Lex Fridman: uncertainty

Transcript context

…ments that then undercut different industries that we had ,so that they can have global market dominance or monopolies on different industries and then have pricing power, but also geopolitical power. So, one of the examples that people talk about now is China for the last 20 years was very advanced on seeing this electrification trend. They subsidized solar panels, a lot of the American solar panel players were put out of business. So now, I think it’s 90% plus of solar panels in the world are manufactured in China, and then all the rare earths that you need in order to make these solar panels and to make these electric vehicles, China’s bought up most of them and a lot of the refining capacities in China. So, thinking through strategically, how do we create an even playing field so that we’re not at the mercy of them, and how you can have a rules-based world order, that was really the thought of what we were trying to work towards. There’s this SNL skit where Jimmy Fallon plays you, and you’re walking into the Oval Office looking cool, wearing shades and a bulletproof vest to the song Unbelievable by EMF, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s pretty epic. And then Trump says that, “You’ve traveled the world representing the administration, but no one has ever heard you speak,” so there’s a lot of questions I can ask about that. But one of them is, can you introspect why you choose this low-key approach of operating behind the scenes and not speaking much to the public, at least at the time? You’ve spoken a little bit more, and today you’ve spoken for a really long time, which I deeply appreciate. No, it’s been a pleasure to do this and thank you for the opportunity to talk about these things. And so, that was a really funny skit. And it’s funny, the thing I got made fun of the most for that was the wardrobe. And that came from after three months in the administration, we were having dinner with all the generals and they were updating us on the war with ISIS. And General Dunford said to me after, “Look, the president can’t come to see how we’re fighting this war, but I’d like to invite you to come with me to Iraq and come see. And would you come with me?” I said, “You know what? That’s great.” I always learned in business that you can’t make decisions from just an ivory tower. You have to go to the front lines and see what’s actually happening. So I said, “No problem. I’d love to go.” Meanwhile, two days before I’m about to go, the doc from the White House stops by my office and says, “We need to get your blood type.” I said, “Why do you need my blood type for this?” “You’re going to an active war zone.” I’m like, “Okay, so I guess I’m going to a war zone,” I didn’t really think this thing fully through. I get on the plane with Dunford and we land in Iraq and he looks like GI Joe. He’s a great general, he’s very well respected in the military, and we go in and we get on Black Hawk helicopter. They said, “You know what? Today’s a nice day, let’s take the sides off,” and so I get on the plane and there’s a military service officer who then takes a machine gun, locks it into a thing, takes the bullets, puts them into the gun, and is sitting there saying, “We’re ready to go,” and then I’m looking out and there’s like three other helicopters with guys. One was an Osprey with a guy, buckled in also with a machine gun looking out, we take off, and we’re flying over Baghdad from the airport to the embassy. And as we’re going, I’m sitting in an open air helicopter with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, guys with machine guns everywhere-…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.