Possible with Reid Hoffman
00:05:06 · Reid Hoffman
[00:05:06] S0: I think it's exactly kind of leaders that we want across the country. I think that the important thing is to say, if you look at the majority of the Democrats who delivered these startling upsets, they're not the kind of, you know, far left folks that the Republicans like to win against. They're like everyday Americans who are just in it to try to make a difference for the American people. They're not trying to do the red versus blue. They're not trying to make demons. They're not trying to incite hatred. They're going, Americans are hurting and we're gonna do something about it. We're gonna- we're gonna work on this hard. And I think that's something that whether you're Democrat, Republican, or any other party, you should pay attention to. Because it's about the voters and it's about these kind of people leading the change. As you know, we've seen elements of it before, Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill and other folks. It's like, no, no. What we care about is people who are like, look, I of course care about business and prosperity for the overall American people. I also care about a society that's better for the 60 plus percent of Americans who are struggling. We can work on both. And, you know, an election cannot just be bought when it's so clearly a function of we are suffering and what you are doing is causing, you know, gas prices to go up, beef prices to go up, you know, you know, getting us involved in foreign wars that, you know, your whole claim some number of years ago was that you'd get us out of wars as opposed to into them. And so, and then, you know, your attempt to try to demonize the conflict within American society by saying, you know, we're, we're out hunting Democrats, you know, as a, as a function of what we're doing with the department of justice and so forth. It's like, that's not what American people want. What American people want is can you make a society by which we live to American values, which is we work hard and we get ahead. We provide for our family. We have, you know, an ability to get a good job and pay for things that matter to us. Yeah. And that's the thing that's important, not the narcissistic egos that have been kind of running rampant for the last two years. It's about the American people themselves. And I think that's what has been so amazing. And that's what the broad swath of the Democrats.
00:07:55 · Reid Hoffman
And it's part of the reason why like nobody would have predicted 54 plus seats in the Senate. Nobody. Right? We thought we'd get to 52. That's what we thought, you know, when we're kind of working with all the different Democrats in their own places and kind of saying, you know, Hey, what is it? We thought, you know, Hey, it'll be hard. 56 is, it's an orange crush in the Olympics rating of Trump, you know, zero to 10, zero. It's a red undertow. All of these, you know, clowns who have been posturing, whether they're you know, folks like Hegseth, you know, trying to televise an execution and make us look like North Korea or kind of other places versus a values, you know, society that we all, you know, believe in to folks like, you know, Mike Johnson, who, you know, says, well, I don't want be a minority leader. It's like, we don't want you to be a leader at all. Right. You know, you've been so bad that the American people have delivered a referendum on how bad you've been. Because, you know, part of it is a, what has the last two years been? It's been a Trump MAGA Republican trifecta. They've literally had the ability to do anything that they wanted to do. And as opposed to making things better for everyday Americans, they did things like, you know, dismantle USAID and cause, hundreds of thousands of children their health and lives. It's incredible. And so I think that what I think is... Like, it is literally... Like, I don't think we've seen anything like this in many decades. The, they voted at the ballot booth yesterday to show.
00:09:46 · Aria Finger
[00:09:46] S1: And I mean, when you say this is about the American people, I have to admit, like, I... This restored my faith in humanity, that the American people have said no. Like, we will not tolerate ICE terrorizing our communities. We will not tolerate this racist rhetoric. You know, this isn't, to your point, even about red and blue. It's about decency. And the candidates that won on the Democratic side made it about decency and made it about repudiating the awful narcissism of Trump. And you mentioned money in politics, and you have talked about this recently. And Elon Musk made an enormous bet in Texas and essentially tried to buy it. Yet on the other side, you also donated. You were a big donor this cycle, and yet you have said that you want to get money out of politics. You think it would actually be better if wealthy donors couldn't have as much of an influence, but you continue to donate partially because you say those with wealth and power have an obligation to stay involved if, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. So how do you square that saying, I wanna get money out of politics, but I'm still gonna keep donating?
00:10:51 · Reid Hoffman
[00:10:51] S0: I think we should collectively get big money out of politics. I'm a thorough believer in democracy. I think it's, you know, one person, one vote. And how do we have a society in which we're living together is from that. Now it is important that candidates' messages are heard, and there's a certain amount of money that has to go into that. And even with great tools like the internet and ability to build a following and bunch of other things, it's still very important to be able to get the message of other people. We supported a whole bunch of Democrats in both states. Wisconsin was kind of an amazing sweep, and kind of thinks that when I look at Wisconsin and Texas, I almost think, Hey, we should prompt Elon to put a heavy money into any particular state because that will guarantee the loss on that side, as kind of a, as a, as a kind of a, you know, a two points make a line, kind of kind of reasoning. But I think that the question is, is we want to make it so that, you know, first there's transparency, you can see where the money is. The second is, we want to make sure that you can't buy elections, that you can support candidates being heard, and you can support kind of a, you know, what is the dope things that people go, okay, what are the things that matter to me and when I go to voting? And, you know, I think that the, you know, it's one of the reasons why I support whereas. Now to the point of your question, while there's a huge flood of money, you can't allow there to be only money on one side And, on and so, and if you have people who are, who are thinking that, you know, the American people don't recognize their own self interest and I can just buy it by sending out lots and lots of money or saying, you know, we don't need good education for our kids. We just need to give them all, you know, a share of SpaceX, you know, as, as an instance, you know, it's like, no, no, they need to hear the candidates and they need to respond to them. And, you know, kind of pretty clearly Elon was like, well, my kind of candidate is Paxton and that's who you should identify me with. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend literally an unprecedented amount of money trying to support that. It's great for a democracy that that didn't work, but we should also put some constraints on big money.
00:13:20 · Reid Hoffman
And I've, I've been supporting ballot initiatives, legal fights campaigns for years. 14, I backed Lessig's Mayday PAC. I've helped Lessig on a number of different projects on this. You know, and so I think what's most important for everybody, candidates, elected officials, members of our government, business leaders, power comes from the people. That's part of what a democracy is, a society we live in. Now, part of a better democracy is we have a rule of law. We think the law applies to everybody, you know, whether you're poor or rich, whether you're any particular ethnicity, any particular gender, the law applies to you and we all live in the same society. And that's what's, that's, that's part of what I mean by being in a democracy, right? It's not like a historic democracy where only men had the vote, or, you know, kind of a democracy, all a South, you know, old South Africa, which is only white people had to vote. It's a, it's a question of, no, we are all here. We are all citizens and we have votes together. And, you know, that's part of the thing about, you know, limits on big money, which is a good thing to do. And I would, you know, I've already put money in a trying to help that to happen. I'd delighted to continue to put money into that because it just, it's hearing, it's getting the case to the voters and having the voters decide. And that's what I think is really important here. So for example, in Maine, you know, kind of more recently, I joined a legal brief supporting Maine's voter approved limits on the contributions to super PACs. And 75% of Maine voters backed that measure. Because that's what's key. It's to make sure that voters can make a decision about what kind of society, what kind of democracy, what kind of rules do they wanna live in. And that's the only thing that we should be enabling.
00:15:19 · Aria Finger
[00:15:19] S1: I mean, it's so clear that, money and politics distorts. And like you said, like, you wanna get money out of politics. You've supported that with your money. You've supported that by joining amicus briefs. But we will not unilaterally disarm, especially because we know that the Democrats are more likely to get money out of politics than the Republicans. And so we want to elect leaders who, agree with this and get this money out of politics. Speaking of money and politics, there certainly was a group that you and I know well that did spend big. We saw parts of the tech industry spend on races, you know, Senate and down ballot. We saw the crypto industry spend big against Sherrod Brown in Ohio. We saw folks who were pro data centers spend for Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. And a lot of people are talking now about big tech. They saw some of these tech leaders go to the White House, kiss the ring, try to sort of cozy up to MAGA, as some would say. And a lot of people felt abandoned, you know. Silicon Valley is all about innovation and technology and also being compassionate and being pro immigrant and, you know, anyone can succeed. And yet a lot of people felt like they were let down. And so it's very clear that we both need folks who are Trump supporters to come over into the Democrat coalition if the Democrats want to succeed. It's also very clear that we need technologists and technology companies talking to the government, talking to the president, talking to senators if we want America to be vibrant and successful. And so as these tech companies try to build bridges with Democrats over the next few years, both because they're in power in the House and the Senate and because, you know, they see sort of something happening post 2028, what what should they have to do to earn back trust? It's clear that the American people are distrustful of these tech companies. And so what commitments do they need to make to the American people to sort of win back that trust?