0:10

Hello, welcome

0:12

to Money Talks from Slate

0:14

Money. This is a very,

0:17

very special episode of

0:19

Money Talks because I only

0:21

do this once every five years. I'm

0:23

Felix Ammon of Axios and I have had

0:26

various affiliations over the years, but the one

0:28

thing that is a constant since the beginning

0:30

of the age of Bitcoin is that every

0:32

five years I get into a bet with

0:34

Ben Horowitz. Ben Horowitz, welcome. Thank you, Felix.

0:37

It's good to be back after five years.

0:40

Ben, you are... Well, tell me, who

0:42

are you? Introduce yourself. I am one

0:44

of the founding partners of Andres and

0:47

Horowitz, who are... I think we have

0:49

the largest crypto fund in the world.

0:51

Is that right, Chris? Yeah. This

0:53

other gentleman who's just jumped in here

0:55

is Chris Dixon. Welcome. Hi, Felix. How

0:58

are you? Thanks for having me. Chris, what's your

1:00

role in the crypto verse and plug your book?

1:02

So I'm Ben's partner. I've worked with Ben for

1:04

about 10 years and I created our separate crypto

1:07

fund that we started about five years ago. And

1:09

I just published a book. Thank you for mentioning that. It's called

1:11

Read Write Own. It's about blockchains

1:13

and kind of my view that they're

1:16

a useful tool for building new internet

1:18

services that have a lot of benefits of

1:21

kind of the early internet and decentralized networks

1:23

like email and the web, but also can

1:26

power advanced services that we're kind of

1:28

accustomed to today. OK, we're going

1:30

to talk a lot of crypto and

1:33

blockchain, but first of all, we're going to

1:35

settle a bit and it's all

1:37

coming up on Money Talks.

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2:14

Okay, so Ben, remind me, what

2:17

have we been betting about all of these

2:19

years? Well, we've been betting about basically

2:22

the usage of crypto

2:24

and payments for consumers,

2:27

which has probably not been a good

2:29

idea. So

2:33

the first bet that we

2:35

entered into 10 years ago was whether

2:37

10% of Americans would be using

2:41

Bitcoin to pay for something. We

2:44

visited that five years later, which is

2:46

five years ago, and it turned out

2:48

they weren't. But you

2:50

weren't ready to give up at

2:52

that point. So we re-entered the

2:54

bet, and this time we didn't

2:57

say Bitcoin in particular, we said crypto in

2:59

general, and we didn't say the United States,

3:01

we said Mexico, which was your

3:03

choice. And you

3:05

said you believe that by

3:07

now, 10% of Mexicans would

3:10

be using crypto to pay

3:12

for something. In hindsight, was this

3:14

a smart bet to go into with

3:16

me? The big mistake in the bet

3:18

from my standpoint was that the

3:21

use case of payments ends up

3:23

being what we kind of

3:25

call skeuomorphic in computer

3:28

science world, which means it's kind of

3:30

a direct kind of

3:32

metaphor for the technology onto

3:34

something that already

3:37

exists in the regular world as opposed to

3:39

a new use case. And

3:41

that's probably the biggest

3:44

oops in the bet. Crypto

3:47

has kind of developed quite nicely,

3:49

and it's getting much, much faster

3:51

and much more interesting over time.

3:54

But that bet is turning out bad for me. What

3:57

did we bet this time? Last time we bet some

3:59

socks, which was amazing. easy thing for me to

4:01

pay. I think we've got something more expensive this

4:03

time. Yeah, the first time around, we bet

4:06

a pair of alpaca stocks and you were

4:08

very, very sweet and sent me not one,

4:10

but two pairs of alpaca stocks, which I

4:12

have to this day and they're very

4:14

warm and cozy. The stakes this time

4:16

were a little bit more complicated. It

4:19

was one ETH and

4:22

also, which last time I looked, I think that's

4:24

worth like two and a half thousand dollars. I

4:26

don't know if I'm allowed to. So it's like

4:28

3000 now. Three thousand

4:30

dollars from venture capitalists. This might have to

4:32

make its way to the committee to protect

4:35

journalists. So it was one ETH,

4:37

but also a hundred year

4:39

old bottle of Madeira. I'm not quite sure how I managed

4:41

to come up with that. How do I get that? Well,

4:44

you're a resourceful man, Ben. I'm sure you

4:47

can manage to do this somehow. A hundred

4:49

years old. A hundred years old. I'm

4:51

partial to the Cersei old myself, but you can

4:54

do any hundred year old bottle of Madeira. My

4:57

idea was that Madeira being something that

4:59

has been around for a hundred years

5:01

is something that is much more

5:03

likely to hold its value than crypto

5:07

currencies that go up and down all over

5:09

the place. And as it happens, just

5:11

like five years ago, here we are

5:14

five years later, the crypto currencies have gone up rather

5:17

than down value, which is actually

5:19

one of the reasons and

5:21

the value of a bottle of Madeira has gone

5:23

pretty much sideways as I expected. Something that's been

5:26

around for a hundred years doesn't tend to be

5:28

very volatile. But the

5:31

very fact that

5:34

ETH and Bitcoin and all of these

5:36

popular crypto currencies has gone up in

5:39

value is a reason why people

5:41

don't want to spend them on stuff. I mean,

5:43

this is the main reason why it isn't working

5:45

as payments, right? I

5:48

think in

5:50

the case of Bitcoin, that's

5:53

probably true in

5:55

that it is the volatility and then

5:58

the fact that they keep appreciating. There

6:00

are so many stories of people buying a pizza

6:03

for $3 million or what would be $3

6:06

million a day or something like that. Of

6:08

course, the dollar hasn't performed super

6:10

well from a purchasing power

6:13

standpoint, so you'd much rather spend that.

6:16

But I think that also, your

6:19

payments is something that works

6:21

reasonably well in the current

6:23

system, as opposed to some

6:25

of the other things. And Chris will talk about this a little

6:28

bit. But if you look at, for

6:30

example, the take rate on

6:33

payments, well, some

6:35

might consider egregious whatever, 2% to 3% on a credit card.

6:41

And you get fraud protection and so forth. And

6:44

these kinds of things for that cost

6:48

is nothing compared to the 30% take rate of the App

6:51

Store from Apple or

6:54

the 99% take rate from

6:56

Instagram for the content that you

6:58

post there and these kinds of

7:00

things. So it turns out that

7:03

the more interesting or the more valuable

7:05

uses of the technology

7:08

end up being in other domains. I

7:10

think there's something to that, but I

7:12

think that also payments has just

7:14

turned out to be the wrong application. Yeah,

7:17

payments is pretty advanced in

7:19

most countries. I did do

7:21

a bit of homework for this in terms of trying

7:23

to work out what the actual number was the percentage

7:26

of Mexicans using crypto. There's

7:28

one big electronics chain called

7:31

Electra, which is run by

7:33

the Mexican billionaire, Ricardo Salinas.

7:36

And he famously is a laser-eyed

7:38

Bitcoin bull. And he was like, we will

7:40

accept crypto for payments for all of our

7:42

electronics. And I phoned up Electra

7:44

and I'm like, well, has anyone actually done this

7:46

and come in and paid with Bitcoin? And they

7:48

kind of ghosted me. Interestingly,

7:51

the one use case

7:53

I did manage to find was

7:57

American expats who find it

7:59

quite to navigate the Mexican

8:01

bureaucracy and open a bank account when

8:04

they need to pay not

8:06

so much rent, but like something like a

8:08

gym membership or something like that. And

8:11

the gym is like, we'll just transfer money from your

8:13

bank account and they're like, I don't have a bank

8:15

account. The gym will be like, we'll just pay off

8:17

in crypto then. So it's like

8:19

where the main system kind of fails

8:21

because of difficulty with bank account transfers,

8:24

then you can find it a little

8:26

bit. That's the payment side of

8:28

things. So I'm assuming from what you're saying

8:30

that having kind of lost this bet twice,

8:32

you're not willing to enter into it a

8:35

third time. You've kind of realized that crypto

8:38

is not really cryptocurrency as

8:40

is most

8:43

people understand currency. Yeah, well, I

8:45

think that cryptocurrency is the

8:48

worst name that we could have

8:50

come up with for the technology.

8:53

To the normal person, it means

8:55

secret money. And of course, the

8:57

crypto in this case isn't used

8:59

for secrecy and it's

9:01

not really money the way you think about money.

9:03

Oh, you mean it's like crypto as in crypto

9:05

fascist? No, no,

9:07

no, it's crypto as in crypto authentication. Right,

9:10

right. But in terms of how people receive

9:12

it, it's like it's not a great sort

9:14

of sales name. Yeah, it

9:17

sounds like something very devious. Yeah,

9:20

no, I

9:22

think that it'd be great to have a different

9:25

bet around crypto, but I

9:27

think the payments bet. I'm

9:31

going to defer to Chris for advice on this

9:33

because he is my crypto

9:35

advisor who knows much more than I do. Chris,

9:37

were you aware of these bets for you? Like,

9:40

I saw I think I saw some on Twitter. We

9:43

silently screaming, Ben, what are you doing? This

9:45

isn't a payment. Well,

9:48

I probably made the same mistake at least 10

9:50

years ago. I mean, but

9:54

as you know, Felix, I think part of it is there's

9:56

a whole backstory, which I won't go into all the

9:58

detail, but the Bitcoin community. probably

10:01

about six or seven years ago,

10:03

really kind of moved more to the store of

10:05

value use case. There was a

10:07

kind of civil war in the Bitcoin

10:09

community between what was

10:12

called the block size debate, which is essentially

10:14

a technical change that would have made Bitcoin

10:16

friendly or to payments. And

10:18

that was rejected by the community.

10:20

I think what you

10:23

both were saying about the

10:25

limits of Bitcoin as a payment system is true,

10:27

but I also think that the community really kind

10:29

of leaned into the store of value use

10:32

case instead. And I do think, although

10:34

payments are not my favorite use case

10:37

for crypto, I do think there have

10:39

been signs of life around stablecoins. If

10:41

you look at the data put out

10:44

by, for example, Circle, which is a

10:46

firm that builds software for stablecoins, we're

10:48

not investors, but they seem to be doing

10:51

quite well. The latest stats

10:53

I saw were $700 billion in stablecoin

10:55

transactions last month. And so

10:57

I think that's growing. I think that's probably less

10:59

payments and more people in the developing

11:01

world getting access to dollars is my

11:04

suspicion. I don't think there's great data on that. It

11:06

tends to correlate to countries where there's

11:09

high currency volatility, like

11:11

Argentina as an example. So

11:14

I think it potentially is maybe, as

11:16

that grows, I hear stories anecdotally, I

11:18

don't have data of firms

11:21

using kind of in B2B use cases,

11:23

kind of a business, paying other business

11:25

in a developing country using dollars, using

11:27

stablecoins. So I do think that could

11:30

be kind of sneak up on us as a interesting

11:33

use case. There's a bill pending

11:35

in Congress called the stablecoin bill,

11:38

which would, I think put good kind

11:41

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11:43

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13:39

when stablecoins were first coming

13:41

onto the scene, you

13:44

could keep your dollars in Tether

13:47

or USDC when it was

13:49

launched, and the opportunity cost

13:51

of doing that was pretty low. Now we have

13:53

interest rates of 5%, and if

13:55

I just keep my cash in dollars, I can

13:57

earn 5% on that. If I

13:59

keep... my cash in the stablecoin, I earn 0%

14:01

on that. That's

14:04

a large penalty for me to pay for

14:07

whatever advantage I get from being on a

14:10

blockchain. I'm

14:12

just looking now, Coinbase is offering 5.1% on USDC.

14:16

They pass most of the, I think they

14:18

do take some portion for their business model.

14:21

I think generally, at least with

14:24

USDC, they've been roughly

14:26

matching the interest rates. Okay, but

14:28

then that's a little

14:30

bit different. That's where I open up an

14:32

account where I lend my money to Coinbase

14:34

and then they pay me interest. So

14:37

then I'm taking Coinbase credit risk as

14:39

well. Yeah, I think maybe

14:41

there's nuances because there's a consortium

14:43

that holds USDC. I'm

14:46

not an expert on it, but I believe legally, you're

14:49

actually taking whatever bank. They

14:51

use a major US bank. It's

14:53

more of a custody relationship

14:56

than a credit relationship is my

14:58

understanding, but I'm not an expert on that. But that

15:00

would be the kind of thing that a good stablecoin

15:02

bill would clarify. Because obviously,

15:04

if you're adding interest on

15:06

anything, it's some kind of a loan. You're

15:09

lending the money to the US government. I

15:12

mean, ideally, it's the same risk as

15:14

lending to a bank. To me, the

15:16

additional benefit of a stablecoin is it's

15:18

now fully digital money. And

15:20

that means, as Ben was alluding

15:22

to, we kind of think of technology as

15:24

applying to kind of doing old things better

15:26

and doing new things you couldn't do before.

15:28

So old things better would be payments, maybe

15:31

at a lower fee or something. I think that's less

15:33

interesting personally. And this is, by the way, me speaking

15:35

generally on technology, I think for AI

15:37

and other areas, it's the new

15:39

things you couldn't do before that are to me the

15:42

most interesting. And so as an example, by

15:44

creating a stablecoin, you can now have

15:46

programmable money. You can write software that

15:48

moves the money around. And so you can do

15:50

things like you could imagine a system

15:53

where AI systems are

15:55

using artists training data and

15:58

making money off of it. people are

16:00

designing systems where those AI

16:02

systems pay out the

16:04

creators who contribute to the training data as

16:06

an example. And that's something that's, you know,

16:09

if you have purely digital kind of micro

16:11

payment programmable money, you can do, you

16:13

can design new systems that you couldn't design before.

16:15

And just, you know, from my

16:17

perspective as an investor, those kind

16:20

of new futuristic use cases are

16:22

more interesting and exciting. And just from a competitive point

16:24

of view, you're not trying to compete with an existing,

16:27

pretty well-designed payment system that we have. You're

16:29

just doing something new that can't be done

16:31

currently. Yeah. And

16:33

I remember hearing this very frequently

16:35

during the boom times of NFTs

16:37

in 2021. And everyone

16:39

was like, well, this is something that you can

16:42

do with crypto that is really hard to do

16:44

with anyone else, which is have resale

16:46

royalties built into the contract. So that anytime,

16:48

you know, if you create a work of

16:51

art and then sell it, then anytime the

16:53

person who buys it resales that you'll get

16:55

a cut of that resale. And everyone got

16:57

really excited about this because it was like

17:00

a whole new income stream for artists that

17:02

had never existed before. And

17:05

then, you know, after a year

17:07

or 18 months or something, suddenly all

17:09

of those resale, like people just started

17:11

selling the NFTs without

17:14

paying the resale royalties. And the artists found

17:16

out there was nothing they could do about

17:18

it. Like these things aren't quite as baked

17:21

into the blockchain as people had been given

17:23

to believe. Yeah, that's

17:25

right. Although I will say there's now, I mean,

17:28

you're getting into a nuanced technical issue. There

17:30

are now, there's a counter movement. So there's

17:32

people that have now designed systems that force

17:35

you to do the creator royalties. There

17:37

was basically a loophole and people worked around the loophole

17:39

and now people have closed the loophole in new systems.

17:42

But yes, it is complicated. Specifically

17:45

with NFTs, I just think, you know, a couple of things

17:47

I'll just say quickly is that, first of all, that was

17:50

a technology that was, the standard

17:52

was created in 2020. So it's very

17:54

young, number one. And number two, even after

17:56

the kind of downturn last year, there were

17:58

over 8 billion in NFT sales. So

18:00

it's down from the year before,

18:03

but still significant

18:05

scale for a four-year-old technology. And I

18:07

also think, I talk

18:09

about this a lot in my book, I

18:12

think of NFTs as a very general

18:14

technology. It's a way to

18:16

represent digital ownership. That

18:19

can be something like an avatar picture, which

18:21

is what people associate with NFTs or a

18:23

piece of art, but it can be anything,

18:26

including like there's a really interesting wave

18:28

of new social networks where the NFT

18:31

represents your identity. So I'm

18:33

C. Dixon on Twitter and I have

18:35

followers on Twitter and

18:37

the NFT represents my audience.

18:40

And why is that interesting? Because

18:42

it lets the user switch from one software

18:44

provider to another. So if you're unhappy with

18:47

the algorithm and the social media platform,

18:50

you can take your audience and move in the same way

18:52

that you can with, for example,

18:54

an email newsletter service. If

18:56

you're on Substack and you don't like Substack, you can leave and

18:58

take your audience with you. So just

19:01

to give you a flavor for it, NFTs are very

19:03

general technology and I think of

19:05

them as a technical building block where you

19:07

can build new internet services that have different

19:10

properties and shift power to users

19:12

and creators and developers and people

19:15

that use the network. So

19:17

I think we're just four years into it and

19:20

we're just

19:22

beginning to scratch the surface of what you can

19:24

do with this with these new ideas. We'll

19:26

be right back after this. This

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22:14

Ben, this is something that you know you

22:16

and I have talked about quite a lot.

22:19

Over. The years if is

22:21

idea of crypto and

22:23

log chain is the

22:25

new internet and whatever

22:28

amazing revolutionary change was

22:30

caused by the internet

22:32

with. Could. Also would also

22:34

be caused by by crypto

22:36

on a similar time horizon.

22:38

Burkina it Fits Coin was

22:40

invented in Two Thousand Eight

22:42

as the response to the

22:44

financial crisis. We're quite a

22:46

ways in from that at

22:48

this point where leaner fifteen

22:50

years in. It's hard

22:52

for me to think of anything big

22:55

and revolutionary that Crypto has done. At

22:57

What point do you kind of stuff

22:59

things and go ahead and the fact?

23:02

Quite fair enough, right? Tc Tell T

23:04

was. And then And Nineteen Seventy Three

23:06

And a Nineteen Eighty Eight I think.

23:09

You might have said the same thing about

23:11

the internet, Although there was very very kind

23:14

of interesting infrastructure built, most people didn't know

23:16

what the internet was, actually much fewer people

23:18

than know what crypto and since that for

23:20

I think. Chris. As I

23:23

wrote about it very succinctly where You

23:25

Know can be also thought of as

23:27

the third wave of the internet where.

23:30

It's. Six is a lot of

23:32

the essence of their the anyone

23:34

oh internet. We had a kind

23:37

of great society and then it

23:39

was very open and egalitarianism. Anybody

23:41

could participate and there weren't these

23:44

huge taxes by the monopoly companies

23:46

and there were these massive concentrations

23:48

of power. But it's flat functionality

23:50

to do things like social networking

23:53

and. And certain some of

23:55

these innocent the other cancer modern

23:57

features of the internet. Mm

24:00

that functionalities been put in place

24:02

by block chain in crypto. You

24:04

know what it is. Cause

24:07

for talk about some of the many

24:09

examples but it is like the fact

24:12

that it's working at such a our

24:14

technological breakthrough and of of works technically

24:16

is amazing. And then there's

24:18

quite a few. I use cases

24:21

and applications and so forth and it's

24:23

not. You know, Taken.

24:26

Over yet, but again, these

24:28

infrastructure things are hard and

24:30

performance in the last year

24:32

is probably up. Like.

24:34

Close to one hundred fault if you.

24:36

Think. About the performance, a man. That.

24:39

You get the slayer to and in the

24:41

cost reduction that you get so. As

24:43

he thinks get cheaper and better. they

24:45

get much more popular money internet before

24:47

we have a lot of damn with.

24:50

With. Only interesting to computer scientists

24:52

and I think our family the

24:54

case. Fifteen years and so like

24:57

if Syria is. You.

24:59

Know oversimplifying massively because I don't really

25:01

understand me think it's a big sort

25:03

of virtual computer which you couldn't run

25:05

programs on. and you're saying that basically

25:07

the cost of compute to come down

25:09

the hundred vote on that computer the

25:11

it's easier to run programs on it.

25:14

Yeah yeah, what are you feel? A

25:16

semi I think. That. There's truth in

25:18

what you're saying and at things were. In

25:20

some some things were overhyped in in the

25:22

let's assume the last you know this cycle

25:24

run up. As always the case and technology.

25:26

Yeah, I would argue. Now it's I would

25:28

argue now. sort of a microcosm of the.com

25:30

thing like you had to.com bubble and in

25:32

yeah to crash. And it was nuts when

25:34

I started my career. really and it was

25:36

just you don't consensus that I'm an internet

25:39

was growing, but it was consensus that it

25:41

wasn't like a great place to do business

25:43

and that it was overhyped as a business.

25:45

You know. A I started an Ai company

25:47

in Two Thousand Eight, An Ai Ai First

25:49

Neural Network paper. Was ninety Forty three and two

25:51

thousand eight You got a lot. I rose from

25:53

yesterday. I in fact we said machine learning not

25:55

a I because they I had sort of was

25:57

associated with. It was actually an Ai Citizens. That

26:00

you don't know, there was an Ai

26:02

bubble in the eighties. Believe you're not.

26:04

Didn't go as expert systems. There was

26:06

a financial bubble like I'll grant you

26:08

that it was that things have been

26:10

overhyped and the in the sense of

26:12

like the timeframe like in the immediate

26:14

term, you have the serious and use

26:16

cases that are popping up. So once

26:18

you have a eyes and there's a

26:20

few things that. Become. Real

26:23

challenges like who's human?

26:26

And. Who's not. And there's

26:28

there's a. Really?

26:30

Interesting new crypto company that does

26:32

proof of humanity where they scan

26:34

your red red man create a

26:37

yeah. Private. Key the who

26:39

were and you can do it basically

26:41

and zero knowledge Proof once you have

26:43

that that says you're human so you

26:45

can tell people that you're human without

26:47

revealing your identity. If is the world's

26:49

oil with the old yes yes exactly

26:51

the or yeah we talk about talk

26:53

about dystopian vision for mean that taking

26:55

this or of around the Weldon for

26:57

the into people's eyeballs the like yeah

26:59

this is this is great is full

27:01

of has happened during your apple during

27:03

a to just you don't you don't

27:05

think of it that way but like.

27:08

Every time you scan your face exactly much but

27:10

much better. If you can do it without, an

27:12

old ambitious can somehow it and say that. Well.

27:15

But you know, if you want to preserve anonymity

27:18

than you need your. As

27:20

the doubly not doing that with your

27:22

I phone. but yeah tennis more. He.

27:25

Approximate is your You have this

27:27

issue of the sex and what's

27:29

real and what's not. An

27:32

empty cause your public figure if

27:34

you're Felix Salmon if you're so

27:36

biden, You. Know somebody

27:38

you'd like to be able to

27:41

sound like. I. Did

27:43

the speech I. Did. As bypass

27:45

and this israeli me and I'm gonna sign it.

27:48

And. Then you'd like the arbiter of

27:50

the truth to not be Google

27:52

or Mehta. or you know, some

27:54

gigantic corporation and you'd probably like

27:57

at not to be the Us

27:59

Government either. whenever. A pathology

28:01

for that, you know? Also,

28:04

Answer. Thing kind of blacks and

28:06

crypto. See, you have these ways

28:08

of knowing what's true, knowing who's

28:10

who, as well as kind of

28:12

a technology to build. The. Networks

28:14

Of the Future in a week we talk

28:16

a lot in Silicon Valley about oh, We.

28:19

Need a stakeholder? Capitalism.

28:22

But. Installment Santa to get right. You

28:24

know, like you hear Betty Awful? don't

28:26

read sake older capitalism but like. What?

28:29

Do users it sells for his

28:31

get really their stakeholders but they

28:33

don't really participated in their to

28:36

pay. You. Have been awful lot of money.

28:38

And Crypto is the architecture for said

28:40

color capitalism where the people who use

28:43

the product the people are participate in

28:45

that. The. Creative to add value

28:47

to the network. All kind of participate

28:49

economically and what's going on. I think

28:52

that. You're. Moving forward

28:54

or that can be increasingly important

28:56

Mm you know as you move

28:58

into applications, flights, and metaverse. Ah,

29:02

Go in that world you know? can I

29:04

work? Can I get paid or is as

29:06

a just all go to like three corporations

29:08

run the metaverse and they take all the

29:10

money. And all your time and you

29:12

get nothing in return. And I and I

29:14

think that's a dystopian world's of prefer with

29:16

the thing that makes. The. Future

29:19

bright in my view. And it's

29:21

you know if that's. Why?

29:23

We're so. Dog. At

29:25

about staying with it has lots of said

29:27

intellect. We think it's a good investment. know

29:29

that for. The and that.

29:32

Yeah. It's a probably the most important

29:34

mission in the from his crypto and

29:36

making sure that. We. Get to

29:38

a world where it's not. Just

29:41

control within son a massive concentration

29:43

of power. This. Is a

29:45

similar doesn't end well for humans. The.

29:47

Biggest story in the stock market over the

29:50

past few years has really been the way

29:52

in which it has become dominated by a

29:54

handful of mass effect companies. You look at

29:56

the market cap libations: B S P, Five

29:59

hundred and. It's it's

30:01

all. Microsoft. Apple

30:03

and Video Earth Alphabet. Matter.

30:07

Amazon. And that's you know.

30:09

like without them is gone nowhere you've

30:11

got an end is so so what

30:13

you're basically saying if I have you

30:15

write. Is the.

30:18

That's bad. And

30:20

Crypto solves this and that.

30:23

If Crypto succeeds, then. You.

30:26

Know all his millions of Americans who a company invested in

30:28

the F B five hundred going to be quite sad because

30:30

so they're like text out for going to go down. Well.

30:34

Those. Five may set up as and

30:36

like I said that the market type

30:38

of sort of like a at a

30:40

Great express and of it by your

30:42

the power is. Extremely dangerous

30:44

and that you know it's and for

30:46

it's complete information control so you know

30:48

what's going on in the world is

30:51

decided by five companies are it's a

30:53

huge pass on the system and in

30:55

the fact that. You. Pay

30:57

thirty percent a thirty percent

30:59

tax to Apple's Us firsthand,

31:01

a new and applications. says.

31:04

Absolutely incredible. And

31:06

then enough for people who create value

31:08

in the world. They're. Not revoke boarded

31:11

proportionate to the value that they chrome and

31:13

you consider some. This is the thing with.

31:15

The. Only way to make money you

31:17

know I'm so so as by being

31:20

a porn star like a this point

31:22

it's crazy when the of people are

31:24

creating a movie and music. New.

31:26

Dances. And for some

31:28

things and all the money goes to

31:30

that corporals and that. Going

31:33

to become an economic environment I

31:35

think for. Regular. You

31:37

know, people who, who, who don't. Own

31:39

giant corporations or or an executive said

31:42

at Google or the or alphabet Nice

31:44

and to things. And say

31:46

i think it's it's like a really

31:48

really important thing in the world is

31:50

it? I am. We have the technology

31:52

to facilitate it and you know, like

31:54

it in a were furiously trying to

31:57

build a new services that. And

31:59

taken. Into this technology and kind of

32:01

distribute the power. I and

32:04

that have these like mega

32:06

powerful corporations says. No

32:08

and confirmed for Harper. Controlling. Let's

32:11

put add to that to the damn it works

32:13

Cited as affirmed that a I doing what they

32:15

are investing but a I. Generally

32:18

rewards companies with large pools, a capital

32:20

and data and I think you know

32:22

that we'll see what happens is open

32:24

source ai but generally I think ai

32:27

as positive as it is overall will

32:29

move further to lead to greater centralization.

32:31

It it's your to see this app

32:33

and these companies with seen a Google

32:36

has more data than a buddy and.

32:39

More capital on Facebook to spot who was

32:41

a ten thousand eight, one hundred men video.

32:43

Ten million in Cap X and so yeah

32:45

I think me when I look around the

32:48

landscape it's like. A

32:50

I met averse. These are all

32:52

kind of centralizing technologies, and the

32:55

only credible counterbalance besides maybe regulation.

32:58

Is box into crypto sub?

33:00

You're not just saying that.

33:03

It. Can count be a countervailing? for

33:06

You're saying that it will be a countervailing

33:08

by hope. So I mean like it's not.

33:10

as soon as they were predicting the future.

33:12

This is your bet, right? It is the

33:14

best of the fund. Yeah. I think

33:17

get us rang him. And idea that would be

33:19

a bad to spend months to make either bet on

33:21

hundred year old Bob. Ben:

33:24

how would you construct a bet around

33:26

that? Because. I know you're

33:28

betting this. Yeah, Nora, I would love

33:30

to make a better around that the

33:32

your what's the right formulation of the

33:34

back Chris, I don't I don't want

33:37

to lose another bet because as far

33:39

as how about a block chain based

33:41

service? that's not speculative. That's.

33:44

Used by and an of ten million

33:46

A making up a number of some

33:48

significant but not enough to make a

33:50

significant number of users in. Five.

33:52

Years and of his ten million or a higher

33:54

number. And so if I'm thinking about the. Most

33:57

popular block chain based services by can

33:59

thing. Right now a guy the be the

34:01

one for and that allow you to buy crypto

34:04

or the ones that allow you to buy an

34:06

F T which has similarly. Speculative.

34:09

People are like oh yeah I want you

34:11

know and be a top shots because they

34:13

go up in bad. So for example a

34:15

social network a collaborative like a in the

34:17

Southern discussing with. A I

34:19

base. you know, services authentic, getting

34:22

your really a human fighting deep

34:24

fakes, whatever it might be, Some.

34:27

Something that's not price going up and the

34:29

people need said. Sort. Of.

34:32

Sign. On to and and it'll

34:34

download a wallet or some kind of

34:36

browse. that's all you says yeah of

34:38

some kind of a token. Yeah.

34:41

And. They were down like today. You download a

34:43

wallet which is like a a while it's like

34:45

a browser for for this stuff you know some

34:48

kind of you download some software and you are

34:50

user and you're using it on a not know

34:52

if we wanna say daily weekly or monthly basis

34:54

or whatever and presumably. Given, given

34:56

where these beds has been going, you're. In.

34:59

Terms of the total number of users in the

35:02

potential number of uses with thinking. Globally.

35:04

Here, right? We're not thinking Americans. I think

35:06

it's a pretty global movement, so I think

35:08

that would make sense. But. Okay, so

35:10

in five years time, we're going to have one

35:13

nine billion people in the world Something. And then.

35:16

They because five billion users probably assume

35:18

that ago up okay with it The

35:20

Faceless: A six million internet users conservative,

35:22

Sixty million that when present that which

35:25

you guys do their best would allow

35:27

fences with and percent that was that

35:29

landline ago at allotments with with them

35:31

to censor like that would be I

35:33

mean that one I would happily take

35:35

if we take like. Five. Hundred

35:38

million. Users. Of something doing

35:40

in a doing something those vacancy on a

35:42

bitcoin service about a habit one hundred million.

35:44

I'll propose a compromise. A hundred million or

35:46

big. That's a big number of still big

35:49

them. It is a big number a case

35:51

of basically doesn't Internet service. That

35:53

isn't. Speculative. The people

35:55

on signing on to because they want to make money

35:57

but they're fighting on to it because they get some

35:59

other. The people of the out of

36:01

it and there are. A

36:04

hundred million. Individuals.

36:06

With who fled created a public key and

36:08

have a while I think that will be

36:10

certainly. Much more interesting. so.

36:13

I like it, I like it so let's do that.

36:16

And now we just need to come up with to

36:18

stay. I have to find out how much that has

36:20

a hero bottles gonna cause. I can assure you it

36:22

costs less than an East. Is

36:24

okay okay know about break that it

36:26

won't, but yeah it were a won't

36:28

break Ben Horowitz they won't be damage,

36:31

but one thing I to. Is.

36:33

So I have this ceremony event that

36:35

I do. It's called that, paid and

36:38

fully that was. Where. We

36:40

kind of honor and. Financially.

36:43

Rewards and that the early to pop

36:45

artists to could never got their do

36:47

and. And and never work

36:49

at a fairly compensated. They. Can

36:52

buy you a table of my their

36:54

own. Know what? you would get me

36:56

a best value. Okay. And. Then

36:58

if I win I will buy a table

37:00

at the. Annual. Dinner

37:03

for the Committed Sexual lists are it.

37:06

Or it that sounds good. Okay,

37:08

we have a bet it'll come

37:10

outcomes you in twenty twenty nine.

37:13

Which. Is of oil will all be alive

37:16

and us. Hopefully by that point we won't

37:18

have been turned into some kind of do

37:20

by an evil. A I'd has taken over

37:22

the world. So

37:25

on that note I'm Ben how

37:27

it's critics and say so much

37:29

for coming on. Think it goes

37:32

to see licensed and senior. Thank

37:34

you to Sarah Downing and General

37:36

for producing and will be back

37:38

on Saturday with a regular sleep

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