Possible with Reid Hoffman
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?
00:17:14 · Reid Hoffman
[00:17:14] S0: There's been a variety of different Silicon Valley and company responses since, you know, 2020 put them in a quandary. Mean, some, thought they said, look, there's a mandate here. You know, we're companies in a country. We should respond to whoever the government is. We need to do what the kind of things that the government's asking for us. Some thought that they had an economic opportunity here because, you know, basically with such massive grift on the part of the White House, it's like, hey, we could... This is the way that we're being told we should play this economic game and we should, you know, kind of buy our way into, you know, business favorability. Some people had ideological, you know, agreements thinking that this was a, you know, finally that their particular, you know, ideology reinforced. And I think all of them missed the really key thing, which is there's more than 60% of Americans who are struggling to get by. And any of those things are not addressing what the concerns of those Americans are. And I think in this midterms, the American people made clear that they're demanding accountability. They, you know, tech companies should understand that Democrats don't operate like these Republicans. They can't be cozied up to with donations. They can't be the, oh, we're gonna buy influence. They have to make commitments to the American people. They have to be showing what they're doing for American people. It isn't a buy a ballroom. It isn't a, you know, kind of, do something that supports Freedom coin. It's it's a, what are you doing for all of the people in all 50 states to say, Hey, what are you doing for my economic opportunity? What are you doing for my costs? What are you doing for the way my life works? And like, for example, I think one of the reasons why there's such a referendum on the data centers, you know, as the tech companies like, well, what is the, how are you doing this for me? Like not, not, I get it. How you, what you're doing for you. And, know, as Americans, we're not opposed to you doing things for you. It's just that if you want a data center in my community, in my state, is that what are you doing for me? Like how does my life, how does my work evolve and change? How does my ability where I'm, you know, struggling to get a raise and struggling to pay for beef, gas, etcetera. How are you helping me?
00:19:42 · Reid Hoffman
And that's what, you know, kind of, for example, tech companies should be, you know, kind of engaging in what they're doing. And then of course there's, also the folks of, you know, like whether it's Elon or others who are like, Hey, we're going to, you know, we're just, we, we just think that the only thing that's cost of capital is to buy the administration by the election. And it's like, don't forget about the American people. The American people are the folks who create this great society that we all live in, that we all work in, that we all can create, you know, prosperity for ourselves and for our communities and for everyone else. And that that's part of what, you know, the business of America is. And it's not about corruption in government. You know, it's not about, you know, kind of, merchandising hate. It's about, you know, kind of how do we, you know, kind of create a society that we want to live in together. And I think that's the question. You, you like people say, well, it's California. It's like, no, pretty clearly Texas joined ranks on this. And so I think it's now a vast majority of states going, what we care about is what you're doing for the prosperity of the American people, which does include the economy, but includes the lives and well-being of the majority of American citizens. And I think that's the thing that everyone needs to orient towards.