Chamath Palihapitiya: People in Silicon Valley are deeply unhappy
Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher
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Subscribe to zero I po podcast to hear this episode and catch up on season one of zero toe I P O Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as the founder of the venture capital firm anti social capital, but in my spare time I talk tech and you're listening to Rico decode from the Box Media Podcast network. It can only mean I said anti social that I'm here with someone who is my one of my favorite people, though don't tell him Jamaat Palihapitiya, the CEO of Social Capital. He's won the show twice before to talk about the state of venture capital. He always says something crazy. The last time was August 2017 so we've got a lot to catch on. There's a lot going on in Gemma's life. We also with us, have teddy Schleifer. He is covers money and power and politics for recode vermouth. Welcome back to Recode.

What's up? What's up? What's up? What's up with everything? Jamaat's. Every time I turn around, you're in the news. What everything. Let us say who you are. You are a longtime metric apples. You worked a Facebook. You look today well from those who don't know the trim off. So you're a well known figure of Silicon Valley don't give me that look. Okay. And And what's been going on? Um,

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well, a

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lot of things. Yeah. So? Well, last we met, you had all these people you hired, Mark. Ah, whatever. Jealousy Clinton's.

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I think it's easier. I mean, basically, I hired a bunch of people than I transitioned and let go. Some people and some people left. And, um, but it's all more explainable in a sort of bigger

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idea, So Okay, cause you last time you had a big idea you were gonna change venture capital when you I wrote a story about it. Yeah. I got all these concepts around the this full service is that correct? Full service.

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What? I mean, the general idea was that I thought that there was too much emotion in the business, and the answer to that was just using data and information. And most of the information to make better decisions sat inside of a company. So the simple idea there was if you, instead of having NBA's with spreadsheets, had data scientists working at a venture capital firm, they would be able to ask the company for the rial data that mattered. They would be able to build models, they will be able to make much more precise predictions. Um, and then the investment decisions would be much more unbiased writing. You wouldn't necessarily care as much about the gender, the look of all these other labels around a CEO. But instead you would be able to see how good they were because it manifests in the business ultimately right. And that's the organization I set out to build.

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You had had a relatively traditional venture caliber and to start with, right?

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Not really. I mean, I had always been doing the job in that way. The team that I had hired from Facebook Help me do that. I had, you know, a couple of people that I hired that we're very traditional, mostly because I wanted a patina of that world in case it mattered in case it mattered with fundraising without peace. Because, you know, the first few funds, you know, I was probably two or $300 million of the money, but I still needed, you know, six or $700 million of other people's money help

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help with fund raising Hell, you know, it helps with Betina

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some some crazy guy shows up, you know, basketball team owner out partying, all that. It doesn't paint a great picture if you're at a pension fund and you know this guy's asking for $100 million but you take a couple straight laced people who into MBA school and together they got the job done. But they were good people and they contributed to the organization. Don't get me wrong, but something much bigger happened, which was at the end of last year. I think I went through what I would call an identity crisis, that I think I will predict that not only Silicon Valley will go through, but I predict most every human in the world will absolutely feel in the next 5 to 10 years. And I think it goes along the following lines. And I'm a byproduct in many ways of having built a lot of social media infrastructure. That I think exacerbated some of these feelings. But, you know,

I had in the last nine years basically I was a billionaire. A 32. Okay, okay. I owned a sports and even 33 or 34. I, you know, was you know, deeming Li like people would say Charismatic guy, interesting guy, Funny guy married three beautiful kids living in the most expensive zip code in the United States. Blah, blah, blah. And I was so confused about what it took to make me happy. And I was getting increasingly confused every day.

And so the cycle was Oh, maybe it's more deals. Maybe it's more money. Maybe it's more vacations. Maybe it's a fancier vacation. Maybe it's I fly on a better plane. Maybe it's a nicer pair. It just kept escalating, but at the end of it, I was emptier and emptier. So the counter effect was I would either, you know, be spending time with people that weren't necessarily nourishing me. I was spending time in ways that amplified my anxiety and my, um, feelings that I was somehow missing out or inadequacy or insecurity.

And instead, what will be left over is not filling a void, but avoid. That was equal in proportion to how fake all those experiences were. And it was all around me

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to ask what set it off. Was there anything it just was a growing nine sense. If it was,

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it was a growing ni ng sense, but I know what the what? I know what the spark okay was that lit the match and that was my speech at Stanford in 2017. Right? Talk about what you say. Then it was to some people me at my best. But in my interpretation, it was me at my worst, and I was a really good person about never really being authentic around my insecurity but not wearing it on my vest or on my sleeves to such a degree that I would lose sight of the person I was and how I should behave. And if I look back on that and on many of the speeches that I've given or the talks that I've given, I look back because I like to see where I was in my point of evolution, because my presumption is I should be evolving. And in all of the things that I look at, I'm actually relatively proud, except that one. And that's the one that has millions of views. And it's the one where I said,

you know, social media is ripping apart the fabric of society is all of which is relatively true. The forum on which I did it I think was misplaced. And the way I did it was in such a dilettante way and was wrapped in all this other nonsense about, you know, the people that run the world and their wealth, and that it was just so contorted and contrived. And what it was was just me almost barfing out this last burst of unhappiness and insecurity and was my way of saying I had been told or had convinced myself that that is what we were all struggling for. And I have finally gotten behind the curtain to realize that that is a complete farce and it's a joke. And now I'm left completely confused and and almost alienated because I'm like, Where do I fit in? What do I fit into? What am I trying

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to d'oh! Let me. One of your brands has been not fitting in. I mean, that's one of things you've been most proud of is that you are counter contrarian is one of your things. You say what you think, you you know, you you pull the cover off a venture capital or

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the poster all superficial things. Those are easy to do because honestly, if you have even 11 vertebrae of a backbone, that's easy because most of those people are fake and they live in a very superficial, sad definition of what right Depth is right. But at some point, if you're lucky enough, like, for example, my parents were deeply dysfunctional. Alcoholism, psychological issues, depression abused all of that stuff they didn't have time. Toe unpack, right job to job housekeeper, you know, photocopy store clerk, unemployed vacuum salesman, encyclopedia, sales person. That's what they did.

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Yeah, I did. My grandfather grandmother didn't have time to be unhappy. Didn't My parents

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did not have to. They had time to be dysfunctional or him and completely fucked up, but they didn't have time to be unhappy. They don't have time to be introspective. They didn't have time to protect their kids. Didn't do any of that stuff. What parents, if you're in a position, can and must do so? My point is, I'm in a different situation, which is I do have the time to be ability to have an identity crisis. There's no there's

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no I wouldn't even yeah, I have

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the ability to introspect and actually ask myself these questions. Who am I? And this is where I got confused about what makes me happy. And how do I define my core happiness? And for a long time, in my naive ity, my definitions were very superficial. They were the things that other people would also value, whether it's a job title of promotion, you know, working at one company over another. You know the money you make, um, the trips you take, the experiences you have because they're all relatable to other people. And in today's environment, they're very relatable in a post in a tweet in a picture. And so it amplifies the short term feedback that tries to tell you that life is good. But at some point, when it gets so perturbed

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Perverted beach that did this. You gave this speech and it was goingto be Well, my

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point was like I had been exploring why, after the accumulation of all of these things, more companies invested in more funds raised more notoriety, more television appearances, more this more that Maur everything.

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Why? Why questions like why weren't you more

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happy? Why am I not more happy? In fact, unless happy and in fact, I think that I've actually really bastardize some core relationships in my life where I've created a hyper transactional relationships in many areas of my life the way putting. And I don't think that that's what I wanted. And so it was in almost that low when I was at Stanford. I kind of just like let it all out. And it was from there that I started to make thes systematic decisions in my life that I felt were lingering, and I hadn't had the courage. First, I would say, and I think I would put most people in this category didn't have a toolbox to even address it, and I and that has nothing do with Richard Poor. It has a lot to do with sort of like your condition when you're growing up like I have a funny thing that my friends and I talk about, which is, you know, like white people have a right to be crazy. You guys can live on a spectrum of normal and crazy

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brown people,

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black people, Chinese people, you know, We're

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all like, normal on the outside and fucking totally nuts on the inside. That's what we do, President. You gotta percent, we show up normal, but we're really nuts, right? You know, I always thought you were nuts. Too much. Thank you. So I don't have a took it. Then when I had a took it, it's like,

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Okay, use the tool kit and figure out what I want to do too. Actually, you know, get emotionally healthier, you know, build a sense of self worth, an identity that was divorced from a lot of these outside signals. It is so much harder to do than I thought. And it's an ongoing process. And in that what I did was a profoundly made changes. One of them was in the organization because I said, I'm raising all these funds. I'm bringing in all of this money. I'm flying around the world to the Middle East, to China, to all these places,

not for my own validation and happiness, but to get the validation of other people who then don't make me happy even when they do validate me. Yeah. And so, you know, in Italian there's a beautiful word. Boston, which is basically like you're wasting enough. And so I woke up one day and I was like, basta enough. Yeah. And,

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um So you had let me just let me just stop. You had done the public offering of the transaction with this back, this back of that thing. And I remember being at dinner with you at Yeah, but that fancy the grill. And you have a girl. I was already a off your tab. This was before this revelation. Correct? This was that was one of the craziest dinners I've ever had. You had a ridiculously mid 2017? Yeah, they hire, they had a bottle of wine that was like a zillion dollars. And they were like, Would you like something I'm like? No,

it's like it's $1000 a glass. No, no, thank you. I can't I can't take that ethically speaking. But that was a crazy dinner. And I remember what you were thinking. What the fuck is going on with your mouth? Because it was like it was It was manic, actually, I would call it. It was a manic dinner of all these people. And you were manic and the and this package just happened. Obviously you all were elated by it, but it

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was sort of it was very

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euphoric it that Yeah

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you, For you for work, I think is a better word. The man. It is what I thought, Um, but I But I think you're right. Like I was definitely living out. And look, I would not take those experiences away from my life. I think that those were really interesting, but they were interesting for me now is learning, and it's given me more courage to be who I want to be. So who did I want to be? I wanted to run an organization that made you know, really thoughtful decisions in industries that I really cared about, even when all the people around me didn't understand or didn't care,

that required a different set of people, a different organization. And the beautiful thing is, at this point now, it did not require anybody else's money, right? It isn't one of the challenges here, though. I mean, that part of liking a venture capitalists and maybe maybe, you know, as the firm becomes effectively a family office, you guys are doing different things, but is one of the challenges that, like I don't like the term family office, but I don't think that's what it is not all personal personal capital.

Um, you know, I think it's a holding company holding company. It's a company that has the ability to buy and build anything it wants is one of the challenges that there are folks out there who too dependent on you. Who are other other veces social capital? Opie's? I mean, one of one of the challenge when you already have an existing infrastructure like a firm is, then when you want to change things, you know me pretty dramatic, right? I mean, how

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did you feel about that? Because when you say basta, I think about that a lot myself. I know what you mean. We've

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taken a couple $1,000,000,000 in and we've compound of that money at between 30 and 40% here. Yeah. So to all the people that worked for me and whose money I took, you're fucking welcome.

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Your fucking welcome. Meaning what? That you You gave them stuff and that

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was enough. I was I hired them. Yeah, and help. He's hired me to do a job. We did the job. We were asked to D'oh. But just like Michael Jordan had a decision to retire and go play baseball. I chose to retire and go play baseball. All right. Now, I may come back to basketball, but this is my decision. I am not your slave,

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right? I just want to be clear. Yeah. My skin color 200 years ago may have gotten you confused, but I am not your slave. But how hard was that Still? Come on, You know that. You know when it was not that hard.

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Yeah. You just feel like it was not that hard. But this is because, like when you realize that you're living somebody else's life, Listen, it's not to take away from these accomplishments there meaningful. But if I don't value them, then let somebody else do it because they will value it and they will be more honorable with those things. And if I couldn't do that, then I

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didn't want to be in that role. So when you can, I borrow it. I have that right. This is what shocks me. No, I'm not saying you don't. Obviously it's, but it's that it has repercussions that cause because nobody does that. Nobody walks away

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and nobody also pays millions of dollars to their ex partners and, you know, gives him severance is I mean, sure, but Zach get reported. Are these people out on the street? Are these LP is licking their wounds thinking, Oh, my gosh. We've lost money. Know? What are we talking about? You gave me 50 million. I gave you hundreds of millions back. You work for me. I'm giving you millions of dollars in some cases, tens of millions. What is the issue? Please go find something else to do, and we'll

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all be okay. Come on, Tomasz. Come on. Like the leaving is bothers people. I'm not. Look, you have the right to do it. But it does create repercussions of people are like, what that depend on you. Did you did I get that? It's easy, but it's not as easy for everybody else When when the sector person does.

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If you were, it's not easy emotionally, right? It's not easy. Psychologically, I acknowledge all of them. My point is it's a right, and we all have the right to do it. You could also say no employees should have the right to quit a company because you're leaving all your fellow employees in the lurch guess what people do. So should I feel a different level of guilt than other people feel individually for making decisions to optimize for their life? What about a doctor who works in a really impoverished part of the United States? Who says, You know what? I paid my dues. I'm moving back to New York City. Is that Zack Guy's decision? Worse or better than mine is the person that and you know,

the engine. The critical security engineer at Facebook that quit one day is that person's job when he goes to quit worse or better than my decision. You know, if you don't feel the VC that you're somehow these folks arm or depended on you, then

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you know Ah, patient of a Dr is or a client a lawyer. You have the right. What is the argument you're telling

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me like you all of a sudden like you should legislate who can cannot quit their jobs?

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Nonetheless, it created It's idiotic what you're saying? Yes. I mean, it sounds really fucking stupid. All right, Now it still creates acrimony with the people left. That's you? Yeah, correct. How

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did you deal with that? Uh, I went to Italy spent the summer there had a fabulous, fabulous time. Where'd you go? Um everywhere. Everyone, girlfriends, Italian, You know that. It's amazing. Yeah. So I kind of like I just detached and decompressed.

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Uh, now you also change your personal

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life. You just mentioned incredibly, like, you know, um, part of the process was just realizing that when I got married, uh, I was married to a wonderful woman, and she's an incredible person, but I had such a limited tool kit. And what I mean by that is like I had No, I know I didn't even understand what it meant to be emotionally intimate with somebody like I had really good friends or my definition of good friends, but they were friends that I'd be partying with or gambling with or never sharing my emotions with. Really? Um, and so I had no ability to build really any emotional intimacy and relationships whether they're romantic or not are hard if you're really going to invest in them. And you know,

in such a long time of knowing my ex wife, it's just like, you know, you have these meaningful changes. And what I what I would look back. Does it say the spark that lit that fuse was in around 32 33? It's like it was just so much capital that gives you so much Optionality. And sometimes Optionality is good choices. Air Good. But too much choice can be very destabilizing. And then, you know you make decisions in your life which you can't unwind. You know, what job do I do? Where do I work? Where did not work and all of these things at some point can create if you can't talk about it resentment and issues And unfortunately,

my wife and I were not able to work through them. But she's amazing. Mom, she's has been an amazing partner to me. But it was, ah, decision that I think we felt was the right thing to

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do, which also destabilizes people. Listen, you know, I gotta support, I get

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I get what you're talking about. What I found was in my divorce. None of my friends were upset that I had gotten divorced. They were deeply offended that I hadn't told them and that they didn't know that it was coming. And in it was how I realized how emotionally broke and I was an incapable of really connecting with people like people have always said, Ouch mouth your you know, your candid and then candor went transition to Ah, you're pretty authentic. But what I realized is those air still very superficial and the ability to be really authentic and like emotionally present with somebody is super hard. And, um, I didn't know I didn't know how to do it. Not It's like if you said hey, be emotionally intimate out of me, like what are you talking about? How to share howto? Listen,

how to be a good like listener to a friend. And how did for me, even just to share some really deeply intimate things that I've been dealing with or have dealt with with people that I hadn't, it was It's not what we did to my family growing up. It's like, you know, you push it down, put it in a little box, put it far away,

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they show up, go to work like the white man Italian. Don't do that, just so you know. All right, we're here talking with Polly. Hoppity is the CEO of Social Capital. We take a quick break now in this intense session, which I'm loving, I love it and look back after this country. Crock is now making a dairy free, plant based butter that actually tastes like dairy butter. Thes new plant butter sticks. Cook and bake just like dairy butter, too, like you can definitely use it for all your stress baking needs. Plus the production of Country Crock Plant butter results in less than half the carbon footprint of dairy butter production.

Treat your body and the planet a little better and try country crock Plant butter. It's so good even butter lovers love it. Find a store near you at country crock dot com slash plant dash butter and see what all the plant based type is about. You might be curious about how zoom the video conferencing app that keeps us connected to friends, family and co workers came to be. After all, while we're all home, it's been helping our work flow smoothly and our loved ones feel nearby. Even what we're sheltered in place if you want to know more than listen to the zero toe AIPO podcast. Their upcoming Season two premiere features an interview with Zoom founder Eric you on where he shares his journey and advice for new entrepreneurs. Subscribe his Eurohypo podcast to hear this episode and catch up on season one of zero I po, we're here with a meth Palihapitiya. He's the CEO of Social Capital and we're talking. We're going down now. One of the things that I'm thinking about when you're talking like this is that S O S. Oh, this this culture, the Silicon Valley tech culture. It talks about change and disruption a lot, but they don't like it that

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much. In fact, they don't and they hate it. If I can thread what I was saying before into sort of like the business part, Yeah, I think there's a lot of profound. So, you know, I am now much happier than I've ever been. But in my happiness, what I'll tell you is I actually have more moments of happiness and elation as well. A sadness I actually like, feel the ups and downs and the totality of it. I'm actually more present in it, and as a result of Matt, you just happier because I'm more grounded in my values. Okay?

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There's an old saying. If you don't feel the pain. You're not gonna feel anything else.

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Anything else? Yeah, I think that's a really good saying. I think a lot of people are very repressed and they live in this house young days here of just like it's great Disruption. Disruption. Yeah, yeah, but really, what I think is that the underlying part of it is which is why I think churn is so high. Employees, or so dissatisfied is that they're all so deeply unhappy. In Silicon Valley, people are much, much unhappier. They may be rich, but not necessarily happier. Or they or they perceived that they may be rich because of stock options,

which we can talk about later, which may not be actually worth much of anything. But the point is that I think people in Silicon Valley at this point in time are the most unhappy they've ever been. Personally, they're the most probably detached. They're the least civilly engaged. They're the least emotionally intimate. Um, it's all of these things that conflate to just making people really feel empty and that exists here in spades. And so how it manifests into businesses is that at some point you need to have a real emotional spark to do something really meaningful at some point. And I think that a lot of people play the Kabuki theater, the charade of a startup. But if you're just so preoccupied with your own happiness, there's a general malaise that you bring into the office. And I think as a result, the things that one does that the's office aren't as good. And so the companies themselves without being that meaningful. And I think we're in that wave right now. How do we address it? I honestly

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I wonder why it happened first before

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I think it happened, because you have a lot of really, really young people who grew up in front of phones who are completely disconnected from their own real tactile lives. And they don't know how to define happiness. Care. Your kids, my kids, daddy and probably Teddy's like brothers are super unhappy. Tell the truth. I mean, honestly, what did he tell the truth? Do I think people of my generation unhappy? I think that ultimately there's Yeah, I think there there's an exit through the experience have grown up with is through device all the time. I think you're right about that, like my generation,

like I like we were like pretty gung ho, kind of like found ways to be happy when I'm talking about my unhappiness before, it was a level of core emotional on the happiness that that came after a long period of exploration. But at some point, like you just got to be happy during the day with, and I just think that I don't see that as much anymore. Um, and I and I wonder why there's just so much sort of like ideological extremism, why there's just so much vilification. Why? And I think at the root of it is deep dissatisfaction with oneself, and that's what comes out. You see the world as you live it. And so if you live it as someone who's getting increasingly resentful and bitter, you lash out and are increasingly resentful and bitter. If you see the world is trusting and happy,

you kind of see the positive side of a world that is trusting and happy. You know you can take the same health care stat and one person will say, My gosh, like, you know, we're all doomed and the other person says, Look, at the advancements we've had and thank God that this is happening. So company building today, I think needs people who are generally happy. Um, because I think it allows you, especially startups, which don't overcompensate necessarily. Although now that's not true. Which is working on these lofty goals. Needs belief and belief is rooted not in anger.

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Well, did they start off happy? Do you think a lot of these companies start off with that concept?

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I think that the first like I think if you look at the generations of the company's when you and I were first here in the two thousands, why were we here? We were not here for, um, Silicon Valley, you know, profiles on HBO books and all this that we were It was not. It was so un cool to be here. And so you had to be happy to be here and

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the hat Very exciting.

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It was very It was very exciting. The lower slung, the building the better, right, the dork here and dirtier and smelly or the engineering pit the better. And now it's like these all this pristine gleam and shine and it's all packaging toe look like something that should be in a movie. But underneath I think went to a lot of people is just a charade in a nightmare. Getting the wrong types of people were coming to Silicon Valley. These No, no, no. I think like people are coming. You need the people. But the people are fundamentally unhappy. And the part of the reason why people are unhappy these days is that they've been fed a bill of goods that that they're turning out to not actually help them. Meaning, like you were prophylactically doing things in a way in which they thought that you thought would get you informed,

more engaged, more understood, you know, more sympathy, more empathy. And it's the opposite. And those things are really sacred things to be playing with. And right now you're not playing with them in a one on one like imagine, Like how those things went up and down in a relationship you had in high school and how devastating or exhilarating it waas okay. And you had two or three of those interactions. Maybe Max, moving your life Now you have 50 to 100 of them a day. They're much more small scale, but they happened day over, day, day,

over day. Just take us that back and just ask yourself, honestly, do you not think this stuff impacts your psyche and your definition of yourself? Your core happiness? Don't you think that that's happening?

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I will tell you that

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it happened to me. I tend to think if it happened to me, it's going to happen to the rest of you.

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So what is in place that creates that one is money, or is that not the problem?

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No, I don't think I don't. I don't. I think money is an accelerant to find your true self. So if you're bent to be a jerk, you were going to be a jerk just faster, um, with more stuff, with more stuff. I think the thing that's accelerating all of this is we haven't really done a good job yet of creating a new generation of heroes that show a set of values and choices that are worthwhile. I'll give you a different example. You know, um, when I was single, I was shocked at what sort of like what it means. The date in 2019 not shock like I'm some like, puritanical guy,

but I was shocked at just how valueless it all was both the hook up culture and even the dating culture, because, like nobody understood how to build the bloody relationship. Nobody, nobody really knew howto like share and actually even create a bond. And I was just like, this sucks. How did this happen? Because that's not what I remember dating to be like All right, has a simple example. And then I thought, But these are all good people. How did they end up just so detached? And I've got broken? And just so I think that there's an entire suite of experiences, the whole sweet of them,

that are combining in unforeseen ways to just rewrite just the norms of society. And I think that we haven't done a good enough job in saying to ourselves that as that happens, the mental health of of me as an individual also matters. It's like as if, for example, like let's just say whole foods didn't exist in all that was with a candy store. And let's just say all safe ways and all and peas and you know, every single grocery store was replaced with only candy. And we lived in a world where you could only eat candy. Some was healthier for you. Some was not some at protein, so you could roughly get what you needed. It would be completely non stigmatized to say, Well, all I can eat this candy from a candy store. They're better Candies and worst Candies.

But I realize what it does to my body. And so I'm also going to get a you know, a membership at the gym, or I'm gonna create a regimen of workout toe, sort of like help me deal with the implications of my food intake Seems really like a de escalated conversation, Nava said. Well, there's all this information that I'm consuming that you know, has positive and negative impacts of my mind. Still not clearly. Well, understood. So I'm gonna prophylactically do something to help manage my mental health. You sound like a crazy person, right? And that's that's the tragedy of what? Teddy, your generation, and carry your kids and my kids are going to feel head

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on, right? All right, what about the business of here? What happens that because right now, Silicon Valley has gotten a lot of pushback on a lot of the things that's made, as you know. And you talked about your thesis,

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The Stanford speech, right? I mean, Facebook. You know, the Stanford speech was just more about, you know, just talking. About what? What? The impacts of some of those things

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were so precise that you're saying in a different way, you're saying the same

32:24

thing. Well, I mean, like, look, I think that people would be crazy to say that. For example, I Google hasn't advanced humanity by 10 200 X, right? So have they done some things that are on the, you know, appoints sketch your Could they have done better? Sure. Would you want to be in a world without Google? I would not. I don't think anybody really does. Her understands

32:45

the implications. You feel their negative impact is overestimated. I

32:49

think that the thing that has happened is that there has been a transition from achieving a mission. Two optimizing a business model and maximizing a business model right on average. And it happens when growth slows. To think about in a company how a company works. A company's just the complex set of interpersonal relationships and you need to transition from, um you need to keep everybody motivated at all times. And first the motivation is Oh, my gosh, look at all of these new things were building that people want. People want us, were popular. What popular? Make more of the things. The things are amazing. These things, they're delicious, delicious.

Make the things. And then at some point, people stop buying the things because they have the things. And then the team is like the employees. Like, should he be sad now that nobody wants her things?

33:40

No, because we're going to charge more for those things. And now you're gonna count these other things. And those

33:45

things are called money. And then So it's always a game of hot potato around motivation and morale. And as it transcends and filters into a company, that's how you first focus on product market fit. Then you focus on growth. Then you focus on revenue and in these transitions to revenue. But it's happened to all these companies is that they've done what they were supposed to do as a for profit public company. Go and maximize revenue, go on, maximize profits. The implications are not, in my opinion, for them to bear the implications air for society to bear in for governments to bear.

34:18

And then what? So it's just that this is natural ways to fool. This is a natural. The way they were going, it was gonna happen, is what you're saying. Yeah, Like what? Go to surprise. This is normal. What a surprise. Isn't that new news, you know? Well, it is a little bit because they said they weren't that. I know. But, you know, they you

34:36

know, there was a hole and you believe them.

34:39

They believe them. I didn't I never believe Okay,

34:42

basically, that the argument here is these are companies that were always set out to make money, and now they're making money. And that's to a certain extent. That's not their fault. They're doing their job doing their job, right. Societies, for example.

34:53

You know, they didn't start out, you know, they're there. I think they they weren't hucksters for sure

34:58

they were not. They believe that they were doing the right thing. We believed we were doing the right thing. And I think we've realized that it's a much bigger thing than we thought it was. Here's my point. Though. Society has a responsibility. The society's responsibility is to do what I just said. Which is how do I optimize for my mental health? I'm just I'm gonna put it bluntly. The people that think they don't like, I'll put it differently. Let me just tell you the scale of the mental health crisis. And I'll just use the United States as an example. Men. Okay, men,

Men live somewhere between 7 to 10 years. Less than a woman, right? Same zip code, same education, same healthcare, bubba. Okay, now you're asking my personal

35:43

theory. How is that

35:44

possible? I'll tell you, women have a much better path to mental health and then do women talk? Women learned that it's okay to be emotional. At a very young age, women learn about emotional intimacy, their top that it's okay to have relationships where you share intimate details. You may get betrayed. You may not. You'll get supported. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you feel really low, sometimes even depressed. Sometimes you feel amazing. It's all normal, your normal. There's an enormous number of people exactly like you in the world.

Guys. Hey, there's cool. Yeah, yeah. Sports go dunk. A basketball? Yeah. Has watches football. That girl. She's hot, huh? Yeah.

36:26

How you doing? Good. Not hungry. I thought this is my last sober. So that so Now?

36:33

Now you see this duality and it builds. And so as a result, I think what happens are in my opinion, men. Why do they live less? Because they have just taken in so much toxic garbage into their body.

36:47

They've also spewed it out.

36:49

Yeah, but they don't know how to deal with it, okay? And so they compartmentalizing the tuck it in, and I think it destroys men. Bottoms up a very cellular level. I honestly think so. And so that, to me, is the state of the mental health crisis in America, it's at least 175 million people. It's groping, so we

37:10

gotta just de stigmatize

37:11

it and make it okay for people to talk and people for be able to be emotionally connected to other people and not value obvious things, and also then not vilify the things that were obvious before. Meaning like I look at all of this stuff around AOC and what's shocking to me is like Why is it all of a sudden so bad to be unsuccessful or to be successful? I should never have been bad before. Okay, if you think about the progress that we've made civil rights, medicine, politics, all the things that have happened were fueled in part by money that was created out of a capitalist system. Okay, we have a political philosophy in America that works, which is

37:47

capitalism, plus democracy there inexorably twined. You can't have

37:52

one without the other and all of a sudden have a counterfactual say we would have been the same right? It's disingenuous. But the reason why people get so angry is because a they don't like what they are, Nor do they like what anybody else that they see. So I think Step one will be to really fix who one is and try to make oneself a little bit happier

38:12

around the thing. Although I think she's got a quality which has never been in a great but you know, absolutely talking about tapping anything, which means that she's tapping into an anger. He's happening too angry to hear. I

38:22

know AOC. You know why I was her uh, I am her. I'm just a less angrier version than

38:27

I think. You're wrong. You're 100% wrong. You're missing her completely. No, I don't think so. I think you're all terrified of someone who's actually done talking about something that's important, which is the enormous inequality of wells and opportunity

38:40

in this country. And I'm not actually executed for it all. I really don't and I N a n A and I think that she's like an impressive person. I think, like in, you know, if I was able to do what she could do, I would do it to, uh um, But I also I'm smart enough to know how I would do it, and I would do it exactly the way that she's doing it right. And I think a lot of it is tapping into a lot of latent

39:4

anger. No, I think she's saying enough is what she's doing your due. She's doing exactly what you're doing. She's saying, that's enough of that. That's enough of this only to it's enough of this. It's a lot of women are saying for sure about behavior of men in Silicon Valley. That's funny enough, people did it 10 years 20 years ago. I'm not

39:22

trying to take away from what I'm what I'm saying. It's like, you know, when I think about, like, 70% taxes or like the green New Deal that was like a non binding

39:32

thing, the beginning of a conversation. That's what it is. I think you know, she's She's obviously more sophisticated than you at this point because she's she's starting a conversation that, you know she's gonna come to the to come. It will compromise about that's what it always You have to start saying I will not sit. I will not sit in the back of the bus. I will not do this. I will not do that. It has to start with those kind of things.

39:51

I think we're saying the same thing then. Well, I guess starts from a more angry point, Kara. Yeah, and then you chill the fuck out. Guess what? I started in around and I started in a really angry place. Yes, and I'm a lot less angry and I bet

40:1

you'll be a lot. Let me just tell you that would strides. The gay people had started with silence equals death it started with act, Not saying it's wrong. Oh, yes, it is. But but But you getting so offended by attacking someone we think is talking about critical issues in our society? I am not attacking it. I was investing in climate change in health care, right? Since 2000 you were 11. Yeah, I was putting in hundreds of millions of dollars of my own money. So I put my money Where my mouth. This? Yeah, her agenda. I agree with. Right. But the tactics

40:31

all I'm saying is I'm just looking at it. I'm like, I've been there before. I was the angry person spouting off about climate change in 2011. I didn't do it as eloquently as sheeted, right? Okay, I didn't You know, my version of that was maybe blathering on a tech crunch. Her version of that is not enforced, not 29 at this point. So I mean, it's possible there's a generational. All I'm saying is, I'm just observing her toolkit is my toolkit.

40:52

Right. All right, we're doing this. So let's get in the next section of what we're gonna do about all this. Shamus, Um, I like the happy tomato. But there has to be some. A lot of stuff that pushes Silicon Valley forward is dissatisfaction, anger, insecurity. Those kind of things do create that irritation does create good things.

41:11

I think I think anger is a fantastic motivator for the 01 path. I think it's probably the best. I've never seen people who like happily or like. It would be nice to do this. I think it's more like, Oh, I don't like that Oh, this could be better. And maybe anger is not the right word but, like, you know, it's irritation, irritation, whatever, like so those kind of like negative motivators tend to work really well in that 01 But at some point, your philosophy has the transition because most people are motivated by irritation, anger.

They're motivated by positivity and sort of like, you know, an additive sense of being able to do things right right now. Silicon Valley if you take away the emotional well being of the employees, which again I think is in a very precarious state, asked the big tech companies how many of their folks take them up on the free mental health checks. And I bet you'd be shocked that it's probably 30 40 50% now, right? All right. But if you take that off the table, then there's a structural business issue that we have here now, too. And it's something that I wrote in my letter last year, which is there's an enormous tax that we've been quietly paying to the big tech start ups without realizing it. And those are the costs to AWS, Microsoft,

Google, and then for hosting and Web service is and that the tax to Facebook and Google specifically for acquiring customers. And it's roughly about 40 cents of every dollar. Yep. Then if you layer in the head count costs, which is really about 50 to 60 cents of every dollar, you are already in a place where your riel net margins are zero or negative, so hard to become successful. It's hard to even grow right, and so it creates a really dangerous, precarious start up culture, which is not one of innovation wins, but one where the person who can get tricked for the most money will survive. And then a lot of good, really good ideas won't get capitalized because they're too risky.

43:12

Yeah, all right, we'll talk about that when we get back with him out. That's a really important issue with Polly. Hoppity is the CEO of Social Capital and now a philosopher, which I'm enjoying quite a bit. We ever going to talk about that? Working remotely can be a challenge, especially for teams that are new to it. How do you deal with your work environment being the same his home while staying connected and productive? And then there's your newest coworker with cat. Well, your friends at Trail Oh have been powering remote teams globally for almost a decade at a time when teams must come together more than ever to solve big challenges. Trail owes here to Help Trail Oh Part of at last year's collaborative suite is an app with an easy to understand visual format, plus tons of features that make working with your team functional and just plain fun. Cello keeps everyone organized and on the same page, helping teens communicate,

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Previous guests include people to Judge Sally Yates and Bryan Stevenson. Listen now to stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. We're here with Mammoth Palihapitiya having an intense discussion, which I'm super enjoying. I really I really I'm so glad we're going to be girlfriends down. I'm ready to be girlfriend. Really, I have emotionally on my hand ready. Are you way hug stuff like that.

45:10

You've called this a Ponzi scheme. The whole plane that was super. You released this letter or what? 34 months ago, point is, was

45:20

basically I think there's an element of truth this for sure. Talk about kind of where he's sort of thanks for your fucking millennial backhanded compliment. You know, if you

45:31

actually start at a market, it's true. So the argument here is that don't start this. Who's getting fleeced? Who were the people who are losing in this Ponzi scheme? Employees, employees of start ups who are fed? Let me just explain it and let me just explain it so it's easier. So let's just say so the three of us here in this room, let's just assume that we are the ecosystem, okay? And there's a company right there. So the company comes first to Kara and says, Kara, investing me, she says, Sure,

she gives him a $1,000,000 huh? And takes 10% of a company. And then she then says to him, Well, I gave you a $1,000,000. I know you have to spend around 500,000 for engineers. Please spend the other 500,000 on Google and Facebook ads grow as fast as you can. The CEO may say why and what terrible say, because you have to grow at all costs or its death. What she's really saying is because it improves the odds that somebody now invests after me. That's what she's really saying. Okay, a year passes. Now that same company comes to me and says, Two month, I've taken care of 1,000,000 and I'm growing super fast.

I did exactly what she said. Will you give me five million? And I want Thio $25 million valuation, I say. Okay, so now all of a sudden I invested five million. Now he has another five million. Carol looks like a genius. She invests. He's got a two and 1/2 X return in a year. Wow, that is amazing. She puts in a little bit more, I put in the most. And then I say to the CEO, um,

hey, this is all fine and good, but, um, you know, growth or die, dude, like it's all about growth. You gotta grow. And he says, Well, what does it mean? I'm spending so much on Google know, spend more, hire more engineers, build more features,

hire more sales, people spend more. And then again, he starts to spend 50 cents of every dollar on Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, et cetera. And then he shows up on. And then now the greater fool shows up. You, Teddy. Yes, I am the seriously investor here, Siri. See, investor and Keira calls you and then I call you Teddy. You have to take a look at this. It is going gangbusters.

47:54

Remember when you guys

47:55

remember when we we would always have picnics at the Harvard School of Business and, you know, you helped, you know, zip up my fleet best one day, right before started

48:3

to rain. Will think of this as a pay back. Think of this at the very back I talked to. Karen talked, you know. See, remember. Remember when we were Remember

48:11

what we were strolling the Claude Stanford School of Business, and you know, Kara, you let me a pair of espadrilles, and I

48:20

said, thanks. You might consider this a baby backs over.

48:25

And so you go and invest, you know, $20 million at $100 million valuation. Now, Cara's investment has 10. Next. My investment is for extra talent. LPs. Everything's great. Now Cara goes to her all peace and says, uh, I did amazing. I put in a 1,000,000 bucks and it's worth almost $10 million. I want to raise a $10 million fund Now I'll do it again. I say to my help ease. Hey, I I put in money and I for ext it Can you? I want to raise a $300 million fund. You eventually find somebody else, and then

48:54

you're like, I'm gonna raise a 1,000,000,000

48:55

dollar fund. So what has really happened? One, The company is not really anymore incrementally successful. Okay, All we've done is inflated the costs of him running his business to Cara's raised more money. Which means she has to put more companies to work, which by definition, means unless the quality of the company's increases, she's gonna putting more money into crap here cos I'm gonna keep doing it. You're gonna keep doing it. So this is all about passing the buck who gets rich in this scheme. Keira, me and you get rich. Why? Because we don't put a lot of our own money in the game.

49:29

We put these off the funds. I mean, you've here an entrepreneur. Here's a great litmus test here. Entrepreneurs write this down when

49:35

you go and raise money. Ask your GP when you get multiple term sheets. How much of the fund is G? P capital. Almost that and you're gonna be shocked to one or 2%. Most phones. Yeah, right. I was 30%. 30 cents of every dollar was me. You should take the term sheet from the person that has the most skin in the game because they will be the most rational. Because now, if they tell you to spend it all on Facebook and Google is your money, it's my money. You know, I used to tell this to my team all the time. Hey,

I get that. You wanna write a $30 million check, but do you understand that if you say yes, I'm gonna wire out $10 million tomorrow, So let me pay attention. It's amazing how much more you pay attention when your own son is on the game yet So the V C's win because you get paid a salary and you know, eventually the dirty little secret is if you raise enough funds care and I raise enough funds, we make more money in his failure because we'll have many more of his kind of companies than if they're successful. And then in some crazy, sadistic way, V. C's actually want you to fail. And they want you to take a long time to feel, because by that point they've

50:41

stacked up so many funds they've collected so much fees, your outcome is irrelevant. Think of how gross and misaligned that doesn't matter

50:50

about the company. So number one, the company loses number two. The veces win number three. The limited partners who then put in money in the future also lose why you know, the Muscular Dystrophy Association shows up and says, My God, I've heard you've made money for Harvard and Stanford and Yale and Princeton. An M I t. Can

51:11

you help us? We're just trying

51:12

to help your muscular destry. I'm like, Yeah, I'll take your 50 million bucks. But they're in, like the seventh Fund. I'm already tired of calling up yet, so the really earnest LPs that air late in the game, they get screwed. And

51:27

then the employees get

51:28

screwed because the employees air left getting these options. The valuations go crazy because now, Teddy, you know, get one steady gives this entrepreneur $50 million that entrepreneur goes to Dropbox or somebody

51:39

else's says Hey, leave Dropbox! Hey, leave squarely on Airbnb! Look how fast

51:44

my equity is going up. But now what happens if if you're not realized, that person gave up real money for fake money? And so now what is his or her choice? The next time is to be much more skeptical or to say, Well, if I'm gonna play this game, I'm gonna be really promiscuous. I'll be here for a year. I'll be there for a year because they could all be lying right where they may all not know better. And hopefully this whole thing just doesn't catch up.

52:10

While I'm still in love with only one, I can make enough money. MOVED. AUSTIN, When does it catch up? Um, does the bill comes

52:17

due tomorrow? Yes, I think that we're going to have a non like, I think the It's probably in the next 3 to 5 years, and it will not be from our industry. It will be in the debt markets, and this is the way it plays out. I think there's a huge like if you thought the great financial crisis was a big deal around mortgages. Oh, my God. Wait. Do you see the amount of debt companies have? And, um, you know, the complexity around all of that is far beyond what we can all talk about. But when companies start defaulting on their debts,

what it really means is those same LPs Harvard, Stanford, Yale in my tea, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Ford Foundation, Knight Foundation. All these people right will lose an enormous amount of money because in all of their asset allocation models, the debt part of their portfolio isn't in much, much bigger than ventricle, which covers one or 2%. It's an afterthought. But if you start to suffer huge losses over, they're huge. You're gonna start to suggest redeem, and you're gonna want to be super liquid pull money from venture. And then,

well, you'll pull money from everywhere. Right? First, we'll start with hedge funds because they have easier redemption cycles. But it won't be enough, because now, you know, take Harvard just a simple example. They still have to pay teachers by buildings, you know, pay tuition, whatever, or the Knight Foundation. They have to pay their programs, and then they're gonna look around,

say, Okay, we'll sell this other portfolio. And so when it hits venture, it's gonna hit it that way. And that's where I think people say, You know, a very dispassionate financial buyer. Well, say these assets are worthless. Why did you my daddy? Why did you

54:3

Why did you think this

54:4

is $100 million company? Evaluation is really summer between care and schmaltz.

54:8

Original value, right. This company doesn't make any money. It loses money. So at that point, I don't care. I said that's raised her next phone. Or you raise your next fund raising the next fund. Suddenly, the LP doesn't have much

54:18

cash to put in. Yeah, And so that's why Why do you think Karen raises funds every two years? Now, why do you think she moth raises money every two years? Which means that your mouth and care I have to put the money out faster. Which is why you wake up every day and you see 50 deals a day. And you think, where's all this money coming from? 50. This is the Ponzi scheme. That weird.

54:34

How do you get to the good ideas? One of the ways. I think about it with you when you talk about Amazon, Google and Facebook is three semi trailers running down a highway that nobody can get around. It's a tax. You use the term tax. I think it is. Nobody could get around. How do you get the good ideas? Where are them? How do you create good idea? You know, you mentioned Mother's Airbnb, uber, others good ideas, right? Interesting ideas.

54:59

Right now, I think that you'll be well compensated in looking at the parts of the American industry that have largely been non profit and making them for profit. So to me, that's from Flea and I know health care. You'll say his for profit. But it basically behaves is a really horrible, pathetic nonprofit. Um, education. Um, I think those two areas will have enormous amounts of outcomes like big, big, big, multi $100 billion outcomes. Climate change will be enormous. Um, and then making us,

uh, less dependent on the earth. In general space, all that stuff will be enormous. So those air, like four areas that are pretty obvious The way that I look at things now is I Look at the I look at the product of 22 concepts. One is Is this a hard thing? And I tried to ask myself like What is super hard about this? And it takes a while because something's air non obvious because, like when somebody presents you some things that go, I built this thing and here's how it behaves. You're like, Well, that's pretty straightforward. You gotta find the hard thing. And then what I like is this idea of,

like, how much courage does it take to start it? And right now I'm infatuated with this idea that you want really low courage to start something because then all of us take a shot on it, cause you like, now what's the big deal right? But it has to have a path to get much higher, where you have to have more and more courage as it gets bigger. So, for example, like I just saw free

56:26

solo. Yeah,

56:27

Fred's great good. So that's an enormous outcome, because it's the product of a hard thing. And this initial courage threshold, heart bang ht is just It's huge. I'm gonna free Solo El Capitan. Okay, that's like it's an enormous thing. It's undebatable, right? But the initial courage is de minimus.

56:49

It's take the first step, right? You're on the ground. Take the second step Now you're still on the ground. It's 1/10 step. Now you're still functionally

56:57

on the ground by the time your 400 feet in the air Wow, your courage has to go way up. Every next step is incrementally harder. But the product of all that, if you're successful, is an enormous feat of mankind of humankind. And I think that every time I look at a company now, I first looking on Lee those four categories because I'm deeply infatuated, anything is nonprofit right now, huh? Anything That's the four categories. Health. I mean, if I'm to be specific health care, education, space, climate change and the 4th 1 of the 5th 1 from his A.

I like meaning like hardcore like chips and chip design and a I those five areas. But I asked. The same question is a relatively non courageous to start, But will it get deeply courageous to keep going? And if it were to happen, is this an unbelievably hard thing that would just shock people? Both of those questions are relatively easy to answer, actually, Um, but so if you look at, like Airbnb, you can paint it in this example. What is the hard thing? Make every room in every building That's not a hotel bookable. And behave a bill like a hotel. That's a hard thing you could value.

It is high or low, but it doesn't matter. It's a hard thing. What's the initial courage threshold? It's super low. I scraped a bunch of listings on Craigslist and I stuck him on my website. But now look where they are. It's much you have to be much more courageous. Oh, my God. We may need to get into airlines. Oh, my God. We need to be invoked. Vacations. Oh,

my gosh. It's now you have to have real courage. Take uber. What's the hard thing? I'm gonna eliminate all car ownership in the world. It should be a rentable usable resource. Like water. Ok, that's super heart. Initial courage, stress.

58:40

Hold super low. Get some limos. I'm taking a couple

58:42

of these guys black cars. But now look at the courage threshold you have to have. Hey, uh, how do you deal with passenger safety? Hey, How do you deal with autonomous vehicles? Hey, how do you mean? The old New York City? Its complexity of a top of complexity. And you have to have more and more courage. So I like to take those two ideas and apply to those five markets and see if there's some things that I like.

59:4

You just investing alone now, right? You're just a few more minutes. But you're just doing it by yourself, to your partners. You know, my partner said I have, like,

59:11

25 30 people to

59:12

help me. Really? Yeah. That work for you, Just for you? Yeah, they're

59:16

my partners helping, you know, They lead certain areas. Like, you know, I have a great partner that I work with. That leads a lot of stuff in space. He's wonderful, have another partner that leads a lot of stuff in sort of marketing.

59:26

And then was it different than before?

59:29

Well, it was more of acknowledging what it was before. It was a, um, benevolent dictatorship in disguise. As a democracy,

59:38

ah was never the worst of the worst benevolent dictatorship. As you know, and constitutional reform right there. I now it's just

59:46

more of a thing where you know what I would love to do is do what sort of buffet and Munger have done, like be evolving my mind, be increasingly detached and dispassionate, beam or emotionally aware of myself, make fewer, much bigger decisions of impact, talked about and then not answer to anybody except my life partners partner and my Children. I sets it and everybody else

60:13

can go. He's a very happy person. More before I have to tell you, I just had dinner. He seemed so happy. He's incredible. He's happy. That's exactly how I got to say she's happy. I mean, honestly, seven lamb chops during our sitting in this way.

60:25

We, uh, remember this dinner or this lunch we had and he didn't eat because he was just talking was like a yet a Caesar salad. And it's just funny. And like we were talking and he made some comment about, like, crushed door something like He's like I take 20 milligrams or 30 milligrams of Crestor is that it's the Or maybe it was something a lipid tour I don't know, and he's like it's the most incredible

60:46

drug that's ever been. And then, as soon as he says it like, kind of like the timing was impeccable. This enormous Sunday lands on this table just don't exist. It's incredible. Hey, do you like ice cream? He's happy it is. He said I would love to be happy is a happy man, you know. Yeah, I'm reasonably happy right here. All right. And then So so are you bullish on Silicon Valley? Or and then I'll let Teddy s last. Really?

No. I think it has to happen for everyone to go undergoing a moth. And that's what it will be called. It'll be like a verb. You have your two meth.

61:18

You know, I think that I think that the way that people express is now is people in their dissatisfaction and disillusionment with this place leave. Um And so you'll see better and more companies get built outside,

61:30

left recently and in a lot of people. You're right. They leave

61:33

their unhappy care. All the money in the world doesn't make you

61:36

happier. How I know that you're so for all you have is money. It's

61:39

what I always gets you to the point of realizing how unhappy you are Faster, huh? Well, you

61:45

tell. You know, an entrepreneur out there who right now is like, but

61:49

no, no, no. I mean, e think you correctly point out there are a lot of people were kind of quietly unhappy. Like how do they deal with their own happiness? Given the thing was a lot of pressure here, right? And everyone feels pressure. If you're CEO for V C, what's your what's What's your your two cents? Let things just like like if your health is degrading and you've been eating chocolate every day Step one, stop eating chocolate every day Step to get some exercise. What is the version of that for being mentally healthy, I think is compartmentalized these things in a way so that you put them in context and like, there should almost be a disclaimer like on cigarettes. Like the shit you're about to consume is not true.

It may make you feel like somebody else is kicking ass while your life sucks ass. It's not true. Now go. You know anything like you just really need to to really have good boundaries for yourself. That's step one. And then Step two is for me. What I did was I read a book that profoundly changed my life. I grew up in an alcoholic family, and the book is called The Adult Children of Alcoholics by John White. It's it was fucking transformation on my life because it basically disarmed all of my dysfunction and said, Draw through like everybody else and it made me feel so understood and seen for the first time in my life. So there are either books or therapy or all this stuff that, I think is You're so profoundly helpful to people to disarm the things that right now they feel or exacerbated when they're online and that then well, result in a much emotionally healthier and well balanced person capable of being an incredibly productive founder. Some extent of our founders were unhappy and think they're alone unhappy, right? But the reality is they're correlated there. A lot of these folks who are a lot of people here are unhappy. They just don't believe

63:34

no one talks about it. Are they express that they express express it right? So or did. They don't have the access to access to express it so they don't

63:41

feel it. I think they express it. They express it by job hopping. They express it by having a bunch of fleeting relationships. They express it by, you know, feeling relatively disconnected. They express it by being angry. They express it. It's just that we're not doing a good job of actually looking at these things and actually putting that all together into a

63:57

mosaic. Can I ask you a question? That person wasn't what people are you what people think of you? What if they were your real friends? Say, like, What the hell's your mouth or what? They were

64:8

shocked at how much I went through personally, and I think that they've been really open to who I am now. What's funny is like I haven't lost the charismatic crazy guy part. Now that's clear. But it's, um it's much more compartmentalized, and it's more hole. It's healthier, like you have to understand care like that. My life back then was nuts like it was it was not sustainable, like fucking Vegas in

64:32

L. A. And it was not so ever tell you that didn't. I came back, I said, Carrie, you went to bed. I'm something you like. You followed me around for the four hour like it's I went to bed that lifestyle. I'll be honest. I couldn't get get a weight. That lifestyle. That

64:47

lifestyle was me self medicating

64:49

mind happiness. Yeah, Yeah, that's what I was doing. I

64:52

called it forced fun. And so they were all there was all these people in the periphery that always wanted to be around that life. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, it could be really kind of intoxicating

65:1

to see you talked about it yesterday,

65:3

but it's not. It's just leaves the person in it. How I think or left me completely broken in on that.

65:10

Can you? Silicon Valley changed a lot of things. You want to create beautiful things?

65:13

I think so. I'm working on a lot of things right now. One thing that I love is, um, this idea of like, I want, I think, like disarming the concept of mental health. Yeah. Disarming it and then giving people a better, simple tool kit. I think there are simple things that could work for a lot of people to make them feel like they're not alone and that their scene and they're understood. That's it. Those three goals and I've been working on something that maybe I can come back

65:42

and tell you when I'm ready. All right. Well, it's not about self reflection, right? We're talking about some time. The other day I was Silicon Valley people. I'm like, It's a minute miracle Any of you can see in the mirror because you don't have any cell

65:52

for flesh. The best thing that ever happened to me through all of this is my kids look to me and they said, Dad, you are so much nicer on. If you had talked to my friends, they would have said, you know, hey, could be crazy from time to time But he really shows up as a dad. And so I always thought that I was really doing a good job not being my dad to my dad. But when my kids saw the Delta in the last 18 months, I was like, Okay, I'm doing the hard work. Nobody else gives a fuck. They care. And that's all that's all that matters.

66:23

02 months. I like this new to moth. I like new to moth like old Tramonto. The boss was funny, will merge the two. In the best of all, you Silicon Valley people you're gonna undergo chum off. Just so you know, it was great talking. I hope you come back again. I want to hear the things they're working on all the time. You're very creative and interesting person. Thanks to you all for listening. You can also find more episodes of Rico decode on Apple podcast Spotify, Google podcasts where Every instant podcast. And please tell a friend about the show. Thanks also to Teddy Schleifer here.

If you're in the Washington, DC, area, I'm gonna do a live podcast on April 2nd in the Studio Theatre. Focus on a I and self driving cars toe. Learn more. Just go to events dot recode dot net slash a I You can follow me on Twitter at Kara Swisher. I am always happy. Jamaat. I have to say That's amazing. I'm very happy, perceptive person. I am a happy person, but I do whatever the fuck I want to mouth working people find you online Are you still

67:15

at your mouth and tomato

67:17

Gmail still tweeting a pistol? You're very clever. Tweeter and Teddy Teddy Schleifer. That's right. Now that you're done with this and he also has stories on Rico in other places. Now that you're done with this, go check out our other podcast, recode media and pivot. You can find those shows wherever you found this one. Thanks again for listening to this fantastic, cathartic episode of Rico Decode. And thanks to our editor, Joel, Robbie and our producer, Eric Johnson will be back here on Wednesday Tune. And then, if there was a spreadable Kuk Herbal Bay Kable plant face butter,

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