#AIS: Joe Lonsdale on the problem with higher education
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Right next up, joe loans, now we go joan's deal is going to come up. He's going to tee IT up for about five or ten minutes in a solo doo. He told me he's burning the house down.

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We are sore the things and.

Well, hello, my amy is going to be here from Austin for a day where as a second, second best tech city here, it's not so bad. Only people actually living miami am curious with the crowd know about that. So I everyone's fun and town like me as pretty ool. Well, you i'm generally american optimists, but I want to talk about a lot stuff is broken right now that we know how to fix what we aren't and talking to these guys, especially hearing from you on everyone today so exciting what our civilization is going towards, what I could be doing when you talk to a lot of our smartest friends, you look at guys like dolly of bridge water, others, they see american decline, they see decades es, they see decay.

And I think, is love an important questions from facing right now, like why these happen to a civilization? Why when there's so many exciting things going on and we know can make a really great future for our kids and grandkids, for human? why? Why is this stuff breaking? And I want to tell you a little story of policy group in Austin.

We have we fall the homeless population there, and we're going along with a middle age mexican gentleman who just lost his job and he went to the homeless center is really struggling. And he says, you know, I really want to try to find a job. He wants a job training.

And in the person working there, he says, you know, start you, you deserve a home. He said, yeah, that's great. But what can I guess, from training? He said, you don't need to worry about that.

You need to worry about getting a home, but people just like you when you deserve and and I want to back up about the situation, Austin, that we're seeing this all over the country right now. Know twenty eighteen, the mayor of Austin, what is sam S. N L.

A? And you know, he's asked him for vice I want to do for a homeless this there wasn't really homeless ness downtown is funny. This is funny to meet to you.

But there's actually a reason he was asked them for advice in a special interest thing where there's actually hundreds of millions of funding the goes to these groups in sf, N, L, A to work on this into all of their friends and to all the people of their politics. And and is is a huge money speak IT for politicians. They're very powerful in those other cities, and often they didn't have them money back at any wanted IT.

And what they told him, I heard this from both sides. You said, you know, you have to show people that capital m doesn't work. You go to put in their faces and then you get funding and you went back to all city and you all the camps.

H home less death Spike, homes trafficking Spike, sex trafficking Spike, drug Spike. But, uh, the fan went way up for him and his friends. They got massive, a new funding, unaccountable sources of fun for these people.

And and then of course, they start applying the answers, which is the housing first strategy. And but this is not just like a right versus left thing. And housing first was first deployed under A W bush.

So this is, this is general strategy, us probably known, and l spent eight hundred thousand dollars per new home trying to solve this problem. There's seven thousand non profits right now. You funded byo d around our country with the same philosophy.

And the philosopher is no paper performance, no transparency, no accountability. Just build the homes. And you know, when I first thought about this a decade ago, I thought, well, that makes sense.

There's five thousand homes. People, let's build five thousand homes. IT. Turns out that there's still about a couple percent of our society that really don't have a home, but they are living kind of on the edge and people's touches with other family, with friends.

So the actual demand for homes turns out maybe is about six million. Ten million is is effective, infinite. And there's infinite demand for homes in our society. And who do you think guessed these? Sometimes we build. So this guy, we are following a few hundred people of my fanfic group, and our team goes back in with them and he gets in line and he's been living between a camp that they help set up in downtown and in a relative spicious saying living outside and camp and he goes back and he's just miss getting at home and he's frustrated and they're slain in the pointed and he says, way to second.

You're saying that I was on drugs i'd query for for a home and they said, well, we don't want to say at that way, but that's true of and he says, you're saying if I committed a crime, I call five for a home and you know like, well, yeah but that's yeah we don't want to say if that way, but that's true that would have given you enough points to qualify for a home and what happens here if you tried debate this system, seven thousand, these grouped around the country, your stream dead as a racist, your stream debt without a hometon attacks. There's three things. One, there's not the intellectual community to see that there maybe other answers and maybe correct too.

There's no respect for the dignity of everyone on this conversations, if you just agree you are a bad person. And three, there's no passion for the truth. These people are not trying to pursue the truth.

These people already have the truth, and they're giving as you as a dogma. And this is true of pretty much every of these broken areas in our society. And there's a lot of them.

There's a lot of them right now. There's like, no, we have fifty trading programs that we spend a lot of money on the federal government. They're not accountable.

They don't tend to work. They're very broken. There's no transparency, no competition. There's no debate. You you're ford or against IT and your bad person if you're against IT there there these vacation schools around the country, texas fictional schools are were really under performing seven years ago.

And you know what we did is we ended up actually changing them so that the schools are only going to be funded based on the side to the students coming out. If you tied to graduates rate doesn't work because graduate everyone, we salaries coming out, we got the salaries coming out to go one hundred seventeen percent just by putting in that accountability. But but most of the country doesn't do that.

Most of the country there's vocational school people go very low graduation, they fail ah we're not going to go into the kate twelve issues you I know about, but in fact most people don't know is the education inequality in this country is far greater than the wealth inequality far greater. So so there's you guys icy, the input formula production thing, the Price is right is really basic takes around that the way we want our prisons observation and perl, there's all sorts of ways run a much Better. We're not doing IT though.

Uh, give you one of example because ella was speaking today, awesome infrastructure. I'm very excited about this boring company. And you know an Austin, we passed six billion and seven billion dollar plan to build really small amount of infrastructure is already balloon in costs at twelve billion for less than half original money for three billion dollars.

You could do over a hundred times as many as many tunnels in terms of what they're building right now. And you do, uh, hundred and more stations. And so basically for a tiny fraction of the cost.

And again, I go and talk to the city and talk to guides. There's no instructional humility. Uh, no, don't expect you're dignity. Elon is a bag guy.

We don't like you on whatever because there there's some kind of extreme version and and they're not interested in the truth and really, really not there is interested in like what are going to do their way, can kind of come back this what's going on in our society? Where is this coming from? And you say what causes deceives they can to kind.

I think the more important question is what actually works? Like why is our society functional? And I think you have to take you back to the invinted ament right then. If you look at the extensive growth it's happened that's created the wealth at all of us enjoy IT really happened over the last few centuries, kind of post enlightenment.

And and you had a society that really cared about pursuit of the truth, really cared about competition of ideas, right? And you need the virtues this to work, right? The classical virtues that we talk about, our civilization, justice, wisdom, temporaries, courage, you need the courage to actually fight for the truth.

And so in the long time ago, you intended to have religious dogma, which could be some form of virtual second link, some, some form of, you know, basically keeping out outsiders. And then you had separately debate and substance, and debate and substance generally lost to religious dogma. And what was unique about the environment, and what was unique about our university system, which, which we traded was the liberal universities were replaced, have debates where substance could actually win against dogma and against people who people who disagree.

You actually have to disco civilly and you to pursue truth, you to have the intellectual humility to know that you don't have all the answers. You have to expect the dignity of people who are debating. And you had to fight for a passion for the truth.

And and what's happened instead is that most of our universities have been conquered by dog memba religion, that they no longer have these things. So once again, and we have the idea of heroics and blast me. We don't call that, we don't use those words, but that's we're facing right now.

If you disagree with people, you're heroic and you're committing blast for me. If you speak against all sorts of these things you're not supposed speak against, you say that D I is actually causing problems. If you say here's what esg is wrong that's like it's bLassie such you're not allowed to attack these age and trouble you're told not speaking against IT again, if you're fire.

This is really about muti corporations right now. This happens all sorts of people. And and is this happening first and foremost on our campus? What happens? This is a zero.

Some historically literate and tolerant virtual signal religion has completely taken over. And a saucing people. And you, our founders, our founders were were quite fun of heroics. I don't know.

People realized that that that was kind of the equivalent debate three hundred years ago to to the song revision, is that bridges in, Frankly, he said, I think all heroics I have known have been virtuous men. They other virtue of courage, they went venture their heracles. They cannot afford to be deficient in other virtues to the numerous, the enemies they provoke.

And so, you know, I think thinking what's going on here, all of us first, all and you to go back and think about like where where do we not have enough humility to try to learn more? Where where we not respecting people. Who disagree and actually engaging them and debating them as opposed to calling them names, running them off.

And Frankly, I think we should also remember it's actually really good to be offended. It's a offsides safe spaces. There's just a weird cultural thing with the one old generation.

I guess i'm barely part of IT unfortunately, where you're basically supposed sed to protect people from being offensive to protect them from last to me, I think IT has to be the opposite of our civilization is not going I think we actually have to go out of our way to learn that when we're offended, we have to be stronger. IT doesn't mean if you're somehow I elevated as a victim. If you're offended, that's your problem.

If you're offended and you just stop and talking about IT. And and we need to use that to have answer our civilization again. So that's my that's my safer today.

Jason wanted me to add a bunch more blast for me, but i'm going to hold off on that.

I think you did enough. I think you did enough. Let's talk.

Let's shop IT up. Get in here. Let's talk about why people feel like their victims. What do you think in our country make certain people feel that they've been victim ized? Where are the valid reasons people might feel that they have gotten no ordeal in america?

I mean, I think all of our answers i've got through as i'm jewish and irish there. When my ancestors came over, they were saying, saying no dogs or irish aloud. My grandfather was only promote to a certain level at abbot because he was A G actually, I realized that hired A G and later and said I was a mistake.

You can only get to this level. Yeah and so I mean, I I think there has been some pretty horble things everywhere in the world playing watch IT, not just america. I think everywhere you look, there's there's always been groups that have .

been treated pretty badly. I am irish as well. I wish need not apply. We had a pretty horrific family and .

i'm and it's obvious ly like easier to be hersh and to be someone .

he's blocked in america.

Think jewish and the holograms.

Ah ah so different people's experiences are on a spectrum of the suffering, correct hundred percent. And so people who've suffered more deserve a little more empathy and perhaps a little bit more consideration.

They deserve more empathy, but doesn't mean you should embrace philosophes that are wrong or harmful, right? So I mean, if you look at the obviously like there's lot of truth and positive parts of the bill and movement the last couple years, but is actually LED to thousands more deaths in the black community because of the things that IT was pushing, because of the bad ideas.

We got another one of .

these things more.

more. How many more of these we gonna do is like way more work than I thought. I signing up for way more work.

Someone get this man a drink we had caught.

I never agreed to .

be in the conference business when we start doing this pog shake out. I respect you for what you've able to do, but this is a way .

too much to work. Guys said. You want to a look .

at the fans are doing .

tomo sounds good. I think, you know, joe Candy, I think that is where the argument breaks down a bit, is a people have had different experiences. And I would disagree that people have to stop thinking like victims. I think sometimes we have to think very deeply about the suffering people have had, especially when it's different than the sufficing that you and I have had.

But that that so it's and .

i'm not virtual nal here. I'm just countering I think .

I think that's fully true. What I was really against, as I gave ten examples of ways in which our societies broken and hurting poor people, hurting working class people like this, wasting money on things in a diffunce, tional ways. And all of that is happening because we're like going to this, a liberal society where we're not able to actually like debate.

Thing is logically and respect, respect other people. On the other side, the argument is all about demonizing people who disagree with us. you. And I think that's this really, really scary right now.

do you um there is a website. People have treated this. Uh, I think the website is called what the fuck happened in nineteen seventy one 点 com。 You know I am talking about where yeah if you go to this website, I don't tell me. So in one thousand, if you look back those who economically, there's a whole unter charts and graphs of everything from GDP to you, uh, labor participation rates, etta. And there's A A moment in one thousand nine hundred and seventy one were just tree lines break and you know, orse's treated this out a little while ago, a bunch of people talked about, and everybody has tried to figure out what actually happened.

Couple good explore. I think I think I think two biggest ones, I think the two biggest ones by far is, one is tech driven globalization and the other one is going off the gold currently, which over financialization.

So I think the gold currency won was important. I think the one that people don't talk about, whether you agree with IT or not, i'd love to get your perspective, is, you know, the move to the great society had a whole bunch of um things that I think we're meant to do uh meaningful, good and and then .

broke down the family as well, which is a huge problem in america. And this is yes. So I mean we talk about things that makes civilization prosper. I think you get the classical virtues and you get a strong families, which, by the way, for whatever reason, I still can't tell the ilea strongly inst, which I think is like horrible, so so I think is a problem. The White as well, by the way, as they almost half kids are born out of my lock right now.

And if you statistically look at that, those kids just on an average vast under performance, this doesn't mean to say there's are one of cases and you should get divorce if is the right thing to do. But but, but, but it's like it's like it's really bad for society as a whole. Statistically, you can argue against that.

And exactly. We've actually created the incentives towards divorce in the one thousand nine hundred and sixty, which obviously was an intentional but this is a huge problem I supposed to talk about. It's A A conservative thing, I guess.

and talk about the the financialization and moving off the goal center as well。 How do that change? So the economic .

dynamics in amErica basically means so there's a go, a lot more money around. And so I think I think over IT put more returns into finance. So benefit from this is, is do you for as an investor but make things yeah, I think I think I think you put more returns in the finance and because there's this explosion of credit and money relative.

So I think finance outperformed labor in terms is an advantage for finance, which is not unicef want that also really, really helped accelerate textual globalization, which probably was good, india and china and southeast asian and even in africa, but basically forced workers in the us. To compete against all these people directly. And so you have people paid like fifteen times much in the U.

S. Is people. And SHE wasn't a sustainable. So over time, these are people out completed about over last few years, which is really tough.

You find IT hard to find your tribe in silicon valley. Intellect has to become easier, harder. The same. You know.

i've just given up on like having even ethridge es so much is like, let's work on this together. Let's actually make prisons have lower reactivity sm and high employment. And here's how we're going to do IT were going to put these transparency y and accountability incentives.

And it's hard for anyone to reality disagree with that meering the prison's union. And so like we're going we're getting always laws past from probation improve and that we're getting always laws passed for the educational school work. Better at what's a noise meat chaos is that I feel like as people who succeeded, we all sort of have a duty to go to fix these problems and almost no one else is working on that. That doesn't me.

Um and then in terms of like for example, I wants to talk specifically because you mentioned higher ed, but if you go a little bit before this um we have no real form of competition in the school system. Yes use some mechanism .

for good ideas .

to when I and the existing framework has been charter schools. But that's been attacked under every sort of way, shape, perform. Um how does that problem get solved? How do we get kids? You know .

so the problem, if you just give everybody choice right now and you give them, say, funding, take the money where they want IT basically defends the public schools, which that hurts the porkers the most. And so I understand why people are against like total choice. Everyone just kind of more like policy detail.

I think that a way to get around that is you just give the poor kids choice, so you just get the pokey choice. And now very clear, you're just doing IT tell them, but even them being iled to choose, we will put pressure and get rid the hurt of our schools and help to give schools. So you see some mechanism to do the make them through the poor kids that helps them most.

that that's my other reasonable.

Because why should I my kids have choice where to go with my life. And I, why shouldn't poor kids have that choice? So things that teach you going to hate that, but at least is that the way maybe built .

a part for and is a way for unions to to actually do the the part of the job, which is about protecting workers with, but disentangle some of the financial incentives to aggregate, do participate actives use. God changed about our search.

right? Another toy in charge. They don't want to give in in I get IT because every time they give an interest, you to lose more power later on.

If if they see that they're losing some battles, they have to negotiate and they be more reasonable as say, yeah, you're right. We're going to get rid the bottle twenty percent. We're going to know you guy gets a plant where the power changes enough that they willing to them work with you.

But but I mean, the bigger the bigger thing I think is we actually need leaders or courageous who could speak up about problems in in the mist of everyone yelling and streaming saying you're not supposed to say things you say actually I don't care, you're not supposed to say this is my version of the truth and this is what's going to be the best in society. And what we're teaching at university is right now as the opposite of that. What we're teaching is, joe, just don't say that, joe, why are you causing problems for yourself, joe, you know you're not what to talk about these things. I'm so sick of IT because that this is wireless of broken. No.

to be him up, you bought a college.

My friends, very wise in the al ferguson, and I A couple of bunch of others are starting a new university and all .

some did you buy an existing university just starting from a we get five .

and our takers in the water is really pretty. It's about fifteen minutes from the tesla giant tesla plan at three months from downtown. What you teach.

what will the major's be and what i'll be, the approach, you know.

the hypothesis and entrepreneurs, our job is to find these gaps in the world, or something should exist, but doesn't. And IT seems like for the first time in a few generations, you could actually build the university to compete with together, very top universities and attracts the most time of kids.

One of my noxious views on this, which I think this stage might might agree with because of our direction, is that used to be the smart people in the world, the law of them became professors, and now you get a lot of very smart people becoming innovators, becoming builder. Like my smart st. Friends, i've got to drop other phmc and stanford and counts, actually found more and electuary expression and says, faction in the inspiring util world they did there.

And so therefore, in order to compete, you you want not only the top professors, but you want to involve a lot top innovators. And you know, we want to teach, you want to teach the history of thought in in the free civilizations. You want to actually see like like how the enlightenment come about, what the books or the debates that people were having when they found in the country and learn that core.

Um and then we also want to have centers where you keep the inter discipline, those want to key things in universities. This is again somewhat technical, but they're broken because you get these departments to get conquered by certain ideologies. So you get certain people that only allow people who think like them to be in those apartments. So you want to to spread that too much.

This is because of ten years, ten.

ten years of big problem. You want to have some protection of tech ten. You what would usually was a great thing, but teaches you to say what you want and practice now is using is usually get way around india.

Not good. yeah. But yeah, there's there's a huge gap there. I think we could fix IT. And my goal obviously is not to have everyone educated through one university, is to put pressure on other universities to change and and to help build multiple new ones, which I think we need to do. And the school .

that you start into disciplinary by nature, which means that not necessarily known as for technical people, for mathew theyll.

be like a center of like political coming history. They'll be a center of data size in an innovation and said we'll be at centers of arts and writing and stuff. So I think you want different, different, different skills. I think everyone .

should .

get the kind of core profit or it's not profit. It's it's part of me wishes I made IT for a problem that I need to make money because this be easy to raise money for IT, but raise about one hundred million dollars, not profit for that. We have the land. Uh, so it's it's going to work. I put my name on IT.

I'll pay for raised a hundred million dollars. Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

yeah. And when do you plan on opening involve twenty.

twenty four years. Our goal for the first class, besides a cow tech first, is the hope.

pretty ambitious project. yeah.

Well, our country, our country needs some, some more leaders right now who are courageous and not to think, how do you let's go.

How do you how do? How do you think you recruit the first class? How do you want to do?

Watch more active recruiting the top cologna, specially because we want be as known at first. But i'll tell you what, we have a seminar summer of eighty kids, and we had forty four thousand increases from kids about IT. We have when we first the first two weeks after the story was out on twitter and november that we're doing this, we had four thousand and four hundred professors apply because the professors were filed.

A lot of them, foresters, by the way, love them on the motor, left the attack by the extremes for, again, talking is IT about the same things you're not able to talk about and say. And so so a law of them are trying to fed other environments. There's a huge demand for IT right now.

It's super weird that college kids yeah are .

against .

having debates and discussions .

so .

much worse. Really crazy like that we end of women of first really smart woman deffand in the left. But like he was applying from, and while you must go ask, do a new law scope because you can't stand that anymore and we say, well, what's going on? He said, well, for example, we used to use as a cradle method in my law school.

And I would ask tough questions from both sides of the kids. And now, in order are not to trigger people, I have to write them an email, look ahead of time and make sure I can ask the questions that i'm going to ask in class next week. A lawyer, this is the train. A lawyer. I mean, this this is where we are at this point.

So that's n you lost and that's the policy of N I don't know.

but universe just gone crazy last five years.

Like is like .

more stratus and students. These administrators are on the whole more likely to be a neoma xix than be republicans. I mean, is just like these things, i've gotten very extreme.

What do you think sex?

About you.

everything you get this, about that I mean.

you live that time. I mean, the time at stanford was boll time when you were there in terms of freedom of speech, in terms of debate.

Vibrating y yeah, what basically happened is all those radical who are being indicated and trained and brainwashed at stanford that we are reacting to, what of twenty five, thirty years ago, they all graduated, and then they went off to the society and took over all these institutions. And that's the problem we have today. mt.

Tae b and the Green role we're talking about IT earlier today, where if you actually look at holing the biggest divide in amErica terms of political and culture beliefs is whether or not you have a college degree. So if you're basically a college graduate, remember the professional class. If you're not a college graduate, your member of the working class that is the biggest divide and you, the members, the professional class by and large have very, very far left views on social cultural issues.

That is the fact, I mean, whether you agree with that or not um and that is creating a huge amount attention our society because two, the country is working class. One third is a professional class. In a democracy, the site that has the larger numbers should win. So the working class has the votes. Professional class runs all the institutions.

And this is the source, I think, of all our political strife in america, is that the people who are in charge of institutions from the new york times to the washing post to the fortune five hundred disney hollywood um and you go to down the list, they have views that are fundamentally intention in conflict with the views of most of the country, the working class, the country. Now if you remember that class, you may think it's a good thing. We're going to push out of views onto the country, whether they like or not, and were going to convert them that you all the class, that the elite and and that was basically like why i'm describing is not like a criticism.

I think it's just .

like what's .

happening yet.

I don't think it's parties and either I mean, there there are people who are republicans or democrat.

and there are a lot. There are elites in both parties, and there are certainly working class people in both parties. But what I would say is that the parties are now in the process of resorting around this sort of local on cultural divide and the historical ics, the democrats where the party of the working class, they are now much more the party of the professional class um and they buy into the belief set of the sort of the college educated, you know, those sort of we call IT the vote sensibility and the republicans are in the process transforming into a working class sort of populist party yeah and and look, there are I in both parties are outliers. I don't quite fit in anymore but but that's the fun of the transformation is happening yeah I mean.

you guys fit into that your people in the republican party who don't fit in IT anymore.

I mean, I wouldn't even necessarily mind that dynamics who describes so much if they weren't breaking everything and if they were not not allowing commerce things about how brooking things are on the Better ideas, right, is a very strange in liberal.

So I think and I disconnect IT with what we are tomb with clean, Green, voluntary. I is that look if if you're part of the ad and you control all these institutions, all the the cultural high ground, but the country is not with your instant terms of the sheer numbers, you are going to a use the tactics that people in power always used to suppress the greater numbers that the same ship comes from. The people who are running these institutions don't they want the debate to be over. They want the power to end the debate because they're not .

others SE going to win that debate. Well, we're very interested in seeing where you take IT, and we appreciate you take the time to share your view.

gentle.

Your winners, right.

rain man, give.

We open sort to the fans.

And i've .

just got crazy with.

Why why you try?

We should all just get a room, just have one big, huge orgy, because they all just like sexual attention. But we just need to release from now.

What your be.

what your fee we get you.