Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast
01:37:12 · Shawn Wang, Jamin Ball
[01:37:12] S1: Anyway, Brad's a character. I I just think he's he's interesting and Yeah. Like, what's what's what's a good story you have? Oh [01:37:18] S0: oh, man. You put me on the spot. Yeah. Honestly, I would say favorite Brad story, just how much he's worked at Invest America. Like, and I don't know if people know this initiative. It is the idea of, like, how can we get people invested in capitalism early on in their life. I think, like, right now in the world, right, you mean you survey, you know, America, you know, most people have a negative view of capitalism because they haven't participated in it. And like a lot of people view capitalism as a great thing, and it's the people who have participated in the equity upside of America and have kind of compounded into capitalism. But most people don't have that luxury. And so how can we educate people with firsthand experience about the benefits of capitalism by helping them participate early on? So the whole idea is an investment account funded by the US government at birth that can be funded by anyone along the way. That could be philanthropists like like Michael Dell, who made a $6,000,000,000 donation. I think Elon Musk has pledged one share to every kid in America, which is, I think, $10,000,000,000. [01:38:23] S1: Anthropic has some version of, like, the public benefit fund or something. Exactly.
01:38:23 · Shawn Wang, Jamin Ball
[01:38:23] S1: Anthropic has some version of, like, the public benefit fund or something. Exactly. [01:38:27] S0: And so I I think just seeing him work on that behind the scenes for years and kind of seeing it come to fruition all very quickly, you know, the classic overnight success. And so there's not like one specific story. It's more of just seeing the grinding It's cause that goes goes on. [01:38:42] S1: Yeah, exactly. And is it done by the way? I actually don't know that. [01:38:45] S0: So it's passed. Yes. It's passed in [01:38:46] S1: the law. It's passed. What, like if I have a kid now, they get You [01:38:49] S0: open an Yeah. Yeah. You open an account. Any new kid born gets a thousand dollars a birth. Parents can contribute to it. Employers can contribute to it. Friends can contribute to it. [01:38:58] S1: It's like a it's like a baby four zero one k. [01:39:00] S0: Exactly. Exactly. And, you have people like Michael Dell who say, hey, here's my donation, and I want it to be gifted to... I can't remember the exact specifics, but I think it was like, hey, bottom 75% income by zip code. And the money [01:39:14] S1: That's better.
01:39:14 · Shawn Wang, Jamin Ball
[01:39:14] S1: That's better. [01:39:14] S0: Yeah. Exactly. The money just as Brad would say, look, what's... Five twenty nine plans, which are kind of education plans, like, hey. I can fund money that can be used to... For my kid's education one day. Like, reality is is the people using five twenty nine plans are generally, like, the wealthiest part of the country. Like, five twenty nine plans and the tax advantage wasn't made for the wealthy part of the country, but that's who uses it the most. What he wanted to do was, hey. Let me create investment accounts for the people who actually need them. And I think it's, you know, it's an awesome initiative that's just getting started. I think you're gonna see a lot more direct philanthropy. What's a big issue people have with philanthropy is, well, you're gonna donate a bunch of money, and then middlemen are gonna take half [01:39:57] S1: of it. I have seen literally directly this. Tons of loss. It's used for corruption. [01:40:01] S0: Exactly. But what's better? Direct contributions. Direct to bank account of people who need it most. No middleman, direct accounts that then people can see appreciate and value over time. Can't touch it till you're 18 years old, and so you get to see the appreciation happen over time, maybe learn and participate in the upside of America along the way. And I think it's it's it's really like it's it's caught on, and just seeing how passionate he is about it has been kind of inspiring to see.
01:40:01 · Jamin Ball, Shawn Wang
[01:40:01] S0: Exactly. But what's better? Direct contributions. Direct to bank account of people who need it most. No middleman, direct accounts that then people can see appreciate and value over time. Can't touch it till you're 18 years old, and so you get to see the appreciation happen over time, maybe learn and participate in the upside of America along the way. And I think it's it's it's really like it's it's caught on, and just seeing how passionate he is about it has been kind of inspiring to see. [01:40:32] S1: Okay. My one pushback is like, I'm, you know, homeless on the streets Yeah. Food stamps, everything. Yeah. Yeah. I have a thousand dollars sitting there. Yeah. Yeah. You... Then, like, well, give it to me. Yeah. Like So the... [01:40:45] S0: Yeah. Do you... Well, it's it's made it's made more for kids now. Yeah. And so hopefully, you're not... Well, maybe there there are plenty of money kids. [01:40:51] S1: Yeah. Exactly. Right? Like, so so, like, that... That's the thing. Like, it's like, well, you know, did you know you have a bank account and you're participating? So that's that's growth of capitalism. [01:40:58] S0: That is the biggest thing. [01:40:59] S1: I don't care. You know? Like
01:40:59 · Shawn Wang, Jamin Ball
[01:40:59] S1: I don't care. You know? Like [01:41:01] S0: So that... That's the biggest thing now, which is people need to claim their accounts. The government opened up accounts for every kid in America Yeah. And parents need to claim them. Yeah. It it it is sitting there. Now, the money is sitting there for newborns. Yeah. You know, if you're 15 years old, money doesn't show up in your account. I think donations will, and so you could be a 15 year old that does have a $250 donation from Michael Dell sitting in your account, but they need to be claimed. And so, like, now the... I would say the focus has gone from let's get this passed into law. Let's get it up and running, let's get the infrastructure set up so people can donate. Now it's, let's go convert those created accounts to claimed accounts. And that's just a... That's like a grassroots word-of-mouth game. Because there are people whose accounts are sitting there with money in it and it [01:41:46] S1: just needs to claim. Yeah. Yeah. The way, most people have money sitting in the government that has not been unclaimed, you can look it up. [01:41:53] S0: Yeah. Unclaimed property. [01:41:54] S1: It's like a great use case for like a muse and state agent. Agent. You probably have a few thousand dollars sitting somewhere that someone returned to you and it's just You [01:42:02] S0: just need to know your address. Your prior addresses and then go have instinct or muse. [01:42:07] S1: Highest ROI on this podcast, exactly. Not not the Anthropicana. [01:42:09] S0: Exactly. Exactly.
01:42:09 · Jamin Ball, Shawn Wang
[01:42:09] S0: Exactly. Exactly. [01:42:11] S1: Cool. Thank you so much for your spending your time with us. [01:42:13] S0: Yeah. Of [01:42:14] S1: course. It's great. We'll have you back. We'll see how the IPO goes. [01:42:17] S0: This was fun. Thanks for doing it. Thank you.