Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Vivek Levels With Mark Cuban on ESG, DEI, and Kamala | TRUTH Podcast #58

00:00:00.000 So, we'll talk politics for a second.

00:00:03.000 We got Mark Cuban here, by the way.

00:00:05.000 This is a guy who...

00:00:06.000 I actually...

00:00:07.000 I've loved this guy from afar.

00:00:09.000 He entertains me because I learn something new when I hear him talk about anything other than politics.

00:00:15.000 Politics, maybe.

00:00:16.000 But I want to get your take on just...

00:00:20.000 As a market participant myself, what do you think is going on in the markets right now?

00:00:26.000 And, you know, I want to do the preface, if you don't mind sharing with the audience, too, your brilliant move when you sold your first company.

00:00:33.000 You're a guy who knows what direction markets are going.

00:00:36.000 You're a macro trader.

00:00:37.000 No, I wish I was a guy who knew what direction markets were going, right?

00:00:39.000 I just, you know, I tend to be somewhat conservative, unless it's an industry I really, really know.

00:00:45.000 But, you know, today as we're doing this, obviously the markets had a rough day.

00:00:49.000 And I think it's a function of the fact that...

00:00:51.000 Rough week, I mean, it's been a while.

00:00:52.000 A whole rough week, yeah, for sure.

00:00:54.000 Rough couple weeks.

00:00:55.000 And so I think when things are working really, really well, people forget the past.

00:01:01.000 And so they tend to assume, you know, the trend is your friend and it'll just keep on going in that direction.

00:01:07.000 And, you know, and that also leads to people taking on a lot more debt than they otherwise would.

00:01:14.000 You know, things like the Japan, the JP White... 0.98

00:01:20.000 There's just so many ways where people are like, wait, it always goes up, right?

00:01:23.000 This is just a pullback.

00:01:24.000 We saw that in the late 90s with the internet bubble.

00:01:27.000 And I'm not saying it's a bubble now, but you're seeing that now.

00:01:30.000 And the minute something happens, particularly when there's multiple things that combine to create a problem, then you tend to see a more aggressive pullback.

00:01:38.000 When did you sell your first company, the tech company?

00:01:42.000 No, the first company was a company called Micro Solutions.

00:01:44.000 I sold it when I was 29. That was in the 80s.

00:01:47.000 And then we started a company called AudioNet, which turned into Broadcast.com.

00:01:51.000 And that was the start of the whole streaming industry.

00:01:53.000 We were the first streaming company.

00:01:55.000 And when was that sold?

00:01:57.000 We sold that in 2000. Right.

00:01:59.000 So this is the famous one.

00:02:01.000 I always liked this as a guy growing up.

00:02:03.000 So I got my first job.

00:02:04.000 I got into the world of hedge funds in 07. So I was a biology guy, graduated in 07, and I got into biotech investing, which I could tell you more about my background.

00:02:13.000 And actually for people to know, this is the first time Mark and I are meeting, but we've texted and messaged each other a lot.

00:02:19.000 But anyway, so in 2000, the reason you were famous, in my mind, was actually not even the company you sold, though.

00:02:27.000 That was an interesting story.

00:02:28.000 Yeah, it was the hedge I put on after.

00:02:29.000 The hedge, yeah.

00:02:30.000 So how did that work?

00:02:31.000 So it was a stock-for-stock deal?

00:02:33.000 No, so here's what happened.

00:02:34.000 So we sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for stock, no cash.

00:02:38.000 And the rules back then were I had to wait six months before I could do anything because I was not an insire. 0.76

00:02:46.000 Was that a demand of the acquirer?

00:02:49.000 No, no, no, that was a law.

00:02:50.000 That was the law.

00:02:51.000 And so I couldn't do anything for six months.

00:02:54.000 And so with that in mind, I went and shorted this one index that had Yahoo that was 5% or less, but it was everything else was just internet stocks.

00:03:06.000 And the idea was that...

00:03:08.000 That would get me through my six months, after which then I could, you know, do what I was going to do.

00:03:15.000 So I put every penny I had, for the most part, into shorting this hedge fund.

00:03:19.000 And I figured if the internet stocks cratered within that six months, I would be okay, right?

00:03:25.000 And if not, fortunately, then I could put on this collar.

00:03:29.000 So it didn't crater.

00:03:30.000 I pretty much lost all my money on that short.

00:03:32.000 But now I have a lot of money in Yahoo stock.

00:03:37.000 And so what I did was I sold calls and bought puts.

00:03:41.000 I hedged it.

00:03:41.000 And I did it over a multi-period of time.

00:03:44.000 And as it turns out, I kind of, you know, a lot of people, not just me, expected the internet stock market might drop considerably.

00:03:51.000 Well, it did.

00:03:52.000 And I ended up actually making more money from the hedge than I did from selling Yahoo to Yahoo.

00:03:58.000 And it was called one of the top 10 trades in Wall Street history.

00:04:01.000 And actually, the stock-for-stock exchange, that's even a tax-free trade, basically, right?

00:04:06.000 Well, you do stock-for-stock, but not when you put calls and puts on it, right?

00:04:09.000 Your stock-for-stock merger was tax-free, but the calls and puts...

00:04:14.000 No, no, because...

00:04:16.000 Yeah, effectively it could have been, but it wasn't.

00:04:19.000 I still had to put the collar on.

00:04:22.000 I remember going on CNBC, because I told people I put this collar on, and Yahoo was still going up in price.

00:04:31.000 And they were like, don't you feel stupid that you put this collar on and Yahoo's still going up? 0.98

00:04:37.000 I'm like, nah, you know I'm sitting on my G5, I don't feel so stupid at all. 1.00

00:04:43.000 Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, right? 1.00

00:04:46.000 I mean, I had a bee next to my name.

00:04:48.000 It was more money than I ever dreamed of.

00:04:49.000 And so I didn't need to get greedy.

00:04:51.000 And was that the principal source of your wealth that you're sitting on today?

00:04:55.000 Or have you actually compounded more since?

00:04:57.000 No, I've made a lot more since then.

00:04:59.000 Since that trade.

00:05:00.000 What's accounted for that?

00:05:02.000 I mean, investing.

00:05:05.000 Yeah, Mavs were a big chunk because that was another multi-billion dollar sale.

00:05:09.000 I mean, it went up multiple relative.

00:05:11.000 Yeah, because I bought it for $2.85 and I sold my chunk for $3.5.

00:05:16.000 You bought your chunk for $2.85 and sold your chunk for $3.5.

00:05:20.000 Yeah, give or take, yeah.

00:05:21.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:22.000 Okay, that's good.

00:05:22.000 Not bad.

00:05:24.000 Did you buy that chunk the year that you did your Yahoo exit to?

00:05:29.000 Yeah.

00:05:29.000 Did they have the accelerated depreciation back then for the sports teams?

00:05:33.000 I don't remember.

00:05:34.000 There were depreciation benefits, but I don't remember the exact text.

00:05:37.000 Yeah, got it.

00:05:37.000 So you got, we'll get to politics in a second, but one of the things I find so interesting is you have, you clearly have value instincts, right?

00:05:45.000 I mean, I think that these are, there's different types of investors, different types of entrepreneurs, but it's like what I call the sniff test for value, right?

00:05:54.000 You know what I'm talking about?

00:05:55.000 Like, where do you get that?

00:05:56.000 Where do you, where do you get the sniff test?

00:05:58.000 I mean, I'm a geek and my skill, my skill set is You know, I can take, Steve Jobs said, everything's a remix when it comes to technology.

00:06:06.000 And that's what I'm good at, right?

00:06:08.000 So I started off my first company, Microsolutions.

00:06:11.000 I taught myself how to program, program for eight years, did systems integration, meaning, you know, I'd write software, we'd connect into local and wide area networks.

00:06:19.000 And we were one of the biggest in the country at that time.

00:06:22.000 And I sold it to CompuServe, which was owned by H&R Block.

00:06:25.000 And then I took that and I started trading stocks because I understood how all the networking technology worked.

00:06:32.000 And I mean, I killed it. 0.98

00:06:34.000 I just killed it. 0.91

00:06:34.000 I was making 80-90% a year trading technology stocks. 0.91

00:06:38.000 Because like you said, when you understand something, like you understand biotech, right?

00:06:42.000 And once you understand it, you know that most people are trading on technicals, on emotion, you know, on, you know, Value proposition.

00:06:53.000 The fund life running out, whatever it is.

00:06:55.000 Whatever it may be, right?

00:06:56.000 But when you understand what's happening behind that drug and you understand the plausibility of it being approved or not approved and then the impact and the market for it, you have an edge.

00:07:07.000 And that was the same edge I had.

00:07:08.000 And literally, we took my trading success, created a hedge fund, and sold it within nine months for more money.

00:07:16.000 You sold the hedge fund.

00:07:17.000 Yeah, like in nine months.

00:07:19.000 It was like nothing.

00:07:19.000 Who'd you sell it to?

00:07:20.000 It was some guy who bought it.

00:07:22.000 Okay, got it.

00:07:23.000 So it's actually, it's really interesting what you say.

00:07:27.000 So I'll just, I don't really talk about my business background as much, but actually it's kind of interesting today.

00:07:31.000 Do you know much about the premise of the biotech company I founded, Royvent, or not?

00:07:35.000 Yeah, well, you go out, you know, a big company would have some product or some drug.

00:07:39.000 They couldn't get it approved or they didn't see the market for it.

00:07:43.000 They spent a ton of money doing all the preliminary work.

00:07:46.000 You would come in and grab it and say, look, I can get this approved for a lot less money than this big company was going to sell.

00:07:51.000 We get it through the FDA and all the trials, which I can do more cost effectively.

00:07:55.000 And then either I'll market it or I'll license it or sell it to somebody else and make a shitload of money.

00:08:01.000 And they get a small piece of the action.

00:08:02.000 Welcome to the America way, right? 0.96

00:08:04.000 Right, exactly.

00:08:05.000 And what's shocking is people don't...

00:08:08.000 If you're not in it, you've got to think that you'd make this stuff up, which is that a pharma company that's developed this drug and put hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes many hundreds of millions of dollars in, What will usually happen is they'll have a new CEO. You've got to love it when a new CEO comes in for a giant company.

00:08:24.000 Because it doesn't fit his vision.

00:08:24.000 It doesn't fit our strategy.

00:08:27.000 And all the pharma companies like to do the same things at the same time.

00:08:31.000 Because they used to hate cancer back when I became a biotech investor.

00:08:33.000 Now they all love oncology.

00:08:35.000 But they leave the other area, women's health or whatever, behind. 0.90

00:08:38.000 And so Royvin's whole thing is, okay, it's sitting on your shelf.

00:08:41.000 All right?

00:08:42.000 We'll take it for pennies on the dollar.

00:08:44.000 This was back when I was running the company.

00:08:45.000 We'll take it for pennies on the dollar.

00:08:47.000 But you get a royalty or an equity stake in the drug.

00:08:51.000 Right, because you're going to mitigate the risk for you, right?

00:08:53.000 Because you are going to have to spend a lot more money.

00:08:56.000 The big company is going to have to spend a lot more money.

00:08:58.000 They're not going to be nearly as effective or as efficient or quick to market as you are.

00:09:03.000 You get to be very precise on what you do because it's your only focus.

00:09:06.000 It's not going to be 3% of a You know, a $50 billion portfolio.

00:09:11.000 It's everything.

00:09:11.000 Your focus, which is, you know, is business 101. Yeah.

00:09:14.000 So, you know, it was pretty obvious what you were doing, but most people don't have the balls to go out there and do it. 0.92

00:09:19.000 So, I mean, my only my only advice would be in biotech. 0.84

00:09:23.000 And this is interesting is If you did it with one drug, then you are just taking massive risk.

00:09:27.000 But my point is, this ARB exists across the board.

00:09:30.000 Yeah, that's what it is, an ARB, right?

00:09:32.000 Do a whole portfolio, right?

00:09:33.000 That's healthcare right now to this day.

00:09:35.000 It is.

00:09:35.000 Healthcare remains this, because it's so regulated.

00:09:38.000 And the fact that it's a regulated industry creates a lot of these market inefficiencies.

00:09:43.000 The FDA process for developing drugs is highly regulated.

00:09:45.000 It creates a lot of these inefficiencies.

00:09:47.000 So the only thing is some of the drugs we developed, you know, didn't work.

00:09:49.000 And that was part of the plan, right?

00:09:51.000 Is you've got to develop a portfolio.

00:09:52.000 Not part of the plan, but it's part of the results.

00:09:55.000 You plan for the reality that some of them aren't going to work, right?

00:09:59.000 Correct.

00:09:59.000 That's a portfolio.

00:10:00.000 But if you actually believe in that inefficiency, do it enough times, you have more than enough successes.

00:10:05.000 That's exactly right.

00:10:06.000 That'll pay 10 times over for your failure.

00:10:07.000 As long as you said, what was the term for you?

00:10:09.000 As long as you have that vision to see what's going to work.

00:10:12.000 And that vision comes from doing the homework.

00:10:14.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:10:15.000 So this is where I love learning about you.

00:10:18.000 So I was a kid at the time when you were sort of doing this.

00:10:21.000 Thanks a lot.

00:10:21.000 But, you know, just to age you a little bit now.

00:10:23.000 Yeah, right.

00:10:24.000 But I think it's pretty cool.

00:10:25.000 You still have a young spirit.

00:10:26.000 So I was graduating in 07, but your story around 2000s would be one of these things where I was in biology.

00:10:32.000 I didn't really study.

00:10:33.000 I didn't come from the world of business when I entered hedge funds, but you read a lot.

00:10:35.000 You sort of study up quickly.

00:10:37.000 And I remember studying up on the hedges you put on.

00:10:39.000 It was interesting.

00:10:40.000 So I would think that you and I are going to have really similar perspectives, certainly on private market inefficiency, bureaucracy, taking advantage of capitalism the American way.

00:10:51.000 I think we're on the same page there.

00:10:52.000 So then I start seeing a couple of years ago, and this is where we, I think, maybe begin to have some differences of opinion, where you, I think, end up on the, let's just say, the stakeholder capitalism side of the business debate, right?

00:11:09.000 Call it, for lack of better description, the pro-ESG, the pro-diversity equity.

00:11:13.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:14.000 Let's not go to your point, right?

00:11:16.000 I always look at what's best for my business.

00:11:20.000 And if it's good for my business— I agree with that.

00:11:22.000 I agree with that.

00:11:23.000 So if it's good for my business, I'm not going to ask anybody to legislate it, but I'm going to tell you what's good for my business.

00:11:28.000 ESG is one way to categorize it.

00:11:30.000 But, you know, to me, as it applies to ESG, you have young kids, right?

00:11:35.000 Yeah.

00:11:35.000 And so there's an understanding, and my kids were younger back then, there's an understanding that you have to ask as a parent, what is the world your kids are going to live in, right?

00:11:45.000 And to me, I believe climate change is real.

00:11:48.000 I believe it's man-made.

00:11:50.000 And if that is the case, I'm going to be pro for anything that mitigates that risk.

00:11:56.000 Because there is nothing more important to me in the value chain, right, in my risk analysis and dealing with probability than what's going to create the best world for my kids.

00:12:06.000 Yeah, so I'll say about my own views on climate change.

00:12:10.000 We don't have to debate this, because the more important part is the business part, although we can debate the climate change part, too.

00:12:15.000 So, do I believe global surface temperatures are going up?

00:12:19.000 Yes, I do.

00:12:20.000 Do I believe that there are man-made causes that may be playing a role in that?

00:12:24.000 It appears plausible that that could actually be the case.

00:12:27.000 However, I do not believe that that is anywhere near an existential risk for humanity.

00:12:34.000 So let's just talk probab- okay, go ahead.

00:12:36.000 So just a couple facts, because you could put probabilities around it, but if you look at the hard realities are eight times as many people die of cold temperatures today rather than warm ones.

00:12:48.000 The Earth is now covered by more green surface area today than it was a century ago because carbon dioxide is actually sustenance, plant food, effectively.

00:12:56.000 And the right answer to all of these temperature-related deaths, cold or hot, is more abundant and plentiful access to energy, which requires fossil fuels.

00:13:05.000 What if you're wrong?

00:13:06.000 What if you're wrong?

00:13:11.000 Because we don't know.

00:13:12.000 Nobody knows for certain, right?

00:13:13.000 I can engage with that.

00:13:15.000 I can engage with that, right?

00:13:16.000 Because I think that's a legitimate...

00:13:17.000 Even if there's a 1% chance you're wrong, how do you know?

00:13:20.000 My only answer to that is you could be wrong in both directions, right?

00:13:23.000 Of course you can.

00:13:24.000 But in my case, it costs money.

00:13:27.000 In your case, my kids could be french fries and their kids could have no chance.

00:13:32.000 So that debate's going to go on for a really long time, and I'm super interested in that.

00:13:36.000 I've got a book coming out later this year evaluating all of the different angles on this for part of that.

00:13:41.000 The part I'm interested in, though, for the business point, okay?

00:13:45.000 Why should it be an individual business or a CEO that takes into account what they're doing for their own business to address climate change?

00:13:55.000 Wouldn't that not make your business...

00:13:57.000 Less competitive relative to Chinese peers.

00:14:00.000 None of them, by the way, give the first care about climate change.

00:14:03.000 Yeah, not necessarily.

00:14:04.000 I know what you're saying, though, right?

00:14:06.000 China has a 50-year horizon when they make decisions, right? 0.95

00:14:10.000 We have a three-month horizon when a lot of our businesses make decisions.

00:14:14.000 The reason as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, you want to care is you want your kids to live in a world that they can thrive in.

00:14:23.000 And even if there's a 99% chance I'm wrong, which I think is far greater that I'm right.

00:14:29.000 So that's where we disagree.

00:14:31.000 But even if I'm wrong, it costs money, right?

00:14:35.000 And money is valuable.

00:14:36.000 Don't get me wrong.

00:14:36.000 I've been broke as much as I've been rich.

00:14:39.000 Maybe not as much, but I've been broke a lot, right?

00:14:41.000 But you know, and for my kids, that's everything and their kids and their potential kids, right?

00:14:46.000 And it's just not worth the risk.

00:14:48.000 So when I have a discussion with yourself or somebody else who's like, I can't believe we have to pay off for all this stuff.

00:14:55.000 And in China and India and all these other countries, the pollution just runs rampant.

00:14:59.000 And so my answer to that is, first you have to accept the fact that it's a risk, right?

00:15:04.000 A greater than zero probability that man-made climate change could really have a catastrophic impact on the world.

00:15:12.000 And if you believe that and you start working in that direction, Then, if you're a geek like I am and you trust technology and investing in it, then you can say, you know what, as long as we're working in that right direction, all these CEOs who are smart and start looking at potential solutions to be,

00:15:29.000 you know, net zero or making investments in carbon capture or sequestration, whatever it may be, now there's a chance we can solve the problem and get to a point where it's not an imposition on every CEO around the world.

00:15:44.000 See, look, I think the what-if-you're-wrong framing is a good question to ask in all directions, 360 degrees.

00:15:50.000 But it's not a money question.

00:15:52.000 Right, because it's not a money question.

00:15:56.000 Let's just say climate change is not man-made, right?

00:16:00.000 It's not man-made.

00:16:01.000 And temperature is because we're just in this cycle.

00:16:04.000 For whatever reason, God's cycle says the average temperature in Minnesota in 16 years is going to be 120 degrees.

00:16:12.000 Right.

00:16:15.000 It's happened through history, but here's my point about the hubris of this, right?

00:16:19.000 This is something I've joked around.

00:16:20.000 I'm offering this more tongue-in-cheek, but as a thought experiment.

00:16:23.000 Could you imagine a movie, a dystopian movie we'd make for the future, okay?

00:16:27.000 Maybe we can co-produce this.

00:16:29.000 Where we are 200 years in the future.

00:16:31.000 Do you know I've been nominated?

00:16:32.000 Movies I've been a producer on, I've been nominated for seven Academy Awards.

00:16:37.000 Is that right?

00:16:38.000 I didn't know that.

00:16:39.000 So I'm an executive producer on a movie that's coming out in September, which is actually about the...

00:16:46.000 Challenging issue of child trafficking in the United States.

00:16:50.000 America, I think it's good.

00:16:50.000 I'll send you a copy and I would love your feedback before it comes out if you have that kind of experience.

00:16:54.000 But I'm not serious about making the next one I'm talking about, but I could be persuaded.

00:16:58.000 200 years from now, we are churning up coal plants that we have shut down because we're facing a looming ice age.

00:17:04.000 And remember, in the 1970s, if you look at the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine, I'm not kidding you, there were cover magazines.

00:17:10.000 No, I know, sure.

00:17:11.000 Which is what's coming as an ice age.

00:17:13.000 I was alive back then, remember?

00:17:13.000 I was alive back then.

00:17:15.000 That was back when you were broke.

00:17:16.000 That was back when you were...

00:17:16.000 Right, definitely broke.

00:17:18.000 I'm just, yeah, longer rich than broke.

00:17:21.000 But the reality is, that was actually the concern of the climate scientists as recently as 40 to 50 years ago.

00:17:27.000 So the hubris to think that now, because we're going to restrict carbon dioxide usage...

00:17:31.000 But you know one thing that you...

00:17:32.000 But I think we agree all.

00:17:34.000 Not just on the temperature, but on the effects for humanity or how many people...

00:17:37.000 But I think we can agree...

00:17:38.000 ...lack of energy access in the meantime.

00:17:40.000 If we go back to the 70s, we can agree that the number one technological tool was an IBM 360, right?

00:17:50.000 Which is not as powerful as your phone is today.

00:17:53.000 That just the technological advances we've made in computing power and connecting computing power together in cloud computing In AI, there's so many tools that are available today.

00:18:08.000 You can't be shocked when they were wrong back then.

00:18:11.000 And those tools only continue to improve.

00:18:13.000 So you know in the drug development business, all the work that's being done in AI to try to determine which molecules will work to create drugs better, etc.

00:18:22.000 Right?

00:18:22.000 Right.

00:18:23.000 And so the same thing applies to climate change.

00:18:25.000 So while it's great to say you can go back 50 years and say the prediction is overpopulation, we're going to freeze, of course there were a lot of insane predictions back then.

00:18:35.000 They didn't have the tools.

00:18:36.000 But for burning carbon.

00:18:36.000 But they were saying, but for carbon dioxide emissions.

00:18:39.000 They recognized carbon dioxide emissions as a problem.

00:18:40.000 That's fine.

00:18:41.000 That's fine.

00:18:41.000 So you create awareness of issues, and that's the beauty of technology.

00:18:46.000 Hopefully we get smarter and smarter and smarter and the tools become better.

00:18:50.000 And where we are today is where we're at.

00:18:52.000 And what I can tell you from my own investments, looking and working with guys like Chris Saka to say, okay, this could really fuck us all up.

00:18:59.000 You have kids, I have kids.

00:19:01.000 Vivek has kids.

00:19:02.000 What can we invest in so that in the event it truly is man-made, in the event that we have no control, which we don't, over companies around the world that are polluting left and right, what tools can we create?

00:19:16.000 And maybe some of those tools end up only being capable to the point like we have to keep the temperature Below this certain number, right?

00:19:25.000 You just don't know what the parameters are going to be.

00:19:28.000 So you've got to try to improve them all.

00:19:30.000 One area of common ground is because you use the word polluting.

00:19:32.000 I think clean air and clean water is a totally separate issue, which I'm unambiguously defending.

00:19:38.000 Yeah, clean energy is a good thing, right?

00:19:40.000 You can argue about- I think clean air and clean water, right?

00:19:42.000 So clean, the air you breathe and the water you drink, right?

00:19:44.000 That is, we could, you could deal with that issue entirely independently of whatever you believe is going to happen to the global surface temperatures of the climate.

00:19:52.000 Okay.

00:19:53.000 So the climate issue, we just touched on there.

00:19:56.000 What about the diversity issue, right?

00:19:57.000 Sure.

00:19:58.000 This is the one where- What do you want to know?

00:20:01.000 Yeah, because you and I, we were, for people who don't know, we were actually, this conversation came out of, so we weren't on social media, but we're in a signal chat group.

00:20:08.000 Checkers, yeah. 0.54

00:20:08.000 Which actually is interesting. 0.54

00:20:10.000 I find you could actually have better conversations there than somehow it doesn't work that way on social media.

00:20:14.000 Right, because you're not performing for millions of people, right?

00:20:16.000 Yeah, but also just the nature of, like, even the format.

00:20:19.000 I don't know.

00:20:20.000 That's something I've got to think about.

00:20:21.000 Because modern social media is not conducive to conversation, right?

00:20:24.000 But I think productive discourse.

00:20:27.000 For sure.

00:20:27.000 But anyway, we had an exchange.

00:20:28.000 So let me give you, without using the word DEI, because it's just so tired.

00:20:32.000 You can use DEI. That's fine.

00:20:33.000 I don't like using it because it causes, especially for somebody I might disagree with.

00:20:38.000 I like using it.

00:20:38.000 I got no problem with it, even though it pisses people off.

00:20:41.000 That's what makes it more fun.

00:20:42.000 Well, let's use DEI then.

00:20:43.000 Fine.

00:20:44.000 So let's say in the name of DEI, Pfizer, this is the example I gave you.

00:20:49.000 We started talking about it.

00:20:51.000 Pfizer sets a target.

00:20:53.000 You can call it a quota, call it a target.

00:20:55.000 Not a quota, not a quota.

00:20:57.000 Pfizer sets a target, but it is a very precise numerical target.

00:21:00.000 And this is not picking on one company.

00:21:02.000 Well, it's a percentage.

00:21:03.000 It was a percentage, right?

00:21:04.000 They're in an industry that I know well, but this is representative across the board.

00:21:07.000 And I know that industry well, too.

00:21:08.000 Right.

00:21:09.000 So it's an industry we both know well, so we're picking this example.

00:21:11.000 But this is not unique to Pfizer healthcare.

00:21:14.000 It's true across any other industry.

00:21:15.000 IBM has done it, others have done it.

00:21:17.000 Right, right.

00:21:17.000 Something to the effect of, and people can look up exactly what it is, but the punchline is 32% or so was the number for minorities in certain corporate vice president levels or above.

00:21:30.000 I get it approximately right, look up exactly what the details, but suppose it's 32% in vice president level corporate executives or above by a certain year in the future.

00:21:41.000 That's a corporate target that they have set.

00:21:45.000 It's my belief, right, that these types of demographic goals, if that's your basis for setting a target, that that is incompatible with pure meritocracy.

00:21:59.000 Absolutely not.

00:22:00.000 Yeah, and that's why I know you disagree, right?

00:22:02.000 So give me your view.

00:22:03.000 Sure.

00:22:04.000 So targets are one thing, right?

00:22:05.000 They're not a quota.

00:22:06.000 If it was a quota, you would be able to...

00:22:08.000 Let me take a step back.

00:22:09.000 There are these things called EEOC reports, right?

00:22:12.000 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that's what it is.

00:22:15.000 Right.

00:22:15.000 Where they actually have to disclose the numbers for those vice president positions by male, female, white, black, Asian, other races, and biracial, right?

00:22:28.000 And so they have to disclose them, and not all companies do.

00:22:31.000 They have to report it.

00:22:32.000 They don't have to disclose.

00:22:32.000 Not all companies do, but Pfizer does.

00:22:35.000 And when you go and actually look at the numbers on the EEOC report, they're nowhere close to those targets.

00:22:41.000 And in fact, in some years, they actually reduced the number of people you would think would benefit from DEI, right, based off of the traditional DEI views.

00:22:52.000 And that's accurate.

00:22:53.000 What you just said is accurate.

00:22:54.000 It's fact.

00:22:55.000 Right.

00:22:55.000 So why bother to specify that target or goal in the first place?

00:22:59.000 Because your point is they're not even meeting it.

00:23:00.000 And you're right about that in many companies.

00:23:02.000 When you say they're not meeting it, that's just confirmation that it's not a quota.

00:23:07.000 Because a lot of people will take that number and project that as a quota.

00:23:11.000 Why would they do it?

00:23:12.000 It's a quota.

00:23:13.000 But they never meet it.

00:23:14.000 None of the companies ever meet it.

00:23:15.000 What's the purpose of setting that goal on the basis of race or gender in the first place, Mark?

00:23:19.000 When you talk about portfolio management in your company, right, and you talked about you're going to have failures and you're going to have successes, and you probably had a target for your return on equity that you wanted to get, right?

00:23:32.000 And so you said, I've raised this money, I'm investing this money, we're going to have hits and misses, and our target return is 23%.

00:23:40.000 Same thing, right?

00:23:44.000 Good companies look at their employees as capital, right?

00:23:49.000 As intellectual capital.

00:23:50.000 And where you want to have a better portfolio outcome for your intellectual capital, there's certain things that you want to see happen.

00:23:59.000 One of them is diversity.

00:24:01.000 And now when I talk about diversity, and I've put this up on Twitter, that means going out there and just like you look for the best ARBs across all bio companies, right?

00:24:11.000 You didn't care where they were, where they were located.

00:24:13.000 Looking for the best employee, the most capable employee means turning over rocks where other people don't look.

00:24:20.000 And you probably found some of your best deals by looking where others don't look.

00:24:23.000 And I found some of my best employees by looking where others don't look.

00:24:28.000 I agree with you so far, but why denominate it based on race?

00:24:32.000 Why take this top-down category?

00:24:35.000 And I'll tell you why it gets under my skin.

00:24:37.000 I think it causes us to be more divided when we see each other on the base of our skin.

00:24:45.000 So let's go to your point, right?

00:24:46.000 Let's go to your question.

00:24:47.000 Let's just say I'm looking at a drug company, Royant.

00:24:50.000 How do you pronounce your company's name?

00:24:51.000 Royant was my first company.

00:24:52.000 Royant, right.

00:24:53.000 So I have Royant.

00:24:54.000 And I recognize that for cancer drugs, they're all ignoring them.

00:24:59.000 Everybody's ignoring cancer.

00:25:01.000 So I'm going to set a target for cancer drugs because I know everybody else isn't looking there.

00:25:06.000 They're missing it.

00:25:07.000 And so I'm going to go where these cancer drugs are being made, where they're not making enough investment in them.

00:25:14.000 And I'm going to go to focus, not necessarily focus there, but I'm going to extend my R breach and my look to include those cancer drugs from companies I think don't do a good job of...

00:25:28.000 Figuring out the value in that drug.

00:25:30.000 That is what D in diversity is.

00:25:32.000 It's saying, look, there's a lot of women, Black, Asian, whatever it may be, people that I think are not being recruited.

00:25:40.000 That there are a lot of people who may not have the best test scores from the best school, but they may have a lot of soft skills from their experiences.

00:25:48.000 And I'm going to go out and I'm going to find...

00:25:50.000 What's the E? Okay, let me finish this point, right?

00:25:53.000 Yep, yep, we'll play it forward.

00:25:54.000 Okay, so I'll get to the E, right?

00:25:55.000 I'm going to go and find the best possible candidates that I can.

00:25:59.000 And they're going to compete with everybody else.

00:26:01.000 Just like when you, at Royvent, you compete with your cancer drugs, have to compete in potential return for the non-cancer drugs, right?

00:26:08.000 And so in my diversity, when I go out and I look at this, I'm going to say, this person, this woman, African-American woman who was from this small school that I've never recruited at, she's brilliant.

00:26:20.000 And when I compare her to other people that I might hire, she's better.

00:26:24.000 Now, this other one, this other person, African-American, another small school I typically don't recruit at, they may not be good enough. 1.00

00:26:32.000 I'm not going to hire them just because they're Black from a small school that nobody else recruited at.

00:26:36.000 They have to qualify.

00:26:37.000 So then, when I hire this African-American woman from this small school, because she has amazing soft skills, maybe not the best test scores, that's where equity comes in. 1.00

00:26:48.000 Right?

00:26:49.000 Equity means giving, putting people in a position to succeed, giving them the tools that they need.

00:26:54.000 So she might have soft skills that I invested in this company called Scoutable, right?

00:27:00.000 Scoutable.com.

00:27:01.000 And all they do is they have people play these games.

00:27:04.000 And when you play the game, and thousands and thousands and thousands of people have played the game, it helps you to it does based off the results in the past you take, they'll compare them to other successful people in other Vertical areas, right?

00:27:21.000 Programming, bio, and they'll look for similarities.

00:27:25.000 They'll do statistical analysis and they'll say, look, this person who we found in the middle of nowhere doesn't have a computer science degree, but the soft skills that they have, It matches up perfectly to our best programmers.

00:27:37.000 So we're going to take a chance on that person.

00:27:39.000 And the equity is, the E in equity says, we're going to give them extra computer training, because we know based off of the data that we're using, they're very capable in ways other people aren't going to find the diversity, and we're going to give them the tools to put them in a position to succeed.

00:27:57.000 Whether or not they will succeed is up to the ability of us to train that person and up to their ability to live up to what we expect from them.

00:28:06.000 Don't get a chance or two like every other employee.

00:28:08.000 Don't get, you know, a report from HR saying, here's what you've got to do if you're not doing well.

00:28:13.000 And you still have to compete and you still have to do well.

00:28:16.000 So here's my own just view on, you know, getting to the best answers on anything, right?

00:28:22.000 You got to try on the other side like a set of clothes, trying the best argument for the other side like a set of clothes.

00:28:28.000 And if it fits, you keep it.

00:28:29.000 And if it doesn't, you put it back on the rack.

00:28:31.000 You iterate.

00:28:32.000 Yeah, you iterate.

00:28:32.000 Always iterate.

00:28:33.000 I appreciate a lot of what you laid out.

00:28:36.000 I think it's an interesting perspective.

00:28:39.000 I'm doing my best to try it on.

00:28:41.000 I'll tell you why, for me, it feels like it doesn't fit, okay?

00:28:45.000 Sure.

00:28:45.000 Is when I look at the results.

00:28:47.000 Now, here's where you can measure the results.

00:28:48.000 I'll give you a couple examples.

00:28:50.000 So I'll give you a couple examples in response.

00:28:52.000 One is, one of the areas where you look at results of whether you believe you actually have a true meritocracy or not, where you could actually get the actual numbers to do this, is when you apply that same philosophy to the level of universities.

00:29:03.000 So I know you're talking about it from the level of- Two different worlds.

00:29:05.000 Two different worlds.

00:29:06.000 Two different worlds.

00:29:08.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:29:09.000 Look, I've said this online too.

00:29:12.000 The number of kids who are like Asian kids who can't get into a university because they got a 1600 on their SAT, good at sports, good at musical instruments, and can't get into even their safety school, that is a direct product of a lot of the targets. 0.99

00:29:24.000 Even not hard quotas, but soft targets that these universities have set.

00:29:28.000 Academics are different because the goal is different. 0.91

00:29:30.000 So we're already on the same page there.

00:29:33.000 So you're agreeing with me that DEI... So first of all, let's make sure we're on the same page.

00:29:37.000 You're agreeing with me that DEI is good for business.

00:29:39.000 No, I'm not agreeing with you there.

00:29:41.000 Yeah, I didn't hear any...

00:29:43.000 Well, because I was going to go to the universities, but it sounds like we agree on the universities.

00:29:46.000 But let me...

00:29:47.000 Yeah, look, if it were up to me, universities have too much overhead.

00:29:51.000 So I think here's what I would say is on your definition of DEI and the way you define it, which I believe is quite different and far more sympathetic, to me at least, Then the accounts that you might hear from other proponents of capital D, capital E, capital I. But on your telling of it, my pushback would not be that I disagree with a lot of what you said, but that it then makes DEI redundant.

00:30:13.000 Okay, because if you're running a business, well, let's just go back to that sole metric that you evaluated in the first place, which is maximizing your return on equity.

00:30:20.000 If that's your actual metric that matters, there are a million different targets that need to roll up into that.

00:30:27.000 Of course.

00:30:27.000 They're not mutually exclusive.

00:30:28.000 Of course.

00:30:29.000 And it's different for different companies, right?

00:30:31.000 Of course.

00:30:31.000 So my view is it's got to fall out of the mission.

00:30:34.000 It's got to be mission driven by the company.

00:30:36.000 Of course it is.

00:30:37.000 Of course it is, though.

00:30:38.000 If I may, if I may.

00:30:39.000 Go ahead.

00:30:40.000 Just to make sure we get the view on the table, because it's not the classical disagreement.

00:30:44.000 It's just a slightly different type of disagreement.

00:30:48.000 So, let's say your company has a mission, okay?

00:30:51.000 I'll give you a good example, actually.

00:30:52.000 This will be very personal to me.

00:30:54.000 Let's say your mission is that you're a steakhouse, okay?

00:30:56.000 And you want to serve your steakhouse chain, and you want to serve good, high-quality steak to your customers.

00:31:02.000 Like any business, you're going to need different types of diversity to make your business successful.

00:31:07.000 There are certain types of diversity you want, certain types of diversity you don't want.

00:31:10.000 The kinds of diversity you want, you might want people who are good waitstaff, you might want people who are good at the cash register, you might have good managers, a good chef.

00:31:17.000 Okay.

00:31:19.000 Even the kind of diversity you want, I would add a lot of diversity to the ranks of a steakhouse.

00:31:25.000 I'll tell you why.

00:31:25.000 Because I'm a vegetarian.

00:31:27.000 I'm a vegetarian on principle.

00:31:29.000 It's a part of my religious upbringing.

00:31:30.000 I'm pescetarian.

00:31:32.000 So I don't believe in killing animals for culinary pleasure.

00:31:35.000 It just happens to be a family belief in mine.

00:31:38.000 And that I've raised in and that I raise my kids in as well.

00:31:41.000 I respect the right of the steakhouse to go pursue its own mission.

00:31:44.000 I don't think the government should be stopping them from doing it.

00:31:47.000 But even though I would add diversity to the ranks of the steakhouse, I don't think that that would necessarily make them better because it doesn't align with their mission.

00:31:56.000 So every business has to ask itself what kind of diversity- Wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:32:00.000 So you're saying because you're vegetarian, How would they add you to this?

00:32:04.000 My point is, I would add diversity.

00:32:08.000 Diversity where?

00:32:08.000 Intellectual diversity.

00:32:09.000 Diversity of thought to a steakhouse, right?

00:32:11.000 But I wouldn't be a good employee because I'm not aligned with the mission.

00:32:13.000 Come on, Rebecca. 1.00

00:32:16.000 Come on, Rebecca. 1.00

00:32:17.000 The point I'm making is this.

00:32:18.000 That's not diversity.

00:32:18.000 Different types of businesses need different types of diversity.

00:32:21.000 That's the whole thing.

00:32:22.000 So how could it be that every business sets the same quota or same target based on race or gender, when in fact every business should say, we need this type of diversity.

00:32:30.000 People who have experience in the humanities or math.

00:32:32.000 They do!

00:32:33.000 And they already do by focusing on return on equity instead of focusing on actual D, capital D. They go hand in hand.

00:32:39.000 They go hand in hand because that CEO, if they can't hit their equity goals, their ROE goals, they're getting fired.

00:32:47.000 That's what it comes down to, the ROE goals, the return on equity goal, which means there's a million factors you've got to cover.

00:32:53.000 Why do you want one blanket category of diversity?

00:32:56.000 It's not one blanket strategy.

00:32:57.000 No CEO is half a clue.

00:33:00.000 No, it doesn't!

00:33:01.000 You're hoping it does.

00:33:02.000 Race and gender is what it always comes down to, or sexuality now, too.

00:33:06.000 No!

00:33:07.000 So I'll give you a good example, Mark.

00:33:09.000 So you sold your business in Yahoo!

00:33:11.000 They're listed on the NASDAQ, right?

00:33:13.000 NASDAQ, or they were.

00:33:14.000 I'm back on Yahoo!

00:33:15.000 So NASDAQ, in making some of the arguments you have, says they want companies to report the diversity of their boards of race, gender, and sexual orientation.

00:33:26.000 Now, when proposing that rule, the SEC, which I know is one of your favorite government agencies, but the SEC has to approve that because NASDAQ's in exchange.

00:33:35.000 That means they require what they call notice and comment from the public.

00:33:38.000 So people have to provide comment on the rules.

00:33:41.000 So they get some suggestions.

00:33:42.000 They say, hey, you're asking companies to report their diversity on race, gender, and sexual orientation.

00:33:47.000 How about we add a couple of other metrics to the list?

00:33:50.000 Veteran status, disability status.

00:33:53.000 I don't remember if they said political beliefs or not, but veteran status and disability status are on there, and suppose political beliefs are also on the list.

00:34:00.000 Here's what NASDAQ came back and said.

00:34:01.000 Okay, after careful review, we have determined that the addition of more indices of diversity have the result of reducing the desired forms of diversity.

00:34:13.000 So what does that say?

00:34:15.000 It says that every company should be evaluating for itself what kind of diversity matters for its own mission.

00:34:19.000 And you just told me an example that they did.

00:34:21.000 You gave an example of where they did.

00:34:23.000 Right?

00:34:24.000 Which is what you mean.

00:34:24.000 You said NASDAQ wanted to have ESG-type parameters.

00:34:30.000 For any company that lists on NASDAQ, they said you have to tell us race, gender, and sexual diversity.

00:34:36.000 NASDAQ said that, right?

00:34:36.000 For the companies that are listed and traded on NASDAQ. So NASDAQ is a public company now, but it has its own CEO. It has its own board of directors.

00:34:43.000 So they made the determination that it would be in the best interest of their business, right?

00:34:48.000 They went to the SEC to get comments, correct?

00:34:51.000 The SEC came back and expanded those.

00:34:53.000 The NASDAQ said, that works counter to what our goal is.

00:34:57.000 Yeah, but this is not for NASDAQ as a business.

00:34:59.000 This is NASDAQ's listing standards for any company that's trading on the NASDAQ. Right, but they're a business who gets to determine.

00:35:05.000 NASDAQ competes with the New York Stock Exchange.

00:35:08.000 NASDAQ competes.

00:35:09.000 But the point is, if it was actually, of course, they compete with a different exchange.

00:35:12.000 So people go to the New York Stock Exchange or a new exchange that would form.

00:35:15.000 Or no exchange, yeah.

00:35:15.000 But the reality is, do you believe that Nasdaq's own, because this is all in the name of DI, do you think that their goal for every company, right?

00:35:22.000 You have how many companies listed on the Nasdaq?

00:35:24.000 A thousand companies, whatever it is.

00:35:25.000 Hundreds of companies.

00:35:26.000 There's only like 5,000 total public companies now, and that's a problem.

00:35:30.000 Right.

00:35:30.000 That's a different conversation.

00:35:31.000 Actually, we do make it a lot harder to be a public company.

00:35:33.000 Let's say hundreds of companies on the Nasdaq, right?

00:35:35.000 Let's say hundreds of companies on the Nasdaq.

00:35:36.000 A couple thousand, yeah.

00:35:38.000 So in that case, why would for those couple thousand companies on the NASDAQ, why would it be the case that only those three parameters of capital D diversity are interesting?

00:35:51.000 Race, gender, and sexual orientation for all 2,000 companies.

00:35:54.000 As opposed to NASDAQ could have done this, which is to say that provide what type of diversity advances your own business's mission and provide that disclosure to investors.

00:36:02.000 That's not what they said, which suggests to me, and I suggest I think to a lot of people who have issues with this movement, that it's not really just about making each business run better.

00:36:12.000 It's also about accomplishing some other social objective that's That has nothing to do with the business.

00:36:18.000 And maybe it's a good social objective, but it's still here to admit it's something separate from the business.

00:36:23.000 You're contradicting yourself.

00:36:24.000 I don't think so.

00:36:25.000 You are, because NASDAQ is a company that's trying to make as much money as possible and to compete, and to compete with the New York Stock Exchange Exchanges overseas and not listing at all, just being over the counter.

00:36:42.000 They, in their own wisdom, for better or worse, like every other CEO and board of directors, decided, maybe they decided, I can't speak for them, that by doing this, that will give more incentive for companies to list with us.

00:36:55.000 So that's a fair response.

00:36:56.000 That's a fair response.

00:36:57.000 That is the only response.

00:36:58.000 Let's continue pulling on the string.

00:37:00.000 Yeah, yeah, let's keep pulling on the string, though.

00:37:01.000 Let's keep pulling on the string, because where the story ends is it ends with the hand of government.

00:37:05.000 So who then owns these public companies?

00:37:07.000 Who owns these companies?

00:37:08.000 Who are the top shareholders of most public companies?

00:37:10.000 Large asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard, index fund managers.

00:37:15.000 So who are the clients of these index fund managers?

00:37:17.000 The largest clients of these index fund managers are none other than the likes of CalPERS.

00:37:21.000 You'll know this, right?

00:37:22.000 CalPERS is California's pension fund system, New York's pension fund system, etc.

00:37:25.000 So here's what I'm what I'm surmising now is not is not what I'm saying now is not surmising.

00:37:30.000 It's not conspiracy.

00:37:31.000 There's just hard reality.

00:37:32.000 CalPERS, the state of New York's pension funds, the pension funds that invest with the large asset managers effectively have said that you don't get to manage our money unless you adopt certain of these pre-specified commitments.

00:37:46.000 Now, those large pools of capital, you're talking about half a trillion dollars in the case of CalPERS, bigger than that even.

00:37:51.000 Those are not pure market actors, right?

00:37:53.000 Those are arms of the government.

00:37:55.000 Those are organs of the government.

00:37:57.000 Wait, wait, BlackRock?

00:37:59.000 You're saying BlackRock?

00:38:00.000 I'm saying CalPERS.

00:38:01.000 I'm saying CalPERS.

00:38:02.000 Oh, CalPERS, the state government.

00:38:03.000 CalPERS is absolutely the arm of the government, right?

00:38:05.000 There has recently been a Supreme Court decision, and there is a whole party of people saying all decisions go back to the state, and that's the way it should be, right?

00:38:14.000 But regardless of what I'm...

00:38:15.000 My point is, you've got government...

00:38:16.000 But I know that's not your point.

00:38:17.000 I just had to throw that in.

00:38:19.000 And I'm a big fan of going deep on the recent Supreme Court decisions.

00:38:23.000 We may have to do that another day, because that's like a whole hour discussion.

00:38:26.000 But the point is, you have government actors that are managing large swaths of money that tell these asset managers that are then bound by those constraints.

00:38:34.000 So then when BlackRock votes their shares at each of those public companies, here's a particular example.

00:38:39.000 In 2022, they voted in favor of—this is actually a great example to respond to your argument, Mark— In 2022, Apple was asked by some sort of social activist group that held a couple of shares to adopt racial equity audits to tell the investors, just tell the investors what they want to know.

00:38:59.000 Apple's board said, this is nonsense.

00:39:01.000 Okay, it's going to be a waste of our time and money.

00:39:03.000 It's going to create litigation risk.

00:39:04.000 It's going to restrict our ability to hire for the very best.

00:39:06.000 No, we, the board of directors of Apple, don't want to do it.

00:39:10.000 Nonetheless, BlackRock and State Street and a number of other asset managers vote for that proposal anyway, after which Apple's board of directors says, okay, all right, well, we've got to reconsider and now do the racial equity audit.

00:39:22.000 To me, the idea that that is just a private business making decisions without external influence, because BlackRock's voting that way in part because their clients, like CalPERS and the state of New York, demand they behave that way, yet those clients aren't really profit-motivated alone, they're also solving for governmental objectives, suggests that a lot of this basis for corporations doing it, you're saying that that just reveals that it's in their best interest.

00:39:46.000 I don't think is actually true because they're being pressured to do it by government actors.

00:39:50.000 That's the point.

00:39:51.000 I know you think there's all these ideological perpetrators, right?

00:39:54.000 I do.

00:39:55.000 Yeah, obviously.

00:39:57.000 But there's some other things that have to happen behind all this.

00:40:01.000 One, the people at CalPERS, the person in charge, has got to get the return or they lose their job.

00:40:06.000 They don't, though.

00:40:07.000 At CalPERS, that's the whole point.

00:40:08.000 Because they do if they're at a hedge fund like the one that you started or the one that I worked at.

00:40:12.000 Okay, well, let's just say- But at CalPERS, that's the whole problem.

00:40:15.000 Okay, I'll give you that.

00:40:16.000 I'll give you that.

00:40:17.000 You would think- In the government.

00:40:19.000 You would think, I know- Civil service protections and all of that, right?

00:40:22.000 I know, I know.

00:40:23.000 More ideological perpetrators.

00:40:24.000 They can't be fired.

00:40:24.000 I mean, if somebody's not doing a good job, I'd love to fire them.

00:40:27.000 In the government, you can't do it, which is unfortunate.

00:40:29.000 I'm pretty sure that the head of CalPERS, there's been turnover there, but I don't know for certain.

00:40:33.000 Yeah.

00:40:33.000 Okay.

00:40:33.000 So let's just put them aside.

00:40:35.000 BlackRock.

00:40:35.000 Obviously, they have to perform, or Larry Fink is going to fire them, or, you know, people are going to pull their money.

00:40:43.000 And that's one.

00:40:44.000 Two, I'm pretty sure, but I'm not positive, that CalPERS doesn't own more than 5% of Apple or any company, do they?

00:40:52.000 CalPERS does not directly, no.

00:40:53.000 They invest in BlackRock and Vanguard.

00:40:56.000 But together, BlackRock and Vanguard own about 20% of most public companies, you know, or 15, 15 plus percent.

00:41:02.000 Not of the total market cap.

00:41:04.000 Of total market cap adjusted.

00:41:06.000 You could even add other firms like Invesco that also are played by the same label.

00:41:09.000 Right, right.

00:41:09.000 But I don't think they own more than 5% because all the rules of how they participate change.

00:41:13.000 Yeah, it'll be single-digit percentages for each of these firms.

00:41:17.000 No, but once you go beyond 4.99999, all the rules change, right?

00:41:21.000 Sure.

00:41:21.000 So my point is they're small.

00:41:25.000 They're not so big.

00:41:26.000 Now, they're influential, so they have a lot of influence.

00:41:29.000 It'll be like 8-9% in certain cases, but single-digit is your point.

00:41:32.000 I don't know for sure, right?

00:41:33.000 But let's just say that still goes to the heart of how do you value a company, right?

00:41:39.000 There's a couple ways to value a public company.

00:41:41.000 It could just be supply and demand, which means the more demand you create for the stock, the price goes up, right?

00:41:48.000 And then there's the discounted net cash flows, the net present value of the discounted net cash flows, right, which go into determine the stock price if you do it on Benjamin Graham type style, right?

00:42:01.000 That's what makes decisions.

00:42:03.000 That's what it does.

00:42:05.000 I agree with that.

00:42:06.000 Right.

00:42:06.000 But it does look when you have these variables.

00:42:08.000 I think you have all as much as you want to make these guys that as much as you want to make.

00:42:13.000 OK, so you've got CalPERS and you've got some other large states.

00:42:17.000 State of Texas does it the exact opposite way.

00:42:19.000 They put their finger on the scale, you know, by saying banks can't do this.

00:42:23.000 Banks can't do that.

00:42:24.000 So it goes both ways.

00:42:25.000 But the realm of the the realm of the world today or the country today is We're letting states make those decisions.

00:42:33.000 And so, if you want to take Texas not allowing companies to invest, or not allowing banks to do...

00:42:40.000 To divest from oil, gas, whatever.

00:42:42.000 Right, whatever it is.

00:42:43.000 It goes both ways.

00:42:44.000 It's a lot of discussion.

00:42:46.000 I like this.

00:42:46.000 No, but let me just finish that real quick.

00:42:48.000 And then I want to get to the juicy stuff.

00:42:50.000 Okay, so then, all of a sudden, it still comes down to what is the company worth, right?

00:42:56.000 Because if BlackRock can talk until they're blue in their face, they can make proposals until they're blue in their face, but if the company can't perform, And reach the thresholds for performance that they need to.

00:43:09.000 What BlackRock said doesn't matter because big enough to get in, big enough to get out, right?

00:43:15.000 So while we can point the gun at them and say, oh, this is awful what they're doing and saying, it doesn't matter.

00:43:21.000 They're not the bad guys back in their own self-interest.

00:43:25.000 This area of common ground is actually still a belief in the market to be able to solve a lot of these problems.

00:43:29.000 So actually, one of the companies I started since my time at Royvent was a company called Strive.

00:43:35.000 Are you familiar with that or not?

00:43:36.000 Okay.

00:43:37.000 So actually, to your point, because this issue itched me, I wrote a book called Woke Inc about a lot of what I saw as some of the inefficiency introduced by the committee class that's taken over a lot of...

00:43:48.000 Our culture.

00:43:48.000 What is this with all these classes?

00:43:50.000 The committee class.

00:43:50.000 You guys, you, Rufo, Driesen, like there's this whole ideological group that meets on Sundays, right?

00:43:57.000 It's the smoke-filled room.

00:43:59.000 You conspiracy theorist, Mark.

00:44:01.000 No, it's like all these people that like went to Ivy League schools and got trained by former Black Panthers that now are infiltrating the HR department and they're all grouped together somehow. 0.62

00:44:14.000 The HR department just means some of these HR Vanguard departments, we just need to downsize them by about 80%.

00:44:18.000 But anyway, my point was actually going to be overlapping with one thing you said is believing in the market for people to at least solve these problems.

00:44:25.000 I'm a hardcore capitalist.

00:44:26.000 The company I started was Strive, which basically says we'll offer the same kinds of index funds that BlackRock and Vanguard offer, but without proxy voting or without shareholder engagement that favors ESG goals.

00:44:39.000 Great.

00:44:39.000 Good for you.

00:44:40.000 And you know what?

00:44:41.000 From a retail perspective, there's been, I mean, launched less than two years ago was its first fund.

00:44:46.000 The AUM has grown at a faster rate than JP Morgan in their first year when they entered the same line of business because the market exists for it.

00:44:53.000 You get to do that and so does BlackRock.

00:44:56.000 As long as we're in a free country and everyone's playing by the same set of rules with the government tipping the scales, I'm really happy with that.

00:45:01.000 They are.

00:45:02.000 The problem is the government tipping the scales is where it actually bothers me, right?

00:45:05.000 No, you're talking states, right?

00:45:07.000 Different world.

00:45:08.000 Maybe a year ago we would have had a different conversation.

00:45:11.000 But they're allowed to do that.

00:45:12.000 They're allowed to do that now.

00:45:14.000 But I do believe in the market solving problems.

00:45:17.000 I do believe in the market solving problems.

00:45:19.000 And so there's an area of common ground.

00:45:21.000 Here's where the market is not allowed to solve the problem though, right?

00:45:23.000 Because even if you're a contractor with the government, so even outside the realm of asset management now, anybody who's a federal contractor, And that's about 20, people think that's a small percentage of the workforce.

00:45:33.000 No, it's a big number.

00:45:34.000 Yeah, it's a big number.

00:45:34.000 It's about 20% of the workforce works for an employer that could be classified as a federal contractor bound by these rules.

00:45:40.000 You have to, not because the market says so, but because the government says so, actually have certain goals that you have to hit when it relates to the diversity or the demographic attributes of your workforce.

00:45:50.000 That's not coming from the market.

00:45:52.000 That's coming from the government.

00:45:53.000 And so all my point is, Mark, is we can't just say, just because a company is doing it, it's the product of the free market that's told us that's what consumers want.

00:46:00.000 You're exactly right.

00:46:01.000 There are contractors who make choices whether or not they want to work with the government or not.

00:46:06.000 My first company, we could have gone and we could have worked with the government.

00:46:10.000 I chose not to, not because we weren't diverse or anything, because all the bureaucracy that I would have had- You don't want the government telling you what to do?

00:46:16.000 No, it's not that.

00:46:17.000 There's just too much bureaucracy in too many forms, right?

00:46:20.000 There's just that.

00:46:21.000 Same with the streaming industry.

00:46:22.000 We could have done contracting for them.

00:46:24.000 Too much bureaucracy.

00:46:25.000 And I don't think the government should be tilting the scales.

00:46:27.000 And when you have 20% of the workforce employed by a company, then when you say, hey, the company is just behaving this way because the market's telling them to, all my point is, that's not the full story because you do have the invisible hand of government, not the invisible hand of the market.

00:46:40.000 Contractors don't have to do business with the government.

00:46:43.000 They don't have to, but you're less competitive versus your competitors.

00:46:46.000 No, you're probably more competitive.

00:46:48.000 They're also getting larger government contracts.

00:46:49.000 You're probably more competitive because you don't have to deal with, have the overhead to deal with a bureaucracy.

00:46:53.000 Well, but you also get lower cost of capital with a fat margin because they have less competitors bidding for those contracts.

00:46:58.000 And so all I'm saying is the government- Okay, well, that's your choice.

00:47:00.000 That is your choice.

00:47:02.000 Even speaking as a citizen, right?

00:47:03.000 The government's not some exogenous agency.

00:47:05.000 It's what's actually responsive to us.

00:47:06.000 I'm not saying government is efficient.

00:47:08.000 I don't want the government imposing that.

00:47:10.000 I want them to get the lowest cost provider of IT without regard to what the racial composition is, right? 0.89

00:47:16.000 A lot of that goes back decades.

00:47:17.000 Some of it's more recent, but a lot of it goes back decades, right?

00:47:20.000 Generations.

00:47:20.000 This life goes back to the 60s, yeah.

00:47:22.000 So I read the whole book.

00:47:24.000 What the hell was it called?

00:47:26.000 I forget, where basically it said the Civil Rights Act led to us losing all these rights.

00:47:33.000 But what they didn't answer was, what's a better way?

00:47:37.000 What is a better way?

00:47:39.000 Because I'm a big believer that we're only as strong as our weakest link as a country.

00:47:44.000 The kids that we have, if they're not fed, if they're not closed, if they don't have shelter, if they don't have daycare, if they don't have access to decent schools, then the whole country will fail.

00:47:55.000 Not the whole country will fail, but we're going to always struggle to raise up our GDP, to raise up the quality of life in this country.

00:48:03.000 Because the outliers make things more difficult.

00:48:06.000 And when you're in a country now of 330 million people, just 1, 2, 3, 5% is a whole lot of people you have to deal with. 0.97

00:48:13.000 So going back to what you said in terms of programs that try to put their thumb on the scale, When you're trying to solve a problem like that, how do you lift up people who have been discriminated against for generations, you know, not just black Americans who, you know, with a legacy of slavery, but immigrants and others who have come over here who have been shit on, right? 0.98

00:48:35.000 Legally and illegally. 0.82

00:48:37.000 How do you try to change that to lift them up?

00:48:40.000 Because in my mind, and I don't have a model to prove this, but in my mind, it's going to be a lot more difficult for all citizens.

00:48:49.000 It's going to be a lot more expensive for all citizens.

00:48:52.000 And it's going to create a lot worse issues for all of us if you don't lift up the bottoms.

00:48:58.000 So back in the 60s, they did what they thought was right.

00:49:01.000 They were wrong in a lot of respects, but that was the shot they took.

00:49:04.000 And we've gotten to where we are today, right?

00:49:07.000 Now, we can bitch about it all we want, but either we come up with solutions to solve it, just saying it's wrong to have the government on there for a problem they tried to solve 60 years ago.

00:49:17.000 But that problem has— And this is a longer discussion, right?

00:49:21.000 But many of those problems, what happens is when you create the bureaucracy to solve the problem, once the problem has been solved or mostly solved, the right answer is to move on and celebrate it.

00:49:33.000 So do you think discrimination has been mostly solved?

00:49:35.000 Well, I think it has.

00:49:37.000 So this is a deeper question, okay?

00:49:40.000 And it's important.

00:49:43.000 I think it has gotten below the level That it was useful to try to use government tools to solve.

00:49:51.000 So there was a time and place, right?

00:49:53.000 So I'll give you an analogy because we're both in healthcare, right?

00:49:55.000 You're in healthcare now and I used to be.

00:49:58.000 When the body's fighting off a virus, okay?

00:50:01.000 At a certain point, the body needs to mount an immune response to the virus.

00:50:06.000 But when that immune response continues long after the virus is mostly cleared, you actually harm the organ itself.

00:50:14.000 That's effectively what I see happening in the nation in our fight against discrimination.

00:50:18.000 Does some level of invidious racial discrimination still exist in this country in multiple different directions?

00:50:23.000 It does.

00:50:23.000 But our systematic response pretending like it's still 1960 or 1860, that actually creates more of that same division.

00:50:34.000 Okay, so you're making my point.

00:50:36.000 You're making my point.

00:50:37.000 At a certain point, we got to let it automatically, let the market solve it, to borrow your point, right?

00:50:41.000 Don't tell a business what they can or can't do or what they must do.

00:50:44.000 Smart entrepreneurs.

00:50:45.000 Actually, this is just to bring your own point.

00:50:46.000 If we got rid of the categories in the Civil Rights Act, right, of race, gender, you know, sexual orientation now included, religion, national origin.

00:50:54.000 And you said, we don't need that because believing in what you do and also what I do is in the power of capitalism.

00:50:59.000 That's an opportunity for a different business owner to say, hey, I get to hire all these great people.

00:51:04.000 Why do we need the government still creating an EEOC to be able to monitor those decisions to make sure that enough minorities are hired in an era where businesses themselves out of their own self-interest could get to the same place?

00:51:16.000 Now, aren't you talking out of both sides of your mouth, right?

00:51:18.000 I mean, if I may say so.

00:51:19.000 No, and I'll tell you exactly why.

00:51:20.000 No, that's fine.

00:51:21.000 And I don't mind to give and take.

00:51:22.000 Yeah, we're just having fun.

00:51:23.000 Right.

00:51:24.000 So first of all, you're saying the Civil Rights Act worked.

00:51:28.000 I'm saying that...

00:51:29.000 Because you're saying it got to the point where maybe we got too far.

00:51:34.000 Whether that was the right answer, the culture was changing any way we could debate.

00:51:38.000 But do we actually need it now?

00:51:40.000 I think there was a strong case and a more persuasive case back then.

00:51:44.000 I will admit that.

00:51:44.000 That's fine.

00:51:46.000 So now let's go to the medicine example.

00:51:48.000 The thing about medicine, it's the only place where you can be an expert where you're right 5% of the time.

00:51:53.000 Then you're a great doctor.

00:51:55.000 And so when you're trying to figure out what that point is where the body has too strong an immune response, you don't know until Sometimes it's too late until after you're sick, whatever it may be.

00:52:08.000 And on the flip side, you may not know until it's too late if the body hasn't generated enough of immune response.

00:52:15.000 And there's issues there.

00:52:16.000 And the same thing applies here.

00:52:18.000 It's hard to thread the needle to know exactly where to stop or even if you should stop. 0.98

00:52:23.000 And so to just shit on the whole thing, that's the problem I have, right? 0.98

00:52:27.000 You can say, look, let's try to solve a problem. 0.98

00:52:30.000 How do we get to the point where discrimination doesn't exist?

00:52:34.000 Fine, that's a worthy goal.

00:52:36.000 But the answer is not just saying it doesn't exist and we don't need any of the things we tried to do.

00:52:41.000 But you didn't hear that from me.

00:52:41.000 I said there is some level of racial discrimination that probably exists, continues to.

00:52:46.000 No, but you said- But at a certain point we should just effectively leave it to the market to solve.

00:52:50.000 Right.

00:52:51.000 Well, at that certain point, where is that certain point?

00:52:53.000 I think we're there.

00:52:54.000 I don't believe we're at that certain point.

00:52:55.000 I think we're there.

00:52:55.000 You do.

00:52:55.000 I don't, right?

00:52:56.000 That's what makes a market, right?

00:52:58.000 But the challenge is, but when you're saying, let's just extract government out, if you have a better solution, that's one thing.

00:53:06.000 Just open it up to the market because there are, in the workforce, 77% of the workforce is white. 0.91

00:53:14.000 Plus percent of investment is with white people, towards white people, right?

00:53:18.000 And so if you just leave it to the market, I'm not saying there's no chance it works, but I'm saying there's a good chance it won't work.

00:53:27.000 Yeah, and here's what I see happening.

00:53:30.000 I think we're actually seeing, and this may be another area of common ground in a certain sense, but for different reasons.

00:53:36.000 I think we're actually seeing, weirdly, an uptick in anti-black, Anti-minority and also anti-white racism in a lot of different directions that I would have never imagined even 20 years ago.

00:53:50.000 If I was even rewinding to 2007 when I was reading about your old company sale and I was graduating from college, if you told me in the year 2024 we would be seeing an uptick in the level of racial animus in the country that we have now, I would have said that was crazy.

00:54:06.000 Back then.

00:54:06.000 But I think part of the reason we're seeing it is heightened race consciousness and the feeling that you have a system that's taking something away from you on the basis of your skin color.

00:54:18.000 There's no better way to throw kerosene on the final burning embers of racism.

00:54:24.000 Where do you think that kerosene is coming from?

00:54:26.000 I think it's largely coming from a lot of these maybe even well-intended government policies.

00:54:30.000 The idea that you can't be a government contractor unless you're paying by these rules.

00:54:34.000 What has changed dramatically over the past five, six years?

00:54:38.000 Over the past five, six years?

00:54:39.000 I mean...

00:54:40.000 You know, economically, you want to think about a lot of disparities.

00:54:43.000 The scale of social media.

00:54:44.000 The scale of social media, right?

00:54:46.000 That's where it's easy because, again, when you have tens of millions of people now able to come on and, particularly lately, over the last two years, say exactly what they want to say without restriction, for the most part, it's really easy for all the people who are disaffected to come together.

00:55:04.000 Are you against that?

00:55:06.000 I mean, isn't that a good thing?

00:55:07.000 No, I'm not saying.

00:55:08.000 I'm just saying it's a reality.

00:55:09.000 There's a lot of things I think are social media wrong.

00:55:11.000 It's just a reality.

00:55:12.000 It's really a good thing, right?

00:55:13.000 It brings us together.

00:55:14.000 Yeah, I just see it as a reality.

00:55:15.000 I'm not trying to shut anybody up.

00:55:17.000 And certainly you'll never see me try to cancel somebody.

00:55:19.000 I think that's the worst from either side, right?

00:55:22.000 I would never try to cancel anybody.

00:55:26.000 But the reality is that we can't presume, given all the hate that is evident to us on social media, you can't presume that there isn't a need for beyond just the marketplace.

00:55:41.000 That is my point, right?

00:55:43.000 It is so evident, this increase in hate.

00:55:45.000 Now, I understand the perspective.

00:55:47.000 I read Rufo's book, right, about decentralized support and all that.

00:55:51.000 And I understand the perspective that, okay, if we took the federal government out of it And we took the DEI and the woke ideology out of it.

00:56:02.000 And we moved a lot of the problem solving, if you will, the power and the decentralized basis to local school boards, etc. 0.75

00:56:10.000 It's all going to change, which I think is horseshit, right? 0.55

00:56:13.000 Because there's just too much hate.

00:56:16.000 And the only, in my mind, even though it's not perfect, We have to just accept the fact that we are not in a colorblind society and being colorblind isn't necessarily a good thing.

00:56:30.000 We have to respect...

00:56:32.000 I respectfully disagree on that, but I hear your point.

00:56:35.000 Right, because people...

00:56:38.000 I made a mistake in one of my companies, the Mavs, actually.

00:56:42.000 And I used to think that treating people equally meant treating them the same.

00:56:47.000 That if there was a woman, a man, black, white, orange, yellow, all the rules, everything had to be exactly the same. 0.79

00:56:57.000 And then I had some people getting harassed because I wasn't paying attention to how everybody was being treated.

00:57:03.000 Because saying something to a man versus saying something to a woman can have two different meanings.

00:57:08.000 And I didn't know this stuff was going on, right?

00:57:11.000 I was just, treat everybody the same.

00:57:14.000 Treat them fairly.

00:57:15.000 That's just not the way life is.

00:57:18.000 You want your vegetarian and family background to be respected.

00:57:25.000 But there's a lot of people here in this country that said red meat and beer.

00:57:30.000 If you don't eat red meat, there's something wrong with you.

00:57:33.000 See, I don't really...

00:57:34.000 To me, Mark, that country is not the America I know.

00:57:39.000 I mean, look, my view is...

00:57:40.000 Come to Texas.

00:57:41.000 You want to eat red meat?

00:57:42.000 Go...

00:57:42.000 I mean, you should be a free country.

00:57:43.000 I know, that's your view.

00:57:44.000 You're open-minded.

00:57:45.000 In fact, I'll fight for your right to.

00:57:46.000 But the reality is...

00:57:48.000 You're open-minded, but a lot of people aren't.

00:57:51.000 So here's my point, Mark, is I think we're actually weirdly getting a little bit more of an uptick of that precisely because...

00:57:58.000 Of the obsession.

00:58:00.000 No, I understand what you're saying, right?

00:58:01.000 But there's no obsession.

00:58:02.000 So this is what I think you did in the UK. I think you did a lot of this.

00:58:06.000 Yeah, I'm seeing all the shit that's going on. 0.99

00:58:08.000 I mean, a lot of this reactionary response where you tell people to shut up, sit down, apologize for who you are. 1.00

00:58:13.000 You actually create more hatred in response that otherwise would not have existed.

00:58:18.000 And that's what I'm worried about happening in this country right now.

00:58:20.000 I see what's going on in the UK and we'll see what happens there.

00:58:22.000 And a lot of that is social media driven.

00:58:25.000 A lot of that is from the politicians who are pushing those lines saying, hey, they're taking it from you.

00:58:31.000 And it's really geared towards immigration more than anything else.

00:58:34.000 It's not so much white or black, green or yellow.

00:58:36.000 It's immigration, who belongs and who doesn't belong. 1.00

00:58:39.000 My understanding.

00:58:40.000 Yeah, no, I think it's a different issue.

00:58:42.000 It's not about race.

00:58:43.000 It's about immigration.

00:58:44.000 But yes, when you have unfair immigration, hatred, we tell people they can't talk about or publicly complain about that. 0.80

00:58:50.000 It spills over in ways that actually are really harmful.

00:58:53.000 One of the reasons I go on Twitter, and I love to fight back people, right?

00:58:57.000 Not troll, but actually try to have...

00:58:58.000 I know that.

00:58:59.000 You were coming at me hard during my presidential campaign.

00:59:02.000 You rose to me a couple times.

00:59:03.000 Right, right, right.

00:59:04.000 Because what I see happening is there's...

00:59:10.000 A lot of people who create this woke machine, that visual, that say there's this woke machine that's taking over everything and ruining everything.

00:59:21.000 But there's no, you know, when they say who, like in Rufo's book, it's like going back to the Black Panthers and, you know, then they taught in the college and then this professor came over from France and he taught and then all these people went to Ivy League schools.

00:59:35.000 I've never, in Roy Vint, did you ever feel woke pressure?

00:59:41.000 For the first six years of running the company, no.

00:59:44.000 In the wake of what happened after BLM and BLM's rise after George Floyd's death, actually, there was a moment.

00:59:50.000 I think a lot of CEOs felt a lot of pressure across the country, and so did I, to sign on to, you know, every CEO, you remember that, wrote a public declaration.

00:59:59.000 I didn't want to make that declaration.

01:00:01.000 And the truth is, I did, like every biotech CEO, feel some pressure to do it.

01:00:04.000 That was a unique moment, but I... Right, so that's one moment in time when we're trying to, because we didn't have any leadership in the White House who could potentially defuse those types of riots and those types of protests, right?

01:00:19.000 More people died during those protests.

01:00:20.000 It was a hyper-charging environment in the middle of lockdowns across the country.

01:00:23.000 Right, of course.

01:00:23.000 It was difficult, and that's where leadership needs to shine, and there was no leadership.

01:00:28.000 You got a few minutes.

01:00:29.000 You want to change the channel?

01:00:30.000 We didn't actually even get to politics, but we got to do at least a little bit, all right?

01:00:32.000 Sure.

01:00:33.000 Yeah, at least a little bit.

01:00:34.000 And this is too much fun.

01:00:36.000 Just give me one second to make sure I'm good here, too, because this is actually fun.

01:00:41.000 Let's see here.

01:00:42.000 Oh, man.

01:00:43.000 Okay.

01:00:44.000 I've got to go.

01:00:44.000 I've got ten minutes, but we have to continue this.

01:00:47.000 We have to continue this, all right?

01:00:48.000 I'm having fun with this.

01:00:51.000 This is the thing I miss, actually, in the country.

01:00:53.000 You don't get people talking across the silos anymore.

01:00:58.000 Not in an earnest way, in a way that's public, in a way that actually tells people it's okay to be friends with somebody who you deeply disagree with.

01:01:05.000 I think we need more of that.

01:01:06.000 But I've convinced you to change your position, right?

01:01:08.000 No, you have not.

01:01:11.000 But you've convinced me that we actually share more premises in common than I thought.

01:01:16.000 I'm a capitalist.

01:01:18.000 Exactly.

01:01:18.000 We can start there.

01:01:19.000 We have that in common no matter what.

01:01:21.000 I'm just a little bit more compassionate than some others.

01:01:24.000 But I think that...

01:01:26.000 But anyways, let's get to politics.

01:01:28.000 Yeah, let's get to politics.

01:01:28.000 The only thing is assume the best when you can of somebody who you disagree with too.

01:01:33.000 Because it may be a compassion for a different thing.

01:01:35.000 No, I understand.

01:01:36.000 Assume the best is all I'd ask, even to some of the folks you're talking about.

01:01:40.000 Politics here.

01:01:40.000 All right.

01:01:41.000 So here's what I find funny, okay?

01:01:43.000 For years...

01:01:44.000 And you consider yourself voting Democrat in recent years or you're Democrat?

01:01:48.000 No, I'm independent.

01:01:49.000 I'm independent.

01:01:50.000 And honestly, if there was a non-MAGA when Biden was the candidate, if there was a non-MAGA Republican candidate, I probably would have voted for that person.

01:01:58.000 So, and it just maybe to you depends on, I would like to convince you on this another day, depends on how you define MAGA, right?

01:02:03.000 Make an America great.

01:02:04.000 I don't think you object to that.

01:02:05.000 In fact, I think you believe some of the things you just talked about here.

01:02:07.000 Well, that's a presumption that it wasn't great before.

01:02:09.000 I'm an American exceptionalist, too.

01:02:11.000 I'm an American exceptionalist, too.

01:02:12.000 I think we need to make America greater than it has ever been.

01:02:14.000 That actually should be the goal.

01:02:16.000 Well, that's not what they said, right.

01:02:17.000 Make America greater than it has ever been before.

01:02:19.000 So here's the funny thing.

01:02:20.000 Here's the funny thing on the politics of this, because I know you're on the other side of this.

01:02:23.000 You're supporting Kamala Harris for president, right?

01:02:25.000 Correct.

01:02:26.000 Okay.

01:02:26.000 I'm supporting Donald Trump for president.

01:02:28.000 But here's the interesting, before we get into the side tizzy that that'll send political discussion into.

01:02:38.000 For years, the concern of many earnest Democrats in this country was that the Republican Party was oppressive on issues like abortion, was thoughtless on issues like gun control, believed in leaving the working class behind, was intervening in foreign wars in places like Iraq, That expended our taxpayer money and left the country worse off.

01:03:04.000 That was the real concern that people had, is the Republican Party was...

01:03:08.000 For Democrats, yeah.

01:03:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:03:09.000 There were ideologues, right?

01:03:11.000 The Republican Party had ideologues on guns, abortion, foreign wars, and leaving the working class behind.

01:03:16.000 And again, I'm not a Democrat.

01:03:17.000 I'm an independent.

01:03:18.000 No, I know you're not.

01:03:19.000 Now I know that.

01:03:20.000 Now you mentioned that, right?

01:03:21.000 But we can have the discussion either way.

01:03:24.000 So it's not necessarily addressed at you, but we're talking about this.

01:03:27.000 That's fine.

01:03:27.000 No, I understand.

01:03:29.000 So now you get a candidate, and here's the thing that most people don't realize, who's actually not an ideologue, certainly on historical Republican terms at all.

01:03:38.000 This is true.

01:03:38.000 Not an ideologue at all in any sense, actually.

01:03:41.000 Who on abortion is against a federal ban on abortion, is a little bit more pragmatic, you could say, in certain other issues.

01:03:51.000 On gun control is softer than some Second Amendment advocates, even myself in many cases, would advocate for.

01:03:59.000 You have a foreign policy that is against fighting pointless foreign wars or intervention.

01:04:04.000 A Republican is publicly against that old Iraq war.

01:04:09.000 And yet now the criticism of that candidate is that, oh, he's not principled enough.

01:04:13.000 Right?

01:04:14.000 So from the Democrats.

01:04:15.000 Well, yeah, well, let's talk about that.

01:04:16.000 No, no, no.

01:04:16.000 You're mixing the principle that people are talking about.

01:04:20.000 It's ethics.

01:04:21.000 The man told Mike Pence not to certify the election.

01:04:28.000 The man called the governor, Secretary of State, or was it governor?

01:04:33.000 I forget.

01:04:34.000 And asked for 11,072 votes.

01:04:38.000 The man has stolen from more hardworking Americans- You were against Trump in 2016, though.

01:04:44.000 You were against Trump in 2016. Right, but he was unethical then, and he's still unethical.

01:04:48.000 And in 20, right.

01:04:49.000 Right, but that's the whole point.

01:04:51.000 I actually started off supporting Donald, and then I got to know him back.

01:04:54.000 When did you support him?

01:04:56.000 Like 2015, I was like, he's great.

01:04:59.000 He's not a typical Stepford candidate.

01:05:01.000 I thought that was a positive.

01:05:02.000 I would think you'd think that's a positive, right?

01:05:04.000 A business guy who's pretty practical, not ideological.

01:05:08.000 Then a big part of that is I didn't think he had a chance.

01:05:11.000 And so I just wanted to kind of, you know, screw things up in traditional politics that I'm not a fan of.

01:05:18.000 But the bigger point is Trump University, Trump Soho stole four million dollars from a friend of mine that had sued to get it back.

01:05:34.000 Mike Pence.

01:05:36.000 You know, 40 out of 44 people.

01:05:38.000 Just take a look at the four years, because these are just going to be separate sort of personal attack rabbit holes.

01:05:42.000 Look at the country in those four years.

01:05:43.000 No, they're not personal attack rabbit holes.

01:05:45.000 They're legitimate things that actually happened.

01:05:47.000 So do you think the country, do you think the economy prospered and border crossing issues were far better under Donald Trump under those four years?

01:05:54.000 No, because if you look at border cards, what was Obama's nickname?

01:06:01.000 The deporter in chief.

01:06:02.000 If you look at actual crossings, they were lower under Obama.

01:06:06.000 And when Obama came in, they were higher, and he continued to lower them until the last couple months.

01:06:11.000 On the economy, Obama took a fucked up economy and improved it, and Trump inherited that.

01:06:17.000 And actually, inflation grew by 25% under Trump over Obama. 0.56

01:06:22.000 And what was the third one?

01:06:24.000 Border and economies is what I want to start talking about.

01:06:26.000 We hit the all-time low on border crossings in about 2019-2020.

01:06:31.000 Are you sure?

01:06:32.000 Are you sure about that?

01:06:33.000 Relative to Obama.

01:06:34.000 It's actually the chart that Trump was turning to when he got shot, right?

01:06:37.000 That was exactly the wrong chart.

01:06:38.000 Right, but that doesn't make it right.

01:06:39.000 It went up in the first two years, but then it actually, they only implemented the Trump controls about a year, about a year and a half to two years.

01:06:47.000 Let's just put that off to the side and we'll check that to make sure that border crossings weren't lower under him.

01:06:52.000 The lowest point was lower than it's ever been.

01:06:55.000 The lowest point was lowest than it's ever been.

01:06:58.000 Yeah.

01:06:58.000 Okay, we'll chat.

01:06:59.000 But Obama deported a multiple of the number of illegals that Trump deported.

01:07:05.000 Which you're in favor of, by the way?

01:07:06.000 Are you in favor of deportation?

01:07:07.000 Yeah, I don't have a problem.

01:07:09.000 If they're here illegally, just do it compassionately. 0.90

01:07:11.000 Don't just stick them in a cage.

01:07:12.000 But I have no problem with removing people who are here, particularly recent.

01:07:17.000 Because, you know, who knows the number, 10 million, 11 million, whatever it is.

01:07:21.000 But you can't just, all of a sudden, how you approach it is critical, and Trump has not said a word about it yet.

01:07:26.000 And he's been talking about it forever.

01:07:28.000 But again, that's not the core issue.

01:07:30.000 That is a core issue.

01:07:33.000 I get that.

01:07:36.000 But you know what?

01:07:37.000 The one certainty about the office of the President of the United States is the complete uncertainty.

01:07:42.000 That you have no idea what comes next.

01:07:45.000 Would you agree with that?

01:07:46.000 Yes.

01:07:48.000 Okay, and so in my mind, and I think a lot of people's minds that oppose Donald Trump, is that you want somebody there that is educated on The world, but more importantly, just is ethical, right?

01:08:02.000 So that they make ethical decisions.

01:08:04.000 You want somebody when there is no precedent, it's never happened before, you want somebody that has hired not people who are most loyal, like Tony Soprano might have done, but hired the very best people.

01:08:18.000 And those people want to stay and work for them, not that they're loyal.

01:08:21.000 You want somebody whose first inclination is not to do what's in their own best personal interest.

01:08:27.000 You can't deny that's Donald Trump.

01:08:29.000 I'm reluctant to get into, because I'm not a particularly partisan hack type Republican versus Democrat person.

01:08:36.000 This has nothing to do with partisan.

01:08:37.000 I'm also very critical of the Republican Party.

01:08:41.000 Reluctant to say what I'm about to say.

01:08:43.000 When you think about this, look at someone like Biden over the four years.

01:08:48.000 I know it's Kamala Harris the nominee now, but what is your attitude towards the fact that you talk about self-interest?

01:08:53.000 Nothing bothers me more than politicians looking after their self-interest when they're in office.

01:08:56.000 What is your perspective on, while Joe Biden's the Vice President of the United States, his son serving without a qualification or an iota of a qualification, On the board of a Ukrainian state-affiliated energy company. 0.91

01:09:09.000 That's ridiculous. 0.97

01:09:10.000 That's ridiculous, right? 0.98

01:09:11.000 It was a mistake. 0.97

01:09:12.000 Yeah, but his son was an adult in his 40s, right?

01:09:16.000 As a parent of...

01:09:17.000 I can't control my teenagers.

01:09:19.000 You're not going to control an adult.

01:09:20.000 But there's good evidence that he's even...

01:09:23.000 Not looking the other way.

01:09:24.000 And he's going to jail.

01:09:26.000 And that kid is going to jail.

01:09:28.000 For a felony gun possession charge.

01:09:30.000 No, I get that.

01:09:31.000 But on top of that, you had Comer and others who tried to impeach Biden and did a complete investigation of it and who came to the conclusion that there was no there there in terms of the big guy, right?

01:09:44.000 But let's just say...

01:09:46.000 It was completely investigated.

01:09:48.000 And we haven't even gotten into the Mueller report, right, and what they came out with.

01:09:53.000 Yeah, but the Mueller report, that's actually great to talk about, because that impeded the first two years of his presidency on the basis of allocations.

01:10:02.000 Yeah, but you're talking about policies.

01:10:04.000 Look, when you're...

01:10:05.000 I am concerned about policies.

01:10:06.000 I'm deeply concerned.

01:10:07.000 I have to admit, I am principally focused on policies.

01:10:10.000 I'm not unconcerned about policies, right?

01:10:14.000 But it's just like a CEO of a company.

01:10:17.000 Would you hire somebody that has a long history of stealing from people, of being unethical?

01:10:24.000 You would not, and you know this.

01:10:26.000 Is Donald Trump a perfect person?

01:10:27.000 No, he is not.

01:10:28.000 Am I a perfect person?

01:10:29.000 I'm not.

01:10:30.000 Are you a perfect person?

01:10:31.000 You're not.

01:10:31.000 But we have to ask ourselves, who's the actual best president between the choices we have right now?

01:10:36.000 I've never stolen money from anybody, no.

01:10:38.000 Either have I, right?

01:10:39.000 Have you ever had a company that- I have no evidence to say that Donald Trump has either.

01:10:43.000 Oh, I do for sure.

01:10:44.000 Ask Barbara Corcoran, right?

01:10:46.000 You know, she had to sue to get her money back. 1.00

01:10:48.000 Ask anybody from Trump University.

01:10:49.000 Ask people who bought condos in Trump Soho.

01:10:52.000 Ask people from, you know, Trump Foundation that gave money there.

01:10:56.000 Ask people who are giving money today and he's using that money for his legal fees.

01:11:01.000 This isn't like a little discretion.

01:11:03.000 This is a habit.

01:11:05.000 That's why I can't support him.

01:11:07.000 Yeah, so look, I think that's less about politics and more about maybe like a criticism of one man.

01:11:13.000 No, but that's the whole point.

01:11:15.000 You were talking about ethics.

01:11:17.000 Have you ever told any of your employees to short pay a vendor just to try to save some money?

01:11:23.000 Either have I. What do you think about somebody who does that?

01:11:26.000 You know what was crazy to me during the trial?

01:11:28.000 I think a lot of what's happened is, because you saw this in the New York trial.

01:11:31.000 I don't know what your perspective is on the New York trial or how closely you followed that.

01:11:35.000 I did.

01:11:36.000 I think that trial is fundamentally unjust against Donald Trump.

01:11:38.000 Okay.

01:11:39.000 Do you agree with that?

01:11:40.000 Let's just say it is.

01:11:40.000 Do you agree with that?

01:11:42.000 No, not necessarily.

01:11:43.000 I think if you're in a position where if you say a prosecutor comes for you, right?

01:11:47.000 Because if you're a business guy, you can empathize with this.

01:11:48.000 If you're running a company.

01:11:49.000 I've had the SEC come after you, so I get it.

01:11:51.000 Let's say you have a lawyer's bill that comes in and you classify it as a legal expense.

01:11:57.000 But part of this was you were paying off hash money to Stormy Daniels.

01:12:01.000 And the government's theory of the case is, no, you should have classified that as a campaign expenditure.

01:12:07.000 Think about this.

01:12:08.000 If you had to classify that as a campaign expenditure, had he said that's a campaign expense, so he uses the campaign account to be able to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, They should be and would be coming after him for that, right?

01:12:21.000 Because you shouldn't use political campaign contributions.

01:12:22.000 But that's what he did!

01:12:23.000 He didn't use the campaign money.

01:12:25.000 The government's whole theory is he should have been using the campaign money.

01:12:28.000 He used personal money for it.

01:12:29.000 So my point is, in a lot of these cases, they were going to get him either way.

01:12:34.000 Okay, so first of all, Hillary Clinton did something similar.

01:12:36.000 And I just worry a lot of this has created distortion.

01:12:38.000 My guy here is giving us, like, signs we gotta go.

01:12:40.000 I'm going to this magazine interview.

01:12:42.000 This is fun.

01:12:43.000 If you're down for doing this again and continuing, I would love it.

01:12:46.000 Hey, do you know, this is random, do you know Reid Hoffman or not?

01:12:51.000 Not really.

01:12:51.000 Barely.

01:12:52.000 A couple emails.

01:12:53.000 Actually, it was interesting, because he also seems like a guy who, more than you, I mean, I would really disagree with him, but he also seems like a smart guy, and he's come up recently.

01:13:02.000 Yeah, he's a smart guy.

01:13:03.000 If you happen to know, because I've never had any connection with him, I disagree with him on a lot of things.

01:13:07.000 But some of his advice for Kamala Harris I thought was pretty interesting.

01:13:11.000 I mean, his advice to her, as I was reading publicly, because I was fascinated by this, is fire Lena Kahn and distance yourself from what he calls the Trump-Biden tariffs.

01:13:25.000 It caught my attention.

01:13:26.000 Let me ask you a question.

01:13:27.000 Just a hypothetical real quick.

01:13:28.000 So I want to talk to...

01:13:29.000 If you, me, and him want to have a discussion...

01:13:31.000 I'll connect to you.

01:13:32.000 I'll connect to you guys.

01:13:33.000 Just have him pop on the equivalent of this.

01:13:34.000 No, you just...

01:13:35.000 You two could talk.

01:13:36.000 He's smart.

01:13:37.000 You guys talk.

01:13:37.000 But let me ask you a question.

01:13:39.000 If...

01:13:40.000 You know, you've seen what's happened with the border crossings recently, right?

01:13:43.000 They've dropped dramatically.

01:13:44.000 She said she would sign the bill that the Republicans put together, right?

01:13:48.000 Inflation is declining rapidly.

01:13:50.000 She won't have tariffs, right?

01:13:52.000 So effectively— We don't know about the tariffs.

01:13:54.000 Actually, I want to see what comes up.

01:13:55.000 No, I'm pretty sure she won't have tariffs, right?

01:13:58.000 Depends on which kind of tariffs.

01:13:59.000 Anyways, so what I'm about to say is, if she checked all your policy boxes, would you vote for her over Trump?

01:14:07.000 Well, she doesn't check. 0.99

01:14:08.000 I mean, she's dead setting.

01:14:09.000 I'm just saying because she hasn't come up.

01:14:11.000 It's only been two weeks.

01:14:12.000 It's a hypothetical.

01:14:14.000 I'm going to vote for the candidate who I believe has the best policies for the United States of America and who has some basis to carry them out.

01:14:22.000 In my mind, that's exactly why I'm voting for Trump.

01:14:24.000 That's exactly why I'm voting for Trump.

01:14:26.000 Trump and I don't agree on 100% of policies.

01:14:29.000 I mean, I ran for president last year, for God's sake, right?

01:14:31.000 And there are some areas where he and I have had open discussions where we have slightly different views.

01:14:36.000 And that's great.

01:14:37.000 But again, let's just say that list of policies you have in your mind- I will vote for the candidate who I believe is committed to enacting the policies I agree with for the United States.

01:14:46.000 Is committed to enacting, is what I will say.

01:14:49.000 But the candidate who I believe is most committed to enacting the policies that I care about.

01:14:52.000 And you know what's number one on the list for me?

01:14:54.000 Is dismantling bureaucracy.

01:14:57.000 Dismantling bureaucracy is...

01:14:58.000 So who do I think is more likely to...

01:15:00.000 If Kamala Harris comes out and says that she's going to fire 75% of federal bureaucrats and shut down excess agencies... 1.00

01:15:06.000 Nobody can do that.

01:15:06.000 But you can't do that.

01:15:08.000 She'd have my attention.

01:15:09.000 You can't do that.

01:15:10.000 You can't do that.

01:15:10.000 Well, you and I can disagree on that.

01:15:11.000 But what you can do is...

01:15:13.000 What you can do is use technology to make the government a lot more efficient.

01:15:17.000 Sure, add that in there too, to replace a lot of the existing...

01:15:20.000 So that government declines in size while improving the amount of impact it has for the people who need it most.

01:15:25.000 They're not mutually exclusive, right?

01:15:27.000 But you can't, there's no legal basis to fire 75% of any department, and you can't just throw all that...

01:15:33.000 Mass firings are absolutely just like a CEO can do in a company.

01:15:37.000 Well, even if you do, so...

01:15:38.000 Oh, man.

01:15:39.000 We're having too much fun.

01:15:39.000 Anyway, we'll do this another time.

01:15:41.000 All right, man.

01:15:41.000 We'll talk soon.

01:15:42.000 Appreciate it.

01:15:42.000 Thank you, brother.

01:15:42.000 Thanks for being here.

01:15:43.000 It was.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - August 07, 2024

Vivek Levels With Mark Cuban on ESG, DEI, and Kamala | TRUTH Podcast #58

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