The Pomp Podcast
00:21:56 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:21:56] S1: I'm sure there's reasons [00:21:58] S0: beyond There might be, but, like, we should ask those questions. [00:22:00] S1: Of course. [00:22:01] S0: An investigative journalist should go figure that out. I'm not a journalist. I don't have that skill set. I don't have the temperament to do that, but that is a great question. Is why at the exact same moment that Elon Musk is taking 10 plus billion dollars, the largest philanthropic gift ever, and he's giving it direct to people with no NGO and no profit in between him and the person. Why is Anthropic not doing the same thing? They're claiming they're doing the same thing, but mechanically, they're not. I got questions. [00:22:30] S1: Great. So you published this tweet with your investing lessons. [00:22:35] S0: Before we get to my investing lessons, can you tell me about Buddy Shah? [00:22:40] S1: So I wrote yesterday an article You didn't think [00:22:43] S0: I was gonna ask you about I [00:22:44] S1: did not think. [00:22:45] S0: Tables have turned. [00:22:46] S1: About this man whose name appears on page 145 of the Anthropic s one filing. His name is Buddy Shah, and he is arguably one of the most powerful people at Anthropic. He is not on payroll. He does not own stock. He is prevented from buying any stock. And his whole purpose is he's the chair of the company's long term benefit trust, and he basically helps oversee a trust that has the power. Why are you smiling at me? [00:23:19] S0: Because I set you all up. I did... I threw the softball up. Go ahead. Tell me about Buddy Shah.
00:23:19 · Anthony Pompliano, Polina Pompliano
[00:23:19] S0: Because I set you all up. I did... I threw the softball up. Go ahead. Tell me about Buddy Shah. [00:23:23] S1: That has the power to appoint and remove any portion of the... Of Anthropic's board. So my question is, why give this man all this power? And my question in the article is... Or my statement, I guess, is what is worse than having an AI decide what it thinks is best for humanity. A man... Another human who thinks he knows what's best for humanity. [00:23:53] S0: Prime example of fuckery. [00:23:55] S1: Well, you know, we don't know. I mean, they're they're trying to stay [00:23:57] S0: It's impossible. [00:23:58] S1: It's impossible. No. It's impossible. And in in in the article, I say, like, even if you have no financial stake in the company, you can still make the wrong decision. You're influenced. You talk to people. Like, it's it's not a guarantee. [00:24:12] S0: The second I hear he doesn't have equity, fuckery going on. The second I hear [00:24:17] S1: The whole point is independence, that he can't be swayed by having a financial incentive. [00:24:22] S0: Independent directors on boards in the public market have equity. They get paid in equity. [00:24:29] S1: They're independent. How independent are they, though? [00:24:31] S0: Because they're supposed to have skin in the game. How can you have the best interest of something if you don't have skin in the game? It's all a mirage. It's all smoke and mirrors. It is all like we are here from Anthropic to save you. [00:24:45] S1: You really don't like Anthropic.
00:24:45 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:24:45] S1: You really don't like Anthropic. [00:24:47] S0: I don't fucking need help. We... Humanity is fine. Y'all don't have No. A moral high ground on what humanity needs. Think about how arrogant you have to be But I think they're to believe. [00:25:01] S1: No. I think they're addressing the, fear that people have around these massive AI companies. [00:25:09] S0: Just because people have fear doesn't give you permission to capitalize on the fear. Guess what? I don't hear Mark Zuckerberg talking about I'm creating a board to tell y'all how AI is gonna save humanity. That's a [00:25:22] S1: bad thing. Maybe he doesn't care. [00:25:24] S0: No. You know why? Because Mark Zuckerberg's a normal fucking person who understands my job as a CEO of Meta is to make money for my shareholders. It is not to meddle in the future of humanity. [00:25:36] S1: Okay. But here's the here's the problem with that. [00:25:38] S0: Elon Musk is not creating any [00:25:39] S1: of this I understand, but that's the problem with this. It's like, okay. So they only care about the short term financial benefits [00:25:48] S0: That's their job. [00:25:49] S1: Where at... Yeah. But at the expense of what is bad, what could be bad for humanity. [00:25:55] S0: Name one company We haven't seen before. No. Name one company that has used a new technology to do something where it led to profits for the company and was a net negative on society, and it did not get corrected by the market. So I can name a lot of companies
00:25:55 · Anthony Pompliano, Polina Pompliano
[00:25:55] S0: Name one company We haven't seen before. No. Name one company that has used a new technology to do something where it led to profits for the company and was a net negative on society, and it did not get corrected by the market. So I can name a lot of companies [00:26:11] S1: who used the new thing. That's different. That's different because it did not get corrected by the market because it was an AI, which could be sentient or have its own whatever robot army. I saw that kung fu robot coming out of China. I was watching that. I was like, oh my god. How am I gonna face off this thing? I gotta go take some self defense lessons. [00:26:29] S0: It goes back to... Let... Let's just use a couple examples from history. [00:26:32] S1: It's okay. [00:26:32] S0: Cigarette company, tobacco companies. [00:26:34] S1: That on my own time. [00:26:35] S0: Yeah. Tobacco companies. Right? I think people generally would look at... They they put profits above the health of people. Right? Well, guess what ended up happening? Eventually... Now everyone would have wished that it happened earlier, but eventually, the market intervened. We had, oh, you cancel cigarettes to certain [00:26:52] S1: age The [00:26:54] S0: market is part... Regulation is part of the market, [00:26:57] S1: of course. Well, but the [00:26:58] S0: The government is a market player. [00:26:59] S1: Okay. So why are you against the government putting regulations on some of these AI companies?
00:27:04 · Anthony Pompliano
[00:27:04] S0: I'm not against them putting regulations. What I'm saying is the government is gonna figure out whatever. It's like crypto. I never said that the government shouldn't put regulation in place. I just said if you make stupid regulations, then other countries are going to not make stupid regulations, and you're gonna lose the race. The same thing with tobacco companies is actually other countries were hyper aggressive, and America was much more individualistic, and we were slower to adopt some of this stuff. But eventually, I think we got to a good place, is there's a ton of rules and regulations now around tobacco that it may have taken a long time. Mhmm. People definitely got sick. But, like, in what world are we coming at it from the perspective of, dude, the individual never takes personal responsibility for smoking the cigarettes. Like, that's, like, completely lost from the conversation. And so it goes back to this idea that I'm not saying that the AI companies shouldn't be thinking about what is a positive, all this kind of stuff. What I am saying is you have two different groups of people, and I'll give you a good example. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, the guys at Google, all these people. You don't hear any of this nonsense from them. These are real founders with real companies who have a track record of delivering. What you are hearing is bullshit coming from people who literally think that they can play God. Good luck. Good luck. But I, as an individual, I'm entitled my own opinion. I hear that stuff. The more I hear it, the less I trust them. And so far, if we look, what company sells software to the United States government and says you can't use it to go get people who are killing other people? I
00:29:00 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:29:00] S1: don't know. [00:29:01] S0: Anthropic. That's the whole dust up. Well While his competitors are more than happy to allow the United States government to make the decisions of how they use the software. So it goes back to, am I saying that the government should just have free rein and do whatever they want? Absolutely not. But what I am saying is that if you want, which is... Anthropic's right. Right? This is the beauty of America, is that you, as a private company, can say I'm not gonna sell my software to the government. That's fine. But, again, the market competitiveness, if you don't do it, somebody else is gonna do it. And if you're okay doing that, that's fine. But it comes back to this idea of wanting your cake and eating it too. We wanna sell to the government so that our competitors can't, so we get that revenue in those contracts. But then we also wanna be hyper, hyper prescriptive in what you can do with it. And so the market force took over. The government said, no. Kick rocks. We're just gonna rip you out, and we'll go do a deal with somebody who actually wants to let us use the software. And so the beauty of free markets, the beauty of capitalism, the beauty of America is Anthropic is allowed to say whatever they want, do whatever they want, but there's gonna be consequences from the market. [00:30:12] S1: So my question is, why should I not be afraid of killer robots? [00:30:16] S0: Well, let me ask this question. Do you trust Anthropic? [00:30:19] S1: I don't know enough about Anthropic.