Who Knew AI Was This Terrible at Math?

Summary

Firewall Podcast with Bradley Tusk

Episode: Who Knew AI Was This Terrible at Math?
Date: February 3, 2026
Host: Bradley Tusk
Guest/Co-host: Hugo Lindgren
Recorded at: P&T Knitwear, NYC

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into several major topics at the intersection of technology, politics, and everyday professional life:

• The surprising shortcomings of AI in handling complex math and business logic
• A reevaluation of social media’s social and political function, especially in upholding accountability
• A candid exploration of networking: pride, pitfalls, and human connection in business
• A creative new segment: writing unconventional, breakthrough political ads for presidential contenders
• A literary nod to crime writer Don Winslow

With Bradley’s signature candor and Hugo’s journalistic insight, the episode explores how supposed tech advancements sometimes falter, how social systems (old and new) interact, and what it means to be “useful”—whether as a tool, a connection, or a candidate.

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AI Is (Still) Bad at Math

The Real-World Problem (00:43 - 08:06)

• Bradley shares a long, frustrating morning spent trying to use various AI platforms to model whether his firm should take retainers in equity (like a consultancy), or a fixed ownership stake (like an accelerator) in early-stage companies.
• He gave all the necessary financial, engagement, and tax assumptions to five top AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Key Discoveries

• Results were wildly different and mostly wrong:
  • “I got wildly disparate answers for a math problem that really should have been the exact same answer for all of them.” (03:59 – A)
• Common errors included platforms ignoring major parts of the input, basic calculation mistakes, and, in Perplexity's case, even failure to parse the question.
• Only Gemini produced a "vaguely reasonable" output but required independent checking.

Notable Quotes

• “OpenAI gave me a number…way too low…literally only calculated the gain from the carry on the SPVs, completely excluded the actual ownership… this is the fucking crux of the question.” (05:22 – A)
• "Claude was just as bad as ChatGPT, just in the other direction." (06:24 – A)
• "Grok...I still couldn’t connect. So it’s just a scam. Right?" (07:28 – A)
• "Perplexity literally kept telling me, 'I need to know the ownership percentage,' [but] you can calculate the ownership percentage." (07:48 – A)

What Does This Tell Us About AI’s Economic Promise? (09:05 – 14:04)

• Bradley questions the hype around AI's transformative potential given its current commercial performance.
• AI-related revenues—even generous, cross-industry estimates—are tiny compared to industries from video games and airlines to Apple and Walmart.
• "The spending is...on Claude, $2.5 trillion spent by 2029 for maybe a cumulative revenue of at best a trillion, probably less." (11:30 – A)
• AI’s value for most users: “I don't generally find most AI search engines to be all that helpful on the things I ask for most of the time. ...as a consumer, I'm not enamored of these products.” (12:17 – A)

Insights on AI’s Utility

• Good for light research, quick fact-checks, surface-level aggregation.
• Poor for nuanced, multi-step analytical work: "If it radically transforms the cost structure of a massive industry, ...can make that industry more profitable, but in terms of the platforms, like at the moment I'm not sure I understand the value proposition." (13:38 – A)

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Social Media: Negativity, Accountability—And a Surprise Case For Its Value

Why Social Media Might Be Necessary After All (15:53 – 32:28)

• Bradley, a vocal skeptic of social media, shares recent examples where its decentralized, real-time nature has prevented abuses of power.
• Greenland & Minnesota: Recent international and domestic political standoffs were, in his view, shaped by real-time public scrutiny made possible by social platforms.

Key Points

• “In a moment where the norms around democracy and rule of law...are so upside down...social media...has become a really essential tool in stopping some of the world’s worst abuses.” (16:18 – A)
• Historic contrast: Pre-social media, discourse was controlled by 10-15 major outlets vulnerable to pressure from powerful interests.
• Now, with billions of daily posts, it’s impossible to silence mass dissent. Even if traditional media can be bullied, “you can't censor a billion different people.” (27:10 – A)

Notable Quotes/Memorable Moments

• On European leaders and Trump’s Greenland demand (20:15 – 22:23): “What must have been going through their mind…the thing…was Hitler, Chamberlain… I am not going to be Chamberlain.” (19:25 – A)
• Social media’s role: “When billions of people are now watching this because of social media…it really hurt your next election because…people are paying attention.” (22:26 – A)
• Censorship vs scale: “There are over 2 billion posts daily...let's assume half are bots, it's still massive. ... Politicians notice. Behavior changes because it has to.” (27:10 – A)

Caveats and Critiques

• Hugo introduces a major caveat: algorithm-driven echo chambers (29:02 - 30:13). Evidence that “my algo doesn’t show him, unfortunately” can insulate some users from key content.
• Bradley replies: video evidence of abuses can and does break through, transcending bubbles at moments of significant outrage.

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Networking: The Accidental Schmoozer

Rethinking “Anti”-Networking (32:39 – 43:08)

• Bradley confesses pride in being a “non-networker,” but admits the line is blurry.
• He avoids galas, golf, and big events, but finds himself pulled into the same loops: “If your work requires meeting people, you end up networking whether you mean to or not.” (38:26 – A)

Points of Discussion

• Cumulative “asks” in professional relationships—good intentions can spiral into time-consuming obligation.
• Some value emerges: serendipity, business, real friendship, mentoring, and personal fulfillment all stem from these engagements—but so does wasted time and emotional drain.

Notable Quotes

• “Nobody just wants advice. … What they really want is you to help them execute on the advice…so there’s no such thing as a five minute conversation.” (33:01 – A)
• "I try to devote a certain amount of my time to helping other people. I believe that helping other people is the thing that creates the greatest happiness." (37:35 – A)
• "You can't take every meeting everybody asks for… but...I don't know what [the alternative] is. I certainly haven't found it." (39:44 – A)

On Saying No

• Bradley admits he’s not much better at declining requests, but has gotten better at building layers of “interference”—delegating to staff or intermediaries. (41:25 – A)

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Creative Segment: “Write the Political Ad That Breaks Through”

Rahm Emanuel – Lean Into the Villain (43:08 – 46:10)

• Bradley’s spoof campaign ad for Rahm Emanuel is direct, tongue-in-cheek, and wholly unconventional:

  “They've got their prick, we've got an even bigger one. ... Rahm Emanuel, the asshole we need in 2028.” (43:27 – A)

Pete Buttigieg – Kindness as Strength? (46:10 – 50:54)

• Hugo counters with a straight, heartfelt ad for Pete Buttigieg, stressing competency and decency over bluster:

  "For eight years, we've been told America needs to be meaner, angrier, that strength means cruelty. ... Pete Buttigieg rebuilt a dying city, served his country in a war zone, delivered the biggest infrastructure investment...without drama." (46:33 – B) "That's the America I know, and that's the America I'll fight for. Not with tantrums, with results." (47:18 – B)

• Bradley critiques the degree to which Buttigieg’s persona matches the narrative: "He just turned out to be completely conventional." (47:44 – A)

Segment Rules Going Forward

• Each week, the host and producer swap candidate assignments and try to outdo each other in creative “breakthrough” political messaging.

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Recommendations: Don Winslow, A Career (50:55 – 52:58)

• Bradley offers not a direct recommendation, but an appreciation of Don Winslow’s crime fiction career.
• “When he writes about what he knows, he’s somewhere between good and outstanding. ... I would just want to recommend his career, but only this book if you’ve read the other 20 or something first.” (51:31 – A)

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Timestamps Index

| Topic | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------------|------------------------| | AI math challenge & chatbot errors | 00:43 – 08:06 | | AI’s real revenues v. hype | 09:05 – 14:04 | | Social media as tool for accountability | 15:53 – 32:28 | | Classic vs social media-driven media landscape | 23:18 – 27:10 | | Algorithmic bubbles/echo chambers | 29:02 – 30:50 | | Networking: pride, paradox, mechanics | 32:39 – 43:08 | | Political Ads: Rahm Emanuel & Buttigieg | 43:08 – 50:54 | | Book/career recommendation: Don Winslow | 50:55 – 52:58 |

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Memorable Quotes

• "The quality sucks in the good ones, so I’m not so sure." (15:45 – A, on AI chatbots)
• "Social media…has become a really essential tool in stopping some of the world’s worst abuses." (16:18 – A)
• "You can't censor a billion different people." (27:10 – A)
• "Nobody just wants advice…What they really want is you to help them execute…" (33:01 – A)
• "Rahm Emanuel: the asshole we need in 2028." (43:27 – A)
• "That's the America I'll fight for. Not with tantrums, with results." (47:18 – B, Hugo as Pete Buttigieg ad)

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Tone & Style

The conversation throughout is frank, witty, and self-effacing—with both host and co-host oscillating between serious analysis and dry humor, especially in their creative adwriting challenges and candid assessments of themselves, politicians, and technologists alike.

Summary prepared for listeners seeking the key themes, arguments, and exchanges without technical, promotional, or filler material.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome back to Firewall. I'm your host, Bradley Tusk. It's a Tuesday episode. We are recording from PNT Knitwear in New York City. And with us is our friend and producer, Hugo Lindgren. Hugo, how are you?

[B]

Great. We're back. I'm glad to be back. We had a snow day last year. We were not in the studio.

[A]

And I apologize to the listeners, like, it wasn't a good episode. And just so you guys know, we. We actually recorded it twice.

[B]

That's how bad it was.

[A]

That's how bad it was. And it still wasn't good. So I'm sorry. Anyway, this one should be better. So we got a bunch of stuff today. So the plan was to do my subtext for tomorrow, making the case that I found one good use for social media.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I'm explaining what that is. Second is some thoughts around networking and my historical pride in not networking. And then my sad realization that I was actually still doing it afterwards.

[B]

You were doing a form of networking

[A]

in a different way. But whatever. Then you and I have a new gimmick's the best word for it, where we're going to write ads for the president, potential presidential candidates. What we're going to write is what we think is the best unconventional ad for them. So not like what you'll probably actually see, but what we think that if you were trying to get people's attention and trying to break through the noise, what you might say. And the structure is going to be a little different this week, but is I started out by writing an ad for Rahm Emanuel. So I'm going to read that Hugo, then. I don't even know who it is yet, wrote one for another candidate. But then going forward, my job is that next week I'm going to come back with a better ad, hopefully for the candidate that Hugo picked. And then I'm going to sign Hugo a candidate, and then he'll come up with it, I'll try to beat it, and so on. So. So that's the process. But I want to start with something that I'm literally. And I'm. We're actually starting late today because I kind of got stuck this morning thinking about this and doing math.

[B]

You're at the gym.

[A]

I started this thing at, like, thought process at like 7. Okay. And then now it's 10:15. And I've basically done very little other than this. I. Yes, I was. I did go to the gym, and I kind of got set in between this. But. But it was basically this. So here's how it started. So Friday and over the weekend we were negotiating a contract with a startup, very little earlier stage and we usually start, but I have a prior relationship with the founder and kind of he, he's already generated some revenue. Whatever, it was the right play for us. But because it was so early, our kind of base contract and model didn't actually make sense for it. And we've been debating a little bit and this was sort of a good time to revisit it, whether we should take a monthly retainer in equity for our work, which is what we've historically done. Basically we just take, hey, if this was tough strategies and they were charging you a cash fee, what would they charge? Here's what it would be in equity, right? Or do we take a fixed ownership percentage of a company like an accelerator would do? Right. Lately we'd been testing out the fixed ownership percentage and then this morning, just kind of based on some of the, we worked through it, but some of the back and forth we had over the weekend, I was just like wondering which one is the better model for us. And so I decided I'll ask AI.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And so what I did was I created a set of pretty detailed assumptions, right? So they were for the, the VC types and tech types who listen to this podcast. Things like what I put in there were, we can work on this many companies a year. Assume a five year kind of fund duration. Purpose of this exercise. Assume an average engagement of 18 months. Assume we entered either seed or series A with the average valuation for seed at 30 million and the average valuation for a at 75 million. Assume we were taking $50,000 a month in equity and then it kind of ratchets based on raises and whatever else. Assume a collective total exit valuation, exit value of, let's say the companies over the five year period collectively. So about 40 over five years with an 18 month period of 10 billion and of 25 billion. Assume a waterfall of 25%. Assume SPVs where we don't take the linear gain, but we do take carry. Assume some recoupment of costs. Assume New York taxes, cap gains and probably five or six other assumptions around dilution and power law and things like that. Okay, fine. It's a math problem, right? And it's a math problem that I, if I sat down with a calculator, I'm not sure I'd get it right. I might be able to, but I'm not good at math. But people who are good at math could definitely get it right, right? So this Is we're not talking something that's when you've gone to the touring prize to solve this, right? It's. It's a hard math problem, but it's a very solvable math problem. But the point of AI is instead of it taking an analyst, you know, four or five hours of working through math, AI should be able to do it for me correct perfectly in a minute. Right? So you would hope, as a little bit of a thought experiment, I put the same question into chatgpt, grok, Claude. Claude, Perplexity and Gemini. Right. And I will say two things. One, I got wildly disparate answers for a math problem that really should have been the exact same answer for all of them. Two, the performance of the search engines or whatever you want, the platforms were generally terrible.

[B]

So all in the sort of sycophantic tone of your.

[A]

No substance. Okay, forget about the tone, right? This is so OpenAI gave me a number and I looked at it and said, wait, this is way too low, it can't be. Right? And when I went through, literally only calculated the gain from the carry on the SPVs, but completely excluded the actual ownership of the companies itself, right?

[B]

The biggest piece of it.

[A]

And when I said, well, what about this? They said, oh, good catch, good catch, good catch. This is the fucking crux of the question. Then Claude, which actually, to his credit, answered it very quickly. The presentation was very elegant. I was like, oh, great, Claude kind of confirmed my assumption that Claude was the best. Right, right. Then when I went through that, I was like, these numbers are amazing. I'm like, wait, this doesn't fucking make sense. Unfortunately, it was like way too much money, right? And I went back and same thing. So in this case they didn't forget it. But like, just take a 10, assume that the 40 companies have a combined exit value of $10 billion. Right? Which is somewhat reasonable assumption, I think. Hopefully a low case. And after dilution, let's assume we own 0.8% of the companies, right? It said, oh, well, your take on the equity piece is 160 million. And I said, well, if I have 0.8% of 10 billion, isn't that 80 million? And again, I got. Oh, right, good catch. Right again. Claude was just as bad as ChatGPT, just in the other direction. Grok Mainly I couldn't fucking connect to the server. Then I got a try, we're having a lot of volume. Try Super Grok for free. And then after seven days, it's $30 a month. And I was like, all right, Fuck it. So I did that. Right. I still couldn't connect. So it's just a scam. Right. And then I canceled the upgrade. Gemini did give me an answer that seemed rel. I got to go through more detail, but relatively accurate, but I'm not sure. And then Perplexity couldn't do the actual math. It wasn't even that I got it wrong. Perplexity literally kept telling me, well, I need to know the ownership percentage of the company. And I kept saying, if I'm telling you the valuation and I'm telling you the stage and I'm telling you how much we're getting of it, you don't. That you can calculate the ownership percentage. You don't need to know what it is upon entry. Right. That's why I'm asking you if I knew that I, you know, and like it. It struggled to even comprehend the question. Right. It was the. So in some ways I can't. I guess I don't know if dumber means that you can't understand the question or if dumber means you can't answer the question, but try to anyway. But I would say of the five, the only one that even produced a vaguely reasonable meaning, just getting the basic math right seemed to be Gemini.

[B]

So let me ask you a question. So you went through five of these. You put in all the information. Obviously there were all these snafus and kind of silly errors. But did you save time in the exercise by doing it that way rather than trying to pencil it out on

[A]

the assumption that when I go back and look around time, that the Gemini numbers are reasonably accurate, then yes. But let's say if I wasn't conducting something of a thought experiment and didn't do five search engines, if I did any of the other four solely, I either got an inaccurate information or no information. Right. So. So that only works if you're able to do multiple and then be willing to toss out all but the one that. That seems okay.

[B]

And could you. You could invent an agent, right. Who would do all that? Who would check it with, like, five different ones?

[A]

Probably that's where Perplexity posted. Right. And it didn't. Literally couldn't comprehend the question itself.

[B]

Okay, so where does this. Where are you landing on AI with us?

[A]

Poorly. Because right now, the vast. I looked up what's the total actual revenue generated by AI companies? Not circular, not OpenAI spending $500 billion on chips from Nvidia, because that's just AI to power AI. Right, that. Right. But what's your Actual sales. And the answer like last year it was something like let me pull it up. But it was like not.

[B]

Yeah, so total AI sales. Let's.

[A]

But you know, I did don't even do that because I, I had to.

[B]

You have the number.

[A]

I had to. Well, I also had to refine the question a bunch because it kept giving me all these answers that weren't actually accurate. Right. So right now OpenAI is estimated to generate about $18 billion in revenue in 2026. Anthropic 12 to 18. And if you take not the circular stuff so like infrastructure and chips and all of that, but just actual sales, adding another 15 to 25 billion for enterprise AI applications, another 25 to 40 and AI consulting services, which I'm skeptical of in the sense that I'm not sure if that's really additive, but ultimately you're really looking at like around $100 billion in revenue. Real revenue from AI, not AI companies buying things from other AI companies. Just to give you some comparisons. Video games in 2024, 187 billion. Airlines 2023, 279 billion. PBMs pharmaceutical benefit management 457 billion. IT consulting 502 billion. Oil refining 502 billion. UnitedHealth Group 320. Now we're add to one company, Walmart 650. Apple 420. Right. So the point is, and yet the spending is according to this was on Claude 2.5 trillion through rights just right around but through 2029 for maybe a cumulative revenue of at best a trillion, probably less. Right. So it's two and a half spent to generate one. So then the question, what you have to believe is that, well, these are investments like laying railroad tracks. Right. And they'll be good for a really long time. Yeah. And you have. And so, but you have to believe a few things here. One, you have to believe that the majority of the spend that's happening now is the spend that you will spend. And because this thing is so new, you don't really know that. Right. Just like you're already learning that a lot of the purchases and agreements for Nvidia chips are probably unnecessary because there are alternate forms of compute that are much cheaper and almost as good. Right. Number one. Number two, you have to assume that the consumer demand for AI services is going to be massive and it's just going to be the new Google, which seems logical, but it has to work. Right. And I just went through this whole thing and it didn't work. And I often find that it does. I don't generally find most AI search engines to be all that helpful on the things that I ask for most of the time. Now maybe that's refinement and it will change. But like I'm not enamored of these products as a consumer. So if it's not.

[B]

Are there any of them that you do kind of like have you. Have you. Here's what I'm. For example, the Google thing where you put in your own files and you can just ask questions like it's not exactly. It's fantastic for like a reporter, right? I don't know exactly how you would use it.

[A]

So. Well, here's. I typically will when I'm writing my columns or researching for this podcast, which tends to become, I'll use like say perplexity just for stuff. Like I was writing one over the weekend, the social media thing we're going to get to. And I just want like how many posts, social media posts are there total daily, globally and how many accounts and it could give me estimates on that stuff. The estimates are. Here's what articles say they think it might be right. If the report is wrong, then it's still wrong.

[B]

It's like a nice Google, easy Google.

[A]

I don't know if that in and of itself transforms the entire economy or it is AI in way, in other ways in other industries, health care, energy, whatever it is dramatically changing the economics of those industries. Maybe that's the hope, right? But I just have to say that this notion that ChatGPT is going to transform the US economy to me, if I had to get. I know I haven't. Sebastian Malibu, who wrote a whole book basically making the case that open I will go to zero. But if you look at what they spend and the quality of their product and the actual revenue they generate, which is de minimis.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I don't see it. Now look, Amazon, I'm sure people said that about Bezos with books or initially with search or whatever it is. And I do see how AI, if it radically transforms the cost structure of a massive industry, can make that industry more profitable and the people selling that product to that industry can make a lot of money. But in terms of the platforms, like at the moment I'm not sure I understand the value proposition.

[B]

Have you used it at all for like editing? Like where if you have.

[A]

No, but the reason I don't is I fucking like editing. I don't want it to do it for me.

[B]

Well, I use it a little bit just for like when I'm really stuck on something. And it's always been. I mean, I use Chat, GPT and Claude. I tried them to hopeless. I mean, it just.

[A]

I mean, you are a literally professional. You ran the New York time. You are the. You are the point. Oh, 1% here in the world. So, like, you're not. You're a very bad use case.

[B]

Okay, thank you. Anyway, it's just interesting, like, Yes, I agree. And I just think, like, even just for word choices and stuff, like, I just find it. I mean, I've just experimented.

[A]

Not only that, but. And I will get to some of the recommendation, but like, I was reading Don Winslow's new book over the weekend.

[B]

Do you like it?

[A]

Yeah, I'm going to talk about it. But he had one. It's a kind of vignette and he had one vignette that in a weird way my initial reaction was like, is this written by ChatGPT? Because it was so bad.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The book overall was mixed, but it was like. It's now become synonyms in my head with bad writing.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

Yeah. So hacky. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, so that's that. But I'll. I'll dig into this more. And again, this was also. Yeah, I like this.

[B]

Bradley got it on. He was. He was. He just. I got something on my mind. Should we just talk about that first? And I could just tell by the, like, expression on his face that it was going to be kind of hopeless not to talk about it, because you were obviously.

[A]

The only thing that makes me feel really good about is because I have a investment thesis around alternate forms of compute and alternate ways to power data centers. If the. The best argument against my thesis is the. The other models are so vastly superior that the quality difference is too great for you for the alternate form to make sense.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The quality sucks in the good ones, so I'm not so sure. That's right.

[B]

There we are.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Okay, so we're gonna go with these. Your social media.

[A]

Yeah. So here's. Look.

[B]

Can social Media help Prevent history from repeating?

[A]

Yeah, that's the title. It'll be on substack. If you listen to this podcast, you know that I neither really use social media, although Megan's trying to make my Instagram page more useful because what does

[B]

she want to do with it?

[A]

She just thinks that we have a lot of content. Firewall, substack, daily news column, all the stuff that we do. And by me not liking social media,

[B]

you're limiting your reach.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. And what we've done on LinkedIn is Corey runs it. I literally don't even know the password, right. I couldn't post. In fact, a couple of times I have like on a weekend. I remember times I listened to a guy on Galloway's podcast. It was a founder. And I was like, that's really. So let's talk to that guy. And I was like, well, I don't know if he's any information. I looked it up, couldn't find it. I was like, well, I guess I could. He was on LinkedIn, but I didn't have to get to my account, so I had to create a new account. And then when I messaged him, he said, is this really Bradley Tosca? And I said, yeah. And he goes, well, great. I'd love to meet you. But it was like. Cause it wasn't from mine. I had to explain what went wrong. I was trying to be nice.

[B]

Get your password. Cause it is good for that.

[A]

I was trying to be nice and maybe the other glory on a Saturday or Sunday. So anyway, I don't really use it, but we're probably leaving it on the table. But with that said, I don't like social media. Right. Its impact on society has been devastatingly negative. But I will say in the last few weeks, I have seen a use case for it that I am pretty. I don't know if I'm impressed with, but it may be glad that it exists. The sense that we're in a moment where the norms around democracy and rule of law and just basic rules of human interaction are so upside down that I think social media, because it is so inherently decentralized, has become a really essential tool in stopping some of the world's worst abuses. So. And we'll get into it. But that could be what's happening with ice in Minneapolis, it could be the Greenland situation, it could be what's happening in Iran. But. But I do want to give credit where it's due. So protest itself is obviously not news. Since the beginning of time, human beings have tried to control and repress other human beings, and then other beings have had the community the courage to stand up to it. And this isn't even the first time that protest has been engendered by social media. I think the Arab Spring is one of the best arguments for social media, and that was 15 years ago. Right. Thanks to perplexity. So it's not even new in that way. So social media can and has been. Although I will say, as I was thinking you through in the scenario that I'm going to give it credit for, it works well in fairly one sided scenarios. When it's something like say like the Israeli, Gaza, Hamas thing, where it's more complicated, it not only has a hard time capturing it, but it can also often even turn one side into sort of the right side. And that becomes a popular cause when that's just not reflective of reality. But let's take Greenland and Minnesota, the two topics kind of analyzed, right? So I'll say first of all, when Trump just said like, I want Greenland, give it to me. You have to. It was the first time in my life that I was rooting against the United States because who the fuck are we to just tell another country? You have to like Venezuela really feel

[B]

like that's against the United States. Like, I feel like, I feel like if you want what's best for the United States, you're not.

[A]

Fine, maybe so. But at least the specifically, right. The Foreign Deposit Board, I wanted us to fail, right. Venezuela, I don't agree with what we did, but there was. All right, you at least had a brutal, oppressive dictator and there is tons of drugs.

[B]

We're not Chavez side. Yeah, right.

[A]

So like, yeah, so like Maduro is different than whoever runs green, right? Right. So like Greenland and bother anybody material, right?

[B]

Chavez, he's dead.

[A]

Yeah, that was me politely correcting, not

[B]

recognize my stupid error.

[A]

So Trump says this, right? And what we saw was, I thought a pretty impressive display of backbone by the European leaders, by mers, by Macron, by Starmer, obviously by the Danish, but you know, but collectively spe. And again, it's not like I talked to any of these people or their staffs or anything else. But here is my. When I was watching this and maybe you had a different take on it, it seemed to me that the thing that must have been going through their mind the entire time was Hitler, Chamberlain, right. And they were saying to themselves, I don't fucking care what happens here. I am not going to be Chamberlain. Right. I'm not letting that happen and I'm not going to acquiesce. So then the question becomes why? Right. So it's possible that the why is simply because they just felt that way and felt strongly and they felt it was the right thing to do and everything else.

[B]

Or.

[A]

And this is where I think social media had some benefit. Appeasing Trump was not an option. Because when billions of people are now watching this because of social media and they're commenting on it and they are agreeing with you, disagreeing with you, praising you for having backbone and the people. And by the way, the people who disagree with your position are not your voters at all. It's just sort of a handful of MAGA Americans, I guess. Right. So there's no value to you at all. But there's a world where, like, when Chamberlain made the decision he made, it was based on a series of inputs and analysis that led him to conclude that for the good of England, it was easier to let Hitler take Poland than not. Right, right. And there was ultimately better for him, obviously, one of the worst decisions made in history. But nonetheless, I imagine he didn't just make it by throwing a dart at a board. Right. So you could see a world where they say, and people have a peace. Trump, both domestically and globally for, you know, his presidency, but this one, the last one, all the time, because they're like, fuck it, just weather the storm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. I mean, we've all had employees that we've eventually had to get rid of, but along the way, they're a huge pain in the ass. Like. Yeah, but they're really talented. Or they have this one client. I can't lose that client. Well, you just always ends badly. Right. So I think that maybe it's the same outcome anyway, but I think the odds of Trump taking Greenland and then it wouldn't have stopped at Greenland. He would have just kept taking more countries, and we would have been in a world war eventually. And if NATO was fighting amongst itself, God knows what opportunities that creates for China. Plus then Russia takes the rest of Eastern Europe. That all, in my view, would have been kind of the logical progression here. And one of the factors that had to have stopped it is that the European leaders, because of social media, had no choice but to do this. So maybe. But I think it meaningfully increased their incentives. And if we on this podcast, that sort of. Maybe the single biggest theme of all of it is that you have to understand what incentives are motivating politicians in any given moment to affect their behavior. This was a huge impact.

[B]

Being embarrassed at social media, being like a pretty huge one.

[A]

Yeah. And being held like, it would really hurt your next election because you couldn't just do this. And no one pays attention because they were paying attention. Right. So then Minneapolis. Right. And here I kind of want to get into the broader contrast of pre and post social media in terms of government oppression and censorship. Right. Which is before social media. And you know this because you literally worked at some of these places. What really dictated the national, let's go domestic here, Discourse. Right. It was three TV networks, by and large, and then. Then coming On a little later, a couple of, you know, cable networks at the fringes, right. Then you had 4, 5, 6 national ish newspapers. The Times, the Washington Post and the Journal, kind of category A. And then you know, an L A Times, A Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, May, Harold, maybe, yeah, USA Today in a national but kind of weak way, whatever, Right.

[B]

Atlanta Constitution, Journal.

[A]

Yeah, actually it's not that bad. And then, you know, a handful of magazines, the New Yorker, whatever, sometimes New York magazine could break something that would be national. And then a few radio stations and npr, the news stations, the typical news agents were more obviously more powerful. But we're still talking 10 to 15 entities, right? And I do think by and large the owners of those 10 to 15 entities generally took their responsibility as the fourth estate reasonably seriously. But when anything is controlled by an individual or a comp, a group of individuals, which is what a board of directors is, you know, they're facing a lot of competing pressures and they're individuals, they have fears, they have hopes, they have ambitions, they have needs. Right. Then factor in the fact that today every one of those entities is a smaller part of a bigger, with the exception of the New York Times, pretty much all of them are smaller parts of much bigger holes. Right. So CBS is Paramount, NBC is Universal, ABC is Disney, the Wall Street Journal is News Corp. The Washington Post is Bezos, Amazon and so on. Right. And so they all have multitudes of business interests and a lot of them have nothing to do with their media outlets. Right. There are things like, you know, 11 figure federal contracts from NASA or DOD or there's FTC approvals of mergers that have nothing to do with two companies that have nothing to do with media one way or the other. But at the same time, because media impacts politicians so much more than any of those other industries. Well, what they say and do with their media outlets has an outsized, disproportionate impact on then those decisions. Right. Which means they're. The point is there if we just lived in a world of 15 ish, 20 major national media outlets that effectively control the discourse, but they were owned by these giant corporations, they would be extreme. They are extremely vulnerable. When you get someone like Trump who is willing to use every lever of power, legitimate and illegitimate businesses, whatever the businesses, which means then you're at a real risk where you have the same person who is willing to use every lever of power to control them, is the same person doing other things that they don't want reported on in a negative way. And that's when Censorship helps propel fascism. Right, we're agreeing in agreement here.

[B]

Agreement.

[A]

So I do think that social media is why Trump has failed so miserably in Minneapolis. Right. Because he know when he came into office, I mean, the dude's fucking smart in some ways, right. He silenced as many media companies he could. He sued and had, and got money from Paramount over editing of a 60 Minutes piece. He got a, he got Disney to, to silence, to shelve Jimmy Kimmel for a little while. He got, you know, sued News Corp. For 10 billion. He sued the New York Times for 15 billion.

[B]

And George Stephanopoulos thing too with ABC.

[A]

Right, Stephanopoulos and so on. Right. So there's just sort of like, you know, Bezos didn't caved on the presidential endorsement, which didn't matter substantively, but like symbolically was powerful. Right. So all of that. Right. But there are over, from what I could tell, assuming perplexity, you got it right. If you take Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, there's over 2 billion posts daily total across all those platforms. And there are over 5 billion kind of 5.2 to 5.7 billion distinct social media accounts. And let's assume half of them are bots. It's still two and a half billion, three billion. Right. Still a huge number since ICE has been the dominant public issue in the US over the last couple of weeks. Other than the weather, those are the two things, right? Weather and ice. And because this is not an evenly divided issue, Right. So not only did a New York Times poll find that 61% said ice went too far and only 26% supported ice to more than a 2 to 1 margin. A Fox News poll found roughly the same thing. Right. So like, this is not a clear cut issue, which means if there's been roughly 50 billion social media posts total since Renee Goode was shot, then it's reasonable to extrapolate that a billion posts of those 50 have taken ice to task. You can censor 15 to 20 media outlets, you can't censor a billion different people. Right. And if you think about it, a billion is three times the population of the United States. And when that happens, politicians notice behavior changes because it has to. And you can't use force to stifle incredibly broad based dissent. So I still think social media is a massive negative force in society. I still think that there's litigation that the court. The case began last week. I don't know if you saw this in California. Making the case of social media is an addictive product like cigarettes and therefore needs to be regulated as such. I hope they win. And yes.

[B]

Do you think they will?

[A]

I don't know yet. Look, generally speaking it has been really hard to win these cases in court because getting back to sort of one of the bet noirs of this podcast, section two really creates tremendous leeway for and cover this is attempt to go around section 230. It doesn't mean the judge won't still be weighing it. Sure. And looking at it. Right. So we'll see. And yes, you can turn off the Internet, but there's one example that I can think of of that offhand, which was Mubarak did it during the Arab Spring. Do you know how long he lasted an office from the day turned off the Internet till he was just arrested. 18 days. You can't turn off the Internet. Can I?

[B]

Can I offer one significant caveat which I think you would agree with, but I was struck by this comment from Katie Miller, the sort of former White House kind of administrative aide. Oh yeah, she's married to Steve Miller.

[A]

So they asked her what's wrong with her?

[B]

I don't know a lot, but what's wrong with him? I think. Yeah, I know she chose to be with him. So, so, so this is what Ms. Miller said she hadn't been paying attention. This is from the New York Times. Ms. Miller said she hadn't been paying attention to the commotion from around Mr. Brovino suspension. That's the ice guy that they sent packing and therefore couldn't be sure if it was true. I don't follow him. She said. She said she didn't know what he, what he had or had not been posting. My algo doesn't show him, unfortunately, she added. So I think one of the things that one of the real problems of social media, right. Is that so you have algorithms that feed you what you want. So it is possible right now my social, like my Twitter, my Instagram and whatever has lots of stuff about protesters doing brave things, like incredibly inspiring moments. Now hers may well just be like protesters doing silly or and or provocative things like heroicizing ICE officers for being brave.

[A]

Like here's why I think in so overall, yes, there's massive stratification and we are often living in our own media bubbles and that's not good. That's where the value of those 15, 20 companies, if they're trying to be objective news sources, the best of their ability has tremendous value. And by the way, they're still trying overall. But you know, we have to at least be Mindful of the fact that at least in a scenario where they're much part a part of a much bigger corporation with a president willing to behave the way this president does. Right. They weren't subject to the same risks under Biden because Biden didn't behave this way.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Most presidents don't behave this way of either party. Right, Right. But, yes, but here's the. There's two distinctions here. One would be when you see Alex Purdy just get murdered, right. This video, and it's been shared billions of times. There's no, like, stratification that stops that from penetrating the context.

[B]

I worry that there is, but I.

[A]

I don't think so. I just think I. I got to watch any video ever because it's too fucking slow for me.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I watch that, right? Yeah. The man was murdered. Right. In cold blocks. So, like. And I think everybody saw that. Right. And there's not. And in that case, like with Renee. Good. I remember when it first happened. Even you. Even I was a little. We had a little bit. Because I was like, well, she hit the guy with the car, you know, Although more as the facts emerged, she seems fairly innocent and all of it, but the other guy was really fucking innocent. Right. And so one is. I think video. I know video can be faked, but ultimately, when it's something that widespread, it's harder just to stratify to what would be an interesting analysis, if the software exists to do this and someone has it is could you try to identify users who don't identify, self identify as political. Right. So they're not MAGA. Like, there are people for whom 80% of their posts and tweets are about their politics. Exclude all of that people who are normally posting about cats. What percentage of them posted or shared or reposted or retweeted or liked something about ice, Right. If that is, I would argue that I bet you one of the highest percentages of that. And that's when you know. Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so.

[A]

And if someone is aware of software that does that, I'm not going to pay for it. But if it's just a tool, we would love to run the search. Or if you want to run it, tell us. Okay, totally. Next topic.

[B]

Hard pivot.

[A]

Hard pivot. So here's the thing. I have always considered myself sort of an anti networker. Right. I don't go to galas, I don't play golf. I don't attend events and conferences unless I'm giving a speech. And even then I'm in and out

[B]

of the hotel room as soon as you can.

[A]

Yeah, right. I'm really bad at small talk, all that stuff.

[B]

See, I don't think you're as bad at that as you think. I've seen you at the store. I know you don't like it, but I don't think you're.

[A]

Here's what I'm really. I don't like it. I can do it. Here's what I'm really bad at. If I walk into a room and I don't know anyone, I can't approach anybody. So I just stand there by myself and my phone. If people come up to me, I can talk to them. I may or may not enjoy talking to them. In fact, I will say one of the challenges of events where there's not a clear egress when it's over is the people who came, um, often then want to talk to you afterwards. And I want to be polite and do that. So that could be as long as the event itself. And then nobody, and this is, you know, one of the key points across the board here. Nobody just wants advice. Everybody wants advice, sure. But then what they really want is you to help them execute on the advice. Can you give me money? Can you call this person for me? Can you vouch this? Can you review that? Right. And so there's no such thing as a five minute conversation because there's never not an ask attached to it. Right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So I actually find it very draining to the point where when I'm invited to stuff, I'm starting to ask Chelsea and the team to figure out the structure. Because if it's really two hours, not an hour, and then 20 people are emailing me, and then I feel bad either blowing them off or we're wasting time on shit that doesn't matter to us, like, then the event's not worth it. But a few weeks ago, a friend of mine called and he said, hey, I got a friend who's got this idea on AI and politics. Would you do me a favor? Mind talking to him? And this is someone with whom, if he asked me to talk to someone, I do and vice versa, right? And it works well. And so I talked to the guy. His idea is, like, pretty interesting, you know? Okay. So he says, well, and I like the guy. It's a good call, but it's not something interesting, but, like, not something that's going to in any way benefit me, Meaning not just me personally or my pocketbook, but even any of the things that I work on. But he says, can we now have another call with his partner, business partner. I said, okay, so we have another call. So then we have that call. Then the business part says, oh, I own a separate business. Can you talk to some of my colleagues there about this thing? So now my friend calls me, asks me something. I haven't had one 15 minute call. I've had two hour long meetings with a third still to come and that and the one they want to do in person. So it's three meetings, not one meeting. Right. And the problem is like this is the norm. And so the question that I was trying to analyze is first, is this a bad use of my time? Right. So I'm not sure is the answer. Everyone in each meeting has some sort of connection to some sort of work that we do. Right. Otherwise why would you want to meet with me in the first place? So is it possible that someone there says, oh, my other friend is doing this really interesting AI startup and regulated industry. And we meet them and we love that startup and we investor, whatever we involved. Fine. Or oh, my other friend runs this company and they've got this big regulatory issue. Can they hire your consulting firm? I always need revenue. Or I have a friend who can be helpful politically to mobile voting or hunger, whatever it might be. That does happen sometimes, right. I don't quantify it, so I don't know exactly how often, but it definitely happens. Like everything has to come from something, right? But let's assume nothing tangible or useful comes from any of it, which is the baseline assumption. Right. So then the question is, was the whole thing a waste of time? So from a pure efficiency standpoint, of course it was. Right. I spent three hours for something that had no value to anything that I do or care about. Fine. Okay. On the flip side, there's upside too though, right? So first is, you know, one of the things that we sort of talk about a lot is what makes people happy and human engagement and connection and interaction is one of those things. And also, even when new people come into your life who then do become actual friends and are truly additive to your life, you have to meet them somehow for something, right? So you meet everyone in some context and so some percentage of your friends do. Like Jamie. One of my absolute closest friends was initially when I started touch strategy 2010 and we were just getting started. He worked at a private equity fund that was part of a coalition that was a client for one project. And then he and I kind of met at one or two meetings and somehow hit it off. And then, you know, he's one of my absolute closest friends now. Right. So it can happen. So this human, human connection, that's one, two, sometimes you learn something genuinely useful in the meeting and the people you're meeting with may not be able to do anything useful for you, but you're able to take that learning and do something with it or some idea or whatever else. So that's another value, right. Sometimes going in, it's not a meeting of equals in terms of kind of professional resources and experience and whatever else. But in that case it's like, okay, this is mentoring and I try to devote a certain amount of my time to helping other people. I believe that helping other people is the thing that creates the greatest happiness for me or really for almost anybody. And so I'm directly doing the thing that does create happiness. Right. Plus in those meetings, because the power dynamic is so unequal and equal, they always start with me by telling you how great you are for a couple of minutes. Right? So my. I have a fragile. Everybody likes that. I like that. Right.

[B]

So Chat GPT will do that for you too.

[A]

Yeah. So you know what, I don't know that that's a little desperate people like that. So, you know, I guess the question goes one, you can't take every meeting that everybody asked for because you would both go out of business and lose your mind. Right? But if your work requires meeting people, you end up networking whether you mean to or not. So yes, the ways that I network are, turns out when my friend says, can you meet this guy? And then he says, can you meet with my business partner? And the business partner can you meet with these people? It's not playing golf, it's not taking someone to the Knicks game, it's not going to some charity gala, whatever it is. But it's still kind of the same thing, right? And it's still the same kind of investment of time. Now it's done in a way that is at least a little more convenient for me because I'm not going to some big event. Some people are coming to wherever I'm going to be and it's a little more conceivably pleasurable in that I'm not being forced to do things I really don't like doing, like making small talk at parties, right? So at least I don't have to do that. But if there is a way to get clients to meet, say in my case, top notch startup founders or just apply that to whatever business you're in, right? To say yes to your friends when they say to you, because You've asked me to be sure people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you've always done it. And that's just how it goes. Right. To be a good person, to help other people and not have to do any of this. If there's a way to do that, I don't know what it is. I certainly haven't found it. Well, let me.

[B]

Let me add two things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So one thing that I think you actually are way more open than most people I know just to taking a meeting. Like, you'll do it. Now, we're obviously friends, so that courtesy doesn't extend to the entire world. Obviously. But it feels to me that one of the reasons you do it is that you do understand that in order to get good meetings that surprise you, you have to do a fair amount of bad ones. Right. Because you just don't know going in what it's going to.

[A]

Sure. Just in my. Forget about being nice in our day job of venture capital, for me to find one company that I want equity in.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I got to be with a dozen.

[B]

You got to date a bunch of.

[A]

Yeah. And that maybe of the dozen, let's say there's three or four of them. Like, okay, this could be real. And then it was three or four in terms of them wanting to work with us, give us equity in return for our work, and get an actual deal done with terms that everyone can live with. It's like one.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Right. So. Yes. I mean, that's just how it goes, at least.

[B]

So. One other point, too, and we've talked about this a fair amount on the podcast, but one thing you struggle with is just saying no. Right? Yes. So when you're in a. In a public setting in particular, someone asks you something, you really don't like to disappoint them, say, you know what? I really don't have time to meet with you. It sounds like a great plan, but you should go somewhere else.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You just don't really don't like to do that. But my question is, have you gotten better at that? Of just giving the sort of polite blow off the.

[A]

Not really. I mean, we work on it. Megan and Chelsea and I come up with systems and whatever. I never stick to any of them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

What I've gotten better at is creating forms of interference. Right. Structures.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So, like, one of the reasons that I stopped using LinkedIn originally was people kept asking me for stuff, and I felt bad saying no, but I also felt bad saying yes to stuff I didn't want to do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I assume the ask still come But Corey deals with it, and I think he only passes them along if he thinks there's something legitimately useful to me. Right. So one is, I don't. That there's. There's. And intermediate on that stuff. Two, on the foundation especially, you know, with the team we have now, I can at least funnel some stuff to other people who then make it go away. I remember one time, I think. I don't think I'm speaking at a turn by telling the story, but Alison Jaffin, who works at one of the top two or three people at the Bloomberg foundation, told me a funny story once where someone asked Mike for something and he repeated it to her. And he said to her he didn't want to do the meeting or anything. Whatever, it was fine. Right. He said to her, well, can you just do the thing you do instead? And she goes, you mean when I meet with them and tell them no? Sure. You know, what do you think happens? Right? So Meghan has gotten pretty good at that, you know, so there's some of that. But yeah. And look, I have to say, sometimes, whether it's employees or friends or anyone else, probably an easy way to gain my appreciation is when you tell me that, you know, X number of these specific people all asked me to get to you and I didn't do it because then I feel like someone's looking out for me. Nice, right? You could probably just make that shit up and I wouldn't know the difference, but I know I always respond well to it.

[B]

Okay, you're gonna give me your Rahman, right?

[A]

Yeah. So this is my Rahman Rahman.

[B]

Oh, you know what, is he running for president? Almost certainly.

[A]

Maybe at least. Certainly toe. Certainly in the wall, by the way. I think maybe, actually the way I wrote the ad, would have been better if we hadn't said his name until now until after I said it.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's okay. Well, we'll know.

[A]

For now, here's the copy in whatever form it would be in. Right. We live in a brutal world. Only the strong survive, especially in politics. Democrats keep losing because the voters just don't think we're tough enough. Until now. They've got their prick, we've got an even bigger one. Rahm Emanuel is smart. He's hardworking, deeply experienced, energetic, creative, relentless. But most important of all, he's the biggest asshole you'll ever meet. And in miserable times like these, a giant asshole is exactly what we need. Rahm Emanuel, the asshole we need in 2028. Now, he is an asshole. I know, Rahm. But putting that aside, now is he enough?

[B]

Let's just imagine Rahm is listening to this and he hears you say, is he like, yeah, Bradley's right, I'm an asshole. I know what Bradley's talking about.

[A]

I don't know if he would necessarily do that, but I think here's what he would do. He is so self interested that if data could show Rom Rom, by positioning you as an actual asshole and using the word asshole, you will do better than worse. He'll take it in a fucking heartbeat.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Right. And the truth is, I don't know. Here's what someone the other day was asking me, which of the Democratic candidates do you think has a shot? And I kind of went back to our whole rock star thesis, right? And what that led me to is of the three people whose names are in the mix, the only three there, the moment I could look at and say there's something about their personality that could resonate more than just typical politician. It's aoc because she has tremendous retail, political skill, plus a very clear ideological point of view that I often disagree with. But she has it right. Rahm, in that you could make the case to say he's a total asshole. This is the moment for that elections are generally decided on the zeitgeist of the moment in which candidate meets it. And that could be. And Rahm, if the zeitgeist is asshole, which in some ways Trump, by being an asshole, he leaned into it and won, right? That could be. Or Newsom, in that he is sort of a movie star, right? And you could see all the reasons why voters would hate that. But he's the governor of the biggest state in the country and he's won a couple of times. So it's not like voters, so far, they seem to reward it more than not. But by the fact that he wins, could that be the zeitgeist that breaks through like it's at least logically conceivable. Whereas if you are, you know, Shapiro or Whitmer, the people who are smart, hardworking, might be totally good presidents, but you're just kind of figuring out that they're Midwestern. You're just typical politicians. There's nothing about you. So, like, to me, Rom was one of my three answers. Someone who at least has an intrinsic quality that doesn't just scream typical politician. So let's hear.

[B]

I don't think you're going to like mine, but I went for the other extreme. Just because you went for the ass. I was like, well, I can't compete with that, for eight years, we've been told America needs to be meaner, angrier, that strength means cruelty and leadership means chaos. We tried that and look where it got us. Families torn apart at the dinner table, kids afraid to go to school, working people crushed between billionaires and demagogues. They told us this was strength. It was just exhausting. Images shift to Pete Buttigieg in South Bend, fixing roads, military uniform, town hall, actually listening to somebody talk, working on infrastructure projects. America doesn't need another performance artist. We need someone who actually knows how to do things. Pete Britta judge rebuilt a dying city, served his country in a war zone, delivered the biggest infrastructure investment in generations, on time, under budget, without the drama. Cut to Pete speaking directly to the camera. They want us to believe that decency is weakness, that kindness means you're soft. But I've seen real strength in the face of people who get up every day and do the work without needing credit or starting a fight. That's the America I know, and that's the America I'll fight for. Not with Transom, with results.

[A]

So, I mean, as far as ads go, I think it's a decent ad. Okay. Ad. So that's not.

[B]

I'll take that.

[A]

But there's an. The underlying flaw here or not would be based on whether or not that image of Pete Buttigieg is something that resonates and is how people feel about him. To me, he's one of these guys that's been trying to run for president. Yeah.

[B]

You don't like him. That's partially why I picked him, I have to say.

[A]

Well, but only. Cause I kind of did think he was different. And I raised a lot of money for him in the 20. We had an event in my apartment, raised like 160 or something like that. And then he just turned out to be completely conventional. Right. And the things you said about him, that sort of had some resonance to me at least were things like the military service. Okay. Although a couple of people served in the military. Moment. So let's not give Pete so much credit. He didn't win World War II. Right. And.

[B]

Well, that's how I'm sure Donald Trump would say that.

[A]

And then as mayor, it seems like he did some good stuff. Right. I don't think he was particularly successful as transportation Secretary. Yes. They passed a huge infrastructure bill, and

[B]

he doesn't even show up at the site of that crash, that train crash.

[A]

Right. He had some bad moments. But even putting those aside, the thing I remember Bob and I wrote a column Right. When the infrastructure bill was passing, this was years ago, saying, if you don't expedite and front load everything, and we listed a whole structure for how to do it, you're not gonna yield any political benefit for Democrats from this because this stuff otherwise just disappears into ether and takes forever. And you'll talk about it. But if people can't see the bridge, the fixed road, the water coming in cleaner in a community where it's not, whatever it might be, it doesn't matter. Right. And they just did the is Biden and team's team always did the most conventional approach to anything, and that included here. So I don't know that Pete, as Transportation Secretary, has accomplished anything whatsoever. So this is a man for whom his impressive achievements were 20 years ago at this point, or 15 years ago at this point. And what's he really done since other than be a total typical politician? So it's a good ad voter, is it? Well, it doesn't matter if I buy it if voters do good enough. Right. But. But voters have to say, look, Mike Bloomberg. Right? It would work for Mike. Not now. His presidential campaign was obviously a disaster. But that. That ad would work for Mike Bloomberg because like him or not, you don't think of him as a politician. Right. In fact, the most politician y thing he did, in a way, was when we changed the law for term limit, and that took a good five points off our margin of victory. Now, there would be no victory without it. So New York, I would argue, won considerably by having him instead of Anthony Weiner as mayor, but nonetheless. So here's a question. Do you want an ad in search of a candidate?

[B]

Okay, that's a good answer. So here's my question. Do you want to do Buddha Judge next week, or would you like to do Newsom and just start fresh with a different.

[A]

No, I'll take the challenge.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I'll do Pete. I'll try to come up with something

[B]

that can just change his.

[A]

By the way, my assignment is not my son, is to try to make you want to vote for him when he said. Right, right. Based on something that I think. So the real question here will be, can I find something in him that's better and different than what you said? Because the way you said it was good. Right. So it's a question of is there more to him?

[B]

Well, I think so. That's the answer. Either you come up with something, you're like, cool, I think I got something, or just do someone else. That's what I'd say.

[A]

Fair enough. Okay.

[B]

All right. You have a recommendation?

[A]

Kind of. So what I have is an appreciation for a writer. Okay, so Don Winslow, who's a writer whose work I've always been a fan of. He's a crime writer. She's not Dostoevsky. Well, Dustoevsky did write about crime, I guess, actually, but.

[B]

But also punishment.

[A]

Really good books about kind of the drug trade in typically Southern California and the. And the cartels in Mexico. Those are. That's his best work. He did grow up in Rhode Island. Did kind of a mafia trilogy that was kind of set in Providence, in Vegas.

[B]

I like that. That interests me.

[A]

They were pretty good.

[B]

Providence this weekend.

[A]

They were pretty good, right? That you're. Yeah. He wrote an NYPD book that literally. Because Howard's a fan of his too. The night it came out, we both started reading it, and then one of us called the other. I figured it was. And we're like, this is a parody. Is it meant to be a parody? It was again, like, chatgpt. Give me the most hackney possible. So he's a bad writer. When he doesn't write about what he knows. When he writes about what he knows, he's somewhere between good and outstanding. His trilogy, it's like the Power of the Dog, the Cartel, and one other is outstanding. You know, he definitely had some really great books. This one was kind of vignettes. It's his last work. They range from bad to pretty to slightly above average. If you have read all. I think I've read every single book he's written. If you have, and they're. They're easy reads, it's Probably, I'm guessing, 20 or so as kind of a capstone for a fast, easy book. It's worth it. If you haven't, but you like the kind of book I just described, go check them out. Because he really sat like Savages that he made became a movie that was okay, but the book's outstanding. He has half a dozen books that are really excellent, and so I would just want to recommend his career, but only this book. If you've read the other 20 or something first. Good. All right.

[B]

Thanks, Bradley.

[A]

See ya. Firewall is recorded at my bookstore, PNT Netware, located at 180 Orchard street on the Lower east side of Manhattan. We'd love to hear from you with questions, feedbacks, or idea for a guest. Just email me at Bradleyirewall Media or find me on LinkedIn and keep up with what's on my mind. Mind. And my latest writing. Please follow my new [e-mail] thanks again for listening.