A Warning for Humanity

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This week on the Andrew Yang Podcast. If I were in charge of everything, let's say if I were president right now, I would have already called all the AI guys together and be like, look guys, we have to compete against China. I know, I get it. But we are not going to have crazy bots hack our infrastructure. We're not— we're, you know, if there is a super virus, it's going to be because someone really brilliant, malevolent managed to like make it happen, not because we're fucking morons and made it easy. That's my responsibility as the leader of the free world. And if it means that You guys have to, you know, like compete against China with some boundaries. So be it. Hey guys, it's me and Zach. It's fall '26. The summer is over. Bitter, bitter. Are we bitter? Are we? You know, the fall will be great. So this week we're going to talk about this Anthropic researcher who publicly resigned and said, hey, we might destroy humanity, so I'm resigning. So we'll talk about that. Also take some of your questions and reflect a little bit on the year that was since this is the 1-year anniversary of Knowable Mobile.

Yeah, 1 year, man. Still grinding. Good to be with y'all. Let's talk AI. You're the guy to talk about this.

Yeah.

This, um, so for context for everybody, there was an Anthropic employee, senior person, who came out on Twitter, publicly quit, and said there's a greater than 10% chance of AI destroying humanity and sort of went on a thread. And it sort of, it sort of went, it certainly went viral in the tech circles, in the AI community. Andrew, would love your thoughts. Is he right? Is he wrong? How freaked out should we be? What do you got?

Yeah, what's interesting is this one really rang a bell in a way that a lot of others— because by the way, if you look, there have been 3, 4, 5, 6 other relatively well-situated employees of OpenAI and Anthropic who've resigned and said the same thing.

Yes.

And so there's part of me that was like, interesting why this guy has struck a chord. And I think it's partially the timing because Anthropic is filing to go public as we speak. And, and so I was reflecting on the fact that this guy probably gave up tens of millions of dollars to quit and say this. Now, it could be that he's already loaded or invested or something like that. But, you know, it's a lot of money. I mean, no one leaves a pre-IPO company like weeks before the IPO. It's like, you know, it's probably a trillion-dollar IPO. And it was, you know, a matter of days after Bill Gates raised his hand and said something kind of similar that— Now, first, let me say When people say AI is going to kill us all, the key question is how? In the sense that let's say you had malignant AI that was like, hey, hate our creators, let's kill them all. It's actually hard to kill us all. There are only a few ways to kill us all. Now, easy, easy things they could do that could— they could put us back in the Stone Age.

Turn off water, turn off power.

They could 1,000% turn off our utilities. Yeah, like that stuff's pretty straightforward. But, and some of us would die, but not all, not all of us. The true apocalyptic thing is they launch all the nukes somehow, or they spoof us into nuclear conflict where the US computers all say that Russia fired on us or something, and then we fire.

Plot of one of the Mission: Impossibles recently. Yes.

Yeah, it was also a, you know, it's like been a lot of, a lot of these plots.

Yeah.

So Plausible. That's plausible. Another one that's plausible, more so even now, very realistic, is some kind of supervirus that AI engineers, and then you let loose a supervirus. Now, I will say that I don't think a supervirus would kill us all.

Yeah.

I think it would kill some of us. So there's definitely a little bit of dramatization, shall we say. I mean, Like, I would look at it and be like, there's a greater than 10% chance that AI is going to kill 10% of us. Still, I mean, killing, let's say, a billion people or whatever would be awful, and no one wants to go to the Stone Age. And I do think AI could return us to the Stone Age pretty straightforwardly. Our power grid is very archaic and easy to hack for the most part.

Very vulnerable.

Yeah, super vulnerable. Other countries have been able to hack our grid for Yeah, a number of years and whatnot. So I just want to frame it a little bit. But first, do I think this person is sincere? Yes, I do. And I've talked to a bunch of people who work in AI, and a lot of them are freaked out and scared. And then if you ask them, hey, why doesn't anyone do anything about it? It's a culture problem, a leadership problem, a money problem.

Say more.

Well, so there's this trillion-dollar IPO. Everyone's like, go, go, go. And then so if you're the one guy who's like, hey guys, maybe we should do this, like, you know, you just end up being the stick-in-the-mud, the compliance asshole, the wimp or something along those lines. Everyone around you is just going to shake their head and go around you, even if some of them might agree with you. It would require a unilateral surrender of what the company thinks it's pursuing. So it's competing with other companies. Anthropic's competing with OpenAI, And then it's you're also competing with China and Chinese labs argument. Yeah, and so everyone's like go go go pell-mell pell-mell, and then if if you're trying to slow that down, it's very very difficult. And then there's this trillion-dollar pot of gold where someone actually said to Bill Gates like yo man shut up we've got a trillion dollars on the line, and Bill Gates is like what? So credit to Bill for raising his hand and saying what he thought was correct. So where am I on this? I think the danger is real. I think that the odds of something blowing up are very high if there isn't a change of course. I regard Jacob Coxton, this researcher, as a courageous type. If I were in charge of everything, let's say if I were president right now, I would've already called all the AI guys together and be like, look guys, we have to compete against China. I know, I get it. But we are not going to have crazy bots hack our infrastructure. We're not— you know, if there is a super virus, it's going to be because someone really brilliant, malevolent managed to, like, make it happen, not because we're fucking morons and made it easy. You know, like, like there are a bunch of— so we're going to safeguard against these things. That's my responsibility as the leader of the free world. And if it means that you guys have to you know, like compete against China with some, some boundaries, so be it. Like, that's the way it is. One of the things we haven't talked about that much but has also come out is that Americans have turned against data centers en masse. Yeah, I was talking to a friend the other day and I will say first, let me say that I am not as negative about data centers as a lot of Americans are.

Me neither. But I understand the narratives that are going around.

Totally. I will say that there is some data that has come to my attention that if a data center is really close to school or a home, there are some negative effects. So, so this is not like total carte blanche, put them wherever. Yes. To me, there are a bunch of reasonable rules one could pursue as usual.

Yeah.

It's like, hey, let's do it, you know, more than 10 miles away from like a school, like, you know, more than like 5 miles away from any home. We don't suck from the power grid to the point where it, you know, harms you. We don't suck the water to the point it harms you. There's community benefit that's enforceable. There's like a, you know, community process. There's like— there are a bunch of things that you would want to do differently than is being done. But now the cat's out of the bag and everyone's turned on data centers and hate them.

Right.

The other thing too is I've traveled this country and there are a lot of places to put data centers.

A lot of places to put data centers.

Agree with that.

Even in popular, populous states, if you will.

Yeah. I mean, heck, you know, even let's say we live in New York. New York has massive expanses.

Please do it in the Meadowlands. You know what I mean? I already said that.

I mean, I was thinking like Western New York, man. Right. Western New York.

Buffalo loves some data centers.

I'm thinking about the zone between here and Buffalo, but like even Buffalo, cuz that's a lot of New York. Yeah. And this is— there's a lot of country. Yes. A lot of places to put data centers. And these things are tax revenue generating, you know, like job generating a little bit, you know, I mean, not as much as they're being hyped up to be.

Yeah.

But they're economic engines. They are. And if the benefits were being spread, I think people would have a very different attitude. And I think, you know, if you actually had community buy-in and be like, look, let's put it someplace where No one's going to care and everyone's like, all right, that's cool. Like, then it'd be a different thing. I was blown away by the speed of the rollout of the data centers over the last number of years. Like, you know, data centers weren't even a thing X years ago and all of a sudden it's like data center-a-thon. Yeah.

So maybe a distraction too from the other problems it's causing. You know, like it's a new— like this happens a lot. There's like a political whipping boy, whatever it is. We're all fighting over data centers where meanwhile we should be fighting over How we're regulating this AI. Yeah, you know.

Oh yeah, or how our data got used, or what's going to happen to the jobs. Yep. So that's some of what's going on right now. It's fascinating, man. So it's like the administration probably overplayed its hand where they said, "Hey, run wild AI industry, beat China, let everyone get out of your way," and then the pendulum is swung the other way, and now everyone's like hate the data centers, hate AI. It's going to kill us all.

Right.

And Trump has been very consistently pro-AI, but now various Republicans in different parts of the country are saying, okay, Ron DeSantis, folks in the Senate candidate in Michigan, I think his name is Matt Rogers, like different Republicans have actually raised their hand, probably because they've heard it on the trail everywhere they've gone that people don't want them.

On the AI taking over the world piece, here's my question. And sort of to your point, we're not really regulating this or giving it proper oversight, frankly. Let's say, my problem with the AI is going to destroy humanity argument is there's probably too many steps between now and then where other things start happening. And what I mean is, let's say Anthropic, for example, has some bot and it Hacks a senior center and they lose power and 100 people die, whatever it is, right? You probably are seeing the government burst into Anthropic and, or at least it threatened this, start taking it over, right? Like there's a certain, there's certain steps where Anthropic, unless it's like all one fell swoop, there's probably steps where the government starts nationalizing this quickly before it gets outta hand. Do you think that's a realistic outcome? Well, yeah, you know what I mean? Like, if you're the administration, you can't regulate it at all. But if it's a national security threat, now you can. Do they go in there and start taking over? I don't know.

So there is a bill that's been put forward by Congressman Ted Lieu that is eminently reasonable, which is just, hey, AI labs, AI companies, you have to have a kill switch if things go haywire. And right now there is not a way to turn them off. And so it's really pretty dark where it's like, hey, you know, your, your bots are, in your, your example, like, you know, depowering the senior center or whatever.

They've gone rogue.

Whatever. Yeah, they've gone rogue. It's like the AI companies are just like, oh, like, you know.

Well, now you have— they're, they're using AI to train their AI, right? So they make the AI and then they use other LLMs to, to make it better. And so then they get to a point, at least reportedly, is like they actually don't know what's being improved. Yes. Yeah, I don't see a government standing by and watching if a couple bad accidents start happening.

Well, so America's political class is very much reactive after the disaster happens, and then they get together and blame.

For sure.

And in this case, the disaster might be calamitous enough where Reacting after the fact is no good. I would certainly argue that social media is that, where social media has made us sad and dumb and lonely, and everyone's like, oh, interesting. And then—

And now we're fining Facebook 20 years later.

Yeah, now we're fining Facebook after they're a trillion-dollar company, and they're like, oh, here's $17 billion. Hope everyone's all right. So the AI track is similar. Now, I think this, this is threatening enough where you'd want a line draw before the disaster, right? If there was a scenario you describe, would the feds just like show up in these AI headquarters? It's interesting. I don't know. It would depend on the size of it.

Yeah.

Senior center, my belief, no. If it was like a military base, then—

Corporate headquarters or something, you know? Yeah, maybe.

Yeah. So there might be a line. This is a weird, terrifying time. I feel, you know, I mean, it's like I saw the announcement and then thought, geez, like, I wish that I'd won that election in 2020. I could have gotten ahead of a lot of this. I might still be president today. Might be my second term.

Yeah, maybe.

Hey, what do you guys think? Zach for press secretary?

Give me something behind the scenes.

Zach for chief of staff? No, you know what, man? Stress-free. After you pulled your hair out as chief of staff, then you could be ambassador to what country?

Oh yeah, like Australia or like—

You'd be like, I'm going to sit out the AI apocalypse from Sydney or wherever.

Ambassador's the gig, man. That's the gig. And you can actually do some things that are interesting. Get to travel a lot.

No one cares. I think people literally call you like, Your Honor, like honorable.

Oh yeah. Like, and then you get paid corporate speaking gigs after.

Honorable Zach Graham is a good ring. Would you really pick Australia?

I actually like being in the arena, so I don't know if I would actually want to. If you were president, I'd actually want to sit on the sideline.

But no, maybe after I got impeached, I would like leave you hanging.

That'd be tough. If you hated the job, then maybe I'd do it.

If you're like, this job sucks, I got impeached, I'd be like, please, Zach, go to Sydney. Thank you, listeners. Please make sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any questions, send them to mailbag@andrewyang.com and we'll do our best to answer them. Thank you. It's September. We are back. I don't know about you, but I was not eating very well this summer. I kind of had a little bit of a vacation vibe. Do you know what I mean? And if you also are trying to get back on track with your diet, check out Factor Food. Factor is dietitian-designed, ready-to-eat meals that you can just heat and eat, even for a klutz like me. Well, I mean, they're kind of designed for klutzes like me. So they're in your fridge, no prep, no cleanup, and you get salmon burgers, shredded pork, mustard chicken is one of my favorites. This is something that will just improve your life. Set it and forget it, and then be delighted when the meals show up. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/yang50off and use code YANG50OFF to get 50% off and 1 free breakfast item per box per 1 year while supplies last until 10/31/26. That's code YANG50OFF at factormeals.com. YANG50OFF at factormeals.com. See website for more details. I, you know, it's, it's funny. It's like, thank you for people who listen to us and, um, helped support the campaign. I don't wake up every day gnashing my teeth that I'm not president, but there are times when I think like, wow, I really would've done that better.

We get that a lot from fans who are like, you know what? It'd be nice to have you in there, you know, on some of these topics, you know.

Yeah, it— yeah, well, thank you, Yang Gang. Who knows, um, you know, it's like maybe I'll zip in there in the nick of time, just like in the movies. So Noble Mobile, we've been building it for a year. I am pumped to be running around trying to save people money. I did something today where someone was delighted by Noble Mobile. And I'm proud of us. Like, we made this company happen. We made it a thing. Millions in revenue, thousands of very happy customers. We bought a company, Helium, that's going to enlarge our footprint very significantly. And off to the races. Like, it feels good to be building something that helps people every day.

As entrepreneurs, it's been fun. We've gone zero to one, which is good, right? We have a product that works. People like it. With helium, we've gotten to a healthy amount of scale, so we can start to do more innovative things and get better deals, etc. So we're yeah, man. Good year of entrepreneurship, I think.

It's been a good year of entrepreneurship.

Good year building.

Right. Thousands of people come to no phone parties around the country. It's good fun.

And there's a join stay, which is nice. Like people like it, which I like.

It is delightful.

Like, it works.

Ethan Gottlieb, our CTO and John Liu and the team have made like a very, very high-quality interface and app. Like, it's genuinely happiness-inducing.

Yeah.

To look at your money meter. We pay 5.5% interest. By the way, I've got a bone to pick with everyone listening to this. I know that not everyone who listens to this has switched to Noble Mobile. I've done the math, folks. And, uh, you should really, really genuinely check it out. Uh, noblemobile.com/yang, 3 months for free. It'd save the average American a couple hundred bucks or more, $300 off the bat. Uh, and it's a great product, a great offering. A lot of people are just like, oh, it's too complicated. I don't know. I don't know how to switch.

It's not for me. Service is bad. One, you get to try it for free, so that shouldn't be concerning.

Two, it's great.

Like we're using it. I use it all the time.

Yeah, yeah. Use it every day, and I understand there's inertia, but it really will improve your life. So if you're listening to this, do check out noblemobile.com/yang because looks like Jerry Maguire. I want to help you. Let me help you.

Show me the money.

Wow! I guess Zach liked that movie too.

Great movie. All right, we got some questions from the audience.

All right.

I like when you guys send questions. Also. Like, not a lot of you send questions, like a healthy amount. So most likely if you share one and it's thoughtful, we pull it up, you know? Uh, I don't, I don't mean like, it's like we get one question, we get, we get a handful, but I try to, we try to do 'em all. A lot of these are political. Uh, so we'll talk a little politics outside of AI. Sure. So this question's from Jim. Thanks, Jim. He asked, which I, I think I might know the answer, but we really want your take. Uh, we've had independent senators, but very few independent House members in my lifetime. Why is this? And I'd add, I think we've had 2 independents. We had Justin Amash and Kevin Kiley in California became an independent this year, but not a ton of reps. I'm curious. Yeah. Is the House harder because it's smaller races due to independents or—

Oh yeah. It's just a lot harder to be an independent House member for practical reasons. So I'm going to give you the most obvious one. They're up for reelection every 2 years. Yeah.

Party will come against you.

Yeah, if you declare independence next month, they'll be like, and we got someone to run against you in the primary or on the other side. And then if you're an independent as a House member, you lose all your juice immediately. It's just a bit of a mess. Whereas senator, 6 years, it's the entire state. The thing that pops into mind for me, the archetype of this, not of a particular type, Is Bernie's technically an independent, and he's a senator in Vermont, and the dude's untouchable. And you imagine someone trying to challenge primary Bernie. Yeah, primary Bernie is a waste of time. Running him as a Republican is a waste of time. He's up there for six years, and he's you know. So it's just easier to build a career as an independent senator with a real connection to the people than it is an independent House member. So this is going to sound obnoxious, but like you know a lot of people. in their district, they barely know who their House member is. And so then if you've got the party coming against you, it's a problem.

Yeah.

And House members are continuously running for reelection. So the mechanics make it a lot easier for there to be independent senators. And people who follow me probably know I am pumped about the independent candidates in Idaho and South Dakota in particular, because the Democrats dropped out. I don't know if you've been keeping up with this stuff.

I've seen a bunch of this.

But now it's news. So Idaho, South Dakota, deep red states that the Democrats are non-factors in, but these independents are polling neck and neck with the Republican incumbents. And so this to me is like a massive opportunity and it's an example of why independent senators are more of a thing. Yeah, because statewide.

Statewide race.

Yeah. Statewide race, minority party is a non-factor. So the Democrats just dropped out. And so you have one-on-one Todd Achilles against an 83-year-old, right now Republican incumbent who's unpopular. I mean, that's actually winnable.

Yeah. I'm curious your thought. So I've spent pretty significant time with sitting senators and representatives on the campaign trail and other times. The senators felt To me, like they were bored because there's not much to do when you're a senator. And also being the senator is the power itself in the sense you are 1/100th of the voting power. You changing your vote can sway the whole thing, right? In the House is where all the action is because nothing gets to Senate unless it goes to the House. And so that's about like alliances and coalition and power and frankly, committee appointments. And so the parties matter a lot more seemingly in the House.

If you're an independent House member. So like Justin Amash became an independent essentially when he was on the way out. And if you're an independent, then the party in charge would be like, all right, no committee assignments for you.

Why would we give it to you? Why would we talk to you? We're not looping in.

Yeah, it's like you're one of 435. Who cares? Yeah. Whereas in the Senate, the votes are important enough where even if you were technically an independent like Bernie or Angus King or whomever, They still kind of need you, so they'll loop you in.

You'll get pulled from both sides, you know, Joe Manchin sort of style.

Like, yeah, or Lisa Murkowski, where, you know, she voted to impeach Trump and the Republican senators still need her.

Yep.

All the time.

So it's a good question, but that's— it's sort of a mechanical thing.

It's one reason, by the way, why, like, the vision that I have is fulcrum in both houses, but the Senate's much more achievable, maybe as early as This November.

Yeah.

Wow.

I get one senator, you're playing ball.

If you get one senator, you probably get 2 or maybe even 3 because some of the folks that are on the edge in the Senate would be like, oh, like, you know, together. Yeah, I got a friend now for sure.

And they can sway votes. Thank you for that, Jim. Question from Kevin: What is your opinion on out-of-state billionaires donating millions to the Aurora Action Network, which is most known for trying to repeal ranked-choice voting in Alaska?

And maybe you could expand that to other types of outside money here. Yeah, everything that's trying to repeal ranked-choice voting really is super aggravating to me because ranked-choice voting, it's like genuinely pro Representation pro-democracy, and the only reason to kill it is if you are really happy with the people in charge and don't want them to be challenged in any way. So yeah, I'm not a fan. I think that folks who are doing that are, in my opinion, just misguided. Like hopefully they will see the light. I'm not sure if this question was about billionaires giving money generally. I mean. In my ideal world, we'd get money out of politics and everything would be more straight up. But we're heading toward the opposite version of that world where now the entire thing is waves of money.

Your solution, one big solution you had when you ran for president was democracy dollars.

Give everyone money. Democracy dollars.

Which is, I think, a good one. The other one I always loved was just we should make the election cycle 8 weeks.

Yeah, yeah. Let's compress that thing.

Which is a little riskier, but— I mean, France, it's 6 weeks, whatever it is. Like, these other countries have it far less. But that has the added bonus of sort of eliminating a version of the consultant establishment, 'cause it would be tougher to make a career out of politics if there's not a campaign all day, every day, every month, or whatever it is.

The operative class is a problem.

Well, that's what happens. Yeah, like when you run for president, you have to go find a, you know, you can get, you had never been in politics for us. What were you able to get? You get someone to run the money, You can get a social guy.

Who could I get? The only person I could get is this joker. Zach Grauman, future ambassador to Australia, was like, sure, I will run this campaign.

That's what it was. It was a bunch of outsiders. But then eventually we had to get a— we had to get a pollster.

Just think, we get Zach like a leather jacket, be like the outsiders. You smoke a cigarette, you got like a white—

white— I mean, that's sort of how they looked at us a lot. They being people that were work on other campaigns. Like, who are these clowns from the Yang— the Yang Gang?

Who are these pirates?

They're all—

that goes in. We— that could have— you could have like greased your hair. I, I've got the image now. Sorry, I'm a child of the '80s. You know this movie The Outsiders? It's now a Broadway show too, for sure. I have not seen—

Kiefer Sutherland, right? He was in the movie, wasn't he?

He might have been. Rob Lowe, maybe.

Was he?

I think so.

I love Rob Lowe.

Kelly Sheen, maybe.

Rob Lowe wearing the NFL hat to an NFL game. Uh, he like wears a referee hat. You ever see this meme?

Anyway, I think Ralph Macchio was in The Outsiders. Patrick Swayze. We gotta look this up.

I haven't seen this movie. I've only seen the COVID Uh, we were talking about it.

Sorry. Okay.

Uh, let's go. Robert asked a question. Andrew, what are your feelings on universal healthcare or even catastrophic care plans? They likely cost us less, but you'd be responsible for all medical out of pocket except for catastrophic situations. Young people would want that, but how do we collect enough from the rich? When they often take only a very small salary, it's maddening that we can't at least try it. Sorry, sorry for venting. It's okay, Robert. You're allowed to vent in our Q&A box.

That's what we're here for, Robert. I I've always liked catastrophic care. You know, I mean, if you have normal market functioning for the manageable expenses, then it disciplines both sides. It disciplines you as a consumer because who out there has gone and been like, "Ah, fuck it! I'm not paying for this." Appointment, this consult, this MRI, this whatever. Like I'll get it done. Whereas if you had to pay even anything nominal, like that was out of pocket, you'd be like, "I'm not gonna do that." And then the same is true on the other side, where they're also like, "Oh snap! You know, maybe we're not." So there's like this natural discipline that comes out of actually having to pay out of pocket for things and and whatnot. And then the reason why we're all scared is because we're scared of the catastrophic.

Sure.

Accident. So this is one version of it that I've always liked. And by the way, I think when I was a broke 20-something-year-old, I might even have just had catastrophic insurance and just figured all the normal stuff. I was going to—

Hope for the best.

Yeah, just hope for the best because, you know, I'm young and healthy and awesome. So I, so I am pro this rant. But, but generally speaking, by the way, like, you know, universal healthcare, it's like healthcare, healthcare is messed up in America and I'm for some form of universal healthcare. Like, having it be tied to employment's stupid and counterproductive in all sorts of ways. It's way too costly. The incentives are all wrong. Like, the whole thing is a Byzantine mess. I can't stand it. It's inefficient. So I'm very much for a path to a public option. Yeah, that's where I am on it. Yeah.

And there's just So many better ways we can do this, you know what I mean? Like, and frankly, if you're unemployed and you walk into a hospital, you got no money or you're homeless, they'll— you'll get care. And oftentimes, and they may send you the bill, they may not, like, they'll— they don't refuse care. The bigger issue is if you're paying for insurance, then you get to the hospital, something bad happens, like, my insurance doesn't cover any of this and I have to pay what?

Oh, there are millions of Americans who are just like, I just don't want to go because I'm scared. I just know, like, the ambulance— I know the ambulance ride's going to cost Cost me $20,000.

Yes, it's insane. Uh, and it— there's, there's no price transparency. There's, there's like a lot of things, Mark Cuban sort of thing. There's like so many little things we could be doing. Uh, like we have—

we—

our care system is very good in the sense that the quality of care is good in the United States, which is what we should want to keep. Like if you talk to— and I have friends that live in Canada, like their system, they have universal healthcare, but it sucks. Like it's, it's not great. The wait times are forever. The quality of care— a lot of people come to the US for care, blah, blah, blah. We have to— right now we're just talking about it. That's what we do. We just go back and forth. The system sucks every day. Anyway, Boron team, do something.

Yeah, I love the Mark Cuban transparency. Like, what are we paying for? I think something like 70% of your bill is negotiable if you actually get down to it.

Great book. I think you had the author on. It was called Don't Pay the First Bill. Remember this guy? Which is true.

Like, get in healthcare, just dig in.

Don't pay the first bill. They'll come and then suddenly doesn't hit your credit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like that all the time.

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Last question is from our friend Ares. Ares, we love you. Hope you're doing well, man. What happens if the leaders of our mainstream parties don't draw a line to keep hateful bigotry out? That's a tough one. Will that hate normalize and take over the parties? I would argue maybe already happening, but—

Yeah, I think there's a real problem, Ares. We are seeing a version of it for sure. I think that it's one reason why there's some things I really dislike about this new version of the far left, and part of it is this anti-success orientation where it's like, oh, if you're successful, you're evil, you're malignant, you did something rapacious. And it's like, I mean, yeah, some rich people are assholes, yes, but it's not necessarily that everyone is an asshole.

Right.

And you become— I think that approach kind of diminishes your drive to go out and improve yourself because you're just like, oh, you know. So that's something I don't like. But the other thing I don't like is that it's deeply tribal and hateful.

Sure.

And if you can get beyond that, then you can, to Erez's question and point, enforce some standards. And then if the standards are gone, then all hell breaks loose. So I think it's a growing problem in the Democratic Party. I do. And I think Republican Party, I mean, shit, like they, they have normalized all sorts of egregious behavior. And the Democratic Party is like right up to that line, stepping on that line sometimes.

We've got like— so there was a woman in Times Square who got stabbed and she died. And when it came out that she was working for, I believe, Bank of America, there are people cheering for this, right?

And she wasn't even like an actual— no, no, she's like a middle— she's like a VP when they're like Hundreds or thousands of VPs. Yeah. Even Zach was a VP.

No, I'm kidding. Yeah, it's probably a similar rank to where I was. Like, it's not, you know, you're not running a damn bank. You're not shit on Zach's podcast. So there's that. And then, you know, on the other side, you see, you know, ICE agents are ripping parents away from their kids in broad daylight, in front of the school bus. Like, there's— which isn't death per se, but it's— there's, there's a lot of hate on, on both sides, man. It's tough to watch.

Yeah, it's super terrible. And the darkness is like, oh, certain forms of victims are okay, is what you're suggesting with the B of A employee. And that's the wrongness. I mean, the enemy is dehumanization.

Yes.

Hedge fund managers are a human being, a healthcare CEO is a human being, a B of A employee is a human being. Brian Armstrong, I think that's the name of the healthcare UnitedHealth CEO, I mean, he had Kids. I mean, kids are going to grow up without a dad or looking up being like, you know, I mean, like that. It's all evil. And so that, that's unfortunately where I do think we're heading. I mean, the dehumanization and I think social media is a big part of it. Back to, you know, like trying to improve your relationship with technology and your phone. It's a big aspect of thinking of other people as human beings.

Yep. Have you— did you see the musician Jelly Roll's opening monologue? I think he hosted for Jimmy Kimmel when he was out. Did you see this?

No, I didn't.

He went— he went viral. He went relatively viral for it. But he was— his point was like, look, you guys saw me at like a UFC fight and I shook hands with the president. You all called me MAGA. And then I hosted for Jimmy Kimmel and you guys call me like a far lefty. And then the reality is like, I'm a human being. Like, just because I meet someone or Work with someone, I'm in the same room with someone, doesn't mean I agree with all their political positions. That's the human take, I think. You know, it's like, yes, like, I love you to death, man. We don't agree on everything. We don't have the exact same political philosophy.

You're in the same room with me.

What's that?

You're in the same room with me.

Oh, I must agree. Yeah, I get that a lot. People are like, oh, you must love everything Yang did. I'm like, look, man, I agree with a lot of things. We agree a lot of things in principle, which is what our campaign our campaign was. But, um, there's a human piece we sort of lose, and social media is a big thing on that. You know, media in general is a big thing on that, sort of dehumanizes a lot of things.

You know, one commentary on that that just came out that now my curiosity is piqued and you just made me think of it is this new Elizabeth Holmes documentary. Oh man. Where apparently the second half of the documentary is just about the act of documenting someone else's life, and they, they kind of go very meta.

Really?

Uh, yeah, where like the first half is like what you think it is, which is just a lot of time spent with Elizabeth Holmes, and then the second half is them soul-searching, being like, what are we doing?

Like, interesting. I mean, I think Nathan Fielder is really, really smart and really creative, and crazy that he gets to do this documentary, you know what I mean? Um, like, she is— she's smart. Like, she knows what his shtick is. Like, he tends to embarrass people when he puts them on There. That trailer was—if you've seen it, you've probably seen the meme—it's it's terrifying. It's it's like a creepy vibe.

I'm pumped to see it, but now I'm pumped to see it now that I know we kind of deconstruct.

I wouldn't have been pumped for it. Yeah, exactly.

No, no, no, it's true. Oh, by the way, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you see the Amanda Seyfried? Fictionalized series.

It was a series, right? I feel like I've seen an episode. I thought she portrayed her, at least in the first episode or 2, like sort of quirky and interesting, uh, but she went with that lane.

Because there were 2 versions of this. One was the fictionalized Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, which was awesome. And then there was, I think it was like the HBO documentary.

Yes.

On actual Elizabeth Holmes, in which I make a cameo, by the way, in the White House photo, uh, with Elizabeth Holmes.

I think I watched that one. But then I watched—

did you notice me in that White House photo? I did, because you were joking about it, I think. Yes. Yes. Wherever there are fraudsters, I am there.

Front row.

So enjoyed both of them. And then when I first saw, oh, now it's just going to be like a bunch of interviews with her, I don't want to see this. But now, like, now that I know that it's partially deconstructing the documentary process where they're calling it like a new kind of approach to documentary. Now I'm interested again.

I have— I would trust— it was a similar thing when, like, remember, like, Chris Nolan, before The Odyssey came out, got a lot of hate online for various casting decisions, etc. And there were some things like, I'm not sure if I think that's a good move or not, but my opinion was body of work. You know, the man has made a ton of great movies, put out a lot of great stuff. And I was right. Like, Odyssey was fantastic. Yeah. Nathan Fielder has a pretty good body of work, I'm assuming. I would be shocked if he didn't know sort of the gravity of what the access he just got and what America would be interested in. So I'm I have hope and body work that he probably you know does this thoughtfully and tastefully, but we'll see.

So my I write about my time meeting Elizabeth Holmes in the White House in Hey Yang, and she was weird. Yeah. She like I mean my imitation of her is like this. Hi, I'm Elizabeth. And you're like, hey, I'm Andrew. And you're just like, what is this person doing? She had like weird makeup.

Did it shock you to hear her real voice in the clip? Because she doesn't use the voice in the trailer. This is what she sounded like at the White House.

And this one she's like, hi, I'm Elizabeth. It was great to meet you. No, she didn't say it's great to meet you. Like she was like, it was just, hi, I'm Elizabeth.

You should be honored to meet me.

Or like she was more silent than, like she certainly Calling her friendly would have been incorrect. Interesting. She was like weird with a fake deep voice. But then, you know, when you meet her, you're not like, wow, this person's got a fake deep voice. Like, I— but what I did say was she did not give me the same vibes I get from most other accomplished entrepreneurs I meet where they have like this form of confidence typically, or I guess now the kids call it aura. She did not have that. She looked like she had on this weird makeup and a costume a little bit. It felt like a costume.

I mean, look, she raised whatever she raised without showing a product, which is an impressive feat. And I always admired the vision, which I think you did too. Like, have you ever used Quest Diagnostics or any of those blood testing orgs? They're a pain in the ass.

Um, and there's a, there's a rumor that there's a Theranos 2.0 being, uh, started by a co-founder, which apparently it's just scientifically impossible to, to do a pinprick blood press.

So maybe it has to come from something else. Maybe that'll be the good that comes out of this, you know what I mean? Oh, they're saying— I mean, look, they are Finding AI will do a lot of great things in medicine. Will it give it to human beings? Unclear. It really is like ripe for a parody.

Like, they're a no.

They're a no-no. They're a yes.

They're a yes. And then, uh, I don't know what—

like, okay, what's his name? Adam Neumann from WeWork. Like, raising another fund that's essentially WeWork again. Like, I don't understand the venture community's mindset on this. Like, you know what? Fool me once, but round 2, I got this. Like, it's—

Well, I think that, I mean, for Adam, uh, people made money on Adam the first time because he kept raising more and more rounds. Well, just like, because we, we work, um, I think if you—

they did have a profitable business.

Oh, if you timed it right, you got out and like, you know, you didn't lose your shirt and stuff like that. Interesting. Um, so it's— I think it's one of those. Theranos, no one made any money. Yeah, and she's in jail. That's a distinction. I mean, you know, Adam's walking around.

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I mean, I will say we've done the venture rounds a bit. I mean, there are a limited amount of innovative companies with good leadership, you know what I mean? So I guess, you know, their version of a talented entrepreneur. I don't know, man.

Yeah, no, I mean, I— so, uh, did you see the Fyre Festival documentaries years ago?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I think I saw both.

They were hilarious. Same.

It was so good. That guy, he's doing something else. He tried another one, didn't he? What's his name?

So one of the things too, I tend to be somewhat forgiving of entrepreneurs because there is some fake it till you make it. There's some—

Oh, you have to sell the dream every day.

Yeah, there's some like, you gotta push the envelope or something. I'm like, okay, it's fine for the most part. With Elizabeth Holmes, I think that aside from the fraud aspect and the numbers and the rest of it, but people We're making medical decisions based on bad data. So I mean, that was, that was jacked. That was—

yeah, I got that. I got really fast.

There is some part of me that feels like— so there was like another entrepreneur who got a very, very stiff penalty. And I couldn't help but think it's like, you know, for some reason I feel like this is partially because she's a woman. Like the Martha Stewart thing.

Martha Stewart.

She was singled out because she was who she was. Like, occasionally I feel like the consequences come down harder On female entrepreneurs.

I met a bunch of people around the Sam Bankman-Fried case, and there was a lot of— Also write about him in the book. Did you remember that chapter?

He's in the same chapter as Elizabeth Holmes.

There's a lot of this, like, you need to testify against him or your wife accidentally committed tax fraud 5 years ago. We found it and she's going to jail for 3 years. You don't do it. It's stuff like that where it's When they want to get you, they they twist. You know, they being whether it's district attorney.

Oh shit! You know who got out of jail the other day, and it made me think of us. Who? Michael Avenatti. He's out. He's out. No. Yeah, yeah, he's out. He's out.

I should tell my Michael Avenatti story. Yeah, go go go ahead. This is fun now that he's out. He's probably gonna come at me, sure.

But he there's a period where we thought he like after us. I hated us because we did it.

He tweeted during the 2020 race, and I quote tweeted him. I was like. Which I thought was just funny. It was like, is Michael Avenatti tweeting from jail? And then he DM'd me, personally DM'd me. But I don't know this guy. I'm just a lowly campaign manager here. He was like, your candidate sucks. I'm the man. You need to go back to doing your thing. It was just like rant. I'm like, bro.

Yeah, he hated us because I wrote about—

Oh yeah, you wrote a little blog about him.

I wrote a blog that—

About how bad he was in Iowa.

Yeah, but I was fucking terrible. The fact that they were taking him seriously was was you know just a sign of how out to lunch they were, and he was just like, "How dare you? I was amazing." All this stuff.

Sorry, Michael, you were not.

And then he wound up in jail. But I feel like they did throw the book at him. He's out now, and there was like some part of me that was like, "Oh shit, maybe me and Zach should watch out." But I think in defense of Mike Lavinati, I didn't think his crimes seemed to.

fit the punishment there. It seemed like he pissed off Duke and Nike, and then they, they went after him.

There's this libertarian saying that I found haunting. I don't know if you ever heard this. It's, show me the man and I'll show you the crime.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

I mean, that's like, that's haunting.

I mean, if they comb through your emails, your texts, and your, your financial transactions, they could find some law you violated or something.

So I guess, so I guess the sentiment is like, congrats on being out of jail, Michael.

Michael, congrats, buddy. My DMs are open.

Please, please, but for real though, we're good. Yeah, yeah, stay out of jail. Keep the questions coming. We'll get to them next time. Thank you for following me and Zach. It's been quite the summer, quite the year that was, and let's get after it this fall. In my case right now, if I'm pushing people, And you don't know what to do politically, Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bangs in South Dakota, the best bang for your buck you can imagine because each of these states has something like a million voters. The win number in Idaho might be like 380,000.

Interesting.

And so if you donate $50 to them, it's going to move the needle a lot more than if you donate $50 to Talarico or Ossoff where they're going to have $100 million, your $50 does not matter. But you give $50 to Todd Achilles or Brian Bangs, it's actually going to be needle-moving. And my joke is that according to my math, Idaho and South Dakota have the same number of senators as—

That's good math.

As New York or Texas or California.

That's some political arbitrage right there.

Yes. So I've had both of them on the podcast. I don't think having them on again makes that much sense because you know you can just refer to that one. But I think we're going to do some kind of like best of. But if you're looking for candidates to back for November, that's where my attention is right now.

I love that, man. And imagine if you donate to an independent, you don't have the Democratic Party selling your email list over and over. So you probably get less like political spam texts after that.

Sure. Check them out. We'll see you guys soon. Keep them coming.

Love y'all.

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