After The Builders: On Musk and Thiel

Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Oswald Losch and we've got a special episode today. Kaleidoscope, the podcast network I co-founded, has a new podcast out this week called The Builders with Walter Isaacson. So I wanted to bring on my co-founder Mangesh Hatikada to talk about what motivated the project and then share some clips from the first two episodes.

Interviews with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, two figures we talk about fairly frequently on the podcast and who don't do sit down interviews all that often. Joining us to break the interviews down are two of the foremost journalists and chroniclers of Musk and Thiel. Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg Businessweek columnist and author of The Contrarian, Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs. And Fez Siddiqui, a technology reporter for The Washington Post and author of Hubris Maximus, The Shattering of Elon Musk. Welcome both.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Hey.

Thank you for joining us. Before we get into it, I'd love to hear a little bit from both of you about your reporting on these two figures. Max, maybe let's start with you. Having written the book on Teal, what's your biggest open question about him?

I think the big open question on Teal, Teal has been around the world of tech, you know, from before the time I became a tech journalist, which was around 2005, 2006. But for most of my career, Teal was sort of making all of these long shot bets to create this kind of way out there view of the world, a way out there view of the world on a political dimension as well as a technology dimension. And I think the big open question to me after many of these kind of out there projects have really paid off, Palantir being probably the most notable one, but also Teal had a hand in SpaceX, some of Elon Musk's companies, as well as Facebook. these are now like the biggest and most powerful companies in the world. Teal was also notable

as like an early supporter of Donald Trump as kind of a pioneer of the effort to bring Silicon Valley, you know, closer to the American right wing. It's like all that has happened. And so part of the big question I have is like, what does he want now? I mean, and where is he now, given that he has gone from being this outsider to being in a position of incredible power?

Very interesting question. And Fez, what about you? I mean, you wrote the book on Elon. What's your biggest open question about him?

What does he ultimately want out of this? You know, he's the world's richest person. He controls the world's most valuable automaker. He controls a company that is at the forefront of space exploration, of social media, the dominant platform for political discourse. He is controlling, you know, one aspect of that firm that is heavily focused on artificial intelligence bets.

And yet he's so full of grievance. He is so seemingly still angry, still has that sort of underdog mentality, feels like it's him versus the world. What does he want? And the book seeks to explore that question and also examines the forces that allowed him to accumulate so much power.

I think that's, I mean, we'll get to the interviews, but I think that's something that shines through kind of in both of them, which is that these are two people who basically achieved almost everything beyond their wildest dreams they set out to achieve, and yet still find a way to be motivated by the sense of being an underdog, which is kind of extraordinary. And just, I mean, just to give a little more context on the builders, I started my career as a producer for Charlie Rose and was kind of, grew up with the idea that these kind of, interviews with historical figures in real time could kind of become interesting, like documentary evidence, both for the moment and for the future. And so we approached Walter

and said, you know, you have this sort of extraordinary ability to drive FOMO amongst the people in the world who can have everything else. But sitting with you and being kind of part of the Walter Isaacson, Da Vinci, Einstein, Musk jobs legacy is incredibly compelling. So You know, we think we have a real chance of getting all these people to sit down with you and perhaps do it in a way and in a tone which you don't often hear them speaking in. But Mangesh, I mean, tell us a bit more about the inside baseball and what it was like to actually book these guys. I mean, what it was like to get Elon to do this.

Yeah, I mean, we really wanted to figure out whose imagination... we're going to be living in right and and collecting these thoughts from from the biggest tech geniuses leaders uh influencers of our time and uh we had thought that walter having written the elon book that that that would be an easy ask and and probably an easy get from the start but um we got a lot of no's from him. We had approached him first. Walter approached him.

And it had been sort of the better part of a year. And he'd said no. And so we were moving along with the other interviews. And I really didn't think it was going to happen. And then it's funny because the timing is so strange. My cousin told me, like, let's go to a World Cup game. He had an extra ticket. So I went to this France-Sweden game. And, you know, these moments in sports when like something extraordinary is happening, you feel like you're watching a no-hitter or you feel like someone has a hot hand. And Mbappe gets the ball and he's just like cutting through four people.

And Walter Isaacson calls me. And Walter doesn't call me. He normally texts. And so I put on silence immediately because I'm watching this moment and I'm like, oh, wait, maybe it's something important. And right as Mbappe has cut through all these people, shoots the goal, I look at my phone and it says.

Elon is in.

And so... You know, we got Musk to say yes. We'd set up the cameras, etc. And Walter's sort of twiddling his thumbs. And the interview's supposed to start. And he's not getting on. He's not getting on. And David, one of our colleagues, looks and he realizes, like, Musk's just been tweeting. And that's what gets him away. But then they get on the riverside and they're just so comfortable with one another that that sort of intimacy was really interesting to see. And the way he opened up about Trump and getting carried away and things weren't things that I was expecting him to say.

So we're going to go to some clips for the interview shortly. But first, Max and Fez, what's the context we need to know here? It's been obviously a huge week for Elon, Fez, you're on deadline for good reason, no doubt. But can you just give us the breakdown between the Gibney dock, between Starlink, between the midterms? What's the moment in Musk land?

It's just one of those moments where you feel like there are times when there is, I've described it as quiet or really disquiet in Musk world. And then the complete opposite happens where just everything seems to be happening all at once. You mentioned the four-hour-long documentary that has dropped examining Elon Musk. There was also a great Wall Street Journal scoop on Elon Musk seemingly unilaterally slowing down Starlink, according to the journal, in response to what he saw as Ukrainian offensive use of this technology, which is intended for defensive use, if I'm reading between the lines correctly on Elon. But He sort of argues that there is a system called Starshield that is for those sorts of

military purposes that is in the control of the U.S. government. In any case, the Journal reports that Musk has slowed down Starlink use on the Ukrainian front. Also this week, SpaceX earnings, Tesla earnings, so two major big milestone for SpaceX in that it, you know, turns it turns its first ever profit, at least since going public. Meanwhile, Musk is tweeting up a storm about the midterms and, you know, the potential for him to be investigated after the midterms.

So just a lot going on in his world.

So one that that last point, I think, is very important. You know, this the idea that Musk left politics is funny. You know, a year ago or whatever it was a little over a year ago, You know, Musk gave up his position in the White House and left in this blaze of glory. I don't know if it's glory, maybe infamy, hurling insults. There were mutual recriminations. And within a couple of months, they were right back together. And they are as back together now. I mean, Musk is less central.

You don't see the kind of PDA level affection that maybe we saw during the 2024 campaign. But Musk is, you know, is donating record-breaking sums to the Republicans right now. If somehow Ken Paxton manages to win the seat in Texas and Republicans hold off the Democrats, it will be thanks to Elon Musk, I think. And conversely, if Democrats do well, we're going to spend two years watching them basically rake him over the coals and potentially longer, depending on what happens in 2028. he has made himself a central figure in Republican politics for a very long time.

I mean, all of what you say is true. And it's somewhat surprising that Elon said in the interview on The Builders that he actually regretted some of his involvement in politics. We're going to go there in a second. But first, before they have to ask you both about the roadster. Underwhelmed.

I'm sorry.

But, you know, I think it's, I mean, my understanding is that, um, there wasn't, we didn't really see any new technology here. What we saw was like an awesome kind of like evil Knievel style pitch, but it's, it's weirdly a pitch for a car that does not exist in the sense that you can't buy it. And even if, even, and even if you follow like the Elon Musk timeline, which is like, oh, we're going to start producing it in 2028, you're not going to be able to drive it.

And so what I think it's actually a pitch for, and this gets to a lot of what is happening and what has been happening with Elon Musk in recent years, it's a pitch for the stock. It's like a memification of this guy. And at a certain point, there is Elon Musk, the technologist, and there is Elon Musk, the meme.

And it's become harder and harder to distinguish those two things.

I think that was well said. I mean, it was pretty clear to me what was going to happen when we saw this demo. Like, it's the kind of thing that I watch and, you know, reporters are naturally skeptical and they they know a dog and pony show when they see it. But I see this thing and I'm like, oh, OK, this is going to be a thing. People are going to notice this. It's a flying car. And then it sort of becomes clear as you go frame by frame, like you're kind of like, what am I looking at?

Like when I really inspect the underside of this thing, what What is in that thing? And like, how does it correlate to what a customer might receive a year from now or two years from now? And second, I made this point on a different podcast. It's sort of like this question of, OK, it's a supercar. Also, it maybe flies. It has rockets. Call it a gimmick, whatever it is. Aren't you kind of building the equivalent of like an amphibious car where it's like not a great car, not a great boat? Like, is this really what people people who want a supercar want or people who want a flying car want? And lastly, I'll note, it didn't really register in Tesla earnings. There's an hour long earnings call.

And there just was very little, you know, the only way it did register was it was like the backdrop. It was like the photo that they showed for that call. But it's not like investors and analysts were clamoring for details on this. And Tesla was touting like, you know, record reservations.

It wasn't.

And I was just shocked at how quickly that excitement sort of faded.

I think Elon recently said, a friend of mine, Peter Thiel, once said, the future promised us flying cars, but instead we've got 140 characters. Well, not anymore.

That is what he said. And it was just sort of, you know, I hate to be the person to pour cold water on it, but it didn't definitively answer that question. It didn't put that question to rest.

Yeah, well, you can have more than 140 characters, though. Elon Musk has, in.

Taking over Twitter, he has changed that. So credit where due.

Well, it's an amazingly self-referential post, isn't it, from the owner of X. But let's play the first clip about Elon's mantra, which coming back to this kind of overarching question, whose imagination do you want to live in? Here is Walter asking Elon about what type of AI he thinks humanity should be building.

And if you make it maximally truth-seeking and curious, like you say, I don't quite get it. Why does that make it safer?

Well, um, if you're forcing AI to believe two mutually consistent things, you can, you can make it go insane. Um, and, and an insane AI, I think is not a safe one. Um, then curious, I think is important because, um, a curious AI, I think is going to want to foster humanity to see how we turn out. So like what happens to, uh, to a humanity that is, uh, that, that prospers and is becomes multi-planetary and, uh, I think a curious AI will want to foster humanity. Because a future where there are humans on multiple planets is more interesting than one where there are not any humans on the planets.

So the most interesting outcome is the most likely? Yes.

Well, generally I think that's true for a different reason, which is that if simulation theory is correct, then any simulations that are boring will be truncated. Therefore, the fact that we exist means that we are an interesting simulation. And really, the most important thing is just don't be boring.

This has explained you a bit. You're on a crusade against being boring.

I don't know. I mean, there's odd things that happen in this simulation, especially if you're me. I mean, think about it. If you're me and you're like, should all these things really be happening? I mean, should I really be making spaceships to go to the moon and Mars? Like, what the? That doesn't seem real.

Fez, I'm curious. What do you make of this?

I mean, it was a classic Elon, what should we call that? You know, I don't know, train of thought. It felt sort of like he was answering a question that Isaacson didn't really ask. He just sort of was free associating there at the end. But they are coherent thoughts. unrelated to the question, which is how does this make us safer, right? They end up on this idea that, you know, Isaacson is channeling Elon. He definitely knows the answer to the question that he's asking, like, so the most interesting outcome is the most likely. That's just sort of like a classic Elon perspective. But it doesn't really, I don't know, it sort of felt like a tangent or like free association in the end.

Max?

Yeah, I agree with everything Fez just said, but I do think that Leaving aside the kind of like philosophical, you know, this this this thing he's interested in simulation theory, which comes up all the time. His idea of like not being boring and which I which, you know, he didn't quite articulate it, but he kind of almost did, I think, is like central to to to his rise and to one of the ways that he's made himself like an appealing figure. in people's lives. It's a big source of his power. People talk about Elon Musk, the technologist, but he's an amazing marketer. And that idea of being unafraid.

To be weird or.

Self-referential or kind of go on a slightly like bong hit style free associating, like, what if it's all, what if this is all a dream and somebody else, you know, that is, that's interesting.

And, and it makes him different.

And it's, it's some of that difference is what has allowed him to get this like massive following of people who, who basically hang on his every word.

You know, I, I definitely don't count myself among that number, but I have to say when he asked that rhetorical question, like, should all this stuff really be happening? Should one person be able to do all this? I mean, maybe think a little bit of the title of your book, Fez, you know, Hubris Maximus. But I mean, it is kind of, it is just weird. I mean, we live in weird times.

And I think Elon is very symbolic of that.

Yeah, I mean, I think he has created an environment where, you know, he is uniquely equipped to pursue all of these bets at once. There's an anecdote in the book where, you know, someone pulls him aside and asks him, you know, humanity is going to almost certainly going to progress like beyond where we are now in hundreds or even thousands of years. You know, why go to Mars now? We don't necessarily need to do it right now if we understand that humanity will progress. And according to my reporting, Elon's reaction to that is yes, but I want to be the one to do it. And so he is sort of created this problem for himself that he is obviously very like incredulous over. He's like, how did this end up being the case? How did I end up here? And,

you know, it must be it reminds me of his reaction, I think, to becoming the world's richest person, which was incredulity. But like, OK, back to work.

And it goes back to like the points I think both of you are making about like he really sees himself as this underdog slash warrior. Right. Like he has to be the person who's moving things forward like making these dreams possible. And that plays into like so much of his, his ethos.

It's funny. We put the, put the episode up on YouTube and the, and the most liked comment on YouTube is somebody noticing that he's playing an RPG in the background. So then there's something.

Do we know what he's playing?

Manga, should you figure it out?

We did, but I've forgotten it now.

Let's turn to politics. I mean, I thought the most sort of self-reflective moment was actually about the involvement in politics. Let's play the tape.

You just said something interesting about your year away from XXAI and everything else in government and politics. Do you feel that that was too much of a distraction, that in retrospect it was misbegotten?

I think I, I think I, I had it gone for too long. So, um, you know, I mean, obviously a lot of people will disagree with me about this, but I, I think it's important, it was important to elect, uh, president Trump to sort of, you know, steer things more in the direction of a free market economy. Um, you know, have less bureaucracy ideally. Um, I mean, it was, it was interesting to sort of go around with, uh, president Trump and, you know, on the Marine one and Air Force one and all that sort of stuff. But then what I should have done, I think, was be more in the background.

But was that too seductive in a way?

It was a little bit.

Yeah, you seemed to get a bit too intoxicated by it in a way with the chainsaws and all that.

Yeah, I think that's true. I carried away, basically. Yeah, I mean, so I ended up leaving sometime in May uh.

That was a weird weekend yeah it was uh tell me about.

It no no i can't let's not take up the... Let sleeping dogs lie or whatever, you know. Let's not put a spade down in the backyard type of thing. You never know what you're going to find. But yeah, anyway, the point is I should have gone back and focused on AI a little sooner than I did.

And did you feel like when he gives you a golden key, you're going, did you kind of feel relieved? Like, actually, this has been intoxicating, but I can do more if I go back to my businesses? I mean, what did you feel when you said, oh, man, I'm exiting. Maybe that's not the worst thing.

Well, actually, the thing is I came to the conclusion that there was no way we were going to solve the deficit from within the government.

Impossible.

And he goes on to say the reason it's impossible is because President Trump wants to be liked too much to make the hard decisions. But how do you understand this kind of sense of regret about the involvement with Doge, but also the enormous binge of check writing in the last couple of weeks?

I mean, it feels like a bit of almost like retconning. He wasn't just like organically retconning. He didn't just make a decision to leave in a vacuum. His work was becoming increasingly untenable and unpopular. His relationship with the president was fraying. He ultimately accuses the president of being in the Epstein files. And it's just everything goes down like kind of in flames. I think the most revelatory part of that to me, though, and I'm like kind of shocked that He admitted it like like his intoxication with the pageantry of it all, like being on Marine One.

It's just it's wild to me that, you know, you can be someone so rich and so powerful and still like feel something and like feel some unfulfilled fantasy or whatever it is by being next to the president on a helicopter. I think that that was revelatory to me. But as for his view on. why or how he left.

Think that answer would have been more interesting a year earlier.

He didn't want to put that spade down into the backyard, sadly. I think I would have been quite, I would have wanted to know what he had in mind.

I agree.

There is, I mean, in those questions, I almost felt Walter pushing Elon to a regret Like, like, does Elon really regret it? I can't I don't I don't I can't quite tell in in in what he's saying. I mean, he and I think I think it's because there's a disconnect between the the sort of Elon Musk where he is politically and where a lot of his following is where his like following sees him as like a very effective technologist. not as the primary financer of the far right around the world, not as somebody who was ruthlessly laying off government workers, including parts of the government that were responsible for saving millions of lives in Africa. It was this incredible moment and disorienting moment in which Elon

Musk's brand as this green technologist and also a very effective technologist kind of fell apart. He was ineffective, as Fez is saying, and he was pushing a bunch of policies that vast parts of his you know, of his fan base, you know, profoundly disagree with. And so and so it's like it's very hard to hold those two things in your head. And it's not clear to me that Elon himself quite knows how to square that circle.

He keeps talking about stepping away from politics and then keeps writing these these massive checks.

And I fully expect, you know, if J.D.

Vance is the Republican nominee in twenty twenty eight, which I think is the most likely scenario, that Elon Musk will be a major.

Backer of J.D.

Vance, that he's going to be back on Marine One, possibly, you know, assuming he can't contain himself.

Let's not forget, Tesla was in hell, right? Like they had to have a, you know, there was what, like people throwing, I don't know, Molotovs, whatever, whatever was happening at the Tesla showrooms. And the stock was just a bloodbath. And Trump had to essentially like attempt to prop this thing up or whatever.

By bringing the red Tesla onto the White House lawn.

You may read that more generously as like, I don't know, doing a favor for a friend as inappropriate as that would be given their positions. But yeah, I mean, there was a lot of external pressure that was driving Elon away from government. It wasn't just a matter of like, oh, Like I, I was, you know, too enamored by this and maybe stayed too long. It was like, no, you actually have now undercut your business. As Max points out, like that was driven largely by, you know, these sort of climate advocates or at least people who were sympathetic to the climate movement in California. Like there was just a base for this business that was clearly eroding because of his decisions.

I feel compelled to point out, though, that it worked. I mean, you know, as much as I think there are ways in which, you know, if Tesla were to collapse in a few years, we would look back on the on the dalliance with Trump as as the beginning of that.

But.

It's been really good for Tesla. I mean, like, you know, and for Elon Musk, you know, his his net worth has gone way up. Yes, it's true that Donald Trump got rid of the subsidies that were a big part of Tesla's profit margins. And, you know, this and, you know, as Trump likes to say, you know, got rid of the electric mandate. But that's kind of worked for Tesla in a way because it's caused every other automaker to.

outside of China to like give up on EVs. And it's in a way kind of cleared out a bunch of companies that were starting to, you know, potentially, you know, present a real threat while creating a bunch of policies that have allowed Elon Musk to like reshape this company as an AI play and to kind of like put the car business aside. And like, you know, you look back on this and you say like, what did he get for his $ 300 million? Now it's like probably almost $ 700 million of, political contributions and like his net worth has gone up, you know, threefold or something like that.

I haven't I haven't done the math recently, but, you know, he's a trillionaire. It's it's it's it's worked incredibly well, at least, you know, for now.

So look at the weird dynamics like with Tesla itself, like they yesterday on their earnings, they report they report this like slight demand bump. And why is that happening? Because oil prices are super high because Trump started a war. And it's like, yeah, like there are just these roundabout ways even if there are also direct ways in which there were decisions made that were going to benefit Tesla.

But yeah, there are ways that Elon can look back at this and say like, oh, I have done the right thing despite the cost to everything and everyone around him.

Mangesh?

Oh, I was going to say like, you know, there is something, the intoxication of the chainsaw stuff and all that like was surprising. Also surprising to me was the fact that he says like, I think 75% of America likes me because I'm looking at Twitter and I see in my comments that that's what, and so like, I do think there's this way in which in that moment, it was such a valley versus the SpaceX IPO being such a peak, right? And I do think there is some regret because he was perceived publicly in bad light during that moment, but obviously it's a net win for him.

When we come back, We're going to hear from the builder of builders about everything from AI to the Antichrist.

Stay with us.

Welcome back. From Elon Musk to Peter Thiel. I want to play some clips from that interview. But before we do that, Mangesh, what were some of your favorite behind-the-scenes moments from this one?

I mean, I think In the way that I was a little too optimistic that we'd get Musk, I was completely pessimistic that we'd get Thiel. He'd done that Douthat interview, that pause had gone viral, and, you know.

The pause about whether humanity should. Should continue to exist.

And people are commenting, is it, is this like a computer glitching? Right. But, um, I think one thing you discovered was that, uh, Teal actually has multiple copies of Walter's books.

I did hear that. I did hear that.

And so we thought, Oh.

There's a sliver of a chance. We were talking to people on every continent, trying to figure out like how to, how to coordinate them. And, and, uh, You know, so many of these interviews just fall apart like a day of like all these people talk about how much they love canceling interviews. And you talk to like eight handlers.

You have like security sweeps of the studios. You have like eight bodyguards traveling with various people. And then they decide they just want to go out to coffee with Walter instead of doing an interview. Which wasn't the case in this one, but it was the case in some of the others. And so like, I was just kind of stunned that we got Teal on tape. But I think, you know, both of you, Max and Fez, like know this world better. But I was kind of stunned by how charismatic or a certain type of charisma Teal had in person. And that like the pauses don't really exist They do exist on tape, but they don't exist in person in the same way. And you think about like the Gawker lawsuit or like the Antichrist or like, you know,

the shadowy work he does behind campaigns. And like it is interesting to see that sort of like charisma in person and also why like Zero to One is such an important book to Silicon Valley.

Max, did you get any legal threats for your book?

No, nothing that was, you know, nothing that's, you know, nothing of significance. And I always feel compelled to say, so the book that I published, it's fair, but it's critical. It is not like the Teal fanboy perspective, although that perspective is certainly included in the book. And I approached Teal and attempted to, you know, to secure his participation and And, you know, through the process, he kind of he kind of kept me at arm's length.

He he I met with him.

There was some back and forth and I met with him off the record in a meeting that I described in the book, although didn't quote from. And, you know, ultimately he he declined to to like sit down with me on the record. There's sometimes people will will not speak to you, but but seem interested in seeing the book published.

And towards the end of the process, that was not the vibe that I had.

But I have to say that I was not subjected to intimidation. He basically allowed me to do my job and allowed the book to exist and allowed critical journalism about him to exist, which is very obviously different from the Gawker situation. I always feel compelled to say that because I do think what he did to Gawker You can debate like the ethics of it, but it had a real chilling effect on journalism and the profession of journalism.

And it changed how many, many wealthy people relate to the media. It kind of opened it like moved the Everton window, the Everton window, the Overton window on on on like what is permissible in terms of what you can do in terms of intimidating a journalist. And at the time, Thiel said, no, no, no, that is not my goal. He's all along said he didn't want to do that.

It was a specific instance.

Do you believe that?

Well, I don't know if I believe it, but I do have to say I feel like it's an important fact that in this one case, he didn't, you know what I mean?

Like he lived his values, if those are in fact his values.

Max, I'm not really a Premier League guy, but I think the Everton window is closed and has been closed.

Well, it's better than a Manchester United window, that's for damn sure.

But Max, you did meet him. Were you surprised that he looked you in the eye? Having met some of these other founders and stuff, the way they have a difficulty communicating, I was kind of surprised by that.

Teal is like a I found Teal to be a very interesting subject and kind of like endlessly fascinating because he's he's a guy with with all these contradictions, but also because he's somebody who is not as afraid. Like Elon Musk, that the point you made about 75 percent of America likes Elon Musk wants to be loved. He's got this feeling that I think many people who perform on stage have, which is he gets a real charge from the crowd, and he reads his mentions. If somebody somewhere says something negative about Elon Musk, there's a very good chance that Elon Musk will see it and remember.

And Teal, it's not like he isn't aware of his critics. He's hyper aware of his critics, but.

He's also somebody who is not afraid to have critics and throughout his career has, I think, almost valued it. Like, it's not that he he has this like superhero persona with his fans and a supervillain persona with the people who do not like him. who see him as this kind of inventor of shadowy technologies that, that do surveillance and shadowy right wing stuff. And I would argue that he has cultivated both of those brands. Like being a supervillain is his brand. He kind of likes it, I think.

And I'm not sure if he would ever admit that, but, but, but he has at times and he's talked, talked to people at times. And I think even recently in a public interview somewhere, I can't remember, talked about being seen as being evil is not necessarily the worst thing in the world because it's being seen as capable.

That's organic transmission of content to the world that we love.

I have to say, I saw that clip and I was like, wow, like he's saying this thing that in my book, like if you go and look in the book, it's attributed to somebody, you know, a friend, I forget, but like, it's not, it's not an on the record assessment. And, and like, and, and so just seeing him come out and say it, it was, was staggering, but I definitely think it's true. He understands the power of, of like being reviled or being feared or, or that, that adds its own kind of, um, that's a compliment in a way.

But also everything's chess to him. Right. Like it feels like everything's just like thinking, like thinking steps ahead, which he even says is why he goes silent. Right. Is like he's trying to think about like what is the response and how do I respond to that response?

Right.

Like it is an interesting perspective versus the sort of like racing to have a certain feeling of joy or elation or whatever.

I mean, you say you talked in the interview about how the DMV is bad and evil is better than bad. And in the moment, I was like, well, that's kind of compelling and quite funny and interesting. But then I sort of thought afterwards, but I'm not sure if you can really say that evil is better than bad. I mean, I kind of get what he's driving at, but also that's a little spooky.

Well, I always have this feeling, one of the feelings I've had in kind of consuming every piece of Teal writing and content is that his critique of government has always felt a little bit thin to me. Like, is this a guy who spent a lot of time at the DMV?

Like, I'm not totally sure.

And so, like, he'll often say things about the post office. He'll make comments about how terrible the experience is at the post office or the DMV.

And I sometimes think a lot of.

His critique of dysfunction is more just like, it's like some inconvenient parts about being a rich guy that is actually a lot thinner than many of his fans think.

Feel.

He's constantly complaining about air travel and how a key part of the stagnation theory for Peter Thiel is that we haven't gotten faster planes. And that is an observation that I understand makes sense if your main experience of air travel is the cabin of your own private jet. Whereas if you are a regular person, air travel has gotten so much better in that period. It's a perspective that is informed by a lot of privilege and in a way that I think actually kind of makes the critique, you know, less strong than it could be.

This is how you get USB ports in the seats before you get a transit line to another neighborhood, right? It's like, what do people who are just seeking these sort of luxuries want out of the experience versus what is actually going to improve the experience for everyone. And like, I don't know, it's just such a great point that you just made, Max. Like, why do we take this other than the fact that, you know, Tio holds a tremendous amount of power? You know, it's not necessarily like a serious critique, especially if you're bringing up the DMV as somebody who has not spent a significant amount of time at the DMV recently.

I think it's a good moment to go to our first clip, which is. Walter has this framing of Peter as somebody who invested in Elon and financed Vance, and basically as the kind of meta-concept of the series is the builders, that Thiel is someone who's kind of like a builder of builders. So let's roll that clip.

If you were to back a builder, though, where would you rank having a moral compass?

I rank that... pretty high. I rank that highly. I would say, but let's, you know, I, I, I don't like investing in companies where it's, it's simply a business. There's some transcendent purpose. There's something, you know, very important that you're doing. So, you know, Elon going to Mars is, I don't know exactly where I would rank that on, on sort of a moral good versus evil dimension, but it is transcendent. It is, it's somehow, it's not just a business. It's, we're not just, you know, a stock brokerage where we're making, you know, a few dollars and every time people buy and sell stocks, it's, it's not just the sort of short-term coin operated business. It has this, you know, transcendent sense of purpose. That's what I like.

Yeah, that, I mean, first of all, Teal's talked about this, but he has, uh, He has this problem.

The title of my book is The Contrarian. He's a contrarian.

He has a very hard time just kind of agreeing with the conventional wisdom. This is one of the problems if you're a contrarian. There are certain things where it's hard to be contrarian about a question like, should you have a moral compass? And you could kind of almost hear him... you know, trying to think about how can I give an interesting answer to the question that, because he doesn't want to just say yes, but he did say yes. I, I, in a way, right. He's, he, he gave his own kind of definition of, of like what he would see as morality and purpose in a company.

And I do think, I mean, I think he very much has that, that sense of, of, of, uh, of a you know, worldview that includes things like good and evil and so on. It's just like a very different, very different definitions of what of like what moral superiority would be to most people.

I think just for a final clip, the kind of politics and geopolitics of both of these figures and China is a really kind of important and fascinating thread. And Walter was asking Peter about what he thought about this, you know, the context of whether or not there should be a pause on AI development.

Your old friend, David Sachs, and of course, President Trump are now saying, because of the competition with China, stop talking about pausing AI, even if you think it could be an existential threat. Do you agree with that?

Yes, yes, I broadly agree with that. I would say the challenge that I've been friends with David Sachs for many decades. The thing that makes me less comfortable making those kinds of arguments publicly is that on some level, it's hard when the big companies themselves are telling you to stop and to slow down.

So that's caused you to have some pause because you were not in the pause button camp.

Well, I'm still not in the pause button camp. And I'm saying this on your show that I'm not in the pause button. We need to hit the accelerator as hard as possible.

Well, wait a minute. Let me stop there. Why haven't the past few weeks caused you to be more amenable to a pause button? It's pretty scary, that hugging phase.

You know, I think in some ways you have to develop the AI technology to control the AI technology. So if you assume China will develop things like that, it's more imperative than ever that we stay ahead of them. So if you look at it geopolitically, maybe you can even interpret something like the hugging phase thing as It's so imperative that we not lose the lead and that we get, you know, cyber attack to death.

Walter went on to ask him, well, if there was no China, would you be more amenable to a pause button? To which Thiel replied, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Which gave us a chuckle in the control room. But what I mean, how do you how do you interpret this mix?

So his comment about accelerationism, we should hit the accelerator. Let's like make the AI better. you know, that's very much in line with like his overall worldview, which is that, which I alluded to earlier, which is that tech is not doing as much as it could. And I think that perspective, a lot of technologists share that perspective. And I think if you, even a lot of people in AI share that perspective that, you know, that, you know, like they're not as worried about what this technology could do as what it can't do. I will say that, Thiel is a guy who talks his book and who often has really melded in a seamless and very interesting way his ideology with his business portfolio and saying that

being pro-acceleration and AI is definitely good for business and good for his financial portfolio and that makes sense. I also think it's worth applying the same filter to some of the people who are causing or calling for a pause. Like some of these AI companies, I think, also stand to benefit financially from some of the warnings that they are issuing. So I think it's a somewhat calculated comment.

Just as a casual observer, it just feels like nuclear arms race rhetoric. It's just like, oh yeah, they're building something really powerful. We have to build something equally powerful. Where does it stop? Is there any Is there anything I guess I would have liked to hear, like, you know, whether there was any red line, anything that would get him to maybe endorse the idea of a pause? And if there is not, I think that's quite revelatory.

You know, Teal's been going around the world, essentially saying that anyone who wants to rein in the technology industry is is like a candidate for the antichrist, is that this is such a dangerous ideology that you should think about it in those terms. And look, he's a provocateur, he's somebody who likes, like as I said, he likes to say controversial things and watch people react. I also think that he correctly senses that this is like a reaction to what is a very, very powerful and nascent political movement that is skeptical of tech and technology. And I think Thiel is picking up on something significant in the culture and in our world. And yeah, you can disagree with his reaction to it is like, push that aside,

we need to stamp it dead. Whereas I think it's very reasonable to ask, do these technologies... as Fez is saying, like, where's the line? You know, there's probably a line somewhere, and it's pretty weird not to say there is none. But again, I just think he's reacting to something that is significant. And like, Thiel is very good. He's good at picking up these trends early, and I think that's what we're watching right now.

We're going to roll out on a clip of Peter Thiel talking about the Antichrist.

Let me read you something you once said, because I'm sort of wrestling, and I mean this... Genuinely, with the whole Antichrist thing and what you mean by that. But it ties into this new AI moment we're in, which you said the way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop. The Antichrist wouldn't seize power by creating an AI apocalypse, but by convincing everyone that the apocalypse was coming. Is that what's happening now?

Well, since I said that like a year and a half ago, yeah, I'm tempted to take a victory lap of sorts that you have to at least ask certain questions. And that's what I would want people to do.

But wait, explain to me, though, what you mean by the Antichrist.

Well, it is, I mean, it's a sort of medieval biblical concept of sort of a tyrant who will somehow rule the entire world at the end of history. If you think of it in a literary way or, you know, sort of a creative way, you can say, well, you know, how would the Antichrist come to power in different times and different places? And in early modernity, 17th, 18th century, perhaps the Antichrist would use science and technology to build weapons and take over the world. In my telling, in late modernity, we in some ways still think of the Antichrist in 17th century categories. We still think it's like a doctor's strange love. Edward Teller-type person who builds nuclear bombs to conquer the world. But if you think of

it as a political dimension, the way I think the politics work in our society is that the fear of science and technology are far more powerful, and that that's the kind of thing that would really crystallize things. I don't think Greta is the Antichrist. I don't think she's the Antichrist, but I think environmentalism You know, there are real fears.

People pushing back on progress is what you're saying.

Pushing back on progress, but then also pushing for these very, very powerful global political structures. Because something like climate change, it sounds like the sort of thing where you need a global regulatory authority.

So your big feel is some global regulatory authority. Yeah.

And again, there are probably versions of that that could be good. You know, the nuclear ones we ended up with were definitely more good than bad.

Max, last word to you.

Yeah, I mean, I think Thiel's worldview is, we opened the show talking about living in these guys' heads. I mean, Thiel's worldview is that he, him, himself, and people like him, including Elon Musk, should run the world, and that technology should be the imperative through which we structure our society at the expense of democracy.

And I.

I think that is interesting and it's worth discussing. It's worth talking about, especially in societies where we've decided that democracy is a good thing. But I always feel compelled to point out that there is no guarantee that we live inside of the brains of these people. That is what they very much want. And we members of a democratic society get to decide. And the fact that that is so terrifying to them is interesting and is worth exploring and especially in the context of a you know democratic society with an election coming and so on.

On that and that indeed was the mission of this show the builders to to reveal these people in in their own words and so you can listen to it or you get your podcast find it on youtube and uh fez and max really this was a fascinating and very revealing uh conversation analysis and thank you both so much.

For joining us thank you so much thank you.

For Tech Stuff, I'm Azfar Lashin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Mangesh Hattikadur. It was executive produced by me and Julian Nutter for Kaleidoscope and Katrine Norvell for iHeart Podcasts. Jack Inslee mixed this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. And please check out The Builders wherever you get your podcasts.

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