The Exchanges

Q We spoke about pain. I wouldn't like to say a prerequisite to success in the capitalistic world, but it helps if you've been pained. What is your story? Where did the hunger come from?

A Well, the hunger and the pain are two different things. The pain came from my parents and just, you know, I think it's just the, the neglect that comes from a, A home in crisis. And I don't think that that's a particularly unique story to me. And I've, and I think I've learned to forgive my parents, but that's what it is. You know, there was alcoholism, there's abuse, there's all of these things that are the byproduct of just dealing with a life unfulfilled in, at least, you know, from my, from my dad's side. And then there was a lot of codependency and complacency That my mom lived out. And then the byproduct of that was, you know, I was a curious, loud, sometimes, and generally overachieving kid, not in school, but in every other realm. And I think that it, um, I think it touched a lot of my father's insecurities. And so, you know, the way that he dealt with it was Painful, um, for me, but also for him probably. And then, you know, my mom just kind of didn't really do much to intervene. So that's where it all started.

AI assessment note: “The pain came from my parents and just, you know, I think it's just the, the neglect”

Q So what matters outside of change or the rate of change?

A I think that that's, for me, that's probably the thing that matters the most, and then after that, um, how that manifests for me is my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my children, and then my relationship with my friends. Um, what gets cluttered along the way is all of the things that I do in business, and then all of these other Ways that people try to tell me that things are going well if I don't feel that it is, or they try to tell me that things aren't going well when I think that they actually are. And the way that they do that is, again, they go back to these externally validated but very fragile and brittle measures. And the, the, the whole goal that I try to do for myself is to break that chain of dependency where I hear it and it just kind of dings off me. And that's a very liberating thing. I don't get that all the time, but when I can do it, I feel very, very grounded and happy, like a, like it's not like an effusive happy, it's just like a kind of a warm, grounded sense that, that I'm right where I need to be.

AI assessment note: “my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my children, and then my relationship with my friends.”

Q I'm trying to learn how to do this myself. Can you give me an example of how you've caught yourself changing in say the last five years? Well, I was still, you know, uh, What did you believe in five years ago that you think now was a stupid thing to believe in? Don't say socialism or the Democrats because I think that's too binary. Something more evolved than that.

A I don't know. I don't want to give you some try to answer. What, what do I, what, what have I changed my mind about? I'm just much, I think I'm much more circumspect about the games that I play and that they are games. Meaning I thought that business success was a matter of life and death. And so the whole goal was you run up the score and you get the highest score and you have the most chips. And now I see it just as a game. It's like playing poker. There's like hands you in, there's hands you lose. Sometimes you have, you're on a heater and you just like everything works. And sometimes no matter flawless execution, nothing works. And I can step away from it now. And be normal. I can also be around my friends. And not be, it doesn't like, I'm not a different person based on that. Not all the time, but most of the time, that's been a huge change in the last five years. Five years ago, I was still so much part of like, I was just grist for the mill. I was like everybody else, just kind of walking around, you know, trying to get the attaboys, trying to get this tap on the shoulder saying you did a great job. Um, and the problem is again, other people are telling you, Superficial stuff when they tell you that nobody sits you down and says, you know what, Nicola, you just seem so self-aware. I really, and it's really changed over the last years. Who's ever told you that whoever tha…

AI assessment note: “I thought that business success was a matter of life and death.”

Q What in the eyes of a young Chamath would make it look like your parents had a life that was fulfilled? Is it just the absence of conflict?

A I think my father was an incredibly smart, capable man who just didn't get a chance to live out his potential. And then he made, you know, the greatest sacrifice possible. I can say this now as a, you know, almost fifty-year-old. Which is, he just gave everything up, and could you imagine that, you know, your life isn't going the way that you thought it would? You feel you have this potential, so you're frustrated, and then you say, you know what, I'm just gonna completely give up on my life, and I'm going to live it through these three kids. How do you do that? Because you have no idea what these kids are capable of. These kids could be idiots.

AI assessment note: “I can say this now as a, you know, almost fifty-year-old.”

Q But how can billions of people, when the productivity goes up in that manner, what will be the use case for billions of people in the world?

A Well, I think that was the same argument at the agrarian revolution. And we found things. And again, I, I just think that the, the odds are, if you look at the last Two or three meaningful evolutions of humanity through technology. Every single time, if you dropped yourself in that moment, you would have not had a precise way to answer that question. Yet, if you took the pessimistic view, you would have been wrong. I think that this is still one of those moments. And so I suspect that, again, today, we don't have a good language to talk about how we will all participate, but I suspect that if you take a pessimistic view of the answer to this question, you will turn out to be wrong. So, So anyways, back, so back to, so my, my point is that in all of this, I have some specific views on energy and energy policy and national security. And, and so that's where I choose to allocate the smalls and the mediums and largest.

AI assessment note: “So anyways, back, so back to... I have some specific views on energy”

Q through a lot of backtesting what is a good way to negotiate. It talks about tit for tat works. As long as you're willing to reprimand the person quickly enough in a clear, concise, nice manner. The direction in which the politics of the country where you reside is moving. Don't you think you as a country are allowing or fostering a lot of tats for the tits of today?

A It's a little too abstract for me to answer that question. Um, love tits, love tats, don't exactly know. Um, here's what I'll say. I think that COVID was a real wake up call for me and a lot of others in America. What was that wake up call? I think there are two dimensions of it. At a conceptual level, I think it exposed that there is an externally validated way of organizing the world based on this notion of expertise and credential that was a lot more brittle and fragile than we gave it credit for. In the end, what do we know about COVID? None of us knew what was going on. Everything was a guess. Most of the guesses were shoddy, even by the quote unquote experts. But the downstream implications to those are severe and have been severe. So that's number one. We exposed the fragility of these externally validated systems. And the second is that we demonstrated our economic and national sovereignty fragility. There was nothing that we could do to take control of our own destiny. We needed almost the charity of others. I think from that, what I would say is we needed somebody, a vessel that allowed us to make the structural change, which is hard. I think it can be very bursty, but necessary. And I've said this before, I think the best way to think about our current political climate in the United States is we are led by a transcendent political athlete.

AI assessment note: “It's a little too abstract for me to answer that question.”