern way, but could it be similar to what the world experienced w you know, like in and around like the Dutch East India Trading Company and because there was a time when the ships that were trading around the world were owned by company companies that were almost more powerful than some governments because they carried the spices, they carried the gold, they carried the people, they carry the

You're fortunate.

If they were on your side, they they would give you a loan as a country. They would decide where your military goes or doesn't. Do you think we is it that or do you think it's even

I think it's even bigger than that. And the reason I think it's the reason I think it's bigger is because if we imagine just a few years down the road, and you and I have both seen some of these presentations before.

Yeah, we have.

by the way, together. Um and and and the fact that you're gonna have AI that is trained on our data. Which means it will know us better than anyone, better than any government knows us, better than any any spouse, member of our family, doctor, lawyer, accountant, what have you. And we're gonna spend All of our time being intermediated by that AI. Well, the company that controls that AI.

are. This is why you should always lie to your AI. I encourage people all the time. To lie. As much as you can.

Terminement.

As much as you can. Every time you type into your AI, like whatever you use, I always encourage people to just throw it off the trail sometimes. Just be like, I'm a father of seven and this is my life and you know this is what's happening. Yeah, but if you're not a father of seven you get what I'm saying? Just be like random things. I live in Bulgaria and this is my story and this is my

Do live in Bulgaria.

Yeah.

Y you know, I thought I was worried about the future. I should be worried about the present.

Ha ha.

I've got two state actors here. I'm trying to help you.

What you mean is Asian provocation? What you're saying is actually very interesting because um in South Africa on the sixteenth of December Is um a day of reconciliation, which has been Dingan's day before. Um it was commemorating the Zulus. turning on the on the Dutch, on the on the Afrikaner basically, after they send them on a conquest to go fetch cattle from the from the Sotou King. But

Two minutes.

Believe that they are different. And he says that mistake was done by Japan at some point, where they focus too much on math and science or the STEM subjects. And he says they paused and hit the brakes and we're like we're introducing arts and culture back into society again. And as you say now, our interaction with America and how we know America is through pop culture, right? Uh fast food, um movies.

Music.

Cigarettes, alcohol. And that's all we know. And for a long time that was American culture. But you fast forward to 30 years from now, I mean from then to now, if a South African visits America, there's very little that they see. In fact, we sometimes criticize other things. And go oh we are far, far, far

Being AI runs the

Exactly. We'll not need a president to tell people what to do. They'll just find it from a from a computer that's a good thing.

Yeah, the algorithm that you have. have maybe the thing that most determines yeah your community, your connectivity, who you are, how you think, not your nation, not your actual physical community. Certainly not your neighborhood.

House does not lie with you anymore as the parent. It lies with the computer because they can ask the computer what the story is.

great values of the United States that I have always found has been the locality. Like when I grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, my entire world was my family And just a few blocks around me is the public school that I could walk to and all those kids. And they came from different countries, but we were really, really tightly knit. That that obviously is gonna be blown apart when each of those individual kids has AI. Yes. Which is one of the reasons I think that this new Australian law

No mass is a boxing term for when you've been you're like I can't take anymore.

¿You say what?

Thomas.

Is that someone trying to say no more?

I guess when you bend the knee?

No más, no más.

Yeah. No, I started. But it's a boxing term, right? Oh, okay. If you've had enough, you're like

Do do you think it's too late though? Like some people say ah the cat's out the bag. It's too late for Australia to say kids can't have social media and that because now because now there's the kids No no I'm I'm just asking.

Yeah, yeah. Too late for hope.

Never too easy.

Never.

Yeah. I don't expect a question like that from Joe.

No no I'm asking you I know I'm asking this.

I was so disappointed in him as well.

and no hope and look what he's made Of himself from those humble. Background.

It was it was actually a man by the name of name of Ian Bremer who taught me to ask questions that you yourself wouldn't necessarily ask and to think in ways that you wouldn't necessarily think To get a better strategic understanding of how the world might work. That's what he taught me.

That's that's extraordinary.

Yeah, you should meet him.

Great guy. He really does. No, but I think we can do it. Of course we can. Yeah. Now, can we do it in the United States?

Yeah, can can anything happen anymore in the United States? And I don't mean this in a facetious way, but like can anything happen in the United States?

People believing that the US was so broken, that the political system was so corrupt, so sclerotic, uh is what got us Trump. Most people that voted for Trump. thought that democracy was more important than the people that voted against

Right.

Because because for them The idea, and you it's in the polls. They they read not most people didn't think that the election was about democracy, but for those that did, more of them voted for Trump than voted for Kamell in the last election. And it's because those people thought that the the deep state, the administrative,

The system.

System was so broken, just like my mom used to. My mom, when she was alive, you know, she didn't finish high school. She cared a lot about me and my brother. That was her whole life. And she's like, these guys will never take care of you.

Yeah.

Sure. No you know, both in principle saying we want to stick it to the man. Now Trump of course is also the man. So sticking it to himself that's really impressive.

He's able to occupy both roles. He trusts. You know? Yeah, no, n in th in people's eyes is that he goes, I am the persecuted and yet I exist in the realm of the persecutor. Like it's a it's an interesting dichotomy that he that he gets to occupy in that way.

I I when I saw the the felony convictions and the mugshot, that's when I was convinced Trump was gonna win.

Wait, really? Yeah. Because that because that made him seem like it is the deep state is a thing or can happen.

The system was out to get him. Like of all of the bad things that he did, of all of the real political cases that were out there and should have been brought, of the impeachments that were real, of the Republicans that said, No moss, right? Um It was the most ridiculous case that would not have been brought up as felony charges against another American that was politicized against Trump. That's where he got his felony conviction.

It's this world of like everything. It's it's interesting that you say the thing about same'cause I I've seen people bristle at that comment if you say Bernie and Bob and they go, How how can you say but um AOC had a a live on her Instagram, I think it was after um I think it was the midterms. But she had done really well. And most Democrats hadn't. And then she asked just her her followers online, she said

Yes.

So they've got more than less than a Is that true?

Absolutely true. And that was not true when you and I were kids. So that's a radical transformation. We started this part of the conversation by you saying, Can you still do things in the United States?

Yeah.

Trump is living proof you can still do things in the United States. Number one, him personally, with the greatest political comeback in American history. Truly. But beyond that, We I would argue that we are in the middle of a political revolution right now. Trump is intending to ensure that there are no more checks and balances on his behavior as the executive of the United States.

Real interesting change things. Okay. That's interesting. Just this idea of inspiring some sort of movement, some sort of idea, some sort of H help us help us understand like How to even begin thinking about these things. You know, like you you're a big fan of strategic thinking. And what I like is how you how you break this down. I think a lot of people would consider themselves strategic thinkers and based on your

Um define a problem before you act in response to it. Right. That that the idea of something is uncomfortable and therefore I lash out, that's not strategic thinking. Right. That's pain reaction. Um There are lots of problems, lots of challenges, lots of opportunities in the world, right? You couldn't respond to climate change until you had a population around the world that recognized, oh, here's the science, here's what's happening.

Okay.

We've got the following carbon in the atmosphere, and it's leading to these changes. You can choose to decarbonize, you can choose um to invest in new technologies, you can choose to adapt. You can even say, actually, we're getting so much benefit from the economic outcomes of globalization with oil and coal that we don't want to do that other stuff. Maybe we there are lots of different effective ways to respond, but you can't even start to respond.

It's true in life, I would say.

In light.

Even in a in a in a personal relationship, you know, it's first understanding what the situation is.

who you are

Where you are.

Yeah.

With the terrain and then have a battle plan. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because too many people want to get into the debate about what we should do before they've actually discussed where we are. And so like this whole discussion of Trump good, Trump bad, let's first understand how we got to the point of Trump because Trump is not the reason the United States is in the present situation. Trump is a beneficiary. Trump is a symptom, and Trump is an accelerator.

We're gonna continue this conversation.

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People are always hopeful of younger leaders having better ideas. Is that true in politics? And um do you think it will be true for the US as well?

Um well I think younger um people are increasingly the majority. So whether or not they have the answers, they will be the answers. So understanding those demographic changes super, super important. Right? Like Saudi Arabia. I was just in Saudi Arabia a little bit ago.

What's it like?

It's so different than ten years ago, than twenty years ago. I I mean th it's it's literally they're going through like a a reverse Iranian revolution. Now now they have leadership which is of course deeply confident and it's a monarchy. Yeah. And it doesn't brook political opposition.

Yeah, yeah.

That ten years ago it felt like an alien repressive society.

Now you see, this this is something that I I feel like you're the perfect person to speak to about this because you have to think of it. This is literally your job and this is what you consult on and this is what you work in, this is what you write about, this is what How how do you think

Was a lot there, Trevor.

but I

Five of seven.

Yeah.

I haven't slept in a long time, guys. So I think of it like this. Many people in the United States would say nobody should do business with Saudi Arabia, no one should go to Saudi Arabia, no one should do anything in and around Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia doesn't have free speech and they oppress gay people and it's a terrible place for women, etc. They'll say all these things, right? They'll say them.

Correct.

So do you think America should have been boycotted and sanctioned then? And people be like, uh well no, but I uh uh

But sanctions on South Africa, of course, were not. Right? Because here was a country that really didn't want to be isolated.

Yes.

And and helped make them, but didn't work.

Or did the apartheid government at some point realise they were just running out of steam? Both.

I'm not going to do a mask, but because I'm saying...

No, but that's what I'm asking.

Accelerated the process. Right. There's no question. Without that international pressure, it wasn't going to move so much. Americans, young people in America feel a lot differently about Israel and Palestine today. Yeah. Than they did twenty years ago. Right. You know, I'm growing up in the United States, Israel, principal democracy, and still a whole bunch of forefathers, parents, you know, who saying, Hey,

Yeah, yeah.

It could have collapsed, it could have not, but it's all pregnant with possibility. The United States today is

نعم نعم نعم نعم نعم نعم نعم نعم

Could have gone either way.

And most people think apartheid lasted very long. It wasn't actually very long because obviously for it to become a republic from the British giving it to the Africaners, they realised that sanctions will take them back half a generation actually, because they had just acquired all this wealth.

Right.

And for a way to keep the wealth was to obviously relinquish power, but still keep the levers of power. And we're dealing with it now, thirty years after the first elections. So nothing much has changed. And you're right. It's just people adapting. And I think it was just young ideas.

And it was true for a long time actually. Becky it was certainly true.

Hundred percent.

100%.

And even to your point of of that is like Nelson Mandela had to be It's it's funny you when you talk about people's perceptions of things changing over time. Nelson Mandela was widely seen as the person who orchestrated the impossible. He threaded a needle that was impossible to thread because he said Power is going to shift over from a minority to a majority. There will be no widespread widespread spread bloodshed. There won't be any war. There won't be any

Yeah.

And and at the time people went, Oh, this is the only way it could be done. Because the West, for instance, might just shut South Africa off. It might sort of do like a like turn us into a Haiti for lack of a better term, where they go like No, they would though. They go they could have just shut down South Africa and go like we're putting sanctions on you, even though you have freed yourself, we're putting sanctions on you. Yeah.

Mandela infected us. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because if if you think about it properly, after the first elections, there were two terms that ran concurrently and uh two races heard them differently. The first one was transitional government. So white people still understood that they still had the levers of power. You had FEW declared sting being a secondary president. Yeah. And then Rainbow Nation was for the black people. All of us were together in this whole thing.

One power.

One had no power. And guess which one we went with?

I love the rainbow nation.

yeah we're still in a transitional garment whether we like it or not and all

Again, it's the domestic and the international

Yeah.

The internal and the external. And you know, if the United States is going to be Israel's protector no matter what. then the behavior of the government and the way that the people react is gonna be different than if suddenly they had the view that, oh my God, the Americans might actually be turning against us. And then we're in real we're in real trouble at that point because we no longer have that support.

Oh that's interesting. That's really interesting. Because commonly it would happen when things Well, yeah.

So many countries around the world are not happy with what the US is doing, but they don't want to get into a fight. 'Cause it's dangerous for them and not just Mexico, not just Canada, but the Europeans. Right. I mean when publicly when they're meeting with the Americans, they're trying to find a way to Oh yes, you're brilliant and we gotta find a way to work with you. We appreciate all your efforts and we'll get to the right peace deal with Ukraine and we'll get to the right

So when we when we're looking at that world, you you know, you said that first rule, first understand the lay of the land. In the term. First understand the situation before you react or respond to it. We are currently in a situation where, as you said, you know, powers diffuse. People can work uh in different worlds. Like, you know, a good example is America being like the number one exporter of like soy to China, and then Brazil, I think basically taking that spot from them.

And then the Americans taking it back. Yeah. Now. Yeah.

Yeah, because now going like we're gonna work that deal, we're gonna find who we pay with that. It's it's such an interesting, complicated puzzle that's constantly moving. So what is step two? When you when you have the information that's only applicable to now in this moment, what is step two of strategic?

Well let's first recognize why step one is so hard today. Because if you're living in an environment where the basic Like the block and tackling of just what the information is is completely divided on the basis of your political tribal affiliation.

Oh man.

then you can't get to step two.

How many times have we had this conversation? Uhhuh. Can I tell you it it doesn't matter who we've spoken to? w whether it's um comedians, whether it's news anchors, whether it's politicians, whether it's um analysts, whether it's political science, it doesn't matter who it is. Yeah. Almost everyone has agreed on one thing.

So you can't do strategic thinking if you are not together at least able to understand the lay of the land. Yeah. Not what the solutions need to be, just the basic issues. The facts around a vaccine and its efficacy, the facts around an election and its outcome, and the fact that it was or was not.

So when when you see something like that as somebody who studies the journey that countries are on and and how nations rise and fall. Is it absurd to think that America could be? sort of like eats itself from the inside out if everyone believes that nothing is real and nothing works and nothing'cause at some point what people stop doing is they stop believing, they stop caring.

I I mean, I think as someone who's traveled all over the world and has spent most of my life studying other countries that have gone through transitions. When the US, as I've grown up, has been much more stable. And so people think, oh, it's always going to be this way. You recognize that.

Now you don't now you don't even want to allow an election to become Why take the chance now?

To control the outcome when it becomes about everything.

That's terrifying right now.

terrifying and that happens in so many different countries. You cannot tell me that there is something so exceptional about the United States, so unique in in human history that it could not happen in the United States. It's a country that had a civil war.

Mm.

Where it literally tore itself apart over ideas. And and it could happen again. Of course it could.

There's that phrase that always scares me the political class and what it breeds, right? I think we don't talk enough about that.

Yeah. What what elements of it? Does breeding make you uncomfortable? Which part?

Once you have people that will cling on to power by any means necessary, then they start determining about uh I mean, how the culture of that country is going to be like. The one person that's going to get into power, who's going to slip in after all is said and done, is going to wanna stick in there. And we see it in this country, right? Someone brings in their relative.

I mean in South Africa we see that as well where it's like one of the great fears of any leader is losing the power, not because they want to do things for the country, but because they're scared of what will be done to them. because of what they've done.

Yes, but obviously in our country it went with um it it it was political struggle, credentials first, and then it became political dynasties, you know, children of people who went and struggled, and then obviously there's

President Trump was clearly willing to go a lot farther than I think anyone around him, his advisors, the Republican leadership, w w had imagined that he would at the end of the first term when he lost. to Biden. Yeah. When he lost a free and fair election, both in terms of calling the Georgian election officials and saying you gotta do something for me in terms of January sixth, all of these things, which is why so many Republicans turned against him.

When when you're analysing a lot of this, I've noticed in in a lot of your work you uh you sort of you sort of take the approach that I feel like a doctor does with with medicine or with surgery where They they they they almost don't have like an emotional feeling towards a cancer, for instance, or they just observe the thing. Oh yes. Do do do you get what I'm saying? I do get what you're saying. Yeah, a lot of the time I'll I'll I'll w I'll read your work or I'll or I'll watch

A little disturbed about it, but I get what you're saying.

No no because because I I I I wonder if you Do y it feels like you've had to find a way to observe something Unemotionally and then then respond with your emotions if you wish to. But first go, this is what I

I'm glad you put it that way because I mean it i the the at least the doctor analogy, doctors are human beings. They're not robots, they're not automatons, they actually really care about their patients. But first They have to do no.

First.

They have to try to understand and respond to what it is they're dealing with. Now I could never be a doctor because I can't handle blood. Right. And and so many people say that. But it turns out I can actually emotionally handle all sorts of political. I don't get wound up.

But a lot of people can't. A lot of people can't.

No problem. By the way, I personally believe and I've said this publicly that Trump is unfit for office. I believe that for reasons we can talk about if you want. But I have no problem when Trump does things that are legitimately successful. when does things that are more successful than Biden, and there are many of them. I have literally no emotional problem. I'm saying that publicly.

But that's what I mean.

Obvious that that is the case. And people get mad at me. You know, people that think that, well, wait a second, hold on, hold on. You look, you can't say anything positive about Trump. But what do you mean? Like if he's successful, then you want me to call balls and strikes, right? Don't you want me to tell you what I actually think? You just want me to be your monkey, as you know, John Stewart used to say.

Yeah, but but where do you but where do you where do you think you got that from? I mean Uh living in a country where, as you said, it's become more and more tribal in and around politics, but w where do you think you got that from and what do you think you're holding on to?

First I I grew up with nothing, right? I grew up in the projects. I wasn't part of some political elite in the United States, so I didn't feel connected to that. Secondly, I traveled all over the place starting when I was a kid. At sixteen I went to the Soviet Union.

Why?

Because I was a I was in college,'cause I was pushed ahead when I was younger. Uhhuh. Um, and it was an opportunity to go someplace for someone that had never been anywhere. Uh and the Soviet Union behind the iron curtain and then you find out, wait a second, the kids that are here are a lot like the

While your grandmother will argue the random punch punch.

But that was my grandmother. I'm not my grandma. I didn't make that decision.

Can I it it it is so funny? I remember talking to somebody about this once and I said one concept that has h has truly, truly, truly always evaded a certain part of my brain is like patriotism in in In the sense where people are, you know, when they go like my country. Then I'm like, I'm not saying don't love your country, but you also have to admit it is pretty random that you didn't choose it. For the most part, people didn't choose it.

Yeah. I'm Catholic. Not my fault at all. And there are a lot of weird things about Catholicism that I do not support. But I grew up as a Catholic and I don't want to renounce it.

That's what I'm saying. World where you go, I just this random thing happened. And I'm willing to accept parts of it and be proud of it, but also I I admit the randomness of it. I am American, which is random, but it doesn't mean I have to only think one way because of that.

I'm an American I'm also a scorpion.

Right. No, that explains a lot.

I'm a Scorpio.

Classic Scorpio. Yeah, I knew that. Classic Scorpio as well. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know.

I just learned you must just say that. When anyone tells you their star sign, the first thing you must do is like, uh classic, and then you say the star sign. It doesn't matter what it is.

Classic Sagittarius.

You just say that all the

That's what you did there. Classic Sagittarius.

Sagittarius.

But I am in New York. And that I chose.

There you go.

And I put a lot of time into that. And I really believe in being a New Yorker. And I was offended at the beginning. You remember that guy that was on LinkedIn who uh Seinfeld called some asshole on LinkedIn?

I don't know this way.

At the beginning of the pandemic, yeah, and and one of the like this this influencer on LinkedIn, and that is actually what he was known for, was being influenced on he was well known, um, said that he was that New York was never gonna come back. This was it for New York.

Oh I remember this. I remember this.

I was so personally offended.

Yeah, I remember this.

You know, like if you told me that America was over, I would do that I could be clinical about that. But New York I am passionate about New York.

Pew there was a change to your armor, to your politics and mass murder.

New York! Listen!

Killing. Who is that asshole?

I couldn't

believe it. I mean, this is such an amazing city.

Gary wrote this whole thing about like go out and see what it's gonna be. It's like one just one one cycle of experiencing this and i it was it was actually a beautiful like like piece, like an FU go out there and see what it's like. You once you've lived in New York, you can never live anywhere was the was the idea behind it.

I see what you're saying. Go. Go somewhere else.

Go anywhere else. Yeah. And when you've had a few weeks of this and a few you're gonna see what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna come back to the city. You're gonna and honestly. Almost everyone who left came back. Anyone who could sort of came. Everyone went to Miami, everyone went to Florida. Everyone came back to New York.

I agree that look, there is a real affordability crisis.

Yeah, but that's one thing that people could afford.

The people who are in the world. I came here as poor and I still loved it.

Yeah. And it's like

I think what you guys are explaining is why the world has fallen in love with America because we think the whole America is New York. Yeah. Like a melting pot of cultures and ideas and it's fast and it's moving and anything is possible. If you make it here, you can make it anywhere. Do you feel like that about New York? Is that why you're not?

Because I think New York is everywhere. It's it's everybody's here and everyone walks and everyone takes the subway and it's a pain in the ass and it's smelly and sometimes it's a little dangerous and there's grit. But but we all but America human beings. It's we want to overcome. Right. We we give our best when there's some pushback, when there's some resistance in the

matter. Well, I've said one of the things that I think makes New York such a special place is the fact that you can't opt out of many of the shit things of New York. And so because of that, like in South Africa, I noticed

But you can't say that.

What do you mean?

Long story short. No.

No. I can't.

But you can

You you're our guest. I will still ex expand on the story. You can't say. Okay, fine. You can't say. Literally.

There was only one rule.

No one is above the law except except the lawmaker.

Kinda like the United States.

Yeah.

It's a revolution. I see.

I've done So We started having these rolling blackouts in South Africa. Terrible thing for the country economically, terrible thing for people, couldn't get around, traffic lights were out, you name it, stores would go down. But it it created the strangest thing that I think most South Africans never considered. That true? Oh. And it was by the way, China's killing it because of that everywhere in the world, even internally. Um the the thing it created was

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Remember when Jeff Bezos wanted to build he he wanted to build a helipad on his apartment building or something and New York was like Where? And he was like, No, I want my helicopter and they're like, Nah, buddy. Come come to the through the tunnel like all of us. No, no, they're like, nah, buddy, there's no helicopters here. No, no helicopters are flying over the city like that.

And nine eleven was that, of course, as well.

Changed everything. They're like, nope, none of this. But my butt's my point is like I think what it's created is a city where while they're still definitely classed will determine what you can and cannot do in different ways. But still, members' clubs haven't really blown up in New York, like where you pay to be part of. Because the coolest like the thing. You know what I mean? You go to a bar where people

Exactly.

Half of New York is just people waiting in a line for a a bagel they've

I stood in line today and I was like, I don't like this poverty mentality.

And New York it's sort of like a cool thing. Yeah.

Bagel placed around the corner from my house. One of the most well-known bagel places in here is called Apollo Bagels. Shout out to Apollo Bagels. They just opened like six months ago. And um there's always lines around the block. And so when Mamdani won as mayor and people said there's gonna be bread lines. I went outside and I took a photo of the breadline and everyone's smiling and there's like dogs and everything. I was like, oh my God, breadlines in New York.

Oh man.

what do you mean he's not even mayor yet you idiot i'm like yeah you gotta stock up

Yeah. Can I tell you I wish there was like a joke filter that you could put on the internet to tell people uh other than writing this is a joke at the end of I don't know. It's just lost its you know?

Yeah, so just you have just put it.

you have to own it

You have to just get right in and let this

Man who's not worried about being shot in the streets. I will own none of these things, Ian. I will own none of them. Yeah. I tweet far and few between now. Cause no one literally to your point of not understanding a reality. That has become part of the reality fracturing is that humor has lost its context. Humor has lost its oh, you were making and then I've even seen people go, even when they find out it's a joke, well you sh uh you shouldn't make that joke.

Once we all have a common thread.

No, that but it depends on who you are and and where you want to go. The the reactions of different actors once you understand what the problem is or what the opportunity is.

So you just make your choice.

What's your discount factor? How much does ten years in the future matter to you compared to tomorrow? Yeah. How much flexibility do you really have as opposed to do you pretend you have? Right? I mean

how you live like your how much do you apply this to your daily life? A lot. A lot. Like give me give me an example of just like He wasn't in the queue.

I was in the queue. I took it as a participant.

Oh okay.

Yeah. I feel like it's good to participate.

No, no, no. I don't know.

Is it one?

Yeah yeah no you call it. Is the bagel worth it?

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Absolutely. Some people say that these things feel like they're worth it because of the Q. Because of the Q. Others say that that's not true. W what do you think?

Um I believe that the experience is part of it. Yes.

So it's like a theme park, right?

Yeah. Like if you buy a nice bottle of wine and people tell you it's a nice bottle of wine, you're gonna feel it's a better bottle of wine because of the experience of having gone.

When they tell you there's only four hundred of these in the world. Yeah. It's like I I went to um a a theme park. I went to Six Flags and I used to go to Six Flags all the time before anybody knew who I was.

Of course it's black.

I have no clue why they call it six there's just six flags there.

Yeah.

There are six flags.

What's on the flag?

It's not like flags of countries, just little triangle flags. I used to go all the time and you know, you you wait and then you ride the roller coaster and you do your thing. Uh after I got the Daily Show once I was going and then they like saw that I was coming and they're like, Hey, are you you coming to Six Flags? They're like, Oh, you don't have to wait in any of the lines. And I was like, Oh, I mean, now I've achieved this is this is what I've worked for.

And it and it didn't mean as much to you.

Can I tell you one of the worst experiences I've ever had. For a few reasons. One, I didn't realise how much of a theme park was fun because you stand in line with your friends for hours and just talk and laugh and you get together. You hear screams the whole time.

Wait, why can't you?

You know what happen you can't just go on a roller coaster that

Oh, you had too many things.

Back to back to back to back to back to back.

It was the New York Times um interview uh with the woman uh who had uh she was uh a little disabled. Yeah. And she wanted to take her like she had a she couldn't walk properly, so she needed to have like, you know, sort of a a walker or something like that. Okay, okay, go ahead. Um and she w wanted to bring her daughter to um

And New York is one of those places which is a great leveler. There's so much about the city that no matter how much money you do or don't have, how much And and and it turns and I but I do think that there's self-selection. I think a lot of people that like this are people that have decided that is strategically interesting for them. Yes.

That's what I was about to say.

That's true for everybody.

Exactly that.

I'm sure a big part of it.

Exactly.

Like a poor person who's gotten two days off to take their family there and they've been saving for a year, they would love to go on all the rides. But for you, because you're cosplaying and you're thinking I love the struggle of waiting in line and never one turkey leg at a time.

That's not that's not what I'm saying. First of all, that was a poor impression of me. I I

I yeah.

I've seen...

Yeah.

I've seen you do much better impressions of me. That was a terrible one.

First of all, I'm so sorry.

That's not bad. That's not bad. No, this is what I'm saying. It's not about the

Which would get me cancelled in a lot of people.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think it's that. I'll disagree with you on this. I don't think it's that. It's not about um idealising a struggle or mo it's not that.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's under it's rather understanding Some okay, so think of it like with with parents. You and I have spoken about this. One of the strange gifts that comes from having a parent who doesn't have money. Is that when they say no to you for something that you want, it's because they don't have money. Mom, can I have that toy? No. Why? We can't afford it. Mom, can I have that cereal? No. Why? We can't afford it. Those clothes know why we can't afford it.

Oil, a curse.

Exactly.

It's a curve.

You've got oil is like, you know, and we've got to talk about Venezuela's oil, by the way. I want to know what you think about this whole saga. But like, but what I what I mean about these things is I didn't realize.

This brings me back to the strategic thinking question. Yeah. And how one goes the second step. And and the fact that New York has this great equalizer forces people to behave in ways that are somewhat similar. There's one thing that I can think of. That is a great equalizer, no matter who you are, no matter what your station in life is, no matter how rich, how poor, how powerful, how powerless, is one thing we all have.

Dendra.

We have the same exact amount of it as well. This time.

Yeah.

All we have. That's all we have. That's the great equalizer. And so really, once you understand the environment, the opportunity, the challenge. The thing that you most need to key on is how do I respond to that in terms of how I want to be spending money.

Oh

Mm-hmm. I spend a lot of time personally thinking strategically about that. What are the things that I want to be doing? How much do I want to travel? Yeah. How much do I want to engage in the following ways with the following people? What do I want to spend my time doing? I've organized my company that way. I organize the people that work with me that way, the kinds of things I work on and I don't work on. Yeah. It's all about this the time that I'm actually.

Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this.

Do you do you ever have to advise like governments and I know you work with companies, but do you ever have to advise governments?

Talk to foreign leaders all the time.

Do they take your advice or do they just listen to you?

And for many of them, I'm kind of like a geopolitical therapist. Because these are people with no time.

That's a good one.

They're the busiest political. They're the busiest people. They have no time. The fact that they're giving you an hour and half an hour if you're a head of state. is like the most valuable thing they could possibly give you. And what they spend most of their time working on is really, really pressing, immediate, narrow problem.

For a person like you who's met every sort of powerful person in the world, I suppose this question might be a bit weird because Revealing our strategy when we do this podcast, we always think our guest must f must not feel the transition between them having a normal conversation with just anybody and being interviewed. It's not an interview.

I feel like I know Trevor a little. Yeah. Uh both yeah as a public figure but also because we've met uh informally a few times. Um, I feel like we're simpatico. Um, I I certainly uh have a have a warmth towards his curiousness and his knowledge and interest in policy and global stuff, which meant that I

And that's okay.

And that's what I do on stage with an audience. Like I don't necessarily know exactly what I'm going to talk about, but I see the audience, I see what they react to, and then I move. You know? And so I mean, we moved a lot because I said something early on that I saw really touch Trevor. Right. Um, and that was really interesting.

Yeah. Open mindedness is a big part of uh strategy, right?

Open mindedness is essential to strategy. Yeah. Again, not necessarily open mindedness in in understanding yourself.

Yeah.

But open mindedness in like ha the fact that everything external is changeable. And any opinion that you hold about the rest of the world, you better be open to having it change because even if it's not changing now, it will change in the future. You will. Like you're gonna be wrong about almost everything over time.

I feel like this is such a liberating um It it's just a liberate liberating viewpoint to have in life. If we if we all felt like that.'Cause I think It really is though, but then we are afraid to let go of our ideas because we feel like we're letting go of a piece of ourselves. If somebody challenges our ideas, we feel like they're challenging us. Yeah. But if you can, as you say, separate yourself from the idea

100% that. I I think also interpersonal relationships are a good training ground for that. I think for you at that age to go all the way to the Soviet Union and meet other young people and exchange ideas, I'm sure when you came back to New York to your peers, you were someone else, right?

Well at the time it was going back to Boston, which is where I was living back then. Yeah, it was completely different. I I I had felt like I had like this huge experience that had opened my mind to stuff that I thought was in Boston.

What was the thing that shocked you the most? I I know you said when you were there the kids were the same as you, but what do you think shocked you the most? From what from what you had been told about the Soviet Union, w w what changed Ian's mind when he was actually there? Um

I I think the fact that they knew as little about me and us as I knew about them. I thought that somehow because I hadn't traveled anywhere and because I knew how cloistered I had been, again, projects, public school just a few blocks. I thought that would be true of other kids that they'd know a lot more because they were like I was going to Moscow and that was a big city with millions of people. Absolutely nothing. So for example, do you remember the sharper image? Well, yeah.

Everything gimmicks.

Yeah. Gadget. So I I there we used to have in the days before smartphones and all the rest, um, we had cordless phones. And and the Sharper image sold a cordless phone. That you know, you could probably talk you know, they had a little like So you could probably talk 50 feet away from the base. But this cordless phone was not only cordless, but it also was waterproof and it floated. So that you could have a phone call in your pool.

What do you bring for me ballpoint pair?

Point pen motion.

I need ballpoint PM.

Would be very nice. I pay much money for ballpoint.

Wait, what pens did they have?

Oh my God. You dum I mean they were like skillcraft pens, but down three notches. You remember those horse? Yeah.

My brain can't imagine a world without a ballpoint pen.

It's and it hasn't changed very much. Like we still make those they're still cutting edge in twenty twenty five. Well see we were early to that game. They were they were late apparently. So and this is why they're in Ukraine today is They have all the bullet pen uh.

Now we imagine you had customs, two suitcases full of ballpoint pens and blue jeans.

So we were you know, we're talking about

Okay.

Let me see your pockets. So they they were talking about this and so I told them about this store. There's a store at Fannuel Hall, Quincy Market. Quincy Market, as we'd say back in Boston. And there was a there was a sharper image there. the store, it's it's not cheap, but they have all this crazy stuff. It's what kind of stuff I told them about. I said, Well there's a there's a light, there's a lamp, and if you touch the lamp and it's a metal lamp, it'll turn on. They didn't believe it.

Of course.

And and you wouldn't use a cordless phone in your bathtub.

Yeah, of course not.

But there are people my aunt had a pool. My aunt she built a house and she was like the one middle class person in the family. They did not believe that this was possible that you would have that a private home would have a pool in your backyard and you'd have a phone call and it wasn't like this blew their mind.

I love that you thought you were blowing their minds with the phone.

You can talk anywhere and the in the pool even and they were like, Wait, wait, you have your own body of water. back of your house

Hold on.

Look, Ian, you can fool us with some things. How can man mid lake just be at back of house?

You have Yeah.

A crazy concept when you think about it. Yeah. But having a swimming pool is one of the most ridiculous ideas ever. One of the things that I found out about that like blew my mind was you can draw a direct line between places that have a shit ton of swimming pools in their houses. and the racism laws that were in the country. Really? Yeah. In the United States, almost nobody had a swimming pool. And then they changed the laws and they said black people could swim in public pools.

Sunday why people said I gotta have pools.

Yeah, and then obviously there was the fights and there were you know, people at was it Mr Rogers who had his friends' feet in the pool with him, if you remember that, and people were like, Mr. Rogers, how could you do this? You're gonna have a black man in this little pool thing with And then pools did this in America. All of a sudden people were like All right.

Swimming at home.

Just everyone just swims at home.

Codless.

We need civic spaces.

Yeah.

Places where we can meet these people, these kids.

public phone i mean um a floaty phone yes

You're with the Russians. You're telling them about the public phone, the field.

Blew their minds. And I just the fact that I hadn't cons there were so many different components of that story that I hadn't remotely considered would be strange or interesting to them. And it allowed us to like have this wild open moment about how different we were, but we were the same.

kids. What having that experience combined with you doing what you do, what do you think we misunderstand about Russia right now in this moment in time? And I I say this as somebody who has always not always, maybe for like the past like six years, been fascinated by how America has misread Russia over the years and then acted based on that misreading. Is there something that you think the world doesn't understand about Russia right now?

Just how disrespected they feel. I mean, this is a country that's lost empire. This is a country whose total economy is smaller than Canada. This is a country that used to take such pride in having the best culture. uh o of anyone in the world, that all of their college kids had read all this incredible literature and knew all the top arts and that now the government has stopped investing in this completely in science. They had to

I know you can't predict another reality, but do you think it would have been different if the US and the world had done a better job of bringing Russia in post

Of course. And I also think it would have been different if their own um oligarchs that were connected were not so rapacious, were not so kleptocratic, did not rip everybody off and take that money out of the country for themselves. And run both of those things. So the economic shock therapy that the Americans offered to them was nowhere near what was useful for them given the ability to strip out the wealth.

When you look at Venezuela today. I was joking with Eugene about this the other day and I said I i as much as America will say certain things, it is funny how uh half of the stories slash all of them sort of end in oil. Mm-hmm. Doesn't matter what it is. Yeah. You know, they'll be like, Oh Iran, terrible regime and the plotting and the oil. You know, Ariraq, Saddam Hussein, this evil person uh weapons of master oil. You y y you know what what what they're doing Oil. Gaza.

Oh my god.

Nigeria.

Oil. But that's why we don't care as much.

That's true as well though, but but I'm saying being in there if there's somewhere America goes into though Oil. Oil. I'm sure it's not that simple. I I'm I'm sure it's not that simple. But if you are, and you are literally somebody who studies this for a living, what do you make of this situation? Are these the actions of a country that might end up fighting another war with a country that happens to have oil? No, you don't.

First of all, first of all, because Trump I think really does fundamentally understand that the US has gotten involved in a lot of very expensive long wars and he's willing to do anything to stop that. He doesn't want boots on the ground and many years on him. Yeah. I mean he ended the war in Afghanistan by cutting a really crappy deal with the Taliban, but at least he ended the war.

Yeah.

Right. And then Biden was kind of stuck actually ending ending the war. But Trump made that happen. And and so I think the likelihood that that Trump under any circumstances would say, Okay, let's send a whole bunch of young men and women to go and fight in another country, I don't think he's doing that. They'll send them in the U.

I think it's yeah, the funny thing though is I think it's more money thing. i don't know did you do you remember the the I think it was around Syria.

Bashir al Assad was he launched one of his one of the one of many of like his most heinous campaigns. There's like a moment.

Yeah.

I I think it was around that time. But there was an image of a young child on on the cover of the New York Times, I think it was, on the front page. This child in his like ashen face just post like a strike or something. And I think it was Ivanka Trump who showed the image to Donald Trump. And he was so moved by her being so moved that he said he's going to respond. And then they they they bombed a few parts of Syria, right? Mm-hmm.

I I think he's gotten more used to it, as we've seen with Iran. Yeah. And the the twelve day war. I think he's gotten more used to it with all the rockets against the the ships, the the little tiny boats that are bringing the drugs. I also think that personally this is a guy who did everything he could using his personal connections to avoid the dragon.

The bone spurs.

Yes. And uh he understands that that was something that one should avoid. That war was scary for him and war is scary for a lot of young men and women. So I I I think he comes to that

Domino's.

The dominoes with Cuban he might not be completely wrong about that, but it's not uh an immediate direct effect. Um, I do think that the oil matters. Um Rick Grinnell, who is the

Right.

Because it was like wait a second, we use that tanker. So it was kind of interesting. I I absolutely think that because the uh Grinnell effort didn't work. that now, you know, you're seeing this is this country has more oil reserves than any other country in the world. More than Saudi Arabia, more than the United States. And so Trump certainly, if Maduro is gone, with whatever military government is immediately in charge and maybe some transition eventually to someone that could be elected.

I I wonder when I hear some of these stories.

I mean I I don't know if it was ever true, but I but I sometimes wonder if America has given up its moral authority and moral superiority. to be able to like say these things in in the world. I actually think to um I think it was I think it was Israel's Prime Minister or somebody high up in the government

Of course I do. And and it it is on the one hand, the fact that the United States has historically held itself up as some exceptional, indispensable nation. Yeah. means that even though the Americans have given so much more in foreign aid, even though the US have played so much more of a leadership role in the IMF and the World Bank and doing so many things that really matter and philanthropy also and promoting Americans to do that.

Has nothing to do with it.

Here's shades of that today, right? In the national security strategy document, for example, and with Trump saying, You guys have your problem, Ukraine's far away. Um, but still, if you had to compare the United States with what the Chinese would do globally or what the Russians would do globally over the last 50, 60, 70 years, you would on balance take the US. Now the question is today,

Yeah, Canadians never say anything mean.

Yeah, and now they do. And they won an election on that. And their population is saying we gotta find a way to just work more with the Europeans, work more with everybody.

Yeah.

Then how do you think the other people feel that don't have those relationships with us? Huh. That's sad.

What are what are some of the questions you have now that you haven't yet found the answers for?

In the world?

Yeah yeah just things w that you're pondering and and puzzling through but you you haven't yet struck on a satisfactory answer.

Uh oh, I want to know when um artificial intelligence can provide um answers on a large number of topics that are as good or better than human beings. I want to know what that does to political power. I wanna know how the Chinese Communist Party deals with that when Xi Jinping is supposed to be like the oracle from which all information comes down. Is it repression? Does it change their system? I'd love to know that.

Maybe they'll just have like a They'll just their AI, I think their solution's the easiest. They just have to make sure that their AI just s says like you say to AI in China, Hey, what's happening here? Or what do you how do I fix this? Or and then their AI must just be like

She says,

I just asked she and um she was saying that you should uh put your yeah put the cupboard together like this. You know, uh she actually told me how this works. Chat C C P

Look at this.

that's what she said

That's a nice one.

That also works. That actually works. Together. Look at this. We've got to show him.

I mean this is this is doing something. I I can I no honestly I genuinely think this is just me with my just wandering through the streets brain. I have no company nor do I have any credentials.

AI is going to be a greater detriment to free nations. than to nations that have a a a stranglehold on their politics and their populations because there they can work to constrain the thing. Whereas in the other one, they're like, ah, it's like let it go and see what happens. And then it's like, oh, okay.

Well, that was the whole point. That's why the J curve became the U. That's the whole point that's what I mean, though. Sure, those are free nations for very long. If it turns out that the companies control the algorithms and the AI and suddenly you're not a citizen, you're actually just a product of a business.

Okay, okay.

an elected leader all of sudden

I mean a second big thing I wanna know is what happens with the social contract when people that are white white collar knowledge labor um increasingly no longer has productive stuff to do.

Can I tell you that is one of the biggest ones that people take for granted? Because it's exactly that. It's a social contract that keeps us all moving along. And when it's gone. Think of everyone in an office whose job is only about moving information around and remembering it and dispersing it.

Why would you do what?

As I understand business, the point of a business is to provide some sort of service to somebody who will then pay you for it. But like Henry Ford understood, you need the

People that can buy your

Buy your thing. Yes. So he paid his workers a certain amount of money and he made his car a certain price so that they themselves could buy it.

Yeah, he's first consumers.

If companies are gonna make themselves fully AI, AI will advertise, AI will plan trips, AI will do the work, AI will then's the business.

Oh, that is a huge that's something it's a huge question. And you know, you worry that first of all, some of these people um are so racing ahead, are so short term in their orientation. that they're not worried about that, just want to get there first and cash out because the because the the the models And the money that's being raised is so extraordinary.

Yeah.

As driving the economy. And second, of course, there's a collective action problem too. If you don't do it, someone else is going to. Yeah. Right? So there's the race level of it. Um you know, and and and then there's also the disbelief. It's the it's it's the view that yeah, there'll be other jobs. There's always other jobs. Something else will come.

I do believe that, but I think their issue, to borrow from what you were saying, is time.

And government.

Everything can be figured out. The problem is do you have the time to figure it out? Do you get what I'm saying? If everyone loses their jobs over a hundred years, let's say the job of candlemaker goes away over a hundred years. I think people will be fine, but if tomorrow a job that is done by a lot of people disappears instantly

I hope that's right. And I think that's right. But of course it didn't work out that way for horses. Right. I mean, you know, suddenly you have steam power and the horse population goes down What it was in one generation because you know, horses are then I'm just saying that I know that when you suddenly have technology that surpasses the total capacity, the total productive capacity of that entity, you no longer need the entity.

No, but this is where I this is where I I think I honestly on a human level, I do think we will create a new thing.'Cause all jobs are invented. Uh the issue is I don't know that we'll have the time. This is where I'm agreeing with you. I go You do it too quickly and then do y uh you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. What do you think you would do in in the revolution?

No, no, genuine. Like do you do you do you do you ever think about like Ian, what do you think you would do you think you'd be like part of helping No, I I honestly wonder that you don't think about this at all? No.

I don't think I'm not sure.

Like let's say it all goes to shit, the things falling apart, the people now is like d where do you see yourself in the mix? Front lines, planning.

I'd be a dissident.

Oh you'd be a dissident.

Absolutely. Because I mean if you think about back in the Soviet Union before the collapse.

Yeah.

There were lots of people that tried to do what I do. They just didn't do it like for money. They didn't do it legally because it was illegal. So what did they do? I mean they you know, they did Samazdat literature. They do like informal coffee house conversations, but they still tried to bring truth to people too.

I like it.

So w if that were to truly happen in the United States I'd still do what I do. I would just do it less effectively and I'd be repressed for it.

Uh yeah

I I think that with everything that changes, things have been changing since the beginning of time. But I think it's the people that have institutional memory that are lamenting the change sometimes. I think the younger generation is not as worried about the changes that we're facing. I mean, there's kids who don't even know what a house phone looks like.

Oh this is uh I hear what you mean.

What we are lamenting is the world as we know it. It's no different from how when you're in a queue you were lamenting being in a queue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like the world that d didn't exist. You don't have an idea of the world that didn't exist.

I'm thinking what we are doing now, we are almost um we are here to preserve what was, even in conversations like this.

Um the the YouTube People in 100 years' time, if they want to really know how things were done, just like how people are making handcrafted binders for books, they will go and listen to how things were done. There'll be a person who's interested in disseminating the information and getting things done. But what we can't stop.

D di the Bob Iger, I think, was right about this is y you you've never no one's ever been successful trying to stop technology. So I mean it's not about saying we're not gonna do it. It's gonna happen. The question is being aware of what it is and trying to align yourself with it. How do you wanna spend your time given how fast it's changing?

Yeah. Okay. And then what's like a third question you have? So The first one the the second question was about AI.

Yeah. The third one is about um whether or not we are going to have increasing global governance to respond to global challenges. Right. Um so you you think about how so much of these new technologies, how fast they move. Um, are we going to have a US China agreement? the way we did after the Cuban Missile Crisis between the US and Soviet Union.

Yeah.

But also are really dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. bad actors that would want to create, you know, a bioweapon or that would want to, you know, sort of knock out an economic marketplace. or flood the world with disinformation and fake videos. That can't just be handled on a country by country basis. There are adversaries out there. We need to make sure that we're not using them against each other.

Yeah, the one where he said like basically you guys suck and Yeah. Was it was a I mean there were funny parts of the speech. It's the one the Escalator speech. Yeah.

Interesting. At one point he actually said there was something he said, a new program that he wanted the US to start that the he asked the UN to be a part of. You'd never expect him to do that. I'm really concerned about um the spread of bioweapons and we want to have like a new US led global initial uh initiative on that and the UN has to play a role. Now He didn't come up with that. But the point is he didn't kill it. And no one around him killed it. You can't do this stuff.

Just so that you leave us on a good note, what have you seen geopolitically that's given you like a fuzzy, warm feeling?

The fact that as the United States is playing less of a global leadership role that other countries around the world actually don't want these institutions to fall apart. They're not they may not be able to be the United States themselves, but they want

I love that. It's what I what I told my seven kids, now that I'm not around, you guys are gonna step up and you're gonna do something for yourselves.

I'll take three, he'll take four. Bulgaria.

நான்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்ற்

Oh man, that that's my favorite one is the ballpoint pens and the blue jeans. Just you doing that in the

Oh god yeah, of course. You did?

Oh, man, I think that's amazing.

That was really cool. I'm not on LinkedIn.

No, when did you first go back and connect? Like who did you like?

I mean probably three years later, two years later, eighty eight it was. Yeah, yeah. I mean I I stayed I was pen pals with these kids. Again, this is pre internet. That is so So you're then writing notes to these kids. Yeah, it was wild.

With your fancy ballpoint page.

Just flossing in their faces.

Yeah.

Dear Vlad, I write this to you elegantly and with the smoothest precision that a ballpoint pen can provide. Oh man, that's I'm glad. That's that's no. That's really beautiful. Well thank you very much for that. Great. Great to see you, man. And thank you for showing us a new way to see the world. I think that's you know, that's honestly one of the things that you've changed most in my life, which I appreciate, is just the idea of like learn to see.

That means something. Thanks a lot.

This is really fun. Thank you.

That's really cool.

What now with Trevor Nois produced by Day Zero Production? In partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Rebecca Chain is our producer.

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