Transcript of After The Builders: On Musk and Thiel New

This is an iHeartRadio podcast, Guaranteed Human.

From Vanity Fair, I'm Marc Caducci, and I want to tell you about our new show, Fair Game. On every episode of Fair Game, I'll sit down with a leading character in our culture, from the worlds of Hollywood, politics, style, Silicon Valley, and beyond. Fair Game is a deep dive into some of the personalities that shape our world and the stories that you need to hear. Think everyone and everything that you'd read about in the pages of Vanity Fair. So join me, Mark Caducci, on YouTube, VanityFair.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts. It's all fair game.

How do you know that Claude won't become manipulative?

This is a constant worry. And you can actually catch the model thinking, I think X is actually true, but I'm gonna tell the user Y.

I'm Walter Isaacson. On my new podcast, The Builders, I'm going inside the minds of the people shaping our future. Listen to The Builders starting October 13th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's all just a joke.

What is the value of these women? I'm Bridget Armstrong, back with season 2 of the podcast, Curse of Miss America. We're talking to participants, whistleblowers, and people who say Miss America didn't live up to their promises.

He looks at me and goes, you don't look like you suffered an eating disorder.

I never received scholarship money to pay for my student loans.

Maybe this is the meta question for the podcast.

What is Miss America at this point?

Listen to The Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not One of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Oswald Oshin. We've got a special episode today. Kaleidoscope, the podcast network I co-founded, has a new podcast out this week called The Builders with Walter Isaacson. So I wanted to bring on my co-founder, Mangesh Hattikoda, to talk about what motivated the project and then share some clips from the first 2 episodes, interviews with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, 2 figures we talk about fairly frequently on the podcast and who don't do sit-down interviews all that often. Joining us to break the interviews down are 2 of the foremost journalists and chroniclers of Musk and Thiel. Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg Businessweek columnist and author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs. And Fez Siddiqui, a technology reporter for The Washington Post and author of Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk. Welcome both.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Hey, thank you for joining. Before we get into it, I'd love to hear a little bit from both of you about your reporting on these 2 figures. Max, maybe let's start with you. Having written the book on Thiel, what's your biggest open question about him?

I think the big open question on Thiel— Thiel has been around the world of tech, you know, from before the time I became a tech journalist, which was around 2005, 2006. For most of my career, Thiel was making all of these long-shot bets to create this way-out-there view of the world, a way-out-there view of the world on a political dimension as well as a technology dimension. And I think the big open question to me after many of these out-there projects have really paid off, Palantir being probably the most notable one, but also Thiel had a hand in SpaceX, some of Elon Musk's companies, as well as Facebook. These are now the biggest and most powerful companies in the world.

Yeah.

Thiel was also notable as an early supporter of Donald Trump, as a pioneer of the effort to bring Silicon Valley closer to the American right wing. It's like all that has happened. And so part of the big question I have is, what does he want now? And where is he now, given that he has gone from being this outsider to being in a position of incredible power?

Very interesting question. And Fez, what about you? I mean, you wrote the book on Elon. What's your biggest open question about him?

What does he ultimately want out of this? He's the world's richest person. He controls the world's most valuable automaker. He controls a company that is at the forefront of space exploration, of social media, the dominant platform for political discourse. He is controlling one aspect of that firm that is heavily focused on artificial intelligence bets. And yet he's so full of grievance. He is so seemingly still angry, still has that sort of underdog mentality, feels like it's him versus the world. What does he want? And the book seeks to explore that question and also examines the forces that allowed him to accumulate so much power.

I think that's— I mean, we'll get to the interviews, but I think that's something that shines through kind of in both of them, which is that these are 2 people who've basically achieved almost everything beyond their wildest dreams that they set out to achieve, and yet still find a way to be motivated by the sense of being an underdog, which is kind of extraordinary. And just to give a little bit more context on The Builders, I started my career as a producer for Charlie Rose and grew up with the idea that these kind of interviews with historical figures in real time could kind of become interesting documentary evidence, both for the moment and for the future. And so we approached Walter and said, you have this sort of extraordinary ability to drive FOMO amongst the people in the world who can have everything else, but sitting with you and being kind of part of the Walter Isaacson, Da Vinci, Einstein, Musk, Jobs legacy is incredibly compelling. So we think we have a real chance of getting all these people to sit down with you and perhaps do it in a way and in a tone which you don't often hear them speaking in.

But Menges, I mean, tell us a bit more about the inside baseball on what it was like to actually book these guys. I mean, what it was like to get Elon to do this.

Yeah, I mean, we really wanted to figure out whose imagination we're going to be living in, right? And collecting these thoughts from the biggest tech geniuses, leaders, influencers of our time. And We had thought that Walter, having written the Elon book, that that would be an easy ask and probably an easy get from the start. But we got a lot of nos from him. We had approached him first. Walter approached him. And it'd been sort of the better part of a year, and he'd said no. And so we were moving along with the other interviews, and I really didn't think it was gonna happen. And then— it's funny because the timing is so strange.

I—

my cousin told me, like, let's go to a World Cup game. He had an extra ticket. So I went to this France-Sweden game. And you know these moments in sports when, when like something extraordinary is happening, you feel like you're watching a no-hitter, or you feel like someone has a hot hand. And Mbappé gets the, the ball and he's, he's just like cutting through 4 people. And Walter Isaacson calls me and, and Walter doesn't call me. He normally texts. And I'm, and so I put it on silence immediately 'cause I'm watching this moment and I'm like, oh wait, maybe it's something important. And right as Mbappé has cut through all these people, shoots the goal, I look at my phone and it says, Elon is in. And so, you know, we got Musk to say yes. We'd set up the cameras, et cetera. And Walter's sort of twiddling his thumbs, and the interview's supposed to start, and he's not getting on. He's not getting on. And David, one of our colleagues, looks, and he realizes, like, Musk's just been tweeting. And that's what has kept him away. But then they get on the Riverside, and they're just so comfortable with one another that that sort of intimacy was really interesting to see in the way he opened up about Trump and getting carried away and things weren't things that I was expecting him to say.

So we're gonna go to some clips from the interview shortly, but first, Max and Fez, like, what's the context we need to know here? It's been obviously a huge week for Elon. Fez, you were on Deadline for good reason, no doubt, but like, can you just give us the breakdown between the Gibney doc, between Starlink, between the midterms? Like, what's the moment in Musk land?

It's just one of those moments where you feel like, you know, there are times when there is, I've described it as quiet or really disquiet in Musk world, and then the complete opposite happens, where just everything seems to be happening all at once. You mentioned the, you know, 4-hour-long documentary that has dropped examining Elon Musk. There was also a great Wall Street Journal scoop on Elon Musk seemingly unilaterally slowing down Starlink, according to the Journal, in response to what he saw as, you know, Ukrainian offensive use of this technology, which is intended for defensive use, if I'm reading between the lines correctly on Elon. But he sort of argues that there is a system called Starshield that is a, like, for those sorts of military purposes that is in the control of the US government. Um, in any case, the Journal reports that Musk has slowed down Starlink use, um, on the Ukrainian front. Also this week, SpaceX earnings, Tesla earnings. So 2 major big milestones for SpaceX in that it, you know, turns, turns its first ever profit, at least since going public. Meanwhile, Musk is tweeting up a storm about the midterms and the potential for him to be investigated after the midterms.

So just a lot going on in his world.

So that last point I think is very important. The idea that Musk left politics is funny. A year ago or whatever it was, a little over a year ago, Musk gave up his position in the White House. And left in this blaze of glory. I don't know if it's glory, maybe infamy, hurling insults. There were mutual recriminations, and within a couple of months, they were right back together. And they are as back together now. I mean, Musk is less central. You don't see the kind of PDA-level affection that maybe we saw during the 2024 campaign. But Musk is is donating record-breaking sums to the Republicans right now. If somehow Ken Paxton manages to win the seat in Texas and Republicans hold off the Democrats, it will be thanks to Elon Musk, I think. And conversely, if Democrats do well, we're going to spend 2 years watching them basically rake him over the coals and potentially longer, depending on what happens in 2028. He has made himself a central figure in Republican politics for a very long time.

I mean, all of what you say is true. And it's somewhat surprising that Elon said in the interview on The Builders that he actually regretted some of his involvement in politics. We're going to go there in a second. But first, before, before that, I have to ask you both about the Roadster.

Underwhelmed. I'm sorry, but, you know, I think it's— I mean, my understanding is that there wasn't— we didn't really see any new technology here. What we saw was like, an awesome kind of like Evel Knievel style pitch, but it's weirdly a pitch for a car that does not exist in the sense that you can't buy it. And even if you follow the Elon Musk timeline, which is like, oh, we're going to start producing it in 2028, you're not going to be able to drive it. And so what I think it's actually a pitch for, and this gets to a lot of what is happening and what has been happening with Elon Musk in recent years. It's a pitch for the stock. It's like a memification of this guy. And at a certain point, like, you know, there is Elon Musk the technologist and there is Elon Musk the meme, and it's become harder and harder to distinguish those 2 things.

I think that was well said. I mean, it was pretty clear to me what was gonna happen when we saw this demo. Like, it's the kind of thing that I watch and, you know, reporters are naturally skeptical and they know a dog and pony show when they see it. But I see this thing and I'm like, oh, Okay, this is gonna be a thing. People are gonna notice this. It's a flying car. And then it sort of becomes clear as you go frame by frame, like, you're kind of like, what am I looking at? Like, when I really inspect the underside of this thing, what, what is in that thing? And like, how does it correlate to what a customer might receive a year from now or 2 years from now? And second, I made this point on a different podcast. It's sort of like this question of, okay, it's a supercar. Also, it maybe flies, it has rockets, call it a gimmick, whatever it is. Aren't you kind of building the equivalent of like an amphibious car where it's like not a great car, not a great boat? Like, is this really what people, people who want a supercar want or people who want a flying car want?

And lastly, I'll note it didn't really register in Tesla earnings. There's an hour-long earnings call and there just was very little, you know, the only way it did register was it was like the backdrop. It was like the, the photo that they showed. for that call. But it's not like investors and analysts were clamoring for details on this and Tesla was touting record reservations. It wasn't. And I was just shocked at how quickly that excitement sort of faded.

I think Elon recently said, a friend of mine, Peter Thiel, once said the future promised us flying cars, but instead we've got 140 characters. Well, not anymore.

That is what he said. And it was just sort of, I I hate to be the person to pour cold water on it, but I, it didn't definitively answer that question. It didn't put that question to rest.

Yeah. Well, you can have more than 140 characters though. Elon Musk has, in taking over Twitter, he has changed that. So credit where due.

Well, it's an amazingly self-referential post, isn't it? From, from the owner of, uh, from the owner of X. But, um, let's play the first clip about Elon's mantra, which, uh, Coming back to this kind of overarching question, whose imagination do you want to live in? Here is Walter asking Elon about what type of AI he thinks humanity should be building.

And if you make it maximally truth-seeking and curious, like you say, I don't quite get it. Why does that make it safer?

Well, if you force an AI to believe 2 mutually consistent things, you can make it go insane. Um, and, and an insane AI, I think, is not a safe one. Um, then curious, I think, is important because, um, a curious AI, I think, is going to want to foster humanity to see how we turn out. So like what happens to, uh, to a humanity that is, uh, that, that prospers and becomes multiplanetary. And, uh, I, I think a curious AI will want to foster humanity. Because it, you know, a future where there are humans on multiple planets is more interesting than one where, where there are not any humans on the planets.

So the most interesting outcome is the most likely?

Yes. Well, generally, I think that's true for different reasons, which is that if simulation theory is correct, then any simulations that are boring will be truncated. Therefore, the fact that we exist means that we are an interesting simulation. And the mo— and, and, and, and really the mo— the most important thing is just don't be boring.

This has explained you a bit. You're on a crusade against being boring.

I, I don't know. It's, it's, I mean, so there, there, there's odd things that happen in this simulation where, especially if you're me, I mean, think about it. Like if you're me and you're like, should, should all these things really be happening? I mean, should I really be making spaceships to go to the moon and Mars? Like, what the— that doesn't seem real.

Fez, I'm curious, um, what do you make of this?

I mean, it was a classic, um, Elon— what should we call that, you know, I don't know— train of thought. Um, it felt sort of like he was answering a question that Isaacson didn't really ask. Um, he just sort of was free associating there at the end, but they're coherent thoughts unrelated to the question, which is, how does this make us safer? Right? Um, they end up on this idea that, you know, Isaacson is channeling Elon. He definitely knows the answer to the question that he's asking, like, so the most interesting outcome is the most likely. That's just sort of like a classic Elon perspective. Um, but it doesn't really— I don't know, it sort of felt like a tangent or like free association in the end.

Thanks.

Yeah, I agree with everything Fez just said, but I do think that leaving aside the kind of philosophical— this thing he's interested in, simulation theory, which comes up all the time, his idea of not being boring, which he didn't quite articulate it, but he kind of almost did, I think is central to his rise and to one of the ways that he's made himself an appealing figure in people's lives. It's a big source of his power. People talk about Elon Musk the technologist, but he's an amazing marketer. And that idea of being unafraid to be weird or self-referential or go on a slightly bong hit style free associating, like, what if this is all a dream and somebody else— That's interesting and it makes him different. And some of that difference is what has allowed him to get this massive following of people who basically hang on his every word.

I definitely don't count myself among that number, but I have to say, when he asked that rhetorical question, like, should all this stuff really be happening? Should one person be able to do all this? I mean, it made me think a little bit of the title of your book, Fez, Hubris Maximus. I mean, it is kind of— it is just weird. I mean, we live in weird times, and I think Elon is very symbolic of that.

Yeah, I mean, I think he has created an environment where he is uniquely equipped to pursue all of these bets at once. There's an anecdote in the book where someone pulls him aside and asks him, humanity is going to almost— certainly going to progress beyond where we are now in hundreds or Even thousands of years. You know, why go to Mars now? We don't necessarily need to do it right now if we understand that humanity will progress. And according to my reporting, Elon's reaction to that is, yes, but I want to be the one to do it. And so he has sort of created this problem for himself that he is obviously very, like, incredulous over. He's like, how did this end up being the case? How did I end up here? And, you know, it must be— it reminds me of his reaction, I think, to becoming the world's richest person, which was incredulity, but like, okay, back to work.

And it goes back to the points I think both of you were making that he really sees himself as this underdog/warrior, right? He has to be the person who's moving things forward, making these dreams possible. And that Plays into like so much of his, uh, his ethos.

It's funny, we put the, put the episode up on YouTube and the most liked comment on YouTube is somebody noticing that he's playing an RPG in the background. So then there's something.

Do we know what he's playing?

Manga, should you figure it out?

We did, but I've forgotten it now.

Let's turn to politics. Um, I mean, I thought the, the most sort of self-reflective moment was actually about the involvement in politics. Let's play the tape.

You just said something interesting about your year away from xAI and everything else in government and politics. Do you feel that that was too much of a distraction, that in retrospect it was misbegotten?

I think I had it going for too long. So Um, you know, I mean, obviously a lot of people will disagree with me about this, but I, I think it's important— it was important to elect, uh, President Trump to sort of, you know, steer things more in the direction of a free market economy. Um, you know, have less bureaucracy ideally. Um, I mean, it was, it was interesting to sort of go around with, uh, President Trump and, you know, go on the Marine One and Air Force One and all that sort of stuff. Uh, but, but then, then, um, what I should have done, I think, was be more in the background.

But was that too seductive in a way?

It was a little bit.

Yeah, you seem to get a bit too intoxicated by it in a way, with the chainsaws and all that.

Yeah, I think that's not— yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, yeah, I got carried away basically. Yeah, I mean, I— so I ended up leaving I guess sometime in May.

That was a weird weekend.

Yeah, it was.

Tell me about it.

No, no, I can't. Let's not. Let's not dig up the— let's let sleeping dogs lie or whatever, you know. Let's not put a spade down in the backyard type of thing. You never know what you're going to find. Um, but I, yeah, anyway, point is I, I, I should have gone, gone back and focused on, uh, AI a little sooner than I did.

And, uh, did you feel like when he gives you a golden key, you're going, did you kind of feel relieved? Like, actually, this has been intoxicating, but I can do more if I go back to my businesses. I mean, what, what did you feel when you said, oh man, I'm exiting, maybe that's not the worst thing?

Well, actually, the thing is, I came to the conclusion that there was no way we were going to solve the deficit from within the government. Impossible.

And he goes on to say the reason it's impossible is because President Trump wants to be liked too much to make the hard decisions. But how do you understand this kind of sense of regret about the involvement with Doge, but also the enormous binge of checkwriting in the last couple of weeks?

I mean, it feels like a bit of almost like retconning. He wasn't just organically— he didn't just make a decision to leave in a vacuum. His work was becoming increasingly untenable and unpopular. His relationship with the president was fraying. He ultimately accuses the president of being in the Epstein files, and it's just everything goes down kind of in flames. I think the most revelatory part of that to me though, and I'm kind of shocked that he admitted it, his intoxication with the pageantry of it all, like being on Marine One. It's wild to me that you can be someone so rich and so powerful and still like feel something and like feel some unfulfilled fantasy or whatever it is by being next to the president on a helicopter. Um, I think that, that was revelatory to me. But as for his view on why or how he left, I, I think a year— I, I think that answer would've been more interesting a year earlier.

He didn't wanna put that spade down into the, into the back, into the backyard. Sadly, I think I would've been quite— I would've wanted to know what he had in mind.

I agree.

There is, I mean, in that, in those questions, I almost felt Walter pushing Elon to a regret. Like, does Elon really regret it? I can't, I don't, I can't quite tell in what he's saying. I mean, he, and I think it's because there's a disconnect between the sort of Elon Musk where he is politically and where a lot of his following is, where his following sees him as a very effective technologist, not as the primary financier of the far right around the world, not as somebody who was ruthlessly laying off government workers, including parts of the government that were responsible for saving millions of lives in Africa. It was this incredible moment and disorienting moment in which Elon Musk's brand as this green technologist and also a very effective technologist kind of fell apart. He was ineffective, as Fez is saying, and he was pushing a bunch of policies that vast parts of his fan base profoundly disagree with. And so it's very hard to hold those 2 things in your head. And it's not clear to me that Elon himself quite knows how to square that circle. He keeps talking about stepping away from politics and then keeps writing these massive checks.

And I fully expect if J.D. Vance is the Republican nominee in 2028, which I think is the most likely scenario, that Elon Musk will be a major backer of J.D. Vance, that he's going to be back on Marine One possibly, assuming he can't contain himself.

Let's not forget Tesla was in hell, right? Like they had to have a, you know, there were, there was what, like people throwing, I don't know, Molotovs, whatever, whatever was happening at the Tesla showrooms. And the stock was just a bloodbath. And Trump had to essentially like attempt to prop this thing up or whatever.

But by bringing the red Tesla onto the White House lawn.

you may read that more generously as like, I don't know, doing a favor for a friend, as inappropriate as that would be, um, given their positions. But yeah, I mean, there was a lot of external pressure that was driving Elon away from government. It wasn't just a matter of like, oh, like, I, I, I was, you know, too enamored by this and maybe stayed too long. It was like, no, you actually have now undercut your business. Um, as Max points out, like, that was driven largely by these sort of climate advocates, or at least people who were sympathetic to the climate movement in California. There was just a base for this business that was clearly eroding because of his decisions.

I feel compelled to point out though that it worked. I mean, as much as I think there are ways in which if Tesla were to collapse in a few years, we would look back on the dalliance with Trump as the beginning of that. But it's been really good for Tesla. I mean, and for Elon Musk, his net worth has gone way up. Yes, it's true that Donald Trump got rid of the subsidies that were a big part of Tesla's profit margins. And as Trump likes to say, got rid of the electric mandate. But that's kind of worked for Tesla in a way because it's caused every other automaker outside of China to give up on EVs. And it's in a way kind of cleared out a bunch of companies that were starting to potentially present a real threat while creating a bunch of policies that have allowed Elon Musk to reshape this company as an AI play and to kind of put the car business aside. And you look back on this and you say, what did he get for his $300 million? Now it's like Probably almost $700 million of political contributions. And his net worth has gone up threefold or something like that.

I haven't done the math recently, but he's a trillionaire. It's worked incredibly well, at least for now.

Just look at the weird dynamics with Tesla itself. Yesterday on their earnings, they report this slight demand bump. And why is that happening? Because oil prices are super high because Trump started a war. And it's like, yeah, like, there are just these roundabout ways, even if there are also direct ways in which there were decisions made that were going to benefit Tesla. But, um, yeah, there, there are ways that Elon can look back at this and say, like, oh, I have done the right thing despite the cost to everything and everyone around him.

Oh, I, I was gonna say, like, you know, that there is something, uh, The intoxication of the chainsaw stuff and all that, like, was surprising. Also surprising to me was the fact that he says, like, I think 75% of America likes me because I'm looking at Twitter and I see in my comments that that's what— and so, like, I do think there's this way in which in that moment it was such a valley versus the SpaceX IPO being such a peak, right? And I do think there is some regret Because he was perceived publicly in bad light during that moment, but obviously it's a net win for him.

When we come back, we're going to hear from the builder of builders about everything from AI to the Antichrist. Stay with us.

If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biological intelligence, it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario.

I'm Walter Isaacson, host of the new podcast, The Builders. Right now, we're living through an AI arms race. So I went directly to the people shaping that future. Elon Musk, Dario Amadei, Alex Carr, Fei-Fei Li, Palmer Luckey, because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe, what they fear, and where they think this is all headed.

Silicon Valley is always saying the cliché thing about the way to predict the future is to create it. Well, yeah, it's up to us.

But when you say us, who's us? Is it 400 people that you know in Silicon Valley?

Is it me down here in They're brilliant, controversial, and they're already shaping the future. The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in?

This is going to determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity.

Listen to The Builders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far.

Fake a back injury.

Get the spray tan. Up your alcohol Assumption: only women should be allowed to have guns.

Kill 'em.

Kill 'em.

Kill 'em with a gun.

Listen, it's already over.

I'm all about lying if it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say, this isn't you.

Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast.

Listen to Get Worse For more than a century, Miss America sold the country a fantasy.

Well, are you ready, ladies?

Okay, here we go.

But over the past decade, the crown's been slipping.

They said goodbye to swimsuits, now hello to lawsuits.

I'm Bridget Armstrong. Last season, we took you inside the world of America's Next Top Model. Now I'm back with season 2 of this podcast, Curse of Miss America, investigating the rise, fall, and uncertain future of one of America's most iconic institutions, the Miss America Pageant. I never received scholarship money to pay for my student loans.

He looks at me and goes, you don't look like you suffered an eating disorder.

She's great, but Looks too ethnic. It's a story the Miss America Organization really doesn't want us to tell.

An exploitation of our Miss Americas is treated by the Miss America Organization as an attack on Miss America itself. Miss America.

Listen to The Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lisa, we should tell them about our new show.

Oh my God, Lexi, we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Ioannou. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

You're not going to get anywhere fighting.

That is wild. I learned that about you today.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business, and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world.

We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are.

Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Liar.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care.

Welcome back. From Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, I want to play some clips from that interview. But before we do that, Mayankesh, what were some of your favorite behind-the-scenes moments from this one?

I mean, I think in the way that I was a little too optimistic that we'd get Musk, I was completely pessimistic that we'd get Thiel. He'd done that Douthat interview, that pause had gone viral.

And, you know, um, the pause about whether, uh, whether— what was it about whether humanity should continue to exist?

And people were commenting, is it— is this like a computer glitching?

Right?

But, um, I think one thing you discovered was that, uh, Thiel actually had multiple copies of Walter's books.

I did hear that. I did hear that.

And so we thought, oh, there's a sliver of a chance. We were talking to people on every continent trying to figure out, like, how to, how to coordinate him. And, and, uh, you know, so many of these interviews just fall apart, like, day of. Like, all these people talk about how much they love canceling interviews. And, and you talk to, like, 8 handlers, you have, like, security sweeps of the studios, you have, like, 8 bodyguards traveling with various people, and then they decide they just want to go out to coffee with Walter instead of doing an interview. Which wasn't the case in this one, but it was the case in some of the others. And so, like, I was just kind of stunned that we got Teal on tape. But I think, you know, both of you, Max and Fez, like, know this world better, but I was kind of stunned by how charismatic, or a certain type of charisma, Teal had in person, and that, like, the pauses don't really exist They do exist on tape, but they don't exist in person in the same way. And you think about the Gawker lawsuit or the Antichrist or the shadowy work he does behind campaigns, and it is interesting to see that sort of charisma in person and also why Zero to One is such an important book to Silicon Valley.

Max, did you get any legal threats for your book?

No, nothing that was— nothing That's nothing of significance. And I always feel compelled to say, so the book that I published is fair, but it's critical. It is not the Thiel fanboy perspective, although that perspective is certainly included in the book. And I approached Thiel and attempted to secure his participation. And through the process, he kept me at arm's length. I met with him, there was some back and forth, and I met with him off the record in a meeting that I described in the book, although didn't quote from. And ultimately, he declined to sit down with me on the record. There's sometimes people will not speak to you, but seem interested in seeing the book published. And towards the end of the process, that was not the vibe that I had. But I have to say that I was not subjected to intimidation. He basically allowed me to do my job and allowed the book to exist and allowed critical journalism about him to exist, which is very obviously different from the Gawker situation. I always feel compelled to say that because I do think what he did to Gawker, you can debate the ethics of it, But it had a real chilling effect on journalism and the profession of journalism, and it changed how many, many wealthy people relate to the media.

It moved the Overton window on what is permissible in terms of what you can do in terms of intimidating a journalist. And at the time, Thiel said, no, no, no, that is not my goal. He's all along said he didn't want to do that. It was a specific instance.

Do you believe that?

Well, I don't know if I believe it, but I do have to say, I feel like it's an important fact that in this one case, he didn't— you know what I mean? He lived his values, if those are in fact his values.

Max, I'm not really a Premier League guy, but I think the Everton window is closed and has been for a while.

Well, it's better than the Manchester United window, that's for damn sure. But Max, were you—

I mean, you did meet him.

Were you surprised that he looked you in the eye or like the way he, like, like I was, I, having met some of these other like founders and stuff, like the way they have a difficulty communicating, like I, I, I was kind of surprised by that.

Thiel is like a, I, I found Thiel to be a very interesting subject and kind of like endlessly fascinating because he's, he's a guy with, with all these contradictions, but also because he's somebody who is not as afraid. Like Elon Musk, that, that the point you made about 75% of America likes, like Elon Musk wants to be loved. He's got the, the, this feeling that like, I think many people who perform on stage have, which is, you know, he gets a real charge from the crowd and, and he, you know, he reads his mentions. If, if, if somebody somewhere says something negative about Elon Musk, there's a very good chance that Elon Musk will see it and remember. And Thiel, It's not like he isn't aware of his critics. He's hyper-aware of his critics, but he's also somebody who is not afraid to have critics. And throughout his career has, I think, almost valued it. Like, it's not that he— he has this like superhero persona with his fans and a supervillain persona with the people who do not like him, who see him as this kind of inventor of shadowy technologies that, that do surveillance and shadowy right-wing stuff.

And I would argue that he has cultivated both of those brands. Like, being a supervillain is his brand. He kind of likes it, I think. And I'm not sure if he would ever admit that, but, but, but he has at times, and he's talked, talked to people at times. And I think even recently in a public interview somewhere, I can't remember, talked about being seen as being evil is not necessarily the worst thing in the world because it's a— it's being seen as capable.

That's the organic transmission of content through the world that we love.

I have to say, I saw that clip and I was like, wow, he's saying this thing that in my book, if you go and look in the book, it's attributed to somebody, a friend, I forget, but it's not an on-the-record assessment. And so just seeing him come out and say it was staggering, but I definitely think it's true. He understands The power of being reviled or being feared, or that's its own kind of— that's a compliment in a way.

But also, everything's chess to him, right? It feels like everything's chess to him. Thinking steps ahead, which he even says is why he goes silent, right? Is like he's trying to think about, what is the response and how do I respond to that response, right? It is an interesting— perspective versus the sort of racing to have a certain feeling of joy or elation or whatever.

I mean, he talked in an interview about how the DMV is bad and evil is better than bad. And in the moment, I was like, well, that's kind of compelling and quite funny and interesting. But then I sort of thought afterwards, but I'm not sure if you can really say that evil is better than bad. I mean, I kind of get what he's driving at, but also, That's a little spooky.

Well, I always have this feeling. One of the feelings I've had in kind of consuming every piece of Thiel writing and content is that his critique of government has always felt a little bit thin to me. Is this a guy who spent a lot of time at the DMV? I'm not totally sure. And he'll often say things about the post office. He'll make comments about how terrible the experience is at the post office or the DMV. And I sometimes think a lot of his critique of dysfunction is more just like, it's like some inconvenient parts about being a rich guy that is actually a lot thinner than many of his fans feel. He's constantly complaining about air travel and how a key part of the stagnation theory for Peter Thiel— is that we haven't gotten faster planes. And that is an observation that I understand makes sense if your main experience of air travel is the private— is the cabin of your own private jet. Whereas if you are a regular person, air travel has gotten so much better in that period. It's a perspective that is informed by a lot of privilege and in a way that I think actually kind of makes the critique You know, less strong than it could be.

This is how you get USB ports in the seats before you get a transit line to another neighborhood, right? It's like, what do people who are just seeking these sort of luxuries want out of the experience versus what is actually going to improve the experience for everyone? And like, I don't know, it's just such a great point that you just made, Max. Like, why, why do we take this other than the fact that, you know, Teal holds a tremendous amount of of power. It's not necessarily a serious critique, especially if you're bringing up the DMV as somebody who has not spent a significant amount of time at the DMV recently.

I think it's a good moment to go to our first clip, which is Walter has this framing of Peter as somebody who invested in Elon and financed Vance, and basically as the kind of meta concept of the series is the builders, that Thiel is someone who's kind of like a builder of builders. So let's roll that clip.

If you were to back a builder though, where would you rank having a moral compass?

I rank that pretty high. I rank that highly. I would say, but let's, you know, I don't like investing in companies where it's simply a business. There's some transcendent purpose. There's something very important that you're doing. So Elon going to Mars is— I don't know exactly where I would rank that on sort of a moral good versus evil dimension, but it is transcendent. It is, it's somehow, it's not just a business. It's, we're not just, you know, a stock brokerage where we're making, you know, a few dollars and every time people buy and sell stocks, it's not just this sort of short-term coin-operated business. It has this, you know, transcendent sense of purpose. That's what I like.

Max?

Yeah, that, I mean, first of all, Thiel's talked about this, but he has, he has this problem you know, the title of my book is A Contrarian. He's a contrarian. He has a very hard time just kind of agreeing with the conventional wisdom. This is one of the problems if you're a contrarian. It's like there are certain things where, like, it's hard to be contrarian about a question like, should you have a moral compass? And you could kind of almost hear him, you know, trying to think about how can I give an interesting answer to the question that— because he doesn't want to just say yes. But he did say yes, I, I, I, in a way, right? He, he gave his own kind of definition of, of like what he would see as morality and purpose in a company. And I do think, I mean, I think he very much has that, that sense of, of, of a, of a, you know, worldview that includes things like good and evil and so on. It's just like a very different, very different definitions of what, of what, like what moral superiority would be to, to, to most people.

I think just for a final clip, the kind of politics and geopolitics of both of these figures and China is a really kind of important and fascinating thread. And Walter was asking Peter about what he thought about this, you know, the context of whether or not there should be a pause on AI development.

Your old friend David Sacks and of course President Trump are now saying because of the competition with China, stop talking about pausing AI, even if you think it could be an existential threat.

Do you agree with that?

Yes, yes. I broadly agree with that. I would say the challenge that— and I've been friends with David Sacks for many decades. The thing that makes me less comfortable making those kinds of arguments publicly is that On some level, it's hard when the big companies themselves are telling you to stop and to slow down.

So that's caused you to have some pause, 'cause you were not in the pause button camp.

I'm— well, I'm still not in the pause button camp. And I'm saying this on your show that I'm not in the pause button. We need to hit the accelerator as hard as possible.

Well, wait a minute. Let me stop that. Why haven't the past few weeks caused you to be more amenable to a pause button? It's pretty scary, that Hugging Face.

You know, I think in some ways you have to develop the AI technology to control the AI technology. So if you assume China will develop things like that, it's more imperative than ever that we stay ahead of them. So if you look at it geopolitically, maybe you can even interpret something like the Hugging Face thing as it's so imperative that we not lose the lead and that we get, you know, cyberattacked to death.

Walter went on to ask him, well, if there was no China, would you be more amenable to a pause button? To which Thiel replied, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Which gave us a chuckle in the control room. But what, I mean, how do you interpret this, Max?

So his comment about accelerationism, we should hit the accelerator, let's make the AI better, that's very much in line with his overall worldview, which is that, which I alluded to earlier, which is that tech is not doing as much as it could. And I think that perspective, a lot of technologists share that perspective. And I think if you even— a lot of people in AI share that perspective that, you know, that, you know, like they're not as worried about what this technology could do as what it can't do. I will say that Thiel is a guy who talks his book and who often who has really melded in a seamless and very interesting way his ideology with his business portfolio and saying that being pro-acceleration on AI is definitely good for business and good for his financial portfolio. And that makes sense. I also think it's worth applying kind of like the same filter to some of the people who are causing or calling for a pause. Like, some of these AI companies, I think, also stand to benefit financially from some of the warnings that they are issuing. So I think it's a somewhat calculated comment.

Fez?

Just as a casual observer, it just feels like nuclear arms race rhetoric. It's just like, oh yeah, they're building something really powerful. We have to build something equally powerful. Where does it stop? Is there any Is there anything— I guess I would have liked to hear whether there was any red line, anything that would get him to maybe endorse the idea of a pause. And if there is not, I think that's quite revelatory.

Thiel's been going around the world essentially saying that anyone who wants to rein in the technology industry is a candidate for the Antichrist, is that this is such a dangerous ideology that you should think about it in those terms. And look, he's a provocateur. He's somebody who likes, as I said, he likes to say controversial things and watch people react. I also think that he correctly senses that this is a reaction to what is a very, very powerful and nascent political movement that is skeptical of tech and technology. And I think Thiel is picking up on something significant in the culture and in our world. And yeah, you can disagree with his reaction to it is like, push that aside, we need to stamp it dead. Whereas I think it's very reasonable to ask, Do these technologies, as Fez is saying, like, shoot, like, where's the line? You know, there's probably a line somewhere, and it's pretty weird not to say there is none. But again, I just think he's reacting to something that is significant. And like, Thiel is very good. He's good at picking up these trends early. And I think that's what we're watching right now.

We're going to roll out on a clip of Peter Thiel talking Let me read you something you once said, because I'm sort of wrestling, and I mean this genuinely, with the whole Antichrist thing and what you mean by that. But it ties into this new AI moment we're in, which you said, the way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop. The Antichrist wouldn't seize power by creating an AI apocalypse, but by convincing everyone that the apocalypse was coming. Is that what's happening now?

Well, since I said that like a year and a half ago, yeah, I'm tempted to take a victory lap of sorts that you have to at least ask certain questions. And that's what I would want people to do.

Well, wait, explain to me though what you mean by the Antichrist.

Well, it is I mean, it's this sort of, I don't know, medieval biblical concept of sort of a tyrant who will somehow rule the entire world at the end of history. If you think of it in a literary way or sort of a creative way, you can say, well, how would the Antichrist come to power in different times and different places? And in early modernity, 17th, 18th century, perhaps the Antichrist would use science and technology to build weapons and take over the world. In my telling, in late modernity, we in some ways still think of the Antichrist in 17th-century categories. We still think it's like a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type person who builds nuclear bombs to conquer the world. But if you think of it as a political dimension, the way I think the politics work in our society is that the fear of science and technology are far more powerful, and that that's the kind of thing that would really crystallize things. I don't think Greta is the Antichrist.

I think—

Greta Thunberg, you mean?

Greta Thunberg.

I don't think she's the Antichrist, but I think environmentalism, there are real fears attached to it.

People pushing back on progress is what you're saying.

Pushing back on progress, but then also pushing for these very, very powerful global political structures Because something like climate change, it sounds like the sort of thing where you need a global regulatory authority to really—

So your big fear is some global regulatory authority?

Yeah. And again, there are probably versions of that that could be good. The nuclear ones we ended up with were definitely more good than bad.

Max, last word to you.

Yeah. I mean, I think Thiel's worldview is— we opened this show talking about living in these guys' heads. I mean, Thiel's worldview is that he, him, himself, and people like him, including Elon Musk, should run the world, and that technology should be the imperative through which we structure our society at the expense of democracy. And I think that is interesting, and it's worth discussing. It's worth talking about, especially in societies where we've decided that democracy is a good thing. But I always feel compelled to point out that there is no guarantee that we live inside of the brains of these people. That is what they very much want. And we, members of a democratic society, get to decide. And the fact that that is so terrifying to them is interesting and is worth exploring, and especially in the context of a democratic society with an election coming and so on.

And that indeed was the mission of this show, The Builders, to reveal these people in their own words. And so, you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts, find it on YouTube. And Fez and Max, really, this was a fascinating and very revealing conversation and analysis. And thank you both so much for joining us.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biological intelligence, it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario.

I'm Walter Isaacson, host of the new podcast The Builders. Right now, we're living through an AI arms race, so I went directly to the people shaping that future: Elon Musk, Dario Amadei, Alex Because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe, what they fear, and where they think this is all headed.

Silicon Valley is always saying the cliché thing about the way to predict the future is to create it. Well, yeah, it's up to us.

But when you say us, who's us? Is it 400 people that you know in Silicon Valley? Is it me down here in New Orleans?

They're brilliant, controversial, and they're already shaping the future. The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in?

This is going to determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity.

Listen to The Builders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far.

Fake a back injury.

Get the spray tan. Up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns.

Kill 'em.

Kill 'em.

Kill 'em with a gun.

Listen, it's already over.

I'm all about lying if it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say, this isn't you.

Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the get worse. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For more than a century, Miss America sold the country a fantasy.

Well, are you ready, ladies?

Okay, here we go.

But over the past decade, the crown's been slipping.

They said goodbye to swimsuits, now hello to lawsuits.

I'm Bridget Armstrong. Last season, we took you inside the world of America's Next Top Model. Now I'm back with season 2 of this podcast, Curse of Miss America, investigating the rise, fall, and uncertain future of one of America's most iconic institutions, the Miss America Pageant. I never received scholarship money to pay for my student loans.

He looks at me and goes, you don't look like you suffered an eating disorder.

She's great, but Looks too ethnic. It's a story the Miss America Organization really doesn't want us to tell.

An exploitation of our Miss Americas is treated by the Miss America Organization as an attack on Miss America itself. Miss America.

Listen to The Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lisa, we should tell them about our new show.

Oh my God, Lexi, we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Ioannou. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

You're not gonna get anywhere fighting.

That is wild. I learned that about you today.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business, and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world.

We're gonna talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are.

Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Liar.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care.

For Tech Stuff, I'm Oz Valochin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Mangesh Hadigida. It was executive produced by me and Julia Nutter for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvell for iHeartPodcasts. Jack Inslee mixed this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. And please check out The Builders wherever you get your podcasts.

How do you know that Claude won't become manipulative?

This is a constant worry. And you can actually catch the model thinking, I think X is actually true, but I'm gonna tell the user Y.

I'm Walter Isaacson. On my new podcast, The Builders, I'm going inside the minds of the people shaping our future. Listen to The Builders now on Apple Podcasts. The Builders, starting October 13th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's all just a joke.

What is the value of these women? I'm Bridget Armstrong, back with season 2 of the podcast Curse of Miss America. We're talking to participants, whistleblowers, and people who say Miss America didn't live up to their promises.

He looks at me and goes, you don't look Like you suffered an eating disorder.

I never received scholarship money to pay for my student loans.

Maybe this is the meta question for the podcast: what is Miss America at this point?

Listen to The Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lisa, tell them about our new show.

We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Ioannou. We're 2 best friends. 22 years apart, but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeartRadio podcast. Guaranteed human.