Tom Bilyeu on AI Breakthroughs, Economic Uncertainty, and U.S. Leadership in a Shifting World

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Tom Bilyeu on AI Breakthroughs, Economic Uncertainty, and U.S. Leadership in a Shifting World

Podcast: Impact Theory
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Episode Date: November 28, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Tom Bilyeu, joined by recurring guest Mason, tackles the most pressing topics shaping the world today: the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, American economic uncertainty, the rise of AI and government involvement, multipolar world leadership, and culture clashes over economics and technology. With a distinctly first-principles, often hard-nosed approach, Tom deconstructs headlines, geostrategic debates, and memes, urging listeners to think critically and prepare for rapid disruption. The conversation is rich in both technical and philosophical insight, balancing hard economic truths with a sincere look at purpose, innovation, and the human experience in turbulent times.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Why Should Americans Care About Global Conflicts? (01:31–09:47)

Tom's Dual Arguments:

• International Case: Letting Russia’s territorial aggression in Ukraine stand risks a breakdown in the post-WWII international order, potentially opening Europe to further incursions and endangering global security.

  "If the invasion of Ukraine is allowed to stand from an international community perspective, we basically said, 'nah,' like, all right, a little bit of territory acquisition is fine, and you run the risk of all hell breaking loose into Europe again..." (03:02)

• Domestic Reality: The U.S. faces looming bankruptcy—driven by unsustainable spending—that could devastate domestic programs and social stability. Tom warns that Americans aren’t mapping the severity or timeline of economic crisis accurately.

  "We are standing on the precipice over the next decade... what it means to go broke. And when you look at history, it is not pleasant." (06:02)

Juggling Moral vs. Practical Policy:

• America faces a tough choice: leverage its position as the "world’s gun store," making money off military industry, or risk international irrelevance by becoming isolationist—but both paths have major costs and risks.
• Tom repeatedly emphasizes the need for nuanced, fiscally responsible policies:

  "You probably do want to use money to make sure you have killer allies the world over..." (09:47)

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2. Power, Manipulation, and Economic Rigging (12:24–16:46)

On Human Manipulability:

• Tom uses visceral and pop culture examples to illustrate how easily humans are manipulated—both emotionally and economically.
• The financial system is purposely opaque, engineered to confuse the average person while those with the means and knowledge extract value:

  "Make the financial system just complicated enough that the average person either can't understand it or won't take the time to understand it." (13:24)

Market Bubbles, Crashes, and Human Nature:

• Referencing the book 1929, Tom underscores that the most important dynamic in economic crashes is the behavior of the population leading up to crisis, manipulated by those in power.

  "I can talk into this mic and tell people exactly how the system's rigged against them... and they still won't do it." (15:25)

Meaning Amid the Chaos:

• Tom tempers his dark forecast with a reminder about the joys of life and creation—urging people to find meaning in the struggle, as "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back." (16:31)

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3. The Importance of Meaning and Purpose (16:46–23:32)

Personal Story:

• Tom shares his own experience of feeling "rich but miserable," leading to a realization:

  "Money is the great facilitator. It is not an end state. It will never satisfy the algorithms running in your brain..." (18:18)

• He emphasizes that chasing meaning and purpose, not money, transformed his life and self-respect, motivating his work in business and mentorship.

Challenge of Changing Minds:

• Despite thousands of hours mentoring, Tom found that only a small fraction of adults genuinely change. The rest, he says, simply don’t—echoing the harsh advice he once received:

  "98% of adults, while they can change, they will not." (19:49)

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4. Political Realism, Socialism vs. Capitalism, and America's Place in the World (23:32–29:18)

On Foreign Intervention and Socialism:

• Responding to a Venezuelan’s plea for U.S. help, Tom unpacks why regime change so often fails—the “democratically elected landslides” don’t always reflect universal desire for intervention (24:01–24:52).
• He’s adamant about the dangers of socialism, but skeptical about the feasibility of U.S. interventionism.

On China, Multipolarity, and U.S. Strength:

• Tom identifies as a "China hawk," asserting that America’s leadership, despite its flaws, is preferable to China’s approach to global influence:

  "America has a value system that makes us infinitely more benevolent than China. So I would much rather see a world in which America is a hegemon..." (25:45)

• He critiques the current administration’s inconsistency between professed values (e.g., “President of Peace”) and aggressive action, including the increased militarization in Latin America.

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5. The Genesis Mission: U.S. AI "Manhattan Project" (29:18–36:27)

Ambitious AI Initiative:

• The White House’s Genesis Mission aims to build a national AI platform, tapping massive federal scientific datasets, and equipping labs with AI and robotics in biotech, materials, and quantum science:

  "If you're going to be socialist, then be socialist—like this where you're laying the rails for the private markets to then come in and do their thing." (29:56)

Perils of State-Driven Capitalism:

• Tom warns against the dangers of political “levers of control” within capitalism; he calls for infrastructure investment but is deeply wary of government meddling:

  "The government has to be very, very, very careful to not do a state sponsored model of capitalism..." (30:14)

Open Source vs. Closed Loops in AI:

• The fate of AI discovery hinges on whether it’s controlled by government or democratized.

  "If you have one group that's controlling all of that, that would be terrible, terrible. If... it's open source... that would get amazing very, very quickly." (35:21)

• But open sourcing brings risks—anyone could use powerful algorithms for harm, but concentration of power is, in Tom’s view, the larger threat.

Compute Limitations:

• Constraints on AI development may only last a few years, as algorithmic and hardware breakthroughs could soon put superintelligence within reach of more people.

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6. The AI and Economic Debate: Bernie Sanders, Billionaires, and Systemic Problems (38:01–40:45)

On Deregulation and Wealth Concentration:

• Tom sympathizes with the critique that AI should benefit all, but points out Bernie Sanders and others misdiagnose the true source of rising inequality:

  "They're right about the problem and so wrong about the cause that that makes them wrong about the solution." (39:35)

• The real issue is "central government and a central bank," he claims, not entrepreneurs.

Assets Ownership as the Lifeboat:

• Ownership of productive assets is, Tom says, the simple (if unpopular) solution to escaping inflationary erosion—a message the public refuses to accept until it’s too late.

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7. Cultural Hotspots: Trans Athletes, AI in Gaming, and Progress (40:45–45:28)

Trans Athletes in Women’s Sports:

• Tom is clear-eyed and blunt: physiological differences mean trans women will dominate female divisions over time, and the supposed levelling effect of hormone treatment is overstated.

AI vs. Human Competition in Gaming:

• While AI will inevitably surpass human capabilities in every game, Tom values games for balanced, challenging competition among equally matched humans, not domination by AI.

  "It's easy to make an AI that will absolutely slaughter you. Slaughter you. That's not the hard part. The goal... is to make that sweet spot where it's hard, but not too hard." (44:03)

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8. Super Chats and Audience Q&A (45:28–48:02)

On Relocation and "Maui Bunker" Thoughts:

• Tom assesses countries on two axes: pro-business policies and the way people treat each other—citing Singapore as a top choice, but jokes about "Maui bunker" ideas.

Investing Strategy:

• Personally mixes buying dips with regular investing, but advises most people to dollar-cost average for safety.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The deeper I go, like, the more I zoom in onto the picture... the more I realize, oh, the belief that I have in terms of how the economy works, it doesn't change, it just gets more terrifying.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 06:32)

• “Money is the great facilitator. It is not an end state.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 18:18)

• “If you have one group that's controlling all of that, that would be terrible, terrible. If... it's open source available to anybody... that would get amazing very, very quickly.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 35:21)

• “I can talk into this mic and tell people exactly how the system’s rigged against them... and they still won't do it.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 15:25)

• “The people of Venezuela would like some freedom, but that has been pretty much a categorical disaster every time that we've tried to do it since World War II.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 24:01)

• "America has a value system that makes us infinitely more benevolent than China. So I would much rather see a world in which America is a hegemon."
  (Tom Bilyeu, 25:45)

• “It's easy to make an AI that will absolutely slaughter you. Slaughter you. That's not the hard part.”
  (Tom Bilyeu, 44:03)

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Timestamps & Segment Highlights

• (01:31–09:47): Why Ukraine matters for Americans, U.S. fiscal cliff, military industrial complex, and balancing foreign versus domestic priorities.
• (12:24–16:46): Human psychology, financial obfuscation, and the challenge of self-awareness and change.
• (16:46–23:32): Tom’s personal journey with wealth, meaning, and the bitter reality of changing minds.
• (23:32–29:18): Policy on interventions, Venezuela, social democracy, and power struggles with China.
• (29:18–36:27): Genesis Mission—U.S. AI initiative, benefits and risks of government involvement, and open-source dilemmas.
• (38:01–40:45): Debating Bernie Sanders, the truth about billionaires, causes of economic divides.
• (40:45–45:28): Sports, gender identity in athletics, AI’s rise in gaming, and what really makes games compelling.
• (45:28–48:02): Relocation strategy, bunker jokes, investment advice, and appreciating the support of the show's community.

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Closing Note

Tom wraps up emphasizing gratitude, self-determination, and focus during challenging times—a reminder to audience members to stay engaged, think for themselves, and appreciate what matters most, even amid uncertainty and transformation.

"Your life quality will be determined by the things you focus on. So really do take time to focus on the things you're grateful for, the people that you love... It really does work." (48:05)

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Transcript

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Tom Bilyeu Show Live. I am joined by Mason, everybody. He's back by popular demand. Drew sends his love, everybody. He unfortunately is not able to make it today, but for good reason. He's having, I hope, a wonderful time. I'll let him share all of the story. Like to make it sound as, like, mysterious as possible, but alas, we are without him. But Mason did a phenomenal job last time and so he is back for more. And I mean that sincerely. So welcome. All right, behind the camera we have G and Eric. And over here, if you're in America, everybody, this is the Friday before the holiday. I know it's Wednesday, but it's the Friday before the Thanksgiving holiday. So we are in a jubilant mood. It's going to be fun. So strap in because there's plenty to

[Mason]

cover today from the chat. Essentially thinking about someone in America who is just trying to pay their bills. Why should they care about the Russia, Ukraine situation?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, if you said, Tom, this is a Lincoln Douglas debate, you need to be able to take either side of the issue. And now here's the case. I think they called them cases. It's been a long time since I'd done Lincoln Douglas debate and I have to defend a side that I don't believe in. But I'm going to give you the best argument. I would say something like, okay, listen, you've got all of Europe. Europe is in a very weakened state. You have Russia. Russia right now is being territorially acquisitive. You've got Putin, who has long believed that the fall of the USSR is a tragedy that needs to be rectified and by invading Ukraine has basically broken like 80 years of we no longer do the whole expand your borders thing. And so We've had this border integrity where people respond very swiftly internationally to say, hey, like, this is an incursion across sovereign borders. We absolutely do not tolerate that anymore. And there's massive pushback the world over. If the, if the invasion of Ukraine is allowed to stand from an international community perspective, we basically said, nah, like, all right, a little bit of territory acquisition is fine, and you run the risk of all hell breaking loose into Europe again, where Russia now starts going into other territories. And so what becomes the brakes on Russia, or do they just start doing that? And now we're back in, you know, World War II era, where there's all these battles over who owns what territory, first, obviously by the Germans, then the US And Russia sort of divvying up parts of Eastern Europe. So it, like, do we want to get back into that world? So let's say if I'm arguing this position, I'm going to pound the table. I'm going to say, absolutely not. I'm going to say, you cannot trust Putin, that you've got to understand that this is somebody that will continue marching deeper and deeper into the former Soviet states, gobbling them all up. Is there really going to be anything that's going to stop him pushing deeper into Europe? Also, you've got a Russia, China alliance. Anything that we can do to weaken Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, obviously you got the BRICS nations, but I won't try to lump them all together. But from that, like, Russia and China running all these military operations, putting out public statements that there's never been a deeper tie between Russia and China. And if you know Russia and China's history, it's pretty terrifying to think that from a military perspective, they're more united now than they've ever been, given that they fought the war between what ends up becoming north and South Korea together, that there were a ton of Chinese troops fighting on the side of North Korea. And so you've got the. That allegiance is like, do we really want to see that getting stronger? The answer would be in this argument, absolutely not. Now, if I'm taking what I actually believe, America is going bankrupt, that will be devastating in a way, to the average American, in a way that people are not, in my opinion, accurately mapping. It's one of those where I really have to decide if I'm going to keep talking about this. I have to find an emotional way to deal with this, because it's forcing me to map the territory down to, like, really minute detail. And the. The deeper I go, like, the more I Zoom in onto the picture. The more I sort of map every pixel of this image, the more I realize, oh, the belief that I have in terms of how the economy works, it doesn't change, it just gets more terrifying. So I feel that we are standing on the precipice over the next decade. This is not like a next five months problem, but over the next decade we will live through the process of what it means to go broke. And when you look at history, it is not pleasant. Now it doesn't always play out exactly the same way. So it doesn't necessarily have to become a full blown civil war, anything like that. But keep in mind right now how panicky maybe the right word people are about the Affordable Care act subsidies getting removed. Bro, it all goes away. Like when your country goes broke, it you have to have a balanced budget, so that's $2 trillion a year instantly get vaporized. Then it's like, okay, well now that that's happened and we cannot borrow money internationally anymore, all we can do is print money. What ends up happening to the economy, what ends up happening to the dollar on an international stage? This is going to keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. So you run. And then of course getting people to understand that printing money hurts the poor middle class the most. So all of that feeds into my belief that you have two options before you. You become the world's gun store and you leverage conflicts to make money for the average American so that we're able to create military industrial complex jobs for a whole lot of people to make a whole lot of weapons. I get the moral implications, but I'm saying it is a, an economically viable option for us to decide, hey, we don't, we're not going to get involved in these conflicts, but we're going to arm people to the teeth and we're going to re industrialize around weapons and artillery and all of that. Cool. Now they can fight as long as they want because you're making money. What we can't keep doing is sending money over either in the form of weapons that we're supposedly not going to use anymore. But if they're usable, obviously we could still use them doing that or just outright sending cash because that's a dollar that you're not spending here in America. Now, I am the most worried about the cultural implic implications of America believing that you can just print money ad infinitum, that socialism is a good idea. That's the thing that terrifies me. So anything that gets people to Focus on fiscal responsibility. I'm here for. So if extracting ourselves from conflicts that are not near to our shores is the way that we get there, great. But I don't think this is the simplest thing in the world in terms of just be isolationist. We are still one of two incredibly important international powers. And so if we completely extract ourselves out of that, you become isolated, you're not making friends. You don't have the allies that you may need at some point in the future. And so, as I say, make friends before you need them. So this becomes. Getting the voting public to choose usually forces you to give them binary options like America first is rapidly become America only because you just need something that's really concrete, really easy to see and understand. But it's probably far better that we run a more nuanced plan of helping where we can, getting fiscally responsible, such that we have money to do things internationally with when we need to. But that is going to be a brutally difficult sell. But getting into the nuance. And by the way, if, if these strands are not connecting for people, you need to tell me where people are getting lost. So I can really draw the connective tissue because I'm getting into the nuanced web that makes all of this stuff difficult to parse through. I know this is where people tend to get lost, but

[Mason]

it is a

[Tom Bilyeu]

very hard sell to tell Americans, hey, I know that we're going bankrupt. I know that we have to spend less money domestically, but we also can't go to zero spend on the international stage because these are allies that we want and need. These are ways that we get some of the power that we have as Americans because we have so much influence the world over. And if you give up that influence, which is already waning, but if you give up that influence entirely, then you're going to economically down the road be in a much worse position. But that's hard to convince people of. When they look around and they're like, I can't make ends meet already. This does not feel good in any way, shape or form. The youth feel totally disenfranchised and they believe they're disenfranchised because capitalism bad not realizing they're disenfranchised because we gave up on capitalism a very long time ago and that the way to solve their problems is to move in the opposite direction. But good luck convincing them. In the middle of all of that, in the middle of people like me pounding our chest saying we need to balance the budget, and also saying, but by the way, you probably do want to use money to make sure that you have killer allies the world over. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

[Mason]

That makes total sense. I think Chad is really appreciating the depth and nuance there. So is the power change things?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Obviously not. I mean yes, in that if the the biomass of the earth is basically ants, that's a true statement. So now imagine the ants were like these kids. You guys destroyed one too many ant hills. We are just going to swarm you and eat you all. We would be dead. But ants aren't going to do that. So humans are way too easy to manipulate. Way too easy to manipulate. If you want to see evidence of that, watch the Wolf of Wall street when the character played by Margot Robbie literally spreads her legs, deescalates her husband's insanity because he just wants sex. And yeah, it really do be like that. So that is but one of the thousands of ways you can make somebody feel like a good person. You're on the right side. Take somebody who really wants to be in control, who believes that they're right, that they are morally superior, give them a team to be on and then tell them do do these things. Wear a mask, get people to get injected, fight for XYZ thing that I think is stupid, but whatever and you're a good person and they will do it. Make the financial system just complicated enough that the average person either can't understand it or won't take the time to understand it. I'm now on what year five of My journey of trying to figure this out. And listen, I am well aware of the limitations of my own intellect, which are sadly many. But I'm probably on the upper end of average. And bruh, this is complicated. And so I'm like, yeah, okay, if the average person, half the world is dumber than them, and I'm a little bit smarter than the average person, it's like, this is. They're all. They're all. And so you just go, yeah, I'm just going to make this complicated enough that you get fucked. By the way, read the book 1929. I wish Drew were here. Drew, if you're in the chat, you're probably not because I know what you're doing today, but boy, oh boy, we got to get that author on here. And what you realize in reading 1929 was that the lead up to the crash is what matters. Crash itself, not so important. And what's happening is the populace realizes that they actually can get rich in the markets. They won't, but they could. And so they flood in on margin. And there are people behind the scenes that understand the market and have insane amounts of money. And they can manipulate it, and they do in a thousand ways, including how much margin they give you. And then they can't stop themselves from inflating that bubble because it's so good for them, dear US Government. And they'll let it inflate until it explodes. And so there's a weird thing that humans do where they just can't stop themselves from doing that. But anyway, I bring that point up because that, like, I can talk into this mic and tell people exactly how the system's rigged against them. Not just that it is rigged. Walk them through step by step. This is how it's rigged. This is what you need to do to avoid it. And they still won't do it. So you can manipulate them by getting them to believe things. You can manipulate them by confusing them with things. You can obfuscate things so that they just. I don't understand. So, yeah, we. Oh, God, we are. We live in a deterministic universe and we don't have free will, but we're self conscious. So we get to witness the train wreck. It's wild. But we also get to witness love. We get to witness love. It's fucking amazing. Life is great. I'm watching this young man, like stretch grow, build muscle mass. Intellectually, it's fucking wonderful. I get to build a video game, which Lord knows I hope ends up being good. It's getting better. These are glorious things. Glorious things. And I must. I must take time to say those things out loud, Mason. Because when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. I'll stop there.

[Mason]

Earlier, you did call it calling in rich, I think is what you said. What does keep you from calling in rich?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Meaning and purpose. So when I was in my late 20s, I was worth about $2 million on paper, which was insane for a kid from Tacoma. And I was miserable. And my wife pulled me aside and said, you have put so many walls around you, you're now damaging the marriage. And you won't even talk to me about your day at work because I literally said, you're not allowed to ask me about my day ever. Don't ever ask me about my day. It is so miserable. I do not want to talk about it. This is my sanctuary. I want to come home, and I want to not think about it. For Mason, a decade after that period of my life, if I just drove into the neighborhood that I used to work in, it was as if a cloud rolled over me, and I was like, whoa, I haven't been there in 10 years. So anyway, that's how dark that period was. And I end up going, okay, this is wild. Billionaires will commit suicide. That's already crazy to me, because I thought money was going to solve all my problems. That's crazy to me. I'm technically worth $2 million. I'm miserable, so money isn't gonna solve my problem. And so I was like, what is? And at the time, the way that I said it to myself then. Cause I didn't have the framework that I have now, but the way that I said it to myself then was, I need to matter. What I do needs to matter meaning and purpose. So I'm like, what I'm doing doesn't matter. I'm just chasing money. And for what sake? For money. I would literally say, I am willing to do anything inside of my code of ethics to get rich. As if rich is an end state. Money is the great facilitator. It is not an end state. It will never satisfy the algorithms running in your brain that control your behavior. So, thankfully, I Learned that at whatever 28, my wife said I was damaging the marriage. And I had always said, marriage is my highest priority. So I went in and quit. And I was like, here's your money back. Take the 2 million bucks. And there've been a couple moments in my life where I held the ring of power and gave it back. And that was one of them. And so I was like, ooh, I just earned a lot of respect for myself by doing that, by actually prioritizing my marriage. So at that point, I said, I'm never going to fall prey to thinking that money is anything other than a facilitator ever again. And therefore, while money is important, and I hope I make a lot more of it, I am not confused about what its real power is. It can't touch my self respect. It can't make a day any more fun. So the guiding light of my professional life is to do things that uplift me and other people and that I would enjoy even if I failed at doing it. And so I spend Saturday and Sunday mornings isolated by myself, working on a video game and spending my own money to do it, by the way. And it might fail. And at the end of that, I would have lost millions of dollars, have nothing to show for it, but it would have still been awesome. And so that's where I'm like, ah, cool. Yeah. Now, if I can pull it off, then I really think that I can positively impact kids in the age of imprinting, which is me groping in the dark. Because remember, I hope that everybody that can hear my voice right now, though I know there are some hate watchers. Hi. I hope that everybody that can hear my voice right now is part of the 2% of adults that can and will change. This is obviously an approximation, but I think it's pretty close. 98% of adults, while they can change, they will not. And I came to that conclusion after spending Mason thousands of hours of group and individual mentoring, and it just chipped away at my will, watching how few of them actually may change. This is all before cameras. This was not me doing it because I thought somebody was watching somewhere. This was me saying, I changed my life. And it was so profound in terms of my own internal suffering, realizing the only belief that matters. Oh, that ended my suffering. Oh, my God. And by the way, ended up making me fantastically wealthy. I want to tell people how to do this so they can do it in their own lives, only to then watch. They just won't. And somebody who I ended up losing a lot of respect for, but they told me a thing, and it haunted me. And I reacted so naively when they said it, but it saved me for a very long time. And they were like, tom, you are wasting your time. Because, remember, I spent hours. It takes a long time to get to thousands of hours. I spent so much time trying to help people grow that were never going to grow. And this Person said they're never going to going to grow. And I'll tell you a very gross thing that they said. This is part of why I rebelled so heavily. And they're like, that's the point. The point is to be richer than somebody else. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah.

[Mason]

That hit me viscerally, bro. But like in a good way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, I don't know what to do with that yet, Mason. I don't know what you mean by that.

[Mason]

That's like motivating.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. If you're like, I don't want those to be richer than me. If it's motivating into yeah, hahaha, you dirty filthy plebes. I want to be richer than you. That is dark. Dark. So anyway, he ended up being right about the fact that I was wasting my time and that was a very bitter pill to swallow. So anyway, sit down with my wife and I'm like, what the do we do? Like I've dedicated my life to, I want to help people in my particular way. And that sent me down the path of like, hold on, when are humans actually impactable at scale? And 11 to 15, given what I'm interested in is like the sweet spot. It might be even more beneficial to go like true Disney and like scale down to something that's more like six to eight maybe. I just don't find that entertainment super interesting. So anyway, I'm going to start at the 11 to 15 year range. That was a long answer to a very simple question, but I enjoyed it. Therein lies all the truth.

[Mason]

We got some, some enjoyment in the chat as well. One person in chat said, as a Venezuelan, we all agree with Trump, we need your help to get this socialism and dictatorship out. It's been 26 years already of suffering, hunger and death.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Listen, I get it. You're, you know, speaking to the thing that I love the most, which socialism. Bad. So yeah, I mean I'm with you man. And I imagine that the people of Venezuela would like some freedom, but that has been pretty much a categorical disaster every time that we've tried to do it since World War II. So. Yes, but it's like, do they. Because they voted this stuff in. So it's like you have obviously this guy representing a faction of people, but if you think that I for instance, represent all of Americans and I came and said, yo, this Mom Donnie thing, it's got to go. I don't necessarily represent all of America. So not only. Not necessarily, I don't. So the guy was democratically elected in A landslide. So what do you do with that? So it's not like you're going to roll in, be enveloped in a hug, and everybody's like, yay, thank you. Wish it were like that. But alas, it is not.

[Mason]

So that's a bit of what's happening. And then how do you feel about that? Is this a good thing, bad thing? It's just politics playing politics or.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, so I'm obviously a big China hawk, so I'm very concerned about China. So us doing things that let China know what's up. You have to do it. You can't abdicate that responsibility. You can't just give up and let China take over the world. Because while it might be fine for a couple of decades, you do end up in a position where now you have no, no leverage China can get you. You become. Everyone becomes a vassal state to China in the way that everyone was a vassal state to the US and awesome if you're American, not awesome if you're not America. And so I'm not foolish enough to think that America or anybody is just benevolent, but do I think that America has a value system that makes us infinitely more benevolent than China? Yes. So I would much rather see a world in which America is a hegemon. And if we're going to be a multipolar world, then America's got to stand up and be America and draw lines and say, these are not crossable. And so I won't go to bat for drone striking the drug boats. There's just way too much risk in that for me in terms of whoopsies, wasn't a drone boat or wasn't a drug boat that time. So don't love the way that we're handling that. But overall, yes, America must project strength. Yes, America must build alliances in South America. So from that perspective, like, I'm not freaking out. I'm not like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening. But the one thing I will say, and I know some people are already saying this, but I'm surprised this is not, like, a big deal. You've got. The guy campaigned on peace, peace, peace, peace, peace. I am the president of peace. He fucking changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Like, and now has got 30% of our troops deployed into the Caribbean saying really gnarly things to Maduro and drone striking boats and expecting, like, the standing ovation. It's like, bro, this is off brand. So, yeah, that one. I'm like, that's weird now. I do think that he really is trying to run a peace game. And if he didn't rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, like here on Brand would have been. It was already called the Department of War. He names it the Department of Defense, but uses it in an aggressive fashion that I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. Good pr. You've got the COVID of.

[Grainger Advertiser 2]

We.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We took it from being the Department of War. We don't even think like that. These are defensive postures. Then you can be far more aggressive, but you at least have PR coverage. He's gone the exact opposite way, which is, bro, I'm not even saying you shouldn't be doing these things, but when you say that you're the President of Peace, you rename it the Department of War and then you like fucking G up in the Caribbean, I'm like, huh, huh. This doesn't feel very PC.

[Mason]

So that seems like, dumb on its face. But then that makes me think it's like, on purpose. So what could be his purpose?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, yes, it is on purpose, but they did just in whatever we call these sort of mini midterms, they just got their ass handed to them. So what he's doing currently is not working. People are not loving his immigration handlings, the specifics of that. So he clearly hasn't fixed the economy yet. Is he doing things that are going to be directionally useful? Fingers crossed. But he's spending money like a meth addict. So, yeah, I'm not super optimistic there. So he's going to have to pull some rabbit out of his hat. And I really hope that that rabbit isn't. Watch us be America first by invading Venezuela. Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned.

[Grainger Advertiser 2]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

[Mason]

Nice. Moving on. The White House just launched the Genesis Mission, which is a Manhattan Project for AI. The Department of Energy will build a national AI platform on top of US supercomputers and federal science data train scientific. I just lost my. Where did it go?

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's right there. Train scientific foundation models and run AI agents plus robotic labs to automate experiments and biotech, critical materials, nuclear fission, fusion, space quantum and semiconductors. Let's go.

[Mason]

Yeah, and so this sounds like the laying the rails that you were talking

[Tom Bilyeu]

about, which is, is exactly what the government. If you're going to be socialist, then be socialist. Like this where you're laying the rails for the private markets to then come in and do their thing.

[Mason]

And so what are you expecting to come out of this or hoping for?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, what I'm hoping for is that we are doing all of the things that we need to do to usher in the modern AI powered future. Um, it they these things don't happen by accident. You invest and you make your country strong. And when I hear about the tier 1 cities in China and the way that they're built, I'm admittedly very jealous. So seeing us as a society decide that we want to really facilitate the future, I love that the most. And if we do it in a way that really like the roads help facilitate commerce in the U.S. like the railroads help facilitate commerce in the U.S. all of that stuff I really love. The government has to be very, very, very careful to not do a state sponsored model of capitalism. And I think that where we are societally right now, that we're just absolutely in that zone. That is for sure what Trump wants to do. And it sounds like a good idea at first. And then you remember that politicians spin, lie, they do things for their own benefit and it ends up being absolutely horrible. They end up influencing the board, they're dumb as shit, they don't know what they're doing. They also have constituents that they have to please. And so it's like, yeah, as a business, you should fire a whole bunch of people. But hell no. That plan is in an area that's like a purple state. I cannot afford to lose people. I need those voters. And so politicians will buy votes by whatever means necessary. So you let them have levers of control inside of the capitalist system and you get what we see now, which is everything goes bad and people blame capitalism instead of the government, which is so crazy. It's so crazy. If I come into your house and you put me up and I slap your wife in the mouth and I eat all your food and then you're like, why is my wife so unhappy and why is there no food? And then you pay me to do marriage counseling for you, bro, like you're barking up the wrong tree. So that's what we're Doing right now? We. We are. There's an awesome movie by the Cohen brothers called Miller's Crossing where this guy slaps his son in the mouth and his son starts crying and he pulls him into a hug and he's like, what's wrong? Did somebody hit you? That's how I feel about the government all the time. They create the problem and then they're like, bro, we got you. Don't worry. Like, we'll give you free things. It's like giving me the free things is the very slap in the mouth.

[Mason]

And so as this Genesis mission starts, we've got a couple of details on it. And so they're looking to build an integrated AI platform to harness federal scientific data sets, which is the world's largest collection of such data sets. And then for a little bit more detail on this, they got access to petabytes of proprietary data coming from 17 national laboratories, which have been hoarding experimental data for decades.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Mason]

And so it looks like essentially they're going to use the LLMs to go into all of this data, parse it in a way that a human can't.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Mason]

And then figure out what we find out. And they're calling it a closed loop discovery system, so that they essentially work in a sandbox on their problem and. And then present the solution. This sounds like sci fi.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, well, so I guess I'm more concerned about who controls this closed loop. But yes. So it does seem like that you simply need to make more efficient algorithms and add more neurons to the artificial brain and it will continue to get smarter. People are saying that AI probably has an IQ right now of about 130, that they would expect it in the next year or two to be like pressing up against 200. You're now in the world where you got a bunch of Einstein's running around. And so if you know a few years beyond that you've got super intelligence, like, it just gets so crazy so fast. So, but assume that you have a bunch of Einstein's. And now Einstein was capable of novel breakthroughs if AI, and it's already shown signs of being able to come up with novel breakthroughs in mathematics and I think biochemistry, definitely mathematics. I'm pretty sure biology was the other one. But it's, it's doing novel things. It's never been written about before. No one has ever talked about it. It's not in the training data at all. And it's coming up with things that humans have never thought of. That's one of those. I really think this Happened a couple months ago. I really think we look back at that and go, Matt didn't really get covered when it happened, but like that was the moment it once it proved that it could do novel things. That was the beginning of the end of human dominance intellectually. And now maybe that's fine, maybe like cool, no worries. Like we now get to avail ourselves of all of these things and the breakthroughs are gonna happen a lot faster. That would be wonderful as long as we maintain control and don't become a slave class. But that is really important. So if you have one like government or group that's like controlling all of that, that would be terrible, Terrible. If on the other hand, it's like this is open source available to anybody and now people can spin up companies off of all of this stuff. That would get amazing very, very quickly.

[Mason]

Do you think there's any danger in open sourcing it?

[Tom Bilyeu]

You didn't even need to finish that sentence. Is there any danger in AI? Yes, in open sourcing? Of course. But it's like one solution that people always have talked about in sci fi novels and everything about super powerful weapons, nuclear or fantastical again in, in books, is that you make it available to everybody. So everybody has the plan. So now it's mad, right? It's I can't use this as leverage to enslave everybody, which is the human tendency. And so if everybody has access to that thing you open yourself up to, rogue person is able to put it together and do something horrible, but you also keep one person from getting totalitarian, hold on everybody else. So dangerous, but probably the least dangerous of your options.

[Mason]

Do you think that we're protected by compute limitations at all? Like I can't just go home, build a super intelligent AI, Even if they figure it out, I wouldn't be able to run it on my machine.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The better way to think about that is you lag behind by some number of years, but that's it. And so like what Deepseek did was it showed everybody, oh, you can make this a lot cheaper by making the algorithms more efficient. Now there was probably some bullshit in terms of how they were clocking the expense of the underlying training, but nonetheless the breakthrough in terms of efficiency of algorithm was real. And so you're going to get more and more of that. Just like really efficient algorithms that do that make more and more accessible to people, you're also getting breakthroughs whether they hold up or not. We'll see. But there have been some big announcements in computers that even if we don't get quantum, there have been some big breakthroughs that allow for far more efficient chips than we have now. Like a hundred to a thousand times more efficient. Again, early headline research could all end up being bullshit. But that's something that's like, oh well, Moore's Law may just continue even at the level of I don't know if it's actually silicon, but. But without needing to get to quantum. For a long time it was like, well, sort of quantum or bust. But then quantum also seems to be like really moving much faster than some people were saying. So the future of computers may just continue to grow without needing that totally new track for us to jump over to.

[Mason]

Makes sense. Let's jump over to what Bernie is saying about AI right now. So Bernie said Trump wants to deregulate AI. Let the richest people on earth do whatever they want. Unacceptable. It will make the oligarchs richer while millions lose jobs and income. AI must improve life for all of us, not just make a few multi billionaires even more powerful.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, his last line is correct. I love that. But where this comes down, now remember, track him as a guy that's just really mad. And so now he's like, I don't even want to think about it. All I know is those guys. And it's like, okay, hold on a second. 70% of all billionaires are self made. So 70% of people got wealthy by creating something that people wanted badly enough. In fact, I saw a tweet, I didn't realize it would stick to my rib, so I did not notice who said it. But the person was like, shout out to all the billionaires you guys built the things that we all rely on all day, every day. And I was like, these are facts. And I get it. They become very unpopular. But I bet you're gonna order something from Amazon today. I bet you're gonna use satellites, which Elon is launching into space. So there are so many things that we rely on entrepreneurs to solve. And when it's somebody who's mad that thinks that these guys are somehow purely extractive, which they are not. Remember the thing? He doesn't understand it, but the thing he's actually mad at is in 1913 we created a central government and allowed a central bank and we allowed people to print money out of thin air, get rich doing so and completely the poor and working class. So these guys are right about the problem and they are so wrong about the cause that that makes them wrong about the solution. And that's where I'm like, when you Combine that with just somebody who's bitter by personality, and he wants to be punitive towards billionaires, not understanding that he's aiming at the wrong thing. And it's like the. The really bad news. Here's the answer. Own assets. Cool. There you go. I just solved the problem. Nobody has to suffer from inflation anymore, but people won't do it. And that's where I'm like, I just. I want to, like, digest my microphone. I want to eat my computer. It, like, causes my brain to sketch out because I know that, like, the Titanic is sinking, but I can't convince people it's sinking. And so by the time the water is like up around their neck and they're finally like, oh, huh, I think we have a problem, they're already dead. So it's like, oh, God. And I know that as they jump into the lifeboats, they're gonna start, like, just killing each other and so bad.

[Mason]

But moving on, let's look at a trans woman winning World's Strongest Woman.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Mason]

And so, honestly, I'm just going to let you give us your take on this one, Macy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Don't want to. You don't want to pop off.

[Mason]

I don't want to touch that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The transmate. It's so funny. Yeah, this. This is the nuclear option. This one just is crazy to me. So you're having a biological experience. The male physique is the answer to what do women want? Women want someone that is more physically explosive, stronger upper body, all of that. So men have been bred over God knows how long by the sexual gatekeepers, which are women, to be stronger. And so now we're making out like the only thing that makes a difference is the hormone level. That's just weird to me. It's just. You're gonna see more and more of this. So whatever. I mean, this to me is like, if people really want to go down this path, by all means, then men are just going to dominate women's sports. So I don't have any beef with trans people. I think people should be able to live whatever life they want. But in terms of if you're. If somebody were asking me to consult for them, hey, we have this women's division and we want to know, should we let trans athletes into it? I'd say yeah, if you want them to dominate and over a long enough time period, win every award and set every record, then yes. But there is a reason that we split these sports up that just has to do with when it comes to physical competition, men are just so Different. So there you have it. Yeah, I don't know what game they're trying to play.

[Mason]

Speaking of games, Elon Musk wants to see if Grok 5 can be the best League of Legends team under reaction time constraints. And they accepted the challenge. Are you looking for anything from this? Do you think that they'll be able to do it even, like very fast?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, so ultimately, AI will absolutely smash every human player at every game ever. That is a guarantee. So it's just a question of how long is it going to take. What's been interesting is that even though I know that a chess AI can beat Magnus Carlson, it's still interesting to see Magnus Carlsen play against other humans. So it's a cool litmus test for AI to see how good AI is getting. And as somebody that needs AI in my game, it's like seeing the new methods coming out for how to train AI to play your game is incredible. Shout out to the Embark studios, you guys. Whatever Shade people threw at you for AI literally fuck each and every one of them. I am so pumped to see people using AI to make games better for human players. And I really think they will. And yeah, anyway, such an extraordinary tool. We're going through a super weird time right now where people are super conflicted about it. I get not wanting to lose your job to AI, but I actually helping humans make things better. And I trust that we'll at least have a quick second to show or I'll just say it the. Did we talk about this earlier? The AI song hit number one. I can't remember if I said that to you before rolling. But it. The song is awesome. So it will give you the emotional feelings that you want. So, yeah, anyway, AI is going to happen. It's going to make things that we love. It's going to make things that are incredible and we have to pass through a period where it makes slop, but it doesn't end up just being slop. So anyway, it doesn't matter if they beat the legal League of Legends champions or not. I'm still going to care about human players that play video games. I'm still going to love playing against other players. I don't care that an AI can beat me at every game ever. As somebody who's made AI in a video game, I will just tell you right now, it's easy to make an AI that will absolutely slaughter you. Slaughter you. That's not the hard part. So it's like, yeah, I don't feel bad that an AI can beat Me, I want to play a game that puts me right in that max level of competition. In fact, I know that there are humans that are so much better than me. I just don't want to play them. It's not fun. They're going to be. They're younger, so they got way faster reaction time. They may just be better at games full stop. And then on top of that, they may practice more than me, all of that. So what I want is to play players that are, like, near my level so that I'm winning. Call it roughly 50% of the games that there is a lot of close matches. That is fun. Getting my ass handed to me all the time, boring. Winning every match by a country mile, boring. So the goal that game developers should have is to make that sweet spot where it's like, it's hard, but not too hard. You're in that, like, optimal area of development because video games ultimately are about progression. You feel like you're getting somewhere. That's the juice.

[Mason]

All right, let's do a couple super chats.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let's go.

[Mason]

First up, from Shaq Power 678. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at the show. I appreciate the content and first principles approach.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, man. Shout out. Right back to you. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for the love. Means a lot. Appreciate it.

[Mason]

Next up, from loyal best 6978. Oh, that's them again. How do you analyze where to move either. How do you analyze where to move either a state or country? If the economy and government continue to get worse, where would you move to? Could you explain your Maui bunker thoughts?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, well, as Ray Dalio says, all the time it's how people are with each other and how the government treats business. So is it a pro business place where you can make money, where you have property rights, all of that stuff, or taxes reasonable. And are the people getting along? So right now that sort of brings into focus. Singapore is a place that a lot of people go. So that's the one that I've thought a lot about. I've never been there, though, so I have no idea. I would have to check it out before I would ever commit to anything like that. But the Maui bunker thing is like, no, no. We've gone all the way now to the have and have nots are in open warfare with each other. And now you've got a zombie apocalypse up. I've only ever made jokes about that. I don't have any plans to build a Maui bunker, man. That'd be really sad. So I don't Even let myself think down that path.

[Mason]

Next up or last one from Marusha Dark. Uh, Tom, there's a song on YouTube you absolutely have to listen to. It's called Capitalism isn't evil just because you suck at life. Also, when investing, do you prefer buy the dip and hold or small slow recurring buys over time?

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's amazing. I will definitely be listening to that song. Um, okay. Do I, do I prefer to buy the dip and hold or small slow recurring buys over time? So I do a little bit of both. But if I were recommending to other people, I would say just dollar cost average in over time. But if it's an industry that I feel a lot of conviction on and I'm not fully deployed yet, then I will buy the dip and look for those moments. Like that's how I did it when I was buying into bitcoin, but then I deployed what I planned to deploy into bitcoin. And so yeah, now even if there's a dip, I don't buy anymore. I've got a good average buy in price. So for me I'm just holding and waiting. So yeah, bit of column A, bit of column B.

[Mason]

And then let's tell people about Friday.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh yes. So everybody, this is a holiday weekend for us. So we will not be going live on Friday. We give everybody the four day weekend. So you guys also have the four day weekend. So go enjoy. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Wherever you are in the world, may this weekend be wonderful for you. Your life quality will be determined by the things you focus on. So really do take time to focus on the things you're grateful for, the people that you love, all of that stuff. It sounds super cheesy but it really does work. So know that I will be thinking about you guys. I am so grateful for this community, even the people that are hate watching. Thank you. You help us generate revenue dollars. It's amazing. We love you the most. Actually, not the most. The people that are here being supportive, helping each other, we love you the most but nonetheless so grateful for you guys. Hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will see you next week. Right everybody, Happy Thanksgiving. Later.