Valuetainment - May 14, 2026


＂America Was The WORST Place To Live＂ - Binance Founder REVEALS Why He Fled The US


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

179.3713

Word count

2,699

Sentence count

175

Harmful content

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.080 Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.
00:00:04.820 I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community.
00:00:07.960 Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime.
00:00:12.320 I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting.
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00:00:30.000 living there yourself. You feel safe living in UAE, Abu Dhabi. You do. Very safe. When you think
00:00:35.860 about all the things that you can't, you can buy with money. You can go to a restaurant, customer
00:00:42.540 doesn't, you know, the waitress doesn't give you good service. You can buy the restaurant and say,
00:00:45.740 you're no longer here. You have that kind of money. You can, you can go to a sports game.
00:00:49.580 You don't like the team's management. You can make a massive offer the next day and buy an NBA team
00:00:53.280 or an NFL team. But when it comes down to security, living at a place, what, what made you pick
00:00:59.920 UAE out of all the places to live in? 0.79
00:01:02.120 I mean, it is the safest
00:01:03.440 country in the world.
00:01:06.440 You believe that? By far, yeah.
00:01:08.020 Tell me why. If you drop
00:01:09.960 your wallet on the street and it has
00:01:11.900 like, I don't know, $3,000 in there,
00:01:14.240 you come back in a week, you're still there.
00:01:16.680 You'll find it. And people who
00:01:18.000 find it will return it with the cash in there.
00:01:20.400 There's basically
00:01:21.660 zero crime. There's no petty
00:01:23.960 crime, no big crimes, etc.
00:01:26.140 And the fiscal security on the street
00:01:27.820 translates into financial security fintech it's just very well run um and uh and also the
00:01:34.620 leadership of the country is very pro-business uh very very smart very very uh calibrated um
00:01:41.100 extremely um visionary so it's one of the best places to be yeah do you do you think about the
00:01:47.240 importance of like what level of importance do you put on where to raise your family on the the
00:01:53.900 strength of the military of that country in today's turbulent times that we have?
00:01:57.940 Do you say, man, I wish UAE had a stronger military or no?
00:02:01.420 Well, I think I was actually surprised at how strong the military of UAE is.
00:02:05.280 I didn't know until there were missiles flying in and they were intercepting it.
00:02:08.560 I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.
00:02:10.640 And I didn't like, you have to think about it, right?
00:02:12.780 How much do you have to prepare that in advance to be able to intercept that many missiles
00:02:16.780 coming in and takes years and years of preparation?
00:02:19.580 So this foresight there, that's really hard to match.
00:02:23.000 I think UAE does rely very heavily on U.S. support
00:02:26.060 from military equipment technology.
00:02:30.780 They rely on us for that.
00:02:32.180 I think so, yeah.
00:02:33.600 So they're a very strong partner for the U.S.,
00:02:35.960 so I think they do quite well there.
00:02:38.460 But other than that, I think just the countries
00:02:41.960 are very well-governed.
00:02:44.060 If you have sensible leaders, you have smart leaders
00:02:46.540 that are fair and that want the country to grow
00:02:49.660 instead of growing their own pockets,
00:02:50.960 then you have a pretty good country yeah i saw a stat the other day and i wonder how you answered
00:02:55.300 this one in the 70s uh in the s&p 500 it showed that you know 85 to 93 percent of the wealth was
00:03:03.920 tied to tangible assets in 1970 yeah so if somebody was a billionaire and they lived in a
00:03:09.680 state they ran a business they couldn't move to another state or they couldn't move to another
00:03:14.880 country because it's tangible asset wealth that they have today we've gone from 85 yeah 85 to 93
00:03:22.880 percent back in the days to now it's the other way around 92 is an intangible assets patents you know
00:03:30.640 brands you know bitcoin crypto ai all this stuff that they're building moving forward do you think
00:03:37.200 this is going to be a threat to countries that don't know how to handle small business owners
00:03:42.400 or big businesses, that person can say, 0.97
00:03:44.320 great, I'm going to go move in UAE.
00:03:46.300 I'm going to go to Singapore.
00:03:47.200 How do you view that with how much of the wealth today
00:03:50.160 is tangible instead of intangible?
00:03:51.700 I think that's a great point.
00:03:53.060 I think I agree with you 100%,
00:03:55.460 which is right now, if you look at the wealth today,
00:03:59.040 it's IP, it's technology, it's crypto.
00:04:02.120 They have no borders.
00:04:03.820 Even with like IP and technology,
00:04:06.040 there's some country limitations, right?
00:04:07.980 So if you run an IT company, like say AI,
00:04:10.160 you're running in the US or you're running in China,
00:04:12.100 you're still kind of confined to those countries, whereas in blockchain, in our industry, crypto,
00:04:16.980 there's no borders. Your Bitcoin is yours no matter where you are. You fly to a different
00:04:21.380 country, you don't have to even make a transfer. That crypto stays with you, right? And also
00:04:26.340 technology, startups. We've seen a lot of technology companies amassing very high valuations.
00:04:32.020 Those are the big drivers for the economies of countries and the world. They can be based
00:04:38.020 anywhere so and um this is good and bad uh so now countries with favorable regulations with good
00:04:44.700 leadership good regulations good environments want to track this top talents uh and talents are very
00:04:49.960 mobile now right you you get educated in one country you can move to different country very
00:04:53.800 easily um and you learn your skill you know you can also work remotely um for like you know binance
00:05:00.440 has remote work uh 5 000 people working remotely so all of this is possible now so in how many
00:05:06.020 countries to 5,000? I don't really know for sure, but more than 100 countries, I would say.
00:05:10.620 You have 5,000 employees working for Binance. They're all remote. In 100 plus countries,
00:05:15.300 everyone's remote. Pretty much everyone's remote. Wow. So I don't run Binance anymore, but no,
00:05:20.880 this is, the stats is pretty public. You still own 90% of it though. No, actually I'm a large
00:05:26.080 shareholder, but not 90%. So quite a bit less than that. But you still have majority control
00:05:31.500 You're above 50.
00:05:33.800 I'm the single largest shareholder.
00:05:38.540 Majority?
00:05:39.300 Yes.
00:05:39.780 Okay, got it.
00:05:40.500 So even though after all this, which we'll get into,
00:05:43.320 even though all that stuff happened, they said you couldn't be CEO,
00:05:46.380 still as a majority shareholder, you still carry a lot of influence.
00:05:51.400 I think influence, yes.
00:05:52.840 But I don't run the company.
00:05:53.980 I don't give them instructions.
00:05:57.240 But my shareholder rights are intact.
00:05:59.280 So I'm a shareholder.
00:06:00.860 so I get shareholder information.
00:06:02.960 That's pretty wild.
00:06:03.740 So 5,000 employees, 100-plus countries.
00:06:07.680 You're a thinker.
00:06:08.740 When I watch you in interviews and things you say,
00:06:10.800 I've watched you with Peter Schiff debate
00:06:12.720 on the way you brought the kilo of gold.
00:06:14.820 You're like, here, let's split it.
00:06:16.600 You're trying to kind of make the point
00:06:17.980 of the difference between traveling, airport.
00:06:22.100 Why live in UAE? 0.95
00:06:23.760 Why not live in America?
00:06:24.800 Why not, you know, from the outside yourself,
00:06:27.600 because America's always been known
00:06:28.920 as the land of all opportunities,
00:06:29.800 opportunities, you know, the place to be for entrepreneurs, do you as an outsider, you're not
00:06:35.100 an insider, do you view America as the greatest country to live in today, moving forward as an
00:06:42.260 entrepreneur? Okay, I'll give you a very blunt answer. Please. I think since the last one year
00:06:47.940 and a half, I think America is probably back to the best country, one of the best countries to
00:06:52.420 live in. But during the Biden administration, it was one of the worst places to live in, I think.
00:06:58.220 I basically just tried to stay as far away from the U.S. as possible during that time.
00:07:01.900 They were very hostile on crypto.
00:07:03.540 They were very hostile on our industry.
00:07:05.300 So I just wanted to stay as far away as possible.
00:07:08.120 So it was not possible to run a crypto business in America before.
00:07:12.260 I think now it's more possible.
00:07:14.660 So I think in the last year and a half, we're seeing a 180-degree reversal, which is great for the U.S. economy, I think. 1.00
00:07:22.040 Now, would you consider ever coming down here and living here or know you're happy in UAE? 0.99
00:07:25.460 I think right now my life is pretty set up and it's not easy getting U.S. passports, etc.
00:07:32.560 So I'm pretty content where I am.
00:07:36.020 But I think we will definitely want to do more business and invest more in the U.S.
00:07:39.660 So if I'm a friend of yours, I know you do some mentoring as well for some of the founders that you work with.
00:07:45.820 And if I ask you, I say, look, I've got a bunch of different places to live in.
00:07:48.680 In crypto space, should I go build my hub out of America or should I build it outside of America?
00:07:55.040 What advice would you give me?
00:07:56.560 I think today I would say definitely do have a presence in America,
00:08:01.740 but you may want multiple presences
00:08:03.300 because the crypto regulations today are country-specific.
00:08:07.320 U.S. regulations doesn't service the rest of the whole world, actually.
00:08:11.360 I think UAE is actually one of the very few places
00:08:13.980 that offer global crypto licenses for crypto exchanges, right?
00:08:17.960 And that's fairly new as well.
00:08:19.540 So we're still at the early stages of this regulatory frameworks
00:08:24.900 in different countries.
00:08:26.620 And U.S., I think, is progressing extremely well,
00:08:28.900 extremely quickly.
00:08:29.760 I think there was some progress on Clarity Act
00:08:31.580 even last night.
00:08:34.040 And so, but I think, yeah,
00:08:36.080 U.S. is definitely one of the places to be.
00:08:38.040 But I wouldn't say,
00:08:39.980 I always have a global view on business.
00:08:43.120 I wouldn't focus on only one country.
00:08:45.620 I think we're living, as we said before,
00:08:47.840 we're living in a world where the country borders
00:08:49.500 are much fuzzier in terms of technology,
00:08:51.580 in terms of digital assets.
00:08:54.380 So have a global view.
00:08:57.340 We no longer need to do business in one country and then expand to another country and then expand to another country.
00:09:02.980 No, you can do parallel progress.
00:09:06.760 So even if you did get a passport to come down here, you would still choose UAE today?
00:09:11.840 I think today my life is pretty set up in the UAE right now. 1.00
00:09:14.360 I will probably just stay there. 0.66
00:09:15.380 uh yeah i i wonder again the whole point with me is do countries realize what's going to happen to
00:09:23.420 the future of these wealthy entrepreneurs who their assets are intangible that they can no
00:09:30.120 longer bully them with regulation because they got a 200 other countries that would love to have
00:09:34.380 them maybe not all 200 let's just say 100 of them they can go to have a decent life and then 10
00:09:40.220 countries that are very competitive for business say uae singapore some of these countries you can
00:09:44.460 go to i wonder if as bad as it is today we see reports of people leaving california with the
00:09:50.140 whole wealth tax i don't know if you're following that closely or not and we see what they're
00:09:53.660 talking about in new york and a trillion dollars left new york and california during covid california
00:09:58.640 just lost another trillion dollars and their net migration rate report came out that they're even
00:10:03.580 losing more people now and they want to offer this five percent tax billionaire tax on the
00:10:08.680 couple hundred people that i have there i wonder if they're going to realize how horrible of a
00:10:13.780 move this as long-term because you can go anywhere today i wonder if they'll figure that part out
00:10:18.640 what do you think uh well what i hear is a lot of companies moving into taxes in the u.s right i
00:10:23.480 don't know the details but generally at a high level i think high taxes um doesn't work that
00:10:28.420 well um when you can when you impose high taxes or high transaction fees or just generally high cost
00:10:33.680 for doing business a business move away um basically you're you're taxing on a much smaller
00:10:39.240 volume you actually get less net tax i think uh or less net fees or income or revenue higher
00:10:45.940 whatever you call it um the concept is about the same and as you said um the now now there are 200
00:10:51.760 countries they are kind of actually competing for favorable regulations for businesses favorable
00:10:55.960 environments for businesses um so yeah i do think that that uh that place that uh that that that
00:11:03.800 consideration is definitely in play uh so it's not it's not like you know the business won't move
00:11:08.380 then you can just tax the hell out of them.
00:11:10.860 When you increase tax from, I don't know, from 1% to 10%,
00:11:14.140 you might have less tax income.
00:11:18.000 It's not that straightforward.
00:11:19.820 Being close to Iran, what is your opinion on what's going on with Iran?
00:11:24.240 Well, I didn't follow geopolitics that closely before.
00:11:28.020 I'm just like a business guy doing crypto, etc.
00:11:30.240 But after the war started, I'm really not... 0.88
00:11:34.480 I live in a country that was attacked by Iran.
00:11:37.680 UAE did not initiate any attacks.
00:11:40.700 And UAE was the most missile attacks from Iran
00:11:44.040 out of all countries.
00:11:45.560 I think it's just because of the physical proximity
00:11:47.520 because they're just across the water.
00:11:49.720 But even being the most attacked,
00:11:51.760 they didn't retaliate, right?
00:11:53.040 So UAE held back.
00:11:54.280 They probably could, but they didn't.
00:11:56.160 This goes to the wisdom of the country leadership.
00:11:58.740 But living there, seeing missiles flying overhead, 0.62
00:12:01.440 can't make me support Iran. 0.72
00:12:03.880 So yeah, so I'm against all war.
00:12:08.040 And also, based on my limited understanding, 0.99
00:12:10.680 the fact that Iran hit every country in the Gulf 0.57
00:12:13.980 is a bit crazy. 1.00
00:12:15.800 I wish the war would stop soon.
00:12:17.460 I wish people come to their senses.
00:12:21.040 And also, based on what I'm reading,
00:12:23.120 it's just like there's no leadership there.
00:12:25.080 There's no leadership in Iran.
00:12:26.420 It's pretty chaotic.
00:12:28.140 I really wish we can help.
00:12:31.480 Somebody puts order in there
00:12:33.040 and then people can move on to build businesses. 0.91
00:12:36.180 You think it's unified Gulf states, like against Iran?
00:12:41.120 I'm not too sure.
00:12:42.580 I'm not an expert on this topic, but it doesn't seem to be super unified.
00:12:46.160 I think everyone has different opinions, right?
00:12:48.160 We see UAE withdraw from OPEC, which is pretty significant,
00:12:52.780 and also which is pretty strategic.
00:12:55.360 So there are some – I wouldn't say everything is aligned.
00:12:58.460 You have multiple countries, you have multiple personalities,
00:13:00.560 you have multiple people involved.
00:13:02.340 It's a dynamic environment.
00:13:03.620 Again, I'm not an expert on this kind of –
00:13:05.680 No, I ask that because you're also not a regular guy, though.
00:13:09.120 You have a lot of money.
00:13:10.320 You have a lot of influence.
00:13:11.100 You build one of the fastest-growing companies, $2 billion.
00:13:13.400 At the time, it was the fastest.
00:13:15.200 The total amount of money transactions that's been done in Binance, I saw $125 trillion.
00:13:20.360 I think I saw a number like that.
00:13:22.060 So it's not like you founded just a regular company.
00:13:26.220 It's a big company with a lot of influence and compliance.
00:13:29.040 And I know when you're saying not all the Gulf states, UAE, Saudi, Saudi dictates prices for oil.
00:13:34.000 said it's probably not happy that UAE left
00:13:35.840 and Cutter left in 2019.
00:13:37.380 I was just wondering what your opinion would be on that
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