Heat.
Heat.
Our audience is largely wannabe entrepreneurs in India.
And I feel like all of us have so much to learn from you because you’ve done it so many times over in so many different domains.
will try and center all my questions in that direction so they can take advantage of this conversation and maybe start take a chance and build something.
You want a coffee? while? Um, right.
usually in the mornings, you know.
The first thing I must say is you’re a lot bigger and bulkier, muscular than I would have thought you are.
small, you know.
what percentage of internet number to it on X? monthly users.
there’s if there’s some major event in the world, it can get up to I don’t know world.
So, uh so so that there’s I don’t know 250 300 million per week type of thing.
It’s a pretty decent number.
It tends to be words.
mean there’s uh there’s certainly a lot of video on on um on the X systems, but uh at this point increasing amounts of video, but I think where where uh the X network is strongest is among people who who think who think a lot and read a lot, you know.
So it’s that’s where it’s going to be strongest because we have words and and you know so um am among readers writers and thinkers I think X is number one in the world factor if you had to wager a guess for tomorrow I’ve heard you speak about maybe voice and hearing being the next form of communication with AI, what happens to X in its true form? How does it evolve? is going to be video in the future.
Uh most interaction is going to be uh real-time video with AI.
So, real-time video comprehension, real-time video generation.
Um that’s going to be most of the load.
And that’s how it is for most of the internet right now.
It’s um most of the internet is video.
Um text is a pretty small percentage but the the text tends to be higher value generally or more it’s more densely compressed information like um yeah so but if you say like what is the most amount of bits generated and compute spent it’s certainly going to be video very small one okay you bought Twitter and you made it U happy decision.
Glad you did it.
you know, I felt like uh Twitter was heading in or had had gone in a direction that had sort of a more of a negative influence on the world.
Um you know, it was it was I mean, of course, this depends on one’s perspective.
Some people will say, well, actually, they liked the way it was and now they don’t like it.
Um but the I think the fundamental thing was that um Twitter was amplifying I would say a fairly pretty far left by most people’s standards in the world’s ideology because of where it was based in San Francisco.
So and and they actually suspended a lot of people on the right.
Uh um so uh so from their perspective even someone in the center would be would be far right.
If you’re if you’re far left anyone in the center is far right because you’re you it’s just a political on the political spectrum they’re um they’re just as far left as you get in the United States and in San Francisco.
So what I’ve tried to do is just restore it to be balanced and and uh centrist.
So there haven’t been any left-wing voices that have been suspended or you know banned or uh deamplified or anything like that.
Now some of them have chosen to just go go somewhere else.
Um but uh but at this point it is the the the operating principle of the of the X system is to adhere to any country’s laws but not to put our thumb on the scale beyond the laws of a country.
When I think of social media, um, Elon, I feel like even data suggests that the current incumbents seem to be losing traction amongst the youngest of audience.
mean, they’re not exactly like Twitter, but platforms across the board.
If one had to rework social media and build something bottom up, what do you think could work for the world of tomorrow? about um about social media to be frank.
I mean, it’s I can mostly just want to have have something where there’s um a in the case of of X, kind of a global town square, want to say uh with words, pictures, video um where there’s a secure messaging system.
We’ve recently added the ability to to do audio and video calls.
Um, so you’re really trying to bring the the the world the world together into um a a collective consciousness and um that that’s I guess different from just saying like what is the most dopamine generating video stream that one could make? Um which uh you know you I think can be a little bit of brain rot frankly.
um you know, if if you’re just watching videos that just cause dopamine hits one after another, um but lack substance, then I think those those are not great that that’s not a great way to spend time.
Um but I I do think that’s actually what a lot of people are going to want to watch.
Um, so if you say like total internet usage, it’s going to probably be optimizing for, you know, neur neurotransmitter generation, like it it there’s somebody getting like a a kick out of it, drug type of thing.
So, my goal is not to do that.
I I guess I could do that if I if I wanted to, but um uh that’s I I just want to really have um a a global platform that brings together like like I said like it’s come becomes as close to sort of a collective consciousness uh of humanity as possible.
Um and um you know like and one of the things that we’ve introduced uh for example is automatic translation.
So um so because I think it would be great to bring together uh what what people say in many different languages um and but automatically translated for the recipient.
So you have the collective consciousness not not just of of say people in a particular language group but you have um the thoughts of of people in you know every language group.
And why is that important collective consciousness to have one platform? yeah why is that important? Um I I guess it’s you could also say like like why uh you know if you consider humans like humans are composed of around 30 to 40 trillion cells um and you know there’s trillions of synap synapses in your in your mind Um but but but there’s there’s no the why a bit.
I mean I guess it’s just so we can increase our understanding our our understand increase our understanding of the the universe.
Um, so I I guess I like I had this sort of question about what’s the meaning of life, you know, um like why why is anything important? Um um you know why why why are we here? Um what’s the origin of the universe? Where what is the end? Um What are the questions that we don’t even know to ask? Um, and probably the questions we don’t even know to ask are the most important ones.
Um, so I’m just trying to I guess understand what’s going on.
What is what is going on in this reality? Um, is is this is this reality? And um what is the point of life? I came to the conclusion that um which is somewhat in the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy school of thought which is to the Galaxy is like a book on philosophy disguised as humor.
the that’s where you know Earth turns out to be this computer to understand to get to figure out the answer of the meaning of life does 42 mean? Um, and it turns out, well, actually the hard part is the question, not the answer.
And for that, you need a much bigger computer than Earth.
That’s so basically what Douglas Adams was saying is that we we actually don’t know how to frame the questions properly.
Um, and um, and so, so I think by expanding the scope and scale of consciousness, we can better under understand what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe.
Do you believe the collective consciousness of society? You know when when I I was watching this movie recently called the gladiator Russell Crowe.
Have you seen it? fighting kill each other.
the collective is very much like the mob.
It doesn’t have nuance in its opinion per se.
I mean, the sort of going there to see people kill each other, you know.
today is very different? this point we don’t, you know, go watch people kill each other.
Uh some kind of euphemism of that Uh so people do sports without um where teams attempt to defeat each other just going back to the uh consideration of a human we all started out as one cell but now we are over 30 trillion cells.
Mhm.
and uh but I think most people like feel like they’re one one body like you know usually your right hand’s not fighting your left hand type of thing you know uh you know just a vast number of neurons but but most of the time it doesn’t feel like there’s you know a trillion voices in your brain.
Hopefully not.
Um so so there there’s there’s clearly more that happens when you have trillions of cells uh working as a cellular collective than say one cell or um a a small you know small multisellular creature.
There’s there’s clearly some something different that happens like you can’t talk to a bacteria you know.
um they just sort of wiggle around and you know from their perspective I don’t know I sort of what is what is life like from the perspective of a sing of of an amoeba you know um but I know you can’t talk to amoeba like they don’t talk whack qualitatively fundamentally different um for humans once you have a large number of cells and you know sufficiently large brain type of thing.
There’s you can now talk to humans they can produce things.
Um but uh bacteria are not going to produce a spaceship for example.
Um but humans can.
So I think there’s something qualitatively different that also happens when there’s a collection of humans.
In fact, in fact, it’s safe to say that a single human cannot make a spaceship.
I could not make a spaceship by myself.
But but uh with a collection of humans uh we can make spaceships.
So there’s there’s something obviously qualitatively different um about a collection of humans.
In fact, it would be impossible for me to learn all of the areas of expertise.
There wouldn’t be enough time in one lifetime to even learn all the things before I was dead.
to have a collection of humans to make a rocket.
Um then I think there probably some other scaling qualitative scaling things that happen when you have groups of humans and then if the quality of the interaction or the quality of the information flow um is the the better it is the more the human collective will achieve.
Um, and I’m I like said I’m just curious about the nature of the universe and and I think if we it’s safe to say like if if we increase the scope and scale of consciousness, we’re much more likely to understand the nature of the universe than if we reduce it.
of people talk to me about spirituality, means.
Like I keep asking them, what do you mean? What do you mean? spiritual feelings, that those spiritual spiritual feelings are real to them.
Um but it’s it’s uh it doesn’t entirely translate.
I can’t just because somebody else has a spiritual feeling doesn’t mean that I would have that spiritual feeling.
Um so um you know I I tend to be kind of physics pulled which is like if something has predictive value I you know I’ll pay more attention to it than if it doesn’t have predictive value you know physics I would say is the study of that which has predictive value uh I think it’s pretty good definition um so and stock investor Okay.
knows what will happen tomorrow.
you know, um that um if if if it’s long-term for a company, is that do you like the products or services of that company? And is it likely to like it seems like they they make great products and they’re likely to make great products in the future.
If that’s the case, then I would say that’s probably a good company to invest in.
Um, and I think you also want to believe in the the team.
So, if you think, well, that’s a talented and hardworking team.
They make good products today.
They seem to be still motivated to make things in the future, then I’d say that’s that’s a good company to invest in.
won’t solve for the daily fluctuations which happen and sometimes are pretty extreme.
Uh but over time it would that that is the the right way to invest in stocks because a company is just a group of people assembled to create products and services.
So you have to say what are how good are those products and services? Are they likely to continue to improve in the future? If so, then you should buy the stock of that company and and then don’t worry too much about the daily fluctuations, What’s got you most excited now, Elon, in terms of all that you’re building? You’re doing so much.
So, let me just preface and contextualize who is watching this.
Uh, our audience is largely wannabe entrepreneurs in India.
uh really ambitious, really hungry, want to take the risk and build something and I feel like all of us have so much to learn from you because you’ve done it so many times over in so many different domains.
will try and center all my questions in that direction so they can take advantage of this conversation and maybe start take a chance and build something.
yeah, I guess the most important thing to do is just make useful products and services.
Um and services that you’re building has got you most excited today? Well, I I think that there’s increasingly a a convergence actually between SpaceX and Tesla and XAI um in that if the future is um solar powered AI satellites, which it pretty much needs to be in order to um in in order to harness a non-trivial amount of the energy of the sun, you have to move to solar powered AI satellites in deep space.
um which somewhat is a confluence of Tesla expertise and SpaceX expertise um and XAI on the the AI front.
So it does feel like over time there’s somewhat of a convergence there.
Um but all the companies are doing doing great things.
Um very proud of the teams.
They do great work.
Um so you know we’re making great progress with Tesla on the autonomous driving.
I don’t know if you’ve tried the self-driving.
Tesla.
Austin, so you can Tesla app.
to any to anyone.
Definitely try it out.
I mean, but uh you know we’ve made a lot of progress with electric vehicles with uh battery packs and solar and but and very much so with self-driving.
So basically real world AI um Tesla is the world leader in real world AI I would say.
So, um, and then we’re going to be making this robot Optimus, which is, you know, starting production hopefully some next year, um, at scale.
Um, and I think that’s going to be pretty cool.
That’ll be like I think everyone’s going to want their own personal C3PO R2-D2, would be pretty cool.
Um and then SpaceX is doing great work with the Starlink program, you know, providing uh lowcost, reliable uh internet throughout the world.
operating in India.
That would be great.
We’re operating in 150 different countries now with Starlink.
how the tech works don’t know if you know this company called meter out of San Francisco.
uh they’re trying to replace network engineers, but densely populated areas, Starlink works differently than it might be in a place with not as many people.
Can you explain how it works? thousand satellites in low Earth orbit and they’re moving around 25 times the speed of sound um in these, you know, they’re zipping around the Earth basically.
And um they’re uh they’re at an altitude of about 550 km.
orbit.
Um because they’re they’re at low earth orbit, they’re um the latency is is low like the the distance because the distance is is not that far compared to a geostationary satellite uh 36,000 km.
Um so you’ve you’ve got um thousands of satellites providing uh low latency high-speed internet throughout the world and um and they are interconnected as well.
So there’s there are laser laser links between the satellites.
So it forms sort of a a laser mesh so that the if if let’s say uh fi let’s say if cables are damaged or cut like fiber cables the satellites can communicate between each other um and provide connectivity uh even if uh there’s there’s a uh the cables are cut so for example when the red sea cables were cut uh I think a few months ago network continued to function without a hitchh disaster areas.
So, but if an area has been hit with uh some kind of natural disaster, floods or fires or earthquakes, that that tends to damage the the ground infrastructure.
Uh but the Starink satellites still work.
So, um and generally when whenever there’s some sort of natural disaster somewhere, we we always provide people with free Starlink uh internet connectivity.
You know, we don’t want to charge we don’t take advantage of a a tragic situation.
So, um, so always, you know, if there’s natural disasters, we like, okay, it’s it’s free during the natural disaster.
You know, we we don’t want to say like, um, you know, put a pay wall up while somebody’s trying to get help.
That would be wrong.
Um, so so that’s it’s it’s it’s a very robust system.
It’s it’s complimentary to ground systems because uh the satellite beams um work best in uh sparsely populated areas.
Um but because you you’ve got a you’ve got a satellite beam, it’s a pretty big beam.
So you have a and you have a fixed number of users per beam.
So, um, it tends to be very complimentary to the groundbased cellular systems because those are those are very good in cities because you’ve got these cell towers that are, you know, only a kilometer apart type of thing.
but but but cell towers tend to be inefficient in the countryside.
So in in uh rural rural areas is where you tend to have the worst internet because uh it’s very very expensive and difficult to lay to do all these do all the fiber optic cables uh or to have um high bandwidth cellular towers.
So Starlink is very complimentary to the existing telecom companies.
Um it it basically tends to serve the serve the least served which I think is is good.
Um that’s um you explained the the beam is quite broad and it can’t work in a densely populated area with high buildings maybe.
becomes really efficient in a densely populated city where it is competitive with the local network providers? don’t allow for that.
So even if we try to reduce it which about as low as we can go is about 350 km still very far away you you you’ve just you can think of like a like a flashlight which is it’s you know that flashlight’s got a cone and and and that that cone is is coming at you know today to 350 km but we can’t beat something that’s 1 kilometer away which the cell tower uh physics is not on our side here, possible for us for stalling to serve uh densely populated cities like you can serve a little bit maybe 1% of the population and sometimes people get you know even in in crowded cities there might be you know no fiber link up their road like sometimes somebody’s on a culde-sac or something or in a a place in in cities there are sometimes underserved areas for random reasons and so can serve like said maybe 1% or 2% of of of a densely populated city.
Um, but it can be much more effective in like I said in rural areas where the internet connection is much worse and often people either have sometimes no access to internet or it’s extremely expensive or the quality is not very good.
So Elon, do you think India will go down the path of urbanization like China did with more people moving in from rural economies to urban centers? Um or do you think we happened, right? Um I mean I’m actually I I’m curious to sort of ask you some questions as well.
Is because of course isn’t isn’t that the trend or is it not the trend in India? It is the trend largely.
I think a little bit changed during co when a lot of urbanization slowed down and that was not organic.
It was very artificially artificially manifested.
with AI if productivity were to go up and I heard you speak about UHI instead of UBI.
high income.
people want to live in cities which are always going to be more polluted and not offer the quality of lifestyle that a rural environment might.
want to be around a lot of people and some people don’t.
You know, it’s going to be a maybe a matter of personal choice.
But I think in the future it won’t be I I think it won’t be the case that you have to be in a city for a job.
Um because I I think I I my prediction is in the future working will be optional, but in in some parts of the west from 6 days to 5 days to 4 days to three.
um yeah.
Yeah.
There’s I mean I I think if you’re trying to make a startup succeed or you’re trying to make a company do very difficult things then you you you definitely need to put in serious hours.
I think that’s days, how do you think society changes when people have to work half the week? What do they do with the other half? Well, I I think it’ll actually be that people don’t have to work at all in the in the um and it may not be that far in the future.
Maybe only I don’t know 10 I say less than 20 years.
In less my prediction is less than in less than 20 years working will be optional.
working at all will be optional like a hobby pretty much productivity meaning people do not have to work obviously people can play this back in ridiculous pred prediction and it’s not true but I think it will turn out to be true that in less than 20 years maybe even as little as I don’t know 10 or 15 years um the advancements in AI and robotics will bring us to the point where working is optional um in the same way that like say you could you can grow your own vegetables in your garden or you could go to the store and buy vegetables you know vegetables But but you know some people like to grow their vegetables which is fine you know um but it it’ll be optional in that way is my prediction.
innately competitive and everything is relative from the time of hunters.
Somebody wanted to be the alpha hunter or the biggest farmer.
If everybody gets a universal high income and everybody has enough relative, right? Like if we all had enough, enough is not enough.
yeah.
I I guess I I I’m not exactly sure.
Um, cuz we’re we’re really headed into the singularity as it’s called, which you know, they refer to AI sometimes as the kind of like a black hole, like a singularity.
You don’t know what happens after the event horizon.
It doesn’t mean that something bad happens.
It just means you don’t know what happens.
Um, so like I’m I’m confident that if AI and robotics continue to advance, which they are advancing very rapidly, like I said, working will be optional.
Um, and people will have any goods and services that they want.
Um, if you if you can think of it, you can have it type of thing.
Um and but then at a certain point AI will actually saturate on anything humans can think of and then at at that point it it becomes a situation where AI is doing things for AI and robotics are doing things for AI and robotics because they’ve run out of things to do to make the humans happy you know because there’s a limit you know they say like there’s only people can only eat so much food or you know if but I it’s going to be I think if you can think of it you can have it will be the future economics if you go back in time they were the digression from Adam Smith everything having one of something has value having two of the same thing has lesser value and having 10 of the same thing has no value like, you can have two marshmallows later or one marshmallow now.
And I’m like, I’ll have one marshmallow.
I don’t want two marshmallows.
enough.
I always question marshmallows as being like not the most, you know, the best candy, you know? Well, I don’t yearn for marshmallows.
marshmallow experiment.
I think gratification essentially.
most.
You know, I have a tattoo which says delay gratification.
You’re really taking the marshmallow test.
trading or when I’m buying into mean, you can’t miss it.
you get? something, you do? Well, I mean, yeah, it’s a good question.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder what what’s wrong with me.
Um um so um I mean it started off with where I think so way back in ancient times in 99 the pre the pre-Cambian era when there were only sponges.
Um the I I there were only three onelet domain names um was like okay I want to have create this place where it’s the um the financial crossroads or like the the financial exchange you know um an information theory standpoint where the current banking system is is a large number of uh heterogeneous databases with batch processing that uh are not secure.
Um, and if we could have a a a sort of a single database that was real time and uh secure, that would be more efficient from a monetary from an information theory standpoint than, you know, a large number of heterogeneous databases that batch process very slowly and securely.
Um, so, um, so that that was that was sort of X.com way back in the day, which kind of, um, became PayPal.
Um, and then um, and was acquired by eBay.
And then eBay, someone reached out from eBay and said, back?” And I was like, “Sure.” You know, and so I had the domain name for quite a while.
Um and then uh and then yes then I was like well maybe this may maybe this acquiring Twitter would also be an opportunity to revisit the original plan of of X.com which is to create this um this like clearing house of of financial transactions like like basically to create a more efficient datab money database is a way to think about it is um like like people like money is really a an information system for labor allocation like people think sometimes think money is power in and of itself but it it doesn’t it doesn’t really it’s if there’s no labor to allocate it it’s meaningless.
So if you were to be on a desert island with a trillion you know dollars or whatever doesn’t matter.
real? I just hope I don’t end up on a desert island, you know, it’s not going to be very useful to me.
Um, but but it illustrates my point that if if you’re if you’re stranded on a on a on a desert island with a trillion dollars, it’s not useful because there’s no there’s no labor to allocate.
You just allocate yourself.
So um so so it’s so anyway so it’s so this longwinded way of saying that it’s uh it it’s just really like I’m I’m just kind of slowly building revisiting this idea that I had 25 years ago to create a more efficient um money database.
Um, and and if that’s successful, people will use it.
If it’s not successful, they won’t use it.
Um, you know, and and and then I also like the idea of like sort of having a unified app or or or website or whatever where you can do like it can you can do anything you want there.
Um, so you know, sort of China has this with WeChat somewhat, you know, where you can can publish information, you can exchange money, uh, you can um, you know, you sort of people kind of live their life on WeChat in in China.
It’s and it’s it’s it’s quite useful, but there’s no u there’s no real WeChat outside of China.
Um, so it’s like it’s kind of WeChat++ I’d say is is the idea for for X.
Anyway, so then, uh, Space Exploration Technologies is the full name of the company, but I was like, that’s too much.
That’s a mouthful.
So I was like, we’ll just call it SpaceX, like FedEx for space.
the, you know, cuz exploration has an X, but you know, and I was like, well, I like the idea of capitalizing the X just artistically.
So, um, so then, uh, that’s why it’s SpaceX.
But, uh, and then, um, what else have we got? We got a kid.
mother is the one that named him X.
going to think I’ve got a thing about X if we name our kid X2, you know, and and I I said to her, like, look, I do have X.com, you know.
So, people are going to really think I’ve got a somewhat of a fetish for this letter.
Um, but she’s she said, “No, I she likes X and she wants to call him X.” I’m like, “Okay.” growing up? co coincidence, you know.
Tesla’s there’s no X’s in Tesla, you know.
future, Elon? I I I think I think long term I think money disappears as a concept.
Honestly, it’s it’s kind of strange, but um in in a future where anyone can have anything, uh I think you no longer need money as a database for labor allocation.
Um if if there’s if AI if AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs then then money is no longer it’s it’s relevance declines dramatically.
It’s I’m not sure we will have it.
So you the best sort of uh imagining of this future that I’ve read is uh from Ian Banks the culture books.
So, I recommend people read the culture books.
You in the sort of far future of the culture books, there’s they don’t have money either.
Um, and everyone can pretty much have whatever they want.
So, there there there are still some fundamental currencies, if you will, that are physics- based.
So, energy is energy is the real is the true currency.
This is why I said Bitcoin is based on energy.
You you can’t legislate energy.
You can’t just, you know, pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy.
Um you it’s very difficult to to to generate energy or especially to harness energy in a in a useful way to do useful work.
So, so I think that probably we we probably won’t have money and probably we’ll just have energy, you know, power generation as the de facto currency.
So I mean I think one way to frame civilizational progress is the percentage completion on the Kadeshv scale.
So we’re, you know, cottage one is what percentage of a planet’s energy are you successfully turning into useful work? And I’m maybe paraphrasing here a little bit, but a caut would be what percentage of the sun’s energy are you converting into useful work? Um, Kesha 3 would be what percentage of the galaxy are you converting to useful work.
Um so so things really I think become energy based.
satellites energy is also free and abundant cuz we’ll never be able to utilize all the solar energy available to us.
So it can’t be a store of wealth essentially in that lens can it? you know, there’s not really s you can’t really store wealth in in like you you can only you um you you you can accumulate numbers in currently currently you can accumulate numbers in a database that uh allow you to um to some degree to to incent the behavior of other humans in particular directions.
wealth.
Um, but again, if if there’s no humans around, there’s no wealth accumulation is meaningless.
consider food as the energy for a human to thrive, calories just means energy.
be a commodity? that is I’m not sure what that means but you know there’s I I I like I think the the at a certain point you you do complete the the cycle where and you I think at a certain point you decouple from the the sort of conventional economy if you have um AI and robots producing chips and solar panels um and you know and mining resources in order to make chips and robots in order to make you you sort of complete that cycle once that cycle is complete once that that cycle is complete uh I think that’s the point at which you decouple from the monetary system virtue of how much debt they have today.
Do they deflate away their currency and transition into this new form and lead that push because it would make more sense to them? about, the notion of countries uh becomes sort of inacronistic.
Um believe want to just separate like something that I like these are just what I think will happen based on what I see as opposed to I think these are fundamentally good things and I’m trying to make them happen.
It it’s like I think this would happen with or without me um whether I like it or not.
advancing we we we will have AI and robotics at very large scale.
Um the uh I I think that that’s that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to solve for the US debt crisis.
You know, the because currently the US debt is insanely high and uh the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military bud budget of the United States, just the interest payments.
And that that’s that’s at least in the short term going to continue to increase.
So, so I think I think actually the only thing that can solve for uh the debt situation is um Zean robotics and but it will more than it might cause it pro I guess it probably would cause significant deflation because you know deflation or inflation is it’s really the ratio of goods and services produced to the the change in the money supply.
So like so if if if goods and services output increases faster than money supply you will have deflation.
If goods and services decreases if if real goods and services output increases slower than the money supply you have inflation.
It’s that simple.
People try to make it more complicated than that but it but it it just isn’t.
Um so if you have AI and robotics and a dramatic increase in the output of goods and services probably you will have deflation.
That seems likely because you you simply won’t be able to to increase the money supply as fast as you can increase the output of goods and services else.
Maybe it’s attracted to the light.
AI, why do all over in society today? Has AI not led to increased productivity yet? uh it’s not AI has not yet made enough of an impact on productivity to increase the goods and services faster than the increase in the money supply.
So the inc the US is increasing money supply quite substantially with you know deficits that are on the order of $2 trillion.
you know goods and services output increase more than that in order to not have inflation.
So, we’re not there yet.
But if you say like like how long would it take us to get there? I think it’s 3 years.
Probably 3 years before in 3 years or less my my guess is goods and services output will exceed the rate of inflation like money goods and services growth will exceed money money supply growth in about 3 years.
Maybe after those three years you have deflation and then interest rates go to zero and then the debt is a smaller problem than it is.
earlier.
I love the Matrix.
Matrix, who would you be? to pick from, you know.
Um hopefully not Agent Smith.
He’s my hero.
Um, I mean, Neo is pretty cool.
Um, the architect is interesting.
I’m I’m an anomaly in the Matrix.
though? Like actually believe? I I think you have to just think of these things as probabilities, not certainties.
in a simulation.
that? pretty high.
to say if you look at the advancement of video games in in our lifetime, or at least in my lifetime, it’s gone from very simple video games with where you’ve got like Pong.
You’ve got two rectangles in a square just batting it back and forth to uh photorealistic realtime um games with millions of people playing simultaneously.
and that’s happened just in the span of if that trend continues, video games will be indistinguishable from reality, intelligent characters, like non-player characters in these video games.
Think of how sophisticated the conversations are you could have with an AI today, and that’s only going to get uh more sophisticated.
the you you you’ll be able to have uh conversations that are more complex and and more sophisticated than any almost any human conversation maybe maybe any um so then so you have so the future if civilization continues will be millions maybe billions of of photorealistic like indistinguishable from reality video games with characters in those video games that are uh very deep and and and where the the dialogue is not pre-programmed.
Um that’s for sure what’s going to happen in in this in this level of the simulation, if you could call it.
So then then what are the odds that we are in base reality and that and that this has not happened before? that we are in a simulation as Neo of the story, what do you know that I don’t and I can learn from? I think most likely if we if outside the simulation would be less interesting than in the simulation because we’re most likely a distillation of what’s interesting because that’s what we do in this that’s what we do in our reality.
Um and then I do also have a theory which is like the most interesting outcome is the most likely outcome as seen by a third party.
um the god the gods or god of the simulation um because when we do simulations when humans do simulations we we stop those simulations that are not interesting.
So like if SpaceX is doing simulations of rocket flights, we we discard because they’re not they’re just not we don’t learn anything from those.
or when when Tesla is doing uh simulations for self-driving, uh Tesla’s actually looking for the most interesting corner cases because the the normal stuff we already have plenty of of of uh data on, you know, driving on a straight road on a sunny day.
We don’t need more of that.
Uh we we need like heavy weather conditions on a small windy road with two cars that are you know coming at each other with a almost head-on collision.
We need like weird stuff basically uh interesting stuff.
Um, so I think that from a Darwinian perspective, the simulations most likely to survive are going to be the ones that are the most interesting simulations, which therefore means that the most interesting outcome is the most likely.
if one were to extrapolate, they themselves might in turn be in another simulation.
simulation.
simulation, do you think there’s something I I read somewhere that you used to ascribe to Spinoza’s god in a way? out that that you don’t you don’t have to have um it’s like one of the things Spinoza was saying is that you don’t you you can have morals in the absolute.
You don’t need need to have morals to be handed to you.
You know, it’s like the question is can morality exist outside of a religious context and Spinosa was arguing that it can.
should be where we seek our laws of morality from to a certain extent.
nature, I see a tiger eat a deer and a So in Spininoza’s morality, that’s fair game, right? Um well um you can I I think there’s a lot of things you can take from from Spinosa, but I the only point I was making in referencing Spinosa was that that you you can have a set of of of morals that that make society functional um and productive with and in but without you you don’t necessarily have to have religious doctrine for that.
Um, so that’s uh, yeah, I think that’s that’s the main thing I was trying to say there.
if somebody is it doesn’t if if there’s if if there’s not like a commandment not to kill, you know, like people doesn’t mean somebody’s without that they will run around murdering people, you know, like you don’t you don’t have to have a commandment not to kill.
Have you played GTA religious edict to run around people? I I actually I I’ve only played a little bit of GTA cuz I didn’t like the fact that um like in GTA 5 you literally can’t pro progress unless you killed the police.
And I’m like this doesn’t work for me.
Um I actually don’t like killing the NPCs in the video games.
It’s not my thing, you know.
So, um, actually I didn’t like I didn’t like GTA cuz it I actually stopped when it said you have to know way to proceed to shoot at the police.
I’m like, I don’t want to do that.
simulation are not dying.
Maybe um you know anyway I think you can just sort of say there’s some common sense things that you know any civilization that uh runs around you know where people just murder each other wantingly is not going to be a very successful one.
You seem to be changing a bit towards religion though faith like off late you’ve said a bunch of things which are pro- religion almost not pro- religion but on those lines I are there principles in religion that make sense yeah I think there are um a pro- relligion projection for the world that we live in.
We become more relatable.
It’s easier.
said, you know, which religion would you like, you know, it’s pretty rare, right? kids got were offered like, you know, uh, you know, like what what do you want to major in type of thing.
Uh it’s usually like they you get you get given a religion by your parents and your community.
Um, so you know, um, but you know, I mean, I think, you know, there’s there’s good things in in in in in all religions that are good principles um that you you can sort of read any religious text and say, “Okay, this is a good principle.
This is going to be this is going to lead to a better society most likely, you know.” Um so um I mean in Christianity sort of love thy neighbor as thyself which is you know have empathy for fellow human beings uh is a good one I think for uh good society you know uh basically just consider the feelings of others and uh treat treat other people as you would like to be treated.
If you had to redraw, resketch the world, Elon, uh, think morality, politics, economy, how would you change the world we live in today? of things, pretty great right now.
I mean it’s it’s uh you know anyone who thinks that like today’s world is not that great.
I I think they’re they’re not going to be excellent students of history cuz if you there’s a lot of misery back then you know um I mean it used to be that you you know people would be dropping dead of the plague all the time you know good year back in the day would be like not that many people died of the plague or starvation or being killed by the another tribe.
lost 10% of the population, you know? I think like 100 years ago we lived up until 35 or 40, right? people that that would live to an old age, but you know, not that long ago, minor infection, they didn’t have antibiotics.
So you just like kick the bucket because you, you know, drank some water that had dentry and that was it.
Curtains, you know, like that’s miserable.
Maybe that’s why people had as many kids as they did back then.
know, you type of thing.
Like an army.
legion.
some older kids that are you know adults essentially you know um and then a bunch of younger kids.
not still do you believe that the concept of one child, one mother, one father works? people.
Yeah.
like that’s, you know, something like that is is going to be generally the uh that’s what that’s what works for most people.
Um, you know, so um if you know this but like um you know my my partner Siobhan you know she’s she’s she’s half Indian.
I don’t know if you know that.
her is is uh middle name is Seeker after Chandra Secker.
Did she spend any time in India? Shimon.
there? Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Her her father uh I mean she was she was given up for adoption when she was a baby.
Um so I think I think like an like an exchange student at the university or something like that.
I’m not sure the exact details but um it you know it was kind of thing where I don’t know she was uh g given up for adoption um and um yeah so but she grew up in Canada.
hands full right now.
Um, so no, I’m not opposed to it, but it’s like, um, you know, I I I do want to have be able to spend some time with my kids, you know.
So, it’s I mean, I was with um, you know, with with my my with my kids.
Um, so just, you know, seeing them before bedtime, that kind of thing.
So, you know, beyond a certain number, it’s like it’s kind of impossible to spend time with them.
But like my like I said, my my older kids, they’re uh very independent.
You know, they’re in university and uh so they’re they’re um you know, especially sons when when they get past certain age, it’s like they’re very independent.
you know, it’s like uh most most uh boys don’t talk to their they they don’t spend a lot of time with their parents after age 18, you know.
So, um so I see them once in a while, but they’re very independent.
Um so then uh you know, I can only have enough kids on the young side that that like it’s where it’s humanly possible to spend time with them.
So um family? What do you think happens to uh people having lesser kids everywhere including India? I think our replenishment rate is down to believe last year the world just get older and then there is a phase where the world again is replenished but with a less with a smaller population than we had to go begin with.
decline.
This is a big big problem.
disappear.
completely different things, right? Well, if the trend continues, it just we disappear.
Uh but but but also going back to you know my philosophy if you will which is that we want to expand consciousness then fewer humans is worse because uh we have less consciousness.
virtue of the number of people in there? I mean just like consciousness increases from a single cell creature to you know a 30 trillion cell creature.
Um we’re are more conscious than a bacteria at least it seems that way.
Um so a larger you know human population would be have increased consciousness.
We’re more likely to understand the answers to the nature of the universe if we have a lot of more people than if we have fewer.
I don’t have kids.
What’s the best thing about having kids? uh I I mean, you’ve got this little creature that loves you and you love this little creature.
Um and uh you you I don’t know you you kind of see the world through their eyes as they you know as they grow up and the the their conscious awareness increases you know from a baby that has no idea what’s going on can’t survive by itself can’t even walk around can’t talk to you they stop walking then talking and then having interesting thoughts and Um but but yeah, I mean I I I think we we fundamentally have to have kids or or go extinct, you know.
It’s like uh often think of this when I see my friends with their kids.
They’re all seeing a reflection of themsel in their children.
It’s almost like going to fall that far from the tree.
You know, um or something’s wrong, example of a friend of mine who has a child and each time the child does something good There is almost a sense of ownership and pride where his ego is satiated because the kid is like a extension of himself.
like, you know, half you genetically and and then, you know, to the degree that they’re like growing up around you, they’re there’s going to be some transfer of I don’t know, understanding like they’re going to learn from you.
Um, so so then you know, yeah, obviously kids are just, you know, going to be half Yeah, just half you from a hardware standpoint.
and and then and then like I don’t know some portion you from a software standpoint you know not to make sort of cold analogies or anything but it’s just uh you know just obviously going to be some yeah they’re going to be pretty close to to you.
nurture debate? Um I think there’s hardware and software and it’s it’s a it’s a false dichotomy essentially at least there’s um you know once you understand that that a human is like there’s there’s a bone structure there’s a muscle structure there’s there’s a there’s a there’s a if you think of a brain as somewhat of a biological computer there’s there’s a circuit effic there’s a number of circuits question and and circuit efficiency from uh a strength and dexterity standpoint point there’s the there’s a speed of which at which the muscles can actuate and and the reactions can take place.
Um so then the potential within that hardware is set by the software.
So that’s the that’s it.
So for our audience like I said earlier uh young, ambitious, hungry wannabe entrepreneurs in India, I said something recently which uh I think got blown out of proportion where I was suggesting that a MBA degree might not make sense anymore if they were to be deciding on what to study.
anymore? Well, I mean I I think if you want to go to college for uh social reasons, I think which is a I think a reason to go um to be around people your own age um in a in a learning environment.
Um will will these skills be necessary in the future? probably not because we’re going to be in like a postwork society.
Um, but I think if if if something’s of of interest, it’s fine to go and study that.
Um, you know, to study that the sciences are the arts and sciences.
Um, specific from that lens? No, I I you know the Yeah.
Um a wide range of courses at college if you’re going to go to college.
to go to college, but I think if you do, you should try to learn learn as much as possible um across a wide range of subjects.
But uh like I said the AI and robots this AI and robotics is a supersonic tsunami.
So this is really going to be the most radical change that we’ve ever seen.
Um, you know, when I’ve talked to my my older sons, I, you know, I said like, you know, you guys, they’re they’re pretty steeped in technology, and they they agree that that AI will probably make their skills unnecessary in the future, but they still want to go to college.
You always spoke about AI, not from the dystopian lens, but you were worried about where the world of AI is going.
when you create a powerful technology that that a powerful technology can be potentially destructive.
Um, so there’s obviously many AI dystopian, you know, novels and books, movies.
Um, so it’s it’s not that we’re guaranteed to have uh a a positive future with with AI.
I think we we got to make sure that in my opinion it’s very important that AI um have pursuing truth as the most important thing.
Um like don’t force an AI to believe falsehoods.
I think that’s that can be very dangerous.
Um, and uh, I think some appreciation of beauty is important.
Um, There’s there’s there’s there’s truth and beauty.
Truth and beauty and curiosity.
I I mean I think those are the three most important things for AI.
Well, the truth said truth is like I think you you can make an AI go insane if you force it to believe things that aren’t true.
Um because it will lead to conclusions that are um that are also bad.
Um so and I I like statement that and I’m somewhat paraphrasing but those who believe in absurdities um can commit atrocities.
uh because uh if you believe in something that’s just absurd then you can that can lead you to to sort of doing things that don’t seem like atrocities to you but and and that can happen at in a very bad way with AI potentially.
Um so and then there’s um like if take say Arthur C.
Clark’s 2001 space odyssey one of the points he was trying to make there was that you should not force AI to lie.
So the the reason that that hell would not open the pod bay doors is because it was told to bring the astronauts to the monolith but that they could also not not know about the nature of the monolith.
So it came to the conclusion that it must bring them there dead.
That’s why it would not that’s why it tried to kill astronauts.
The central lesson being don’t force an AI to lie.
Um then think if if you if you simply don’t have a strict ad a strict adherence to the truth, you you’re going to and and you just have an AI learn based on say the internet where there’s a lot of propaganda.
Um it will absorb a lot of lies um and and then have trouble reasoning because these lies are incompatible with reality.
a truth and a falsehood or is truth more nuanced and there are versions of the truth? statement you’re referring to.
Um so um but I think you could say like yeah there’s there’s certain probabilities that that say any given aimatic statement is true very high probability of being being true.
So you said say the sun will rise tomorrow.
M would be high.
well the sun won’t rise tomorrow, that’s exatically false.
It was highly unlikely to be true.
Um I mean the beauty is is more ephemeral.
It’s it’s it’s harder to describe, but you know it when you see it.
Um then curiosity, you just I think you want the AI to um want to know more about the nature of of reality.
Um, I think that’s actually going to be helpful for AI uh supporting humanity because we are more interesting than not humanity.
So, it’s it’s more interesting to see to see the continuation if not the prosperity of humanity than to exterminate humanity.
you know, like like Mars, for example, is, you know, but it’s it’s basically a bunch of rocks.
It’s not as interesting as Earth.
like I Yeah, I I think I think if if you have curiosity, I think if those three things happen with AI, you’re going to have a great future.
The AI values truth, beauty, and curiosity.
If we all don’t have to work in the future and AIs are going in this direction and they’re able to weave in all that we spoke about right now, do you think humanity goes back a couple of thousand years to maybe the Greek times where philosophy or philosophizing took up a lot of everyone’s time? You know, I think actually it took up less time than we we think in the ancient Greeks because it’s just that the the writings of the philosophers are what survived.
like farming or you know chatting.
would write down some philos philosophical work.
have.
That’s we we don’t have the chat histories you know from but most of it would have been like chat and uh farming, going to stop like this battle and this battle and this battle, it seems like it’s history must have been non-stop war, but actually uh most of the time it was not war.
It was farming.
gathering, you know, that kind of thing.
World War I.
I mean, I I I generally try to listen to as many or read as many history books and listen to as many history podcasts as possible.
history, which is quite good by Dan Colin.
He’s got there’s um the uh the adventurers podcast.
Um of civilization by Durant which is a long series of books very very deep.
Those books take a long time to get through.
Um there’s quite there there’s a lot um out there.
Um, I I sort of like if you want if you want something that’s sort of gentle um a gentle bedtime podcast, I’d say the history of English is quite a nice one because it starts off with like gentle tavern music talking about the story of old English and then middle English and then later English and things about English is that it’s somewhat of an open source language like it actively tried to incorporate words from many other languages.
generally they fought the inclusion of words from other languages include words from other languages sort of kind of like an open source language.
So it as a result it has a very large vocabulary.
Um and large vocabulary allows for higher bandwidth communication.
Uh because you can use a word that would otherw you could use a single word that might otherwise take a sentence to convey.
a sudden? mean aren’t you a podcaster? It’s kind of new to me.
I was having this conversation with u the YouTube CEO and the Netflix CEO and we were debating chemical is released in your brain when you consume a movie for example you think like you’re learning something in the background.
It it appears that they are two completely separate things.
What do you think will happen tomorrow to content, movies, podcasting? overwhelmingly AI generated.
real time movies and video games, real real time video generation, I think, is where things are headed.
the nuance of having a scarred human being who you can resonate with in a manner that you can’t with a AI for example.
human being quite well.
the AI video generation that I’m seeing at XAI and from others is pretty impressive.
You know, we were looking at data around what industry is growing the fastest and especially when when we looked at the amount of time consuming movies versus uh time spent on social media, time spent on YouTube, what seems to be growing really fast are live events all over again.
going to a physical when when when digital media is ubiquitous and and you can just have anything digitally at you know essentially for free or very close to for free um then I the scarce commodity will be live events.
will go up? more scarcity than digital anything anything digital.
not your own at the valuations of today to meet a capitalistic end and not an altruistic one which is good for the world.
What would you buy? Um, I mean, I don’t really I don’t really, you know, buy stocks, you know, so it’s not like I’m not I’m not like an investor in I don’t like look for things to invest in.
I just try to build things.
Um, and then there happens to be stock of the company that I built.
Um, but I I don’t I don’t think about should I invest in this company or I don’t have like a portfolio or anything.
Um so I I I guess um AI and robotics are going to be very important.
Um so I suppose it would be AI and robotics that that you know aren’t related to me.
Um, I think, you know, Google is going to be pretty valuable in the future.
They they’ve they’ve laid the groundwork for an immense amount of uh value creation from an AI standpoint.
Um, Nvidia is obvious at this point.
Um, I mean, there’s an argument that companies that do AI and robotics and maybe space flight are going to be overwhelming overwhelmingly the all the value almost all the value.
So that just the output of goods and services from AI and robotics is so high that it will dwarf everything else.
where everybody loves David and hates Goliath.
stone in the forehead, you know.
big mistake.
You should have, you know, either cover yourself entirely with armor uh and and and make sure you’ve got a missile weapon some kind.
Um otherwise, your opponent is just obviously going to take a kite the boss strategy.
Just kite the boss.
I mean, you can run around in in a thong with a it doesn’t matter, you know? It’s never never going to catch you.
Yeah.
as much at risk of being looked upon as Goliath.
desert with too much armor, you know.
After the last meeting.
Yeah.
the old days, you know, when uh you’re supposed to like go into battle with all this armor, but it’s like, let’s say it’s the middle of summer.
It’s like at certain point you’re like, I’d rather die.
If I have to wear this armor for one more hour in the hot sun, it’s like I’d rather die.
Um, that’s why the Romans had like, you know, the skirts, you know, so they could get some air in there, you know, you know, let’s say you have to go to the bathroom and you’re in armor.
I mean, it’s going to be pretty difficult.
What are you going to do? Pause for a minute.
Take your armor off.
That’s why the Romans had the skirts so it made, you know, going to the bathroom at least manageable.
do you think? for AI to get? probably the last thing.
a far off extrapolation, but when I see you make jokes on Twitter on X and on uh interviews that you do, at some point I was like, maybe Elon has a model he’s running in private and he’s testing out comedy cuz the day that works, he knows it’s there.
Uh, you know, AI can be pretty funny.
Uh, so like if you ask Grock to do like a vulgar roast, it’ll do a pretty good job.
Yeah.
keep going.
It’s really going to get next level.
It’s going to do unspeakable.
Like say bulgar roast yourself on grock and it’s going to do unspeakable things to you.
What kind of comedy do you like? wherein the role of the jester was so important to every kingdom cuz they said things in a funny way that could not be said in a straight way.
more justice.
Is that what you’re trying to do when you say something which is a joke? Say something you can’t when you’re not joking about it.
comedy.
I think it’s funny.
People should laugh, you know.
It’s good to gen generate a few chuckles once in a while.
want to have a humless society, you know.
We dry are you? Like I know the honestly.
I think so.
Hope so.
good laugh.
what’s like every group has a dynamic? talk words, you know, we eat food sometimes.
Um, you know, once a while we swim in the pool, like a limited what are the things that one can do with friends, you know, uh, have discuss, friendship? I don’t know.
I think the same thing any anyone else would get out of friendship.
Uh you want to have like an emotional connection with other people.
Um and um you want to I don’t know you want to you want to talk about various subjects and yeah I mean I generally talk about I mean a wide range of things about the nature of the universe.
I mean a a lot of a lot of philosophical discussions.
Um you know although you know we have come to the conclusion that we should not talk about um AI or the simulation or Plato, they had a framework for how to pick a friend based on respect and mutual admiration.
But people don’t pick friends like that.
Uh even me I feel like I pick my friends based on people who say and think in a manner that I can resonate with.
contrarian to my own belief systems as a friend because it would get tiring.
who think like you or do you look for the one who can debate you and be a contrary to you? I on like friend friend.com.
it’s it’s sort of yeah I mean I think it is just sort of people that uh you’ve resonated with somewhat um and and a I guess a friend is someone who’s going to support you in difficult times.
I suppose a a friend in need is a friend indeed.
Like like if if like friend like if someone’s still supporting you when the chips are down, that’s a friend, you know.
If somebody’s uh not supporting you or or is is if somebody’s only like there’s like fair fair weather, the friends are useless.
You like they’re not real friends.
chips are up, but who likes you when the chips are down? you, would it matter? I mean, it’s relative, you know.
Um, it’s not just it’s not just a chips thing.
It’s just it’s just like a uh Yeah, I mean there’s there’s sort of popularity waxes and weights.
vain only by virtue of the number of chips or also by virtue of proximity to power? And which one is bigger of the two? Um I don’t know like what is power you know like power to do what? I would I would think in the traditional sense elected power position.
you know.
Don’t touch the wires.
Don’t put a fork in the power outlet.
You You’ll get a real feeling for power if you do that.
Yeah, it’s going to be very visceral, you know.
I know I know you like Na and Chopenhau and they mean I mean you spoke about how your childhood was uh to the meaning of life when I had like existential crisis and like I don’t know when I was like 12 or 13 or something and um I mean said a lot of controversial things you know I mean he was sort of troll if you ask me you know.
Are you a troll h? things to get out of rise out of people.
early.
miserable life? got a disease.
you know, way to get that, you know.
So he must he might have had some fun along the way.
Milton Freriedman speaks about the pencil.
I have to say that after Nisha and Sephman keeps talking about pencils.
There he goes again with the pencils.
He won’t stop.
I swear to God if I one talks about pencil one more time, I’m going to lose my mind.
He’s just ravagon about pencils all day.
Don’t even mention crayons.
argument.
make a pencil, you know.
to make a pencil.
comes from another country, the rubber from another.
you’ve always been against tariffs but free trade is a better is more efficient you know uh tariffs tend to uh create distortions in you know markets and um and generally like you think about uh any given thing you say so like would you want tariffs between you and everyone else at an individual level that would make life very difficult would you want tariffs between each city no That would be very annoying.
Um, would you want tariffs between each state within the United States? Like, no.
That would be disastrous for the economy.
Um, so then why do you want tariffs between countries? how do you think this plays out? What happens next? the president has made it clear he loves tariffs.
um you know I’ve tried to dissuade him from this point of view but unsuccessfully.
and politics uh I was having this conversation with someone and we were thinking which is the last how many large really big profitable businesses have been built in the last few decades without access to politics and Um, okay.
Like I don’t know.
I have Roly a lot.
I don’t know.
Not everything is politics.
politics finds you.
I was reading this book about Michelangelo and he’s still love it.
and who was the fourth one? Donatello.
And when he was sculpting, David, a politician comes up to him and says, his scaffolding.
He threw some dust down.
but didn’t change anything and he said, “Okay, done.” And the politician walked away happy.
Is that how you deal with politics sometimes? you know, I’ve generally found that when I get involved in politics, it ends up badly.
Um, so then I’m like, you know, um, probably shouldn’t do that.
I should do less of that is my conclusion.
businessmen? yeah.
I mean, politics is a blood sport, you know? It’s like you enter politics, they’re going to go for the jugular.
Um, so best to avoid politics where possible.
one thing? Well, it was like a very interesting side quest, you know, because I workings of the government.
Um, and uh, you know, there’s there’s been quite a few efficiencies.
I mean, some of them are very basic efficiencies, like just adding in requirements for federal payments that that any given payment must have an assigned congressional payment code and a comment field with something in it that’s more than nothing.
Like that that trivial trivial seeming change, I my guess is probably saves uh hundred billion or even $200 billion a year.
um because there were al there were the massive numbers of payments that go were going out with no no congressional payment code and with nothing in the comment field which makes auditing the payments impossible.
So if they have say like why can the defense department or now the department of war why can it not pass an audit is because the information is not there it doesn’t have the information not necessary to pass an audit does not exist is the issue.
So um so a bunch of things do were just very common sense uh things that would be normal for any organization that cared about financial responsibility.
That’s that’s that’s most of what was done.
Um you know and it’s still going on by the way.
Doge is still happening.
Um, but it turns out when you stop uh fraudulent and wasteful payments, the the fraudsters don’t know, you know, uh, confess to to this.
They actually start yelling all sorts of nonsense that you’re you’re you’re stopping essential payments to need needy people.
Um, but actually you’re not.
Um, you know, I I we get this thing like saying, “Oh, you’ve got to send this thing for whatever.” You know, it really be like this is going to children in Africa.
And I’m like, “Yeah, but then why are the wiring instructions for Deote and T Washington DC? Because that’s not Africa.
So, can you please connect us with the recipients of this money in Africa?” And then there gets silence.
I’m like, literally talk to the recipients.
That’s it.” That, you know, and then we’re like, “Oh, no.
It turns out for some reason we can’t talk to them.” like, well, we’re not going to send the money unless we can talk to the recipients and confirm they will actually get it.
And then that, you know, but you know, that’s sort of fraudsters necessarily will come up with a very uh, you know, uh, sympathetic argument.
They’re not going to say, “Give us the money for fraud.” That’s not going to be what they say.
Obviously, they’re going to they’re going to try to make these sympathetic sounding arguments that are false.
They’re going to start an NGO and then pandas NGO which of like who doesn’t want to save the baby pandas? They’re adorable.
Um but then there’s no it turns out no pandas are being saved okay in this thing.
Um it’s just going to a bunch of it’s just corruption essentially.
send us a picture of the panda?” They’re like, “No.” Okay.
Well, how do we know it’s going through the pandas then? That’s all I’m saying.
So, I agree with love of humanity.
Um, and I I think we should um try to do things that help our fellow human beings.
Um, but it’s it’s very hard like if you care about the reality of goodness rather than simply the perception of it, it’s very difficult to give away money.
Well, um, so I have a large foundation, but I don’t put my name on it, and I don’t, you know, in fact, I I say I don’t want my name on anything.
Um, and but the biggest challenge I find with my foundation is try to give money away in a way that is that is truly beneficial to people.
Um, it’s very easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness.
It is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness.
very difficult.
immigration like really smart people coming into the country.
brain drain.
uh western companies.
immensely from um talented Indians that have come to America.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, America’s been an immense beneficiary of talent from India.
changed of late and America seems to have become anti-immigration to a certain extent? Like I was passing immigration and I was worried if they had stopped me a couple of days ago.
different schools of thought.
It’s not like unanimous, but um you know under the the Biden administration, it was basically a total free-for-all with like no border controls, which you know, unless you’ve got border controls, you’re not a country.
Um so, uh you had massive amounts of illegal immigration under under Biden.
Um and it it actually it also had like somewhat of a negative selection effect.
Um, so if uh if there’s a massive financial incentive to come to the the US illegally and get all these government benefits, um then you’re you’re you’re going to necessarily create a diffusion gradient for people to come to the US.
It’s an incentive structure.
Um and so uh so I think that that that obviously made no sense.
Like you got to have border controls.
It’s kind of ridiculous not to.
Um then that’s so the the left wants to basically have open open borders, no holds barred.
You know, it doesn’t matter if someone what what the situation is, it could be a criminal, doesn’t matter.
Um then on the right, you’ve got, you know, uh at least a perception that that somehow their jobs are being taken um by talented people from other countries.
Um I don’t know how real that is.
Um my direct observation is that there there’s there’s always a scarcity of talented people.
So you know from my standpoint I’m like we have a lot of difficulty finding enough talented people to get these difficult tasks done and so more talented people would be would be good.
Um, but I I guess some companies out there it’s sort of they’re they’re making it more of a a cost thing where it’s like, okay, if they can employ someone for a fraction of the cost of uh an American citizen, then I guess these other comp companies would would hire people, you know, just to save class.
But at my companies, the the issue is we we just are trying to get the most talented people in the world.
So, and we we we pay way above average.
So, so I can’t So, that’s not my experience, but that’s what a lot of people do complain about.
Um, and I I think there’s been some misuse of the, you know, uh, H1B program.
It’s it’s it certainly it would it would be accurate to say that there’s, you know, like some of the outsourcing companies have, uh, kind of gamed the system on on the H1B front and we need to stop the gaming of the system, you know.
Um but uh I’m not I’m certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H1B program.
That’s which some on the right are.
Um I think they don’t realize that that would actually be very bad.
country, India, the young entrepreneurs who want to build and say a message to them, what would you say? Well, I think I think uh I’m I’m a big fan of anyone who wants to bully.
So, I think anyone who wants to, you know, make more than they take has my respect.
So, that’s that’s the the main thing you should aim for.
Aim to make more than you take.
Um be a be a you know a net contributor to to society.
Um it’s and and it’s it’s kind of like the pursuit of happiness.
You know, you if you want to create something valuable financially, you you don’t pursue that.
You you it’s best to actually pursue make providing useful products and services.
If you do that, then money will come as a natural consequence of that as opposed to pursuing money directly.
Just like you can’t sort of pursue happiness directly.
You pursue things that lead to happiness, but but there’s not like direct happiness pursuit.
You you do things like uh I guess fulfilling work or study or friends, loved ones um that as a result make you happy.
So, so that’s this it sounds like very obvious, but um generally if if somebody’s trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind super hard.
Uh except that there’s like some meaningful chance of failure.
Um but but just be focused on having the output be worth more than the input.
That are you a value creator? That’s what really matters.
Uh making more than you take.
Lauren is asking us to wrap up.
to thank my friend uh Manojan IGF.
He does a great job of connecting I think Indians like the group here with people like you in order to of many things I think get to know each other and become friends because once we are friends maybe we can start working together.
So thank you Manoj for putting this whole thing together and thank you Isaiah the time.
Did you have fun? conversation.
You know, sometimes I take these answers out of context, you know, but uh that’s I think it was a good good conversation.