41. Reid Hoffman: Bankrolling Biden to beat Trump, the "PayPal Mafia", and Musk's messiah complex

The Rest Is Politics: Leading

Goalhanger

News, Government, Politics

4.6 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How does life in Silicon Valley compare to the United Kingdom? What was it like working with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel starting PayPal? Is the future of AI as bleak as it seems? Rory and Alastair are joined by tech entrepreneur, author, and fellow podcaster Reid Hoffman to discuss everything from the dangers of AI during an election to the benefits of friendships. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: restispolitics@gmail.com Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for listening to The Restless Politics. Sign up to The Restless Politics plus to enjoy
0:04.0	ad-free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again
0:07.4	early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRestlessPolitics.com. That's TheRestlessPolitics.com.
0:18.4	Welcome to The Restless Politics leading with me, Rory Stewart.
0:21.5	And me, Anastakambo. And I am very, very pleased today that we have, for I think almost the first
0:27.5	time, a genuine friend of mine on the podcast. There have been many grand individuals on before,
0:32.4	but I don't think anybody who's as close a friend as Reed is. So, and we'll see how this goes,
0:37.9	whether this affects the objectivity of my interviewing style. Alistair has had some very close friends
0:43.5	on the podcast already in the shape of Tony Blair and David Mullivan. So we'll see what this does
0:47.6	to us. Reed is often described as the co-founder of LinkedIn, which is one of the, I guess, the
0:53.8	biggest companies he's associated with. He's also founded now one of the leading AI companies,
1:00.0	but he's been very much part of the whole story of Silicon Valley since the late 90s. He's also
1:07.2	somebody who is a serious public intellectual. He's serious about philosophy. He's been thinking a lot
1:12.1	about friendship. He cares deeply about politics. He's been very, very active in the campaigns
1:17.7	against Donald Trump and is now right at the heart of the AI debate. So he's just put himself in
1:23.2	the center of most of the biggest he's going on. So thank you, Reed, very, very much for joining us.
1:28.2	It is awesome to be here. And thank you for having me.
1:31.1	Bernie mentioned the fact that you were the heart of Silicon Valley. You were born in the heart of
1:36.2	Silicon Valley. Is that right? That's right. I was born in Stanford Hospital and it
1:39.6	entertained my father to no end that when I was attending Stanford as an undergraduate,
1:43.5	it said birthplace unknown. Oh, wow. So, and your parents, what was in your parents? Do you think
1:52.3	that made you into the person that you are in terms of where your life has gone very different
	...

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