00:12:43 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:12:43] S1: a business person. Totally. I think the Democrats often really struggle to articulate a positive vision for America and the world. You know, there's this like Simpsons meme that people always share that is hysterical, and it's the Republican National Convention, and it says like, you know you know like... But we're evil. We're evil and we know it, and then the Democratic National Convention is like we hate every... We're incompetent and we hate ourselves. Right. I think that Democrats really struggle for how much they... Because of how much they point out problems instead of being able to put forth a, like, positive vision for America. I think it's really challenging to hold the two conflicting ideas in your head. I am, you know, notwithstanding his, like, personal proclivities, often very inspired by Bill Clinton and, you know, his line, there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. Like, I believe that very deeply. I think the idea of I still don't I agree with everything you're saying. [00:13:47] S0: I just don't think it doesn't solve the corruption problem. Part of it is, I think, when Democrats are in power, they need to make sure you have severe consequences if you try to buy off the government. Totally. And it has to be, you're not allowed to do that. You can't have one party coming to power where you're allowed to sort of be pay to play and corrupt, and another party that says, we're the principled ones, but we don't have enough backbone to actually process No, mean, Democrats
00:13:47 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:13:47] S0: I just don't think it doesn't solve the corruption problem. Part of it is, I think, when Democrats are in power, they need to make sure you have severe consequences if you try to buy off the government. Totally. And it has to be, you're not allowed to do that. You can't have one party coming to power where you're allowed to sort of be pay to play and corrupt, and another party that says, we're the principled ones, but we don't have enough backbone to actually process No, mean, Democrats [00:14:09] S1: need to be more willing to wield power. I think Merrick Garland is a coward and an embarrassment, an idiot for not, you know, putting Trump in prison. The... What do you... Tech is built on immigrants. [00:14:25] S0: You know, Elon Musk himself is an immigrant. Many of these tech companies have H1B employees doing a lot of the most important work. Yet, there's a strain that's like, obviously immigrants are the ones being attacked here, but there's also some of the leader, like, know, XAI has tons of immigrants. Elon is practically a white nationalist at this I don't know, what do you make of the anti immigrant Well, but they
00:14:25 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:14:25] S0: You know, Elon Musk himself is an immigrant. Many of these tech companies have H1B employees doing a lot of the most important work. Yet, there's a strain that's like, obviously immigrants are the ones being attacked here, but there's also some of the leader, like, know, XAI has tons of immigrants. Elon is practically a white nationalist at this I don't know, what do you make of the anti immigrant Well, but they [00:14:52] S1: won't go after the good ones. That's... I think that is, I think it's, that's the cognitive dissonance of like, you know, it's all happening somewhere else over there, it's abstract, you know, it won't affect me, it won't affect the people in my life. And frankly, to some extent it might be true. I mean, because of this system of crony capitalism that we're now in, and like really third world, third world corruption that Trump has brought to America, it might be true that that the people who cozy up to the administration will get to keep the visas for their employees. [00:15:24] S0: But they're also not that competent, thankfully, I think, and so, you know, I don't know, I just saw a tech person the other day who said, you know, they tried to come back from The US on an O-one visa, and had gotten like jerked around and they're just like moving to London. Know, it is like we're gonna lose people who would be in Silicon Valley even if certain firms can get exceptions or special treatment Yeah, from the I mean,
00:15:24 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:15:24] S0: But they're also not that competent, thankfully, I think, and so, you know, I don't know, I just saw a tech person the other day who said, you know, they tried to come back from The US on an O-one visa, and had gotten like jerked around and they're just like moving to London. Know, it is like we're gonna lose people who would be in Silicon Valley even if certain firms can get exceptions or special treatment Yeah, from the I mean, [00:15:48] S1: it sort of reminds me, there's a dark, there's a real sort of dark potential here, which is kind of like perestroika, which is, you know, could we be entering a period of like rapid sort of cronyism and privatization that leaves us overall a much poorer country and looking like looking like Russia with weak institutions, no judicial independence, no central bank independence, but oligarchs who have successfully, you know, seized power based on their proximity to, you know, this like fundamentally illegitimate government.
00:16:24 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:16:24] S0: What's your view on how friendly everybody should be with each other on Twitter and in real life? You know, what do we do? It feels like, okay, we're in this moment where both you and I sort of okay, we were right. Although, like, the sky is falling about Trump really feels true. They are shooting people in the streets. They have a Gestapo like force. They have people literally cosplaying as Nazis. It is a dark moment. A lot of the things that have... If you had predicted that Trump would try to put tariffs on Europe to try and take Greenland from them, you would have been mocked before the election. So things I think are unambiguously worse than you could have really said without being laughed at before the election. So that's the world we find ourselves in. Yet I think we're so fatigued from, woah, cancel culture era of booing everybody. I guess to put a direct question to you, what's your view on this sort of no compelled speech? I said something snide about Garry Tan because he's always out there talking. He's always out there talking. And I said, He's not saying anything on this. He used to be sort of a principled Democrat. And I said, power corrupts, I guess, and he's now blocked me [00:17:42] S1: on And people accuse me of trying to compel speech. Like what's your view on this? I really don't think anybody is required to have or share an opinion about anything or everything. I do think that when you have an opinion about everything except for one thing, that's a little bit different. [00:18:04] S0: It stands out to people. Yeah.
00:18:04 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:18:04] S0: It stands out to people. Yeah. [00:18:06] S1: Yeah. So there are a lot of things that go on in the world that I just don't feel like it's necessary for me to express my opinion about. Frankly, like, I don't live in California. I don't, like, wanna get too deeply involved in California politics, so I mostly keep my mouth shut. Right. Because, like, it annoys me when people talk about New York politics and like, don't have a stake in this. But like, we're talking about America, we all have a stake in it, and there's a lot of people who I think have put themselves forward as not just business leaders, but moral leaders. Right. Who then exempt themselves from that responsibility in moments of moral crisis. So I don't think anyone is required to take up a mantle of moral leadership. I don't think anyone is required to like, be a public intellectual. If you want to be a public intellectual, if you want to, you know, be a philosopher king, then like what... People are gonna [00:18:57] S0: look to you for leadership. Yeah. And when there are moments of moral crisis and you don't offer anything, people are gonna be like, oh, thought you were a source of wisdom. I agree with that take 100%. How much do you tell founders to pick their VCs based on their morals?