· David Senra, Jeremy Stern
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: Local New York paper. But what I knew at the time was their father and grandfather had built this New Jersey real estate principality that the children were getting involved in, and the father had all of these problems with the law, and the grandparents had their lives shattered in the Holocaust and came to the United States with literally nothing. And what was kind of interesting to me about the family was, in one generation, maybe now at this point in two generations, but in a very, very short period of time, these people had their lives completely shattered. And when their grandmother, who had basically her whole family executed in the Holocaust, tries for years to get to the United States, finally makes it here, and within her lifetime, Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu are coming to her home to have dinner with her family to basically kiss the ring and ask for the favor of her son, right? And there was this element in which this family had elements of the Kennedy family story, but it was also representative of this typical Holocaust story. And I think even among harrowing Holocaust survival stories, the story of the Kushner grandparents is kind of particularly harrowing. [00:00:00] S0: There's a movie based on it, right? It was- [00:00:00] S1: "Deliverance" is the- [00:00:00] S0: "Defiance." [00:00:00] S1: "Defiance," that's what it was. Not "Deliverance." That's the movie- [00:00:00] S0: With the guy that I should know his name. He played Bond. What is his name? [00:00:00] S1: Daniel Craig. [00:00:00] S0: Thank you.
· David Senra, Jeremy Stern
[00:00:00] S0: Thank you. [00:00:00] S1: That's right. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, they're essentially hiding in a forest.
· Jeremy Stern
[00:00:00] S1: That's right. So they're in the forest of, I think it's Belarus, what's now modern-day Belarus. And the story of "Inglourious Basterds," I think, is also partially inspired by this collective of concentration camp escapees run by this man named Tuvia Bielski, who basically, they live in the forest, and they train each other with small arms, and they conduct a lot of these kidnappings and reprisal killings of Nazi soldiers in Eastern Europe. And yeah, the Kushner grandmother was part of the Bielski partisans, which is amazing, right? So that was kind of, I'd already had this longstanding interest in the family, going back to even before I think they became nationally famous in the Trump era. I think this permeates a lot of the stuff I've written in the last couple years, but I'm also the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors, and the idea of American national identity, it's the thing that allows all of us to be as Irish or as Sikh or as Korean as we want to be, right? You don't have to make any sacrifices to that part of your kind of sub-national identity, so long as you still subscribe to this idea of an American supra-tribe that transcends all of the others, which is basically a belief in the Constitution and individual liberty and freedom, and the values that all Americans kind of share in common. And so this thing is not like a kind of fairytale Disneyland story to me and my family. I think it's been very important for my whole life, and I think it's been fraying at the edges now for most of my adult life, and it's kind of coming unglued, and that has worried me a lot. And so part of what I've tried to do in a lot of these pieces I've written in the last couple of years is try to kind of check in with the current state of the American dream and try to figure out how live and true is it still, regardless of its various shortcomings and flaws, which we're all very familiar with. But is it still a live animating issue in America? Or as its various critics on the right and left like to say, it was always just a failure and a lie. And again, I think mining for evidence that it is still true and alive in business and technology at this particular moment in time is very fruitful.
· Jeremy Stern, David Senra
And I thought, given my own prior interest in the Kushner family already, and then given all of Josh's success now in the last decade plus, as a kind of new generation VC and one of the most important investors in a lot of the most important companies that- [00:00:00] S0: Don't tell him you called him a VC. He'll take offense to that. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, well, a lot of these VCs, I think- [00:00:00] S0: No, but listen- [00:00:00] S1: ... overcomplicate what they actually do.
· David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: Me and you share this. In fact, hold on, I got to pull up one of my favorite quotes. I think you were being interviewed by Lulu, if I remember correctly. But you were talking about, because I thought it was interesting, why the hell your first piece... I think the first piece you write for Colossus is on Neil Mehta, right? Who's a friend. I just actually spent a few days with him last week. But you said something that was hilarious. You're like, "I had never really encountered technology investors much. I had always found the person I kind of annoying. As a class of people, they feel like they're full of shit." So I was asking around, who's the guy who's not full of shit? And that led you to Neil. But I would say, like- Josh has way wider and grander ambitions, and I've talked to him about this. And I don't consider him a VC. You can consider him an investor, but he really, he's a builder and a founder and everything else. And this is what I like so much about him is he kind of, what I think you picked up, pardon, you demonstrate in your piece rather, and I think this is what was fascinating is when it starts with the Rick Rubin, him going to visit Rick Rubin, essentially asking him, giving him a download of his thoughts, and like, "Am I crazy the way I'm thinking about this?" Is Josh kind of doesn't really care. Just like you're not searching for the people you profile to influence your work, you're like, "I'm looking out over here." I feel Josh is the same way. He's not looking around to other investors. He's looking around to other founders.
· Jeremy Stern, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: He is a good example of that. I think Neal too. Yeah, we have kind of entered this era of oversaturation of the public engagement of various venture capitalists who I think overestimate how interesting they are to other people. And, but we've gotten to this point where they're out there offering- [00:00:00] S0: That's actually really funny. I don't want to... Well, they overestimate how interesting they are to other people. I guess let me clarify what I'm trying to say here is like, I'm very curious how people think about themselves and their work, and the way it... We can all, like, oh, Jeremy's a writer or whatever the case is. I unsuccessfully was trying to get into, is there anything more there? How does it relate to your life? How does it change you and everything else? So, I think sitting down, you did this with the Zuck piece. And when I talked to him, I was just like, I don't know if... When I talked to Zuck, I was like, "I don't think he thinks of himself like a CEO." I got emperor vibes. And then six months later, out comes your piece where it's like, guy's essentially Augustus reincarnated. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: So that's what I mean by that. It's very fascinating. It doesn't mean you have to agree with their perception of what they're doing- [00:00:00] S1: Yeah [00:00:00] S0: ... but I think you should at least figure out how they view what it is that they're doing. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: And I can just tell you, he damn sure does not think of himself as a venture capitalist.