We dive into the wacky, wild and wildly inconsistent world of Peter Thiel with Bloomberg Businessweek editor Max Chafkin. He recently published a book, "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power" that goes through Thiel's origins in the industry, how he influenced other founders and how his right wing political project is shaping up. Max also makes the case for why Thiel is one of the most influential characters in the formation of the current culture in tech. And Eric, Tom and Max mull over why Thiel's worldview is at odds with itself and whether maybe that's the point.
Max's book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609711/the-contrarian-by-max-chafkin/
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Welcome. Hey we're here with dead cat.
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The Zerg newcomer I'm here with Tom Dotan and we have Max
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Chaffin, my old colleague from Bloomberg.
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He's an editor, a business week and he has his book out, the
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contrarian profile of Peter teal and we're excited to get into
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it. With him.
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I think I know the answer to this.
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My first question is very simple.
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Who does Peter teal? See himself as in Lord of the
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Rings? Or like, which character does he
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seem to admire most in your estimation?
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Oh man, I want to hear who you think.
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I honestly I don't know. I don't think my Tolkien my
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Tolkien instincts are strong enough to give you a great.
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Oh I was just like saw Rod. I mean he names the you know,
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Palin. Hollinger sure, you know.
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It is just like, didn't you have you had a quote from him later
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where he's setting up again or there was that story where
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Gandalf's the bad guy or what's that little right?
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What do you have? Yeah, you'd be tempted to say
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he's Gandalf or something, right?
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But but yeah, but there are two data points that work against
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that one of which is that palantir like the main palantir
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in Lord of the Rings is, is Sauron Zorb.
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So it's like a, an orb for evil and he has talked up this fan
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fiction book. Look, I think it's called the
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last ring bearer was originally published in Russian and you can
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buy it now. But in, in the last ring bearer
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Sauron, is that is the hero, right?
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And the elves, I think the elves are like, fascists like
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anti-tech fascists or something. I, but in any case, I, I don't
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know. Like I feel like with a lot of
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these things with teal people end up reading into his interest
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in various likes philosophers or, you know, religious subjects
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or whatever and and there isn't always as But they're there, as
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I think his fans would like. So, a couple points teal has
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offered his sort of favorite passage from Lord of the Rings.
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There's a quote, that was in his high school yearbook and then
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he's used that at least one other time in an interview, and
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I went looking for the passage, right.
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But it's not actually from Lord of the Rings.
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It's from a movie that came out, a cartoon movie of The Hobbit
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created by the creator of Thundercats.
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It came out in the mid 70s, like, that's that I'm actually a
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pretty good movie. Yeah.
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But anyway, but it's not again, it's not like some deep.
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What's your coat off? Do you remember the gist of it
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or if I have his yearbook somewhere around here, but it's
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something like The Greatest Adventure is yours to make.
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The greatest Adventure is what lies, it begins with the
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greatest adventure and it's about this is it's about the
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idea that like you know, your life is yours alone and you can
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you have these choices which is a big theme in sort of the
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aspirational parts of teals philosophy.
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The problem with over Analyzing teal, which I'm eager to do.
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Is that sometimes? Yeah, he likes to put stuff out
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there and he's happy that people want to like, over extrapolate
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from it and sort of story craft, run it, but then other times you
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have him saying very simple things and he's secretly trying
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to take down Gawker or, you know, there are moments where
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he'll say sort of happy benign thing and then he's not.
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So it's he's good at sort of Shifting.
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I mean it does it feels like In the book, you know you sort of
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go through periods where you think, teal sort of playing it
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safe and periods, where he's like, sort of a little more
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unhinged maybe you wouldn't use that word.
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I don't know what. Yeah, what do you is that a fair
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characterization? Yeah. 100%.
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And, and, and I mean, just because, you know, sometimes
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like his, his fans like, you know, read too far.
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I would argue that doesn't mean that, I mean, I think he's a
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really amazing package of his own mythology.
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He's also somebody who is like, you know, of course, Very
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incisive. In thinking about the future and
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just like, really good at kind of, you know, creating these the
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product Haitians that people react to and that he'll, you
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know, ultimately make money from.
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I mean, the weird thing about TL is that, okay?
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So he's known as this venture capitalist, right?
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And that's how you know we're talking about him now probably
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and how most people think of him, but he was originally hedge
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fund manager and I think in some ways that that may be more how
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he still sees himself and, you know, in this period where he
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was, you know, making many of the Investments that, you know,
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ultimately would like go on to Define Silicon Valley that we
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all know, you know, Facebook being the primary one.
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He was best known as a hedge fund guy, and he was betting on
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the future, you know, through Founders fund but he was also
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betting in a lot of ways, against the future, at least,
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against America's future, through his hedge fund, where he
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was, you know, shorting, the US, economy betting that the price
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of oil was gonna, you know, was going to go crazy and
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essentially betting. Collapse, and, and when I talk
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to people, you know, who have been involved with his with his
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finances, with both these portfolios, they talk about him.
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Always having kind of like an optimistic and pessimistic
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portfolio, which of course is like that's hedge fund Behavior
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or a constant theme in the book is like, he has a great thing
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and then he's like, oh, let's pull back a little bit, you
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know, it's too much or like with PayPal.
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It seemed like he was selling it and then betting against.
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Yeah. Well, he definitely doesn't
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bite. Buy into the kind of like Tech
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mythology of like, just go as big as you can as pot, you know,
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just go crazy. Big and like, either.
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It's like the, it's either its enormous or it's a complete
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strike out, right? He's constantly seeking to kind
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of trim his sales. Do you know, do kinds of like
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investor things? And I mean I think that I mean I
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think that thinking is part of what created Founders fund, you
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know? I mean, when I was starting out
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covering Like right in 2005, the big conversation that was going
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on among entrepreneurs. Was the way that like, you know,
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investor interests were not aligned with founder interests
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where we're like investors are going to constantly push you to
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you know swing for the fences. Whereas like if you view your
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entire net worth like tied up in a start-up like that's
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definitely not in your best interest to just be like you
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know being worth a hundred million dollars is still really,
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really, really good. Like I know being a billionaire
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is great but and I think that that was kind of the dynamic
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that was Laying out between teal and Mike Moritz in like, you
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know, 2000-2001. It's like why they sort of were
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at odds and kind of like white eel-like.
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Ultimately start a Founders fund I think is that is like this
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sense that entrepreneurs should be able to like take care of
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themselves in a more? Yeah, yeah.
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Just in a more direct way. And and, and that turns into
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this whole mythology that about, you know, we never fire founder
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and, and so on. So I want to rewind a little bit
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here because Yeah, I came into this book with an idea that I
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had, and I'd Express this on the show before that.
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I'm not sure, Peter teal is as important, a figure, as
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sometimes the media makes him out to be that.
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He obviously, because of his, like, you say, very neatly
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packaged Persona and and self-expression.
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And of course, his role in The Gawker lawsuit that we've had a
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bit of a fascination with him, that maybe exceeds his actual
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power and presence. And as I was reading your book,
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I was trying to get A census to, like who is he within the sphere
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of specifically of Silicon Valley because politics is
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obviously a whole other discussion spending all the time
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that you did meeting with Peter teal a couple of times and
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interviewing a lot of his friends, people close to him.
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Where do you think he sits within just, the culture of
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Silicon Valley? I mean, do you consider him a
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product of Silicon Valley or is he does he exist in contrast to
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it? I mean, I think that he is like
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the single most important cultural influence on Silicon
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Valley. So You know, I don't know if
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he's the most important investor like, you know, he's obviously
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not the richest guy. They're probably arguments, you
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can make about Elon Musk I suppose on this cultural
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Dimension, but I think like a lot of the kind of key ideas
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that are just sort of accepted, not just by kind of like, right
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Wingers and free, you know, freethinkers and intellectual.
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The people who are aligned with teal politically intact, which
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I, which is a bit. I think it's a bigger percentage
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of the tech industry Than People realize know for sure.
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But that it is that it has these ideas.
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Are largely widely accepted even among people who disagree with
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him. You know, on Trump and things
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like that, which ideas specifically.
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So the idea of tech as Monopoly capitalism that you should get
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as big as you can, as fast as you can.
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You know, that companies should pursue monopolies that
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disruption for its own sake, is a good thing, a social good, not
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just something that happens. You know, by accident, we're
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like oops, like we we accidentally did something
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wrong, I'm sorry we're going to fix it, but we're breaking the
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law. Or breaking Norms or you know,
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burying an old institution right is, is a good that we should
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pursue. I'm sure there are others, but,
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like, this notion that Founders are a privileged class that,
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right? That Founders should be in
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charge of companies and that probably like the buttock, the
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Randy and stuff, right? I mean that's your objectivists
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theology, but it's also makes the argument in the book super
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interesting. Because right, if you say this,
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this Silicon Valley View is that Founders are all important.
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The book makes the argument that actually Till's, like, a really
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political guy, and he even when he was the CEO of PayPal, he was
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like, mostly interested in. We wanted to use money at PayPal
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to invest, then he leaves PayPal.
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He wants to hedge against it. Just he very much seems like
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Financial in a way that he talks or at least the Silicon Valley
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me ptosis well and the fact that he kind of backs into being a
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tech character 100%. Yeah, right.
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I mean, he goes to Stanford his initial, you know, jobs or In
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the banking and finance world. And then by dint of his just not
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succeeding very much there, he know, he kind of just ends up in
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a happenstance meeting with what Max levchin and and PayPal
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results from that. But he's not like a technologist
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to his core. In the way that Steve Jobs truly
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believe that, you know, fucking run of people's phones in the
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70s could lead towards, you know, a computer Revolution,
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although was that jobs. I mean, that's that's work here,
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the package or two, right? I mean that's Wozniak really and
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John kind of, I mean, I don't know, very similar Dynamic.
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It's a Well, Steve Jobs cared about product.
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I mean, products is part of being a found and art.
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I mean, there was a unifying philosophy.
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That was centered around technology Beyond just a way to
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enrich yourself. But anyway, 100%, I think that's
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an important Point of Departure, you know?
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And I, as I say the book, I think that's important.
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Part of the Point of Departure where, you know, kind of like
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the PayPal Mafia way, you know, differs from the the jobs,
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right. Steve Jobs is a good, a good
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manager in that it gets output, and it's very hierarchical.
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The way you paint Peter teal is that he's the best manager, when
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he lets everybody just like experiment with shit, and then
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when it's to hierarchical, it goes poorly.
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Steve Jobs. Also do drugs.
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Well, so I think I mean, I think so until did in some ways kind
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of, I guess luck into it. I do think he was, he went
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looking for Max levchin. It wasn't.
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I mean, he obviously met him by chance but I think if you look
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at Tails career and this is kind of funny for a guy.
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Guy who's like all about, you know, not following the herd,
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the thing that he's seems sort of most good at is not so much,
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not following the herd, but selling into the herd or selling
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into a bubble, right? It is two ways you can make
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money in a bubble. You could either, you know,
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short it or you can sell into it.
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And he'll often is is kind of spotting these Bubbles and
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figuring out like clever ways to profit from them.
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And like I've put PayPal in that category is not like PayPal.
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Was like a novel idea there were like 30 or 40 or whatever other.
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Smaller payments companies palantir, I think was basically
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a selling into a bubble and that that was like data mining in the
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wake of 9/11 and I think you can and Trump even was kind of like
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that where he sort of saw that there was this growing you know
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right wing movement especially online and that was more
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powerful than people realize but I do think given that he's all
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he's like really focused on bubbles and and spotting them.
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It that probably is part of the reason why I like he's been so
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successful in those ways at the heart.
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Out of his world view. It's funny like you called a
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book. You know, the contrarian and
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that's such a common Silicon Valley posture.
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It's not really you know it's not an ideologies it's a it's a
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response it's like a debate tactic, but at the same time
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like if you like you easily could have called the book like
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the contradict Aryan. So much of his, what he stands
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for stands in contrast to the companies that he's built,
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right? He's this randian libertarian
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who also profited. The off of the military
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professed profession and even that.
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Right? So that, I mean, maybe even gets
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even more to like the contradiction there, but let's
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pretend. He's somewhat honest in that
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belief and yet he profited enormously with pounds here off
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the military-industrial complex. And then, you know, he raged
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against cultural the move towards like culture wars in the
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60s, and yet his backing of trump who exist, strictly as an
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avatar of the culture wars and like the riling up of culture
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fights in the Republican Party, would seem to stand a contrast
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to that. I mean, did you find like a
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coherence to the way he views things that makes you understand
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some aspect of his success, or at least his influence or is it
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just I mean is it purely just contrarian ISM as a
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argumentative tactic? Well I picked that title kind of
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for exactly the reason you say, you know, teal thinks contrarian
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ism is an ideology, right? Like his whole like Gerard Ian,
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let's like not follow the herd, he tries to turn it into a life
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philosophy. But as you say it's limiting and
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it's and I think it's may be limiting in a way that's
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irreconcilable. I think there are lots of
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stories that people tell for like, how to unify all these
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like bizarrely, you know, contradictory beliefs, and like
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obvious instances of just pure, you know, hypocrisy.
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You know what, we brought our Founders fund, you know,
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Founders fund has pushed Founders out, like, there's just
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lots of ways and they love to invest in see rounds, like, for
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like a work contrary, it's like, oh, you wait for me?
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Momentum from Top feces and then you invested a billion or so,
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you know, that's like their strategy.
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But I so to me, like one obvious thing and I think, you know,
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maybe it's the whole thing is money.
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I mean, I think Peter teal cares, a lot about his money and
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his wealth. And, and I think in a lot of
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ways like this, you know, this whole kind of like ideological
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system and, and his his self presentation and the mythology,
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and, you know, there's sort of two mythology, Peter teal as a
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hero and Peter teal has this kind of You know, villain, I
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think teal has kind of amped up both of those on purpose and,
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and I think often it's the purpose is like just to make
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money. I do think there are, you know,
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like ideological threads. And and of course their I don't
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think it's just like pure like contradictory Enos.
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I mean, I think teal is, you know, super libertarian,
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especially when it comes to, you know, the rights of tech
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billionaires. I mean, till thinks the tech
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billionaire should roll the world, his Liberty.
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Meaning that he should be able to do whatever he wants and and
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like that idea, of course, as is one that's like been widely
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accepted not just by right-wingers in the tech
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industry, but by like a lot of left-wingers think like?
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Yeah, if the world were working right, like, Tech billionaires
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would be ruling the world. What?
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Hence, Like Larry Page saying he's gonna give his money away
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to like, Elon Musk or I mean, there are lots of examples that
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you can point to, to show, how widespread that worldview is.
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I do think he's super right wing on immigration like legitimately
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thinks that, you know, we You know, close the border, build
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the wall, you know, probably threw out some of the
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undocumented immigrants, and it always does feel like the thing
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you can't say, is like racist stuff.
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I mean, not it. Like, right?
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I mean, just when I mean, and they were a little more
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transparent about it sort of at the Stanford days where it's
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like, what can you talk about? It's like affirmative action
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type are, you know, I mean, well, yeah, I think you say
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that, or I think the way I've been I try to, I thought about
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it is sort of like, white identity politics, right?
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This sense that Like white people are the, you know,
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somehow the oppressed class which of course is pretty
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racist. And I mean, you know, in the
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context of our history and culture and everything like
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that, and I do think there's something there are definite,
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you know, kind of racial overtones the way that teal
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talks about has talked about diversity in the past and the
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way, even now he and his allies, you know, talk about the west
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and things like that. I mean, you know, besides the
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the sort of Hardcore immigration stuff, right?
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The other thing is like this, this cultural Tizen, which is
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kind of another version of what of I think what you're saying.
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Eric like, this sense that, you know, actually the really
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oppressed people are these white Tech guys who like can you know,
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say who are like afraid to say what they believe because it
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might be considered racist or something like that.
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But then he goes after Gawker because they say what they want
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it. I mean I know we're just going
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to say is contradictory all day but it is speech on the left
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that's of the style that he professes to want on the right.
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He has a whole crusade to shut down.
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Yeah. Well which is part of the reason
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why I think the money thing is like a really important, right?
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Part of that story and I think any time you drift too far away
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from that story around he'll like you're kind of missing it.
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Like he's he is a person who is motivated by maybe not
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exclusively but partly at least often by his own you know what
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it's going to mean for his own interests and he's good at
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making money. He is not the best.
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But no, no he's not. And he and I think he's not in
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part because he's pursued this off in this life, social more
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more conservative approach towards.
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Investments. I mean he also clearly wants
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power and influence and and you know influence as a you know
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quote-unquote public intellectual which is the phrase
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that he, you know, usually uses but you know, political
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influence. I mean that's kind of where he
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started his career. He's his original
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entrepreneurial venture was political activism and I think
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that is still, you know, a big part of kind of like who he is
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and how he sees himself and what he wants.
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And I do like the way I I was I thought about it during the book
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was like, you have these two projects, one is a political
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project and then there's a business project.
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They work together, right? It's kind of like the Koch
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Industries and the Koch brothers kind of libertarian.
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Political donations, where teal is, is creating these companies.
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It's not an industrial conglomerate like Coke.
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It's a post industrial conglomerate of Till's, you
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know, Tech Holdings and various Investments and crypto Holdings
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or whatever. And that's throwing cash off,
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and feeding money into this political project, which is And
00:18:59
to you know create a regulatory environment that is more
00:19:03
hospitable to those companies continuing to make money and
00:19:06
more hospitable to Peter, teal limiting, his tax exposure and
00:19:09
and and such so and that feeds back into the business thing.
00:19:12
So like they're related I do you think a lot of left-leaning
00:19:17
Centrist Founders like to forget about that fact.
00:19:20
I mean there's Founders fund is his money.
00:19:24
It serves like his political project how effective is his
00:19:28
political Checked, if you compare it to other right-wing
00:19:31
billionaires, like specifically the kochs, because okay and one
00:19:35
sense we have Trump, which, you know, good investment, that
00:19:39
turned out pretty well for him and it was a contrarian bet, but
00:19:42
he also in your book, you say he supported Ron Paul in 2012 that
00:19:46
was obviously a bust. Noah Hawley seems to be his guy
00:19:49
right now. Josh Holly, I do this a lot.
00:19:52
Actually Josh Josh Holly not the guy who created the FX Fargo
00:19:56
series. Yeah, Josh Holly is his I now
00:20:00
he's barely registering in, like, the straw polls for Iowa,
00:20:04
and 2024, and, you know, the president is just one line of
00:20:08
political influence. But do you see a broad and
00:20:11
successful network of lobbying efforts on his part or or the
00:20:14
packs that he invests in? Do those do those get results?
00:20:17
I mean, how would you rank attempt to the Koch brothers?
00:20:20
So yeah, we're staying. So what's interesting about
00:20:23
teal, right? And I think this is a reason why
00:20:26
he's not taken maybe as seriously as he should be.
00:20:29
Be, you know, in d.c., is that he it's pretty disorganized,
00:20:33
right? He doesn't have like a normal
00:20:36
Beltway apparatus. Like I think that, like, Reid
00:20:39
Hoffman stuff is more kind of organized and a little bit more
00:20:42
traditional than than Till's. His has been sort of, you know,
00:20:45
weirdly ad hoc like the Ron Paul thing was done by these
00:20:50
Outsiders. Like it was like a guys I talked
00:20:52
about in the book was like a guy who'd done infomercials and and
00:20:55
somebody who's in the kind of right-wing Tech World, rather
00:20:58
than you know somebody who Like came out of either the
00:21:01
libertarian movement or, you know DC politics.
00:21:04
I mean, the coke thing took time, right?
00:21:07
I mean, David Koch, he ran for president unsuccessfully, I
00:21:10
think in 1980, you know, it just because like it doesn't just
00:21:15
because like you know, there haven't been tons of political
00:21:19
results. 2.2, doesn't mean that, you know, he is in making an
00:21:22
impact. I mean, I think like the way
00:21:24
these kind of like ideological projects work, like it's less
00:21:27
about any one candidate and it's Or about getting these ideas,
00:21:32
you know, in the case of the cokes, right?
00:21:33
It was like energy deregulation and things like that getting
00:21:35
these ideas you know into the mainstream.
00:21:38
And of course now whatever there's a lot of pushback
00:21:42
against some of these ideas that teal has been pushing.
00:21:45
I'd argue pretty successfully. I mean, I think that teal is
00:21:50
still kind of like an emerging Force rather than like you know
00:21:53
rather than like a power in his own right.
00:21:55
But I think we're watching his prominence rise.
00:21:58
I mean really the Yeah. Yeah, because Trump post Trump.
00:22:02
Yeah, I would say, I would say so.
00:22:03
Yeah. So like he's given already 2022,
00:22:06
right? He's committed, 20, 20 million
00:22:09
dollars plus which is like 10 times like what he's given in
00:22:13
any previous election and he wants the bad stuff like he
00:22:17
wants. The Republican party to stay
00:22:21
Trump in a way. Not to go back to whatever the
00:22:24
business world of the Republicans was.
00:22:28
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:28
He's very much a Against the coke version of Republican
00:22:31
politics. He wants the trumpy, you know,
00:22:33
hard right immigration. Bill, the wall, you know, cancel
00:22:38
cancel culture and, you know, pursue you do nationalistic
00:22:42
industrial policy, probably get a lots more contracts for
00:22:45
palantir and handle, and again, so hysterical because this is
00:22:49
all in contrast to, he's not a loser, just forget about it.
00:22:53
He's not like yeah, I mean, it's pure identity politics.
00:22:57
Which I understand, I mean, from your book, you And goes back to
00:23:00
his days at the review so it's not completely new to him.
00:23:04
But it's just so funny to me for like a capitalist to be banking
00:23:08
entirely on a version of the Republican party.
00:23:11
That is strictly about, you know, a grievance politics and
00:23:15
and identity resentment. Yeah, but I mean, that's one way
00:23:18
in which teal and, you know, Trump has, you know, have
00:23:21
something in common. I mean, he's somebody who's gone
00:23:23
through has, you know, felt those feelings of grievance, you
00:23:27
know, for much of his life, who has Stood, you know, intuitively
00:23:31
you know how to package those Grievances and, you know, sell
00:23:34
them to an audience, you know. I think like they're all these
00:23:37
Temptations like to sort of psychologize teal especially
00:23:41
like teal during his, you know, college.
00:23:43
Here's when he when he was engaged when he and his buddies
00:23:45
were engaged in all these, you know, provocations that were,
00:23:48
you know, that seemed, you know, racist, sexist, homophobic, or
00:23:51
whatever. Also, just a drip, just seemed
00:23:53
no fun to be around. We do not want to be stuck at
00:23:55
any party with this guy. I think it's important to
00:23:57
remember that, like, that pose. Is was how you got a job in the
00:24:02
Republican Party in the 1980. Like that's how you got an
00:24:04
internship. Like that was a path to
00:24:07
influence and power and has been for a long time.
00:24:10
I mean Stanford review was kind of modeled on Dinesh.
00:24:12
D'souza's paper you know there's another version of this at
00:24:15
Cornell the the Cornell review which is an coulter's paper like
00:24:19
he's swimming in a stream where we're like this kind of
00:24:23
grievance is what sells Eric? What's the Harvard version of
00:24:27
the conservatives? What the Service newspaper at
00:24:30
heart. I forget, honestly, I mean,
00:24:31
there were, there were sort of Proto, sort of trumpy, people
00:24:35
who had run around, but I think some of, you know, one of them
00:24:38
went into New York's at Barclays or something now, so, it seems
00:24:41
like he gave it up, I don't know, but you'd meet, like, sort
00:24:43
of performer types. But for the most part, it was
00:24:46
Harvard. Republican Club was very, you
00:24:48
know, probably probably didn't even endorse Trump.
00:24:51
I forget, you know, but I'm sure it exists, like, it's Stanford.
00:24:54
I mean, first of all, I think Stanford is more conservative
00:24:57
than Harvard in some ways. I mean, 100%, Everett had like
00:25:00
that was a big part of the cultural fight.
00:25:02
I mean, Harvard, just looking for all, you know, I don't know.
00:25:06
Didn't feel like the these sort of firebrands were a big
00:25:11
presence on campus. What's the influence that he'll
00:25:14
has these days on Facebook? You think, I mean, during the
00:25:17
height of the Cambridge analytical stuff and Till's
00:25:20
endorsement of trump, he became a real Flashpoint.
00:25:23
And you know what role he was playing in terms of, you know,
00:25:27
convincing the Trump Administration to go easy on
00:25:29
them. Or whatever came up a lot and in
00:25:31
your book. I mean these days is he an
00:25:33
influential board member at all? Or is it, you know, is there
00:25:37
string-pulling happening that we're not saying?
00:25:38
I think he's probably like the only influential board member
00:25:41
maybe with Marc Andreessen or something.
00:25:43
Like I think he is, probably one of the most, if not the most
00:25:47
influential board members. I think some of this comes from
00:25:49
my reporting, but I think also, like, you could, you know, where
00:25:54
my understanding is like Zuckerberg like steel, because
00:25:57
steel gives it to him, like it is, right?
00:25:59
And He's like not a, he's not a yes man.
00:26:01
He's kind of an independent thinker, that's valuable to
00:26:04
Zuckerberg. I also, thank whatever there is
00:26:06
a shared Bond, right? I mean, he's really the first
00:26:08
person who believed in Mark Zuckerberg and especially, you
00:26:12
know, in the Trump era, I think teal was like, very important to
00:26:15
Facebook's kind of like public-facing Persona because
00:26:18
he's a way to protect Zuckerberg from allegations of being, you
00:26:21
know, a terrible left Winger or something like that from from
00:26:25
the president. I also think like if Zuckerberg
00:26:27
didn't like, you know, that Like a bird really like steel because
00:26:30
he hasn't fired him. I mean maybe that's not the only
00:26:33
thing but like teal is given and continues to give Facebook a
00:26:36
zillion reasons to replace him and they don't and I think like
00:26:40
you have to ask yourself like why why that is like he's
00:26:44
creating some value for his uh cupboard.
00:26:46
Whether it's just pure kind of like political capital or
00:26:51
political Capital, like an advice.
00:26:52
I think it's the latter but but I it's possible.
00:26:55
It's just totally opposed here. I want to I want to frame up an
00:26:58
argument and be still Ellie just loves to believe it's small,
00:27:01
it's more fun and it is small. I mean, you can read it through
00:27:04
this book where, you know, half the people running around,
00:27:07
Silicon Valley, roll off like Keith David Sachs like, you
00:27:11
know, they were all at PayPal, you know?
00:27:13
And yeah, even Mike Morris was the antagonist.
00:27:15
You know. It's just like, they're all Jeff
00:27:17
Jordan to from eBay. It was funny.
00:27:19
Yeah. Right.
00:27:19
Jeff, Jordan comes up with the acquisition.
00:27:21
It's amazing. I mean, it's it's so small.
00:27:24
And if you think of it, honestly is just like a group of people
00:27:28
who associate with each. Each other.
00:27:30
So many of them all believe the same things, they're boring,
00:27:33
too. Many of them are sort of
00:27:34
business, guys, in this sort of game view of Silicon Valley, I
00:27:39
can see why you love Peter, teal because he's funny, you know,
00:27:42
maybe he's weird and kind of parties, but he wants to play
00:27:44
chess like it's unsettling, you always have is just like, like
00:27:49
so many people are just boring and Peter thiel's interesting.
00:27:52
He's running schemes. Like it makes you feel like he's
00:27:54
really doing the stuff. A rich person should do in the
00:27:57
way that everybody else is sort of boring.
00:27:59
Like, Eric Schmidt Futures like, who cares?
00:28:01
Like it doesn't have the same appeal.
00:28:04
So if you're one of these rich people who thinks money-making
00:28:06
is mostly a game and even the political stuff is about
00:28:10
building allies in Washington, you know, if you're raising a
00:28:14
bunch of money and 90% of them are from Democrats, why not have
00:28:17
ten percent of the people have some access to Republicans who
00:28:20
are a bunch of crazy people running around the country,
00:28:22
whether you like it or not. So I feel like that's the view
00:28:26
and then the Trump as you sort of talked about in the book
00:28:28
makes it sort of Of a problem. Because all of a sudden people
00:28:31
see that, oh, teals, like worldview has consequences.
00:28:36
And then you say, you know, some people distance themselves.
00:28:39
I mean, talk about why see, like, I'm skeptical how much
00:28:42
that world is really distanced himself?
00:28:44
You don't, you don't go at length.
00:28:45
I'm not saying it's wrong, but they do as a brand, but those
00:28:49
people are all so close. Oh, Peter teal, right?
00:28:52
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
00:28:53
I don't, I don't think they're just instead.
00:28:55
All right, meaning, right. And say, I mean, I know Sam
00:28:57
Altman is sort on the outside now but he and Are, you know,
00:29:00
clearly very close and have been, you know, for years,
00:29:03
right? And I think you're right, I
00:29:04
mean, like, the, the guys are still involved in ycr.
00:29:07
Are totally kind of on this, like, you know, they are T lists
00:29:11
like and proudly. So, for the most part and I
00:29:13
think you're kind of assessment of like, what makes him
00:29:16
attractive is like 100%, right? And it's not just attractive to
00:29:20
like rich people, but like attractive to Young ambitious
00:29:22
people kind of people who want to not, you know, not just
00:29:25
people who already have companies.
00:29:27
But, you know, the kind of people who want to make Get in
00:29:29
Silicon Valley, who are who have aspirations, and all that.
00:29:32
And I mean, to me like, there's stuff in zero to one that really
00:29:35
like pushes, you know, it's pretty far out there, right?
00:29:38
Where he's talking about, you know, we should just have
00:29:40
monopolies and you should, you should just break the rules, you
00:29:44
know, it's pretty awesome that, you know, five out of the six
00:29:47
PayPal fat before. I forget what he says.
00:29:48
You know, we're making bombs like and all that stuff is like
00:29:52
really kind of scary. Honestly accept it.
00:29:55
You do have the sense, right? That everybody believes it
00:29:58
anyway, like Like, Eric Schmidt believes that shit anyway, but
00:30:01
Eric Schmidt is just trying to like, play a more like subtle
00:30:05
political game. And I think that's part of the
00:30:07
appeal. Teal is saying the quiet part
00:30:09
out loud, and people respect him for that.
00:30:11
And I think he gets respect for that, even for Pete from people
00:30:14
who, you know, disagree with him.
00:30:15
Obviously I actually believe that, you know, morality is
00:30:19
doing the right thing in face of what might be more fun for you
00:30:22
or strategic to your company and that and to some degree.
00:30:26
It fits into the early argument downplaying Till's influence.
00:30:29
It's makes it easier to say he's a kook.
00:30:31
Like yes he's he has ploys but he's not like some Global Puppet
00:30:35
Master therefore we can still work with him because he's not
00:30:38
and so the longer it seems like just sort of quirky character
00:30:43
versus a Coke brother level thing.
00:30:45
Zack can still keep him on the board or whatever.
00:30:47
Yeah. And I think that teal does there
00:30:49
are ways in which I think teals, like success is sometimes
00:30:53
overplayed people tend to overlook the like obvious
00:30:56
failures. Both failures of sort of like
00:30:59
Ding imagination and selling at the wrong time and the fact that
00:31:03
he like, ran one of the world's most successful hedge funds into
00:31:06
the ground and like a span of like, you know, whatever 18
00:31:08
months or something and he blames it on Gawker?
00:31:10
See me? I mean, I think he blames it and
00:31:13
he blamed it in part on Gawker and that some of that is just
00:31:18
like, on an emotional level, right?
00:31:19
Like he was off his game, but of course, as the hedge fund was
00:31:23
falling apart. It was there were lots of
00:31:25
withdraws. You know, investors are pulling
00:31:26
their money out. Where was amazing?
00:31:28
He said the world's To collapse and then he doesn't make the
00:31:32
short bets to match it. I mean, he's like the whole
00:31:35
thing's going to blow up and then I mean, but it did seem
00:31:38
like they were down for the year but not as down as the stock
00:31:41
market or is other hedge funds who didn't do so poorly.
00:31:44
No exact. Well yeah, he did.
00:31:46
What would happen is they lost a bunch of investor money and
00:31:48
then, and then they lost all their investors and so, and then
00:31:51
it turned into a little part of that had to do with that.
00:31:53
Completely unhinged investor letter that he sent out, which I
00:31:56
imagine if I had money in that kind of fun than I see.
00:31:59
That letter coming through, I'd be a little concerned about how
00:32:02
well, my money is being managed. Yeah, which is again,
00:32:05
interesting when you start to marry like the business Acumen
00:32:08
with the personality and like when that meshes well, and when
00:32:11
it doesn't yeah, yeah. That investor letter is like
00:32:14
really? I mean, if you're at all curious
00:32:16
in this, in this stuff, it's worth a look because it's just
00:32:18
so it's just so out there, it's called the optimistic thought
00:32:21
experiment, and it's about the investment thesis is that we're
00:32:26
all under rating, the prospect of apocalypse, Which is a thing
00:32:29
that you see, you know, running through not just heels kind of
00:32:33
ideas, but the idea is like many of his followers, right?
00:32:35
They're all looking, you know, this is like why I would argue
00:32:39
anyway. Like why David Sachs is like
00:32:41
tweeting videos of people breaking into cars in San
00:32:43
Francisco. Like they're they're just on the
00:32:45
lookout for societal collapse because a big part of the
00:32:49
overall philosophy is that Society is going to collapse and
00:32:52
there are going to be these like tech companies that either save
00:32:55
it or save the the lucky few who Embrace this Tech.
00:32:59
So it's looking up, it is an apocalyptic philosophy.
00:33:01
I read even Amazon more than America.
00:33:03
That's my new position. So I guess I agree with them in
00:33:06
that he doesn't seem to get along with Bezos so well.
00:33:09
So that's interesting to me because, you know, as the only
00:33:13
person who lives in San Francisco, I live in the
00:33:16
apocalypse Everyday by which I mean like seeing the tweets
00:33:19
about but it's an interesting State of Affairs and I really
00:33:25
did get that from reading your book because in one sense, Tech
00:33:29
is Ever been more powerful than ever, right?
00:33:30
The valuation of these companies keeps going up and yet the
00:33:34
people that are running them or the investors seem like they
00:33:36
couldn't be more unhappy. It's so it's like in one sense
00:33:39
they couldn't be more comfortable but they're
00:33:40
incredibly unhappy about the State of Affairs there.
00:33:43
And I wonder if this is just them going back to this idea of
00:33:47
like, you know, whites or the oppressed class that their basic
00:33:50
worldview is they cannot if ever there comfortable.
00:33:55
It's a problem and they can't accept that fact.
00:33:57
And so they have to find some Is whether it's the coming
00:34:00
apocalypse or woke nests or other aspects that, you know,
00:34:03
challenge their worldview even slightly that they have to, you
00:34:06
know, doomsday all of it. I mean, do you think that's kind
00:34:09
of informing that mentality right now?
00:34:11
Or or why is it that the teal and the teal acolytes?
00:34:14
You're talking about, algae, David Sachs, all of these people
00:34:17
that come here, book seemed to spend all their time, predicting
00:34:21
the end of times and yet they're richer than they've ever been.
00:34:24
I mean, but I think all of us, right?
00:34:25
Like The Grass Is Always Greener, yada, yada yada but I
00:34:28
think I think it's probably Bleah more like, you know,
00:34:30
they're pressing their advantage.
00:34:31
I mean, like they like they see an opportunity to, you know what
00:34:35
ever influence politics in a way that is is to their liking to
00:34:39
further, you know, consolidate the power that they have
00:34:42
Acquired and to set things up to be even better going forward,
00:34:46
but maybe there is some like deep psychological you, no
00:34:49
explanation for it. But I tend to think that they're
00:34:52
playing politics which is kind of what they've always been
00:34:54
doing. It's just now you know, they
00:34:56
have a lot more attention and more money too.
00:34:59
Play with, why is he not on Twitter, by the way?
00:35:01
I mean, this guy seems like he never misses an opportunity to
00:35:04
deliver his worldview to witting or unwitting audience.
00:35:08
So he's kind of, you know, first of all, he's very careful,
00:35:13
right? He's not somebody who likes to
00:35:16
be exposed in any way, right? And I don't just mean like have
00:35:19
his Secrets reported although that's true but like I mean
00:35:22
emotionally exposed like he's somebody who likes to have this
00:35:26
kind of protective shield around him right and And so, you know,
00:35:30
Twitter obviously Pierce's that and all sorts of what, you know,
00:35:33
and if you're, you know, Marc Andreessen, you could just block
00:35:35
everybody. There are obviously, like ways
00:35:36
to like, you know, you know, maintain your filter bubble.
00:35:39
But I think that that there's something about the platform
00:35:42
that is kind of antithetical to, like, Till's personality.
00:35:44
You also see like yes, like, he delivers these like really great
00:35:48
one-liners but like, often his speeches are kind of Meandering
00:35:52
and their self contradictory and and you really have to kind of
00:35:56
work to find the the provocations.
00:35:59
So, I don't know, like, I think he's just somebody who's careful
00:36:04
and, you know, kind of always like changing his mind and so
00:36:07
like those, you know, Twitter doesn't doesn't sort of work
00:36:11
with that also. I mean, Twitter is Facebook's
00:36:13
competitor. I mean, he's kind of had this
00:36:15
position, you know, for Twitter's entire existence that
00:36:19
Twitter is awful and Facebook's awesome.
00:36:21
Although, I don't think he really uses much Facebook.
00:36:22
He's about to say I did, how often is he posting his
00:36:25
vacation? He has a Facebook page, but I II
00:36:29
think he's not a, yeah, he's definitely not an active, he's
00:36:32
like not getting in with your granny On Cue and on or
00:36:34
whatever. Where's like seasteading and
00:36:38
life extension. Obviously, to ideas closely
00:36:41
associated with teal. It is see, studying daddy,
00:36:45
basically picked New Zealand over that, or what's the state
00:36:48
of seasteading? What's the state of Life
00:36:50
Extension? As you see it?
00:36:52
I think both of these things were part are part of like the
00:36:55
image and like and in some ways, like his Embrace of them and
00:36:58
like the very public Look Embrace was partly about like,
00:37:01
conveying something and you don't conveying his both of
00:37:04
those things. Like sort of convey parts of
00:37:06
teals worldview. Like, the life expectancy
00:37:08
extension thing obviously is about technology being a
00:37:11
possible way to like, save us all.
00:37:13
And and seasteading is sort of a critique of regulations and
00:37:17
things like that. See setting is very much.
00:37:19
I mean, the idea of having living on a platform in the
00:37:22
ocean is dead but the kind of underlying idea that there
00:37:26
should be options for Wealthy tech-savvy people to like leave
00:37:32
the, you know, the legal framework of the United States
00:37:35
is like very much alive. I mean, Balaji is, you know, is
00:37:39
pushing this. And there are a lot of the
00:37:41
seasteading guys are right now. Involved with this Charter
00:37:45
cities movement, which is basically like a c-stand on land
00:37:48
where like instead of instead of like having a floating platform,
00:37:51
we just like find a you know developing country that like
00:37:56
really wants some you know really want some entrepreneurs
00:37:58
to live dime. Simple, I'm more sympathetic to
00:38:00
the idea. Honestly, reading the book.
00:38:02
It is, it's like, wow, just because we happen to be born in
00:38:06
a certain time. We live in this world where,
00:38:08
like, all sort of governments already set and locked, you
00:38:12
can't create anything new and we should just accept it.
00:38:16
Like if we have these Innovative people, you know, let them
00:38:20
experiment on government. I mean, yeah, it sounds
00:38:23
logistically hard. But I'm sympathetic, is this,
00:38:26
the living on the sea in a reg? Sounds terrible to me.
00:38:29
That part, I don't like. But the idea of a city governed
00:38:33
by sort of, I don't know, some blockchain or whatever, at least
00:38:36
experimenting with it. I'm open.
00:38:38
I mean, the thing is though, I might agree with you be better
00:38:41
to live in like ponderous then it you know, on an oil rig in
00:38:45
the you know, South Pacific or something.
00:38:47
But like I think that it really, you know, runs counter to a lot
00:38:52
of ideas that are pretty well agreed upon.
00:38:55
And, you know, one of which is that, you know, when you are
00:38:58
very successful, You, you know, our responsibility to like, give
00:39:02
back to society and both in the form of, you know, paying your
00:39:06
fair share of taxes, the same percentage, you know, I don't
00:39:09
think I don't think, like, in this world view, we're not
00:39:10
asking them to pay more than than, than a normal person were
00:39:13
asking to just pay the same amount or even probably and in
00:39:16
real at reality, right? Like a hell of a lot less like a
00:39:19
percentage. I support Peter teal pain more
00:39:22
than his fair share of time and I think like basically that's
00:39:25
what see setting is about. It's not about finding new forms
00:39:28
of governance. It's and and when you actually
00:39:30
listen to what they're saying, right?
00:39:31
It's not about where you can't. You can have the same frame to
00:39:33
the whole Miami conversation there.
00:39:35
Like Miami is great. It's like Miami has low taxes.
00:39:38
Like simplify yeah, that's the argument on seasteading they're
00:39:41
trying to evade taxes, they hate taxes, right?
00:39:45
And I just think, like trying to, and there are good reasons
00:39:49
like the other rules that they're trying to get around.
00:39:51
Like they're good reasons. We have those rules.
00:39:53
Like, a lot of these guys are banging the lab leak drum, you
00:39:58
know, 24/7. Like, you know, it's gonna be
00:40:01
gain-of-function, research is going to be a great, you know,
00:40:03
it's going to be great to do gain-of-function research in
00:40:05
these see stands or or like, you know, these like the kinds of
00:40:09
pharmaceutical experiments. Like one of the big reasons for
00:40:12
doing this is to be able to do pharmaceutical experiments
00:40:14
without the regulation of the FDA.
00:40:16
Like I think there's some good reasons that we have the FDA and
00:40:19
and those reasons like often transcend National boundaries
00:40:23
and things like that. So I don't know.
00:40:25
I think it's I'm not really sure I think the geologist mostly
00:40:29
just getting around paying taxes and creating a better regulatory
00:40:33
climate for for business which is not a particularly new idea,
00:40:37
right? I mean, that's always what
00:40:38
strikes me is so funny about this Silicon Valley, you know,
00:40:41
disruption and new new styles of thinking is that when you really
00:40:44
break it down to its essential elements of who, it's benefiting
00:40:48
it really feels. As pro-business is anything that
00:40:50
like, you know, JP Morgan would have been in favor of or like it
00:40:53
is where the crypto people would say.
00:40:54
You have to be better at creating memes, right?
00:40:56
Me making a better meme of the Idea is the genius because then
00:41:01
it catches on if you presented as seasteading instead of lower
00:41:05
taxes, you know that idea has virality to the.
00:41:08
Crypto thing is really interesting with teal as well
00:41:11
because in a lot like in its most pure and and I got I guess,
00:41:16
like innocent sense, or what it should be standing for crypto is
00:41:19
about returning, Silicon Valley to its core beliefs, which is
00:41:22
that it is, you know, does somewhat independent of Banks
00:41:26
and it's decentralized and it's like impossible.
00:41:29
Powers individuals and communities of people who agree
00:41:32
on things to create a system and that stands apart to almost like
00:41:36
the monopolies have big companies, which are, you know,
00:41:39
in contrast to its to big people are sorry in contrast to
00:41:43
individuality and, and freedom on.
00:41:45
And from that standpoint, I mean where does Teal sit with with
00:41:49
crypto these days. Obviously he's in favor of it
00:41:52
from like a Libertarian standpoint but you know is he
00:41:55
then he was like China's going to he's all over the place is
00:41:58
all over the place, right? Well, okay, so he a couple
00:42:01
things number one, you know, I think he's one of the kind of
00:42:04
ideological kind of Godfathers of this of some of these ideas.
00:42:09
You know, PayPal was talking about these, some of the same
00:42:12
ideas about digital money as a way to kind of undercut the
00:42:16
power of Banks and regulators and even National sovereignty.
00:42:20
You know back in the you know, late 90s, early 2000s, teal has
00:42:25
owned Bitcoin, I assume he's still owns you know quite a bit
00:42:28
of crypto. Although don't know.
00:42:30
And he, you know, has been investing, you know, heavily in
00:42:33
crypto companies. Eric you mentioned the, the
00:42:36
China comments my read on that. So, just in case, people don't
00:42:40
know. Earlier this year, teal
00:42:42
described Bitcoin as a potential weapon of the Chinese state,
00:42:45
which is a strange thing for a self-professed China, Hawk and
00:42:50
Bitcoin Bowl to kind of put together in one sentence and
00:42:53
kind of sent, you know, crypto heads, you know, basically off
00:42:56
them, you know, it basically like it.
00:42:59
A really great way to like get a lot of crypto heads to sort of
00:43:02
lose their minds because they're all trying to find out like,
00:43:05
sort of explanations for why, you know why?
00:43:07
One of the guys on their team would say something like that.
00:43:09
Now my read on it is that teal was pushing and maybe is still
00:43:14
pushing an argument as pretty similar to the one that
00:43:16
Zuckerberg used on Tick Tock basically, like if we do not
00:43:20
create a friendly regulatory environment for crypto in the
00:43:23
United States, the Chinese will do so and they'll do it in a way
00:43:26
that we don't like and that. And for that reason, you know,
00:43:29
Don't mess with, you know, don't mess with American tech
00:43:31
companies. I kind of think that's what he
00:43:33
was trying to do with that comment.
00:43:35
Although, I don't really know yesterday when we were recording
00:43:39
this, you know, on the 21st on the 20th, he hope I didn't break
00:43:43
the fourth wall there. Guys know it's fun.
00:43:45
Making the yeah. Okay, but life he said that
00:43:49
Bitcoin is may be undervalued and it's also or that he's under
00:43:55
invested in Bitcoin and that it's an indication of just How
00:43:59
broken you know, Society is that Bitcoin is is worth, you know,
00:44:03
60 something thousand dollars a coin, which those two things are
00:44:07
kind of In conflict. Because like so if you think
00:44:10
Bitcoin is an indication that Society about to collapse, I
00:44:14
guess then it could still be undervalued so I don't know.
00:44:16
I mean he's definitely like interested in Bitcoin.
00:44:20
I also think he's somebody there were conspiracy theories around
00:44:23
the China comments right where people were like, oh maybe he's
00:44:26
trying to buy Bitcoin cheap I thought.
00:44:28
Yeah. And like, I don't think that's
00:44:30
crazy, right? Teal is a traitor.
00:44:31
And he's somebody who is, you know, he was, he was a macro
00:44:35
investor before he was a start-up guy.
00:44:37
Like you could totally see him trying to come up with some
00:44:40
trade. I don't know II.
00:44:42
Don't know, enough about like the legality of, you know, of
00:44:46
this kind of thing. So, so it's hard to know if
00:44:48
that's even a possibility, or whatever.
00:44:50
But anyway, it's I think some of those conspiracy theories are
00:44:53
kind of intriguing as well. Let's end on life extension.
00:44:55
I ask you about that, and then we, yeah, sorry.
00:44:59
No, it was my fault. We dragged you all over the
00:45:00
place, but you know, what is what is this state of Life
00:45:03
Extension investment from teal world?
00:45:05
So my sense is that he was pretty engaged in it about ten
00:45:10
years ago or a little more than 10 years ago and hasn't really
00:45:12
done a lot. So he gave a bunch of money to
00:45:14
this group called sends that was started by this guy.
00:45:17
Aubrey de grey hasn't given anything to them in years, you
00:45:21
know. And of course, Aubrey de grey
00:45:22
was then was dismissed from, you know, was fire, there's a sort
00:45:25
of ongoing, I think, you know, allegations of sexual
00:45:28
harassment. And it's unclear like what's
00:45:30
going on with that group or what its future is.
00:45:32
And and he hasn't made that many investments in this field for a
00:45:36
really long time. And that, you know, combined
00:45:40
with the fact that he was, you know, as far as I can tell just
00:45:43
completely indifferent to covid if not, if not being kind of
00:45:48
happy about covid. Seeing can I say it was like a
00:45:50
moral disease or some talked about it as a side?
00:45:52
I think a psychological symptom, but I have to go back and look
00:45:56
at the exact quote, but but you know, his view was Trump got
00:45:59
covid, right? And maybe he didn't, maybe he, I
00:46:03
think teal would probably argue with Trump at the margins, you
00:46:05
know, in terms of the execution or, you know, some of those
00:46:08
crazy, press conferences, whatever.
00:46:10
But that trumps like refusal to lock the economy down and his,
00:46:14
you know, was correct and that people were freaking out,
00:46:17
unnecessarily about it. And to me, that's a pretty odd
00:46:20
position for somebody who has like, a professed interest in
00:46:24
life extension, when you're talking about, you know,
00:46:26
Millions around the world. Millions of Guys around the
00:46:29
world being lost to this pandemic, you know, nearly a
00:46:31
million or 750 or whatever in the u.s.
00:46:33
So I kind of think the life extension thing is is a bit of a
00:46:37
pose. Now now, since the book came out
00:46:39
of his life extension, right? That's all.
00:46:43
Libertarianism for me, not for thee.
00:46:45
It's like, no. My life needs to be extended.
00:46:48
Not yours. I'm in New Zealand.
00:46:50
I've heard from some folks after the book came out and they said,
00:46:53
no, no, he's still interested in it.
00:46:54
Just his own life, right? So, so it's kind of like, yeah,
00:46:57
I have no doubt that he wants to.
00:46:59
To increase his own life span and and stay healthy or
00:47:02
whatever. But I think in terms of like
00:47:04
really backing research here, he just hasn't done much and he
00:47:08
doesn't seem all that interested, as far as I can
00:47:10
tell, in my mind the best, the best industry to be in life
00:47:13
extension. Because if it doesn't work out,
00:47:14
what are they going to do? Thanks so much for coming on,
00:47:19
it's a great book, everybody should buy the contrarian,
00:47:22
especially Peter teal, is only going to become more and more
00:47:25
powerful over time. I think good guy to know read
00:47:29
About your new Overlord. Thanks so much for coming on.
00:47:32
Thanks guys, really, really appreciate the time.
00:47:34
This is fun.