I think the naivete is what's most striking to me. A good reminder perhaps that business success and intelligence are no guarantees that a person is well-informed on other matters
If I'd been in the room with the person you interviewed, It would've been *very* hard for me not to give him a piece of my mind (!)... which is why I am glad you did this, because I really got to see his thoughts aired in full, to really consider them.
This part of your conversation especially stood out to me:
"I was really excited about the 'burn it to the ground' stuff, then you start to realize what 'burn it to the ground' means. It starts to freak me out."
Better late than never, I suppose -- my only hope now is that he's not alone in feeling that way!
Reading this interview reminded me of the alleged conversation:
Fitzgerald: "You know, the rich are different from you and me".
Hemingway: "Yeah, they have more money".
--------
This person seems amazingly politically naive and completely ignorant. It's all just "aesthetics", meaning he doesn't know jack shit about politics.
His opinions are all over the place. I'll mostly concentrate on the Middle East stuff.
1. Going from Bernie to ... Trump to ... Bernie? He hates unions but love Bernie?
2. For someone for whom Israel is a huge deal, he is remarkably uniformed about what Biden did after Oct 7. He can't point out what exactly Biden admin did which he disagreed with. He can't, because Biden was one of the most slavishly pro-Israel presidents in history.
3. He thinks Gazans deserve dignity and Trump would improve the "food insecurity". What does he think about Trump supporting Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, which was the worst humanitarian disaster of that time? He probably knows nothing about it. What does he think about the current starvation going on in Gaza?
4. He thinks Trump's presidency was just great. "Normalizing deals" in the Middle East. The "Abraham Accords" were deals with countries which were already friendly with Israel. It didn't mean anything. And in fact, one of the main reasons Hamas gave for carrying out the Oct 7 atrocity was that they wanted to derail these "normalizing" deals, which explicitly sold out the Palestinians.
5. He says Trump's blowing up of the Iran deal was "great" because "Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon". So, blowing up a deal which prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and consequently the absence of the deal allows them to do unlimited enrichment is great because ...
The guy made a lot of money in tech, so he's presumably not stupid. But his political opinions are so mind-blowingly stupid.
So unbelievably naive that it is infuriating to read. I am so similar to this guy that a lot of this was like reading a transcript of my own thoughts.
Like him I was deeply bitter after Bernie lost in 2016. I shared the intense urge to "burn it down". I even tried to convince myself I could vote for Trump in good conscience. I distinctly remember visiting Trump's website on the night of Super Tuesday and thinking to myself "God damn it, there is no way I can vote for this guy"
I truly do not understand how people who know how to read can fall into a pro Trump euphoria for longer than 10 minutes.
in the aftermath of the election i have been feeling an overwhelming sense of shock and disappointment at the emergence of the tech right, especially in figures i respected. i've been trying to understand their perspective but have felt very clouded by my own grief over the matter.
this interview is so incredibly important to me. the way you conducted it, moving through their background, adolescence, and their initial stance on bernie - i could understand this person's visceral frustration with the "institutional" nature of the democrats, their desire to see agency in government, their desire to see the US *do something*. some lines felt like a bucket of cold water, like "maybe we can take greenland and that'd be fun and cool" lol. but i definitely understand the perspective - specifically the emotions - more now.
and i appreciate their candidness in acknowledging how much things have spun off their hinges. i still feel quite despairing because i genuinely believe anyone could have told you things would go in this direction, but now i actually emotionally understand why so many people felt this catharsis in trump's candidacy. and maybe i can have more productive conversations with my peers.
thanks! this is what I was hoping to do here — I personally feel really upset at the political situation right now, and frankly previously did not try to hear people out about Trump. but in longform I can understand the reasoning better, even while I disagree
Because people typically have strong party allegiances. Among educated people without strong party affiliation, explicit policy ignorance is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Vibes - it’s all about the vibes and not much else. The interview was frustrating to read but important (thanks Jasmine!). Even the terms they use - “Stalinism”, “Country Club”, “fight” are about vibes.
Honestly, I wasn’t much different when I was in my 20s. Filled with confidence and self-righteousness. I understand being young and indignant. What worries me is that we have people in power that should know better but still behave the same way.
That's a great conversation. The 'Bernie to Trump' and 'Trump to Bernie' phenomenon has to be one of the most politically jarring things there is. But I see it everywhere. I think it speaks to the complete and utter vacuum left by failed political leadership in the center right and left. Somewhere in this timeline politicians (and the media) decided the largest battles were over nuanced political speech inside a 'DC' bubble mindset. Screaming at conventions and having 'binders full of women' were the great conflicts of their time. While outside this bubble people were like 'no, you don't get it, we want to burn it all down, burn it all fucking down'. And here we are.
Pro-Bernie and anti-union was even more jarring to me. But I think you're right about the vacuum of leadership. Most people's politics are not particularly coherent. It's not inevitable that those dissatisfied with the system will go for a Trump-like authoritarian, but they're looking for a bold vision that makes them feel heard.
Great interview, and my god was that frustrating to read. If the person had spent a few minutes actually reading the policy or thinking through their feelings-based decision making criteria, the world would look quite different!
"One thing that I'm hearing myself say is that not at any point am I thinking about policy. It's all aesthetics. I think Democratic stuff is bullshit because the aesthetics are wrong. There are some policies that I don't like, but ultimately, it felt like the wrong way to do things."
If this person had spent time reading policy absolutely nothing would have been different, and in fact that is the exact reason why he didn’t bother to inform himself. It’s rational irrationality.
I appreciate you sharing the interview; that is perspective that is very different from my own.
The combination of strong emotional attachment to politics based on, as they say, purely aesthetic judgements. That's probably common, and it's interesting to see that expressed so clearly in text where that juxtaposition is really obvious.
The guy doesn’t sound very smart and he buys into conspiracy theories. He also praises Trump for things like Iran nuclear deal, where he didn’t get any deal. It shows that many SV founders are just extremely self confident and don’t have much else going for them.
Really, you couldn’t see it all coming? Maybe read some history and listen to “inefficient libs” because they turned out to be right. It’s good that he can see the mistakes. The gullibility and groupthink of these supposedly smart people is staggering.
i get where he's coming from. "we can just do things" is a common refrain in silicon valley and honestly there's great wisdom in that. a key subtext of this phrase is that you don't need to think things through fully and can suspend some decisions when you have more information to make them; the bias is to act and learn since that's what required in a startup.
however, i think what can often occur in with this "delayed clarity" method is you latch onto half baked ideas that probably remain half baked. you can use it when pivoting your B2B SaaS company but it's a really bad method for running the govt since the stakes are much higher and geopolitics operates differently than business competition.
Of all of the post-election analysis detailing everything dems got wrong, not enough of it points to the moment they pushed Bernie out. This to me was a crucial nail in coffin. If Bernie had been left to run I think things would have gone very differently.
I think the naivete is what's most striking to me. A good reminder perhaps that business success and intelligence are no guarantees that a person is well-informed on other matters
This. And complete lack of empathy.
If I'd been in the room with the person you interviewed, It would've been *very* hard for me not to give him a piece of my mind (!)... which is why I am glad you did this, because I really got to see his thoughts aired in full, to really consider them.
This part of your conversation especially stood out to me:
"I was really excited about the 'burn it to the ground' stuff, then you start to realize what 'burn it to the ground' means. It starts to freak me out."
Better late than never, I suppose -- my only hope now is that he's not alone in feeling that way!
piece of your mind? I doubt 99.99% of the population has given anyone a piece of their mind without a screen present in the last 15 years
Reading this interview reminded me of the alleged conversation:
Fitzgerald: "You know, the rich are different from you and me".
Hemingway: "Yeah, they have more money".
--------
This person seems amazingly politically naive and completely ignorant. It's all just "aesthetics", meaning he doesn't know jack shit about politics.
His opinions are all over the place. I'll mostly concentrate on the Middle East stuff.
1. Going from Bernie to ... Trump to ... Bernie? He hates unions but love Bernie?
2. For someone for whom Israel is a huge deal, he is remarkably uniformed about what Biden did after Oct 7. He can't point out what exactly Biden admin did which he disagreed with. He can't, because Biden was one of the most slavishly pro-Israel presidents in history.
3. He thinks Gazans deserve dignity and Trump would improve the "food insecurity". What does he think about Trump supporting Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, which was the worst humanitarian disaster of that time? He probably knows nothing about it. What does he think about the current starvation going on in Gaza?
4. He thinks Trump's presidency was just great. "Normalizing deals" in the Middle East. The "Abraham Accords" were deals with countries which were already friendly with Israel. It didn't mean anything. And in fact, one of the main reasons Hamas gave for carrying out the Oct 7 atrocity was that they wanted to derail these "normalizing" deals, which explicitly sold out the Palestinians.
5. He says Trump's blowing up of the Iran deal was "great" because "Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon". So, blowing up a deal which prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and consequently the absence of the deal allows them to do unlimited enrichment is great because ...
The guy made a lot of money in tech, so he's presumably not stupid. But his political opinions are so mind-blowingly stupid.
> The guy made a lot of money in tech, so he's presumably not stupid.
Not at all a safe assumption, particularly for a founder who calls himself a "product person".
So unbelievably naive that it is infuriating to read. I am so similar to this guy that a lot of this was like reading a transcript of my own thoughts.
Like him I was deeply bitter after Bernie lost in 2016. I shared the intense urge to "burn it down". I even tried to convince myself I could vote for Trump in good conscience. I distinctly remember visiting Trump's website on the night of Super Tuesday and thinking to myself "God damn it, there is no way I can vote for this guy"
I truly do not understand how people who know how to read can fall into a pro Trump euphoria for longer than 10 minutes.
in the aftermath of the election i have been feeling an overwhelming sense of shock and disappointment at the emergence of the tech right, especially in figures i respected. i've been trying to understand their perspective but have felt very clouded by my own grief over the matter.
this interview is so incredibly important to me. the way you conducted it, moving through their background, adolescence, and their initial stance on bernie - i could understand this person's visceral frustration with the "institutional" nature of the democrats, their desire to see agency in government, their desire to see the US *do something*. some lines felt like a bucket of cold water, like "maybe we can take greenland and that'd be fun and cool" lol. but i definitely understand the perspective - specifically the emotions - more now.
and i appreciate their candidness in acknowledging how much things have spun off their hinges. i still feel quite despairing because i genuinely believe anyone could have told you things would go in this direction, but now i actually emotionally understand why so many people felt this catharsis in trump's candidacy. and maybe i can have more productive conversations with my peers.
thank you so much for this fantastic work <3
thanks! this is what I was hoping to do here — I personally feel really upset at the political situation right now, and frankly previously did not try to hear people out about Trump. but in longform I can understand the reasoning better, even while I disagree
>Hates Unions
>Likes high-skilled immigration
>"I'll go back to Bernie"
Begging these people to actually spend FIVE MINUTES looking into the policy positions of the people they support.
Bernie on H1-B:https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/h1-b-visas-hurt-one-type-of-worker-and-exploit-another-this-mess-must-be-fixed/
Bernie on the longshoreman (arguably one of the most evil unions in America alongside the American medical association): https://www.help.senate.gov/dem/newsroom/press/news-sanders-statement-in-solidarity-with-port-workers
voting on policy is quite rare!
yeah but it SHOULDNT BE :(
Unreal amounts of self sabotage honestly I would be fine with it if I didn't also have to suffer the consequences of people's poor decision making
Because people typically have strong party allegiances. Among educated people without strong party affiliation, explicit policy ignorance is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Vibes - it’s all about the vibes and not much else. The interview was frustrating to read but important (thanks Jasmine!). Even the terms they use - “Stalinism”, “Country Club”, “fight” are about vibes.
Honestly, I wasn’t much different when I was in my 20s. Filled with confidence and self-righteousness. I understand being young and indignant. What worries me is that we have people in power that should know better but still behave the same way.
That's a great conversation. The 'Bernie to Trump' and 'Trump to Bernie' phenomenon has to be one of the most politically jarring things there is. But I see it everywhere. I think it speaks to the complete and utter vacuum left by failed political leadership in the center right and left. Somewhere in this timeline politicians (and the media) decided the largest battles were over nuanced political speech inside a 'DC' bubble mindset. Screaming at conventions and having 'binders full of women' were the great conflicts of their time. While outside this bubble people were like 'no, you don't get it, we want to burn it all down, burn it all fucking down'. And here we are.
I think this part is really important! and scolding people for "incoherent politics" doesn't win elections
Pro-Bernie and anti-union was even more jarring to me. But I think you're right about the vacuum of leadership. Most people's politics are not particularly coherent. It's not inevitable that those dissatisfied with the system will go for a Trump-like authoritarian, but they're looking for a bold vision that makes them feel heard.
'Most people's politics are not particularly coherent' is like the defining comment of this era!
Great interview, and my god was that frustrating to read. If the person had spent a few minutes actually reading the policy or thinking through their feelings-based decision making criteria, the world would look quite different!
Yeah... this person literally said:
"One thing that I'm hearing myself say is that not at any point am I thinking about policy. It's all aesthetics. I think Democratic stuff is bullshit because the aesthetics are wrong. There are some policies that I don't like, but ultimately, it felt like the wrong way to do things."
If this person had spent time reading policy absolutely nothing would have been different, and in fact that is the exact reason why he didn’t bother to inform himself. It’s rational irrationality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
Trump and Kushner are the non-country club types? Real estate billionaires represent American dynamism? Hmmm…
I appreciate you sharing the interview; that is perspective that is very different from my own.
The combination of strong emotional attachment to politics based on, as they say, purely aesthetic judgements. That's probably common, and it's interesting to see that expressed so clearly in text where that juxtaposition is really obvious.
The guy doesn’t sound very smart and he buys into conspiracy theories. He also praises Trump for things like Iran nuclear deal, where he didn’t get any deal. It shows that many SV founders are just extremely self confident and don’t have much else going for them.
Really, you couldn’t see it all coming? Maybe read some history and listen to “inefficient libs” because they turned out to be right. It’s good that he can see the mistakes. The gullibility and groupthink of these supposedly smart people is staggering.
i get where he's coming from. "we can just do things" is a common refrain in silicon valley and honestly there's great wisdom in that. a key subtext of this phrase is that you don't need to think things through fully and can suspend some decisions when you have more information to make them; the bias is to act and learn since that's what required in a startup.
however, i think what can often occur in with this "delayed clarity" method is you latch onto half baked ideas that probably remain half baked. you can use it when pivoting your B2B SaaS company but it's a really bad method for running the govt since the stakes are much higher and geopolitics operates differently than business competition.
Never have I been so angry at reading an interview
It truly shocks me that people did not see what was coming with Trump. All the evidence was there.
Of all of the post-election analysis detailing everything dems got wrong, not enough of it points to the moment they pushed Bernie out. This to me was a crucial nail in coffin. If Bernie had been left to run I think things would have gone very differently.
I think running Harris without a primary probably reinforced this perception too
Totally!
Some thoughts of mine on this: https://muhammadwang.substack.com/p/contra-jasmine-sun-on-clowning-on