00:04:17 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:04:17] S1: Think they fired 10 times. They hit him [00:04:19] S0: since then. And the guy is an ICU nurse. You know, literally a hero among us. So, yeah, so I don't think we need to get into the facts of that. Yeah. It's just I wanna talk about where Yeah. [00:04:29] S1: We're talking about the venture capital of it all. [00:04:31] S0: Exactly. Exactly. How the industry is processing it. I mean, my attitude in the newsletter was you know, when Trump got reelected was the classic, like, you know, leopards are gonna eat your face off Yeah. Sort of situation. I had Parker Conrad at Rippling, who's sort of another kindred spirit who's like, this is terrible, but I, you know, I exist in the tech industry. Nonetheless, being like, man, he said something like, I'm surrounded by a bunch of smart people who think this is gonna be great, but I... It feels like no way. It's insane. And so then I think more left wing members of tech community sort of chilled out. I mean, my retweets would occasionally flare up. But for the most part, we tried to note in the newsletter crazy moments but not go wild. What's been your approach sort of in the sort of like give Trump a year to sort of see
00:05:29 · Yoni Rechtman
[00:05:29] S1: what I this didn't give Trump a I mean, I remember finding myself at a sort of tech event among some, you know, really cool, fancy, interesting people shortly after the inauguration, and got into like a really heated argument about Doge, you know, which like that was the first thing, was gonna be the thing, and this is how we're gonna bring tech into government, and we're gonna take this like entrepreneurial mindset government. And and I... It was very clear to me that this was not a sincere effort, that this was not being undertaken with, you know, seriousness. I I do believe that there are, like, plenty of the people that volunteered for that effort and that mission, like, wanted to contribute to the government in a serious way, and, like, were civically minded about it. But it was very clear from the onset to me that, like, all of... That Trump two is gonna be much worse than Trump Any of the, you know, guardrails and constraints in Trump one were gone. My interest from, you know, shortly after the election was, for one, trying to think about what can we do at a more, like, local level. I believe that, you know, blue cities and states can either be a real, like, strong point for, you know, Democrats in the midterms and in 2028, or they can be an albatross around our necks. And so, like, when, you know, New York, California, etcetera, are, like, run well, thriving, flourishing, think it's a huge benefit to our argument that like we actually can do this, and government can be a force for good in people's lives, and What do you, and I wanna get into New York
00:07:13 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:07:13] S0: and all that, sure. What is your read on the political distribution among the venture capital class? [00:07:21] S1: I think that most venture capitalists are at this point amoral financiers. And I don't even mean that in any kind of disparaging way. I am, you know, I'm like a very deep believer in property rights and the importance of markets. Right. And there are like a lot of things in the world that I look at with a relatively amoral lens. I think that first and foremost, venture capitalists sell money, and they sell money to whoever they can sell money to. And I don't think it's like a necessarily, I think it's a relatively amoral way of moving through the world. And to be clear, I'm saying amoral, not amoral. [00:08:04] S0: I don't [00:08:05] S1: think there's anything... There's nothing evil, but there's nothing inherently good either. You know, I certainly believe that like entrepreneurial capitalism is is the best form... Is the best kind of market system to pair with liberal democracy Right. To like achieve freedom and broad prosperity. And so in that way, I think it's like ultimately serving some some good purpose, but like most of the people within it are, you know, I went to Stanford, I went to Princeton, I worked at Morgan Stanley, I worked at Meta, I know a bunch of people. I did some angel investments. Like, you know, my dad ran the TMT desk at Goldman.
00:08:05 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:08:05] S1: think there's anything... There's nothing evil, but there's nothing inherently good either. You know, I certainly believe that like entrepreneurial capitalism is is the best form... Is the best kind of market system to pair with liberal democracy Right. To like achieve freedom and broad prosperity. And so in that way, I think it's like ultimately serving some some good purpose, but like most of the people within it are, you know, I went to Stanford, I went to Princeton, I worked at Morgan Stanley, I worked at Meta, I know a bunch of people. I did some angel investments. Like, you know, my dad ran the TMT desk at Goldman. [00:08:44] S0: So you do think, like, animating thing they didn't like about Biden. You mentioned your tweet. Yeah. Like M and A, like blocking blocking deals. There was also, you know, the crypto I think crypto, Lina Khan. Making it hard for me to make money. This is [00:08:57] S1: really Gary Gensler and Lina Khan were, I think, legitimately overzealous in a lot of ways, and did a huge amount of reputational damage pushing tech to the right. And then obviously now more recently some of this cockamamie wealth tax idea in California is doing the same. And so much is, you know, look, my critique about the culture in venture capital is the same about the investing culture as it is about the political culture, which is it's fundamentally like Momo driven. You know, [00:09:34] S0: it's like... What you mean?
00:09:34 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:09:34] S0: it's like... What you mean? [00:09:36] S1: Momentum driven. I like to be on the winning side, I like to back winners, I like to find winners. Right. And like, venture capitalists are always thinking about the world in terms of upside maximization, not looking stupid, job security, and you know, and like preserving optionality. And so when someone looks like they're winning, most venture capitalists will rush to back the winner, and that's just as true in politics as it is in their investing. [00:10:04] S0: But it feels like the momentum is gonna turn against Trump. I mean, he's [00:10:07] S1: pull over Well, Most venture capitalists are quite bad at at predicting those wins, but, you know. [00:10:13] S0: Yeah, it's always worrying, you know, do they think, you know, democracy itself will fail? Like, is it a prediction that there won't a lot of [00:10:22] S1: people I think a lot of people don't take seriously the extent to which our, like, system of entrepreneurial capitalism rests on strong institutions, and so what Trump is doing in our democracy, he is also doing to our market system. Right. And so, for instance, like, it should be extremely concerning to anyone who calls himself a capitalist to watch him start, like, nationalising companies, which is what he has done in the steel industry and in the chips industry, to watch him, you know, try and put... I mean, not put pressure, criminally prosecute Jerome Powell to, like, exert control. Like, central bank independence is one of the pillars the
00:10:22 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:10:22] S1: people I think a lot of people don't take seriously the extent to which our, like, system of entrepreneurial capitalism rests on strong institutions, and so what Trump is doing in our democracy, he is also doing to our market system. Right. And so, for instance, like, it should be extremely concerning to anyone who calls himself a capitalist to watch him start, like, nationalising companies, which is what he has done in the steel industry and in the chips industry, to watch him, you know, try and put... I mean, not put pressure, criminally prosecute Jerome Powell to, like, exert control. Like, central bank independence is one of the pillars the [00:11:08] S0: idea that you could commit fraud, and probably if you can pull together a couple million dollars, you can get it to the Trump administration and then you can get a pardon and get out