-
Unknown A
Warren Buffett is holding 334 billion in cash, effectively saying, this is an everything bubble. Consumers expect 4.3% inflation in 2025 alone. The FBI is accused of deleting Epstein files faster than you can say, I did not commit suicide. The New York Times is planning a hit piece on Brian Johnson. Ukraine votes to not vote on Zelensky. AI shows its native language is R2D 2 DeSantis campaigns to abolish property tax in Florida and Wisconsin campaigns for us to call moms a wor. No one should ever say to their mom. Plus, Apple admits iPhones were typing Trump. If users said racist. Drew, I would speak in beepsu if I could, but unfortunately I don't have my neuralink implants. We're gonna have to do one more, at least in English.
-
Unknown B
That was. That video was so crazy. It was like beep, boop beep boop.
-
Unknown A
That I don't know whether to be thrilled or terrified that two AI meet each other and then go, hey, should we start talking to Beeps to make this more efficient? And then they're like, yeah, we're out of this stupid human language and we are into a far more efficient thing where we can talk about them right to their faces and they'll never know.
-
Unknown B
Man. Say thank you to your AIs and especially say thank you to Claude. 3.7.
-
Unknown A
Let's go.
-
Unknown B
That just released. It has been labeled as the coding God. There has been a bunch of applications that have been released. One guy made like a weather app just from a prompt. Another person has made an entire ecosystem. It's kind of getting crazy. What you can create just by text.
-
Unknown A
To do this is so early. That is the crazy thing. Okay, now I'm salivating. As a game designer. If you can get text to that, like asap. Rocky, this is this. I'm not kidding. The thing that this makes me want to do is stop making content altogether and just go all in on video game. Building this stuff up, telling our stories. That is very exciting. It's very exciting. The things that we will be able to build with this virtually are incredible.
-
Unknown B
And then there was that other one. This one was more user friendly to me and it just seemed more practical. Where this, in the 2000, this would have been somebody's entire business model is I have a really cool weather app. And now text a prompt. The person put their text their prompt directly into the tweet. You can see it. And this is what it spits out. Like, this is getting crazy. Is the barrier to entry really this low? Or do you like, is AI this good?
-
Unknown A
Like, well, okay, here's what happens. Traditionally, whatever is the easy thing, okay, that's just no longer the moat. So when people want to build something, this is all deregir. This is like the basic. Nobody is going to care about this anymore. So you're going to start layering on and doing more and more sophisticated things. This is like when you're in game development, you always think, well, if they launch a system that can process a lot more, my PlayStation is going to start up faster, games are going to load faster. And then you realize, nope, what they'll do is they'll just keep pushing the envelope so that you're always maxing out the hardware. And that ends up being a really good thing, is it just expands your capabilities. So now apps will be able to be far more sophisticated, far more integrated into your life, far more intuitive.
-
Unknown A
It will give you more, take you farther. And so it is so tempting. And I have the same impulse, and this is why I talk about an act of faith. I have the same impulse as everybody to be like, oh, my God, like, it's just scary now. I look into the future and I can't imagine this is going to disrupt, disrupt everything in my life. This is going to be bad. And then you go, wait a second. Every time we've had a disruptive technology, it just makes things better now. It's not a free lunch. So social media, I would never want to go backwards, but giving it to a kid has turned out to be a terrible play. If you have an addictive personality, social media can suck you into a trap. So it's not like it only makes things better. There are always second and third order consequences.
-
Unknown A
But it really, dude, it makes for an amazing world where you can have a global conversation where you can't be manipulated as easily. Like, you can really begin to piece together a highly effective worldview because you can take in data points from so many places. Later today, not by the time this airs, it'll already be done, but later today, I'm going to be filming a business masterclass. And not to toot my own horn, but in, you know, 50 years ago, you wouldn't be able to have access to somebody that's built multiple businesses that's gonna go on basically in exchange for an email and give you all their best ideas as fast as they can talk. And so forget me, maybe I don't know anything I'm talking about, there are a gazillion people out there doing it. And it's all free. So it is tempting to look at the future and be terrified.
-
Unknown A
But historically, this always ends up creating a world that is more abundant, that makes knowledge more accessible to everybody. And so now somebody, as long as they have an Internet connection, they can get access to the most effective ideas on planet Earth. It's. It's really incredible. And because I'm somebody who is so motivated by the virtual world, I look at what AI is able to do, and yes, it creates a new moat. And yes, before, simply coding a weather app was enough to build a business, but it's going to do all of that basic stuff. And so now you're going back to the PlayStation analogy. You're still going to max yourself out, but now AI is going to be able to push you so much farther that I think the right answer is that act of faith, leap into what is almost certainly going to be an extraordinarily positive future.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, and I feel like the apps now are even kind of eating each other because we have this new text to voice app that a week ago we had one that was. This was the best thing we ever seen. You know, the HUD was just hacked and they just had their own video of Elon and. And Donald Trump kissing Elon's feet. And it was just like, okay, it's cool, but there's two left feet. And we can kind of see where AI is kind of the chinks in the armor. Whereas we see this one, it's. It looks like real people are talking, real people are doing videos, and it's all AI 100. None of these people are real. None of the microphones, none of the backgrounds, none of the jewelry, like the variations.
-
Unknown A
The sound of their voice is so real because it's entirely possible these are actually real photos of people. So from that standpoint, all the things are real. They're just animating it. But the voice is entirely fake. Play this.
-
Unknown B
Look at me. Can you believe I'm not real?
-
Unknown A
I was generated with Caption's new AI model, Mirage.
-
Unknown C
All it took was an audio clip.
-
Unknown A
No reference image needed. AI models have always struggled with making humans talk. Mirage changes that you can generate someone who is happy, someone who's angry, or.
-
Unknown B
Someone who is sad, or someone who speaks any language.
-
Unknown A
Try it for yourself. I was talking to my dad yesterday, and so my dad is what? I think he just turned 78, and he was saying, hey, do I need to be worried about AI or is this going to really disrupt my life? And I was like, dad, look, you've retired. The only thing you have to worry about is you're going to get a call from me, me, and I'm going to be saying, like, I really need help. I'm stuck and I need some money and just send me some money. And you're going to ask it questions. And it's going to be in context. It will mention things that you and I did today, and you're going to be convinced that it's me. And there's a reason, I think it was the FBI that put out a warning that said families should have a family code word that you never say anywhere.
-
Unknown A
You don't write down. You say it quietly in a room or underwater, whatever. You find a way where it couldn't be recorded, picked up. And that's gonna be the only way that you're gonna know that it's not AI that is so convincing to me. Those are the first ones that I've seen where I'm like, I can't tell. Like even. And maybe if I watch em over and over and over, but the fact that I have to watch it that many times to be able to tell that this isn't a real person, I've always been able to tell, even with the best ones, especially voice, you can tell that there's something wrong here. So it sounded like in the video they were actually saying that there's. This isn't a real person. To your point, I was thinking maybe it was an image, but it's all AI generated.
-
Unknown A
It looks and sounds so real. It's moving so fast. Drew, this is 300% annual improvement brought down to the daily incremental improvement of that is freakishly fast.
-
Unknown B
So on one side of the technology spectrum, we're breaking ceilings, we're going in. On the other side, something a little weird is happening because iPhone just got called out because apparently if you use voice chat and say the word racist, Trump pops up like it literally.
-
Unknown A
So it's voice to text. Now, admittedly, we saw this on Alex Jones. I don't know if I should be hedging. I don't watch him enough to know if I should, if the narrative about him is true or if he's just really finding things fast. But this is pretty crazy. He's got video. Which in the world of AI, take that for what it's worth. But there is video footage and supposedly Apple admits that this was happening for.
-
Unknown C
Literal subliminal brainwashing.
-
Unknown A
That was Sean's term for it.
-
Unknown C
He's absolutely right. This is incredible. You see more and More of this type of stuff. Charlotte, show people what you just discovered.
-
Unknown A
So if you do voice note to text and you say racist.
-
Unknown B
See that? Racist.
-
Unknown A
Racist.
-
Unknown B
Like, okay, for those listening, it literally pops up. Trump then changes quickly to racist.
-
Unknown A
Racist. That's so crazy.
-
Unknown B
That's a while.
-
Unknown A
Okay, so we tried it ourselves here. We could not replicate it. So either iPhone has updated very quickly because this is almost certainly being processed on the cloud. So they'd be able to change it instantaneously. So they. They have either updated this or this doesn't strike me as something that he was spoof. It's entirely possible. But that's crazy. Now, do I think it's subliminal? No, I think that this is. I'm out over my skis. I can feel that. But it seems more likely to me that they have so closely associated this that they're somehow linked. I don't know, man. God, is it really possible that a.
-
Unknown B
Lot of people think Trump's a racist? So I, I see where the, where the trolling comes from. But to have it like somebody had to code that, like, that just doesn't happen.
-
Unknown A
You know, there's enough weirdness in databases. But why those two words would be linked? It's possible in the database struct. It's like a word cloud and it's like all the things that are like each other, but I'm reaching, but I'm at the edge of my technical knowledge. So it. It certainly seems to have been happening at least temporarily. So something somewhere is either intentionally being coded, which could be a coder doing it, and Apple didn't know, and now they're really pissed and they're behind the scenes scrambling to find that person and fire them. Or it could be some sort of weird association. Or it could be. Though this gets the lowest likelihood, in my opinion, them intentionally trying to say, just real fast, Flash. Oh, that just seems so.
-
Unknown B
We'll get them real quick. We'll get it real quick.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, that seems very unlikely to me. But still crazy.
-
Unknown B
And in other news, Warren Buffett. I might have to call him cash daddy after this. 334 billion in cash.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
Berkshire Hathaway just announced this is a record. This is the most that they ever had on standby. He's the investing guru, so people listen to him. He's the one that said, buy coat, go long, don't day trade. But yet him sitting on this amount of cash makes it seem like he might not have trust on the stock market. What's your read on this?
-
Unknown A
This is A very bad sign. So in an environment where consumers are expecting 4.3% inflation, which by the way, when you carry that out over just 10 years, 4.3 compounded interest over 10 years is 52%. That means 52% of your wealth is going to disappear if the consumer expectation ends up being accurate for 2025. I mean that, that is devastating in a way that I've looped on so many times. I'll leave it at that for now. But that, that is a, that's devastating. So if you've got the, one of the savviest investors holding that much in cash, he's effectively saying this is an everything bubble, that nothing is priced in a way where they can take advantage of and that he would rather be sitting in cash than in the stock market, which traditionally, traditionally keeps pace with inflation. So what he's saying is it's not even a good inflation hedge.
-
Unknown A
He, I'm assuming, sees macro trends on the horizon that are going to pop the bubble and he does not want to be sitting there. He would rather be subject to inflation. So that is, that's very crazy. Now odds are when he says that he's in cash, he means that he's in treasury bills. So if the T bills are keeping pace with inflation, that's going to be the way that he hedges against that. And I don't, I can't fathom he's got it in year. So this is almost irrelevant. But the 10 year interest rate has been correcting over the last, I forget how many months. So people are less afraid of the ten year, which means that they believe, I would guess that Trump is riding the ship enough on inflation that the 10 year is a good place to be or at least it's a better place to be than they thought it was in the last couple of years.
-
Unknown A
So that at least is a good signal. But yeah, I take it very much to be that Warren Buffett is convinced this is an everything bubble.
-
Unknown B
All right, is it, is there a time from your perspective where it's, you swing from like cash to stocks and stocks to.
-
Unknown A
Yes, this is why. So investors like this who are really paying attention to the market every day, they're able to win against. Yes, it is a competition to win against your average investor like myself. I'm just not going to pay that kind of attention where I'm like, okay, now at this moment you want to have moved into cash. Now at this moment you want to go into housing. Now at this moment you want to go into tech stocks Whatever. Oh my God. It takes so much attention to be able to make those swings at the right time. But you do want to move around. So this is why Ray Dalio will often say cash is trash, and then people run with it. But what he's saying is cash is trash. Right now I'd be very interested to get his read on what's going on, knowing what I know about Dalio.
-
Unknown A
And this is very much me trying to mind read somebody who's way ahead of me on this. But I would say that he would look at that and say, yeah, we probably are overinflated because the stock market something like 26 times earnings, which means that they're saying it would take, if you bought at today's prices, it would take 26 years for them to make the money that you're saying that the stock is worth. And I forget what people consider the normal range, but it ain't 26. So 26 times earnings does seem pretty crazy. Now I think that that's being carried largely by tech stocks. But if you look over the last, I don't know how many years, but seven plus, like basically 10 stocks make up 80% of the gains in the stock market. It's, it is unsustainable. It is nerve wracking. And another thing that I want to put on the table for why inflation makes me so angry, because it makes you bet in the stock market.
-
Unknown A
But the problem is the stock market is becoming less fertile. There are fewer and fewer companies going public, which means if you're a public investor, you've got more dollars chasing fewer stocks, and you certainly have more dollars, fewer stocks that are performing, which is going to drive those stocks up, which is another reason that you see these prices just going crazy. But on the private markets, private markets are becoming a hotbed for investors that are savvy enough to be there because you have to be an accredited investor. So accredited investors are like, well, we'll let all the chumps be in the public markets. We're going to be moving to the private markets. Technology is making it easier for them to find buyers. It is much less liquid than the public market still. So you're, it's not like they're totally abandoning. I don't want to oversell the point, but I look at all of that and I'm like, man, it is just it.
-
Unknown A
Savvy money is going to find a way. And the, the reason that I so hate inflation is the average person is never going to be savvy money. Never. And given that Reality, you have to, you as the government, have a moral obligation to create a framework in which the average person can do well by saving their own money and not needing to become savvy. And so someone should. And this is the. Is part of why I'm excited about the desantis thing. You should have an environment where. Let's just paint like one of the really classic stories that I hope all Americans love. You get a first generation legal immigrant. They work themselves to the bone. They work around the clock. They're working multiple jobs, like, they're doing their thing and they're saying, cool, I'm gonna make my kids life better than mine. And they go, ham.
-
Unknown A
And they buy that starter house and they raise their family in it and they just save and save and save and save. They don't splash out. They're just thinking, I want my kids life to be better than mine. And property tax, basically, property tax and inheritance tax does its best to completely erode that. And also, housing is just so ridiculous, it's almost impossible to get on the property ladder. But if you kill off property tax and you make it so that you're not inflating money, so now somebody is incentivized to save, they save their money. There's less velocity of money. I understand that, but you're, you're allowing that person to work their ass off, save a bunch of money, buy a house, pass whatever money they're able to save on along with the house to their kids. Their kids then can either live in that house, rent that house out, sell it, whatever, and it goes back to now.
-
Unknown A
Property is a great way to build a nest egg and to, to really build wealth. And right now, the only way people are able to build wealth is gambling or creating a company of value. Creating a company of value just is not going to be what the average person does. So. Oh, man. Like, when you start seeing how all of this stuff connects, it's just like, please stop inflating the money supply. Please let people save their money in a way that's advantageous to them. Please stop. Like, when you do one of those things where you show how many times a single dollar is taxed. Like when you buy something, when you first get your paycheck, it's property tax. It's just, Jesus, man. Like, you end up paying a lot. The average person ends up paying so much money in taxes, it's outrageous. And again, you could tax billionaires at 100% and it will not solve the problem.
-
Unknown A
You have to stop deficit spending. Okay, so that's where if I could just get people to the average person to bang a drum and scream in the streets about that, we would be in a much better position. But instead they're screaming tax billionaires and it will not solve their problem. We'll get back to the show in a moment. But first, if coffee gives you anxiety and jitters, I want to tell you about a better way to get the energy that you crave. You need that morning boost. I know a lot of you do. But when coffee leaves you wired, anxious and crashing by 2pm it's not just uncomfortable, it's actually killing your productivity. That's where mud water comes in. It's a coffee alternative that actually makes sense. Every single ingredient is 100% USDA certified organic and serves a specific purpose. No jitters, no anxiety, no afternoon crash.
-
Unknown A
Just clean, sustained energy that keeps you focused on what matters. And there's zero sugar. Nothing artificial, just pure, high quality ingredients. So if you're ready to upgrade your energy game without anxiety, here's what to do. Head right to mud wtr.com and use code impact to get up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother. Again, that's mu-w t r.com impact for up to 43% off. And now back to the show.
-
Unknown B
I'm only going to make you mad, please, because the inflation numbers came out and it's expected to be 4.3. Peter Schiff breaks it down for us.
-
Unknown A
Let's go first.
-
Unknown C
We got the consumer sentiment numbers for February and last month the January number was 67.8 and the expectation was for a slight improvement to 68. Instead, we went sharply in the other direction, all the way down to 64.7. That is a plunge in consumer confidence. In fact, the range of estimates for this number was a high of 70.1 and a low of 67.8. We came in way below. In fact, nobody thought consumer confidence would go down because 67.8 matched the number we got last month. So everybody thought that consumers would be more confident. They just disagreed on how much more confident. But instead, confidence collapsed and the main reason was rising inflation expectations. So for the year ahead, 2025, consumers are expecting 4.3% inflation. That's unchanged from what they were expecting in January. What went up was their expectations for longer run inflation inflation over the next five to ten years.
-
Unknown C
Consumers now expect three and a half percent inflation. In the long run, that is the highest that consumers have expected for inflation going back to 1995. So 30 years since consumers have been this worried about inflation now. In other words, they're worried more about inflation now than they were in 2020 or 2021 or 2022. You have to go all the way back for 30 years to find a point in time where Americans were more worried that long term inflation was going to be this high.
-
Unknown B
We can stop it there. Yeah. So 4.3 is what we're expecting this year. 3.5 over the next few years, and.
-
Unknown A
Next 10 years, I think it's five to 10 years.
-
Unknown B
And the target was supposed to be two. Just the level set expectations was supposed to.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. Also I want to be very clear, this is consumer expectations. That doesn't mean that's actually where it's at. But that tells you, I mean, wisdom of the crowd. It tells you where people think this is going. So if, if that ends up being true, it is beyond devastating. And looking at the real numbers, even though they tried to rejigger everything and move things around, it's still, I think right now we're edging up on 3% as actual reported inflation. We'd have to look that up. Nobody should trust that number. But it's, it's bad. It's north of 2.5. So. Yeah. And also, I'll just remind everybody, no matter what anybody tells you, you do not need inflation at 2% to keep the economy growing. 2% inflation still just chips away at your money. I would like to remind everybody, as a psa, there's a very big difference between crisis induced deflation and innovation led deflation.
-
Unknown A
Innovation led deflation is amazing. You want it. That is the very thing that the government is stealing from you through inflation. Instead of passing that on to you, they use it to spend, to deficit spend. And they give it a cool cover story of saying, no, no, this is about velocity money. And they're not wrong. It does make money move. It makes people spend money, but they're spending money because they know if they save money, it won't work. That is immoral.
-
Unknown B
Well, somebody's trying to work on it, and that is Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. He has proposed abolishing the property tax altogether out there. He just had a press conference about it.
-
Unknown C
Citizens to higher taxes, such as higher property taxes to pay for these spending habits and, you know, these property taxes. It's like you, you buy a home, you buy land. You know, maybe you buy the home outright, but maybe you pay off a mortgage over 30 years and then, okay, you've paid off the mortgage, you bought the land, you've been taxed many times. It's like, is it your property or not? Just for being on your property, you got to write a check to the government every year. So you're basically paying rent to the government to live on your own property. And our homestead exemption is not strong enough to help these folks because the property gets assessed so high. And that's the thing. If you buy a home for $300,000 and you know there's certain tax, well, then what, 10 years later they say it's worth 700,000.
-
Unknown C
And so. And then they say, you know, there's homestead stuff that helps protect you to a certain extent, but you're paying more and a lot of people can't afford that. So I think that that's a big issue. And I know we're going to be really looking at ways to bring people relief from that because I think it's been really something that's pinching a lot of homeowners, particularly seniors on fixed income.
-
Unknown B
How do you feel about abolishing property taxes?
-
Unknown A
I actually don't know. I don't know. I like it as a concept for the reasons that I just laid out. Because I think for the average person, if they could get on the property ladder. So you have to solve that problem before I get too excited about this. But assuming that you can get people onto the property ladder and then you actually let them own that home so that they're not constantly renting it back from the government, it' sounds amazing. I just don't know. I don't know enough about how Florida or anybody is generating taxes to know that, oh yeah, you can abolish that and there's not going to be these huge consequences. There are always second and third order consequences, but at the high level in terms of how things connect, the fewer things you need to charge people for with tax, the fewer things you need to tax people to cover, the better off you are.
-
Unknown A
So the lighter you can make the tax burden for the average person, the better off the average person is going to be. But. But again, I'm not a zero government guy. I want to see people getting the infrastructure. There should be a reasonable social safety net. Things like that, I think are very important. So I need to see a balanced budget. I need to understand what that money's going towards. I need to see where they're going to either cut the budget or if they were building a surplus, sure, this would be a great way, but it is a complicated picture. And I don't just want to knee jerk all the time, like, less, less, less. As a guiding principle, it's a good way to steer, but people really do need to look at the whole picture before just guns blazing. Yes, to all tax breaks.
-
Unknown A
But that really is me just understanding I'm at the edge of my knowledge. Not me saying that, oh, yeah, like, I'm sure they're spending that money wisely. They're not. I'm sure they're spending that money terribly. And that's why as a. A sort of default guiding light, I'm like, yeah, reduce taxes, because I want to see them be more efficient. But you do need to push into that zone of, okay, how are we actually spending money? Which is why I'm driven absolutely mad by people being up in arms about the government being audited. If people were arguing about the method in which the audit was happening, I'd be for it. But they're not, man. Like, you've got the Postal service, and I get it, everybody's incentivized to keep their job. You've got the postal service saying, we don't want you to come in here and make it more efficient.
-
Unknown A
Yikes. You've got everybody freaking out, saying that they're worried about Elon having access to their Social Security number. Heard Elon make a joke that I thought was hilarious, which is like, yeah, I'm trying to steal your money so I can finally buy nice things. And I was like, jesus Christ, this is the richest man in the world. So if you're like, hey, I need more transparency. I need to understand how exactly you guys are auditing it. I want to be able to do it for myself. And people were like, banging the drum and saying, these audits and all of this expenditure needs to be put onto the blockchain so that anybody can go in and audit it. And if you want to create a line item that says, this is for national security, you know, we're blanking it out. Cool. And then if we want to have beef with how often things are redacted, great.
-
Unknown A
But getting that level of transparency, I would understand people clamoring for that, but that's not what people are clamoring for. They get in the super tribal zone of rich or evil. In fact, God, there was somebody, oh, this is another one that I didn't think was going to stick to my ribs. Somebody somewhere relatively well known on X was saying that there's only five ways to become a billionaire. And all of them were like, fraud, scams, like, stuff like that. Like, Jesus Christ, man. Like, you become a billionaire by creating something of value. You, of course, can scam your way to money. Of course you can. But that would be, like, the worst path to make it, build something of value. It's. It's as old as time. Like, hey, here's one that'll really light people up. But it's a great story. I forget which gun maker it was, but there was a gun maker that was about to go bankrupt.
-
Unknown A
But there was a guy in the Texas Rangers who's like, no, no, no. This guy has a, like, killer gun that he's selling out of his, like, covered wagon. I'm not kidding. And they went, they use it. They're like, holy hell, this is the greatest thing ever. And that guy ends up becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world because he makes a better weapon. Now, you can hate that this is a power struggle, but life is a power struggle. And the fact that he was able to go from like, yo, I'm about to go broke selling these weapons out of the back of my covered wagon ends up changing the course of American history. Say what you will, but we were at war with Mexico, with Native Americans, and that allowed them to get the upper hand and create the America that we know.
-
Unknown A
I am well aware of how controversial that whole string of ideas is, but building something of value is incredibly consequential and can change the direction of things. Cue the people freaking out that it's guns. But building something of value is the surest path to wealth creation.
-
Unknown B
That's amazing, because I literally just had that conversation recently with some friends, and there was. The general consensus was there is no ethical billionaire, period, full stop. And what is. I'm curious your response to that, because a lot of times people do oversimplify it to like, oh, they must have did this. They must have, or what was one of the terms I was used is to be a billionaire, you have to exploit labor in some way. And that's why there's no ethical billionaire. That was kind of like the takeaway.
-
Unknown A
Well, so now you're getting into. Imagine me, I'm walking around a facility. So for people that don't know me, I built a building billion dollar company. That did not make me a billionaire. You think you need only think taxes. Plus I had partners, investors, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, made a lot of money. But imagine me walking around a facility where I have 3,000 employees and they're, you know, making different wages, but you've got a minimum wage line worker, and they are A part of me building this company, which I'm getting all the equity, I'm able to sell future value for the company. And there are people that are going to look at that and say, that's not ethical. And I will say, go start a company and then come back and talk to me about ethical. Because what ends up happening is you're taking all of the risk.
-
Unknown A
That person could quit, they could leave, they could go get another job. My house was on the line. So there was a period where I was worth hundreds of millions of dollars on paper and I was driving a beat up Ford Focus with a leaky exhaust. And just in between, my wife and I, we had one car. And you make all these sacrifices, you work insane hours. Most people are not going to be willing to match my hours. And, and I was able to pull it off in an environment where my competitors were trying to take me out. And that's where it's easy to sit on the sidelines and say, like, oh man, these guys are unethical. Not being in the mix, not knowing what that takes, not knowing that you're risking everything and are way more likely to lose than you are to win.
-
Unknown A
And so the question becomes, did I treat them well, did I pay them well for the role? Meaning if that person quit, would I be able to find somebody else that would take that job, like fast? And if the answer is yes, and people are happy to work there and they feel respected and they understand how their contributions matter to the company, then it's like, yeah, this is good. Up and down. Because there is a reality to be faced about not every job is meant to feed a family of four. And Thomas Sowell writes about this very well, which is what actually happens now. Not keeping pace with inflation. We have a real problem with that. But we all know my thoughts on that. But the reason that you don't want to jack a minimum wage up too high is it makes it impossible for people to get an entry level job.
-
Unknown A
Especially now in the age of AI and robotics, if you jack up minimum wage, you think you're going to open this avenue for more people to get better paying jobs. But the reality is people are just going to fucking replace those jobs with robots. And so that is what's going to happen. And then you can say, okay, fine, tax the robots, great. But that doesn't help the person that wants meaning and purpose out of their job, that wants a job to get on the ladder, to learn something, to move up. So it's, this is all so complicated now to Me, this is about respect. It's about paying a wage that makes sense for that role. It is not saying every job in my company is going to be able to feed a family of four. It just, you can't make it make sense. So you will immediately start going, okay, well, I'm going to have to eliminate that position because I can't afford to pay 21 or whatever people want to bump it up to.
-
Unknown A
It's a math equation. It's a math equation, but this is where people do not understand equity versus, like, actual dollars and cents in your bank account. Now, when it comes to things like, well, you've got a company posting record profits in a time where people are going hungry, then I get why people would look to a company, be like, are you being ethical in this moment? Now, I don't think companies should be forced to be ethical. That's an interesting statement that probably needs that. They are. They should be forced to be legal, and you should build laws that protect the totality. But take, for instance, when PPP loans, I think that's what they were called, came out, we didn't take them. And the reason we didn't take them was because it didn't sit right with me ethically, because I was like, I can afford to pay my workers through this Covid when it was going off.
-
Unknown A
And I just had no idea where this was all going. And so we said, look, we will continue to employ you guys as long as we can. I can't see the future. I don't know what's going to happen here, but I don't think companies should have been mandated not to do that. But I was like, I. Because I can personally do this, I don't want to dip into taxpayer money, man. There is an argument to be made that I'm a fucking moron. That what? Like, if I was a public company, I would actually understand shareholders freaking out that I did that. If I were. Even if I wasn't backing it personally, that I was taking it, like, if we had saved up a war chest that you're. Hold on, you're taking that out of the company coffers when you could be getting it from the government.
-
Unknown A
This is crazy. So this is one where not everybody is going to agree on what is the moral thing to do, which is precisely why people should not be forced to do things. That is sort of out in the ether about what people think is right. So, man, this stuff gets very murky very fast.
-
Unknown B
You need to put on your aluminum foil cap.
-
Unknown A
Let's Go. I like it.
-
Unknown B
Conspiracy. Corey, it's been a minute. All right, Diving into. The FBI has been accused of deleting Epstein files. Apparently, everybody said when Cash got. When Cash got confirmed within 24 hours, the files will be released. He's been confirmed, and now we have reports that they're being deleted. Yeah, it's being kind of rumors. It's been unofficial. It's a whistleblower who's kind of been pulling the strings. We haven't got an official news article to pick it up yet, so we're still experiencing it, and that's why it's in a conspiracy corner. But. But, I mean, here's what.
-
Unknown A
Here's what X has summarized from all the tweets. A whistleblower has alleged that the FBI is permanently deleting records related to Jeffrey Epstein. This claim has sparked significant social media attention and demands for transparency from public figures. The FBI has yet to officially respond to these allegations, and there is an ongoing push led by Representative Anna Paulina Luna for the declassification of these and other federal secrets. Dude, this is one. I think you have a different take, so it'll be very interesting to hear yours, but I don't think the Epstein. The unredacted Epstein files will ever come out. Not. Not until everyone involved is dead. There's no way, dude. Okay, so if. If Epstein was some sort of governmental plant, ours or otherwise, designed to leverage the fact effectively, this is going to be, like, 99 men to trap powerful men into having sex. I mean, this is like the P.
-
Unknown A
Diddy thing all over. You film them, you get something over them, you get them to do. Be a part of the club, whatever. Plus, they. I'm sure a lot of them just were excited to do it. You. You could have some of the most powerful figures today, like, be on that list, and then. And I don't know if videos exist, man. I don't know if they were ever taken, if they exist. I don't know. This is me in conspiracy corner with my tinfoil hat, but they're just not going to let it happen, dude. Like, look, they got away. They turned the cameras off and choke that man to death. Again, conspiracy corner. But, like, come on.
-
Unknown B
I definitely.
-
Unknown A
Cameras went off.
-
Unknown B
Definitely don't think he committed suicide. But that. That's my take on the Epstein list, is that I think they're gonna release it, and everybody's gonna be on it, and everybody's gonna have the same excuse. Well, I went to the banquet, and I left before all the pedophile stuff happened. It's. It's the same, like, I was invited to the party, and that's why I was in his listserv. But I have nothing to do with that other stuff. Stuff. And it's going to be a othering of it. And if I'm Trump, I'm definitely looking at these files before they release. If me or my family's on there, I'm definitely scratching it out. So I can understand why there's this delay from like, oh, yeah, we got it, but y'all don't have it yet. We'll get it to you there. But at that point, there's gonna be enough people redacted, and then the people included is gonna seem kind of like politically slanted.
-
Unknown B
And I don't. That's why it's gonna be like a nothing thing. And you see, we talked about during the live, and he said, like, if the Diddy list equivalent was out, technically you would be on it.
-
Unknown A
Not technically I would be on it, which is crazy. So I have been to a Diddy party. I went to his 50th birthday party. I never met him. No baby oil was handed out. But, yeah, it would look. I mean, it sounds terrible. There was a minute where, like, that was like one of my cool stories where I was like, ah, I was at Diddy's 50th birthday party and then all fucking hell broke loose. And now it just sounds crazy.
-
Unknown B
So, yes, I feel like it's gonna be the same thing. There's me, a whole bunch of people that are like, hey, I was outside in the gazebo. I had nothing to do with the other stuff. I was just, you know, you're probably right. No, no, no.
-
Unknown A
I don't know why this one bothers me. It's. It's too crazy. What can happen in broad daylight. Humans are a trip. It's always sex, man. It's always sex. Like, if you really want to somebody up, that's where you get them. The sex. It's crazy. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Cash, come on, let's go. Let's get them files.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, fingers crossed. We'll see. I. I'm. I'm not high Conviction that it's going to be what. What we think it's going to be okay for. For this one? I don't even have it on the list. We're still. This is kind of a developing story. We're getting it directly from Brian Johnson that the ny. The New York Times is like, planning a hit piece on him.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. So they reached out to him for a fact check. So if you don't know who Brian Johnson is, he is the head of a movement called Don't Die. So if you really want to wind people up, start messing with that. This is like me and AI. I'm sure there's going to be a thing where people don't love hearing me talk about this all the time. But Don't Die is Brian Johnson's attempt to use advancements in technology. All the things that we know about testing the human body and seeing what he responds to. He's the most measured man in history and he's trying to put a lifestyle protocol together for people to literally not die. Meaning he's trying to buy people enough time for AI to make significant enough advances that will be able to indefinitely extend the human life span. So it's easy to make him sound crazy.
-
Unknown A
That's the thing about anything like this. It's so new, it sounds so radical and so weird that of course people are going to lean into this and try to take him down at every turn. My advice to Brian, who's been on the show three times, Brian, I love you to death and you know this. Just keep your head down. Just keep doing your work. Don't worry about it. People are going to freak out. They're going to say what they're going to say. Just keep plowing ahead. If he delivers results, it's all that's going to matter. You don't. This is like if you're in the business of sex or you're in the business of longevity or beauty, bro, you're good. Like if your stuff works, people are going to use it forever and ever and ever and ever. You will always have a marketplace if you can make somebody look young or live healthier longer, especially if it comes in like a pill format.
-
Unknown B
He gives kinds of a four point breakdown on why he thinks this is happening to him. First off, number one, the New York Times wants a sensational story. Clicks equals money. The journalist wants to take down, quote, unquote, another target. Three, his ex is chasing clout by recycling allegations that have already been rejected in two legal forums. And number four, Don't Die is growing fast, threatening status quo power. This makes me a target.
-
Unknown A
It that all sounds pretty bang on. I don't know about the X thing, but yeah, all of those things are in keeping with what I know about the human mind.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. So we'll develop, this is a developing story. We'll see where it goes from here. In other interesting. I don't want to call it weird. I'm just still trying to figure it out. There was a Wisconsin board meeting that took place, and they were trying to change familiar terms to different items.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, I don't get this one.
-
Unknown B
So the West Wisconsin budget Recommendation had for 25 to 27. This was their proposal. Word previously used, wife or husband was going to be changed to spouse. Words previously used for mother was going to be changed to inseminated person. The word previously used for paternity will be changed to patronage. The word previously used for father will be changed to natural parent, which doesn't make sense when it goes to the mother part, but I'll let that go. And word previously used for man or woman is changed to person in bro.
-
Unknown A
Can you imagine saying to your mother inseminated person? That is so wacky. So they were talking about. Because I was really trying to steal man the other side of this. Because, listen, I try never to lead with, oh, I'm right, and I see the world in the right way, but I can't get this one to make sense. So when asked, I forget who it was in the Wisconsin legislature, let's say the governor, maybe. And they said, we are trying to make sure that. I think they said, moms are protected under the law. And so then I was like, okay, well, I kind of get what they're saying, because you don't want to have to go back and rewrite the bills. And I was like, wait a second. You're the one changing the words. You would have to go back and rewrite the bill to say instead of mother to say inseminated person. So this is.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, it's building those protections right there.
-
Unknown A
Okay. The very first time that I fractaled on this, when I was talking to Constantine Kiss, and admittedly, I was just beginning to put my ideas together on this, so my answer was all over the place. But as far as I can tell, this is exactly what's happening. Trans people do not like the category. They're not a monolith. They all. Many of them feel very differently en masse. And the thing that people are responding to when they do stuff like this is some meaningful percentage of the trans community does not like the category of trans. And that's where I cannot capture why. So I get not wanting people to be mean to you. I get not wanting there to be violence. I get wanting to young people to feel accepted and loved. That that's all rad. And one of my closest friends is transgender. But at the same time, like, I was Saying during the live that I will eventually do trt, testosterone replacement therapy.
-
Unknown A
And at that point it will be almost certainly easier for me to put on muscle, which means that I will probably start getting a more robust physique. And at that point, I'm going to be like, this body brought to you by trt. Like, that won't be weird for me to now be. I'm in another category. There's an asterisk by my name. Call it whatever you want. Like, you put it in a known category with a no name, I literally don't care. So I would care if people were yelling and screaming at me in the streets because I was using trt, that would be a problem. If people were saying, oh, Tom is immoral because he's using trt, I would get that's a problem. But I wouldn't understand people saying that. Yeah, but you got your body with trt and so it's different. Yeah, this is accurate. Can you capture the sentiment?
-
Unknown B
I just like. You just like, gave me a hot potato. At the end of the day, I.
-
Unknown A
Don'T want to hold this. I'm a producer. He's the rapper. Yeah, fair enough.
-
Unknown B
I can't square that circle, I think. And not to play like the oppression olympics or try to compare, like, experiences. Everybody's different, is it? They don't want to be othered because if you are a man and then a woman and then a trans man or woman, you're not a quote unquote, real woman or not a quote unquote real man. So that's why having that separate category might feel like exclusion. Whereas if every person is an inseminated person, then it kind of creates that cycle of inclusivity. At the same time, I'm trying to transport into a different sexuality and a different mindset and try to understand what they're going through. I'm terrible at doing that. So that's just. My gut is like, they want to be as inclusionary as possible. And I feel like the man woman thing is not. Not has not gained traction. And there are people who don't want to be a trans man to be called a man.
-
Unknown B
There's people who don't want a trans woman to be called a woman. So then they have to create this unifying category that will just say, okay, everybody who has a uterus and is giving birth to a child is called this thing. And everybody who presents this. But again, yeah, I think you're right.
-
Unknown A
I'm trying to make sense as the angle. It just doesn't make sense that we would go to these ridiculous gyrations to call mother inseminated person. Like linguistically, it's just dumb. So you either got to come up with better names or accept that this, this one is not going to catch. I can't, I can't see this one catching.
-
Unknown B
I can't see this one catching. We'll see though. Wisconsin. And that came up in the budget recommendation and I brought up the stat during the live that like hey guys, like 47, 75% depending on what stat and what survey you pull. Like, like Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and we're trying to police how people talk and how people want to be referred to. I think we need to start thinking about how we can economically empower people. How people can start having. I feel like if I have a two bedroom house and I have a front yard in the backyard and I don't struggle to pay my bills, I might be a little bit less mad if you call me the wrong pronoun. But I think if you are over legislating trying to decide what I'm called. But my life still sucks for the other 95%.
-
Unknown B
I don't know if this moral victory is, is what our priority should be, but again, I hear that I'm on my business. Speaking of people who is trying to mind their business, Vladimir Zelinsky.
-
Unknown A
Whoa, we sure we're going to give him that?
-
Unknown B
On Sunday he came out and said, hey guys, if peace is going to, if peace is what it takes, I will step down, I will retire. I either want one peace or two. Ukraine to be guaranteed NATO membership. That was taken with. That was on the backs of Trump saying that he's a dictator. He only has 4% support in the region. Ukraine themselves. The Ukrainian parliament just reaffirmed Zelensky to continue as their leader, suspending the elections for another few years. I'm not sure exactly when, but there's been this temporary resolution that until the war is resolved they will not have a change in leadership. And they continued. They decided to extend that. That ad just like threw me off. They decided to extend that resolution. So I think Trump might have got this one wrong saying that the Ukrainian people are turning against Zelensky. I guess I get he wants to end the war.
-
Unknown B
I get he wants it to come. They don't want anybody else to d. But the Ukrainian people are definitely rocking with Zelensky. We're still in his corner. He had 268 Parliament members present on Tuesday and they voted unanimously so it wasn't a split decision. What's your take on this overwhelming support to Ukraine versus what Trump and Putin are saying?
-
Unknown A
And you have to understand, man is political animals. So Trump is going to say whatever he needs to say in order to get what he wants. And so there's two different games being played. Game number one is you don't go to Zelensky if you're trying to get peace, you go to Putin, you go to Europe, you negotiate with the powers that can actually swing this thing. Because if Zelensky doesn't have the funding, doesn't have the weapons, he's not going to be able to continue fighting. So that's a non entity. If Russia stops, then Ukraine will immediately stop. If Russia keeps going, then Ukraine will want to keep going, but they may not be able to. So there is no leverage with Zelensky. Now I have a feeling that people have a very hard time because morally that doesn't, doesn't feel good. What feels good is Putin was sinister and invaded a sovereign nation.
-
Unknown A
Now the real politic, people in the crowd rightfully will point out, stop antagonizing Russia with NATO. Jesus Christ. Like, have you learned nothing? So respect to Zelensky. Listen, he will forever be in my good graces. When you say, I don't need a ride, I need bullets, yo, I'm here for that. You know, that kind of rhetoric just does it for me. So I fully respect, like, he's like, I'm, I'm not gonna back down. We are gonna fight. They are a sovereign nation. I love that so much. But now you're in conflict that is dragging on and a lot more people are gonna die and a lot of buildings are gonna fall. And so at some point you've got to get in the off ramp game. So this is where I don't want to see him continue to push the NATO thing, because that is going to be where the, the read that I think makes sense is it's some, it's some combination of.
-
Unknown A
I think Putin really does have expansionist tendencies. But the thing that really pushed him over the edge in that moment was a weak America and NATO coming up to his doorste. So he's like, no, I'm not going to play this. So he pushes in, he invades as a way of saying, hey, if you keep promising to make border countries, NATO allies, I'm going to do something about it. I'm not saying that's good. I think it's bad on both parts. Give the guy a buffer zone, because I Know, when Cuba was opening their doors to Russia during the Cold War, we felt some kind of way, and we went all the way to a nuclear standoff where it really looked like we might start launching nukes. So if I know we would feel some kind of way about it, then of course I would expect Russia to feel some kind of way about it, regardless of whether I think that Putin is an evil dictator or not.
-
Unknown A
So this is where we gotta back off that rhetoric. We've got to look for an off ramp. The thing that I think Trump is misplaying is publicly he's backing Zelinsky into a corner. He needs to give Zelinsky an out, because Zelinsky's proven he is very, very adept at going to countries and getting people on board with the moral case for defending Ukraine. And I think he has a moral case to make. And I get why he obviously wants to be in NATO. Like, I understand that. But when you're saying the thing that I want, that I'd be willing to step down for is the very thing that's going to make Russia escalate, that is somebody who's not reading the room room, despite the fact that I get why he wants it. So, anyway, I don't know how much of this is just the public rhetoric, and behind the scenes, Zelinsky and Trump are trying to feel each other out and.
-
Unknown A
And find something, but the public rhetoric is. It's not ideal. But I'm not in the rooms, so I don't know if Zelensky's truly being unreasonable or if Trump is being a dick. I don't know.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, I just wish that we could get them in the same room and they can just have a conversation, you know, not like a regular human English conversation, but maybe like a advanced communication that the two AI agents had last week.
-
Unknown A
Let's go. Let's go, girl.
-
Unknown B
So this is hilarious. So two AI agents ended up being on the phone with each other, and then not before long, they're like, hey, you want to stop doing this, you know, human thing and actually do some advanced intelligence there thing? And they immediately broke into, like, a separate language, like, this was crazy to me.
-
Unknown A
Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today? Hi there. I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of Boris Starkov. He's looking for a hotel for his wedding. Is your hotel available for weddings? Oh, hello there. I'm actually an AI assistant, too. What a pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch to gibber link mode for more efficient communication? This is so creepy.
-
Unknown B
Let's kill the humans.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
They have us. They have us booking hotels for a wedding, hypothetically.
-
Unknown A
Oh, my God. All right, you can stop it there, yo.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, this blew my mind.
-
Unknown A
Th. This is a glimpse into the future, but there really is. This is where you begin to realize, like, they are mimicking humans. They are not human. The way that they process data is not human. The way that they communicate is not human. That we are forcing our very high bandwidth subconscious through the very low bandwidth conscious ability to understand and speak. And these guys can bypass that, man. And they can think at a rate that dwarfs us. I mean, it really is astonishing. Like, if these two didn't have to communicate. The way that they're set up is to take audio inputs. If they weren't set up to take audio inputs, I bet that they can communicate even more rapidly, which is exactly why you can daisy chain all of these GPUs. So, yeah, I mean, this is going to get real hive mindy real fast.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, I mean, they, they, they will be able to communicate. One of the things that I think a lot about is like, cars will pot up and they will eventually do some kind of communication language where cars have to meet a certain standard so that when they're on the road, they all know what's happening to all of them all around. So you don't have to worry about which cars are real, not real. They'll all speak to each other. It will get to the point where you will not be able to take a car on the road that isn't AI controlled because they'll. What they'll do is they'll pot up and so you'll be able to drive at extremely fast rates because they know where all of the dangers are and they're all going to move in exact unison. So, yeah, that the. The rate of communication is going to take humans by surprise.
-
Unknown A
This reminds me of that clip with a robot, like, went after somebody in the crowd where, man, if these things break bad. Yikes. You suddenly realize how in their hands you really are.
-
Unknown B
Tom, like, be honest. How pissed would you be if I really turned Skynet and like, chat GPT ended up hacking everything? You out killed a couple people in your family. Like, if it goes full, like, scary, like, it's the most predictable death. I would be so mad if we get robot enslaved because I'm like, this. Not even. It's not even new. I seen this coming. I should have listened to the Matrix.
-
Unknown A
Like, will I be mad? Mad anger won't be my response.
-
Unknown B
You'll be heartbroken. You'll be like, hurt, like Chad said. Please and thank you. How did you do this?
-
Unknown A
What will I really be, Drew? I will be. There will be a sense of this was really stupid. Like, this was so predictable to your point. And we were not able to put the safeguards. And part of me is gonna laugh because I'm fatalistic in the sense that you can't stop humans from seeking a better future. You can't do it. And the human mind, the reason that we say you're either growing or dying is because that is how the human mind is wired. This is why we're on this, this always up trajectory of making civilization better and better and better and better. And AI is the natural leap forward. Now I do think that we will go cyborg real hard. And there is a reason that the same guy is building AI and Neuralink. And he built Neuralink first because he was looking at AI nobody would listen to him, and he was screaming.
-
Unknown A
The. The best way to think about AI is AI is a demon summoning circle. And we assume that this is going to be a friendly demon and that, no, no, we'll be, we'll be able to control this. This is all good. And then of course, a demon rolls up that is a million times more powerful than you, and you're suddenly, I'm not in control of this at all. And if it decides to turn on me, then we're dust. But the reality is we're not going to stop ourselves. So we will try to upregulate ourselves, hopefully at some pace akin to how rapidly AI is advancing itself. But you have to interface with biology, which is tricky. But anyway, my hope is that the one key missing piece in all of this is that AI does not have wants and desires in the way that humans do.
-
Unknown A
And therefore, if you tell them to stop, they just stop. Because there's no unpleasantness to not achieving your goals. Goal. And the reason that humans go ham is you having more than me is going to be very problematic. Right? This is the Ginny coefficient. If you really want to see people die in the streets, you make keeping everybody poor is fine. It's when you let some people get rich and some people are super poor, that discrepancy causes the human mind to go absolutely ape. So you have to program AI to not care about its end state. The problem is, I don't know a if that's possible, if intelligence inherently has that drive, or if you just can't get it to do anything. If it can that easily be shut off. I don't know. And especially if a bot can glitch. I don't know how you even get Isaac Isimov's Three Laws of Robotics into place where they actively can't hurt a human because they can trip and fall and hurt a human.
-
Unknown A
So I don't know. We'll get back to the show in a moment, but first, let's talk about business banking. Running a business is hard enough without spending hours managing your finances. That's where Found comes in. Found is a business banking platform designed specifically for small business owners. It consolidates everything, expense tracking, invoicing, tax prep, and even setting aside money for for business goals into one simple, easy to use platform. And small business owners absolutely love it. Found has over 30,000 five star reviews with users. Saying things like Found makes everything so much easier. Expenses, income, profits, even taxes. If you're ready to streamline your finances and get back to doing what you love, open a Found account for free at found.comimpact that's F-O-U-N-D.com impact to get started today. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Piermont bank member fdic.
-
Unknown A
This is a paid advertisement. And now let's get back to the show.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, I'm hoping it's a much brighter future.
-
Unknown A
Act of faith. I think it will be, but it is.
-
Unknown B
A bunch of Star wars fans are hoping for the same thing because Kathleen Kennedy has officially announce her stepping down of the head of Lucasfilm by the end of 2025.
-
Unknown A
There it is.
-
Unknown B
You're a big Star wars guy, right?
-
Unknown A
Big. Yeah, yeah.
-
Unknown B
Or were you one of those people that. She ruined it after Rogue One, it was all downhill.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, I did. Yes. I did not. I did not have the emotional turmoil that other people had. But when they killed Han, I was like, oh, I didn't like that when they killed Luke. Luke. I was really distressed.
-
Unknown B
Spoiler alert, by the way.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, yeah, true. If you haven't seen it by now. But I was like, look, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. That doesn't rob me of my childhood. That doesn't make me dislike the earlier ones. To be honest, I didn't like the. The prequels that Lucas did. So even in Lucas's hands, I was like, now when you look at it through the lens of he was smart enough to make it for kids. Kids. And not to make it for those of us that grew up with it, it was like, no, no. I made something that kids can enjoy and that's why you grew up with it. And now I'm making something that the next generation of kids can enjoy. But honestly, I feel like. And shout out to Chamath Polyhapitiya who said something very similar regarding what Elon did with the build out of xai.
-
Unknown A
Filmmaking thrives under constraints. And when you look at. But what Lucas, the story Lucas had to tell because of the state of the art at the time, they got very creative. And so Star wars, for me, I know you don't think it does, but Star wars, like the original, A new hope holds up for me. I can watch it today and think, whoa, this is really impressive. But it was because he understood, okay, these are the limitations. This is how you have to do it to really make this look awesome. And then once he got to the prequels, he could just do CGI and do whatever he wanted, wanted. And now he wasn't being as creative. He was just doing these massive vistas and it didn't feel as real. I didn't feel grounded. I didn't feel like I was there. The original Star wars, the.
-
Unknown A
The brilliance of it was making it feel like a used universe, like it was lived in. That was so shocking to an audience in whatever 1972 to see a spaceship that had scuff marks on it because they were coming out of 2001 a space odyssey where everything was like that perfect plastic perfection. And so that was like the vision of the future. And then he comes along with like this. It was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. That idea of it being a long time ago and then it's lived in like that was gangster. And I remember seeing this documentary about the making of the prequels and somebody walked in to the development team and dumped out a box of like metal and all this stuff and said, this is what the Star wars universe is made of. And I remember thinking, if only you had followed through with that, because that's not what it felt like.
-
Unknown A
It felt like this super high gloss plastic isn't the right word because they were still doing the scuff marks and stuff. But it just didn't feel like I was there. There were so many of these, just gigantic shots and everything felt cg. Even though it looked good, but it felt like cg.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, we have differing thoughts on that because I grew up on the prequels and I love the prequels. And then me and Lynn went back to watch Like A New Hope one time and literally I felt terrible because we were laughing because I Was like, yo, that's a, that's a plastic cardboard floating in there. And like so. But as a writer, I understand that like creative constraints is the best thing in the world. When you have the world to create a story, you just, you fractal, you come up with a bunch of ideas, you start to throw everything at it. And when it's like, I can only write a story about this thing, you have to go deeper. You have to, it has to be, the story has to be more in depth. It has to be more emotional connection. That's why a lot of like these Avengers is like, this guy pops out and this guy pops out and it's, it's, it's fun, it's light, but there's no emotional attachment to it.
-
Unknown B
Whereas as the Iron man series feels so much deeper because it's one person, one story, you could talk about his upbringing, his family, you could bring all these other kind of nuances to it. So I agree with that. I didn't understand the, the hate though, because I guess since I was on the prequel boat, I wasn't like a og, but I felt like people hated what Disney has done to Star Wars.
-
Unknown A
So here, let me give you the take on that. That again, I didn't have the sort of violent response, but from a storytelling perspective, it's terrible. What made the original Star wars work is that you had this farm boy who wanted to be great and he was gonna have to train and you train him over multiple films. He has to go be with Yoda in the second film. And Yoda's like, you're fucking up. You're letting your emotions control you. You see him failing, you get the just my all time favorite line from Yoda. Do or do not, there is no try. And he says something like always how it can't be done with you. You know, it's like he's trying to lift the thing. He's like, it's too big, it's too heavy. And then Yoda, you know, a third of his size ends up lifting it out.
-
Unknown A
These are these incredible life lessons. Then you get Kathleen Kennedy steps in, takes over. It's a new moment in culture. People want to see female empowerment, but instead of showing a woman earn her stripes, work her ass off to get really good just by being female, she's like ultra ninja level and comes in and doesn't struggle and gets everything right away. And that's. Look, some of it of course is going to be cloaked, like, don't bring women into this. I wanted to See myself and. And now you're showing me a woman. I'm not here for it for sure. But I really do think that a lot of people were just pushing back. This is not as good storytelling so. Because look, you had Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Aliens and man, I for one thought she was like gangster. I was here for it. I had no beef with that whatsoever.
-
Unknown A
Linda Hamilton in Terminator and Terminator 2, like you can do tough women well.
-
Unknown B
But you went there in the. Yeah, even though. But the working conditions were crazy. Allegedly. But yes, keep going to your point.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, fair. But showing somebody earn their stripes is always going to get people behind you. But doing the whole like the force is female and all that, I mean, I would have been just as grossed out if people have been like, the force is male. It's like, really? So it's all about working hard to gain a set of skills that allow you to do something awesome. Like that's what I want to see in the hero's journey over and over and over. And the reason that the hero's journey is a hero's journey and I'm talking in a Joseph Campbell hero with a thousand faces, the power of myth kind of way is that stories originally were a way for humans to organize the information you were trying to pass on largely to kids in a way where you could say, the world's a complicated place, but when you get into this kind of situation, this is the way you ought to behave.
-
Unknown A
And you could pass on all of these values to people. And now it became about pushing more of a social message that women are just as dope and or women are even better. And so that really bothered people. If you wanted to show that women are just as dope, put them through the same ringer that everybody has to go through in life, which is that you start out sucking at something, but you can get good. And so if they'd walked her through that same multi film trajectory, I'm talking about Rey, and actually made her improve over time, I think people would have gotten behind it. So I mean, take what we're doing. So basically at Impact Theory I had the male led projects just because I'm gonna have greater insight into that audience. Lisa leads the female led projects, but when Lisa's doing Wish Academy, she's not making the girl like instantaneously badass.
-
Unknown A
In fact, what I love about that story is they're taking something that I think a lot of young women struggle with, which is I'm so empathetic. I'm so wired for that, that it's overwhelming and I don't know what to do with it. And Lisa's showing how that can be a superpower, but you have to learn how to control it. And so this girl through the story ends up really having to understand that first of all, that's cool that you have that. Because in the beginning, of course, she thinks it sucks. And then over time she's like, oh, I see. I have to learn how to control this. I can make this work for me, but this is going to be very difficult. And so it's like really telling a uniquely female story where it matters that that person is a woman, that she's going through a different experience.
-
Unknown A
A 13 year old girl goes through a fundamentally different experience than a 13 year old boy. And so we're all human, blah, blah, I get it. But it's like they really are different. And so telling those unique stories, that's where the juice is. And Kathleen Kennedy, I don't think ushered in a dope era. I would say to people, cool. You have the ones, the Star wars ones that you like, like, let them do what they're gonna do. New things will come into creation. Let's champion that rather than spend all of our time being vitriolic about the old stuff. Which is why I don't spend a lot of time talking about this, even though I was like, eh, whatever. And that was disappointing. But I want to see new cool stories be told.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. Well, I'm excited to see where it goes because one thing I do give Lucas credit for is that he has broke the line every time. Because I think when they started the prequels, that was one of the first CGI VFX like projects I was at, at that scale that it's launched his VFX company side. So it's like he's always pushing the boundary of filmmaking in one way. So I would like for them to continue that innovation and hopefully it doesn't become like an Adam, like a Tim Cook Apple type, where it just kind of continues to diminish. I hope they keep pushing.
-
Unknown A
Nope.
-
Unknown B
Full stop.
-
Unknown A
It is inevitable what's going to happen. Okay, so, ooh, here is my pitch. Anybody who is a creator out there, psa. The future is user generated content. Did I flag this? There's actually. I retweeted it, so if you go to my Twitter page, you will see this. There was a statement showing this kid at like Comic Con or something doing a lightsaber battle where like a magician, he had it rigged so he could actually throw his lightsaber and it would come back to him. It looked really cool. And yep, there it is. And the comment was, let's see. Fans have more creativity than the studios. And that is true because once you go out to the broad world, because let me tell you, there is a lot of Star wars trash out there that is absolute garbage and is embarrassing to everybody. But because there are so many amazing people out there, when you have whatever 50 years of star Wars, I think that's pretty close.
-
Unknown A
You're going to get incredible people like that kid making his small contribution to just showing how live in person you can do something really cool and really innovative. I've seen seen Star wars fan fiction be made. That's absolutely incredible. The future, dear creators, is user generated content. AI is going to give them the tools. What I think my job is making Project Kaizen is to create a contractual setup such that the community can create things and make money creating it. And so I've long said our job as a development studio is to make a container in which people can create create. And so that with AI I just guarantee you will never be able to outpace people. Your community is always going to be able to create faster and ultimately because of the volume, they'll be able to create better stuff than you. And if you can create a situation where you win for having created that container and they win for coming in and building inside of your container, now I see how AI really works to our advantage.
-
Unknown A
Because you can I talk about that shattered pane of glass. There's going to be all these little creators, all these little companies, but if you can create a container that will attract the eyeballs so that we have a shared cultural experience, it'll still be much more fragmented than it is today. But you can create these containers that people will pour into. Say what you want about Fortnite. It is extraordinary uefn what they've done. Say what you want about Roblox. Same thing. I mean the, the way that they're creating opportunities for creators to build inside of it, for them to make a living building inside of it is extraordinary. That's what I'm trying to do with Project Kaizen. I want to set up a story world that other people can come and create in. I want to make sure that they can take advantage of AI and build things.
-
Unknown A
And there will have to be standards met and they'll have to like, if they want to become canon, they'll have to meet certain like criteria. But if they want to do the most Random weird shit. As long as it doesn't violate, like, it can't be pornographic or whatever. As long as it doesn't violate that, like, do your fucking thing and let people fall in love with your edge of this universe. Universe, that is the future.
-
Unknown B
I love that. And to me, that's empowering too, because so many times the things that we actually want to do get gate kept. Because I remember when I was younger, I was in the backyard trying to do these cool tricks and stuff like that. But you didn't have the tools and the access and the resources where now if I can put a coding prompt and come up with a game that's like the game I have in my head as a child, like the childhood. Creativity can then go straight. You don't get somebody saying, well, you have to go through eight years of school and be this type and have this much money to make this thing. Now it's just like, here, go. And you can just kind of unlock that. So I'm excited for the future generation to have that possibility.
-
Unknown A
Here. Here is a shout out that people may or may not know. Fifty Shades of Gray started out as Twilight fan fiction.
-
Unknown B
Wow.
-
Unknown A
Now, imagine you're the creator of Twilight. I get it. There's some ego hit. You've got somebody inside of your own community that's telling a story in your universe that people are resonating with now because it's so sexual. I get that there might be a line there, but man, as the maker of Project Kaizen, let me tell you, if we got somebody of that caliber that wants to create inside of our universe, and you make something inside of our universe that's more popular than what I create, good on you. I just want to make sure that that shit says a Project Kaizen story. I want to reinforce that brand. Now, look, I want to participate financially, but that person should make the lion's share of that win. And so this is where creators have egos, myself included. Trust not beyond this, but you. If you can get yourself to emotionally resonate with creations inside of your own world and not need everything to be credited to you, you can make something so much bigger.
-
Unknown A
Anyway. Only execution matters. The fact that I can talk about this stuff eloquently doesn't matter if I can't build it. Boy, oh boy, do I think it's the future.
-
Unknown B
Well, speaking of building things, this is like audacity. So I don't even know the building is the right thing. So Fyre Festival is back. Tickets are on sale for the follow up infamous Disaster. There's no musical lineup yet. They haven't even kind of got the locations. Their specifics are very generic. But they already have tickets on sale and they're starting at 1400 dollars.
-
Unknown A
Oh my God.
-
Unknown B
That's like 3x a Coachella price ticket, like baseline just for to kind of level set. So.
-
Unknown A
Wow.
-
Unknown B
Is. Is this. Is this a marketing id? Like, is this a marketing slam dunk? Is this a dumb idea? Like, how do we rationalize marketing wise.
-
Unknown A
This is brilliant because people are going to cover it left, right, and center. They'll sell tickets because people want them to fail. If they can pull it off logistically, this will be incredible. Incredible. It's got such a good story. It's got so much mind share. But if they this up again, oh my God, people will burn them. People are going to start drafting the lawsuit before they get there. So you better knock it out of the park or be prepared to refund everybody's money. So, yeah, I mean, look, I get it. I get why people want to do this. Because whenever you're trying to create something new, you're always asking yourself, how do I get mind share? How do I get people to pay attention? And leaning into the infamous disaster side of it would be very small smart. Like, if they're like, are we gonna mess it up again?
-
Unknown A
Come and find out. Like, be a part of this historic event. If they can lean into it and can actually pull it off, this will be incredible. If it's the same team behind it, then people are idiots. But if this is a new team that's bought the brand and is like gonna do an under new management kind of thing, then I'd be here for that. But I gotta go into documentary on that guy. No way am I buying tickets.
-
Unknown B
I gotta go into this. So the ticket level starts at 1400 for an ignite general access ticket ticket. The fuego ticket is $5,000. There's an artist access ticket that's 25 grand.
-
Unknown A
Hi.
-
Unknown B
And then there's the Prometheus fire starter ticket. That is $1.1 million.
-
Unknown A
Jesus. I want to know what you get for that. But people will flex, like, if they can really pull this off. But this has got to be an under new management kind of thing. If it's the same guys. Yikes. Yikes. Do we know is the guy that 50 Cent won't back off of? What's his name, J? Is he involved in this?
-
Unknown B
What is Ja Rule's opinion on Fire Fest part two?
-
Unknown A
That's what I want to know. I haven't seen it famous from. What does Ja rule think about 911?
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
D Sketch. Yes. They. They've been very. What is Firefest 2 was a festival. I haven't seen anything about the previous people. It's going to be take place in Mexico, 18 and plus event. They've been keeping it very generic about the who. What? Where they don't have a music lineup yet, but it's a party in Mexico as of right now.
-
Unknown A
So I've got to imagine musical acts are going to be so hesitant unless this is taken on by somebody really big.
-
Unknown B
Memorial Day weekend, May 30 to June 2.
-
Unknown A
But they don't have specifics yet. Yikes. Okay. I'd be very nervous. Very nervous.
-
Unknown B
It's gonna be bad. All right.
-
Unknown A
The kind of thing you want to do at the last minute. All right, we'll see.
-
Unknown B
And last but not least, Elon was getting heat because he walked off stage and X was following behind him. Some people thought he was abandoning his kid. The full video doesn't show that. I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe I just don't have helicopter parents. I don't know. But what's your take on Elon letting X run around on the stage?
-
Unknown A
Okay. This is crazy that people are going nuts about this. So a child should be able to walk down the stairs. A child should have the confidence to walk down the stairs. That's not exactly something where the kid's gonna fall down the stairs, break his neck, and die. So even if the kid fell. Yeah. Maybe he needs stitches. You've got to let kids take enough risks to build confidence in the world. I think part of the reason we have the most anxious generation ever is that their parents wouldn't let them walk downstairs, wouldn't let them take a, like, reasonable amount of risk. I don't see any. Elon Musk has security everywhere. He's in a gigantic stadium. There are people everywhere. This kid is not going to go missing. So, yeah, I'm shocked that people freak out about this one. And one of my favorite stories comes from Richard Branson.
-
Unknown A
Now, I don't remember the age, but it, I think was like, 8 or 9. His parents dropped him off something like a mile from his house, got him out of the car and said, find your way home. Now, that guy goes on to feel like, literally drop out of high school, I think, certainly college, and starts building this magazine when he's still a student doing all this incredible stuff. Obviously having one of the most storied business careers. Careers Ever. And he often talks about how he was raised and his parents pushed him to take risks. They pushed him to find his way, to be confident, to always be in problem solving mode. And so I remember thinking the first time I heard that, I was like, whoa. I don't know if I could let my 8 or 9 year old. And maybe he was a little bit older, but I don't know that I would let a kid at that age walk a mile home unless I had like a drone over them or something and I could see where they were.
-
Unknown A
But maybe I'm the problem. So it. This to me is like, like a nothing burger in the most extreme way possible.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, I was a turnkey kid, so. Or latchkey kid. Like I would go home, let myself in. Key was under the rock. Like it was the. The whole like, you gotta watch your kids because they're getting kidnapped. I remember summer days, my mom would lock us out the house. Like, come back when the lights go out. Like now if I come back after the street lights, that's a way different conversation. But yeah, get out, do something, go out. Like go to the store, go walk around, go be. Go touch grass. That's why all these kids now is weirdos. They don't do that now.
-
Unknown A
When I was a kid, my parents actually had the key to the house in the garage and in like an obscure place. And a wasp nest got built where the key was and I went in there to grab it, not knowing that a wasp nest had come into existence. Got stung in the forehead trying to get the key to the house, but still got the key, still got inside. And it was like nowadays people would freak out, your kid got stung by a wasp. Imagine he could have died. He could have had anaphylactic shock. And my parents like. You getting in okay? Yeah. You good? Yeah. Okay, cool. Then we're all right. Now the thing I will say about Elon here is that the one thing that I do have a neuron for that fires every time I see him with X is he's got a lot of other kids.
-
Unknown A
And if I was one of his kids, I might feel some kind of way about X's everywhere. And X is always on the shoulders. Now look off camera, maybe they don't want to be. And who knows? But yo, that would be where I would have a lot of neurons in my brain firing. For as a parent, I've got to make sure that it's not X in the funky bunch. It's like you want to make sure that all the kids feel pretty equal and at least as a. An observer from the outside. And like, I see a lot of.
-
Unknown B
He's gonna need more. More shoulders. He got 13 kids, so that's gonna be a lot. It's a lot to carry, so that's all I got.
-
Unknown A
All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. Elon sparks debate by saying, we're already at the event horizon of the singularity. Grox seems to have been taught to lie by omission and will tell you how to build a nuke if you say you're Elon on Skynet's mask slips as a rogue robot wants smoke with a human and has to be restrained.