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Andrew, welcome to Giant Ideas.
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>> Thanks for having me, guys. It's a pleasure.
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>> So, you're one of the strongest proponents of universal basic income.
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You put it front and center of your presidential campaign and you're one of the few people who's actually run a UBI pilot.
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So, tell us what UBI is and what do you think of it today?
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>> The shortand I use that people will get is uh it's capitalism where income doesn't start at zero.
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Uh I'm 100% certain that AI is going to replace millions of workers here in America and around the world.
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Uh and that the adjustment is going to be wrenching and painful and too much for many people many maybe many societies.
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So putting money into people's hands is going to be vital.
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Uh and universal basic income is an idea that I did not come up with.
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It's been with us since the founding days of this country.
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Uh Thomas Payne was for it. Martin Luther King Jr.
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was for it and was championing it when he was assassinated in the 1960s.
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So uh it's an old idea made new again, I suppose, by the fact that AI is here and getting twice as strong and smart and fast every six months or so.
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Well, we'd love to come back to your strong conviction that AI is going to replace that many jobs.
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You say that with a lot of certainty, but uh what did you learn from the pilot on UBI that you that you ran? >> That cash works.
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Uh that people become um mentally healthier, less stressed out, uh domestic violence goes down, optimism goes up.
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Uh for kids, qualities like conscientiousness and agreeableness go up.
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um which are two massive indicators of professional success um and educational um attainment.
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Uh you had folks um spending money on very positive wholesome things.
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Um there was not a lot of u let's call it like elicit substances or some of the things that people are afraid of.
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And these findings have been replicated in many many different environments uh around the world.
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Uh I'm friendly with an organization called Give Directly that some of your listeners might be familiar with, but it's putting money in the hands of folks in the developing world and the outcomes there have been awesome and tremendous.
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Uh it it works here in the US.
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Um, and uh, if people look at the the data, I think they'll be very impressed.
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>> One similar idea to UBI that has gained a lot of traction and has actually been signed into law by the current US administration is invest America.
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So this is Brad Gersonner's big idea, the Alimter Investor.
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And the idea here is that every child in America will be given a thousand dollars invested in public market index funds so that young Americans are participants in the upside of American growth in the American economy and are equity owners rather than just trying to scrape by on on an income.
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And I think the idea here is that you have had so much um wealth inequality in the US and that's a big driver of polarization.
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You have to have everyone bought in to a country's economic growth.
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What do you think about that idea?
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>> Uh I think it should be universal myself.
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I mean there are different ways to fund it.
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Um that said uh I like it in all of its forms and and so uh if you look at the population um new moms is an example.
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Uh folks who are homeless is an example.
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Um people coming out of foster care.
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Like I've seen income programs uh directed in all sorts of ways.
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But I think if you were to go societywide, universalism is a um big positive um because you take out the um reporting um incentives where people like oh I don't make that much like you know because you you you want to get the money.
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Uh you get rid of any stigma.
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um you can fund it in ways that people who don't need the money um are sending money in the other direction for example through an AI tax or uh luxury consumption tax like yachts fine jewelry stuff like that.
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So uh I'm a fan of the U and UBI.
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What one parallel idea that has gained a lot of traction in the last year or so is something Brad Gersonner the investor at altimeter has been very involved in which is the idea of giving every child in the US upside [snorts] in equity in US equities and you know his view I believe is that people have just got way out of whack with
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inequality right and so the rich are getting richer and you've got to have uh everyday Americans much more bought into the US economy and therefore you want to give them a thousand dollars invested in you know the US stock market over time because otherwise people feel disconnected from uh I guess democracy and and the US journey. I is that
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I is that version of it something you support? If not, why?
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Is it is it an alternative to UBI?
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How does that fit in with your idea? >> I love it.
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Uh you know, putting money into people's hands uh at birth, it's great.
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It's going to compound for uh 18 years until they get a hold of it.
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uh it does make you feel like you're a stakeholder in in the economy uh and the country. Uh so I'm a huge fan.
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I think that the principles actually are quite similar in parallel.
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You can see them where putting money into people's hands helps empower them, make them a participant.
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Uh and if it starts at age zero, great. >> Yeah.
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And and how do you think these services uh like UBI or what Brad's doing um relate to public goods and public services? Do they replace them?
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Do they sit underneath them?
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>> Uh I see them as both.
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And uh you know, it's not like if I give you this $1,000 when you're born, uh you don't need roads, [laughter] you know, like that.
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there uh that there are uh at this point layers to what people are going to benefit from uh and we should be trying all sorts of innovations um and seeing what works.
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>> So why isn't it happening?
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Well, in the US it's not happening because our political system actually insulates most of our leaders from uh real need to solve problems and you're seeing it show up in polarization and animus and hostility.
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Uh and that stuff makes me deeply sad.
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Um, I gave a TED talk last year that tries to break this down in numbers, but the simplest way to understand what's happening in America is that the approval rate for Congress is around 17% and the reelection rate for individual members of Congress is 94%.
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Uh, and the reason for that is that 90% of the districts are drawn to be either quite blue or quite red and are not competitive in the general election.
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So the way to stay in office is just to not piss off your own party, particularly the 11% of the more ideological that vote in that party's primary.
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So you have an incentive structure that ends up pulling folks to the side.
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Uh and it's more about keeping your own team uh wellfed ideologically um than solving the core problems.
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And uh I mean obviously the US is running a huge huge budget deficit at the moment.
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How would you suggest financing UBI?
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Where would you pull where would you pull from?
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>> Well, you probably saw recently Dario Amade, the CEO of Anthropic, raised his hand and said, "A, we're going to get rid of a lot of the entry-level white collar jobs via AI through Anthropic and other companies.
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And B, you should tax us."
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I mean, imagine the CEO of a major AI firm just coming clean and being like, "Guys, you should just freaking uh put an AI tax because uh the jobs are going um the way the dodo bird."
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And uh you know, I I think that our legislators should take him up on it.
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I mean, it's pretty obvious like, you know, he's not um saying something that's necessarily great for him and [laughter] his shareholders, but it does happen to be the truth.
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So, I I appreciated that out of Daario.
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And I think uh if you're going to produce trillions of dollars in new value, um there are ways for that value to flow through people's hands.
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>> It's interesting you you bring up the Dario example.
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one of the other leaders of one of the other even larger US AI companies who we had on the show uh off the record said to us, "Look, the wealth creation that AI is going to create is going to make you know the social media guys look like pygneys and you're going to have to tax us AI giants 80 90% to try and capture some of those dollars because it is also going to have huge impacts on employment."
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So, let's talk about that which you know is is clearly one of the big drivers why you would need something like the UBI.
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So I guess are you convinced that we're going to see very very largecale unemployment in the US and Europe?
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And if so like how big is largecale and what kind of time frame do you think we're working on for that to happen?
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>> I'll just use Daario's numbers.
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Like Daario thinks uh half of entry level white collar jobs are going to go away in the next 3 to 5 years.
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Uh and that would spike US unemployment uh to 10% plus.
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Uh so let's just take that as a baseline.
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Um I I think uh he's right.
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And how do people take that set of affairs um very very poorly?
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Uh, you know, like if you spend four years getting a college degree and you have tons of debt and then you're doing a job at your local cafe uh or uh you know, dog walking or or whatever the um non-ol degree requiring job you're occupying um you're probably pretty frustrated and angry and then you apply that at scale.
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I mean to to get uh a little bit political with you all.
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One of the preconditions for uh revolution in a country is something called elite over supply which is that there are too many um folks who kind of have elevated expectations relative to the opportunities.
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Um and I I think that's a state of affairs that will be uh very much real in the US and other western countries.
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>> So I think it's really interesting.
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You know most a lot of people will respond to the idea that this new wave of technology is going to destroy jobs and say well we've been here before every time there's a transformative technology industrial revolution printing press you know you name it. cars.
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People always say that it's going to take away jobs and then actually the new technology enables humans to do bigger and better things and jobs don't go away.
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But I think actually if you really drill into it, what tends to happen in those big sort of industrial revolutions and changes is that the transition period gets very very messy.
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You have things like revolutions, political revolutions, you have really really bad periods for working people.
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And those were with technologies which weren't as transformative as AI is. Right?
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And AI is is if it works to the extent people think it's going to work is going to be much more disruptive than those technologies.
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Do you feel that people are badly underestimating what is about to happen happen to employment? >> Yeah, for sure.
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Uh you know, we we've never had AI before uh come online before.
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Um we've never had it affect so many industries at the same time.
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And to the illustration uh you drew, things got very very messy uh and hairy and unruly and even violent during the industrial revolution where in the US we have a holiday called Labor Day.
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Um and Labor Day was inaugurated because of uh riots where um people were killed um in a set of railway strikes.
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Uh, and so, uh, Holiday for Labor was born.
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Um, and so people like, oh, it's going to be like that.
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It's like, well, last time included violent riots, so you're saying violent riots?
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you know, [laughter] it's it's I mean, uh, it it people um I I find this line of argumentation to be eminently ridiculous, honestly, because if you were to ask uh an investor um to uh make an investment based on something that happened 100 years ago, they'd laugh you out of the room.
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Um but then if you say, "Hey, what's going to happen to jobs?"
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They'll be like, "Oh, 100 years ago this happened." You'd be like, "What?"
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like 100 years ago, uh, you know, we didn't have, uh, smartphones, we didn't have anything like like what are you talking about?
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Um, it's just so intellectually lazy that in one area they would completely dismiss uh, reference point as woefully out ofd.
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And then in another context, they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, let's draw upon that experience."
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Um, because they're not even digging into what happened 100 years ago.
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As you can tell, it frustrates me to no end.
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uh is just really um yeah it's just really self- serving and lazy.
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>> Yeah, >> I think that's a fair point because the companies of today the AI companies look nothing like the companies of those days either.
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So yeah, it's a false analogy.
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>> What are all these people going to be doing then?
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So that's the other big question is you give let's say UBI happens and what are all the people who are no longer employed because of AI who are given UBI how do they spend their time?
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Are they doing things like Wikipedia where you know is a great experiment in people voluntarily working on a public good in a creative way?
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Is it exciting kind of intellectual pursuits like that? Are they just chilling?
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Uh what what's your experience on the experiments that you ran?
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A and then B if you sort of look forward to to rolling this out across the US, what will it allow people to do with their time?
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What do you hope it will expect it will allow people to do with their time?
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>> Well, I I want to be realistic.
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>> [laughter] >> So, first let me say like here's what you hope.
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What you hope is that um people start businesses, uh people establish creative endeavors, people get together uh and um build what their community needs.
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Uh that there's all sorts of generative wholesome dynamism um that occurs and some of that will definitely happen.
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Uh on the flip side, um you know, like starting a business might not be in the cards for a majority of people.
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Uh a lot of people want to show up and have a job or joblike uh position for themselves.
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Uh and I'm someone one of the biggest misconceptions about me and universal basic income is that um I I think that people benefit from having structure, community, purpose, training, like all these things that jobs provide.
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Uh and the the ideal situation is that we create uh a vibrant environment where people are kicking off new projects and other people are showing up and then uh taking jobs because there's so much uh new business formation or uh charitable organization um uh growth in a given community.
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Um, but I I don't think that money magically gets you there.
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I think that you want to have other mechanisms um in place to bolster uh health and wellness, caring and nurturing, arts and creativity, growth, innovation, um all of the above.
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I I think that the challenge is enormous.
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Uh it's something that I call the human- centered economy.
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Um, and if you have uh an economy focused on capital efficiency in an age of AI, there's just not a whole lot for a lot of people to do.
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I'm just being very very honest.
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And so what what you need to do then is say, okay, like, well, what do people want to do?
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What do we need more of in these communities?
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and then uh energize that um whether it's by uh traditional means um or having uh uh like these new measurements actually show up um in your output.
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Um, and so that that to me was like the major opportunity is imagine if you [snorts] had in the US as an example, you say, "Look, we're going to reward organizations that make our kids smarter or healthier."
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Um, right now that doesn't exist in the US.
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Like if I make kids smarter and healthier, uh, maybe I can find a way for certain um certain families to pay me.
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[laughter] Um but uh but generally speaking and this by the way goes back to our earlier question about like why is isn't this happening in the US.
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It's like the US is spending a lot of money on things that are not uh necessarily delivering.
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Um and so if you can actually make it so that entrepreneurs get rewarded uh for delivering then you have a real chance. >> I love that.
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But that sounds like a almost yeah a total refounding of how we ascribe value in the capitalist system. Definitely in America.
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>> That is exactly right.
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to the extent that I've got like a massive idea.
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So, you can tell I'm pumped about it.
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Uh like that like that this is our only way out of this mess.
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If you insist on saying look, we're just going to make it, you know, GDP is the measurement, it's like we lose because AI is just going to be much much better [laughter] at producing gross economic output.
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Um but then if if you change the measurement to something around like uh human flourishing then like hey like how do you measure that and then you have to start thinking uh it gets much more um modern.
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>> Do you think America will lead the way on that or maybe it's more likely uh a European country might might lead the way.
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>> Well shoot I mean uh you know like I was trying to speed us up in in the um most dramatic way I I could think of which was to run for president.
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Um, but right now [laughter] I if you ask me which country is going to be at the forefront, I mean I certainly hope it's the US because I'm here.
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Um, but I would very much take it if you were to to point to like some uh European country uh that um would get its act together faster.
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>> I guess that I mean I'm I'm I'm with you.
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I'm I I think this is where the world needs to head.
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But I guess the counter argument would be when we've tried to ascribe value that sits outside the dollar and kind of financial value creation whether it's been ESG or other other metrics it's it's quickly become you know subjective um and in the yeah and therefore run into challenges.
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So I guess we'd really have to think how we would measure uh value, right?
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Because I mean part of it has to come down to or or we or we just take the view, hey, we all kind of know look know what value looks like as humans.
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Um if it's directionally correct and people don't need to make money, people are going to feel good about it.
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Other people will see them and and they'll feel good about how other people are seeing them. That that's all fine.
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Or you could get I take the other view and say no, we need to figure out how to measure value in a way that's not financial.
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But that can lead us down tricky paths, I guess. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh I I love the this line of questioning and to me we should do the best we can at at these measurements so that you can point to them and be like sure I mean one thing that's obvious it's just um like lifespan or like
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quality adjusted life years uh you know like if if I can um if I can make for example like you know millions of Americans uh healthier in a particular decade of life I should be a billionaire [laughter] like and th those are measurements that I think a lot of people would accept. Um
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Um so you you want to you want to do the best you can um because it it is subject to um perverse incentives just like anything else.
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Uh so but but you cannot try based upon it it being tricky.
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Um because if you don't try, we're Just being very honest about it.
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>> You're a very credible person to push this line of argument because you are a formal entrepreneur.
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You are an entrepreneur, right?
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So you understand the profit motive.
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You understand value creation.
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You understand how powerful a force that can be and has been for America and for the world and for capitalism.
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But you know, maybe we're on the we're on the precipice of a new dawn.
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And uh it's worth it's worth pushing that line of thinking and and seeing where it leads us. Yeah, that thank you.
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Uh, you guys are savvy and get it.
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I mean, um, I actually tell you this, you know, insider baseball type thing, but I I was on a national news broadcast and, uh, the anchor and I were having a conversation about this topic.
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Everyone knows AI is going to come and disrupt the work um, opportunities.
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And and then he said, "How are we going to build this new economy?"
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And I described where we have to go.
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And then he said, um, I'm not smart enough, uh, to even attempt that sort of endeavor.
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Like I I don't I don't have the ego either.
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And then I said to him, it's like, well, that's just the difference between you and me.
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[laughter] >> I love that. That's fantastic.
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>> I I won't name it, but we had an entrepreneur at one of our events um and he said uh some something similar, which was uh some people people will tell you it's impossible and you should think it might be for you.
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[laughter] And I thought that was it. >> Excellent.
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>> Well, I will say this anchor did get a good laugh.
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He's like, "Okay, yeah, I can see that.
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I can see why, you know, and he, you know, he appreciated it."
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>> Andrew, um, let's go back a little bit to US politics.
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You, you talked about that TED talk you gave, which I think is one of the most popular of all time, why US politics is dead and how to fix it.
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Very briefly, why is US politics dead and how are we going to fix it?
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Uh, US politics is broken because the incentives are a skew.
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Uh, and the way to fix is just to fix the incentives.
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Um, which is not easy but can be done.
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Uh, the way to fix the incentives is to move to nonpartisan open primaries coupled with uh instant runoff or rank choice voting.
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uh and then you would have proper incentives where if you could get uh the sane majority on board then you win as opposed to right now you get the extreme ideological minority.
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Um and in the US all of these mechanisms are run at the state level.
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So you would have to change the way the primaries work in let's call it 6 to eight US states which is feasible if you spent a couple hundred million.
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Um so that that was the case I made and I'm happy to say people are yet working on it. >> Interesting.
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It's sort of like uh the equivalent of regulatory capture in politics, political capture in a way.
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They've sort of cornered the system. >> Yeah.
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And this also does aggravate me where everyone can see in the US it's not working.
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uh and and uh people are frustrated about it.
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But if you point out it's like you know why it's not working.
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It's like that the that state set up over there and like we should do something about that.
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It's like yeah yeah yeah but you know like shouldn't we just be mad at the other side?
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It's like didn't you just tell me that this stuff's not working?
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um like like um America um Americans um for the most part, let's just say they they enjoy sports and uh politics has become this blood sport uh and and they're more eager to to participate in the blood sport than they are to go to the refs and be like, "Yo, this game is rigged.
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[laughter] This game is not rigged in terms of you're winning or losing, though it is that, too.
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Um, but it it's like the purpose of this game um uh is theoretically for us to get good policy and and uh elect leaders we're excited about.
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It's not doing those things.
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Um so it it's kind of interesting guys cuz like I'm the child of immigrants here in the US.
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My parents immigrated here from Taiwan. U my dad's a physicist.
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My mom um was a statistician.
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Uh and so that's like the lens I have to American politics.
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like, "Oh, you guys like this this system's just really badly designed and and and the setup's stupid and it's going to give us stupider and stupider results."
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Um, and I'm happy to say there are more and more people wising up being like, "Oh, yeah, that is right."
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Um, but the incentive structure is what it is.
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Uh, and so you have to raise like, you know, an independent movement.
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Um, uh, it is growing all the time.
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Um, but we've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure.
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>> You ran for president in 2020.
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You created the Forward Party.
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I guess one marker of just how changed America is since 2020.
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Is that that year, I think you had support from people like Elon Musk and Sam Wman.
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Now those folks are kind of lining up behind President Trump, literally lining up at the inauguration in some cases. Just take that example.
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Like how has that happened?
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How has there been such a shift in direction?
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shift in direction? And what does that say about Silicon Valley specifically which is an idea we've been exploring with people like Nick Kle who was number two at Meta obviously and the deputy prime minister here in the UK and just Cinder Arden the former prime minister
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of New Zealand in this current series of giant ideas basically like how does the center recover and is there a path back for the center >> yeah I I think uh I think what's happened with Silicon Valley is very much a byproduct of uh this um bifurcated choice that's been presented which um to me is a bad setup. Um but if you rewind
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Um but if you rewind to 2020 4, uh the Biden administration's in charge and a lot of techies uh didn't love some of the things that were coming out of the Biden administration.
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And so if you um are the then opposition crew, uh people are like, "Shrug, I don't like who's in power, so I guess I'm going to side with these guys."
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Um, now if you were to have a more nuanced conversation, it's like, "Hey, what do you like, dislike, blah blah blah."
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Um, but in in the US, you just have these two choices.
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And so if you don't like what's happening now, then like you're in the opposition.
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By the way, you know what's happening right now?
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The party in charge is getting less and less uh popular because uh the shorthand in America is sucks and I'm going to get pissed at whoever's in charge. Um and and so if Yeah. No, it's productive.
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It's like uh we just play you lose I lose while we're all doing the losing.
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And so you had Silicon Valley is a combination of um to me it was a lot of it's like anti-establishment, anti-institutional bent. Um it's like hey you.
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I don't want to be regulated by you guys. You guys are dumb.
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It's like who's who's over here?
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Oh, let's go over here and like let's get on board.
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And then it's like okay now you're in charge.
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um we're in charge if we just uh like are nice to you and show up to your stuff and give you a certain amount of money and like pledge to invest a certain amount of money and then you'll let us do what we want. So that's the dynamic.
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Uh and uh you know here we are having this conversation in 2526.
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>> Do do you feel like you want to be a bridge between those two worlds still as you were at one point or you know change change is going to come from elsewhere? Yeah.
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And like I I'm uh like I think I'm someone who's trying to find solutions and I don't want to um throw anyone under a bus, you know, because like to my attitude is like look, tomorrow we're all still going to be here.
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So all still got to live together.
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So like what can we do that we can all get on board with?
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Um I do think that there are massive excesses out of big tech that are getting uh less and less popular.
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Um and that they're overplaying this hand.
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Um and there there is going to be like a swinging of the pendulum.
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Um uh and people should get wise to that, you know, like the pendulum just keeps on um going back and forth.
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Um and some of the things that people think are wise now are going to look unwise uh if there's yet another change of power, which in in this system um with a level of anger and frustration, you know, seems quite likely.
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>> A cliffhanger to end part one.
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Andrew, we'll be back next week with more on the person behind the idea and also on your next company which you're working on right now.
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So, thanks so much for joining us and we'll be back for part