← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Ceasefires, Socialism, and Fake Memories: Why This Week Changed Everything | The Tom Bilyeu Show
01:14:45
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- [00:00]
Tom Bilyeu
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Podcast Host/Announcer
Oh, I had a question. Our host replied, super quick premier move. Wish I had a premier group chat. They won't even write me back.
- [00:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Book a top rated stay with a premier host if you know you vrbo.
- [00:15]
Podcast Host/Announcer
This is a paid message from gofundme. Meet Juan Naula. When his son was hospitalized for a viral infection, Juan started a GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses.
- [00:26]
Drew Manning
It was 5k to pay the bill for my son and I need only 22 hours. It was amazing. People really trust on GoFundMe.
- [00:34]
Podcast Host/Announcer
How did Juan raise $5,000 in less than a day? He posted a short video on GoFundMe telling his story in 30 seconds.
- [00:42]
Drew Manning
30 seconds. Be specific, be quick and tell. What are you going to be using the funds for? I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money. But you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the we were able to save my son's life thanks to gofundme that we still have my son with us.
- [01:05]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this message reflects one person's experience.
- [01:15]
Tom Bilyeu
The 12 day war between Israel and Iran is over. New York is going full socialist. And Drew, you never go full socialist. Supreme Court rules Trump can continue rapid deportation to third party countries. Trump nominated for a Nobel Peace Peace Prize. People can now create false memories with deceased loved ones. The secret to making straight relationships work. Coming right up. And China is getting good at cultural warfare. Drew, it has been a week, man. You literally before we started rolling, you're like, it's. That was a week and a half ago, right? Nope, it was like four days ago. It is crazy.
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Drew Manning
Had a whole war happened. This is weird.
- [01:54]
Tom Bilyeu
This is madness. Madness.
- [01:56]
Drew Manning
Um, okay, we gotta start with Trump. We gotta start with Israel, Iran and this is the weirdest ceasefire announcement I have ever seen. Jumping right into it on his Truth Social, he tweeted congrats to everyone. It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and total ceasefire in approximately six hours from now when Israel and Iran have wound out and completed their in progress final missions for 12 hours, at which point the war will be considered ended.
- [02:23]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm already confused and I know now how this all got violated when I first heard this. And by the way, it just keeps going and going and going. When I first heard this tweet, I was like, wait, what? So you're to me, putting a cease fire in place and then saying, but you've still got a few hours left to, like, drop just a few more bombs. That's like you. You separate from your wife, you're having affairs left, right and center. You guys decide you're going to get back together and put it all behind you and you're like, okay, word, but I am just going to bang this one last chick. Like, what?
- [02:58]
Drew Manning
This is the first war bachelor party.
- [03:00]
Tom Bilyeu
Like, this is crazy. That was the most. Is this normal? Like, I don't. I guess. But this seems so dumb. So anyway, of course they end up messing up and both launching at each other. And for a minute it looked like it was all going to fall apart. Seems like it's back on. But, man, I would just assume in the future you just go, we have a ceasefire and therefore not going to keep shooting at each other. It's so weird.
- [03:25]
Drew Manning
Yeah. Ceasefire starts now. End. That's it.
- [03:27]
Tom Bilyeu
And because of my. The deep dive that I'm writing right now that comes out on Monday is about realpolitik and the way that everybody thinks that the international order is driven by morality, ethics, even ideology. And the fact is, it's not. It has almost nothing to do with that. That's like the post hocus rationalization that people paint on top of it that this is about God or whatever. But the reality is, if you don't distract yourself with that and you just watch what is strategically advantageous for gaining and, or maintaining power, you'll be able to predict. I mean, it's not like you can predict the exact move they'll make, but you can predict the way roughly that events will unfold. But if you try to do it based on ideology, you will be routinely confused.
- [04:11]
Drew Manning
Yeah, I wanted to pick that up on the prediction part because last week we talked about, is this an opportune time? Should we attack Iran? Should we just. Just take care of these nuclear program, Wrap it up. And he ended up doing that. But that week, four or five days of will he, won't he? There's been speculation that Iran was able to move some of their stuff and then that nuclear program isn't completely decimated. So is this happening on the world stage with social media and so much commentary, do you think that that might have came back and bit us in the behind for that mission not being as successful as maybe it could have been?
- [04:43]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't think it has anything to do with what's going on in social media. It has everything to do with espionage, counter espionage. If they really knew, hey, we think something is going to shake down. We're going to move at least the stuff that we've already created. We're going to move somewhere else. I'm not as worried about that from a standpoint of America having to protect its safety. In terms of Iran pursuing two things, the ability to enrich uranium themselves and a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, those two things are a big enough concern that even though I just need to keep reminding myself Iran was not on my radar and so I don't want to get sucked up into this like I saw it all coming. I did not. This just wasn't on my bingo card. I wasn't thinking about the US and Iran, obviously. I was thinking about Israel and Iran and all the proxies. But I just did not see this from the US Perspective. With that full admission out of the way, once you start looking at it, you go, okay, wait a second. A country that is backed into a strategic corner in their own region, which is full of our allies, not just Israel, but the Abraham Accords and what we've been able to do with the rest of the region, it's pretty historic. I want to see that continue. So you've got that. And then on top of that, in their parliament, they're burning the American flag saying death to America, death to Israel, death to the UK So clearly that is not a group that I want to see have intercontinental ballistic missiles and the ability to enrich uranium. So strike good. Now, if they pulled the uranium out of there one, it's not enriched to 90% so it's useless. If we really did destroy their ability to continue to refine it. If they have a relationship with a country that can refine it, we were already in trouble. So if Russia is going to refine for them, it doesn't matter that they got it to 60% because Russia can get it all the way to the 90 whatever percent that they need it. If China's going to supply them with uranium, they then it doesn't matter that they got theirs to 60%. So degrading their ability to make it themselves in the future is critical. If we could also bury the nuclear material itself, that would be even better. But if we had irrefutable proof that they were able to successfully take the 60% enriched uranium, I wouldn't love it. Because you can probably make a dirty bomb or something like that with something that's at that level, But I still would say that this was a huge victory.
- [07:11]
Drew Manning
Yeah. And he retweeted Charlie Kirk, who tweeted out, no nukes for Iran, no troops on the ground, no US Troops dead, no regime change, no nation building, no war. This does seem like the best possible case scenario we could have entered with this war. I would give Trump his due credit for this specific thing, because it could have been bad. It could have became Iraq parts, you know, three or whatever like that. So this is the best way. Do you think. Do you have any critique on how he approaches, or do you think you give him also, like, a passing grade for this?
- [07:42]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm very aware that this is going to be divisive within America. I'll be. And so, from a political standpoint, I think that he really does need to be thoughtful about this. Has divided his own base, which is not a good place to be in. Will he be able to reconcile his base? Probably. I think Trump is shockingly good at doing a thing and then talking about it, giving people the narrative that they need to be able to smooth it over and move on. He is bombastic enough and on to the next huge drama, fast enough that he has a way of just getting people past whatever the huge drama is. Nobody's talking about tariffs right now. Nobody. And I was like, the world was ending. Nobody's even talking about China right now. So he is a master at getting you to look at what he wants you to look at. So I think he's going to be able to smooth it over. I certainly give him a passing grade, because when I look at it, I say, these are not the people that I want to have access to. Nuclear weapons again, Doing the deep dive around Realpolitik really drove home for me that the sort of surface level of burning the American flag, chanting death to America, the ideology of it all, was already enough for me to be like, we should do this, and getting under the hood and realizing that's probably just the post hoc layer that they put on their real motives, which are, you're making us irrelevant, and we will blow things up to stop that from happening. And so, looking at the dynamic of the Middle East, I think that the way history will look back on this if the Israel Iran ceasefire holds, is that this was a brilliant tactical move from somebody who was completely unafraid to flex their power, who is not oriented towards having another military base in the Middle east, who's not trying to be expansionist with that. Because I think Trump, given the Canada stuff and the Greenland stuff and The Panama Canal stuff. I think there are expansionist tendencies that he has. I don't think this was that. I think he is hyper aware of people's pathological resistance to never again like boots on the ground. So he was never going to do that. He never messaged that he was going to do that. Doesn't look like anything in his approach to this is trying to lead us down that path. We don't yet know the final outcome. We don't know if the ceasefire will hold. If the ceasefire holds, great. If the ceasefire breaks and they start attacking our allies, could this still draw us into something deeper? Maybe. I give it a very low risk.
- [10:26]
Drew Manning
It's interesting because a couple of weeks ago, Pakistan announced they nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize after he negotiated that peace deal between Pakistan and India. It was split. Okay. We thought it was going to be a nuclear conflict. They're both nuclear armed countries. That was squashed. It went away. Now we have him announcing the ceasefire for this 12 day war between Israel and Iran. Now, you know, Gaza and Israel still on fire. Ukraine, Russia still on fire. But I do want to at least acknowledge he did seem to broker two peace deals from conflicts that arose and bubbled up and then killed them. Do you think this is Nobel Peace Prize worthy?
- [11:02]
Tom Bilyeu
I've never looked at the Nobel Peace Prize, so honestly, I have no idea what it is, exactly the qualification by which they give these out. But I will say I have been very impressed with Trump's ability to be measured, to be firm, to draw a boundary and to stick to that boundary. In the early days of us doing the live, I said, the thing that worries me about Trump is he's making all these bombastic statements. Everybody assumes that they're bluffs. Somebody's going to call his bluff. And now he's in a terrible situation because he must act. If he doesn't act, then people are going to know that the talk means nothing. And if he does act, then he's doing something bombastic. Whether that is tariffs across the board, whether that is bombing Iran, he's going to have to do the thing. And now seeing him do the thing well is very encouraging. So from a real politik standpoint, from a, the entire world is a prison yard, but there are no prison guards. And it is whoever is strongest is going to rule that space. He has shown that he can wield the gigantic stick that the United States military carries and be measured about it in terms of very clear, we are striking the nuclear facilities. That is it. And then immediately Goes into peace mode. And there is something about his personality that I. I really don't want to find things in him that I like because I know how toxic it is in culture. So I say the following. Not because it brings me any pleasure whatsoever, because this is just going to dig me a deeper hole. But I'm going to call what I see. His ability to reach out to North Korea, his ability to continually say, xi and I are good. Like, we're good. His ability to bomb the shit out of Iran and then be like, but for real, I didn't want to do it. I wanted to negotiate a piece. You wouldn't come to the table. I'm only doing that if you come now and negotiate. Like, we're going to be fine. Now, it's not lost on me that this is a husband who punches his wife and then is like, you made me do it. But that's. That's international politics. Like, you're playing with really big weapons. You are paying. Playing with lethality. And while I want the world to operate around ethics, it doesn't. Yeah, quick break, but don't go anywhere. There's more to come after this short break from our sponsors.
- [13:36]
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- [14:07]
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- [14:39]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, we're back. Let's get into it.
- [14:42]
Drew Manning
And then. This is just no context. I just thought it was hilarious that the President dropped the fuck? You know what we have? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.
- [14:55]
Tom Bilyeu
Drew has been watching this on a loop. I just want to say, before we started, I heard this like 50 times.
- [14:59]
Drew Manning
And then he just goes on a plane. It goes to NATO. I'm like, hey, I'm here to talk about peace. Like, it's just hilarious to me.
- [15:03]
Tom Bilyeu
It's so funny. This guy said so much wild shit. He. Have you seen the footage of the bombs going off? Like, this man nuked these nuclear facilities. There was more TNT by like 2 or 2.5x, the equivalent of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So they were not nuclear. But, dude, the amount of explosive power that he dropped on these facilities is. I don't know that in actual war a bomb that big has ever been dropped ever. And we dropped 12, 14 of them. So when he says the F word, it doesn't even make my radar.
- [15:45]
Drew Manning
Is there something to that, though? Because I feel like as a country, we have shifted from, like, the president supposed to be this model citizen. I always go back to this example because I remember Fox News did a whole like, two day segment on Obama wearing a tan suit, and that's just not presidential. And they have to be all those. So now to see a president drop an F bomb, do you think we're in that part of culture where it's like, yeah, I like my president to curse and have a beer with me and like, our president in 2028 or 2032 is gonna go on live and play video games? Like, do you think we're slowly shifting to, like a more casual, less buttoned up, like, leader in chief?
- [16:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Ultimately, yes, but these things move in cycles. He is a populist leader. This is a populist moment. The people want a strong man that are gonna slap around. The people that have put them in the bad situation that they're in, they have no idea who that is. They have guesses. This is a purely emotional thing. So they want a guy that just says it like it is now. I will admit, in 2016, he curled my toes. I couldn't listen to him talk. It was so unprecedential. I hated everything about it. I was aghast. I'm gonna be honest. I didn't have the reaction to his policies because I wasn't paying attention. So I have no idea if I would have loved them or hated them, but just the way he was. I just couldn't deal with it. And it got to the point where I'd heard so many things about him. I was finally like, let me just look at what he's actually saying. And one of the first times I ever tuned in was his bleach speech where he was like, maybe we can shine a light. Maybe we can drink bleach or whatever. And that was how people were representing it. And I was like, I watched that speech, and he was not crazy. That was somebody who was thinking out loud, throwing out mostly dumb ideas, but was, like, trying to put two and two together. And I so recognize that from the entrepreneurial space where it's like, we play Lisa and I played the game, no bullshit. What would it take? And so you will say, okay, look, this stuff reacts to bleach. Is there a way to safely inject bleach? Can you encapsulate it or something like. And when you look at the real things that we do to, like, cancer, where you turn it like, this is. This is real. What I'm about to say is real. You turn a cancer cell into pork so that the immune system will attack it. Now, out of context, S doesn't even seem remotely possible. And had he said something like that, people like, what? So you go from thinking he's just like, this unhinged lunatic who says wild stuff, but there's no substance to realizing, wait a second. I recognize some of these cues from the world of entrepreneurship. This is somebody who's not getting tripped up on formalities. They're actually really, like, trying to get to the root of the issue. And you'll hear him say, and this one was just hilarious. He's on Air Force One being interviewed by the press, and he's recanting this call that he had with Putin. He said, putin called me up. He said, do you need help with Iran? And he said, no, I don't need help with Iran. I need help with you. And I thought that was so brilliant, and it was so the social media age, to feel like I was invited behind the scenes, not only onto Air Force One, to see how he is with the press, but he's now retelling this story in, like, the most. Your grandpa just sitting down, shooting the shit with you kind of way about another world leader. So there's something about it where I know it's a loop, and I know eventually someone will run against a guy like this by being presidential, and it will swing us back in the other way. But I really am enjoying this moment.
- [19:05]
Drew Manning
Yeah. So it seems like when you said populism creates kind of the leader, it seems like the culture rallies around something, and that's how we kind of produce the leader. Or do you think other things factor into politics, populism? And then somebody comes and, like, claims that power.
- [19:21]
Tom Bilyeu
It's very nested there's no way to separate the two. The culture is creating the politicians, the politicians are creating the cultural moment. But we're all a product of our time. And so I think, even though it's an oversimplification, I think it is a useful oversimplification to say that culture creates the politician or the politician who's already like that is going to rise in that particular moment. If this were a different moment in time, he just would never become president. So for him to become president, you have to be in a populist moment. You have to like seeing some of the footage now, because I didn't watch it at the time, but seeing some of the footage now from him running in 2016, where he realizes he has to cut through the noise and he has to be hyper aggressive and very vicious, it was very fascinating to see him leverage the breaking of norms in order to gain that attention and get people on board with where he's at. And that would have never worked, say even 10 years before that if this had been 2006. Not gonna fly.
- [20:21]
Drew Manning
That's interesting. Cause I remember the primary stage where he was calling out nicknames and talking down to people and using like expletives and stuff like that. So it was already like, why is he talking like that? Like, this guy's not gonna win. And that's how he kind of dwiddled down the hurt. And then now him being on his way to Air Force One, talking in the same way, but not even as aggressive. It seems like he is a little bit more muted than when he first came on the scene.
- [20:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Cause he doesn't have to get people's attention like that anymore. And there is something interesting. I feel like the Matrix is running an experiment because had he been elected in 2020, he I don't think would be able to pull off the things that he's doing now. He had to go into Washington, realize he didn't understand how politics actually worked. Take four years, do just unending, relentless battle, find out if he wants it badly enough, build a cadre of people around him. And nobody's more worried by this overprizing of loyalty than I am. But you saw the same thing with Biden in the. In Original Sin, they talked about the number one word for the Biden family was loyalty. Same thing with Trump. I just. In a populist moment in politics where we're hyper polarized, you need people around you that aren't going to betray you. So he's got that team and now he's able to come in and effectuate change for better or worse. Again, it is so early in his presidency, I have no idea if this guy is going to be a categorical disaster or if he's actually going to pull things off. Obviously, as we're recording this right now, I'm so optimistic because he did something pretty profound with Iran and Israel. So we'll see. But yeah, this is to me, if you look at this moment, what you see is. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but my wife certainly will look for me to mirror her emotion back to her. So if somebody's upset her, it's not enough to intellectually understand. She needs me to be mad too. And I've never understood that. It's just not how I interface with the world. And that's part of why I don't like a populist moment. I just don't mirror the emotion back. But he mirrors the emotions that people are feeling. Again, I don't think they know why they're feeling them. It's debt and money printing. I mean, we know where I come down on all this. But he's mad the way that they're mad. And so it feels right. He's mirroring their emotions. And so a guy like him can come to power but in a moment where that's not where people are at. Because they're either still at an intellectual level, they're not engaged emotionally, or the emotions gotten so out of hand that they need somebody to like, aim that at something. A different person would rise to power.
- [23:03]
Drew Manning
Well, New York will have to decide what kind of city they have because there's a new mayor candidate that is making waves.
- [23:09]
Tom Bilyeu
Gotham Alert. This is nuts.
- [23:12]
Drew Manning
No context. Let's jump into his policies because Tom has thoughts.
- [23:15]
Zahran Mamdani
Grocery prices are out of control. The cost of eggs and milk has skyrocketed. Some stores are even using dynamic pricing, jacking up the cost over the course of a day, depending on what they can get away with. It doesn't need to be this way. I'm Zahran Mamdani, and as mayor, I will create a network of city owned grocery stores. It's like a public option for produce. We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city owned grocery stores whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging. These stores will operate without a profit motive or having to pay property taxes or rent.
- [23:46]
Drew Manning
And then he also had a way to revolutionize transportation.
- [23:52]
Zahran Mamdani
Our campaign is surging and you want to know why? Because the ideas we're fighting for are Popular. This month, for example, we got new.
- [23:58]
Tom Bilyeu
The ideas that you're fighting for are popular because people do not understand the actual cause and effect that is going on here. Anyway, let's keep playing him because you're right. I have. Boy, do I have thoughts. I have all the thoughts, Drew. When I start grabbing the microphone, you know we're in trouble.
- [24:11]
Zahran Mamdani
City owned grocery stores, a policy we've championed for months that would guarantee cheaper groceries. But that's not all. A Separate poll found 3/4 of new Yorkers support making buses free like this one. As a state legislator, I won $15 million to fund a first of its kind fare free bus pilot.
- [24:27]
Tom Bilyeu
That led to a 30% in my deep dive on how all of this plays out. One of the things I said was people get elected by promising things for free. Like, I cannot believe how cliche this is. He's literally just listing, I'm going to lower this price through tax dollars, not by improving the system. We're going to allocate tax dollars to it. Bro, that's so crazy. This is so crazy. He's just promising you. Hey, everybody in the high school, welcome to New York High. The vending machines are going to be free.
- [25:06]
Drew Manning
Everybody, vote me for class president.
- [25:08]
Tom Bilyeu
This is nuts. This is nuts precisely because it's popular. This is nuts precisely because I know there are going to be people that are annoyed that I think this is crazy. Drew, this is. Okay, this is a moment.
- [25:23]
Drew Manning
I'll let you cut. I know we gonna talk about eating babies and all these types of things. Hypothetically speaking.
- [25:29]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, please give me. Give me the best arguments.
- [25:31]
Drew Manning
Yeah. Hypothetically speaking.
- [25:32]
Tom Bilyeu
Yep.
- [25:32]
Drew Manning
He sits down, day one, he looks at the mayor budget. He sees a million dollars in office upgrades. He sees $4 million in flat screen TVs. He sees $3 million for new carpets. If he says, okay, I'm gonna take those. Three, four, seven. Okay, now I got $8 million. That's the pilot. Now for the bus program. No new taxes, no new funds. Is your reaction the exact same or is it still not going to work?
- [25:57]
Tom Bilyeu
My reaction is the exact same depending on what he is applying the money to. If he's applying the money to something where every year you're just going to have to fund it and you don't get an economically viable output. Like if he were saying, we're going to make sure that all kids have access to AI, I'd be like, okay, word. Because that now you're educating people, now you're giving them equal opportunity. If you get every kid New York is going to have access to $20 a month open. AI Chad. GPT. I could actually get behind that because that kind of thing is transformative. It turns roi.
- [26:30]
Drew Manning
He's.
- [26:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Oh, my God. Like, now you're really doing something. If you're investing in infrastructure, if you're investing in children. Yes. Love, educate. If you are. If he even wanted to give the money as a tax incentive for people to have more kids. Okay, dude. Like, there are certain things that incentivizing them is an investment in the future for the whole country, and I love it the most. But when you're doing it for things that should be controlled by the free market, because the free market will innovate and make them better. Now you. One, you have to keep doing it every year. It never turns into an economic engine. And two, it's never going to solve the absolutely spiraling inequality.
- [27:15]
Drew Manning
Hmm. Okay. Free buses. Because they're already state sponsored. It's already not necessarily a free market system. It's kind of like we at least incentivize it. What's the word? Where we kind of give, like, a baseline incentive and then it's free market on top of that. Like socialism. No, what we do with farmers, we get, like, subsidized. Subsidized. Thank you.
- [27:39]
Tom Bilyeu
Yep. Terrible fucking idea. Let me tell you a story about subsidies. Drew. Guess what. The U.S. government subsidizes the life out of corn. You're correct. Drew, guess why I am filming in this big, fancy house. Because the government subsidizes corn. And so when we were trying to make a protein bar that tasted like it had sugar but didn't, and we ran into the fact that we could not get equipment that would run a bar that did not have high fructose corn syrup in it. We're like, why on earth would every piece of industrial equipment for this type of product assume you're using high fructose corn syrup? That doesn't even make sense. It's horrific for you. And the reason is it's cheap. Why is it cheap? Because the government subsidizes corn. So instead of letting the farmers go, what do people actually buy? And then making that and competing against other farms to make sure that we stay in business, they go in and they subsidize the life out of things. And by doing that, you create distortions in the market. Now, I'm not saying no government. I'm saying the government has to understand what you're messing with. And when the government does not understand what they are good at and what they are bad at. Then you get all these problems when you think that you can control the market from the top down and tell people these are the healthy foods that you should be eating or whatever. A you don't know what you're talking about. Because at one point the government wanted to tax companies like Quest for for having too much fat in their product. Fuck you. They were fine with sugar, but they had a problem with fat because they were ignorant. Dude, this is only like 12 years ago. So the government is good at bureaucracy. The government is terrible at understanding where we should be allocating dollars to get the biggest economic bang. They are terrible at understanding what's good for the health of their citizens. So I do not trust them in the slightest to dictate how buses should be paid for or any of that stuff. So build my infrastructure, take that money and build dope ass roads. Build roads that are smart so that the vehicles can be more innovative, so that things can get cheaper. Like there are ways that if they really thought about this, that they could be building infrastructure that would allow companies to come in and make all of this stuff cheaper. I mean, I could pontificate about things off the top of my head that I think would work, but the reality is you don't need me to pop off living literally unprepared. There are people that all they do is think about the things that we could do that would actually make infrastructure better for everybody. That would unlock innovation in the private sector, which is always where you want the innovation coming from. Because now you can trust the best and the brightest from around the world to say I want to go to America. Because whether you love it or hate it, people are motivated by getting a reward for their work. People do not want to work. They don't want to work full stop, but I don't want to fractal on that. People want to work. They want to deliver a result. And if they can deliver an outsized result, they want outsized compensation. That is how you motivate the best and the brightest. We'll be back in a moment.
- [30:49]
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- [31:21]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, let's pick up where we left off.
- [31:24]
Drew Manning
He's leading and it looks like he is leading Andrew Cuomo, who's also running, and they're both competing to go against Eric Adams, the current mayor who has his checkered passed. I think Trump's probably going to endorse
- [31:37]
Tom Bilyeu
him, so you've got to pull up the David Friedberg tweet on this because Friedberg, who is a Impact Theory alumni, had the perfect take.
- [31:49]
Drew Manning
It is vitally important for America that Mamdani gets elected mayor of nyc. He can help maximally and swiftly tax the rich, stand up government run grocery stores, eliminate the police force, freeze rent, and make public transportation free. It's unlikely that taxing the rich will cause them to move to other cities, collapsing NYC tax revenue. Or that city run grocery stores will fail to increase fresh vegetable consumption in the inner city. Or that elimination of the NYPD will cause a rise in crime and decline in quality of life. Or that freezing rents will drive landlords to dump properties, collapsing prices and property tax revenue. Or that free public transportation will result in union led kleptocracy. No way. I'm sure this time socialism will be different. If Americans don't want to learn the lesson of socialism's failures elsewhere, we should aim to learn them as quickly as possible here.
- [32:34]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, so he goes on basically saying, okay, if we have to put our hand on the hot stove personally and we're not willing to take mom's word for it, who's got scars on her hand from when she touched it, and we got to get our own scars, then so be it. But this is one. Okay, if you can hear me right now, I have so much love for you. I want to see you happy. I want to see your life filled with like, joy and rad things. And we have a broken system. We have to get rid of the inequality. We have to educate people. We have to make sure that being born in the inner cities is not a death trap, like where you're stuck there forever. Those are musts. So I am on anybody's team who wants to see that kind of stuff happen. But this is where I really, really beg people to be a student of history and to of the things you're learning about to map cause and effect. When you start looking at countries that have tried socialism and communism, it's basically the same thing. You very quickly realize why from a cause and effect perspective, it doesn't work. And if I can say it in a single sentence, the reason that socialism doesn't work is people won't work for free. The second you, dear listener, will work for free, socialism will work. But the reality is you don't want to work for free, and you certainly don't want to work at a job that the government picks for free. And that's what you have to do to make the system work. So when you're in a system that's producing all these incredible goods because you have thriving entrepreneurs, people actually lose sight of the fact it is obscenely difficult to create a company. I'll call it an economic machine. It's extremely difficult to create an economic machine where the inputs, the people and the money, the ingredients, the raw parts, whatever that you put into it output something that people will willingly pay more for because it's more valuable to them than it cost you to make it. That's ridiculously hard. Ridiculously hard. And almost without exception, the number one line item for any entrepreneur is labor. It's the people. So once you realize, oh, I'm the problem. I'm the reason that socialism won't work because I insist on getting paid, and people have a vision in their head that they're not going to have to work, that they're going to get everything for free. You're not. You'll coast on fumes for a little bit as you break all the makers in society. But so all the people that have been able to do that, they will just say, I'm not gonna do it because you're taking. You're. You're confiscating my wealth. You're taking everything away from me that I'm making. It's way too hard, it's way too stressful. And so why would I do that if the outcome is I get very little and we get, I mean, basically what they ended up having in Russia? You think it's gonna be amazing, grocery stores and cheap prices. It's not because it's just such a wildly inefficient system and people don't recognize that. But the rebound effect of trying to control prices at the store level means the farmer goes, yeah, I'm just not going to make these things anymore because you won't let me charge enough to make it worth my while. The reason the cost of eggs had to skyrocket was because a disease forced farmers to kill God knows how many chickens. And so it was like, well, if you want me to keep dealing with the chickens, I have to charge you a ton of money for a limited time until I can build my supply back up. And all that and the supply chain gets the right amount of supply for the amount of demand that's available. And so if you don't understand that and you literally think money doesn't even have to grow on trees, it just comes into existence, that things just show up at your grocery store when you have no sense of supply chains, cause and effect. The farmer who's stressing himself out, the entrepreneur that is. I was up at 2:30am this morning. Nobody was with me, all alone, doing my thing, trying to, like, create something. I get that most people don't want that life, but that's what it takes a lot of times to really build something of value. And so when all of that's invisible to you because the world just works from where you're sitting, but there's something broken and you can't afford a house and you're under a crushing amount of debt and you're looking at the wealthy people getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier, you're going to scream for change. And that's why I'm like, I'm on your team. But you've got to map cause and effect, otherwise you're going to change the wrong thing, which is what this is. And you're going to make it not a little worse, you're going to make it catastrophic. And so I really don't want the story of eating kids to become like this comedy thing. When I was writing the Deep Dive today, I was writing this, like, brief passage about how there is a restraining force for humans. And the restraining force is culture. So the world is ruled by power. Who's got the bigger bombs, the better military. That really is what makes decisions, as we just saw with US versus Iran. But there's a restraining force of culture. And I'm like, we're better than animals. Animals. If. If a lion takes over a pride and the females have cubs from the previous male, the new male will kill all the cubs so that the women will go back into being fertile, and then he'll have sex with them and then make sure all the resources go to his own children. We don't do that. And then I was like, well, we don't usually do that. But the reality is that as the quote goes, there is only nine meals between mankind and anarchy. And read about Mao China. Read about the Red famine in the Ukraine. There were two of them. There was one in the 20s and another one in the 30s. And you can make some people hungry enough, they'll eat their own children. And the only system that I know that delivers. That is communism. And what is the. Like, the precursor to communism is socialism. Just that simple.
- [38:55]
Drew Manning
Okay, I hear it, I receive it, I understand the howling in the woods. But let's bring it specifically to NYC in this small bubble. Because yeah, all of America could be socialist, but NYC could be a little socialist. If the housing market collapsed, more of the people from NYC can stay in nyc.
- [39:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. You actually pitched me this idea. Were you serious when you said it wouldn't be a bad idea if the New York housing market or property market,
- [39:19]
Drew Manning
most of the people that work in New York live in Connecticut or New Jersey.
- [39:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it's too expensive.
- [39:24]
Drew Manning
So it's one of those things where like, okay, if a bunch of wealth flies out of New York City, that's not the worst thing for landlords, it's terrible for property owners, it's terrible. Before the baseline consumer, the homies from Jersey who want to live in a big city, they'll be able to go back into the city. That will be nice for them. So a lot of times I think people don't think of the grand scheme from a macro perspective. They just think about their neighborhood.
- [39:45]
Tom Bilyeu
Drew, why do you think freezing rents will make it possible for them to move back in as well?
- [39:49]
Drew Manning
I was literally just about to say if we, if we can actually walk through this for now, because I think sometimes we, we talk about what the end result would be, but we don't talk about the actual second order consequence. We go from this is the proposal, fifth order consequence. We shouldn't do it. But let's just kind of stair step.
- [40:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Good, I like that.
- [40:04]
Drew Manning
Yeah, let's stair step a little bit to kind of see what. So tomorrow, grocery prices are fixed, rent controls are fixed, buses are free.
- [40:12]
Tom Bilyeu
What happens?
- [40:12]
Drew Manning
What happens?
- [40:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so what ends up happening is step number one, you get a momentary jubilee. Prices are cheap, you go in the store, everything is good. Then the store owner starts getting frustrated because his margins are thin. And the government creates some sort of program where he can get cash back or whatever, where he can be subsidized because, okay, we understand, we see that it's causing this problem. We didn't quite anticipate that. So we're going to help you guys out. But then he's got to like file for paperwork and he's got medical debt or student debt or whatever. Something happens to one of his kids, now he's gotta sell the store or. Because what he wants to do is he wants them to actually be state owned grocery stores. How's he getting the state Owned grocery store. It's going to be something like a grocery store goes out of business and they snatch it up. That creates a moral hazard because now the government is incentivized for you to go out of business so that they can take over your space. If nothing else, they're certainly not going to pay top dollar, right? So the government is going to either lowball you, hope that you go out of business, or suck more tax dollars to pay a premium to try to snatch up these spaces. So you're already draining resources, or creating a moral hazard where they actually want you to be in trouble that obviously then exacerbates. And you get to the point where now the government's running the store, but there are like, the eggs aren't the quality that you're used to, or we don't have the selection in the store that we used to have. And so you complain at that store and they're like, well, this is what we've got. The price is great, right? But you're like, yeah, but like, I don't want to eat this. And so you start looking for a new store anyway. And so now you start getting extreme gentrification because you get your air wands and stuff, who start going, yeah, all right, you're part of the rich crowd. So we're now going to open so that you don't have to go into these state sponsored stores. And now you're seeing the inequality widen and widen and widen just in a grocery store. Okay, so that's a rough play out of the grocery store. The freezing, the rents. What ends up happening? If you want to create slums, freeze rents. Because what ends up happening? Owning a property is extremely expensive, doing all the upkeep and all that. And part of the joy of renting is you don't have to worry about any of that. You don't have to worry about property taxes. But the government can't cut the property tax because this guy's giving everything away for free. If anything, they're going to have to raise property taxes to keep those taxes flowing. So now I'm a landlord, I hear this. I'm not buying any new properties, that's for sure. I guarantee anybody that was thinking about doing something when they saw this guy spike in the polls, they're like, I'm going to wait and see how this plays out. I've done the exact thing in la. So from experience I will tell you, you start hearing politicians make crazy noises and you start going, whoa, okay, I'm not going to invest further Because I need to see how this is going to play out. So the reason that they're going to become slums is they've got to keep paying their property tax, which may go up. They can't raise the rents even if their costs go up. The cost of fixtures, let's say, goes up. The cost of a plumber goes up, but the cost of rents can't go up with it. So now what does the landlord start doing? They fix as little as humanly possible because otherwise they're getting eaten. If they start getting into the red, then they're just going to give up the property or they're going to try to sell it as fast as they can. And so now when people are selling distress, property values are going down. The property value is clocked on the last sale, presumably, if it's anything like California, which I assume it is. So that means that by freezing the rents, you start driving the values of the properties down, which means they're collecting less rent, which means fewer and fewer people want to do any kind of investment inside of New York. And so now things just sort of start falling into disrepair. And by the way, nobody wants to move out of their apartment because they've got a fixed rent. And so it's not like, oh, there's suddenly a hu. Influx of people until things start getting really bad and people start fleeing the city. Then economically, the city just stops being viable and you end up with Detroit. And so if you want to see New York of the 70s where people being raped and killed in Central park, okay, like, this is the path that we want to go down, but the reality is that law and order having boundaries. I forget they. There's a name for policing based on whether you see broken windows in the neighborhood. I forget what it's called, but they're just signals that get sent to the community about what's okay, what's not okay, based on how things look, based on how much pride people take in something. And so when you're robbing them of all the fruits of their labor, they just stop taking good care of it. Nobody's taking pride in something that the government gets to control. So it's one of those. I totally understand the impulse, I totally get it. I know what people are grabbing for. But it's. I tell this story a lot. There are people that I love that are in pain and physical pain, like joint pain, because, I mean, I know it's because of what they eat. They want a pill and let's take Ozempic. So they wanna start taking Ozempic to get their weight down. But the problem is we find out later that it's stripping muscle off the heart and it's causing bone loss. The final analysis of Ozempic will play out, but things like that, where there's normally second and third order consequences that nobody's thinking about. And so yes, you get leaner, but you also die sooner. So instead of going, the reality is nobody can save you. If you want your joints to stop hurting, you have to stop eating sugar. You need to lose fat naturally by having a caloric deficit. And you need to work out and get sleep and drink water. Like the basic stuff that people just don't want to do. And that's the hard reality. The transportation thing, I don't know transportation as well. But again, you have to pay the people that are repairing the vehicles. You've got to buy the parts for the vehicles. And so what ends up happening is unions end up taking hold. And I'm starting to do research on Lee Kuan Yew, the guy that founded Singapore. Fascinating story. He's not who I thought he was going to be. When I first heard about him, I was like, oh, wow. Like, he's this really poised. This was the vision I had in my head. This poised leader, deeply wise, understands nation building and how to get the best out of kids and how to educate. And so I was expecting this sort of Nelson Mandela y story, only to find out this guy was not for play. And he was a mix of. I let the communists know that I was willing to fight to the death and I told the unions to off when they started becoming a problem. And I showed people a path to owning their own homes. And then I lived like they lived. And so if I wanted air conditioning, I had to make sure that we were a nation that had air conditioning, not that I lived in a palace off of their backs. And this motherfucker has built one of the, like, most prosperous nation states ever. But hearing him in his own words, he was like, people have to know when you say something that you're going to do it. And if that something is, I'm going to back you the fuck down and you better back them down. And I was like, whoa, this guy was not for play. And that's the reality. Like, you've got to tell unions, you're creating the problem. You cannot let, like, when I look at the education system, I'm like, this is a union problem. This is a union problem. You cannot have people who are not good at their jobs keep their Jobs, you just can't have it. So I imagine the quality begins to decline. They stop being on time. They try to whip people from the top down, just like they did in the Soviet Union. It just doesn't work.
- [47:57]
Drew Manning
So it seems like there's a common thread between the three of those examples that the margins get suppressed when we go away from a profit system. So that way the owners, the implementers, the people that are actually doing the thing, they are disincentivized to upkeep, maintain, to get new and fresh fruit, so that way they can maybe do a sale. They're not incentivized to put up a new pool, so that way they can drive up rents. They're not incentivized to get newer buses. That way you get there faster because they're still getting the same amount of. Whether they try a lot or they don't try at all.
- [48:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Correct.
- [48:28]
Drew Manning
And then it just slowly declines in quality and resources over time. At that point, with the system being depressed because of these falling property values, people being dissented about the food, the driving inequality, some businesses flee, some money leaves, and then now the overall medium income of the city drops. And then now people can't afford things anymore. And there's just a vicious loop as it keeps getting.
- [48:51]
Tom Bilyeu
Now the government can't afford things anymore because the government begins losing revenue because
- [48:55]
Drew Manning
they can't take from those people anymore.
- [48:57]
Tom Bilyeu
Exactly. Like the part that people do not seem to understand is the government has exactly zero dollars and zero cents until they tax an entrepreneur who is making something that outputs something of more value than what the inputs were. And that is the only way. And so this is why you can get away with not taxing your citizens when you have oil that's just gushing out of the ground because it's like, okay, co, we're doing great, but if they don't transition their economy, I don't know, 20 years from now, like that's going to be a real problem. Not because we're going to run out of oil, because the world just isn't going to use oil anymore. So when the voting public loses track of how the government actually generates money, then you get this moment.
- [49:46]
Drew Manning
Yeah, it's interesting. It seems like the voting public thinks that money operates the same way that government does, where they could just kind of print it and it appears and then it could be used.
- [49:54]
Tom Bilyeu
They just like think the government has money. And so like now I just want you to allocate that towards me. This is why I covered this in my deep dive about how money actually works is what ends up happening is when so much money is being printed and people don't understand that that's stealing from them. They just know the government has $6 trillion. Even though it only collects 4 trillion, it's got 6 trillion to spend. So it's like, well, if we've got all this free money, which is exactly how it feels because you got politicians like this guy promising you free, free, free, as if it doesn't have to be paid for by them, and they just go, hey, we're going to make this magic money. And people go, I want my share of the magic money. And then it. It becomes completely detached from reality. Period. New paragraph. One thing that I don't know, if this problem is solvable. And the following sentence may explain exactly why history loops the way that it does. The way the world works is just complicated enough that most people will never take the time to understand it. And if you don't understand it, you'll steer by emotion, period.
- [51:02]
Drew Manning
And in this moment, this is just an emotional reaction, just emotion. I'm not seeing it.
- [51:07]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, yeah. The wealthy are getting wealthier. That's unfair. And I'm being crushed by student debt, which is a problem for so many people. And fuck you, I want my peace. And so because they have that emotion of fuck you, I want my peace. And you get guys saying, I'll give you your piece. Why wouldn't I vote for that guy? And the only reason you wouldn't vote for that guy is because you actually understand the cause and effect. But most people don't understand the cause and effect. We'll never understand the cause and effect. And the whole reason that humans have emotions is so that you don't have to understand the cause and effect. You just know that rustle in the bush scares me, so I'm going to turn and run. And so all we know is I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. This guy is telling me, vote for me and you don't have to take it anymore. I'm going to take from whoever it is that I take from, and I'm going to give it to you. Yeah. Yes, please.
- [51:59]
Drew Manning
Nice. In other news, the Supreme Court just had an emergency order. The highest court in the land just hit pause on the lower court's order that put some rules around how the government can deport people to other countries. Now, this isn't just like a small legal tweak. The three justices, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, they all dissented and they called it a gross abuse of power. But what they enacted was it allowed Trump to continue to do his quick deportations to third world countries. So not third world, third countries.
- [52:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Excuse me, I thought that was a typo of first. I'm like, third countries.
- [52:30]
Drew Manning
Yeah, third countries.
- [52:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Basically third party countries.
- [52:33]
Drew Manning
The biggest example I could use is there was a Guatemalan man who was afraid to go back to Guatemala, so instead they deported him to Mexico. However, the Mexican authorities then deported him to Guatemala. So I feel like it just takes the onus off of Trump, but it at least allows him to continue the deportations that they have.
- [52:49]
Tom Bilyeu
It's interesting. There were some riots in Mexico over people coming into their country illegally. How hilarious is that?
- [52:58]
Drew Manning
It's ironic.
- [52:59]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. I mean, it just goes. I mean, in fairness, it's. The Mexican government has plenty that they could do and should do to stop people from crossing the border. But at the same time, it's like it is ultimately our job to police our border. And I get it, they've got to police theirs. And it is weird watching the world wake up in real time to something that we have known essentially for all of human history and that suddenly we've somehow forgotten. This is such a weird moment for me, Drew, the way that we are swinging so hard in the direction of compassion. It's utterly fascinating to look at that four part cycle of strong men, blah, blah, blah. Everybody knows the thing and that we're just firmly in the weak men are making hard times moment right now, and we are gonna relearn some lessons from history in a violent fashion.
- [53:53]
Drew Manning
Yes. I'm conflicted, though, because we have seen more deportations historically than we're seeing right now. So this is not like Trump is the most deportationist president or not. Like. Like, it's not like it went from zero to 5,000 a day or anything like that. But it seems like how he's doing it is the thing. We had the conversation with Rick Caruso that came out, and I remember Rick even said, like, there's certain ways how you can do it, and there's certain ways that kind of makes it. It makes it look like the villain is enacting. Like, the guys have on masks, they're healthy, heavily militarized, they're going into community centers, they're going into Home Depots, as opposed to, like, sweeping up off the street corners and going to a bit more malicious places or places that we think, quote, unquote, criminals will reside. Is there anything to the style factor into that, or do you just Think it's. It doesn't matter if he was asking grandmas nicely or if he was in black suits, it wouldn't matter. We would still react this way.
- [54:48]
Tom Bilyeu
If he were a perfect human, he would do it better. He would understand how he looks to other people and he would temper that he's not a perfect person. Nobody is. So in reality, with the temperament that he has, I don't think you're going to get any better than this. I also think people are so prone to hate him that it doesn't matter what he does. Just like the right was going to hate Biden no matter what he did, the left is going to hate Trump no matter what he does. Now, I do think Trump is uniquely divisive. Like there is just, there are a thousand little nuances to his personality that really wind people up. So it's just going to be a question of somebody like that who does not care what you think is looking at. I want to achieve this thing. This is what I believe I need to do to achieve it. I'm going to do that thing to achieve it. No matter what. You need a, you need a person with a certain level of aggression to pull it off. And so you combine the historical rebellion against him starting in 2016 or 2015 when he started running. And for the erudite left elites, that was just like brain breaking the. The thought. Like if you were a 40 something, left leaning, hyper intellectual person, used to people sounding presidential in 2015 and a smug, arrogant, aggressive, brash billionaire entrepreneur from TV comes in slinging mud at everybody, you had to be like, this is. This is not my America. There's no universe in which I want this guy to be elected. And you're just seeing echoes of that still. It's crazy.
- [56:40]
Drew Manning
Something else that humans are not prepared for is this AI can now turn old family photos into actual video. This guy retweeted it. Roman Heimlich guy. Cognitive security rule number one, do not do this. This reminds me of a sci fi movie where like you can't remember which memory is yours and which memory is not. Is there a line here? I feel like this is getting black mirror esque where I don't know if we should be able to do this. Is this healthy? Is this coping? Or is this like, here is the
- [57:06]
Tom Bilyeu
hard reality, none of your memories are real. This is true. This is how memory works, okay? When you pull a memory out of long term memory, so storage, when you pull that memory out of storage, do whatever, think about it and then rewrite it, you're restoring it differently, which is why you can't trust, like eyewitness accounts and stuff like that. Every time you access a memory, you change it a little bit. And that's why people will blend memories, they'll change memories. They'll be convinced, like the Mandela effect, that, no, I saw this movie. I know I saw this movie. Memory is hyper fallible. Given that that just is already true, given how damaged people can be by memories that haunt them, this to me is like a Ginsu knife. I can kill everyone in my family with it, or I can use it to cut vegetables and prepare an incredible meal. So you need to, you need to understand you're doing this to yourself all the time, no matter what. Now, this is your cue not to say, I'm never gonna do this. This is your cue to do this very carefully, very intentionally. But man, let me tell you, when my mom passes away, the thought that I could do something like this, of course I'm gonna do something like that. And worst case, smooth out. Like, if you've got a rough memory with somebody that you can, you can never get that moment back. Imagine the catharsis of working with a therapist who has access to AI to be able to create a moment where you can communicate with your mom, significant other, whatever. Again, you can do it in a way that damages you, or you can do it in a way that helps you alleviate something. Have you ever heard of phantom limb syndrome?
- [59:06]
Drew Manning
Yeah, like when people cut their. And then they feel like they still have a leg and all that.
- [59:09]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so one of my all time favorite guests on the show is a guy named VS Ramachandran. And he was the one that came up with this idea. And what happened was he had patients that had lost their hands, but their mental map of the hand was that it was clenched in a fist so tight that they were in agony. So even though they didn't have a hand, they were like just in constant, never ending pain because they couldn't unclench their fist. And so he was like, huh, what if I created a box that mirrored their good hand? And so they're looking down into the box, it looks like they're seeing the missing hand, but they're really just seeing a mirror of their other hand. And he said, what I want you to do is open your good hand and imagine opening your missing hand at the same time. And people were like, oh my God. It's like I've just opened my hand. People's brains clench up over the weirdest shit. Traumas that will haunt you forever. Again, very powerful tool that you need to be extremely careful how you use. But man, if you use that to get closure, to be hugged by your mom again in the midst of just the unending grief of loss. Dude, I'm doing it all day long, consciously, carefully, but I'm doing it.
- [60:38]
Drew Manning
That's how the company Replica started, allegedly, that she, her best friend died and she fed all her texts into like, AI, and then that's like, what kind of like, started, like the whole AI companion thing.
- [60:50]
Tom Bilyeu
This is, this is a real thing. And the transitionary moment is going to be scary.
- [60:54]
Drew Manning
Yeah.
- [60:54]
Tom Bilyeu
And look, I unfortunately am not the guy that can give people the turn away from technology, embrace the Lord. Like, I can't give you that speech because I don't believe it it. But I can give you the speech that there are no utopias. There are only trade offs. Technology's been changing the human species forever. I mean, since Fire. And if you want me to regale you with the torturously cruel way that humans used to live, I can. Because anybody that thinks that the past was somehow like this better place, unless you're pit stopping in the 90s, which maybe I would sort of give you,
- [61:38]
Drew Manning
everybody goes to the 90s and stops. They don't want to go any further than that.
- [61:40]
Tom Bilyeu
It's so funny. When I wrote Neon Future, I literally was like, where would be the perfect technological moment for people who are technologically phobic? And I was like, the 90s, you need the Internet, but not porn. Not like all the crazy stuff. Uh, it's interesting. So anyway, I think technology ultimately is going to make life unimaginably better, but we're going to have to let go of some of the things we think of as the way things ought to be.
- [62:11]
Drew Manning
Yeah, it sounds like you put technology in that gun category where, like, guns aren't bad. The people who wield guns the wrong way are the bad ones.
- [62:20]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, but only if you'll give me the context of technology is like guns in the same way that guns are like guns when someone is actively in your house trying to attack your wife and they have a gun. It's like that technology gave you antibiotics, technology gives you temperature control, technology gives you the ability to make wheat that can feed the billions of people that we have on the planet. So technology reduced infinite mortality. I mean, it's like technology is not like cell phones and social media. Technology is the constant promise of a better tomorrow that we have been making to ourselves for the last 500,000 years.
- [63:06]
Drew Manning
Copy, copy. Welp I feel like straight relationships are on their deathbed with AI and technology and sex spots on the horizon. But a lady from Instagram has a cure in the fix for it.
- [63:21]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Say the strict relationships that survive and thrive are dynamics where the woman is a little bit more mean and the man is more patient and is kind of obsessed with her. Based on my experience working with couples, the reason that I think this holds a little bit of truth to it is because a man who you would describe as obsessed is also someone who values his partner's opinion.
- [63:41]
Tom Bilyeu
When I first started listening to this, I was turned off by the words mean and obsessed. But as she started going, I was like, oh, I recognize a lot of my relationship in this. I think she's onto something about their
- [63:57]
Podcast Host/Announcer
partner's dreams and they care about what they have to say. Similarly, a woman who is described as a little bit mean is a woman who isn't afraid to call out bad behavior and will only keep someone around if they add value to her life. In essence, I think these terms are like counterweights to our current society where women can hold their ground and men actually care there. And the reason that it works is because it becomes balanced.
- [64:18]
Tom Bilyeu
I found that to just be factually true for my marriage. Now, whether this is something that actually carries across everybody, whether this is a secret, because this certainly is not the secret that I would give people, like, about what actually makes a relationship work. But as like to what she said, there's a little bit of truth in it. What I found interesting is there's no doubt that I think many people would say that Lisa certainly has a mean gear, whether they would say she is mean or not. But Lisa, like, is not for play. And I remember one time pretty early in our relationship, and I was like, you're driving me crazy. And she was like, if you could walk over me, you wouldn't respect me. And she was like, it is the fact that I have my own opinions. I stand up for myself that you're into me. And she said it in, like, this fun, playful, like, seductive way. And I was like, fuck, she's right. And if I could always get my way, if she always just did what I wanted, like, it wouldn't be interesting. I would lose interest. If she were faking it, it wouldn't be interesting. But this is really just a woman that happens to know what she wants. Now, I will admit there are times where people violate my wife's sense of how the world ought to be, and she just, just cannot remind herself in real time. My values aren't objectively correct. They're just mine. And so she will look at people like they have roaches on their face when they don't live the way that she thinks that they should be living or interface with her the way she thinks they should. But it's true. Her standing up for herself has been interesting. And then I have. I'm sure I've said on here that I'm obsessed with my wife. And part of the reason that I say that, by the way, is that reinforcing her as a central focus in my life, make sure that she stays a central focus in my life. And so I think it's only a minor part of what makes our relationship work, but there is something to that dynamic.
- [66:17]
Drew Manning
Yeah. It seems like the takeaway from this was balance. You know, I'm in these shapes, balancing each other. Yes, yes. Like, Of. Of. It's a scale. So balances. That's why I'm blanking on a different word, thinking of, like, the justice, like, balance. Not like, I was having a conversation with a woman on a date, and she was talking about how she didn't want kids. She doesn't really know. She wants to, like, have a husband, stuff like that. And as I'm talking to her, kind of my response is like, oh, well, yeah, I'm super domestic. Like, I love being a dad. Like, I think I want to have more kids. I want to do these things. I engage in this. Like, we. And she was like, oh, well, I have a kid with you. And I was like, well, I thought you didn't want, like, a kid. She's like, oh, well, if you're going to help out, then I'll have a kid.
- [66:55]
Tom Bilyeu
And I'm just like, what date is this?
- [66:57]
Drew Manning
Like, what date?
- [66:58]
Tom Bilyeu
What date number?
- [67:00]
Drew Manning
This was like, date one. Like, we were friends.
- [67:03]
Tom Bilyeu
How much game do you have?
- [67:04]
Drew Manning
No, no, no, no, no, no. It was like. Like we knew each other. Like, it wasn't like she was actually trying to give me a kid, but it was like that.
- [67:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Did she say, I would have a kid with you or a guy like you?
- [67:16]
Drew Manning
It was with me, but I think this is what happens, right? And this is the point I'm trying to make. I'm gonna bring. I'm playing. I promise. I'm laying a plane. I did just meet, like, I like this plane.
- [67:23]
Tom Bilyeu
We don't need to land this plane. I want to know more about the stewardess on this plane.
- [67:28]
Drew Manning
But it was interesting to me. I'm like, oh, like, in her mind, having a kid Meant the man is not gonna do anything. She's gonna have to cook and clean and do all the housework, and he's just gonna throw her money and ask her for sex sometimes. And it's like, sometimes we get super rooted in these dynamics that maybe we've seen or we're just watching too much Twitter or Andrew Tate videos. I don't know what it is, but we're coming with this. Like, oh, the man is supposed to do X, Y, Z. Women's supposed to do xyz. But as she was talking, like, obsessed. Like, yeah, I should care about what my partner feels, and I. I should be cheering my partner on, and I should. So when you say you're obsessed with your wife, it's like, I don't take that as all the time, as the simper. It's like, yeah, y' all been married. You should be obsessed with her. That should be the person. Like, I have my friends who are married and, like, they. Yes. They check on their wives and they're. So. I didn't have this, like, reaction that was like, wait, obsessed mean. That's fat. I was just like, okay, she keeps it spicy to keep it interesting because you need that, like, that chase inside the man. And then on the. From a woman's perspective, she likes to be dreamed about. Like. Like, she likes to be pursued. So in. In those two ways, it seemed balanced to me, just in, like, that kid example. So I think a lot of times we. We think what the relationship dynamics should be, and we're just getting bad takes from other people or from our personal relationships that didn't pan out, and we're thinking that's what it should be. And it's like, nah, it's. It's actually the way it ought to be. Is obsessed mean in using her language? But a lot of times we take other people's traumas and act like that's the shoulds and then kind of change our dynamics or what we want because of that. Yeah. So it was just interesting to kind of see this. Like, oh, this wasn't as crazy.
- [69:05]
Tom Bilyeu
Well said.
- [69:07]
Drew Manning
And we're going to China. Let's go. China's on a run right now when it comes to video games. I'm still locked in. In AC shadows. That's Japan. I know. But China is. This is, I think, their third or fourth, like, triple A game. That's actually getting, like, some major headway. They just released a trailer with ig.
- [69:24]
Tom Bilyeu
I think they've had way more than that. This is because I don't Think you're into the that kind of game? Like Wuthering Waves, Genshin Impact. Yeah, I'm thinking Genshin. I forget what they're called. Gotcha games. I think, oh God, someone's gonna freak out on me. But there's a whole genre of game where they've really established themselves. I forget the name of the company that did Genshin Impact, but they've done a whole bunch of. Of games that have a certain aesthetic.
- [69:49]
Drew Manning
Meet Yoho Verse.
- [69:51]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Hioverse or something like that.
- [69:53]
Drew Manning
Yeah.
- [69:54]
Tom Bilyeu
So yeah, China is definitely coming in strong now. There's no doubt now. When I saw this, what it made me think is China is really on their. Their cultural exporting game. Like America won the cultural. The like international cultural wars back in the 80s for sure. Like we were exporting American cult everywhere. Denim jeans, American movies. Like people just people wanted to be a part of American culture. And now China is. Whether this is on purpose or they're just having their creative moment because their stuff is really good. My favorite anime right now is from China. I just started playing Withering Waves. It's beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Very much like Genshin Impact. Not this kind of game. Which is more of a. Is this first person or third person?
- [70:45]
Drew Manning
First person narrative or third person single player narrative.
- [70:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Right.
- [70:50]
Drew Manning
So people are giving it like uncharted kind of maybe vibes where it's like cut scenes. You're filling a story. Yeah.
- [70:57]
Tom Bilyeu
Not my favorite kind of game, but certainly very popular. But it. I'll be interested to see if this is like an intentional thing that China's doing or if it's just like I said, they're really in their moment. But as Americans, I really feel like we've lost our mojo. We don't have confidence in ourselves. There's not a shared sense of internal identity. We really are tearing each other apart. So sad. And I'm really hopeful that we can turn it around. It was way cooler growing up believing in America and thinking this place is cool. And I love all my fellow Americans and like we create the best stuff. It's an awesome feeling and I want to see people recapture that and really try to build and really try to create. But I will admit, as a game developer, I also look at this stuff and go, all right, I've got a worthy opponent. Like, China's not for play. This is my. A non threatening way to compete directly with China.
- [71:49]
Drew Manning
You've been looking for something, so here it is.
- [71:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it'll be. It'll be fun. It's. The game looks beautiful. They've done a phenomenal job from a graphic standpoint. But ultimately this stuff comes down to game mechanics. I was playing Project Kaizen this weekend and it is crazy how like, much you have to focus on things like how does it feel to slide down a hill? Like, little things like that where you're like, okay, that's gotta feel good. Like, anything that you're gonna do repetitively has to feel nice. And to think that there is a way to make pixels on a screen sliding feel nice is weird, but it really is a thing.
- [72:26]
Drew Manning
So as you approach it though, like with your China, like lens in mind of exporting culture and things like that. Is it a chicken or the egg? Like, what comes first? Do you say, like, okay, I want to have a really good game now. How can I America fight? Or like, what can. What is easily built and what can I lay over? Like, did you start with Kaizen with the story and then you wanted to build out the universe? Did you knew what type of game you wanted? Like, what's the origin story of like building a video game? Because nowadays there's no more side scrollers. Like, everything is huge. Worlds, layers. Like, I wouldn't.
- [72:55]
Tom Bilyeu
It's crazy is there are side scrollers. But to the heart of your question, I think it's going to be different for every developer. Some people have a spark of an idea that's a game mechanic. Some people will have a story beat that they want to see turned into something. For me, it was. I went to Warner Brothers and I tried to get the rise to the Matrix back in 2016. And I just really wanted to tell a story inside of a virtual world. Cause I'm so obsessed with that. One, is what's actually going to happen in the future. And then two, as a metaphor for the human condition. Huge. And then for me, everything has to be about empowerment. So it was like, okay, I want to tell you I can't get the rights to the Matrix. They turn me down and. But one day, remind me to tell you that story. It's a fun story, but I wanted to create my own simulated universe. Just because I think as a metaphor, it's phenomenal. I wanted to tell an empowering story. And so then that creates like, what would the game mechanic need to be to be completely aligned with both of those things. And so it just built from there. And then, to be honest, I'm an iterative creator. So it was like I had a ton of the story up front. I knew, like the shell, the concept, but I didn't know what the final game mechanic was going to be. And we really struggled. Like, I knew the two things that I wanted to bring together. Like, my early idea was winning in Fortnite doesn't feel cool enough. Like, you get an umbrella and that's it. I was like, that's super lame. I was like, what would you have to do so that when you won against other players that you were like, oh, snap, I cannot believe it. And I got this thing, and this thing matters. And so then the answer for us became, could you integrate Minecraft and Fortnite? Like, those two mechanics? A survival world, a gigantic survival world with the competition against other players, so that when you won something, it mattered to you over in the survival world. And so I think we've done it, like, playing it this weekend. I played for, like, 14 hours, stopping only to eat. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, it. It's actually a game now. It took us three and a half years to get here, but shout out to the team, it's. It's been incredible. So if I were going to try to Americanify it, which I'm not worried about that with Kaizen at all, for me, empowerment is that sort of like, the thing that I want to hide inside the game that people will get. But, like, if you look at Top gun from the 80s, which was clearly like the Pentagon going to Tony Scott being like, hey, bro, we want to recruit for the Navy.
- [75:29]
Drew Manning
This is all cutscenes of airplanes.
- [75:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, my God.
- [75:31]
Drew Manning
Literally airplanes and American flags.
- [75:35]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Patriot porn. So. And it really does work. I mean, that upped the signups for the military by some ungodly percentage. So, yeah, if I were doing that, then it's a collaboration. It's like, okay, what do you guys want to feature? And then if you're a good writer, you step out of it. And like they did with the Pirates of the Caribbean, you go, okay. I get, like, where this has to be set, but I need to find a story that is of that world but isn't. Like, just a surface glancing off. Like a pilot gets in plane. It's like, you've got to find the fear limitation blocker wound. You know what I mean? All the, like, writery stuff. And then really tell a story that's going to captivate, like, the sense of. I see something in my own human experience reflected back to me from this movie. Oh, it happens to be about the Navy, or it happens to be about a ride at Disneyland. But I feel something of my own life inside of this thing.
- [76:33]
Drew Manning
This is a deep question. What do you think America as a culture needs to feel that they once felt in the 80s that you don't think they feel now?
- [76:43]
Tom Bilyeu
I love you for asking that question. That if I work hard, I will get better and I will be able to yield disproportionate results for my hard work.
- [76:52]
Drew Manning
That's it. That was a simple answer.
- [76:55]
Tom Bilyeu
If we can get people back on that. Ooh, buddy.
- [76:59]
Drew Manning
All right. That's all I got.
- [77:00]
Tom Bilyeu
And to that end, boys and girls, Drew's relationship guide is going to be coming out soon because on date number one, women are saying they want to have his baby. I'm married and I'm signing up. I hope you guys will too. And by the way, if you're not already watching our lives, be sure to check us out. You will get more relationship advice from Drew on exactly how to pull just like that. That we are Wednesdays and Fridays at 6am, boys and girls. All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to give us that five star review wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.