Lex Fridman: evaluation

Transcript context

…d start a business, produce a product, good luck to you. Make money. But on the other hand, in terms of even making money, we want you to be able to do that. Come up with good products, good services. But do I think you should end up with $100 billion? No, I don’t. And you know what? It’s funny. I did an interview with Bill Gates, who’s I think the third-wealthiest guy in the country, struggling behind Musk and Bezos I think, and he’s only worth a hundred plus billion. But he gets by. And I said to him, “Bill,” he was supposed to ask me questions. I asked him the question, I said, “Bill, tell me something. You’re an innovator with Microsoft and all that stuff. Did you know that you’d become a multi-billionaire? And was that what motivated you?” And he said, “No.” And I believe he was honestly, “I loved doing whatever. I loved programming.” He was a kid. He started doing that. He loved it. He was motivated by it. Do you think that there are scientists out there who working day and night trying to develop drugs to deal with Alzheimer’s or cancer that they motivate? Boy, if I come up with this drug, I’m going to become a billionaire? So I think we want to reward success. Fine, but you don’t need a billion dollars. We want people to get satisfaction from what they accomplish, the work they’re doing, whether it’s cleaning the street or developing a new drug. So I think we have gone a little bit far, and you’re right, in talking about the book was an attack on I call, you call hypercapitalism or ubercapitalism. But right now, and this is not an American issue, this is a global issue. It’s not an accident that Musk is over there in Saudi Arabia talking to the trillionaire families in the mid-East, these guys, Putin and his friends, you got probably not more than five, 10,000 extraordinarily wealthy families who have unbelievable economic power over 7 billion people on this planet. Well, Elon Musk is actually an interesting case because he’s investing all the money back into the businesses. So I think there is a balance to be struck and you just spoke to it, which is we can still celebrate even big companies that are bringing wealth to the world, that are building cool stuff, that are improving quality of life. But we can question of why is it that the working class does not have a living wage? In many cases, and sort of trying to find that balance. That’s right. Look, I am no great fan of Elon Musk, especially in the role that he’s playing right now in Trump’s campaign. But is he a brilliant guy? Of course he is. Does he work like a dog? Of course he does. Does he come up with these incredible innovations in companies? Yes, he does. Does he deserve credit for that? Yeah, he does. But even in terms of encouraging innovation, I would hope that we are focusing on the important issues. I would love to see great innovators figure out how we build the affordable housing that we need, come up with the great drugs that we need to solve many of the terrible illnesses that plague people. Climate change for God’s sakes. All right, do we need innovation? We’re making some progress in this country. Should we do more? What kind of technologies out there can really cut back on carbon emissions? So I hope we focus on some of the most important issues that impact humanity, but reward innovators. I don’t have a problem with that, but I do have a problem when three people end up owning more wealth at the bottom half of American society.…

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