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

so uh I well we'll talk politics for a second we got Mark cubin here by the way this is uh a guy who I actually I've love this guy from afar he he entertains me because I learned something new when I hear him talk about anything other than politics politics maybe but but but I uh I want to get your get your take on just you know as a market participant myself what do you think is going on in the markets right now 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 you're a guy who knows what direction markets are going you're a macro I wish I was a guy who knew what direction markets were going right I just you know I tend to be somewhat conservative um unless it's an industry I really really know but you know today as we're doing this obviously the Market's had a rough day and I think it's a function of I mean it's been a while a whole rough week yeah for sure um rough couple weeks and

so I think when things are working really really well people get the past and so they tend to assume you know the trend is your friend and it'll just keep on going in that direction and you know and that also leads to people taking on a lot more debt than they otherwise would you know things like the the Japan um the JPY um trade um there's just so many ways where people like wait it always goes up right this is just a pullback we saw that in the late 90s with the internet bubble and I'm

not saying it's a bubble now but you're seeing that that now and the minute something happens particularly when there's multiple things that combine to create a problem then you send tend to see a more aggressive pullback when did you sell your first company the tech company my no the first company was a company called micro Solutions I sold it when I was 29 that was in the 80s and then um we started a company called audionet which turned into broadcast.com and that was the start of the whole streaming industry we were the first streaming company

and when was that sold we sold that in 2000 right so this this is this is the the famous one I always liked this as a guy growing up so I got my first job I got into the world of hedge funds in ' 07 so I was a biology guy graduated 07 and I got into biotech investing which I could tell you more about my background actually for people to know this is the first time Mark and I are meeting but uh we texted and and messaged each other a lot but uh but anyway

so in 2000 the reason you were famous in my mind was actually not even the company you sold though that was an interesting story it was the Hedge I put on after yeah so how did that work so you it was it was a stock for stock deal so here's what happened here's so I sold we sold broadcast.com to Yahoo for stock no cash okay and the rules back then were I had to wait six months before I could do anything because I was not in sire and so was the rule or was that a

demand of the acquirer no no that was a law that was the law and so I couldn't do anything for six months and so um as with that in mind I went and shorted this one um index that had Yahoo that was 5% or less but it was everything else is just internet stocks and the idea was that that would get me through my six months after which then I could you know do what I was going to do so I put every penny I had for the most part into shorting this hedge fund and

I figured if the internet stocks cratered within that six months I would be okay right um and if not fortunately then I could put on this color so it didn't create I pretty much lost all my money on that short but now I have um a lot of money in Yahoo stock and so what I did was I sold calls and bought puts I hedged it and I did it over a multi- period of time 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 well it did and I ended up actually making more money from the Hedge than I did from selling Yahoo um to Yahoo and it was called one of the top trades in Wall Street history and and actually the stock for Stock Exchange that's even a taxfree trade basically right it's you do stock for stock but no not when you put calls and puts on it right so do call your stock for stock was uh the stock for stock merger was taxfree but the calls and puts no um yeah effectively it could

have been but it wasn't right I still had yeah to put yeah that was a legendary because everybody was telling because I remember going on CNBC because I told people I put this callar on and Yahoo was still going up in price and they were like don't you feel stupid that y you put this collar on and Yahoo's still going up I'm like now you know I'm sitting on my G5 I don't feel so stupid at all yeah you know pigs get flat pigs get fat Hogs get slaughtered right I mean I had a be

next to my name was more money than I ever dreamed of and so I didn't need to get greedy and and was that the principal source of your wealth that you're sitting on today or have you actually compounded more since no no I've made a lot more since then yeah I mean trade all right what's accounted for that I mean um investing yeah Mavs were a big chunk because that was another multi-billion dollar sale I mean it went up was multiple relative yeah because I bought it for 285 and I sold my chunk for 3.5

you bought your chunk for 285 and sold your chunk for 3.5 yeah give or take yeah yeah yeah okay that's good not not uh not bad did you buy that did you buy that chunk of the year that you did your Yahoo exit to yeah did they have the accelerated depreciation back then for the sports teams um I I don't remember there were depreciation benefits but I don't remember the exact um text got it so 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 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 you know what I'm talking about like where do get that where do you where do you get the sniff test I mean I'm a G my skill my skill set is you know I can take Steve Jobs called said everything's a remix when it comes to technology and that's what I'm good at right so I started off my first company micro Solutions

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 and we were one of the biggest in the country at that time and I sold it to Cy serve which was owned by H&R Block and then I took that and I started trading stocks because I understood how all the networking technology worked and I mean I killed it I just killed it I was making 80 90% a year trading technology stocks because like you said when you understand something

like you understand biotech right and once you understand it you know that most people are trading on technicals On Emotion you know on you know value proposition the fun life running out whatever it is you know whatever it may be right but when you understand what's happening behind that drug and you understand the possibility of it being approved or not approved and then the impact and the the market for it you have an edge and that was the same Edge I had and literally I took our we took my trading um success created a hedge

fund and sold it within nine months for more money and then you sold the hedge fund yeah like in nine months it was like nothing who you sell it who you sell it to um it was some guy who bought it okay got it so it's it's it's actually it's really interesting what you say so I'll just I don't really talk about my business background as much but actually it's kind of interesting today do you know much about the premise of the biotech company I found at Roy vent or not yeah well you go up

you know a big company would have some product or some drug they couldn't um get it approved or they didn't see the market for it they spent a ton of money doing all the preliminary work 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 that we get it through the FDA and all the trials which I can do more cost effectively and then either I'll Market it or I'll license it or sell it to somebody make a

shitload of money and they get a small piece of the action welc to the America way right right exactly and you know what's what's shocking is people people don't like if you're not in it you don't you 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'll usually happen is they'll have a new CEO you got to love it when a new CEO comes in for a giant company cuz it doesn't

fit yeah it doesn't fit it doesn't fit our strategy right and and all the Pharma companies like to do the same things at the same time cuz they used to hate cancer back when I became a biotech investor now they all love oncology but they leave the other area women's health or whatever behind and so Roan's whole thing is okay it's sitting on your shelf all right we'll take it for pennies on the dollar this is back when I was running the company we'll take it for pennies on the dollar but you get a royalty

or or Equity stake in the drug right because you're going to mitigate the risk for you right because you were going to have to spend a lot more money you know the big compan is going to have to spend a lot more money they're they're not not going to be nearly as effective or as efficient or quick to Market as you are you get to you get to be very precise on what you do because it's your only focus it's not going to be 3% of a you know A50 billion dollar portfolio it's everything in

your focus which is you know is business 101 yeah 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 so well I mean my only my only advice would be in biotech and this is is interesting is if you did it with one drug then you are just taking massive risk but my my point is this ARB exists across the board yeah and that's what it right do a whole portfolio right that's heal right now to this day it is remains

this because because it's so regulated and the fact that it's a regulated industry creates a lot of these Market inefficiencies the FDA process for developing drugs is highly regulated it creates a lot of these inefficiencies so the only thing is some of the drugs we developed you know didn't work and that was part of the plan right is you got to develop a portfolio part the plan but it's part of the result part part you plan for the you plan for the reality that some of them aren't going to work a portfolio but if you

actually believe in that inefficiency do it enough times you have more than enough successes exct that'll pay 10 times over for your failure as long as you said what was the term you use as long as you have that Vision to see what's going to work and that Vision comes from doing the homework yeah exactly so so this is this is where I love learning about you so I was a kid at the time when you were sort of but you know just just to AE you a little bit yeah right but uh but I

think it's pretty cool you still have a young Spirit but so so I was graduating 07 but your story around 2000s would be one of these things where I was in biology I didn't really study I didn't come from the world of business when I Ed hedge funds but you read a lot you you sort of study up quickly and I remembered studying up on the hedges you put on it was interesting so so I I would think that you and I are going to have really similar perspectives certainly on private marketing efficiency bureaucracy taking

advantage of capitalism the American way I think we're on the same page there so then I started seeing a couple 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 um let's just say the stakeholder capitalism side of the business debate right the the call it for lack of better description the pro ESG the pro diversity this yeah's let's not go right just I always right I always look at it what's best for my business and if it's good for my

that I agree with that agree 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 ESG is one way to categorize it but you know to me as it applies to ESG you have young kids right 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 and to me I believe climate change is real I

believe it's man-made and if that is the case I'm going to be Pro for anything that mitigates that risk because there's nothing more important to me in the value chain right in my risk analysis and dealing with probability then what's going to create the best world for my kids that's so yeah so I'll I'll say word about my own views on climate change 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 so do I believe Global surface temperatures are going up

yes I do do I believe that there are man-made causes that may be playing a role in that it appears plausible that that that could actually be the case however I do not believe that that is anywhere near an existential risk for Humanity and here let's just talk probab okay go ahead so just a couple couple facts you can put probabilities around it but but if you look at the hard hard realities are eight times as many people die of cold temperatures today rather than warm ones 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 okay and the right answer to all of the temperature related deaths cold or hot is more abundant and plentiful access to energy which requires fossil fuels so for that reason what's that what if you're wrong what if you're wrong there's what's what's because we don't know nobody knows for certain right you can model all I can engage with that I can engage with that right because I think that's a legitimate even if there's a 1% chance you're wrong how

do you know my only answer to that is you could be wrong in both directions right of course you can of course but in my case in my case it costs money in your case your kids my kids could be french fries and their kids could have no chance so so so that so that debate's going to go on for a really long time and I'm super interested in that I've got you know got a book coming out later this year evaluating all of the different angles on this for part of that the part I'm

interested in though for the business Point okay 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 would that not make your business less competitive relative to Chinese peers well depends none of them by the way give it give give the first care about climate change yeah not necessarily I I know what you're saying though right China has a 50-year um Horizon when they make decisions right we have a three-month Horizon when a lot of our businesses make decisions 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 and even if there's a 99% chance I'm wrong which I think it's far greater that I'm right so that's where we disagree but even if I'm if I'm wrong it costs money right and money is valuable don't get me wrong I've been broke as much as I've been Rich maybe not as much but I've been broke a lot right but you know and for my kids that's everything and their kids and

their potential kids right and it's just not worth the risk 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 and in China in India and all these other countries the pollution just runs rampant and So my answer to that is first you have to accept the fact that it's a risk right a greater than zero Pro probability that man-made climate change could really have a catastrophic impact on the world and if you believe that and you start working in that

direction then if you're a geek like I am and you 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 you know Net Zero or making investments in carbon capture 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 see look I think the what if you're wrong framing is

a good question to ask in all directions 360 de because but it's not a money question right because it's not a money question it's it's even look even if this is let's just say man climate change is not man-made right it's not man-made and temperatures because we're just in this cycle for whatever reason God cycle says if the average temperature in Minnesota in 16 years is going to be 120 degrees right one way it's happened through history but but here here be my point about the hubris of this right and this something I've joked around

this is I'm offering this more tongue and cheek but as a thought experiment could you imagine a movie a dystopian movie we would make for the future okay maybe maybe we can co-produce prod this where we are 200 years in the future you know I've been nominated movies I've been a producer on has been nominated have been nominated for seven Academy Awards that's is that right I didn't know that so I'm an executive producer on a movie that's coming out in uh in September which is actually about the the challenging issue of child trafficking in

the United States of America I think it's good I'll send you a copy and I would love your feedback before it comes out if you have that kind of experience but I'm not serious about making the next one I'm talking about but I could be persuaded 200 years from now we are churning up coal plants that we have shut down because we're facing a looming Ice Age 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 look them up which remember I

I was aive back that was back when you broke that was back when you right definitely broke I'm just yeah longer longer Rich than broke but the reality is that was actually the concern of the climate scientist as recently as 40 to 50 years ago so the huist think now because we're going to restrict carbon diox you know one thing that you but I think we not just on the temperature but on the effects for Humanity or how many people I think we can of energy access in the meantime if we go back to the

70s we can agree that the number one technological tool was an IBM 360 right which is not as powerful as your phone is today that just the technological advances we've made in Computing power in connect in connecting computing power together to um in cloud computing in AI there's so many tools that are available today you can't be shocked when they were wrong back then and those tools only continue to improve 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 right right um and so the same thing applies to climate change so while it's great to say you can go back 50 years say the predictions overpopulation we're going to freeze of course there were a lot of insane Pop um predictions back then they bur but they were saying but for carbon dioxide emissions they recognize carbon dioxide emiss fine that's fine it's fine so you create awareness of issues and that's the beauty of Technology hopefully we get smarter and smarter and smarter and the tools become better and that and where we are

today is where we're at and what I can tell you from my own Investments looking and working with guys like Chris Saka to say okay this could really us all up you have kids I have kids the VEC has kids what can we invest in so that in the event it truly is manmade 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 and maybe some of those tools end up only being capable to the point like we have

to keep you know the temperature below this certain number right you just don't know what the parameters are going to be so you got to try to improve them all one area of common ground is because you use the word polluting I think clean air and clean water is a totally separate issue which unambiguously defended Yeah clean Yeah clean energy is a good thing right you can argue about clean air and clean water right so clean the air you Brea and the water you drink right that 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 Okay but but so the climate issue we we just touched on there what about the diversity issue right this is the one this is where and yeah because because you and I we were for people 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 which actually is interesting I find you could actually have better conversations there than somehow it doesn't work that way on

right because you're not performing for millions of people right yeah but also just the nature of of like even the format I don't know that's something I got to think about because modern social media is not conducive to conversation right but I I I think productive disc but anyway we had change all right so let me let me give you without using the word Dei CU it's just so tired it's you can use Dei that's why I don't I don't like using it because it causes especially for somebody I might disagree I like using it

I got no problem with it even though it pisses people off that's what makes it more fun well let's use di then fine so so let's let's say in the name of Dei right fizer I this example I gave you we started talking about it fizer sets a Target and call a quota called a Target F fer sets a Target but is is a very precise numerical Target now and this not picking on one company well it's it's percentage it was a percentage right they're they're in they're in an industry that I know well but

this is representative I know that IND right so it's an industry we both know well we're picking this example but this is not unique to fiser healthcare true across WEA industry IBM has done it others have done it right right something to the effect of and and you people can look up the exact what it is but but the punchline is 32% or so was the number for minorities in certain Cor corate vice president levels are above I get it approximately right look up exactly what the details but suppose it's 32% in vice president level

corporate executives are above by a certain year in the future that's a corporate Target that they have set 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 where absolutely not yeah and I know you disagree right so so give me give me your view sure so targets are one thing right they're not a quota if it was a quota you would be able to let me take a step back there are these things called EEOC reports right right where equal

employment opportunity commission right where they actually have to disclose the numbers for the those vice president positions by male female white black Asian other races and biracial right and so they have to disclose them and not all companies do they have to report it they don't have to disclose not all companies do but fiser does and when you go and actually look at the numbers on the E EOC report they're nowhere close to those targets 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 and that's well you just said it's accurate it's fact so why bother to specify that Target or goal in the first place because your point is they're not even meeting it and you're right about that in many companies me just me when there when you say they're not meeting it that's just confirmation that it's not a quota because a lot of people will take that number and project that as a quota why would they do it it's a quot but they never meet it none of the companies ever

what's the purpose setting that goal on the Bas gender in the first place Mark for 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 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% same thing right companies good companies look at their employees as capital right as intellectual capital and

where you want to have a better portfolio outcome for your intellectual Capital there's certain things that you want to see happen one of them is diversity 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 you didn't care where they were where they were located looking for the best employee the most capable employee meets turning over rocks where other people don't look and you probably found some of your best deals by looking where

others don't look and I found some of my best employees by looking where others don't look and why denominate I agree with you so far but why denominate it based on race why make take this top down category that inh and I'll tell you why it gets under my skin is it I think it causes us to be more divided when we see each other on the Bas of our skin yeah I'm okay so so let's go to your point right let's go to your question let's just say I'm looking at a drug Roy um

company Roy how did you pronounce your company Roy was was my first company Roan right so I have royan and I recognize that for cancer drugs they're all ignoring them everybody's ignoring cancer so I'm going to set a target for cancer drugs because I know everybody else isn't looking there they're missing it and so I'm goingon to go where these Cancer drugs are being made where they're not making enough an investment in them and and I'm I'm gon to go to focus not necessarily Focus there but I'm gonna extend my my ARB breach or my

look to include those cancer drugs from companies I think don't do a good job of um figuring geing out the value in that truck that is what D and diversity is it's saying look there's a lot of women black Asian whatever it may be people that I think are not being recruited that there are a lot of people who may not have the best test scores from the best um school but they may have a lot of soft skills from their experiences and I'm gonna go out I'm gon to find what's the E okay let

me finish forward yep yep we'll play forward okay so I'll get it to the E right I'm GNA go and find the best possible candidates that I can and they're going to compete with everybody else just like when you at at Roy vent you compete with your cancer drugs have to compete and potential return for the non-cancer drugs right and so in my diversity when I go out and I look at this I'm going to say this person this woman who African-American woman who was from this small school that I've never recruited at she's brilliant

and when I compare her to other people that I might hire she's better now this other one this other person African-American I another small school I typically don't recruit at they may not be good enough I'm not going to hire them just because they're black from a small school that nobody else recruited at they have to qualify so then when I hire this this African-American woman from this small school because she has amazing soft skills maybe not the best um test scor that's where Equity comes in right Equity means giving putting people in a position

to succeed giving them the tools that they need so she might have soft skills that to I I invest in this company called Scout right scout.com and all they do is they have people play these games and when you play the game and thousands and thousands and thousands of people have played the game it helps you to it it does based off the results in the past you take they'll compare them to other successful people in other um vertical areas right programming bio and they'll look for um similarities 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 matches up perfectly to our best programmers so we're going to take a chance on that person 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 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 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 if they don't they'll get a chance or two like every other employee they'll get you know a report from HR saying here's what you got to do if you're not doing well and you still have to compete and you still have to do well so here's my own just view on you know getting to the best answers on anything right 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 and if it fits you keep it and if it doesn't you put it back on the rack you iterate yeah you iterate itate I'm appreciating I appreciate a lot of you know what you laid out I think it's it's a it's an interesting perspective I'm I'm doing my best to try it on I'll I'll tell you why for me it feels like it doesn't fit okay sure is when I look at the results now here's where you

can measure the results I actually give you a couple examples so so give you a couple examples in response one is what 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 so I know you're talking about it from the level of two different worlds two different worlds you do have different views then you do have different views yeah yeah look I think

when you I've said this the number of kids who are like Asian kids who can't get into University because they got a 1600 on their good at sports good at musical instruments and can't get to the end their even their safety school that is a direct product of a lot of the targets even not hard quotas but soft targets that these universities have academics are different because the goal is different all right so so we're on the same page so we're already on the same page there all right so un so you're agreeing with me

that Dei so first of all let's make sure we're on the same page you're agreeing with me that Dei is good for business no I'm not agreeing with you there I'm note I hear any I didn't hear any well because I was going to go to the universities but it sounds like we agree on the universities but let me let me yeah let me look if it were up to me universities have too much overhand so I think here's what I would say on your definition of Dei and the way you define it which I

believe is quite different and far more sympathy pathetic to me at least than the accounts that you might hear from other proponents of capital D capital e capital I but on your telling of it my push back would not be that I disagree with a lot of what you said but that it then makes Dei redundant okay because if you're running a business well let's just go back to that soulle metric that you evaluated in the first place which is maximizing your return on Equity if that's your actual metric that matters there are a million

different targets that need to roll up into that of course and mutually exclusive of course and it's different for different companies right so so my view is it's got to fall out of the mission it's got to be Mission driven by the company so every company course it is yeah so course it if I may if I may right so when you yeah just just just to make sure we get the view on the table because it's it's not the classical disagreement it's just a slightly different type of disagreement so let's say your company has

a mission okay I'll give you a good example actually this would be very personal to me let's say your mission is that you're a steakhouse okay and you want to serve your Steakhouse chain and you want to serve good high quality steak to your customers like any business you're going to need different types of diversity to make your business successful there's certain types of diversity you want certain types of diversity you don't want the kinds of diversity you want you might want people who are good weight staff you might want people who are good at

the cash register you might have a good managers a good Chef okay even the kind of diversity you want I would add a lot of diversity to the ranks of a steakhouse I'll tell you why cuz I'm a vegetarian I'm a vegetarian on principle it's a part of my religious upbringing but pesc I'm pesc so I don't believe in killing animals for culinary pleasure it just it just happens to be a family belief of M and and that I've raised in and that I raised my kids in as well I respect the right of the

steakhouse to go pursue its own mission I don't think the government should be stopping them from doing it 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 so every business has to ask itself what kind of so wait wait wait wait so you're saying because you're vegetarian how would they add you to the how would you want would add so my my point is I would add diversity where intellectual diversity diversity of thought to a

steakhouse right but I wouldn't be a good employee because I'm not aligned with the mission come on that's that's come on come on the point I'm making not diversity different types of businesses need different types of diversity that's the whole thing 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 people who have experience in Humanities or math they do and they already do by focusing on return on Equity instead of focusing on

actual D capital D they go hand in hand they go hand in hand because that CEO if they can't hit their Equity goals right their their Ro um Roe goals they're getting fired right they're gone that's what it comes down to the Roe goals the return on Equity goal which means there's a million factors you got to cover why do you want one blanket one blanket category of one blanket strategy it's the it's the same race and gender race and gender is what it always comes down to or sexuality out too those when people are

talking about divers so I'll give you a good example Mark so your business you sold your business in Yahoo they're listed on the NASDAQ right NASDAQ or they were back on yah so so NASDAQ in 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 now when proposing that rule the SEC which I know is one of your favorite government agencies but the SEC has to approve that CU nasdaq's in exchange all right that means they require what they call notice

and comment from the public so people have to provide comment on the rules so they get some suggestions they say hey you're asking companies to report their diversity on Race gender and sexual orientation how about we add a couple of other metrics to the list veteran status disability status I don't remember if they said political beliefs or not but veteran status and disability status are on there and supposed political beliefs are also on the list here's what NASDAQ came back and said 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 so what does that say it says that every company should be evaluating for itself what kind of diversity matters for and you just told me an example that they did you gave an example of where they did which is right which is what do you mean you said you said NASDAQ NASDAQ wanted to to have ESG type parameters any company that lists on it for any company that lists on NASDAQ they say you have to tell us race gender and sexual NASDAQ said that right

companies that are listed and traded on NAS so NASDAQ is a company it's a public company now but it has its own CEO it has its own board of directors so they made the determination that it would be in the best interest of their business right they went to the SEC to get comments correct the secc came back and expanded those the NASDAQ said that works counter to what our goal is so so but this is not for Nasdaq as a business this is nasdaq's listing standards for any company that's trading on the NASDAQ right

but it's there a business who gets to determine NASDAQ competes with the New York Stock Exchange NASDAQ competes but the point is it was actually of course they compete with a different exchange so people go to the New York Stock Exchange or a new exchange that would form or no exchange yeah 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 you have how many companies list on the NASDAQ thousand companies whatever it is hundreds of companies

there's only like 5,000 total public companies now and that's a problem actually we do make it a lot harder to be a public company let's say hundreds of companies on the NASDAQ right let's say hundreds of companies in couple thousand yeah so in that case why would for those several let's say couple thousand companies on the NASDAQ why would it be the case that only those three parameters of capital D diversity are interesting race gender and sexual orientation for all 2,000 companies 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 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 it's also about accomplishing some other social objective that has nothing to do with the business and maybe it's a good social objective but it's still you got to admit you're contradicting yourself you're contradicting yourself so much of this you are because nasda 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 com exchanges overseas and not listing at all just you know just being over the- counter right they in their own wisdom for better or worse like every other CEO and board of director 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 that's a fair resp a fair response that's the only respon let's Contin pulling on the string no yeah let's keep pulling on

the string though let's keep pulling the string cuz I cu the where the story ends is it ends with the hand of government that's what so who who then owns these public companies who owns these companies who are the top shareholders of most public companies large asset managers like Black Rock Vanguard index fund managers okay so who are the clients of these index fund managers the largest clients of these index fund managers are none other than the likes of cpers you'll know this right cpers is California's pension fund system New York's pension fund system Etc

so here's what I'm what I'm surmising now is not is not what I'm saying now is not surmising it's not conspiracy there's just hard reality cpers 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 now those large pools of capital you're talking about half a trillion dollars in the case of calipers bigger than that even those are not pure Market actors right those are arms of the government those are

organs of the government so when Black Rock you're saying Black Rock and cper C state government arm of the government right 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 but but regardless of what my point is you've got govern I know that's not your point I just had to throw that in and I'm a big and I'm a big fan of I'm a big fan of going deep on the recent Supreme Court decisions

we may have to do that another day cuz that's like a whole hour discussion but the point is you have government actors that are managing large swats of money that tell these asset managers that are then Bound by those constraints so then when Black Rock votes their shares at each of those public companies so here's a particular example in 2022 they voted in favor of this actually a great example for 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 invest what they want to know Apple's board said this is nonsense okay we it's going to be a waste of our time and money it's going to create litigation risk it's going to restrict our ability to hire for the very best no we the board of directors of Apple don't want to do it nonetheless Black Rock 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 got to reconsider now

do the racial Equity audit to me the idea that that is just a private business making decisions without external influence because black Rock's voting that way in part because their clients like cpers 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 I don't think is actually true because they're being pressured to do it by government actors that's the

point I know you think there's all these ideological perpetrators right I do where they're out there yeah obviously and so but there's there's some other things that have to happen behind all this one the people at Calpers the person in charge has got to get the return or they lose their job right they don't though cpers that's the whole point because they do if they're at at like a hedge fund like the one that you started or the one that I let's just say but cers it's it's it's a that's the whole problem I'll managerial

class you think in the you would think I know yeah I know I know more ideological perpet they can't be fired I mean I want if somebody's not doing a good job I'd love to fire them in the government it doesn't you can't do it which is unfortunate I'm pretty sure that the head of cper there's been turnover there but I don't know for certain yeah okay so let's just put them aside Black Rock obviously they have to perform or Larry fank is going to fire them or you know people are going to pull their

money and that's one two I pretty sure but I'm not positive that cpers doesn't own more than 5% of apple or any company do they cpers does not directly no they invest in Black Ro Vanguard but they so indirectly together Black Rock Vanguard own about 20% of most public companies you know or 15 15 most of the total market cap market cap adjusted yeah but but you could even add other firms like inco that also are played by the same right but I don't think they own more than 5% because all the rules of how

they participate yeah it'll be it'll be single digit percentages for for each of these no but under there's once you go beyond 499999 all the rules change right sure because you you've made so my point is they're small they're they're not so big now they're influential so they have a lot n% in certain cases but but single digit is your point I don't I don't know for sure right but let's just say how that still goes to the heart of how do you value a company right there's a couple ways to value a public company

it could just be supply and demand which means the more the the more demand you create for the stock the price goes up right yeah and then there's the discounted net cash flows of um the net pres value of the discounted net cash flows right which go into it determine the stock price if you do it on Benjamin Graham type style right that's what makes decisions that's what make does I agree with that right but it does look all these variables as much as you want to make these guys as much as you want to

make the so okay so you've got cpers and you've got some other large states state of Texas does it the exact opposite way they put their finger on the scale you know by saying Banks can't do this Banks can't do that so it goes both ways but the realm of the the realm of the world today or this the country today is we're letting states make those decisions and so if you want to take Texas not allowing companies to um invest or not allowing Banks to do to have or whatever right right whatever it is

right it goes both ways it's a lot of discussion this no but let me let me let me the juicy stuff yeah okay so then all of a sudden it still comes down to what's the company's worth what is the company worth right because if Black Rock black rock can talk until they're blue in their face they can make proposals till they're blue in the face but if the company can't perform and reach the the thresholds for performance that they need to what Black Rock say says doesn't matter because big enough to get in big

enough to get out right so while we can point point the gun at them and say oh this is awful what they're doing insane it doesn't matter common ground this are Comm this area of common ground is actually still a a belief in the market to be able to solve a lot of these problems so actually one of the companies I started since my time at Roy vent was a company called strive are you familiar with that or not okay 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 our culture what is this with all these class Comm class you got you rufo dreon like there's this whole ideological group that meets on Sunday right and like it's the Smoke Filled Room you conspiracy theorist Mark no it's like all these people that like went to iy League schools and got trained by former black panthers that now are infiltrating the HR departments and they're all grouped together department just some of these HR

departments we just need to downsize them by about 80% but anyway what 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 so theany Capal i c it was strive which basically says we'll offer the same kinds of index funds that black rock and Vanguard offer but without proxy voting or without shold engagement that favors ESG goals great good whatever maximize value and you know what there's been a from a retail perspective there's been I mean launched less than two

years ago was its first fund 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 so I you get to do that and so does Black Rock as long as we're in a fre country and everyone's playing by the same set of rules without government tipping the scales I'm really happy with that if the government the problem is the government tipping the scales is where it actually bothers me right when you no you're talking States right different

world maybe a year ago we would had a different convers in Canada they're allowed to do that you're they're allowed to do that now you believe the market power I do believe in the market soling problems and so there's there's an area of Common Ground here's where the market doesn't is not allowed to solve the problem though right because even if you're a contractor with the government so even outside the realm of ass management now anybody who's a federal contractor and that's about 20 people think that's a small percentage of the workforce it's about big

number it's a big number it's about 20% of the workforce works for an employer that could be classified as a federal contractor Bound by these rules 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 that's not coming from the market that's coming from the government 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 a you're exactly right there's there are contractors who make choices whether or not they want to work with the government or not my first company we could have gone and we could have worked with the government I chose not to not because we weren't diverse or anything because all the bureau you don't want the government tell you what to do no it's not that there's just too much bureaucracy in too many forms right there's just just that same with the streaming industry we could have done Contracting for them too much

bureaucracy don't think the scales and when you have 20% of the workforce employed by a company then when you say hey the company's just behaving this way cu the Market's telling him to all my point is that's not the full story because you do have the invisible of government contractors the market behind it contractors don't have to do business with the government they don't have to but you're less competitive versus your competitors they're getar contracts you're probably more competitive because you don't have to deal with have the overhead to deal with a bureaucracy but you

also get lower cost of capital with a fat margin because they have less competitors bidding for those contracts and so all I'm saying is okay well that's your choice your choice even speaking as a citizen right the government's not some exogenous agency it's what's actually responsive to us I'm not saying government is off I want the government I don't want the government imposing that I want them to get the lowest cost provider of it without regard is Right a lot of that goes back decades some of it's more recent but a lot of it goes

back decades right Generations right this lot goes 60 yeah so I read the whole book um oh what the hell was it called um I forget where basically it said the Civil Rights Act led to us losing all these rights but what they didn't answer was what's a better way what is a better way because I'm a big believer that we're only as strong as our weakest link as a country that kids the kids that we have if they're not fed if they're not clothed if they don't have shelter if they're not don't have daycare

if they don't have access to decent schools then the whole country will fail at not the whole country will fail but we're going to always struggle to raise up our GDP to raise up you know the quality of life in this country because the outliers make things more difficult and when you're in a country now 330 million people just one two three 5% is a whole lot of people you have to deal with 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 um not just black Americans who you know with a legacy of slavery but immigrants and others who have come over here who have been on right legally and illegally how do you try to change that to lift them up 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 it's going to be a lot more expensive for all

citizens and it's going to create a lot worse issues for all of us if you don't lift up the bottoms so back in the 60s they did what they thought was right they were wrong in a lot of respects but that was the shot they took and we've gotten to where we are today right now we can 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 some for a problem they tried to solve 60 years ago Sol anything and

and this is this is a longer discussion right but 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 discrimination well I think I think it has so this is a this is a this is a deeper question okay and it's important I think it has gotten below the level that it was useful to try to use government tools to solve so there was a time and place right so I'll

give you an analogy because we're both in healthcare right or you're in healthcare now and I Ed be when the body's fighting off a virus okay at a certain point the body needs to mount an immune response to the virus but when that immune response continues long after the virus is mostly cleared right you actually harm the organ itself that's effectively what I see happening in the nation in our fight against discrimination does some level of invidious racial discrimination still exist in this country in multiple different directions it does but our systematic response pretending like

it's still 1960 or 1860 that actually creates more of that same division and so certain point got to ignore it at a certain point we got to let it automatically let the market solve it to borrow your point right don't tell a business what they can or can do or what they must do smart entrepreneurs actually this is just to bring your own point if we got rid of this categories in the Civil Rights Act Right of race gender se you know sexual orientation now included religion national origin and you just say we don't need

that because belie beling in what you do and also what I do is in the power of capitalism that's an opportunity for a different business owner to say hey I get to SM hire all these great people 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 now aren't you talking out of both sides of your mouth right I mean if I may no I'll

tell you exactly why now that's fine um and I don't mind to give and take a yeah we're just having fun and so uh right so first of all you're saying the Civil Rights Act worked I'm saying that I I'm not say because you're saying it got to the point where you just said we've gotten to the point where maybe we got too far yeah whether that was whether that was the right answer the culture was changing any way we could debate but do we actually need it now I think there was a strong let

me finish let finish more persuasive case back then I would say I'll admit that there's more persu that's fine that's fine so now let's go to the medicine example right the thing about medicine it's the only place where you can be an expert where you're right 5% of the time yeah right then you're a great doctor and so when you 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 and on the flip

side you may not know until it's too late if the body hasn't generated enough of IM of of immune response and there's issues there and the same thing applies here it's hard to thread the needle to know exactly where to stop or even if you should stop and so to just on the whole thing that's the problem I have right you can say look let's try to solve a problem how do we get to the point where discrimination doesn't exist fine that's a worthy goal but the answer is not just saying it doesn't exist and

we don't need any of to do I said there is some level of racial discrimination that probably exists contines but you said but at a certain point we should just effectively leave it Market to solve right well at that certain point where is that certain point I don't believe we're at that c you do I don't right that's what makes a market right but the challenge is but when you're saying saying let's just extract government out if you have a better solution yeah that's one thing just open it up to the market because there are

in the workforce 70 77% of the workforce is is white 90 plus percent of Investments is with white people towards white people right 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 and dyamics all I think I think we're actually seeing and this maybe another area of common ground in a certain sense but for different reasons 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 right back when I 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 back then 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 there's no better way to throw kerosene on the final burning embers of racis where do you think where do you think that kerosene is coming from I think it's largely coming from a lot of these maybe even well-intended government policies the idea that you can't be a government contractor unless you're paying by these rules what is change what has changed dramatically over the past five six years over the past five six years I mean you know economically you want to think about a lot of disparity scale social media scale

of social media right 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 right and when they come together isn't that a good I mean I'm not saying I'm just saying Social a lot of things I think are social media wrong just a reality really is a good thing right it brings us together yeah

I just see it as a reality I'm not trying to shut anybody up and I certainly you'll never see me try to cancel somebody I think that's the worse from either side right I've never and would never try to cancel anybody but but right 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 that is my point right it is so evident this increase in hate now I understand the perspective I read rufo's book

right about decentralized support and all that and I understand the perspective that okay if we took the the federal government out of it and we took Dei and the woke ideology out of it and we moved a lot of the problem solving if you will the power to and the decentralized basis to Local School boards Etc it's all going to change which I think is horseshit right because there's just too much hate and the only in my mind even though it's not perfect we have to try we have to just accept the fact that we

are not in a color blind society and being color blind isn't necessarily a good thing we have to respect I respect disagree on that but but I hear your point right because people I you know I made a mistake in one of my companies on the Mavs actually and I used to think that treating people equally meant treating them the same that if there was a woman a man black white orange yellow all the rules everything had to be exactly the same and then I had some people getting harassed because I wasn't paying attention to

how everybody was being treated because saying something to a man versus saying something to a woman can have two different meanings and I didn't know this stuff was going on right I just to I was just treat everybody the same treat them fairly that's just not the way life is you don't want to be you know you want your um vegetarian and um um Family background to be respected right but if there's a lot of people here in this in this country that said red meat and beer right if you don't eat red meat there's

something wrong with you see any I don't really and see to me Mark that country is not the America I know I mean look my view is my you you want to eat red meat go I mean you a free country I know that's you're open fight for your right to but the reality is you're opened but a lot of people aren't so here's what my point Markus I think we're actually weirdly getting a little bit more of an uptick of that precisely because of the obsession no I understand what you're saying right but there's

no Obsession so this see in the UK you did a lot of this yeah I'm seeing all the that's going on I me a lot of this is same reactionary response where you tell people to shut up sit down apologize for who you are you actually create more hatred in response that otherwise would not have existed and that's what I'm worried is happening in this country see what's going on in the UK and we'll see what happens there and a lot of that is social media driven a lot a lot of that is from the

politicians who are pushing those lines saying hey they're taking it from you and it's really geared towards immigration more than anything else it's not so much white or black green or yellow it's immigration Who belongs and who doesn't belong my understanding yeah no I I think that's that's it's it's a different issue it's not about race it's about immigration but yes when you have un hatred we tell people they can't talk about or publicly complain about that it's spills over in ways that actually really harmful one of the reasons I go on Twitter and I

love to fight people right not troll but actually tried to have I know that you were like you were trying to you were you were coming at me hard during my presidential campaign you you roasted me a couple right well right because what I see happening is there there's 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 but there's no you know when they say who like in ruo'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 I've never have in Roy vent did you ever feel woke pressure in your current you ever feel for the first six years of running the company no at in the wake of what happened after BLM and blm's Rise after George Floyd's death actually there was a moment 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 Rus you know public declaration I didn't want to make that declaration and the truth is I did like every biotech CEO feel some pressure to do it that was a unique moment but I 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 diffuse that type of those types of riots and those types of um protests right more people died there was a hyper charg environment when lockdowns across the country right of course it was difficult and that's where leadership

to shine and there was no leadership a few minutes you want you want to change the channel we didn't actually even get to politics but we got to do at least a little bit all right sure got at least a little bit and this is this is too much fun you I'm I just give me one second to make sure I'm good here too because this is actually fun uh let's see here oh man okay I I've got to go I got 10 minutes but we have to continue this we have to continue this all

right I'm I'm having fun with this so because because you don't this is the thing I miss actually in the country you don't get people talking across Lo the silos anymore not 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 I think we need more of that but I've convinced you to change your position right no no you have not but you convinced me you have convinced me but but but you have but you've convinced me

that we actually share more premises in common than I thought right a capitalist exactly we could start there and we have that in common no matter what I'm just a little bit more compassionate than some others yeah but but you know but I think that anyway let's get to politics let's get to politics the only thing is assume the best when you can of somebody who you disagree with to because it may be a compassion for a different thing and assume the best is all I all I'd ask even to some of the folks you're

talking about politics here all right so here's what I find funny okay for years and you consider yourself voting Democrat in recent years or you're Democrat no I'm independent I'm independent and honestly if if there was a nonm when Biden was um the candidate if there was a non- Maga Republic candidate I probably would have voted for that person so and it just maybe to you depends on I I would like to convince you on this other day it depends on how you define Maga right Bing America great I don't think you object to that

in fact I think you believe some of the things presumption that's a presumption that it wasn't great before I'm I'm an American exceptionalist I'm an American exceptionalists too I think we need to make America greater than it has ever been that's actually should be the goal well that's not what they said right make America greater than it has ever been before so so here's the funny thing here's the funny thing in on the politics of this because I know you're on the other side of this you you're supporting K Harris for President right correct okay

I'm supporting Donald Trump for president but here's here's an interesting before before we get into the uh the side side uh tizzy that that'll set political discussion into for years right 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 class behind was intervening in Foreign Wars in places like Iraq that expended our taxpayer money and left the country worse off that was the real concern that people had is the Republican

party was for for the democ for Democrats yeah yeah yeah like they were ideologues right the Republican party idealogues on guns abortion Foreign Wars and leaving the working class behind and again I'm not a Democrat I'm an well now now I know that now you mentioned that right but but we can have the discussion either way so it's not necessarily addressed at you but we're talking about this that's fine no I understand so now you get a candidate and here's the here's the thing that most people don't realize who's actually not an ideologue on certainly

on historical Republican terms at all not an ideologue at all in any sense actually who on abortion is against a federal ban on abortion is a little bit more uh pragmatic you could say is in in in certain other issues on gun control is softer than some Second Amendment Advocates even myself in many cases would would advocate for you have a foreign policy that is against fighting pointless Foreign Wars or intervention a republican is publicly against that old Iraq war and yet now the criticism of that canidate is that oh he's not principled enough right

so from the Democrats well yeah but let's talk about that no no no you're missing mixing the principle that people are talking about it's ethics the man told Mike Pence not to certify the election the man called the Govern uh state of Secretary of State or was it Governor I forget and asked for 11,072 votes the man has stolen from more hardworking American you were against Trump in 2016 though you were against Trump in 2016 right but he was unethical then and he's still unethical and in 20 right that's right but that that's the whole

point I actually started off supporting Donald and then I got to know him better when did you support him like 2015 I was like he's great he's the you know he's not a typical Stepford candidate I thought that was a positive think that's a positive right a business guy pretty practical I got to know not ideological then I a big part of that is I didn't think he had a chance and so I just wanted to kind of you know screw things up in traditional politics that I'm I'm not a fan of okay but supportive

okay that's kind of funny right but um the bigger point is Trump University Trump Soho stole $4 million from a friend of mine that had Sue to get a back Mike Pence you know 40 out of 44 people just take a look at the four years because because each of these are just going to be separate sort of personal attack rabbit holes look at the country in those four years personal attack rabbit holes they're legitimate things that actually happened 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 than they've been four years you know you disagree on that too no because if you look at border car what what was Obama's nickname the deporter in Chief if you look at actual crossings they were lower under Obama and when Obama came in they were higher and he continued to lower them until the last couple months on the economy Obama took a up economy and improved it and Trump inherited that right and actually inflation grew by 25% under Trump over Obama and what was the third one

you get it border and economies where started talking about so we hit we the all-time low on border crossings in about 2019 2020 okay are you sure about that it's actually the chart that Trum was shoot was turning to when he got shot right that was exactly does make it it went up 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 let's just put that off to the side and we'll check that to make sure

that um border W lower under the lowest point was lower than it's ever been the lowest points was lowest than it's ever been yeah okay we'll check but Obama deported a multiple of the number of illegals that Trump deported which you're in favor of by the way are you in favor of deportation I don't yeah I don't have a problem if they're here illegally just do it compassionately don't just stick them in a cage but I have no problem with removing people who are here ille particularly recent you got because you know who knows the

number 10 million 11 million whatever it is but you can't just all of a sudden how you approach it is critical and Trump is not said a word about it yet and he's been talking about it forever but again that's not the core issue you want to talk talk about that is a core issue that econom I get that but you know what the one certainty about the Office of the President of the United States is the complete uncertainty that you have no idea what comes next would you agree with that yes 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 so that they make ethical decisions 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 and those people want to stay and work for them not that they're lawyer you want somebody whose first inclination is not to do

what's in their own best personal interest so can I just say you can't deny that's Donald Trump I I'm I'm reluctant to get into because I'm not a particularly partisan hack type Republican versus Democrat person this has nothing to do with and so I'm I'm also very critical of the Republican party so I'm reluctant to say what I'm about to say but you know like you think when you think about this right you look at someone like Biden over the four years I know it's KL Harris the nominee now but what is your attitude towards

the fact that you talk about self-interest nothing bothers me more than politicians looking after their self when they're in office 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 that's ridiculous that's ridiculous it was it was a mistake yeah but his son we his son was an adult in his 40s right as a parent of I can't control my teenagers you're not going to control an there's good evidence

that he's even he's he's not looking the other way he's going to jail that kid that kid is going to jail on top of possession but on top of that you have you had comr 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 so but let's just say it was completely investigated and we haven't even gotten into the Mueller report right and what they came out with yeah but the M great P

to talk about because that that impeded the first two years of his presidency on the basis the issue yeah but you're talking about Poli part of this look when you're if you I am concerned policies I'm deeply concerned I have to admit concerned I'm not unconcerned about policies right but it's just like a CEO of a company would you hire somebody that has a long history of stealing from people of being unethical you would not and you know is Donald Trump a perfect person no he's not am I a perfect person talk are you a

perfect person you're not but talk who's the actual best stolen money I've never stolen money from anybody either have I right have you ever had a company have no evidence to say that Donald Trump either oh I do for sure ask Barbara corkran right you know she had to sue to get her money back ask anybody from Trump University ask people who um bought condos in Trump Soho ask people from you know um Trump Foundation that gave money there ask people who are giving money today and he's using that money for his legal fees this

isn't like a little discretion this is a habit why I can't support him yeah so look I think I think that's less about politics and more about maybe like a criticism of one man but I no but that's the whole point you we're talking about ethics you would not have you ever told any of your employees to short pay a vendor just to try to save some money either of I right what you think about somebody who does that you know what was crazy to me during the trial see I think a lot of what's

happened is and because you saw this in the New York trial I don't know what your perspective is on the New York trial or how closely you followed that I did I think that trial is fundamentally unjust against Donald okay right do you agree with that do you agree with that I don't no not necessarily I think you're in the position where if you say a prosecutor comes for you right because you're a business guy you can empathize with this right if you're running a company I've had the SEC come out but let's let's say

you get a let's say you have a lawyer's bill that comes in and you class classified as a legal expense all right but part of this was you were paying off hush money to Stormy Daniels and the government's theory of the case is no you should have classified that as a campaign expenditure think about this if you had to classified 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 because you shouldn't use political campaign he did he did he campaign money he used the their the whole government's whole theory is he should have been using the money he used personal money for it so my point is in a lot of these cases going to get him right okay so first of all Hillary Clinton did I wor a lot of this has created Distortion my my guy here is giving us like Signs we gotta I'm going to this magazine interview this is fun if you're down for doing this again and continuing

I would love it hey do you know this is uh this random do you know Reed Hoffman or not barely a couple emails actually actually was interesting getting because he also seems like a guy who more than you more than you I mean I would really disagree with him but he also seems like a smart guy and he's come up a recently soart if you don't if you don't if you happen to know because I've never had any connection with him I I disagree with him on a lot of things but some of his advice

for kamla Harris I thought was pretty interesting I mean if if his advice to her as I was reading publicly because I was fascinated by this is fire Lena Khan and distance yourself from what he calls the trump Biden tariffs I just thought that was it caught my attention let me ask you a question just a hypothetical real so I want to talk to you want you me and him want to have a discussion I'll connect we do this but just have him pop on the equivalent of this no you just you two could talk

you guys he's smart you guys talk but let me ask you a question if you know you've seen what's happened with the border crossings recently right they've dropped dramatically she said she would sign the bill that um the Republicans put together right inflation is declining rapidly she won't have tariffs right so effectively we know about the tariffs actually I want to see see what no I'm pretty sure she won't have tariffs right um depends on which kind of tariff anyways anyways so what I'm what I'm about to say is if she checked all your policy

boxes would you vote for her over Trump well she doesn't check I mean she's dead I'm just saying because she hasn't come out it's only been two weeks hypothetical 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 in my mind that that's exactly why I'm voting for Trump that's exactly voting for Trump I mean again if somebody Trump and I don't agree on 100% of policies I mean I ran for president last year for God's sake

right and and and there are some areas where he and I have have had open discussions where have slight slightly different views and that's great but again let's just say that list of policies you have vot for I will vote for the candidate who I believe is committed to enacting the policies I agree with for the United States is committed to enacting is what I will say but the candidate who I believe is most committed to enacting the policies that I care about and well you know what's number one on the list for me is

dismantling bureaucracy dismantling bureaucracy is so who do I think more if K Harris comes out and says that she's going to fire 75% of federal bureaucrats and shut down agenes but you can't do that she my attention she have my attention you can't do that you can't do that I what you can do is what you can do is use use technology to make the government a lot more efficient so add that in there too to to replace a lot of the government declines in size while improving the amount of impact it has for the

people who need it most they're not mutually exclusive right but you can't there's no legal basis to fire 75% of any department and you can't just that's that mass firings are absolutely in just like a CEO can do even if you do so oh man we're having too much fun anyway we'll fin this another time all right man we'll talk soon apprciate than it was thank you