Entrepreneur Post

Elon Musk : A government is a monopoly that can’t go bankrupt !

Full Elon Interview. 8th Dec 2020. Wall Street Journal. Visual notes on each of Elon's answers

00:05 Innovation in the USA
01:25 Government role in innovation
04:15 Monopoly Issues
05:45 Biden’s plans for innovation
08:30 Elon Moving to Texas?
11:18 US Companies and Innovation
12:25 MBA Problems
14:55 Product Mindset Learnable?
16:50 Elon’s Biggest Mistakes
18:15 Delegation
20:10 Tesla Capital Raise
21:30 Machines Innovation and AI
22:10 US Transportation
24:15 Social Matters

— Transcript :

00:00
thank you for joining us today to talk
00:02
about the state of innovation
00:04
absolutely thanks for having me elon um
00:07
let’s just start right with uh
00:08
where where john uh john posed the
00:10
question i mean you’ve spoken often in
00:12
your career
00:14
about how important it was for you as a
00:16
young entrepreneur and innovator to come
00:17
to america and you said
00:19
there’s no other country where you could
00:20
have achieved what you’ve achieved today
00:23
definitely when you look at the us today
00:25
the landscape
00:26
[Music]
00:27
would that still apply in 2020 and are
00:29
we
00:30
broadly as a society doing everything we
00:33
should be doing to
00:34
foster that same environment that
00:36
brought you here
00:37
yeah well i think um u.s is still great
00:40
with respect to
00:41
innovation and fostering
00:43
entrepreneurship
00:46
so it’s still great i think we don’t
00:48
want to be complacent and we want to
00:50
say okay how can we make it better over
00:52
time
00:53
and i think we want to be um cautious
00:56
about the the gradual creep of
00:58
regulations and bureaucracy the rules
01:01
and regulations
01:02
uh are immortal um and if we keep making
01:05
more of a year and do not
01:06
uh do something about uh removing them
01:09
then eventually we will be able to do
01:10
nothing
01:11
this is very important and i think not
01:13
well appreciate this is
01:14
the sort of like the the the slow boil
01:17
of the frog
01:18
you know his bug doesn’t jump out
01:20
because gets just slightly hotter each
01:21
year
01:22
um we should be aware of this i think
01:24
particularly at the state level
01:26
yeah well i want to talk about that
01:27
because uh you’ve been running into that
01:29
some in in california but
01:31
let me ask in a broader sense i mean
01:33
you’ve never been
01:34
i mean you’ve been working with
01:35
government you do business with
01:37
government now
01:38
uh you’ve expressed wrong feelings about
01:40
government pro and con
01:42
at different times depending on the
01:44
circumstances but when you think through
01:46
an innovation lens in the broader sense
01:47
what’s the right
01:48
role for government like what is the
01:50
role worship government
01:52
be a player and where should be hands-on
01:54
what’s ideal in your mind
01:57
sure um a lot of the time the best thing
02:00
that government can do is just get out
02:01
of the way
02:02
um and so that i’d say that that’s the
02:05
default um probably the best thing to do
02:09
then um after that would be ensuring
02:11
that uh there are not artificial
02:13
monopolies
02:15
that that um there is
02:18
a federal ground for startups
02:22
and the because what can happen over
02:25
time is they can get regulatory capture
02:27
by large companies
02:28
uh where they influence the regulators
02:30
and the legislators
02:31
uh to favor uh their
02:35
their situation and then you have a
02:37
forest of redwoods and you just can’t
02:39
the the little uh
02:42
little trees can’t grow so we really
02:45
want to have an environment that tends
02:47
to favor
02:48
uh smaller companies and startups um the
02:51
big companies really don’t need the
02:52
support
02:53
um but they will they will generally try
02:55
to uh
02:57
work the system to establish a monopoly
02:59
some kind that
03:00
we we should be wary of that um you know
03:03
in general it’s like i i think we
03:06
we could consider uh changing the
03:09
the way we think of things from say
03:12
capitalism versus communism i apologize
03:14
long answer but i think this is
03:15
kind of um capitalism versus communism
03:19
and think more in terms of feedback
03:20
loops
03:21
uh so is uh is a given organization
03:24
does it give an organization governor or
03:27
or a commercial have good feedback loop
03:29
for the customer um whether it’s the
03:32
people as a whole
03:33
or you know who whoever the customers
03:35
are if you’ve got like
03:36
a duopoly or oligopoly they’re generally
03:39
gonna be have a weak
03:40
uh response to uh their customer um
03:43
and if they’re monopoly they’re going to
03:45
have the weakest response
03:46
to the customer and the reason that that
03:49
government i think
03:50
is often the worst at responding to
03:53
the customers being the people is that
03:55
they’re a monopoly that can’t go
03:57
bankrupt or usually cannot go bankrupt
03:59
so there’s no there’s not really a a
04:01
cleansing process
04:03
for a government short of a catastrophe
04:06
um so i mean if you want to complain
04:09
about the dmv
04:11
what’s the what’s the alternative yeah
04:14
so
04:15
a couple things to unpack here first i
04:17
know you want to when you talk about
04:18
redwoods dominating the
04:20
uh uh the air and smaller companies
04:23
another
04:24
challenge some people will hear that as
04:26
being
04:27
the situation in silicon valley today i
04:29
don’t know so i think that’s what you
04:30
can apply but is that what you see in
04:31
silicon valley today
04:33
well i think this is not a silicon
04:35
valley problem it’s just
04:37
it’s a general uh problem um i mean if
04:39
you look at say
04:41
you know how many how many candy
04:42
companies are there like you know big
04:44
candy is like
04:45
consolidated into like three companies
04:47
or something um and
04:48
they also own all the dog food and the
04:50
baby food so
04:52
it’s like when’s the last time there was
04:53
some good candy uh you know what’s the
04:55
forcing function
04:56
for a new candy bar i haven’t seen one
04:58
in ages
04:59
um so you know we gotta
05:02
watch this like consolidation um that
05:05
uh ends up resulting in lower
05:07
responsiveness to the end customer and
05:10
um
05:11
like i said it’s like you can think of
05:13
like in the limit government is simply
05:15
the largest corporation
05:16
yeah so some people i think it’s a false
05:19
dichotomy
05:20
to look at government and sort of
05:22
industry is
05:23
as separate government is simply a
05:25
corporation in the limit it is the
05:27
ultimate cooperation with the monopoly
05:30
so but then as you get closer to like
05:32
said at monopoly as
05:33
the feedback loop gets weaker and less
05:36
responsive to the customer
05:37
that’s that’s that’s where you have
05:39
something which does not maximize the
05:40
happiness of people
05:42
which should be our objective overall
05:46
we had a couple people last night at
05:48
this event uh who are joining the body
05:50
administration a couple of the
05:51
president-elect senior advisors
05:54
and clearly one of the things heavily on
05:55
their mind is sort of a new
05:57
national industrial policy for want of a
06:00
better term they talked about spending a
06:01
lot more on research and development and
06:04
fostering innovation big government
06:06
spending basically
06:08
um is is that kind of national
06:11
industrial policy a good idea is that a
06:12
good use of government right now in your
06:15
mind
06:15
and if it is where would you focus that
06:17
kind of effort
06:20
well it’s governor’s responsibility to
06:22
establish the rules of the game
06:24
and then to ensure that those rules are
06:26
properly enforced like
06:27
sort of like the the referees on the
06:30
field and you know it’s like it’s just
06:31
like
06:32
um you know football or something then
06:34
you got the rules you got the referees
06:36
you gotta make sure the
06:37
rules the right rules and the referees
06:39
are enforcing the rules i think
06:40
that’s a that’s an important role for
06:42
government uh to ensure that the rules
06:44
are correct
06:44
and that the incentives uh are what we
06:47
actually
06:48
want to be for like i said the long-term
06:51
maximum happiness of people into the
06:53
future um
06:56
where i think government does not do a
06:58
great job is when they want to
06:59
not just be a referee on the field they
07:01
want to be a player on the field
07:02
uh this is not does not end up in a good
07:05
situation picking winners and losers
07:06
that kind of thing
07:08
um i mean effectively gun incentives
07:11
do fake or do favor like you’re gonna
07:14
say like what are the rules of the game
07:15
um
07:16
i don’t know this is obviously an
07:17
imperfect analogy but i i do think it is
07:20
a pretty good one
07:21
um that you you want the government to
07:23
be carefully focused on ensuring the
07:25
rules of the game are what we actually
07:26
want them to be
07:27
that we’re getting rid of all rules this
07:28
is very important which is not occurring
07:31
and that the the rules are enforced such
07:34
that we have
07:34
ethical behavior of companies um
07:39
yeah um now there are times when you
07:42
have an unpriced externality
07:44
such as uh the co2 capacity of the
07:47
oceans and atmosphere
07:48
um so then if that is not priced
07:51
in effectively then you can get behavior
07:54
in industry behavior that does not that
07:57
that we think is
07:58
probably not good for the environment or
08:01
not good for
08:02
the future of the planet um most of the
08:05
time
08:07
provided pricing is correct that you
08:09
will see correct behavior from a
08:11
private industry um so you know that’s
08:15
like one example where if we
08:16
effectively price carbon we’ll see the
08:19
right behavior and then the government
08:20
does not need to try to pick the
08:22
technology winners losers they can
08:23
simply incent the outcome i think it’s
08:24
incredibly important that government
08:26
focus on incenting the outcome
08:28
not the path um you mentioned california
08:31
i have to ask
08:32
um are you you’re in texas right now and
08:36
there’s been speculation and you’ve been
08:37
vocal this year on some of your
08:39
frustration california are you really
08:41
are you relocating is it happening and
08:43
can you talk a little bit about
08:45
uh what’s been troubling you in
08:47
california
08:48
uh so much this year since since you
08:50
mentioned
08:52
sure well first of all uh uh
08:55
tesla and spacex obviously have massive
08:57
operations in california in fact
08:59
it’s worth noting that tesla is the last
09:01
car company still manufacturing cars in
09:03
california
09:04
uh spacex is the large the last
09:06
aerospace company still doing
09:08
significant
09:09
manufacturing california so there used
09:11
to be over a dozen car plants
09:13
in california and california used to be
09:15
the center of aerospace manufacturing
09:17
my companies are the last two left
09:21
i want to emphasis so that’s a very
09:24
important point to make
09:25
um for myself yes i i have moved to
09:29
texas
09:30
um we’ve got the starship development
09:33
here in south texas where i am right now
09:35
we’re hopefully going to
09:36
do a lunch later later today um and then
09:39
we’ve got
09:39
the big uh factory developments
09:43
just outside of austin for texas
09:46
but you made the move really what what
09:48
why why did you why did you go there is
09:49
that
09:50
is that all a personal decision or was
09:51
it it was partly a corporate
09:54
environment decision really for the
09:56
headquarters
09:58
well i mean in my case the two biggest
10:00
things that i’ve got going on right now
10:02
are the starship development in south
10:04
texas which was done
10:06
but those were set in motion like five
10:07
years ago um and then
10:09
the uh the the big new uh
10:14
us factory for tesla which is called
10:17
texas uh just by austin so this is the
10:20
two big projects
10:21
so these necessarily um drive the use of
10:24
my time
10:25
here um yeah and then the other big
10:28
thing
10:28
for tesla right now is the gig of berlin
10:32
so he’s in berlin
10:33
i spent a fair amount of time in berlin
10:35
working on that um
10:37
and um yeah i think
10:40
there’s you know there’s um california
10:43
is great so
10:44
there’s a lot of things that are really
10:45
great about california it’s the biggest
10:47
economy in the country
10:48
most number of people um i do think
10:51
that uh that there’s there is something
10:54
that happens when
10:56
um you know if it’s
10:59
going to sort of sports team analogy
11:01
like if a team has been winning for too
11:03
long
11:03
they they do tend to get a little
11:05
complacent a little entitled and then
11:06
they don’t win the championship anymore
11:09
so california’s been winning for a long
11:10
time um
11:13
and i think they’re taking it for
11:14
granted a little bit yeah
11:17
let’s talk a little more on innovation
11:19
in corporate america in general um
11:21
i mean innovation has always been core
11:23
to who you are it’s how you
11:25
think about your companies and your role
11:27
um
11:29
in the corporate suite in america are
11:31
our companies in general
11:33
uh fostering and developing and
11:35
innovation
11:37
are the leaders in corporate america
11:38
you’ve got a lot of them on this call
11:40
or we do we prioritize innovation as
11:42
much
11:43
as we might uh or need to do you think
11:45
right now
11:47
well i i think this this this innovation
11:49
but then there’s also just
11:51
um our um ceos from corporate america
11:55
focused enough on on product improvement
11:58
i think the answer is no um and i think
12:01
generally
12:02
my advice uh to or my recommendation
12:05
would really be
12:07
spend less time on on finance spend less
12:09
time in conference rooms
12:11
less time on powerpoint and more time
12:14
just trying to make your product as
12:16
amazing as possible
12:18
um and
12:22
from that why why why why is that is
12:24
that because uh
12:25
boards or shareholders are
12:29
too financed and return focused and
12:31
don’t don’t think enough about
12:33
product as being at the heart of of
12:35
value is it because a certain kind of
12:37
the
12:37
skill is cultivated
12:39
[Music]
12:41
why is that why why why why is that a
12:43
problem in the c-speed
12:49
i think there might be too many mbas uh
12:51
running companies
12:53
um that there’s the nba ization of
12:55
america
12:56
which i think is
12:59
maybe not that great um
13:03
that there should be more focus on on
13:06
the product
13:06
the service itself less time on board
13:10
meetings
13:10
less time on on financials the
13:12
financials
13:14
come as a result like you say like
13:16
what’s the point of a company at all
13:19
why even have companies it’s like a
13:21
company’s assembly of people
13:23
uh gathered together to create a product
13:25
or service and deliver that product to
13:26
service
13:27
um and sometimes people lose sight of
13:29
that a company has no value in and of
13:30
itself it only has value to the degree
13:32
that is
13:33
effective allocator of resources to
13:36
create
13:36
goods and services that are of greater
13:39
value than
13:40
the cost of the inputs this thing we
13:41
call profit is uh just
13:43
just should just mean over time that the
13:45
value of the output is
13:46
is worth more than the than the inputs
13:49
and and
13:50
it’s a reflection of the quality of the
13:51
product more than uh
13:53
so so if the product is good presumably
13:55
the profits follow rather than
13:57
profits and yeah sometimes as
14:00
people sort of have backwards and and
14:03
you know if people are getting sort of
14:05
the the incentive structure is coming
14:07
from the financial side of things
14:09
i don’t i just i just honestly would
14:12
recommend
14:13
to to anyone listening uh that
14:16
just spend less time in meeting rooms
14:18
less time on on on
14:20
powerpoint presentations less time in a
14:21
spreadsheet and more time
14:23
on the factory floor more time with
14:25
customers and obviously a lot of people
14:27
out there are already doing that but i
14:28
just like
14:29
i just urge people to say like hey step
14:31
back a second and say
14:33
is your product as awesome as it could
14:35
be probably not
14:37
um what could you do to make it make it
14:38
great um and
14:40
you know it’s it’s a it feel like think
14:43
about innovation like maybe it has to be
14:44
like breakthrough innovation i don’t
14:45
think it necessarily has to be
14:46
breakthrough innovation it’s just like
14:48
like you know just
14:51
make your product better it’s this is
14:53
the thing that really matters
14:54
is that kind of product mindset that we
14:56
kind of describe
14:57
is that learnable is it is it teachable
15:00
or is there is there an innate element
15:03
that somebody has to have
15:05
to really to do it well i mean not
15:07
everybody’s innovating or thinking
15:09
on your scale a lot but but
15:12
you hi you look for innovative people
15:14
when you hire them is it something that
15:16
that is is pretty easy
15:17
easily learnable or is there some
15:19
inequality in the people that uh
15:21
succeed i think it is learnable
15:24
i mean step number one would be try
15:27
and any have you tried and if you have
15:30
you tried hard
15:32
and you haven’t tried hard try hard
15:36
i think it is learnable um
15:39
it’s not some mysterious thing it’s just
15:42
basically just be like
15:43
an absolute perfectionist about the
15:44
product that you make the service that’s
15:46
provided
15:47
um seek negative feedback from all
15:50
quarters
15:51
uh you know from customers from from
15:54
people who aren’t customers like hey
15:56
okay what can we make this how do we
15:57
make this better um
15:59
and you know i think that’s it
16:02
it’s absolutely learnable and and and
16:05
just
16:06
if you find yourself spending a lot of
16:08
time
16:09
in getting presentations and reviewing
16:12
spreadsheets
16:13
you’re barking up the wrong tree
16:16
that’s the that’s the effect not the
16:18
course
16:19
um so just get out there on the factory
16:22
floor
16:23
get out there in the stores talk to
16:25
customers
16:27
think about what what would what would
16:28
you love to have oh and you know
16:30
sometimes i think
16:32
you know and i’ve had this conversation
16:33
that entails a few times where it’s like
16:36
we’re trying to think okay we don’t it’s
16:39
at times like we don’t love this product
16:40
but we think others will love it
16:42
you know that’s not really how it works
16:44
if you don’t love it don’t expect others
16:46
will either
16:50
now you’re in a moment i want to talk
16:51
about your companies in a minute but
16:52
you’re at a moment where both we’re
16:54
particularly tesla and spacex are really
16:56
growing in lots of ways right now
16:58
um and you’ve had plenty of ups and
17:00
downs even at this point but but
17:02
it’s a high point on your own journey in
17:05
this way
17:06
what are the biggest mistakes you’ve
17:07
made that you’ve learned from
17:09
because you talked a little bit about
17:11
being willing to put yourself out there
17:13
fail learn keep growing what we’re
17:16
turning points for you
17:17
that really you you you said wait a
17:19
minute this is wrong or this is the
17:20
wrong move either personally or or for
17:22
the company
17:23
and that that that you learn from that
17:24
have fed to where you are right now
17:28
well if i had to list all the mistakes
17:30
this would be a very long call
17:33
so it’s too too much to even think of
17:35
i’m trying to think like how
17:36
could i classify them in some way
17:39
um
17:44
um
17:46
well i mean some of the things i
17:47
mentioned just before it’s like
17:49
where you know i was recommending that
17:51
people spend less time in a conference
17:52
room
17:53
less time getting presentations and and
17:55
spreadsheets and that like generally
17:56
that’s like when
17:57
when i have spent too much time in a
17:59
conference room that’s generally when
18:00
things have gone awry and when i go and
18:01
spend time on the factory floor
18:03
um or you know really using the
18:08
the cars um thinking about the rockets
18:10
it’s like
18:11
that’s where things have gone gone
18:13
better um but does that does that risk
18:15
some some people would worry that that
18:17
risk sending a message to
18:19
your your teams that you personally have
18:22
to be involved for something to work
18:23
that you can’t delegate or you can’t
18:25
trust them i think that’s one thing that
18:27
makes some
18:28
you know executives reluctant they’re
18:30
trying to find that line between showing
18:32
their personal commitment
18:33
and trusting their subordinates to do
18:35
the work so
18:37
yeah i mean you’re known for being cash
18:39
sleep in the factory floor
18:40
but but is that a concern for you or do
18:44
you not care does this
18:46
that’s not an issue for you how do you
18:49
think about it
18:51
well there’s a lot of talented people at
18:52
spacex and tesla
18:54
um and i think the morale is
18:57
is good uh uh i
19:00
for sure respect them greatly and it’s
19:02
an honor to work with them
19:03
um and i find that if if i am um
19:08
engrossing the details of the issues
19:11
this does not result in them feeling
19:12
better but
19:14
worse but feeling better like they’re in
19:16
my experience more energized
19:18
um you know it’s like
19:22
you know if you think about like war
19:26
it’s like you want the general in some
19:30
like
19:30
you know ivory tower or or on the front
19:34
lines
19:34
like troops can the troops are going to
19:38
fight a lot harder
19:39
if they see the general on the front
19:40
lines than if they think generals you
19:42
know
19:43
in some cushy situation so
19:46
it’s like
19:50
nobody bleeds the prince in the palace
19:52
get out there on the
19:53
goddamn front line and and you know show
19:56
them that
19:57
you care and that you’re not just in
19:59
some plush office somewhere
20:02
um yeah i’m in my plush office right now
20:04
actually yeah
20:07
yeah um let’s talk quickly about tesla
20:11
um but both tesla and spacex were
20:13
scaling up today in fact i mean tesla
20:15
touched 600 billion i think yesterday
20:18
evaluation today you said you’re going
20:20
to raise 5 million to new stock sales
20:23
um i assume and i assume what those
20:25
gains are really in your mind going to
20:26
do is help you scale up faster
20:28
be poured back into investment because
20:30
now is the moment to do that is that the
20:32
plan here
20:34
yeah i mean i i guess this
20:38
um you know
20:41
we’re kind of debating like should we
20:42
raise money or should we not um
20:44
it wasn’t like a 100 sure thing um
20:48
in the end we thought well we can retire
20:50
a lot of the debt and
20:51
uh increase the security of the company
20:55
well probably a good thing and for less
20:58
than one percent of
20:58
solutions probably make sense um but
21:01
we’re you know neither
21:02
here or there on that i think it’s a it
21:04
could have gone either way
21:07
so what is so the money is for really
21:08
that retirement you say today
21:11
i did retirement and like i guess to
21:13
have a
21:14
bit more of a warchest you know um
21:18
yesterday you know what what is money
21:20
money is an entry in a database
21:24
okay i want to get a couple questions uh
21:25
from the audience first i want to go to
21:27
a video question
21:28
uh that we solicited if we could play
21:31
that
21:32
[Music]
21:34
hello my name is catherine parsons and
21:36
i’m the ceo technology education company
21:38
decoded
21:40
i want to know are machines able to
21:43
innovate
21:44
or is innovation an inherently human
21:46
capability
21:50
yeah i think machines will well my views
21:53
on ai
21:54
i’ve spoken a lot about this hey i will
21:57
be able to do everything
22:00
better than human over time everything
22:05
everything includes them okay uh elon
22:08
here’s one
22:09
um uh if you could have a very quick
22:12
very quick easy one if you could redo
22:14
the entire transportation infrastructure
22:16
of the united states
22:18
how would it look michael fountain
22:21
entire transportation infrastructure wow
22:24
um the main thing that i see missing
22:27
here it
22:28
is uh that we need to go 3d
22:31
in cities in order to alleviate traffic
22:33
congestion
22:35
and um and i think probably the best way
22:37
to do that
22:38
is with uh with tunnels um it sounds it
22:41
may sound a bit silly but
22:43
boring company that you you started
22:44
which looks like
22:46
um yeah in fact before for many years i
22:49
was asked
22:49
what do i see as the biggest opportunity
22:51
for new companies and i kept saying
22:53
can someone please build tunnels for
22:55
half a decade i said this and nobody
22:57
built tunnels
22:58
so it’s like fine we’ll start a company
23:00
and start building some tunnels
23:02
and we’ve got the first tunnel that’s
23:03
going to be opening up first a
23:05
commercial tunnel
23:06
opening up in vegas uh going from the
23:08
convention center to the strip
23:10
and i think who will have an opportunity
23:11
to try it out and be able to see that
23:13
hey if we just go 3d and cities we don’t
23:15
have to be stuck in gridlock this is
23:16
great
23:18
and so i’d recommend tunnels and then
23:20
for long distance travel
23:22
the you can do um
23:25
tunnels or tubes but if you evacuate the
23:28
tunnel
23:28
and and essentially remove the air or
23:31
most of the air
23:32
you can get rid of the uh air friction
23:35
and you can go supersonic
23:39
and do so with i mean with no
23:43
um dependence on weather and with no
23:46
need to get to high altitude
23:48
or create a sonic boom issues so
23:52
that’s what i meant by sort of a
23:53
hyperloop it in so it’s just basically
23:55
a pressurized uh electric car
23:58
in a vacuum tube um so i think
24:02
this this will be our revolution in
24:03
transport that would be amazing
24:05
um and um
24:08
hopefully others do it not just the
24:10
boring company okay here’s one uh elon
24:13
i’m a founder of a
24:14
founder and ceo of a private company
24:16
nevada one of the changes i’m seeing
24:18
uh is people trying to force uh the
24:21
company
24:21
uh on political and social matters uh
24:24
you know making demands not to sell
24:26
police
24:27
or not to sell the government agencies
24:29
there’s walkouts and protests
24:30
google do you think this kind of thing
24:33
is having a chilling effect or will have
24:35
a chilling effect on innovation
24:40
well a lot of this stuff is is centered
24:42
in the san francisco bay area
24:44
and i think there’s the the silicon
24:47
valley of the san francisco bay area has
24:49
too much influence on the world in my
24:51
opinion and i say that as someone who
24:53
has spent most of his life in california
24:56
mostly in the bay area
24:58
so you’re like you’re like your friend
25:00
peter thiel
25:01
feels it’s gotten more stifling up there
25:03
you that you’re expressing
25:04
you agree with me on yes i think there’s
25:08
uh the the barrier has
25:11
outsized influence in the world so
25:15
is that changing is the pandemic
25:16
changing that i mean is there a real
25:18
chance here that with
25:19
departures and people leaving the valley
25:21
that we’re going to see some of that
25:22
scatter
25:23
out the country side for good now post
25:26
pandemic
25:28
i think we’ll see some reduction in the
25:30
influence of silicon valley
25:32
um but the social media is still very
25:34
much centered
25:35
in silicon valley uh so i think we need
25:38
to be concerned about
25:39
mine viruses just
25:43
you know memes that travel very quickly
25:46
through social media
25:47
that may or may not be correct um
25:51
and we still want to encourage a healthy
25:55
dialogue
25:56
so you know there’s some out there who
25:58
just want to shut down
25:59
one side of a debate or another i think
26:01
we should
26:02
resist that yeah we’re out of time
26:06
unfortunately because i could go for an
26:07
hour we didn’t even get to
26:09
half of the questions i had but thank
26:10
you for the time today it’s good to see
26:12
you
26:14
and hope we can continue the
26:15
conversation another time



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