The Information's TITV
00:19:33 · Bradley Tusk, Akash Pasricha
[00:19:33] S2: I mean, I I think that markets really hate uncertainty. And so when things are resolved, they feel a lot better. It's like people. Right? If you think about when... At least for me, and I I suspect, you know, I know you well enough to know that I suspect you're kind of similar here, which is when something bad happens, once you sort of process it, okay, here's how I'm gonna deal with this. And it might be bad, but you'll still deal with it. When you think something bad might happen and you're just worrying about it over and over again, that creates actually a lot more anxiety than dealing with the bad thing itself. I think markets are very similar. So when they didn't know it was going to happen, now they're like, okay, we know who won, we know what we're dealing with here. And by the way, you know, while I understand that Trump generally has been pretty good for the stock market, he's the most unpredictable force possible. And with both chambers now going to the Democrats, it really does rein him in, in many ways and limits at least the damage they think he could do legislatively. And so I think that they might actually like a little bit of it. [00:20:29] S0: Right. Okay. So prop 40, the the billionaire tax. Look. It's not looking like it's gonna go. What do you think that tells us about the way voters are feeling? Is this a reflection of the lobbying that Silicon Valley did? Is it just a reflection of the structure I of
00:20:45 · Bradley Tusk
[00:20:45] S2: think it's a few things. I think one is the the no people ran a good campaign. They spent a lot of money, obviously. Two is the yes people made some really fatal mistakes and shot themselves in the foot. The first is because effectively you had one or two unions, namely the SEIU, saying, We're going to take all of that money and just use it for our needs and no one else. They pissed off all of the other institutional players in democratic politics in California, like the Teachersians. And so instead of having the kind of coalition that you need to pass a measure like that, they were pretty fragmented. Two, they put this insane provision in the referendum that said, Oh, the legislature at its own discretion can change the threshold for the tax. So now we could take, if we want to, 5% of the net worth for someone not worth $1,100,000,000 but $100,000,000 or $10,000,000 Or once you get into the million dollar range, that's every homeowner in California effectively. And so I think people really didn't trust the state government to not come after their money too. And third is, for all of the sort of socialist movement, for all of the anger by some at capitalism, America is still a really aspirational society, right? America is still a place where people want to get rich, think they can get rich. I know that there is sort of a lot of pessimism on Gen Z overall, but I think people do think that, hey, you know, if I do the right things, it might work out for me. And so they don't like the idea of knowing that if they succeed, maybe not to the tune of a $1,100,000,000 net worth, but at whatever level, that the government could just literally take their money. And keep in mind, this is after tax money. It's not like we're increasing the tax rate. It's saying you make money, you pay the incredibly high... Really high California taxes to begin with, and then we take more of it on top of that. I think it just doesn't feel fair to most people.
00:22:29 · Akash Pasricha
[00:22:29] S0: Right. Hey, I want to ask you, you know, last night, the posts on Twitter were really funny last night. There were a lot of jokes on tech Twitter. You know, I think the one that I liked was it's time for all the defense investors to pivot back to clean tech or something like that. I just wanted to ask if you think there will be any kind of transition in the way that Silicon Valley talks about these these issues? You've you've seen the pendulum swing many So what are you forecasting here in that way?
00:23:05 · Bradley Tusk
[00:23:05] S2: I think that when you live your life in a way where all of your decisions are about maximizing your wealth and status at the expense of anything else in your life or anyone else's well-being, that ultimately always comes back to haunting you. And I think that the people who threw in hard with Trump, most of them weren't doing it because ideologically they believed in specific policies because Trump doesn't believe in any policies. They did it because they said, if I back this guy who is so transactional and work with him in the right ways, I can get a lot of benefits for myself and make more money. That's kleptocracy, right? That's what the Soviet Union turned into, and that's why it fell eventually. And so that never lasts, whether it's because of a revolution or in this country because of elections. And so I think the people who made that choice, are in for a reckoning. And I think that for startups who are engaged, you know, with that crowd, there probably will be retribution when Democrats come in 2028. There should not be. But I think that, you know, if I were a startup and I was associated with Trump really heavily, I would worry that Washington, you know, when things flip, will be gone if.
00:24:18 · Akash Pasricha, Bradley Tusk
[00:24:18] S0: And before I let you go, I mean, so you you mentioned prediction markets, and that was the other thing people were watching last night. Do... How... What what are your observations about how people were talking about predictions markets last night? I mean, I saw a tweet saying, oh, tonight is a huge win for prediction markets. Think it's quite funny that... [00:24:38] S2: Just because of all the volume and the attention [00:24:40] S0: Yeah. That they Well, even... I think the thing they were pointing to is that... Which I thought was a little bit silly, was the idea that the prediction markets would forecast a race much earlier than, say, you know, news publications would Yeah. Based on the Which is... [00:24:56] S2: They can't [00:24:57] S0: They're do not counting the votes. It's just predictions Right. At the end
00:25:01 · Bradley Tusk
[00:25:01] S2: That doesn't make sense. But I will say, as someone who likes to call myself a political professional, I have come to find that prediction market data is often more useful in assessing a race than polling data, right? Because for a poll, it's a limited sample. You're asking someone, not do you think what will happen, but how do you as one individual feel about something? And the methodology is usually pretty screwed up. Getting people on the phone is hard. Online samples are confusing. Whereas prediction markets, much bigger samples. People are saying what they think will happen based on talking to their friends, their neighbors, looking at other data, whatever else. And, you know, it's just a lot cleaner in many ways actually than than the way a poll is conducted. And so I I do think that the prediction markets were pretty on point for most of what I've been looking at and compared to how the outcomes were. I mean, there were still things that I think people were... Like the Texas, you know, governor's race, I think Abbott was still ahead in the prediction markets heading into last night. But overall, I think prediction markets are very much a force. And I think in the twenty twenty eight presidential race, people are going to spend a lot of time looking at those before deciding, these are more institutional players, who to endorse, major donors, you know, advocacy groups, things like that. And so they did win that way, but I do think that legislation, to regulate them will certainly come out of a Democratic Congress, and