1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,160 Welcome back everyone. We have an exciting episode to 2 00:00:02,160 --> 00:00:04,760 get into today. First of all, Jeff Bezos last 3 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:08,240 week gave an hour long interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, which 4 00:00:08,240 --> 00:00:10,200 is rare. He does not do these interviews 5 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:12,600 that frequently. In fact, he he does them 6 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:14,600 incredibly rarely. So it's kind of a cool thing to 7 00:00:14,600 --> 00:00:17,920 see Jeff Bezos sit down with someone like Andrew Ross that, 8 00:00:18,080 --> 00:00:20,040 that he asks all the right questions. 9 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:22,760 Andrew gave a great interview to Bezos. 10 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:26,400 In fact, I would I would go out on a limb and say this is one of 11 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:28,120 the best interviews that I've ever seen. 12 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:32,119 I'm an executive in years. It's just one of the best and I 13 00:00:32,119 --> 00:00:34,720 have to go through it. We have to highlight some of the 14 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:36,280 best takeaways from this interview. 15 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:39,240 Like 1 little little thing. I'll spoil just a bit of it. 16 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:41,720 Jeff Bezos is still working at Amazon. 17 00:00:42,160 --> 00:00:44,080 Like a lot, a lot more than I thought. 18 00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:47,200 I realize that he's the chairman and he's he, he holds an 19 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:49,960 important position, but it seemed like he was kind of 20 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:51,840 disconnected, like he's not doing much there. 21 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:54,360 That's not the case according to what he's saying. 22 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:57,960 He is still actively involved daily at Amazon and there's a 23 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,520 lot of other Nuggets of information that we'll be going 24 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:03,760 over in today's episode. We also have a a bunch of other 25 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:06,840 news to get into as well. Stocks are going crazy right 26 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:10,240 now. 2 days ago I made the video where I went over Google's 27 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:11,760 cheap. That was the title of it. 28 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,800 I'm putting $10,000 more into the stock now. 29 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:17,560 I'm not a market timer. I'm not trying to use some 30 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:21,080 technical analysis to time the bottom, but Google stock is up 31 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:24,800 around 9% since the publishing of that video just two days ago. 32 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:28,800 Google is going up because the company is high quality, it's 33 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:33,000 cheap and it's it's getting a lot of good news, just a good 34 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:34,960 news barrage over the past couple of days. 35 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:38,000 There's a lot of things impacting Google's price that 36 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,240 we'll be talking about today. We also have a Netflix going up 37 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:44,280 to $939. They just got a big raise in 38 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,520 price and target price from JP Morgan. 39 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:50,760 We'll be looking at that analyst note and we have Costco going up 40 00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:53,480 another percent. It's just slowly climbing 41 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,400 throughout the entire year and it's finally above $1000 per 42 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:58,920 share. So I'll be going over what I'm 43 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,720 going to be doing to celebrate Costco surpassing $1000 per 44 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:04,400 share. So we have all of this to get 45 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:06,560 into, plus the interview. It's a lot to talk about. 46 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:08,840 Let's go ahead and jump in now. To start off, before we jump 47 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,080 into the full length interview with Jeff Bezos, I want to take 48 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:13,720 a look at My Portfolio in the market, just to give an update 49 00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:15,920 of how things are going over the past couple of days. 50 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,400 Primarily, I made a video recently about Google, and it's 51 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:21,800 not the first one I've made. I've been talking about Google 52 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:25,520 for some time, a company that I think is a unique situation 53 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,520 where it's incredibly high quality, but it's being priced 54 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:30,120 with a lot of negative sentiment. 55 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:32,840 Now, sentiment is something that's fickle. 56 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:37,000 Sentiment can change on a dime and a lot of times the price 57 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:40,040 drives the sentiment. When the price is going down, 58 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,400 people view the company mentally in their head negatively. 59 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:47,440 It follows the price. So it when the price goes up, 60 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:50,920 you see the opposite happening. As the price of Google goes up, 61 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:52,720 the sentiment is getting more positive. 62 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:55,040 People are now viewing it from a different lens. 63 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,440 When we look at what's happened with Google over the past couple 64 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:01,000 of days, one is that they are they're trading higher because 65 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:02,800 of Google's quantum computing chip. 66 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:06,360 Now, when I looked at this news, the quantum computing chip, I 67 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:09,120 saw as an iterative positive development from Google. 68 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:12,400 I don't quite know the practical applications in terms of how 69 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:15,280 they're going to productize it, but there are some potential 70 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:18,920 applications they have in the future training AI for one of 71 00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:21,120 them. So this is something unique that 72 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:24,040 Google is leading on. Their quantum computing is 73 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:26,560 incredibly competitive. There's other companies that are 74 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:29,600 nowhere close to them, so that's one important thing. 75 00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:31,320 And that bumped up the stock a little bit. 76 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:34,640 And then we also had other news today that made the stock go up 77 00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:38,040 even further, the news that GM is exiting their robo taxi 78 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:41,560 market. GM was a robo taxi competitor 79 00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:45,160 with Tesla and Waymo. They had one called Cruise. 80 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:47,960 So G Miss Cruise was their robotaxi efforts. 81 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:49,440 They're going to try to compete with Waymo. 82 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:53,680 They are abandoning this effort. It says that GM Motors will no 83 00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,080 longer fund its cruise division robotaxi development, the 84 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:01,160 company said Tuesday. Now they have put billions of 85 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,920 dollars, billions into this effort and they got essentially 86 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:06,480 nowhere. Like they don't have much to 87 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:08,840 show for it. There wasn't cruises driving 88 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:11,200 around the roads, taking fare, making progress. 89 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:13,680 And so they're just scrapping the project. 90 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,000 So you can see how that could impact Google a little bit. 91 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:19,920 Waymo now has even 1 less competitor. 92 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:22,960 You also see Tesla trading up today as a result as well. 93 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:26,000 So with these two pieces of news and Google being a great company 94 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,880 that's been undervalued, the stock is now racing up towards 95 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:31,960 $200 per share. I've thought for a while it's 96 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:34,720 inevitable Google will get to $200 per share. 97 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:37,560 It's just a matter of time. Everything that I look at for 98 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:39,320 company is stacked in the right direction. 99 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:42,400 There'd have to be something majorly bad with Google, 100 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:45,080 something way out of left field to take this company down. 101 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,360 So right now, this move makes sense in My Portfolio. 102 00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:51,400 When I look at it in the passive income portfolio, we're seeing 103 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:55,160 major gains today. Google is a a huge weighted 104 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,680 position now in this portfolio. If we go to tech care, we take a 105 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:02,360 look at Google, it's now a $51,000 position and the past 106 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:06,240 two days have taken it from a flat position to a $6000 gain. 107 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:09,520 Google's also a company that I own in my secondary portfolio, 108 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:11,560 the Story Fund. If we look at the Story fund, 109 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:14,000 this one is also racing up to all time highs. 110 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:16,960 It's doing really well. But Google's also a huge 111 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:19,600 position in this portfolio. It's my third largest one. 112 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:22,480 It makes up a 17% way to position. 113 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:26,400 It's a $50,000 position with $20,000 in the green. 114 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:29,120 And a lot of that has come just in the past two days. 115 00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:31,800 To me, this move up in Google is totally justified. 116 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:34,960 It's warranted, it's expected, and it was predictable. 117 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:37,400 Now, it wasn't predictable that it was going to happen this 118 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:41,400 quickly in two days, but I think on the longer term, it was 119 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:43,960 predictable that Google is undervalued and it's going to go 120 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:45,560 up. The next one that I look at here 121 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:49,320 is Netflix. Netflix is now up another 2.8% 122 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:53,600 on the day, another $26. It's racing closer and closer to 123 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,560 $1000 per share. It's one of the best performing 124 00:05:56,560 --> 00:05:59,880 stocks in the entire market this year with gains that surpassed 125 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:03,880 100%. So it's been a a double this 126 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:06,040 year. Incredible performance from 127 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:09,160 Netflix and the great thing about this stock is I don't 128 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:11,760 think it's stopping here. It's one that I feel very 129 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:14,400 comfortable holding right now. I would tell you if I thought 130 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:17,600 the stock was stretched, that faced a lot of headwinds, if I 131 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:20,840 think it's a good time to take gains with Netflix, I don't. 132 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:23,520 I think it's also inevitable that this company is going above 133 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:25,880 $1000 per share. When we look at why Netflix is 134 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:28,400 moving upwards, we see that there are now analysts getting 135 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:30,800 on board with the story and raising their price targets. 136 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,600 The analyst at JP Morgan wrote that they see subscriptions 137 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:37,320 growing, quote supported by the strong content, helping the 138 00:06:37,320 --> 00:06:40,240 organic growth and ramping ad tear contribution. 139 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:44,240 Every part of Netflix's business is doing incredible this month. 140 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:46,640 The content slate for Netflix is completely stacked. 141 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:50,240 They have live NFL games, they have Squid Game season 2, they 142 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,600 have movies that are highly anticipated like Carry On and a 143 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:55,320 bunch of other stuff. There's so much stuff they're 144 00:06:55,320 --> 00:06:56,920 doing this month. I think they're going to just 145 00:06:57,200 --> 00:06:59,120 grow and grow. So I look at Netflix and it's 146 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:00,720 another one that doesn't surprise me. 147 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:03,040 When we look at both Netflix and Google going up the way that 148 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:07,000 they are, it's pushing the Story Fund in aggregate higher and 149 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,200 higher. Now the Story Fund is far above 150 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:13,480 the S&P 500 and the QQQ sense. Inception. 151 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,000 When I benchmark the performance, the story fund is 152 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,880 at 84.7%. The benchmark is at 53%. 153 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:24,800 The gap in performance equates to $48,000, so this portfolio 154 00:07:24,800 --> 00:07:28,480 would be $48,000 less had I just thrown this money in the market. 155 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:31,640 Now of course, we can't forget about another company, Costco 156 00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:34,360 here. Costco is just a silent 157 00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,760 continual compounder. It's a company that it's fun to 158 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:40,560 look at from time to time. Everybody would like to own it. 159 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:43,360 Nobody buys into it because it's just too expensive all the time, 160 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:46,520 which I understand. But this stock continues to grow 161 00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:48,520 alongside it's incredible fundamentals. 162 00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:52,400 It now surpassed $1000 per share, which I think is a good 163 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:54,120 landmark. That's such a cool landmark for 164 00:07:54,120 --> 00:07:55,880 this company. When we look at their 165 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,000 performance, cost goes up 54% this year. 166 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:02,840 But the incredible thing is they accomplished this capital gains 167 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:06,640 or appreciation while paying out a year's worth of income and 168 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:09,240 dividends. They paid out $16.00 in a 169 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:12,280 special dividend, so they're dividing out huge amounts of 170 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:15,080 money while growing in capital appreciation. 171 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:17,280 The combination of which is incredible gains. 172 00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:20,120 This year Costco is one of my largest positions. 173 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:24,240 It's an $86,000 position, 51,000 of that being gains. 174 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:26,480 So the majority of this company is just from gains. 175 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:28,160 It's one of my longest held holdings. 176 00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:32,080 I invested in Costco day one of creating My Portfolio all the 177 00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:34,559 way back in 2017. I bought my first share of 178 00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:36,919 Costco two years before starting my YouTube channel. 179 00:08:36,919 --> 00:08:40,039 Now that Costco's reached $1000 per share, I feel like the only 180 00:08:40,039 --> 00:08:43,799 appropriate way to celebrate this landmark is by having a hot 181 00:08:43,799 --> 00:08:46,360 dog and drink. Now, of course, we can't forget 182 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:49,240 about Amazon. Amazon is up 2.2% today. 183 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:52,360 It's up to 230. Ever since Jeff Bezos stopped 184 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:55,880 selling shares in Amazon, the stock has been allowed to soar. 185 00:08:55,880 --> 00:08:57,960 Now we get this breakout towards the end of the year. 186 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:01,840 This is being driven both by Jeff Bezos not selling and by 187 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:05,080 their AI announcements. Amazon showed that every single 188 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:08,440 part of their business, every part of it, is being impacted by 189 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:10,640 artificial intelligence in a very meaningful. 190 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:14,640 So investors are now viewing this through the lens of an AI 191 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,480 Dominic growth story. Amazon is a $97,000 position, 192 00:09:18,560 --> 00:09:22,080 $39,000 in the green. It hasn't performed quite as 193 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:23,960 well as Netflix, but it's getting there. 194 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:27,640 And Amazon has a lot of levers to turn to make this stock go up 195 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:29,280 even further. Now there's more companies I 196 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:31,680 could highlight that are doing particularly good right now, but 197 00:09:31,680 --> 00:09:35,000 the moral is the same. If you're buying dominant, high 198 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:38,440 quality companies, ones that have incredible business models, 199 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:40,880 they're asset light, they have lots of levers to turn for 200 00:09:40,880 --> 00:09:44,000 profitability. They can push their stock higher 201 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:46,120 and higher. If you're buying those type of 202 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:49,080 companies on a dip when other people don't want to own them, 203 00:09:49,280 --> 00:09:52,160 when there's negative sentiment, time is on your side. 204 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:55,480 So whether or not you buy it perfectly or you get a little 205 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,280 bit off with your buy, wait long enough with a high quality 206 00:09:58,280 --> 00:10:00,240 company and typically things work out. 207 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:03,360 Now let's go to move on and talk more about Amazon. 208 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:06,760 We have an interview here from Jeff Bezos and this is one of 209 00:10:06,760 --> 00:10:08,680 the very rare interviews he gives. 210 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:12,560 The first thing he talks about in the interview is Trump. 211 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,840 Now, I know Trump is a divisive topic, but it's interesting to 212 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:19,000 get these leaders of business perspective on Donald Trump 213 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:21,600 because in this case, you have Jeff Bezos, who owns the 214 00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:23,720 Washington Post. The Washington Post has a 215 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:26,440 history of being very critical of Donald Trump. 216 00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:30,000 But the Washington Post made an interesting decision this last 217 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,760 election cycle. They made the decision to not 218 00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:35,760 endorse a candidate. Now, they didn't endorse Trump, 219 00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:37,520 but they just didn't endorse anyone. 220 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:39,480 They wanted to remain apolitical. 221 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:42,480 And that was a decision primarily made by Jeff Bezos. 222 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:43,960 He's the owner. He said. 223 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:46,320 We're not going to endorse anyone because we want to clean 224 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:48,720 up our reputation and remain impartial. 225 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,640 So here's Jeff Bezos explaining the situation and specifically 226 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:54,240 what he's looking forward to with President Trump. 227 00:10:54,920 --> 00:11:00,560 It hadn't come up before and, you know, we just decided that, 228 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,160 you know, it wasn't going to help for well, first of all, it 229 00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:06,080 wasn't going to influence the election either way. 230 00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:08,640 You know, there we we didn't believe there's no evidence that 231 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:12,480 newspaper endorsements influenced elections or no 232 00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:14,960 independent voter in Pennsylvania at that time was 233 00:11:14,960 --> 00:11:17,040 going to say, oh, is that what the Washington Post thinks? 234 00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:19,920 Well, then I'll do that. So that wasn't going to happen. 235 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:26,480 And at the same time, you know, we're struggling with the issue 236 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:33,360 that all traditional media is struggling with, which is a very 237 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,320 difficult and significant loss of trust. 238 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:43,360 And, you know, the trust surveys have been done for many decades 239 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:48,160 now. And the media has been going 240 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:50,320 down in those surveys for decades. 241 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:58,440 They've always been able to hang on to the one, you know, small, 242 00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,640 positive, but they're always above Congress. 243 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:09,280 This year they lost even that, falling below Congress, which is 244 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:14,120 not easy to achieve. Congress was thrilled, by the 245 00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:16,520 way, not to be at the very bottom of the list. 246 00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:22,120 And so we just decided that the the pluses of doing this were 247 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:27,520 very small and it added to the perception of bias. 248 00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:32,280 You know, the newspapers and media in general, if they are 249 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:36,000 going to try and be objective and independent, they have just 250 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:39,520 passed the same requirement that a voting machine does. 251 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:45,280 They have to count the votes accurately and people have to 252 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,280 believe that they count the votes accurately. 253 00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:51,640 Both requirements are just as important for a voting machine. 254 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:54,960 This point is incredibly accurate. 255 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:58,040 It's not enough just for the Washington Post to be accurate 256 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:01,160 with their reporting, but they have to have people believe that 257 00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:02,400 they're accurate what they're reporting. 258 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:04,920 If they're reporting accurate truths but nobody believes them, 259 00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:07,600 then it doesn't really matter. They're not accomplishing their 260 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:09,160 goal. So they have to build 261 00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,520 credibility, and that's what he's talking about. 262 00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:13,640 The big thing he's trying to do here is get rid of the 263 00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:16,440 perception of bias and build credibility. 264 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,360 And media is similar and there is a there's a strong person. 265 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:24,360 Not all of it is the media's fault, there's a lot of a lot of 266 00:13:24,360 --> 00:13:28,640 external factors involved too. But where we can do something, 267 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:30,440 we should. OK, let me ask you and you, you 268 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:32,720 know that there was blowback. I just want to read you. 269 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:35,560 This is Marty Baron was your former editor of that paper. 270 00:13:35,560 --> 00:13:38,640 He said this is cowardice with democracy as its casualty. 271 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:42,160 David Remnick said if Jeff Bezos had said two years ago that he 272 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:44,240 thought the editorial page should get rid of endorsements, 273 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:47,320 all of them, you could argue the case one way or another, But he 274 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:50,400 was effectively suggesting that given this scenario, with the 275 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:53,040 timing of it. Look at if I had had the 276 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,480 prescience to think about this topic at all two years before, 277 00:13:56,480 --> 00:13:58,840 that would have been better for perception reasons. 278 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:02,920 But in fact, we made this decision. 279 00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:08,120 It was the right decision. I'm proud of the decision we 280 00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:12,560 made and it was far from cowardly because we knew there 281 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:14,880 would be blowback and we did the right thing anyway. 282 00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:18,680 It's not cowardly when he's making a decision that he knows 283 00:14:18,680 --> 00:14:21,280 he's going to be heavily scrutinized and criticized for, 284 00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:23,320 but he feels it's the right decision anyway. 285 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:25,200 That is the opposite of cowardice. 286 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,480 Cowardice would be doing whatever is easiest, whether 287 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,440 whatever has the path of least resistance, wherever you're 288 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:34,040 going to get the most acclaim and agreement and the least 289 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,440 amount of pushback. Cowardice would just be to 290 00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:39,360 endorse a candidate because you've done it in the past and 291 00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:41,040 it seems like it's going to ruffle some feathers if you 292 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:43,240 don't do it again. And his other point that he 293 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:46,120 highlights here, I think is what separates a lot of good business 294 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:49,160 leaders from very not good business leaders. 295 00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:53,200 He says that that he knew it was the right decision, so they made 296 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:56,080 the decision even though they knew they'd get pushed back. 297 00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,720 What he didn't do is he didn't take the temperature of the room 298 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:02,320 and see what the the popular opinion was. 299 00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:06,200 He didn't try to decide based on what was most popular, what 300 00:15:06,200 --> 00:15:09,680 would be most acceptable, what other people's opinions of it 301 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:11,760 would be. He just did what he thought was 302 00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:15,160 the right decision, regardless of the immediate blowback. 303 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,720 Jeff Bezos is managing the Washington Post the way that 304 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,720 he's had success in Amazon, by making the right decisions, not 305 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,600 the decisions that lead to the path of least resistance and the 306 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:27,400 least amount of criticism. The Washington Post got a 307 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:30,720 tremendous amount of criticism, hundreds of thousands of people. 308 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:33,680 They cancelled their subscription to it because he 309 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,080 refused to endorse a candidate. And he stands by that decision, 310 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:38,680 saying it was the right thing to do. 311 00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:41,280 And you can see his resolve once he's made a decision that he 312 00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:42,800 knows is the right direction to go. 313 00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:43,760 Let me ask you about that though. 314 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:47,520 There was blowback, I think 250,000 people cancelled their 315 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:49,000 subscription. So did you think when you were 316 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:52,440 doing this that some people were going to say that actually it 317 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:54,800 creates less trust in media? I mean, right, part, part of it 318 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,760 was it was aimed at creating more trust in media. 319 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:01,000 And at the same time, clearly there were other people saying 320 00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:05,360 maybe there's less trust. No, I don't follow that logic. 321 00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:09,440 You don't, And So what did you? Were you surprised at the? 322 00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:11,040 Not really. We knew there would. 323 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:15,680 We knew that this was going to be perceived in a very big way. 324 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:19,080 As I said, you know these things punch above their weight. 325 00:16:20,200 --> 00:16:21,400 And were you worried about that at all? 326 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:23,520 I mean. You can't worry, you can't do 327 00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:29,360 the wrong thing because you're worried about bad PR or whatever 328 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,400 it is you want to call it. So you, this is, this was the 329 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:35,720 right decision. We made the right decision. 330 00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:39,520 I'm very proud of the decision. He is willing to endure short 331 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:43,240 term pain and suffering for the long term success of a company. 332 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:46,040 A lot of leaders do the exact opposite. 333 00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:48,880 They don't want to go through any period of discomfort or 334 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,640 short term pain, so they'll make the easiest decisions. 335 00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:53,640 Now, later, he's asked specifically about Trump and 336 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:55,560 whether or not he's excited or concerned. 337 00:16:55,640 --> 00:17:00,120 I'm actually very optimistic this time around that we're 338 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:03,520 going to see. I'm very hopeful about this his 339 00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:08,359 he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. 340 00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:12,079 And my point of view, if I can help him do that, I'm going to 341 00:17:12,079 --> 00:17:15,720 help him because we do have too much regulation in this country. 342 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,640 This country is so set up right to grow. 343 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:22,880 By the way, all of our problems, all of our economic problems, 344 00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:26,960 like if you look at the the deficit and I mean you know, the 345 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:30,320 debt, the national debt and how gigantic it is as a portion of 346 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:32,840 GDP. These are real problems and 347 00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:35,720 they're real long term problems. And the way you get out of them 348 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:39,440 is by outgrowing them. You're going to get, you're 349 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,920 going to you're going to solve the problem of the national debt 350 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:47,040 by making it a smaller percentage of GDP, not by 351 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,520 shrinking the national debt, but by growing the GDP. 352 00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:53,880 You have to grow the denominator and that means you have to grow 353 00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:58,960 GDP at, you know, 345 percent a year and you know, let the 354 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:01,080 national debt grow slower than that. 355 00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:04,600 If you can do that, this is a very manageable problem. 356 00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:09,040 So we need a growth orientation in this country. 357 00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:11,760 This is the most important thing, a growth mindset. 358 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,280 And we are the luckiest country in the world. 359 00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:17,600 We have all these natural resources, including energy 360 00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:21,280 independence. We have the best risk capital 361 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:24,880 system in the world by far. So, you know, people get 362 00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:26,560 confused. I'm glad he talks about this 363 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:28,520 subject. I think one of the most ignored 364 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:30,800 things in politics is the national debt. 365 00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:33,640 It's something that concerns me the most, frankly, out of all 366 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:36,760 the existing problems we face. We have a staggering amount of 367 00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:39,360 debt. The national debt interest keeps 368 00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:41,880 going up and we're paying hundreds of billions of dollars 369 00:18:41,880 --> 00:18:44,760 per year in interest. And it's not enough to just try 370 00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:47,560 to cut down costs. We do have to do what he says 371 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:51,120 and have a growth mindset. So hopefully, and again he goes 372 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:54,480 into this with optimism and hope, he's hoping that this will 373 00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:57,120 be a more growth oriented presidency, that we can make a 374 00:18:57,120 --> 00:19:01,000 lot of GDP growth, that we can make the GDP much bigger in 375 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,160 contrast to the debt. Now, he also goes on stating 376 00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:06,240 some of the benefits of the United States. 377 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,320 And this is part of the reason I think the United States is such 378 00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:13,240 a good place to invest in. There is so much momentum in the 379 00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:16,560 United States, so many good things happening for investors. 380 00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:18,800 And we are the luckiest country in the world. 381 00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:22,120 We have all these natural resources, including energy 382 00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:25,800 independence. We have the best risk capital 383 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,440 system in the world by far. So, you know, people get 384 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:33,600 confused about why does the United States have so much 385 00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:37,800 venture success, so much entrepreneurial success? 386 00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:41,000 Why are the big tech companies here and not somewhere else? 387 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:44,600 What's really going on with all this dynamism in this country 388 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:47,600 compared to what we see around elsewhere in the world? 389 00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:50,520 And the there are a bunch of reasons for that, but the 390 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:56,760 biggest 1/8 of 10 points there is that we have better risk 391 00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:58,880 capital. So it's not the banking system. 392 00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:01,000 You know, we have a good banking system, but so does Europe. 393 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:06,280 What's different here is that you can get, you can raise, you 394 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:11,720 know, $50 million of seed capital to do something that 395 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:14,120 only has a 10% chance of working. 396 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:19,040 That's crazy. And but the people who are 397 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:22,080 giving you that seed capital know that the that their 398 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,880 expected value is still positive in many cases, or they're at 399 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:31,360 least gambling that that's true. That risk capital system that we 400 00:20:31,360 --> 00:20:33,880 have in this country is turning out to be very hard for other 401 00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:35,560 countries to duplicate. So we have that. 402 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,320 We have, you know, we speak English and English is turning 403 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:40,360 into the lingua franca of the whole world. 404 00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:44,760 It's a, you know, there's so many advantages here, but we are 405 00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:48,840 burdened by excessive permitting and regulation. 406 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:51,800 You can't build a bridge and all these, you know what they are. 407 00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:53,920 We see these examples of time. We need to be able to build 408 00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:55,960 solar fields. This is another point that I 409 00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,760 agree 100% with them on. If we were to look at the United 410 00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:01,320 States and do analysis on different countries the same way 411 00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,680 we do it on companies, the United States has an incredibly 412 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,600 powerful economic model, a very wide mode. 413 00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,000 There's so many attributes, like he points out with English. 414 00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:13,880 English is becoming the standard language of the world. 415 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,040 The entire business world, of science and education, 416 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,440 mathematics, of programming, most things are being done in 417 00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,720 English, and that has huge network effects because most of 418 00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:25,640 the people are using English in the business world. 419 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:28,560 It'll continue to have the same network effects that Facebook 420 00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:30,640 did. So we have advantages of 421 00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:32,840 language. We have advantages of a reserve 422 00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:35,120 currency. We have the advantages of risk 423 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:39,000 capital, meaning the money that investors are willing to put at 424 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,000 risk. In the US, investors are 425 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:43,880 everywhere. There's people wanting to put 426 00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:47,640 money at risk everywhere. That opportunity for an 427 00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:51,120 entrepreneur with a good idea, a good team, one that can 428 00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:53,400 illustrate good execution on an idea. 429 00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:55,560 They will get the capital they need. 430 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:58,120 They'll get funding. If you go to other countries, 431 00:21:58,120 --> 00:22:00,160 you're not going to find people willing to dish out risk 432 00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,000 capital. So we have that system in the US 433 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:05,600 uniquely that doesn't exist other places. 434 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000 There's small pockets here and there. 435 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,680 There's some other places have a small amount, but it's an 436 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,200 incredible amount in the US. So when we look at why most of 437 00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,120 my positions are in the US, you know, I only look at a couple 438 00:22:17,120 --> 00:22:18,920 companies in Europe and some other places. 439 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:21,400 The majority of it is just because that's where most the 440 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,480 great companies in the world are right now. 441 00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,720 Frankly, that's just the truth. But as he mentions, the biggest 442 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,720 challenge being faced right now is over regulation. 443 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,600 He points out that right now in the United States, it's tough to 444 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,800 build a bridge without spending $100 billion. 445 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:40,520 The prices we pay to do simple things that were cheaper 10 or 446 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:43,680 20 years ago are incredible now because of the amount of red 447 00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,000 tape. So he's hoping that a lot of 448 00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:49,600 those regulations, a lot of the ones that aren't serving us, can 449 00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:51,400 be removed with the new administration. 450 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,680 Now, Andrew moves this song to ask, I think a great question, 451 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,560 which is Elon Musk and Donald Trump have become a little bit 452 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:01,000 like buddies, a little bit of a bromance there. 453 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:05,200 Elon Musk is at Mar a Lago. He's spending days at a time 454 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,200 there. It seems like he's like part of 455 00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,000 the family now with Donald Trump. 456 00:23:09,360 --> 00:23:12,680 Elon Musk put a lot on the table to get Donald Trump elected. 457 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,120 So Donald Trump in a way kind of owes them a little bit because 458 00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:19,640 Elon Musk put so much effort into helping his campaign. 459 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,480 But it also raises a few questions and I think very 460 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:25,880 genuine concerns. I've had a lot of people 461 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,360 genuinely ask me, isn't it a little bit of a conflict of 462 00:23:29,360 --> 00:23:32,240 interest to have somebody so involved in so many businesses 463 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,480 like Elon Musk be so closely tied to the president? 464 00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:37,320 Isn't that a little bit troubling? 465 00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:40,720 Or couldn't that cause issues? Imagine if you were a big 466 00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,560 competitor to one of Elon Musk's businesses, like you're a big 467 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,000 competitor to Tesla or big competitor to SpaceX. 468 00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,200 And then Elon Musk is best friends with the president. 469 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:53,720 Elon Musk has influence over policy. 470 00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,600 What can be enacted. Do you think Elon Musk is going 471 00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,560 to use his connections to advantage his business and 472 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:01,600 disadvantage yours? Is he going to use the 473 00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,360 government as a means of exercising control over your 474 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:07,280 company, damaging your business model in favor of his? 475 00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:09,840 Those are genuine concerns that some leaders may have. 476 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:11,800 Blue Origin competes with SpaceX. 477 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,960 So this is a great question for Jeff Bezos. 478 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,000 What does he think about Elon Musk's alignment with Donald 479 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:23,680 Trump? I don't I, I, I take it face 480 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:28,280 value, what has been said, which is that, you know, he is not 481 00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:34,160 going to use his political power to advantage his own companies 482 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,840 or to disadvantage his competitors. 483 00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:40,400 I take that at face value. Again, I could be wrong about 484 00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,960 that, but I, I think it could be true. 485 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,160 I think he probably is trying to, you know, I think this 486 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,360 department of Government efficiency and that he and Vivek 487 00:24:50,360 --> 00:24:51,720 are helping Trump with and so on. 488 00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:56,720 Again, I'd like to take, I have a lot of, I've had a lot of 489 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:04,280 success in life not being cynical and I've very rarely 490 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,720 been taken advantage of as a result. 491 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,000 It's happened a couple of times, but not very often. 492 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:15,120 And I think that cynicism, you know, why be cynical about that? 493 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,760 Let's go into it hoping that the statements that have been made 494 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:23,240 are correct, that this is going to be done, you know, above 495 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,280 board in the public interest. And if that turns out to be 496 00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:31,000 naive, well, then we'll see. But I, I actually think it's 497 00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:32,200 going to be great. I'm hoping. 498 00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,040 One of the commonalities that I see with all these business 499 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,080 leaders, anybody that's really accomplished a lot in their life 500 00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,440 is they're not very cynical, they're not pessimistic. 501 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,040 They don't have those qualities that in many cases are self 502 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,520 fulfilling. If someone has a viewpoint that 503 00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,560 everything is going to be bad, everything is going to be 504 00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,000 negative all the time, they always assume the worst in other 505 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:52,640 people. They're very distrusting. 506 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,680 They're not going to be successful in business. 507 00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,360 You don't build a business, especially as a founder and 508 00:25:57,360 --> 00:26:00,720 ACEO, as someone that is not optimistic about the future. 509 00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,680 And in some cases, I think a little bit overly optimistic. 510 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,880 Founders like Jeff Bezos really have to assume that things are 511 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,040 going to work out. They have to always look at 512 00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,840 different ways to maneuver things in a positive way. 513 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,240 But so far, he's not concerned about this relationship. 514 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,480 He's optimistic about Elon Musk and Doge. 515 00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,600 Hopefully they can accomplish some good things. 516 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,760 And if there is something that goes wrong, if, if Elon Musk 517 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,760 obviously does something that's very targeted, you can deal with 518 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,040 that when it happens. You can cross that bridge when 519 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:28,960 you get there. But so far, we have no reason to 520 00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,000 preemptively jump to those conclusions. 521 00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:33,360 Now, the next thing that Jeff Bezos is asked about is his 522 00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:35,280 retirement. You'll notice that many people 523 00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,480 like Jeff Bezos when they retire from building a massive company 524 00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,480 like Amazon, they don't truly ever retire. 525 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,640 And we see a very similar thing here. 526 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,560 Jeff Bezos gave up his position in Amazon. 527 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,800 He gave it over to Andy Jassi, who was the CEO of AWS. 528 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:53,320 Andy Jassi has said that he talks to Jeff Bezos frequently, 529 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,320 at least once a week. But other than that, we haven't 530 00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,560 really seen the relationship. In fact, we haven't heard too 531 00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:01,600 much about it over the past couple of months. 532 00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,760 I had the impression that Jeff Bezos really is not doing much 533 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:08,240 with Amazon anymore, but after listening to this, it seems like 534 00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:11,080 he could be doing a lot more at Amazon than I previously 535 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:12,240 thought. Let's go ahead and listen to 536 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,040 what he says about his retirement. 537 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,080 There are two I've I've actually never worked harder this. 538 00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,080 He says that I've actually never worked harder. 539 00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:23,280 That's what I mean. People like him, they don't 540 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,960 really retire. When you're used to working this 541 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,720 much for this long, you can't sit still. 542 00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:30,400 It doesn't matter how many toys you get. 543 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,560 Doesn't matter if you're on a big lavish boat. 544 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,000 It gets boring. You want to keep working. 545 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,760 The retirement thing I've turned out to be extremely lame at and 546 00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,960 so I'm, I'm, you know, I'm waking up every morning and, and 547 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:49,000 doing meetings from 9:00 to 7:00 and reading documents and I most 548 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,880 of it is Blue Origin, but quite a bit of it is still Amazon too. 549 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,400 But later in this interview, he shifts the focus back over to 550 00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,080 Amazon, and the first thing that he's asked about is the unique 551 00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:58,960 way that Jeff Bezos paid himself. 552 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,880 Jeff Bezos paid himself a small salary and without stock based 553 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,280 comp, most CE OS today of large corporations, they get paid 554 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,120 primarily through stock based comp, which they immediately 555 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:11,120 sell. So it's a constant stream of 556 00:28:11,120 --> 00:28:13,600 income, like a salary. They're treated more as an 557 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,200 employee than a shareholder. Jeff Bezos had an entirely 558 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,520 different way of paying himself. I just felt, how could I 559 00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:27,680 possibly need more incentive than owning such a you know, 560 00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,480 most founders own big chunks of the company they don't really 561 00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:32,400 need. They're more like owner 562 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:34,520 operators. The way they increase their 563 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,240 wealth is not by getting, you know, more equity. 564 00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,760 They just want to make the equity they have more valuable. 565 00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:45,120 And, and so I never, I just would have felt icky about it. 566 00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:51,720 And I really, I'm actually very proud of that decision. 567 00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:57,400 I, I, I sometimes wish that there were A, and maybe you can 568 00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,920 do this, Andrew, or maybe the Washington Post will do this, 569 00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:05,520 But somebody needs to make a list where they rank people by 570 00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,800 how much wealth they've created for other people. 571 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,560 And so instead of the Forbes list ranks you by your own 572 00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,440 wealth. So, you know, Amazon's market 573 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:21,240 cap is 2.3 trillion today. I own about, you know, 200 574 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:26,520 billion ish of it. So if you take 2.3 billion and 575 00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:31,280 subtract out the piece I kept from myself, then, you know, 576 00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,480 I've created something like 2.1 trillion of wealth for other 577 00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,800 people. That should put me pretty high 578 00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:41,520 on some kind of list and and that's a better list. 579 00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,160 You know what? How much wealth have you created 580 00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,960 for other people? He viewed Amazon from the owner 581 00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,480 operator perspective. He had his chunk of the company. 582 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:51,920 His goal is to grow it, grow it and grow it. 583 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,320 The way that he would grow it is not by extracting money from the 584 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:57,440 company whenever it became profitable or whenever customers 585 00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,920 gave it money. It was just by growing the value 586 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:03,440 of the total pie. If Jeff Bezos didn't grow the 587 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,200 value of the total pie, if he didn't create value for other 588 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:09,480 people, he also would not create any value for himself. 589 00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,480 So he was completely aligned with all the investors. 590 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,920 And it is correct to view it from the standpoint that he 591 00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,120 created a tremendous amount of wealth for millions of other 592 00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:22,680 people, for investors, for the US Roth Ras and four O 1 KS that 593 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,880 are invested in Amazon, for thousands, maybe millions of 594 00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,680 employees at Amazon that got stock based compensation. 595 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,360 It's the same thing that many other great CE OS do. 596 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,880 Without Jensen and NVIDIA, he wouldn't have created all that 597 00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:37,280 wealth for those NVIDIA employees. 598 00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:40,400 There's so many millionaires working at NVIDIA that they got 599 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,320 a job there, they got a chunk of the company, and he made them 600 00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,080 rich by leading this company to enormous success. 601 00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,160 So I think it would be an interesting list to see the 602 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,600 amount of wealth that different operators have created by 603 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,800 growing businesses. Now finally we get to the heart 604 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:56,160 of this question, which is what is he actively doing at Amazon? 605 00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,320 He's noted a few times that he's working there. 606 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,440 He's at least doing a lot of work every morning answering 607 00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,360 questions. Since he's involved in Amazon, 608 00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,800 what exactly is he doing here? He mentions that the majority of 609 00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,720 what he's working on right now is what he believes is the most 610 00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,840 important part of Amazon's development, which is AI. 611 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:15,720 Help us, help us with this. You just said you're very, 612 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,000 you're very involved with it right now. 613 00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,160 What is it that you're doing at Amazon AIAI? 614 00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:21,400 Yeah. And so, I mean, there are a few 615 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,440 things, but but it's 95% AI. And where do you? 616 00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,280 It's just so because there we are literally working on 1000 617 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:33,240 applications internally. So AI, you have to remember AI, 618 00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,280 modern AI is a horizontal enabling layer. 619 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,360 It it, it, it will, it, it can be used to improve everything. 620 00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:46,600 It will be in everything. This is most like electricity 621 00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:51,320 art. I went to a brewery in 622 00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,360 Luxembourg many years ago now. In fact, this trip was one of 623 00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,080 the little tiny catalysts for the founding of. 624 00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:00,880 This story, by the way, is fantastic. 625 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,320 Listen to this story he shares of visiting this brewery. 626 00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,920 It's incredible the insight he can draw out of some real world 627 00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,160 experience like just visiting a brewery. 628 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:17,320 AWS the and the brewery was 300 years old this company making 629 00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,560 beer for 300 years. A lot of the oldest companies in 630 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:21,880 the world are breweries by the way. 631 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:26,480 I don't know why this is. And they were very proud of 632 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:33,040 their history and how to museum. And in that museum was an 633 00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,400 electric power generator, 100 years old. 634 00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:43,040 And because when they wanted to improve the efficiency of their 635 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:48,080 brewery with electricity, there was no power grid, so they had 636 00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:49,680 to build their own power station. 637 00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:51,440 So they made their own electricity. 638 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,160 And at that time, that's what everybody did. 639 00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:57,560 If a hotel wanted electricity, they had their own electric 640 00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,040 generator. Now most people would just visit 641 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,400 this brewery, see that they had their own little electric power 642 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,600 generator and go, oh, that's interesting. 643 00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,760 I guess that's how how it was. That would be the conclusion. 644 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,480 They wouldn't think about it much more than that. 645 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,400 It would just be an interesting thing that you notice. 646 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,800 That'd be the case with me. If I visited it. 647 00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,400 I would not draw any greater connection. 648 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,280 But notice how Jeff Bezos takes that little that little piece of 649 00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,520 information, that little think he notices and comes to a rather 650 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,440 big conclusion. And I looked at this and I 651 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,800 thought this is what computation is like today. 652 00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,720 Everybody has their own data center and that's not going to 653 00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:36,440 last. It makes no sense. 654 00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,320 You're going to buy compute off the grid. 655 00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,560 That's AWS we had, we were doing it internally at Amazon for 656 00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,400 ourselves and the APIs were created. 657 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,280 There's that's a very interesting story in its own 658 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,400 right, but. The reason that AWS is so 659 00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,040 successful today, and it's the biggest one, is because he came 660 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:52,920 to that realization before anyone else. 661 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:55,840 Even the people working at Microsoft, which was by far the 662 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:57,840 tech leader. They should have had the lead in 663 00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,720 this category. We're six years behind Jeff 664 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:02,720 Bezos. He's the inventor. 665 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,480 He's the mind that thought of this before other people. 666 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,320 Even Google, which had YouTube and Gmail and distributed 667 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,800 servers, didn't come to that conclusion before Jeff Bezos. 668 00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:17,000 Him looking at things through a very interesting way, visiting a 669 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,920 brewery and coming to that conclusion gave him a huge 670 00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,480 advantage. The this is, you know, these 671 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:29,960 kind of horizontal layers like electricity and compute and now 672 00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,960 artificial intelligence, they, they go everywhere. 673 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,400 There isn't. I guarantee you there is not a 674 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,320 single application that you can think of that is not going to be 675 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:44,040 made better by AI. He defines AI as this horizontal 676 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,960 application, which is something that I haven't heard before, but 677 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,159 basically you can't look at it as some vertical thing that a 678 00:34:49,159 --> 00:34:50,719 couple companies are going to benefit from. 679 00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,719 It is going to be everywhere, part of everything, and this is 680 00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,600 what I think the limited view of investors have a difficult time 681 00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,200 wrapping our heads around. AI is going to be a part of 682 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,640 everything, everywhere, every single thing we do. 683 00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:04,800 When I look at the holdings and I go through the ones that I 684 00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,960 own, I try to see how AI can impact those businesses and they 685 00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,560 can impact a lot of them in various ways that we didn't 686 00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,520 expect before with Amazon in and of itself. 687 00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,320 Amazon has literally 1000 different ways that they're 688 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,320 benefiting from AI and. Where do you think Amazon is in 689 00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:22,240 this? We've been talking about large 690 00:35:22,240 --> 00:35:25,600 language models, yeah, all day. We talked to Sam, we talked to 691 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,120 Sundar. Clearly AWS has a big 692 00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,280 opportunity, but on the language model piece, it doesn't have its 693 00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,080 own. Does it matter you've. 694 00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:38,760 Been so busy. Yeah, Andrew, but you did not 695 00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,360 see. I did yesterday. 696 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,080 Announcements yesterday. I did see the. 697 00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,880 Announcement about Nova, yes, well, that is a large language 698 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:49,040 model and it is our own. And do you believe that that 699 00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,120 model is competitive with these other models? 700 00:35:52,240 --> 00:35:58,520 It is absolutely competitive. So it is benchmarks 701 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,400 extraordinarily well. It's a world class foundation 702 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:09,560 model, it's a frontier model and and it's very, very priced 703 00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:11,360 performance. Andrew says you don't have your 704 00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,080 own model. He corrects him and says, yes, 705 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:14,960 we do. It was released yesterday. 706 00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,800 It's very powerful and it's price competitive. 707 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,280 The big thing that I recognized at this point in the interview 708 00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,600 is that Jeff Bezos is still deeply in the trenches at 709 00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,520 Amazon. He knows all the details of 710 00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,320 what's going on at the company. He knew about Nova long before 711 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,080 it was released. He's been involved directly with 712 00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,400 the AI. He understands the big vision of 713 00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,720 AI. He doesn't have a myopic, 714 00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:38,320 limited view of it. He understood very clearly how 715 00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,200 it's going to impact things, how it's this big horizontal layer, 716 00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,760 how Amazon needs to be in the lead in this type of category, 717 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,680 just like they were with AWS and compute. 718 00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,400 Now, don't get me wrong, I think that Andy Jassi's doing a great 719 00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,280 job as Aceo of Amazon. I don't have any complaints for 720 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:54,440 him. He's doing things that I think 721 00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:55,520 are great. I think he's a good 722 00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:57,840 communicator. I think he's a good long term 723 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,960 focus person. He grew US to the size that it 724 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,880 is. He has a very long tenure at 725 00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,160 Amazon, and it seems like his relationship with Bezos is 726 00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:08,000 great. It's everything you get asked 727 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,520 for with a handoff for the executive position. 728 00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:15,000 It's the exact opposite of Bob Iger choosing Bob Chapeck, which 729 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,800 was a total disaster. Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy are 730 00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,160 very good team leading this company, but it does surprise me 731 00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,160 a little bit how much Jeff Bezos continues to be involved in 732 00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:26,600 Amazon. Now the next thing that he's 733 00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,320 asked about is this question of what is the meaning of life? 734 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,040 If artificial intelligence can do everything a human does but 735 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,240 better, If it's better all these different subjects, if it's just 736 00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:38,520 going to dominate and do everything better than humans, 737 00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:40,360 then then what are we doing here? 738 00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:41,800 What what is the point of this life? 739 00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:43,920 I think he has a great perspective on this as well. 740 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,120 So. Well, I, you know, so I've had 741 00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,200 this conversation about with various people about what it 742 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,480 means to be human and, and people say, well, you know, if 743 00:37:53,720 --> 00:37:56,920 AI is smarter than us, better than us and various things, 744 00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:00,040 won't that take the meaning out of your life or, you know, some 745 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,800 question along those lines. And I said, look, I consider 746 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,840 myself to be a very good writer, but I know people who are much 747 00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:11,720 better writers than I am. And in fact, I don't think 748 00:38:11,720 --> 00:38:15,480 there's any single thing that I'm the best in the world at. 749 00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,960 If I go, if I'm really, really honest with myself there, I can 750 00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:20,880 always find somebody I know. I know people who are better 751 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,840 than me at math. I know you know people who are 752 00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,200 better than me at dancing, that's for sure. 753 00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,360 So, you know, they're like literally I go right down the 754 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:30,840 line. I can always find somebody 755 00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:34,960 better. And and yet that doesn't take 756 00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,960 meaning for if you're if meaning only if you only get meaning 757 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:40,880 because you're the best in the world of something, then very 758 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:42,800 few of us are going to have meaning in our lives. 759 00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,080 There isn't going to be a lot of meaning. 760 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,440 And really your meaning is coming from your relationships. 761 00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:52,200 You know how uplifting people so like, if you, if you think about 762 00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,640 it by the way, the uplifting can be very local. 763 00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:55,800 Do you think? It's like if you're just 764 00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,200 uplifting your brother and sister, you're uplifting your 765 00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,520 kids, you're uplifting, you know your friends and and the people 766 00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,160 in your community, you're going to get meaning from that. 767 00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:07,000 AI cannot uplift people the same way humans can. 768 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,200 It can't serve people the same way humans can. 769 00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,160 It can't have the same impact on our immediate family, on our 770 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,160 friends, on our loved ones the same way that humans can. 771 00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:17,560 So even though AI is getting very powerful, it's nowhere 772 00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:21,280 close to replacing humans. And AI is always trained on 773 00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,120 human data. AI is always being trained with 774 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,920 what humans are doing. It's a system that tries to 775 00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,480 mimic human behavior and human prediction. 776 00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:33,120 So I look at AI the same way. I would even go a step further 777 00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,320 and say that a lot of people concerned about artificial 778 00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,200 intelligence should look at it more of an iterative step. 779 00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,680 It's one more thing that will make things more efficient, make 780 00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,520 things faster, quicker, just like we've been doing over the 781 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,560 past 20 years. We've seen these type of 782 00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,160 developments over and over again. 783 00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,560 When we look at all these type of developments, they do have 784 00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,240 some major impacts, but ultimately humans find ways to 785 00:39:54,240 --> 00:39:57,000 create unique value, to add value to different companies and 786 00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,200 in a world is becoming increasingly artificial. 787 00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:01,560 I think there's going to be. More need for humans than ever. 788 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:04,560 So those are my major takeaways from this Jeff Bezos interview. 789 00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:06,400 Hope you enjoyed. See in the next one.