Reid Hoffman on Epstein, Elon Musk, and why AI is NOT a Bubble

25:51but we could set it up as an industrial process with AI and we can be in every language before too long. Right. And this is stuff that it can already do. I mean, maybe because I know we kind of need to transition to other stuff. So maybe this could be like the last section, you know, kind of question about AI. But like, if you look at the spending that's going into these things right now, and, you know, Sam Altman has sort of created this incredible kind of cycle where he will announce and OpenAI will announce these deals with these chip manufacturers or cloud computing companies, their stocks shoot up.

26:22There's a huge amount of debt that gets involved in, you know, building the infrastructure needed to make this technology work. I mean, does this feel sustainable to you? Do you like this current set of AI being so intertwined into the economy that it's a huge percentage of GDP? It's, you know, this, this massive economy fueling process that has so many kind of, you know, load bearing beams built into it. Like what's your sense in the fact that AI has become this thing now that's so expensive and so economically motivated? Well, so I'll translate this a little bit into what I think about is kind of like a framing I have, which is AI bubble versus AI correction.

27:05And I'm not even sure we're going to have a correction, but I'm pretty sure we don't have an AI bubble because the bubble thing tends to be that this investment cycle is ahead of the economy and there is no there there on the other side of it. So it's kind of like the simplistic way of making this argument is NVIDIA invests in companies, companies buy the chips to do training, and then NVIDIA invests in other companies to buy more chips to do training. And that's the cycle of this. The thing is, actually, in fact, we're going to get to where intelligence and compute has this massive scale and always on 24-7 of electricity.

27:40And that is actually, in fact, useful. This is the under capabilities things. It may be some retooling, and it may be that we paid too much premium prices on timing and other kinds of things for this, and you get some correction on pricing, market caps, economic flows, and so forth. So some people may have said, hey, I paid$60 billion for the data center, and it's really worth$30 billion, so it's a$30 billion loss. But by the way, if you started running that data center now, you can actually run it operationally, privately. Just like, for example, the use of these AI models in inference is actually already profitable.

28:14It's the training costs that cause the issues. And so that's the reason why I say, look, the bubble is a nice language, like kind of semi-hysterical, but incorrect, I think. What I think you might get is corrections because you might go, oh, my God, the actual real economic flourishing is at five years, and that's too far from this really massive escalation, and it gets really, really, really expensive, and there's kind of bumpiness in between with an overturn of capital to that. And it gets you pricing corrections, and some companies go out of business, and some things go in bankrupt and get bought out of bankruptcy, or assets get bought for dimes on the dollar.

28:57But I think that doesn't create the kind of reset that bubble collapses do. I think it's just correction. And that's what I think the worst possible outcome is, and not even sure that that is an outcome. Right. You're ruling out a bubble bursting. Yes. Yes. From where we are. You're here first. Yeah. I like to hear it. it's a relief for everybody who has their 401k tied up and everything. But obviously, you know, their pricing changes. But there could be real corrections. I'm not saying what I'm saying. It's not smooth sailing guaranteed from, you know, here, November 26th on. We got him. He said it.

29:33No, he promised. He promised. I think one of the reasons we initiated, like, oh, we need to have you back on the podcast, was a couple of weeks ago, you, I think, came to the defense of Anthropic. You know, Anthropic had sort of said, you know, they're worried about safety. They're like, oh, we're a corporation, but we like care about doing good. You know, we want to make sure this AI thing, it doesn't get out of our control. And I feel like David Sachs, you know, who obviously now represents the Trump administration on AI, has basically said, you know, it's purely cynical. He seems to see it as a totally cynical sort of government capture strategy instead of a sincerely held belief that Anthropic seems to think we should be cautious.

30:21Like, I don't know. It's a big it's a big question, I guess, to you know, that's that's where we were. The newest thing is, you know, the Trump administration trying to say, you know, no state bills. Like, I'm curious as you're at once the AI bull and, you know, you share this sort of, I don't know, democratic sensibility that tech should still be governed. Some, you know, what do you make of an effort to stop state bills on AI? Well, so two things. One is, you know, I think Sachs is showing his own true colors because it was like if it was him in the anthropic thing, that's why he would be doing it.

30:55He would always be insincere. That's literally, I think, what I tweeted something. He doesn't know a sincere belief when he sees it. Yeah. Yeah. So and I think that the you know, I think anyone who has met Dario understands he is nothing but not exactly transparent. Maybe too much so for sometimes his own his own good health. And certainly in the current administration probably doesn't mean him to be that transparent. Yes. And then on the states things, you know, I thought, you know, Gavin Newsom did a very good job of saying, you know, the earlier one, the earlier SB, you know, was 1047 was overly burdensome, but 53 was good.

31:41and the 33 was good because it was like, look, let's actually opt for some transparency, some measurement, some accountability. That's what allows us to learn, have society in the process as we're doing. It's not too burdensome, either large companies or small, doesn't prevent channels of invention and risk-taking, doesn't slow things down in global competition because I think focused on competition with China, which obviously the current administration should be more focused on. They seem to want to sell a lot of chips to China. Now they're begging China to buy soybeans. It's like for, yeah. There's a lot of flip-flopping.

32:27Yeah, you could make this stuff up. Like if it was playing on a television show, you'd think, oh no, it's not believable. I know you want to answer everything in detail. Are you worried about water consumption? Oh.

32:45Ultimately, no. Partially because I think we may get to a point where we're, for example, doing a lot of – we may have to end up using saline water and other kinds of things as ways of doing this. I do think that clean, drinkable, potable water is one of the things we should pay attention to on a global basis. now it's funny i haven't really thought about the water stuff and i need to think about how ai would help with that because one of the mistakes that people frequently make when talking about electricity is they go oh it's going to consume a lot of electricity it's like well actually in fact if you're using intelligence at the scale and depth that intelligence becomes available you can actually make consumption of electricity a lot more efficient and i'm not talking about invention fusion i mean that's the agi i was going to say using the agi to solve all electrical needs.

33:36Not that. You're not saying that. Yeah, not that. It's just grid management. It's appliance management. It's, you know, like all of those kinds of things. Like part of what makes electric cars really work is a lot of battery management through software, right? And so it's like that kind of thing, like adding intelligence to that is a thing that now, it's interesting. I haven't thought about it, and I will after this question, good, very specific question is like, all right, how would you apply AI to be helping with the water issues, right? Because if you could, then whatever growth you have, you have a good solution.

34:09And my instinct is there is a there there, but I don't have a clean answer today. One quick regulation question. You mentioned the California bill rewritten as it is, this way of looking at it is better than the first edition that was a little bit too stringent. But is it going to should it be up to the states state by state? Should we have some federal policy going in? Because, you know, doing business in each different state with different AI regulations seems like it would cause some headaches. Clearly, it's much better for technology to be more going to, you know, kind of call it nationally and globally, you know, so that you don't have all the nuance.

34:52And, you know, state by state, it's like, you know, having, you know, Rhode Island, you know, having its own AI regulatory agency. And, and so I think that's clearly better. Now, the problem, of course, is the current administration, if you kind of listen to them, you know, their, their biggest issue seems to be woke AI, which I don't even think is really an issue when you look at all this stuff. unless you want to look at the Grok AI saying Elon is Superman. Right. More physically capable than... Not a Superman or Mecca Hitler. Yes, exactly. It's all vulgar risks for him. But it's like, no, kind of the issues here are how do we make AI American intelligence?

35:40And it's both startups and scale companies. And part of the reason why, like, you know, if I were administration, I'd be supporting every, you know, kind of frontier model effort, not trying to single out Anthropic for personal political reasons. And so, you know, because you want America to succeed with AI in terms of how it's operating. And so, now that being said, you want it to be federal. But the thing, back to your question, Madeline, is I think that the reason I thought Gavin got to the right answer here was that I think it's fine if states start to say, here's some monitoring regimes. Because if you added up all the monitoring regimes, there might be a few of them that are like strange and weird and lightly burdensome because you're monitoring this other weird thing.

36:31but like monitoring and data and transparency is a good basis for getting a collective understanding about what's actually going on what might happen and what are the places that if you did need more detailed regulation um for example the kinds of things that the anthropic people care about is like cyber attack they've been doing a bunch of work that's been revealed on that recently like you know and cyber security is a really important thing for you know all american citizens, all American industry, all global citizens and industry as well. And, you know, that kind of thing is important to do.

37:03And you go, which one, which things are important here? And I think that's starting with kind of monitoring and transparency and, you know, red team plans are good or is a excellent way to start. And if it ends up being 15 different states with 15 overlapping things on just that, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's not a disaster. A real quick question. A certain California governor's name has now come up a couple of times. Are you supporting him in 2028? Where are you on that? Well, I mean, look, I think Gavin has done a very good job. I mean, the California is, if it was rated as an economy, would be the fourth largest economy in the world.

37:46You know, I think the growth of the economy in the time he's governor is very good. I think he tries to balance kind of a pro-business and pro-technology approach with also society and workers. I mean, I've had lots of different interactions with him when he's trying to figure out things like, you know, how does California continue to lead Navy? But we deal with, you know, the concerns of unions and other folks in terms of doing this. So I think Gavin, if he chooses to be a candidate, would be a strong candidate. You know, I think it's a little early to be calling him. He has a lot of virtues.

38:18Yeah, okay, interesting. I mean, look, being pro-Gavin puts you against a lot of very vocal people in the tech world these days, and sort of the rise of the MAGA right, which was this kind of phenomenon during the 2024 election. And you stuck by— Did you try to make a Trump pilgrimage? Did you consider going to the White House? No. Didn't quite cross your to-do list. Well, actually, the weirdest one—let me tell you the weirdest one, because you guys are going to kick out of this. so um there was this meeting in riad uh very early this year and they some folks in the saudis sent me a note saying hey we'd like you to come and president trump will be coming and it's like look look i would come normally but unfortunately i got prior commitments in london i'm really busy and so i won't be able to make it but i anticipate you guys will have a great event then whatever reason that got lost so the list that they provided to the white house was of the people were coming included me and the White House published that list and then there was a whole new cycle on how I was going to be like so many scandals we can't even keep track you're like if you remember I was a key of wanting to go and and I didn't know what to say because I didn't want to like I was like it was great they were having this event didn't want to diss them so I just like a picture with my chief of staff in London said hard to be yeah well that's the least of it I mean how do you feel right now about the Democrats and and And specifically, you're sticking with them as so many people, friends of yours, kind of jumped to Republicans, to Trump.

39:52I mean, Mark Pincus, who I know you were close with, kind of very vocally took the red pill. I think he did it live on air with All In. His Twitter was a strong signal. I think I muted or blocked. I like him, but it was too long in the, I'm a Democrat, but I hate everything about the Democrats. It's like one thing to be a Republican. It's another to just like endlessly claim to be a Democrat. And anyway, sorry, Reid, I'm answering for you. But Tom, what was the question? Well, I mean, you see what I'm getting at, Reid, here. Like you stuck by the party and, you know, you didn't find reasons to kind of shift your at least allegiances.

40:29Trump, I mean, I'd like your take on his approval ratings, but also just the standing of, you know, tech and Democrats and, you know, how you feel about your decision to kind of remain stalwart. Well, so look, I think you try to make the decisions that are best for the broad range of American people. And, you know, I don't like it's I find it a little uncomfortable when people say, well, because you're a Democrat. And it's like, well, look, I try to make the judgments that I think are best for the American people. And so, for example, let's take, you know, Trump's economy. If we didn't have this massive AI boom, I think we'd be feeling the effects of the tariffs and the stupidity of that much more intensely than we are.

41:10I know. Right. Yeah. And so it's like part of what I was kind of things I was saying to try to get people to pay attention is here is a businessman who lost money running a casino. Right. Like, you know, it's kind of like, yes, we should fix the debt. Fixing the debt requires doing major expenditures. Like killing USAID does not fix the debt. Right. So there's all of these things. Like, for example, yes, we should deal with immigration. A lot of that's borders. Massively, like, increasing the spend on ICE, you know, for political purposes or spending a whole bunch of money deploying National Guard to picking up trash in D.C.

41:55is not good economics. And then you get to like, okay, health and safety and health concerns, not just the cutting of kind of health, you know, kind of care for seniors and everyone else, but also like, you know, RFK and being anti-vaccine. Oh, and like science research cuts and that kind of thing. And science research. It's just like, it's a disaster all over the place. And so that's the reason. It's not really, for me, Democrat-Republican. And, you know, there's a lot of people who are traditional Republicans who, you know, I'm friends with and I've had long talks with. And so when I argue with the folks who are kind of MAGA pilled, you know, usually their arguments are Democrats are as bad or worse, like like behind closed doors.

42:41They'll never say this publicly, of course, because you have to be living in a regime where it's all praise the king, which I think its own deep criticism. Right. Like like, for example, here's one of the nutty things. To be a part of the Trump administration, you have to publicly state that Biden stole the 2020 election. And let's just look at that at face value. So when Trump was president with a Republican Senate in some states with Republican electorate states, sleepy Joe Biden stole the election. But when Biden was president in 2024, he didn't. Right. Right. What? It's like you have to state like the moon is made out of blue cheese.

43:21Yeah, a premise of it is saying the emperor has, you know, the emperor with no clothes has clothes. It's like. And so this is the thing, like the people say, no, no, but the Democrats are always like, no, no, we live in an environment where we're speaking truth and understanding like what is actually in fact best for business? What is in fact best for technology? What is in fact best for the welfare of citizens is in fact the really good thing. And you say, well, you know, the Democrats had woke and speech and like, well, there's some issues there. but the same people who are saying awoken speech like right the issue of freedom of speech and freedom assembly is speaking truth to power now when people are speaking truth of this power like no that's bad right i mean i think one of the hallmarks of this era is like cognitive dissonance and being able to kind of ally yourself with the side while accepting the fact that this person is widely betraying a lot of your most held beliefs and to me the most clear example of that has been with with epstein and the fact that you know he trump came into office under the you know a lot of pressure from his base that this was going to be a huge revelation about, you know, the ties between Epstein and all elites, you know, not just Democrats, but this was a whole conspiracy.

44:23And, you know, you've talked about this, Reid, but it's one that you are wrapped up in as well. I mean, you had a relationship, a professional relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. You've tweeted about this. You have recently called for Trump to release the full Epstein files. I mean, it's such a complicated topic that interweaves so many aspects of how the economy and the, you know, the global systems work. But I mean, explain to us here kind of your stance on Epstein and why you're asking for the full files to be released. So, you know, part of once I realized kind of what the issue was, because it was originally when MIT gave approval, saying it's okay to fundraise and said, look, he, he served his time for his crimes.

45:02And, you know, we believe in reform and rehabilitation and has money. And, you know, it's a good fundraising topic. It was a great universities understand this better than I do. And then as I started like getting into a little bit, I was like, oh wait, there's, there's a lot of issues where the victims don't feel, um, with legitimacy that they've actually gotten, you know, kind of truth and justice in this. And that's basically when I kind of wrapped my, you know, relationship, you know, down to, you know, zero with him. Like, no, like, like didn't meet with him again, et cetera, et cetera. Had you been hearing rumors about him prior to that point?

45:35I mean, was this a suspicious? I didn't actually, it was kind of one of those things where like like you know you googled and it looked very salacious and it was kind of like wow that sounds kind of terrible but looks like he got prosecuted and put in jail and you know um you know uh the idea is he's like a nexus it's like okay you're raising money for mit or like an mit foundation and the idea is like okay he's a nexus for a ton of money we like spend some face time with or like what is the like i think part of why people are fascinated is like they want to actually know like what's how does this guy connect with so many people and like well he was a masterful networker so like for example the thing that i think pissed off elon with me and then started like elon's own relationship with epstein the reason why he made a whole bunch of lies about me on this was i was hosting a dinner in palo alto for a mit media lab researcher and you know um you know the director of the media lab joe edo called me and said do you mind if Jeffrey Epstein comes?

46:34And I said, well, it depends on what MIT thinks. He said, well, I'll check with MIT. And I was like, okay, great. You know, fine. Because I was just literally not paying that much attention. Because the thing that I then later learned that Epstein said, well, I might be able to give a lot more money if you invited me to this dinner. Because he's kind of like going through the network, trying to meet people and so forth. And, you know, I was just like, hey, look, we're just trying to make, like, you know, people who are doing great science research are trying to raise money from them. These are a bunch of people who like, you know, scientist and technology and everything else.

47:04So we'll do that. And I think it, you know, made, you know, Elon angry. So that later he is inventing this fictions of, you know, Reid Hoffman was a client of Jeffrey Epstein's. And it's like, where did which ass did you pull that out of? Right? Because, like, like the only place everything that I've done with Epstein has been public and apologized for now. But I do think it's important to say one thing here. The reason I started speaking up to Tom's original question is because, look, the thing that most matters first and foremost is some justice to the victims. It's super painful, and it's important that it's not just everything else.

47:39And so the reason why after I made the apologies, I was just broadly pretty quiet on it because it was like that was the thing that mattered. And however that played out, it isn't a Bob versus Frank kind of thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it's that kind of thing. Now, obviously, it got heavily politicized. You got Elon inventing lies about me. You got Pam Bondi, you know, saying, well, because of Democratic Senator, you were taking money from the close associate, you know, of Jeffrey Epstein, Reid Hoffman. And it's like, okay, well, you've seen the files, you know, that's lying. Look at the look at the documents that are already out.

48:16Like, there's almost nothing for me in those documents, relative to a lot of other people. So, you know, I don't know if that counts as lying under oath or not. I'm not a legal expert. Just to be clear here, you're saying that your relationship with him came strictly through fundraising for the MIT Foundation. Is it accurate to say, and I don't have the article up in front of me, that you've also, as part of that, went to the island, like you were on Jeffrey's island as part of the fundraising? Yes, because part of what Joey asked me to do is say, hey, Jeffrey said that he's more likely to give money if you would come and visit with me.

48:47I'm like, well, I'm coming to Boston. I'll go through wherever this place is on the way to Boston. right um what was the island like uh like i was there for a night it was like okay there was a courtyard there was a set of boardroom there was like a bunch of guest rooms there was a pool you go to a lot of like like there are a lot of private like you're going to fancy random people's islands like frequently or like how unusual uh well that was the first time i've gone to an island I've gone to a couple since then. That was, again, part of the reason why, like, you know, note to self, Google before going.

49:25Right. Well, part of the challenge with the Epstein thing is, like, you just don't want your name in Epstein. Right. But, like, now Trump and Bondi have, like, shouted your name in Epstein and we're, you know, not the largest podcast in the world. So we're not, like, drawing the link. So I think some of what I'm trying to get at is just, like, I think, do you think there will be, like, an answer to, like, who, like, we talk about Epstein files. Right. And even in prepping for this interview, in some ways, the Epstein files are just like, if your name's in the email and Epstein, you're in the files.

49:55Do you think there will be a list of these are the people in power who did something untoward with Epstein and these are just random people who met him? Or do you think we'll never really have this sort of sorting of where there was really problematic interaction? So I don't know what's in the files. because I don't know what the level of like is it simply all the email communications and all of the plane logs is it that were they running surveillance and that they have a bunch of different information and different things like this right it's unknown I do think that given the degree to which it's created a politicization of it being use used as the basis of lies political persecution attacks because you know the beginning of this year I said look I I anticipate the Trump administration will make up shit and try to attack me because you know i've been a political opponent and here's an example because you go okay you have one person who's the president who is like known epstein for decades parties with him you know we did a whole bunch of stuff with him in new york and you got another person who did a couple fundraising events for mit right and which one is the one that trump is calling for investigation because you're like well what you know there'd be an obvious one based on the raw amount of data pictures and all the rest of the stuff right but but the so political persecution but given that i think that it's that that what they should do justice for the victims and truth for the american people is literally take every single piece of intel that they have about epstein and release it unredacted completely released right yeah including the doj files as well like yeah the ongoing investigation yeah because then you can tell like who's lying and who's not right among other things you know the do you think he was like an intelligence asset or anything like sorry say that do you think he was like part of some intelligence agency or like i feel like you know you're you're you're a sort of master of the universe you know how things work and now you're being tagged with this by the president like you must have like paid whoever could tell you anything like what do we think actually happened here or like or are you able to not get any answers like do you feel like you've gotten compelling answers on what you think was going on um you know i had a handful of interactions with a man um entirely within these academic circles he was actually followed academics a lot went to a lot of academic conferences did a bunch of stuff you know i was talking about like you know uh evolution and selection theory and free energy and all the rest of this stuff and um and so but you know it's obvious that there was something going on because like um like he was always obvious when or obvious well like by conversation three i had with him because he's like oh um you're doing this thing with bitcoin will will you fly over with me and and meet putin to talk about bitcoin I'm like, oh, really?

52:59Interesting. Like, holy shit. Right? Like, you know, like, like, like, I understand that you're trying to say, hey, I could go be part of the movers and shakers. Like, you know, like in no universe. Like there is zero quantum universe of this. Is that one of the emails or that he asked you to go see Putin? Is that out there? I don't know. But that happened. He asked you to go see Putin? He was trying to build network with me. And at that point, this was probably the first trigger I was going, oh, okay, this is not good. I should look at this a little more carefully. Right. I think, you know, and maybe we can close out with this section.

53:41Like the thing that tends to kind of keep the public fascinated and kind of horrified about the situation is that not only does it not seem to go away, but the more information that comes out, the worse it looks for a lot of the people that were in his circle. Someone like Larry Summers was known to be kind of associated with him, but the fact that it got to a point where there were specific emails that came out that showed that he had been talking about the very thing that people thought was going on between, to some degree, between Epstein and the wealthiest, most connected people in this country, it kind of confirmed a lot of that.

54:13And so you have these sort of waves of scandal that have happened with it. Bill Gates, obviously, was implicated with that and either directly or indirectly has to step down from the board of Microsoft. Larry Summers is now basically, you know, a persona non grata, you know, as a public figure. Your hope in kind of con for the three of the files is that just everything can be out there and insinuation and innuendo can just go away. And either you have the emails in which you did things that are exactly what people thought was happening or you didn't. And we can kind of move on from it. That's sort of where you're coming.

54:42yeah i think it's it it then and you're confident there's nothing that will come out that says that you were doing any of these things that larry summers was you know kind of for sure there's well unless someone invents shit um because like i know i was on the other side like like part of you know you guys know this like part of when i realized this was part of when when i went and kind of made a you know very public apology because it was like okay i realized this and i'd already at that point had ramped down you know connection with him right um yeah to like no meetings and all the rest of the stuff under any context and um you know i think he still would drop me an email every so often and say hey can we get on the phone i'd say oh maybe sometime which is right code for never right right um and then you know as it gets politicized into an attack attack me or attack Democrats or anything else.

55:37It's like it's completely invented slander and fiction. Right. And so so do you feel like Elon and Peter Thiel are like playing dirty or like you're you know them like do you I mean they're allowing this or and fueling it and I don't know. So you know it's more from Elon who you know kind of every so often said reads a client of Epstein's And you say, okay, well, do you have any information? Yes. It's like, okay, well, you win the administration for a couple of months. Right, yeah. Zero has come out about this. Another failure of Doge to substantiate Elon. You know, Doge actually should be e-dog, Elon's dog.

56:22But anyway, so the simplest way to tell the world, and look, again, victims first, but the teleworlds like look um all of this slander innuendo political persecution attack i'm innocent of simplest ways let's have it all out right all of it i didn't want to end on this you bought an nft we saw we noted recently isn't it late we were like what is that still going on like a reporter friend of mine sent it to me your tweet and they were like oh reed's been hacked a classic tweet of someone who just got their account taken over by like a crypto whale that's trying to like offload their their nfts uh that was not the case you truly did buy a cyberpunk yes what timing what timing well my timing was good sometimes better be lucky than smart um the um look so part of the thing that i've been i've been thinking about crypto somewhat this year because it's like look there's got to be a good middle path between the what the you know the democratic administration was doing which is kind of this you know extra legal kind of attack unbanking etc etc and the kleptocracy that is kind of running the current administration with all this stuff family crypto companies donate to melania coin yeah yeah yeah and so there's got to be something there is stuff in the middle and i was like okay i think there's gonna be a bunch of ways to actually show things that are positive for society positive for the financial system that work that way that that's what we should be steering towards it's it's it's the general purpose with technology is to is to steer towards how do we shape technology to be great for humanity great for society great for industry and um and so i started thinking about crypto again.

58:13And so I was like, and when I looked at it, I went, okay, I think the crypto punks, you know, are kind of a good intersection for one part of this with kind of art and community and everything else. And so, you know, did some research about, you know, what are the different kinds of, you know, punks and thought, you know, a hoodie would be particularly valuable, you know, for a tech guy. And so did that and then kind of thought, oh, it'd be fun to kind of, I did it a few months ago before I did the tweet. It'd be fun to do a reveal and then maybe do some crypto stuff in next year. Are you making investments in crypto companies?

58:52I'm willing to, but most of my time in the investment side right now is working on the companies that I'm getting going, like Monus AI for curing cancer and all the rest. And so it isn't that I don't. most of the stuff I've done with crypto is through Greylock and with Greylock because of people bringing stuff to me. But it's like, it tends to be along with other people versus the direct stuff that I'm doing in AI. You seem like a guy who could never stop doing deals. What is your, it's only co-founding really? Or why not do deals? I've been doing investing. I just haven't been doing, like the classic investor thing is I meet, you'd meet with dozens of entrepreneurs every week.

59:37And then you'd kind of sort that out. That's kind of a classic, you know, like, you know, one of the phrases that I use to simplify kind of the venture job is your average general partner meets with 600 to 800 companies per year and says yes to zero to two of them, right? That's the classic, you know, GP. And I'm probably more meet with like 150 companies a year, maybe 100. and it's mostly through, you know, kind of the various, the people I work with, Greylock and, you know, Village Global and other places and, you know, will sometimes lead a deal. But most often, like what I've been doing the last couple of years is because I've got these areas that I think, you know, essentially Silicon Valley has a blind spot to, like, you know, how you would do AI and drug discovery.

1:00:30It isn't just create an AGI drug researcher or put everything in silico and do something here that could make a massive difference for society. Then going and getting those companies going has been more of the recent, you know, the days of activity versus the occasional meeting with entrepreneurs. Right. This is Manus, M-A-N-A-S, not Manus, M-A-N-U-S. Which is a Singaporean Chinese company, yes. Yeah, yeah. Does it depend on AI coming up with a novel discovery? Because obviously novelty is open. Oh, ultimately, yes. But the theory is how do we get AI to generate those novel discoveries is essentially what the, as it were, the secret sauce in development is.

1:01:15The$100 billion question. Yes. But it's basically thinking about it's a combination of software and intelligent use of biology. Has it seen novel ideas so far? Well, we've actually discovered some things that we think are interesting. We've got some, even in the early days of developing the technology, there's a few drug filings that we've made because we're like, oh, this could be really good. And that's just in our prototyping work. Okay, this is, we're recording this on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So I feel like I have to do it. It's the most cliche thing ever, but it's a good ending. What are you grateful for?

1:01:56well there's many things i'm grateful for um why don't i do three um so one is this is for all of the global chaos and the turmoil of times we're living in you know with ai this is a time to be alive like you know the kind of significant moments in human history um we are we are we are building it we are watching it we're shaping it two is friends um i think part of what lakes life valuable as friends. I gave a commencement speech in Vanderbilt a few years back on that because I think it's the kind of thing to kind of always pay attention to. And then third is, you know, I kind of tend to call Thanksgiving Friendsgiving because what I try to do is spend time with, like it's of all the holidays, it's the gather people at the table that matter to you and talk about life.

1:02:53Great. Well, Reed, thanks. Thanks for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the podcast. If you're new here, please like and subscribe. It really helps the channel. We're building a YouTube channel. I think you can tell we're investing a lot more in our production and we appreciate your support. And if you want the data, insider takes, real reporting, go to newcomer.co and subscribe to the sub stack as well. Thanks for following along.