My First Million
00:27:40 · Shaan Puri, Sam Parr
[00:27:40] S0: Do you think those people don't exist, or do you think that the incentive of the media machine is that the more... The farther to one end you go, the louder your voice gets. Right? Because it's more second polarizing, you get more [00:27:52] S1: one. I think that most people can't... Like, it's just... It's insane to me that capitalism is considered an insult or a negative word. Right. And I I just... There there needs to be like ways to reclaim some of these words that people use. For example, the Democrat Socialists of America, like, when they talk about socialism, I'm like, that's that's really... Historically, that's quite bad. That's not, like, a good thing to do. Now when you... I'm not... Like, I would consider myself very moderate, so I don't consider myself to be like total libertarian where anything goes. And also I like capitalism, I like immigrants, but there needs to be someone who like has this like fairly common sense approach where they can bridge both sides and talk about this in plain, language [00:28:32] S0: Right. [00:28:33] S1: In a charismatic way, because that's very important, where you... But you can't be fear based, and you can't say like this other side is gonna ruin everything, or capitalism is evil, etcetera.
00:28:43 · Shaan Puri
[00:28:43] S0: Yeah. I've actually always thought that somebody should make common sense political party, because I think common sense is such a... Such an amazing phrase that lets you take the moral high ground. Common sense... If you say you're the common sense party, a implies that everybody else is being a dumbass. Right? Like, everybody else is not using common sense if they're on... If they're not in the common sense party. And then also, who can argue with common sense? It's sort of like when, you know, Trump came out and was America first or make America great again. It's like, well, who can take the other side of that? Who can say, no. No. Not America first. Right? Like, you know, he took the moral high ground with a sort of inarguable thing that he could then put his agenda underneath. And I think if somebody really wanted to create, like, instead of being, like, moderate, which basically sounds like the tampered down version of everything, the passive, the middle, the not gonna do anything party, it's the... You know, I think that that... Or, you know, the third party, the alternates, it's like, you know, they always make themselves sound less than, like, third place. And I think you have to basically go in and go into one of the parties, but hijack it and and rename the platform around being the common sense candidate, and then just constantly beat the drum of common sense. And I think a a sufficiently charismatic person could use language like that and go pretty far. I would love to see it.
00:29:58 · Sam Parr
[00:29:58] S1: Yeah. Like, for example, there's so many things that Trump will say, and I'm like, okay. Well, that policy, I I don't disagree with, but I don't like how you talk. I don't like how you're rude to people. So it's hard for... Like, you know, there's the emotional side where it's like, I don't like supporting you because I don't think that you do great things. And then, like, a left person will say something. When Mamdani will say something, and I'm like, okay. Free preschool, that doesn't sound so bad because that's something he enacted. That doesn't sound so bad, but all this other shit about free stuff, don't like that. And so I don't wanna agree with, you know what I mean? And so, but he does it in a very charismatic way. And so I'm like, I just wish that there was a charismatic, fairly moderate, common sense person who could say like AI is good. We will use it to help us. America's amazing. And also we need to fix these things in our country and also capitalism rocks. And we could try to make housing more affordable so everyone could be happy and have some type of safe... Safety net. And so I just wish that we could have that, and I think if we get that, which I... Frankly, I think we will. I do think that there are lot of
00:30:55 · Shaan Puri, Sam Parr
[00:30:55] S0: sort of weird, like, we've all just become... We've all just accepted this. Like, in a country full of very smart, high agency, brilliant... There's brilliant people. There's brilliant people in the country. And yet, if, like, an alien came down and was trying to understand what was going on, and it's like the McKinsey of aliens. He's, like, consulting. He's just doing a quick audit. He's doing a quick quick management check here of what's going on. They'd be like, but why don't you... Why are the leaders always like this? Like, is this... Are these the two best people in the country? Like, wouldn't you want the two best people in the country kinda going head to head to see who should be the leader of the country? And, like, does does anyone think those are the two best people? Like, that... That's a kind of a... It's like a kind of bizarre thing that we've all just sort of like, I guess that's just how it is. [00:31:43] S1: And, like, why are you being such a dick about your own people? Like, there's something I don't understand. I'm like, we're trying to get... We gotta rally everyone together. You don't wanna, like, be an asshole. But... Yeah. I I I think I
00:31:59 · Shaan Puri
[00:31:59] S0: don't I try to poll... Participate that much in politics, but it is... This is a curious person. It's this is very curious, like, how we ended up here. Right? Like, you said this thing, like, what made America great? And I feel like everybody can it's... Everybody can attach their own pet reason why, but it's more like Charlie Munger says, like, Lollapalooza effect. Like, anytime you have this extreme outlier, it's usually a a rare combination of seven or eight tailwinds at once that came together that creates such a huge outlier effect. And so it's like, yeah, maybe there was some natural resources at the right time. Maybe it was the culture and the values. Maybe it was incentives and systems that you had this sort of capitalistic incentive system that allowed, you know, those who were high agency and willing to create things that were of value for people would would go into competition with other people doing the same, which would create the best products in the market, which would create, you know, these winner take all dynamics. Right? Like, you would... You could assign, like, many different possible causes, and they all probably played their part. Maybe it's just that we were a new country, and it's sort of like when Africa never installed, you know, landlines, and they just leapfrogged straight to mobile. Right? Like, maybe America was just got to be new and got to leapfrog where other countries were.
00:33:09 · Sam Parr, Shaan Puri
[00:33:09] S1: We we had, like, a hundred and fifty years of practice. So the colonies were kinda, like, running themselves on their own, and then they're like, yeah. We're not feeling this England thing. We're gonna go ahead and just put on pen to paper on these rules that we've been doing. [00:33:21] S0: Right. [00:33:21] S1: And they had a fresh start. [00:33:22] S0: And there's clearly a network effect where when you have the best economy, then you attract the best people, the best people, then work in the economy, which makes the economy better, and you get this kind of runaway thing that happens. Okay. Great. So there's like all these things. And so, you know, it's interesting to know what what made it work, and it's interesting to know, like, why the weird broken parts are are weird and broken despite having all these advantages and all these really smart people who mean well in the country? Like, how does that still happen? What are the larger forces at play that are pretty hard to fight?