00:11:59 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Singerman
[00:11:59] S1: What are you good at? [00:12:00] S0: Well, when I was doing the venture thing, I was really good at just recognizing if a founder was truly A plus and you need to get better and better and better at that over time. But I didn't try and say like, Oh, I know how to diligence biotech companies, or I know how to diligence financials. I didn't read a financial report ever. I still don't know how to read financial reports. The one time I ever had to do a spreadsheet, my wife had to do it for me. That's not what I do. I stick to what I'm good at and I put skill points this is the whole strategy gamer thing into the thing that I'm really, really, really good at such that nobody can catch me on that. And I think that we kind of all did that. You have to have some natural true, and I don't think this is easy for most people, but you do have to have some natural contrarianism. I think most people do just want to fit in and do just want to play the game and be excellent at the game, and I think we excelled at having people who were ridiculously good at their own game and therefore could be naturally contrarian. [00:12:55] S1: But the underlying tone of that is not ego, it's expertise.
00:12:55 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Singerman
[00:12:55] S1: But the underlying tone of that is not ego, it's expertise. [00:13:00] S0: I wouldn't even call it expertise. Would call it respect when you know that somebody is really good at something, letting them do their thing. Right? Like when you know somebody else is really good at, I don't ever do the whole, oh, talk about stuff that I don't know. This is why, like, even if I'm doing a podcast or a show, I'll say like, nah, I'm not an expert at that. Next question. Because I don't care about needing to sound good at everything. I know what I'm really good at and I kind of focus on that, but I also know what my partners or people around me are really good at. And I really do try and let them be them. A lot of those lessons came from Peter. A lot of that is natural, but yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why Founders Fund was as successful as it was and is, is because you are able to really let people excel at what they're good at and not have them just fit a mold. [00:13:55] S1: One of the things that Trey said when I interviewed him back at Androle, did this anvil tour. Was so much fun. Was amazing. We did this interview and I asked him, what is one thing about Peter Thiel that your biggest lesson, like, what did you learn? And he was like, that he's always right. He's always right.
00:13:55 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Singerman
[00:13:55] S1: One of the things that Trey said when I interviewed him back at Androle, did this anvil tour. Was so much fun. Was amazing. We did this interview and I asked him, what is one thing about Peter Thiel that your biggest lesson, like, what did you learn? And he was like, that he's always right. He's always right. [00:14:17] S0: Peter's usually pretty right on the macro things at the end of the day. Timing does come into this stuff, and he's not always exactly right on timing, but at the end of the day, he's pretty good at being correct on, especially on macro global macro things. He is the best I've ever met at that. He is yeah, he is the best at that. [00:14:41] S1: Given that, he did just move down to Argentina. So, what does he know that we don't know? [00:14:47] S0: I don't think Peter likes socialism. I either. He's probably correct that politics in America is getting even more and more extreme. Like, Oh, then Trump, so then AOC, so then more extreme. And so, that's probably pretty scary. If you're talking to people like me and Max and Trey, you're going to get a lot of the same thing on that, like we're not into socialism. Max escaped communism as a kid. He's not interested in going back to this. [00:15:22] S1: Do you think that's a real threat for Absolutely. It'll swing like a pendulum? [00:15:26] S0: Think it's pretty clearly, like, starting, you know, has started to. Right? [00:15:31] S1: Yeah. How do we avoid that? We'd move to Argentina?
00:15:31 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Singerman
[00:15:31] S1: Yeah. How do we avoid that? We'd move to Argentina? [00:15:34] S0: I mean, my that's strategy. I mean, you kind of fight as much as you can, but Peter is not wrong that that is a threat. Now, how you deal with that or what you do from there, I think is an individual question, right? Like, what's right for your family? What's right for you? But I don't think he's wrong that there's a chance that America is going in a pretty bad direction. [00:15:58] S1: Yeah, especially with the wealth tax just seeping in. [00:16:01] S0: The asset seizure? [00:16:02] S1: Potentially going national. That's definitely going national. People think [00:16:05] S0: that it's so funny. People look at this thing and think, Oh, it's a billionaire tax. It doesn't matter to me. Uh-uh. First of all, even in the California one, there's provisions for it to like, once all the billionaires leave, Oh, well, we need to get the money somehow. Okay, let's take the next lower down, the next lower down. This is going to impact the middle class way more than it's going to affect mobile billionaires. [00:16:25] S1: Yeah, we just had the CIO of A16z Perennial on, Mark and Ben's family office. [00:16:31] S0: He [00:16:34] S1: was talking about how trillions potentially, allegedly, have left California Literally. Trillions. And then now we have the SpaceX IPO coming up. Anthropic just filed their S-one today. So many people [00:16:48] S0: are leaving before these things happen. [00:16:49] S1: Do you think they're going to leave the country?
00:16:49 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Singerman
[00:16:49] S1: Do you think they're going to leave the country? [00:16:52] S0: No. I do think it's harder to leave the country than I think it is to leave the state. It is. It's harder to leave the country than it is to leave the state. [00:17:03] S1: What's the preferred state? [00:17:04] S0: Oh, I don't know. For me, it's Hawaii. I'm not trying to avoid all, much to Peter's chagrin, and he makes fun of me for this all the time, I'm not trying to avoid high income tax rates. I am trying to avoid asset seizure though. [00:17:15] S1: That's funny. Trey did want me to ask you, why are you so obsessed with Hawaii? [00:17:19] S0: I love it there. Why? I can sit on lanai, laptop doing stuff overlooking the ocean for infinity. It's my peaceful, happy it's just so peaceful there to me. [00:17:34] S1: Do you get claustrophobic knowing that you're on an island? [00:17:37] S0: I don't. [00:17:38] S1: It's really far away. [00:17:39] S0: It's fine. It's closer than from here to New York. [00:17:47] S1: Is it? [00:17:48] S0: Absolutely. Really? Absolutely. It takes four hours and twenty minutes one way and five hours the other way [00:17:55] S1: LA, from here it's much further. [00:17:59] S0: It's a little further than San Francisco is the closest city in the world to Honolulu. [00:18:02] S1: I understand that now. I'm always like, why are people going to Hawaii? I don't understand it. Grew up on the East Coast the and it's like a two hour flight. Why do people go to Hawaii? Now we know. [00:18:15] S0: It's not far.
00:18:15 · Brian Singerman, Molly O'Shea
[00:18:15] S0: It's not far. [00:18:16] S1: It's not far. So, what about Hawaii? It's the seclusion. No, I don't [00:18:23] S0: think it's seclusion. It is the beach. It's the weather and the beach. I don't like wearing pants. I like wearing shorts. This is a common thing with Max too, next time you talk to Max Levchin about this. But I like being warm. I love the climate there. I love like yeah, I'm able to relax. [00:18:45] S1: Max did have a question for that, on that topic. Why do you wear shorts almost to the exclusion of all lower body garments, verbatim? [00:18:59] S0: Don't know, genes are pretty constrictive? What's the word? [00:19:03] S1: Restricting? Yeah. You don't feel free. Can't express express yourself. You [00:19:08] S0: yourself. Yeah, there you go. Bummer. Whatever the kids are saying these days, Wally. I don't know. But yeah, no, I do like being in warm places. Hawaii is, you know, kids like never having to wear shoes. The kids don't like wearing shoes for some reason. So they love Hawaii.