저자: BillAckman · 외국인
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Ackman은 자신이 중도 성향의 민주당 지지자에서 트럼프 지지자로 정치적 입장을 바꾸게 된 과정을 이야기합니다. 그는 민주당이 급진화되었다고 비판하고, 슈머 원내대표는 타협적이라고 평가합니다. 또한 Garber 총장 체제에서 하버드대학교가 더 개방적인 언론 환경으로 개선되었다고 말합니다. 대학 학위의 전통적 가치는 학비 부담을 고려할 때 줄어들고 있다고 주장하며, 40대 이상의 사람들에 대해서는 학자금 대출을 파산 절차에서 면제받을 수 있게 해야 한다고 제안합니다. 이 밖에 가족에 관한 개인적인 일화, 긴 X(트위터) 게시물, 취미 등도 공유합니다. 영상에서 특정 투자 가격 예측은 하지 않았습니다.
다듬은 글
You were a lifelong Democrat, gave to Democrats just because I wasn't a lifelong is what you're getting wrong. So, I was always a centrist. I didn't align with a party. What was the moment, if you can go back, that you were like, "This has to change and I'm going to speak up." Was there a specific issue that just changed your mind or was it this slow-moving ideology over time?
I think it was more of a slow-moving and then rapidly accelerating perspectives. My principal motivation in life was always independence. I had wonderful parents, kind of strict, but I I never wanted to be controlled by my parents, my teachers, my boss. I wanted to be independent and on the positive side, you know, financial resources provides a great degree of independence.
Independence to speak, you know, independence to write a 4,000-word post on Twitter about something important. You're married to Neri Oxman, who's incredibly accomplished in her own right. What's the secret to making a marriage work when both people have such demanding careers? Um crazy in love with this woman and uh we prioritize each other.
You've become one of the most influential voices on X. What's your secret to shaping the national conversation? Speaking the truth. How long does it take you to draft one of your long bangers? Um it depends. I get into this sort of flow. Um but there have been nights where I say goodnight to my wife.
And I I go to bed at 2:00. Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller podcast. We're in Washington D.C. today with Bill Ackman. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. You were a long-time donor to Democrats until President Trump came around. You still identify as a centrist.
How do you explain your political evolution? The answer is I live in New York. I didn't take politics that seriously. I always had sort of centrist views. And uh the only people who showed up in my office were were Democrats and I supported the ones I I liked as people, but I didn't really think about politics that much.
Did you lose any of your friends when you publicly were supportive of President Trump? So, one of my closest friends, uh perhaps my closest friend for a little over a year, distanced himself. Yeah. Which was disappointing. What was the moment in time, if you can go back, that you you were a lifelong Democrat gave to Democrats just because that's
a lifelong is what you're getting wrong. So, I was always a centrist. I didn't align with a party, but in New York City, if you want to vote in an election, like where it's going to matter, like the primary, Sure. you have to register. So, I registered for I was an independent, and then it was an important election, I registered as a Democrat to vote for whomever.
Uh I don't remember who, and then I, you know, I hadn't checked my registration in years, kind of thing. That's sort of where I was politically. What was the moment, if you can go back, that you were like, this has to change and I'm going to speak up? Was there a specific issue that just changed your mind, or was it this slow-moving ideology over time?
I think it was more of a slow-moving and then rapidly accelerating perspective. Do you think that Democrats have lost their ability to connect with successful entrepreneurs and business leaders? I think the Democratic Party is in the worst place it's ever been in the 250-year history of the country.
I think it's become like this crazy radicalized um you know, anti-American thing. I think it's And by the way, I think there's some very high-quality Democrat, you know, senators and I'm sure some congressmen. Um but the party itself, I think is a is uh in a very bad place. And I think the problem with people who've chosen to be a politician for a career, you either have to get with the party in order to
Mhm. continue, or you get primary'd. Um you know, actually, you know, Senator Schumer, I I have good relationship with him over the years. I thought he was a good man, but in recent years, I felt he's just trying to keep his job. And you know, that's the really low point for politicians when they'll compromise on their values and they'll support, you know, a quasi terrorist perhaps running for Senate in Michigan because they have to for the party.
Stuff like that to me is um or terrorist supporter is not a That's I find that pretty deeply concerning. Do you think the establishment has become too afraid of its progressive wing? Of course. Is there That's where the energy of the party is. You know, energy being young people, people I mean, social media in a way because of the the you know, the ability of young people to engage on social media and the later generations not knowing how to do so, it kind of energizes the youth in a way that makes them incredibly important.
So, Mondaire Jones' uh [snorts] election uh successful win in New York was driven by a young white, educated, uh social media active core. Sure, but if you look at the flip side of it, you look at Spencer Pratt in LA. Similar type energy and it didn't didn't land. I liked him. Didn't land. Is there anyone on the left today who could convince you to vote Democrat again?
You know, I don't know who that like who the candidate who the party will put up for for the candidate. You know, look, I've had a long standing personal relationship with Cory Booker. Love the guy. He's a wonderful human being. Um he's disappointed me occasionally, you know, but uh politically uh but there's some what, you know, very I I I I don't actually choose my friends on the basis of of their political party.
I probably have as many if not more friends who are Democrats than than Republicans. Um but um you know, I haven't seen a good presidential candidate. Uh you know, certainly none of the names, you know, Pritzker, Newsom, make your list of candidates. I think these are you know, disasters. You've challenged the influence of DEI in higher education.
Do you believe that corporate America has actually abandoned DEI? They have completely rethought Yeah. Have they just rebranded it though? No. I think most companies have realized that they were probably operating in violation of the law. And uh I do think diverse corporate environments are kind of good for America, but people should not you shouldn't be selecting people on the basis of skin color for a role.
Do you think we're done with pride flags on everyone's logo in the month of June? There'll be fewer of them, I think. You are and were for a very long time a large donor to Harvard. President Trump has made this a centerpiece of his administration is ridding wokeness out of schools. What do you think about President Trump's efforts?
Do you think Harvard is a place that can eradicate some of the origination of this woke thought? And what is the future of your Harvard giving? So, it's actually working. Uh and uh I was just at a wedding this weekend. And with uh a friend of mine who was a classmate, who's a professor at Harvard. He said, "Bill, Harvard's changed dramatically in the last few years.
Um but the student body's changed significantly. We've got It's gone back to being a meritocracy. Um and people are actually encouraged to say what they think. Uh and I even have conservative students who are you know, unafraid. And that was not the case a few years ago. So, he says it's better. What's changed specifically though?
Is it if it's not the faculty? The faculty he said has not changed. And of course, tenure makes that a more difficult proposition, but the student body's changing both in I would say the political composition and the willingness of people to I mean, there was an enormous There wasn't censorship at Harvard.
There was self-censorship. The consequences for not being part of the prevailing point of view were severe to both faculty and to students. Uh and now it's actually and I credit the president uh Alan Garber for creating an environment that is more accepting of more encouraging of of speech that is not let's say the uh you know a more open-mindedness to different views.
So, are you going to continue to give to Harvard in the future? I I think Harvard's okay. I'm not worried about Harvard's uh I have other philanthropic things I'm focused on, but If you go back and look at what happened with October 7th and then it's downstream influences specifically on universities.
We talked about Harvard. What was your immediate reaction when you saw these university presidents struggle to answer the call about what when people on campuses were calling for the genocide of Jews, raising Hamas flags, whether that be on Harvard, Cornell, Columbia. So, October 7th, I think didn't change anything about universities.
It was It was this sort of reveal. It's a bit like the the tide kind of rolled out and then you could actually see what was going on on on campuses. The The reason why the the universities were afraid of pushing back is is because this had become you know, the faculty and the student bodies of of and what was being taught at university had changed very dramatically.
I was just unaware of it. Um I you know, the what people talk about the the rot, if you will, it was was not visible until in my for me, until the until October 7th and you know, pretty straightforward you know there were some universities who managed very well, some of the elite universities, Dartmouth being one of them, very quickly opened a dialogue, you know, encouraged speech on the issue.
I think managed through it well and there were you know, Harvard, MIT, others. Um you know, no principles, no um, they you know, had this been black students, you know, or an anti-black movement as opposed to an anti-Jewish movement, you could it would not have it wouldn't be 2 seconds of tolerance.
Do you think elite universities are more concerned with political ideology ideology than academic excellence? They were and now they're realizing that that was a mistake. And But I mean, you mentioned the student body was changing over in terms of what's happening with Harvard, but yet, you know, you're not really seeing the output
The output is coursework or syllabus. What you're seeing is Vanderbilt ascending because Daniel Diermeier uh, has kind of remade the university or in a in a way that's you know, uh, kind of western values and free speech and academic excellence and that's attracted the best students. Uh, and that's elevated Vanderbilt.
You know, a university is the quality of student body. 70, 80% of its quality student body and 20, 30% is probably the faculty. And uh, the student body can change much more quickly than than the university can. Um, but there are suc- you know, success stories like Vanderbilt. Um, you know, the people now are ranking, you know, a Duke, a Vanderbilt, you know, ahead of a Harvard, you know, many of the top students.
And then again, many of the best students don't even go. Right? They it's Do you still think a degree's worth it? I think you have to think very seriously about whether it you know, not clear to me if my child at age 7, 11 years from now, whether she'll go to a conventional university. I don't think it's 20 years ago it was the obvious thing to do.
Today, uh, if you actually have to write the check yourself, you know, if you you don't have the benefit of your parents paying, right? Is it an economically sensible decision? Uh, is it you know, I'm not sure. Do you think you'd ever thought you'd say that as like one of Harvard's most famous alumni that you'd be sitting here saying, "I don't know if my child's going to go to a conventional university?"
The world's changing very rapidly. I mean, AI is changing should be changing education very rapidly. With the rise of AI data centers and the need for blue-collar workers, electrician, tradesman, we are seeing this increase in everyone saying that we need to send kids to these trade schools and apprenticeships and get them out of elite universities and into schools that can teach a skill.
But yet, parents across the country still dream of sending their kids these Ivy League schools. Is that a mindset shift we need to make in the United States in order to fill jobs? Well, I I think that, you know, the unfortunate thing is there are a lot of 18-year-old kids who's are told, you know, sign here to go to whatever your doesn't have to be an elite university and they're signing up for graduating with, you know, could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It costs $400,000 to go to Harvard now, basically, for 4 years, which is insane. And I I think the calculus on the investment versus the return on the investment is not being considered thoughtfully by many by many students. Now, you know, interestingly, perhaps the most elite people today go to Stanford with the intent to drop out, right?
If you hang out in Silicon Valley, uh which I don't do very often, but I was there more recently and I met like a bunch of startup entrepreneurs. Literally, the pitch is, you know, I graduate like, no. I didn't I I I dropped out from Stanford, you know, freshman year to launch XYZ company. So, I think I think the old model of universities needs to be completely rethought.
And then, yes, there are some very attractive, you know, the high return on investment education you can get as examples are giving electrician, plumber, etc. that will lead to high-paying jobs. So, you know, is an education simply to get a job? I would argue it's it should be more than that. But, you know, today you can learn pretty much everything from your AI and from from a free AI.
Uh so, it has to be much more than has to either somehow get you a really great job or position you well in life for it to be worthy of of the investment. Half of college grads are working jobs that don't require a degree, yet they're drowning in student debt. How do we fix a system that's holding an entire generation back?
So, I do feel like one of the biggest um you know, if you think about the kind of disclosure that was that is provided when you sign a mortgage application or you a credit card, um you know, there's lots of required kind of federal, you know, disclosure to make sure the person signing knows what they're stepping into or the bank wants information.
I don't think that the 18-year-old student, maybe even 17-year-old student, signing on for, you know, student debt is had was provided with the same degree of disclosure, really understood what they were stepping into. The fact that I think most people don't even know this, but student loans are are are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Right? So, you can borrow a bunch of money to buy a car, credit card, a home, get find yourself underwater, and [snorts] you can reset your life by filing for personal bankruptcy, which is no fun. And it's bad obviously for your credit record. And people only do it as a last resort. But, you can't discharge your student loans.
So, they're And you can't, you know, the mortgages you can refinance as rates go down. Student loans, generally you're you're unable to do that. So, there there many elements of student loans where people stepped into an obligation I don't think they completely understood and they they've been burdened with it.
So, I think we need to Now, all that being said, I don't think we should just wholesale erase obligations. I wrote a pretty long tweet on the topic. I think there are things we can do for people who borrowed student loans that would treat them fairly, that would ease the burden, including, by the way, if you're 40 and you're still drowning in student debt and you're effectively insolvent, you should be able to discharge these these obligations.
The reason why they were non-dischargeable is they didn't want people going to college and then when they're 23 years old, filing for bankruptcy and wiping them out. But if you're by the time if you're 40, you're pretty established in life, you still can't get out from under your student loans and and you're and you're drowning, a bankruptcy court should allow you to manage those loans like any other debt.
You've become one of the most influential voices on X. What's your secret to shaping the national conversation? Speaking the truth. How long does it take you to draft one of your long bangers? Um it depends. Uh I get into this sort of flow. Um but there have been nights where I say goodnight to my wife.
And [snorts] I I go to bed at 2:00 and you know, you can tell by the time the tweet hits the I hit the post, you know. But how do you decide, you know, you're very notorious Okay. for these long tweets. Yes. I think you were the one Halloween costume. Did you see my Halloween costume? Yes. You were the one who set the tone of why we needed more than 280 characters to write a tweet.
One, why are you choosing that medium? And two, is it just something that inspires you to have a more fullsome conversation? The one that comes out at me is what happened in your family office. Oh. The Ronda one? Yes. Because it starts a national conversation about, you know, someone not working hard at their position and other people are relating to that.
But oftentimes people aren't scared to type something that is so deeply personal or that they would get negative feedback on. Yeah, I guess I'm unafraid of negative feedback. Uh and I think the important thing I think the you know, the the country, the you know, whatever doesn't move forward if people aren't There's certain things that need to be said that aren't said.
Uh remain unsaid and they remain unsaid because of fear. Um because of fear of blowback, fear of, you know, it could hurt my employment, you know, I could get fired. And I'm I guess I'm not afraid of blowback and I'm not afraid of losing my job. So, I'm I'm well [clears throat] well positioned, if you will, to if you you know, call it take the risk of of speaking the truth.
And also the the the positive feedback I get from people who say, "Bill, I you know, thank God you were willing to sit say this. It need It needed to be said, you know, thank you for having the courage." It's nice. You know, but I I do it because I think it's the right thing to do. How long did it take you to become unafraid of negative feedback?
Because I've met a lot of people who have probably a similar network to yours who still read their Google News and their news alerts and are afraid of any bit of negative criticism. How did you get to the point where you don't care? You know, I care enormously about my reputation. Um but I you know, if someone had something negative to say about me that was true, it would bother me.
Right? But if someone just has a different point of view or you know, makes some ad hominem, you know, it doesn't affect me at all. Thick skin. People know you as a billionaire investor and outspoken political commentator, but what are you like at home? Loving. Both with my daughter and my my wife. What's your daily routine at home?
Uh wake up around 6:45. Uh I have breakfast with my 7-year-old daughter. Neri's usually hopefully sleeping in a little bit. She needs a little extra sleep. We have different sleep cycles. Um and then uh off to work, but I usually start by playing tennis in the morning. So, I play tennis for like an hour, hour and a half, which is a great way to start the day.
Go into the office. You have four children. How has your approach to fatherhood evolved over the years? Um you learn from your mistakes, I guess. You know, I I I thank my parents for everything they did right and everything they did wrong because you also learn your parents' mistakes. So, I'm not trying to be perfect.
But, yeah, I don't know. I think um you know, when my first uh I have three kids with my first wife, and uh it was a time in my life where, you know, building a company, super intensely involved, and I think my biggest challenge was, you know, while I was I was really good about being home, I would say my brain was often still processing stuff that happened during the course of the day, and I you know, I made a real effort to be a lot more present.
Um you know, I I can be a lot more present, because I'm a little less you know, I'm not building something from Actually, I'm I'm now building something from scratch, but but uh you know, my company is in a place where I'm, you know, I'm an organization where I can I don't have to be as lost in what I'm doing every day.
What's the biggest difference in how you raised your kids the first time versus having a second chance at it? Is it just being home and being more present? I was home as much before. I think I'm more present now, and also just having one child. You know, [snorts] if you have four, or if you have three, you know, it's like one-on-one versus the zone defense, right?
It's a different ball game. I've said this now, I was talking to my my sister-in-law yesterday. She has two kids, and she was telling me how busy her life is, and I was like, respectfully, I don't really want to hear how busy it is with two kids. I have four kids who, like, at any given moment, each person needs something, and they're all so little that, like, only you can fix each person's thing at that exact moment in time.
But, you have to teach them independence. You have to say, "No, you figure that out." Well, I had a child Good Good example is last night, we're doing bath time. I have a baby who's crying, who wants to be fed. I have one son who's refusing to get naked on his own to get in the bath. I have one son who's in the hallway closet looking for, like, spray soap for for And my daughter slips on the bathroom floor, and like hits her arm down like you can just hear the like crash
Woah. for the 5-year-old. Okay, so typical night. Right, typical night. Some big deal, no big deal. Each person needed something, and I had two two hands. Yeah. That was a rough one. Yeah. It was a doozy. You're married the way, you'll never Yeah. regret these moments cuz you'll you'll you'll treasure them a decades from now.
You know, it's funny you say that because like I look now like you know your iPhone does these like incredible memories, and I'm like where did my like 2-year-old daughter go? Like I miss her. Like the one now in front of me is great, but like what happened to like the squishy baby version of her? It's true.
And it's like I was there for all of it. You can have more. Yeah, you can have more. Yeah. Woof, this moment in time. I'm not sleeping, so. [laughter and gasps] You're married to Neri Oxman, who's incredibly accomplished in her own right. What's the secret to making a marriage work when both people have such demanding careers?
Um crazy in love with this woman, and uh we prioritize each other. How'd you guys meet? Uh we met uh so my ex-wife and I sent at the time we were splitting we sent an email, you know, the kind of the Gwyneth Paltrow type email that she invented to our friends saying, you know, uh we're splitting amicably.
We were splitting. And that I think later that day or the following day I got a call from a like 78-year-old Harvard professor. He's like, "Bill, I have the most amazing woman for you." And he described this woman and said her name was Neri Oxman. And then he said, "I'd like to invite you to a dinner party.
It's in a couple weeks." I said, "That's great." He said, "But just one caveat, her boyfriend's going to be there." And I said, "You know what, Marty?" Now, Marty's wonderful. He's gay, nothing, you know, but I didn't know his how good he was at selecting women. So, I you know, nothing gay men can have very good views on women, but he was older and wasn't sure, and also she had a boyfriend, so I'm like, "Ugh." You know what, Marty, why don't we wait?
Uh why don't we wait till she's no longer going out with the guy? So, lo and behold, uh we waited. Um and then about 6 months later I got a call a text from a friend saying, "Bill, I just met the most incredible woman." and described her exactly as Marty had. Uh and uh I said, "That's description sounds familiar.
I think Marty wanted to introduce me someone What What's her name?" Neri Oxman. That's crazy. Yeah. So, she had met her for the first time. Marty's known me forever. He knew Neri for decades. So, Marty did have actually very good taste. So, what was the first date? What was the pick up lines? Uh first date we met in Cambridge.
She was at MIT. We went to uh the restaurant Cafe Arts and Science. Well, you've seen this like I'm chronically online, so I'm going to apologize when I say this, but there was like um I forgot who put it out, but they were like, "Your first move for a woman needs to be you need to go buy her flowers.
You need her at a yoga studio and take her to dinner." And I'm like, "That's no woman ever importantly, uh we started the conversation and we talked for 3 months before we went on a first date. Which I think is an amazing way to meet someone. I was completely in love with her before I met her. That's like what courting used to be.
And uh we started out mobile telephony. And then I convinced her I said, "Let's go to FaceTime." And she wouldn't do that. So, I said, "How about FaceTime audio?" So, which is think, you know, higher clarity. So, we went to FaceTime audio. And then um you know my then I met her first date. I could look up a picture of her, but but that was great.
She was actually we're both sort of still like dating, uh but my French girlfriend said, "Oh, let's not break up. You can You can see someone else." I'm like, "I don't know how to see someone else." But I figured I can call someone else. So, I called her. And we started a conversation. We were just friends.
We talked. It was great. Are you going to you any more kids? We've tried. We would love to. But we we don't think it's technically possible. Mary had seven or eight miscarriages during COVID. Oh, wow. I'm sorry. We blame it on COVID or the vaccine. We don't know which. Do you believe that the COVID vaccine had to mess with a lot of women's fertility?
There is indications that it that it did. Yeah. I want to ask you about your daughter Lucy. For our audience may not know, your daughter suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage earlier this year. How's she doing? She's doing remarkably well uh based on where she started. Uh and I've learned a lot about neuro and neuro rehab, you know, 99.99% of people in her condition, they would have not let her.
They would have not done the surgery that saved her life. Or they if they had done the surgery, she would have died in a few months in a nursing home kind of thing. Um and she is cognitively fine. And she we took her to the Harry Styles concert at Madison Square Garden. I can show you the video. And she's having fun with her friends.
But she can't, you know, she can say no, she can say yeah. She can communicate facially. Uh but she can't speak yet. Or she's relearning speech. She's relearning to walk. And she's her vision is extremely impaired. She her left eye, she has 20/2000 vision. That's it. What do they say causes something like that?
So for for someone out there, like how do you look for warning signs? Are there any warning signs? The only way um had we done a had she had an MRI. But she had no symptoms. Uh now we want to examine her oral ring data going back. We're we're doing this to see if there was something that would have been suggestive of this was a congenital malformation.
It's called an AVM, arteriovenous malformation. Uh and it leads to a weakening of the veins in your brain. You can have it your whole life. It could lead to a small bleed or it could burst. Um but other than taking your child for an MRI, and you wouldn't do that unless there was a reason. You said that some people wouldn't have gone through with the surgery.
At the time, did you just know intuitively that was the right thing to do? Well, yeah. So, when I say that, basically, what was unusual what you know, some if you got some people have this I just someone reached out recently, 2 weeks ago, they were in the in the gym and they collapsed. They get taken into the hospital right away and you do the surgery to release the pressure on the brain once you realize there's a large bleed cuz the the large bleed puts pressure.
The brain is a confined in a confined space. So, you actually remove part of the skull the to release the pressure. She had been on the ground for 15, 16 hours. So, with that much time they assume brain death, no potential for recovery. And that's why a lot of hospitals, a lot of surgeons wouldn't have done the surgery.
You know, of we of course saved her life. And we were very fortunate that we did. And she, by the way, my daughter is back in terms of she's the same person she was before. [snorts] You know, cognitively she's fine. It's just you know, vision, speech, and her ability to walk. And I think all of these things are recoverable.
Uh either biologically with rehab and otherwise or with BCI and Neuralink and a bunch of others. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on with brain computer interfaces and AI right now. Like there just saw a company the other day where you you know, you wear a baseball cap and it and it you know, all the the brain is one of the last remaining incredible sources of training data for a model.
Mhm. And they're going to be training a lot of models on brain data while people are you know, you know, speaking so that you can eventually, you know, the CIA will put a cap on you and and know everything you're thinking. I think we'll be there. But the good news about that, other than other people being able to read your brain,
[snorts] is it means people like Lucy Bull, even if she's not able to recover fully her speech, she'll be able to speak again. And the same you know, you wear glasses that have a little camera, you know, her issue is her optic nerves are damaged, so it's the it's kind of the wire between the eye and the the the the visual cortex that is damaged and you can bypass that I think with technology.
So I I've told her you're going to see again. It's just a matter of time. When we were talking about Harvard, you said you had other philanthropic ideas. I think this is the one that you're referring to is pouring, you know, your life's work into not only trying to find solutions for Lucy, but for others who are going through this.
What's that progress like and what are you setting up? Is it individualized as you're looking for Lucy's cures or solutions and then extrapolating that onto a larger portion of the population? So she's the test case. That was [clears throat] my inspiration for the team at Mount Sinai did a fabulous job and I recruited the team from Mount Sinai to lead to assist us in building this what I think will be significant significantly impact the field.
The idea here is it Well, here's where it's the economics have driven the problem. So neurosurgery is an incredibly profitable part of the hospital. You get reimbursed a lot for neurosurgery. You don't get a lot reimbursed a lot for rehabilitation after neurosurgery. But without the rehabilitation, the surgery is not that helpful.
So we have a lot of people who are extremely impaired that could be much better off [snorts] or could live a full life or could make a complete recovery if they had better rehab and recovery and we've really under invested in those areas because of the way reimbursement works. So we're building this with philanthropy so we don't have to worry about at least in the short term reimbursement.
And then we can kind of work on helping fix the the medical system. But the idea here is to bring in one place um the uh you know, the best neurosurgeons, the best neurologists, uh the best neuroscientist, the best rehab people, the best BCI uh and technologists and create kind of this almost like a ecosystem where everyone's learning from everyone else and then we're actually treating patients.
We're doing basic science research to to help us inform how you know you know why is this why did this mitochondrial treatment we did for Lucy's eyes help her vision begin to recover and how can we make it work more efficiently? Let's understand the biological mechanism behind this so that we can modify it in such way to help the patient.
And it is a major effort. I'm actually in DC today to speak at the there's a rehabilitative the major rehabilitation conference is here later today. You talked about BCI and how powerful it can eventually be. Does it concern you how far China's gotten with their development of BCI and the potential dangers it could have honestly in implementation to see where you know United States companies are in comparison to where China is?
Well, China's made major advances not just in BCI but in in biotechnology and and they have a much more streamlined approval process for getting drugs through a pipeline. You know competition from China of course concerns me but it also motivates me. Um we just need to keep the United States a place where people where the best talent wants to be and and and we can compete with anyone in the world.
We also need a I I think some of the new right to try kind of legislation is very very important uh enabling people to you know the amount of time it takes to get from kind of a potential cure or treatment for a disease and getting into patients just is way too long and that's particularly true for some of these technologies.
You think about the pace of technological development and then the amount of time it takes for something to get approved by the FDA. By the time [snorts] something's approved it's like an outdated technology. These are among the things we need to fix. You've achieved a level of wealth that almost nobody on the earth will ever experience.
What's something you thought would make you happy when you become a billionaire that turned out not to matter after all? That's a good question. Um so the Everything makes me happy. I'm just a positive optimistic person. You know, the the most my principal motivation in life was always independence.
I wonderful parents kind of strict but I I never wanted to be controlled by my parents, my teachers, my boss. I wanted to be independent and on the positive side, you know, financial resources provides a great degree of independence independence to speak, you know, independence to to speak to to write a 4,000 word post on Twitter about something important.
I wrote a 4,600 word post in January of 2024 on DEI that I think I was the first person of, you know, notable person to actually raise the alarm bells about how DEI was working in practice and what the implications were. I think it had major policy impact. I hear this from I heard this from like, you know, senators, governors, you obviously a lot of CEOs saying, "Bill, you know, thanks for shining a spotlight on this."
Did you know you were starting a trend when you decided to start writing your long posts? No. That they would become infamous? No. What's the craziest thing you've ever spent money on? These are good questions, but I I I don't I don't I don't have a good uh We'll do one more in this series. Funny funny story, I uh my nephew convinced me to buy this really important historically important watch and literally today on the way here I got a call from a very notable watch person saying someone wants to buy your watch for like five times what I paid for it.
That was kind of crazy, but I I bought it, sits in a safe and it's inspired We're actually one of my other projects is we're building a watch museum in New York City. It's going to be the preeminent watch I like watches. I have a little watch company. Bremont which is a British watch company that I I walked into a store and and uh I liked the watches and I bought a bunch of watches and then I wrote a little note.
I said, "Well, who owns this store?" Cuz I Yeah, who owns this company? I wrote a note to the uh the owners, and then I ended up owning the company. So, it's kind of a fun story. Maybe that's the craziest thing I've ever done. That is That's pretty crazy. That's crazy, yeah. go buy a watch company? Yeah, small.
Yeah. But now, it's like a fun little hobby, and my nephew's really involved, and it's fun. Is there anything you refuse to spend money on, no matter how wealthy you become? So, I used to own a parking company, uh and I have trouble paying for parking. No longer owning the parking garage. So, like, you know, like I parked on the street for a meaningful amount of time when I was uh few just a few relatively few years ago.
I had figured out how to do that in New York City, cuz I just did hated the idea of paying $800 a month, whatever it is. And I finally more when I moved into my current apartment, I sort of sucked it up and paid some ridiculous amount of money for a parking space. You're in rooms with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
Who's the most impressive person you've ever met? I've met a a lot of really impressive people. I don't know that I could rank order them. Could you do like a couple? I mean, obviously, Elon is pretty pretty impressive, interesting person, um So, I would say it's a pretty long list of uh interesting people that I've met over time.
Uh that's actually one of the fortunate things of of uh doing well is that you get to meet interesting people. All right, we're going to play a quick game of would you rather. Sure. Would you rather have Warren Buffett's investment instincts or Donald Trump's ability to command a room? Both. Pick one.
Commanding rooms really important. Would you rather be forced to give Harvard 100 million or have Harvard name a gender studies department after you? I'd rather give 100 million. Would you rather debate Zaron Mondani on capitalism or Hasan on Israel? Mondani. Would you rather find that there's a secret billionaire group chat without you or be part of the group chat, but get caught talking about everyone in it?
Who said who came up with these? It's funny. I read them for the first time with you. Okay, ask me again. I got to I got to think that one through. That one really me up, Ash. Would you rather find out that there's a secret billionaire group chat without you, or be part of the group chat, but get caught talking about everyone in it?
The first. Would you rather personally assemble enough IKEA furniture to fill your entire house, or attend a week-long DEI retreat? Assemble the furniture. Sense of satisfaction. I love putting IKEA furniture together. You do? Mhm. I did it when my daughter went to college. That's terrible. No, it's great.
Actually, it's It's a good thing for a kid to, you know, Actually, [snorts] at at various AI schools, one of the requirements is you have to at, you know, in second grade, you have to build an IKEA furniture. I built my child's like IKEA play kitchen. Took me 6 hours, and I was like, "Not doing this again." The play kitchen.
You can probably go and get someone to do it for you. Sense of satisfaction. Yeah. What's a conspiracy theory that you believe in? What's a conspiracy theory I don't believe in? Pick one. Um It's What's one I believe in or don't believe in? Believe in. That there have been some unexplained uh um objects that have landed on Earth.
How about that? That's our most common one, by the way. Oh, really? Yeah. We ask every single person. That's the most common answer. Hm. What is your most cancelable opinion that has nothing to do with politics? Most cancelable? None of my opinions are cancelable. Not one? No. What gives you the ick?
People lie. Who's the most famous person in your phone? President. What's the last book you read? Um halfway through Money to Burn by Bill Cohan about Apollo. What's your biggest guilty pleasure? Dark chocolate. Ooh, that's a good one. I have really good dark chocolate. 100%. Can I tell you mine is but I put the dark chocolate in
I I eat almost a chocolate bar a day. No. 100% chocolate and it's amazing. Most 100% chocolates terrible. I know. This is called Amadea. It's amazing. By the way, the funny thing is I I tweeted a picture of it on Twitter. Yeah. I said this is like the best chocolate. for a second. Okay. And uh and then it's sold out and I couldn't get it anymore.
No. So then I wrote a tweet complaining on Twitter that I can't get my favorite chocolate anymore and then I started getting people started sending boxes of this. I have a lot [snorts] of the chocolate now. And so it's in my office so I'm like I I get hungry and I eat a one whole bar. You got to mix it with frozen wild blueberries.
That's great. I'm going to give you the name of the place not on camera so it doesn't sell out. Okay. That you mix the dark chocolate with these frozen wild blueberries and it is the complete level up. By the way, it's very healthy. Very good for the brain. So good. Both the chocolate and the blueberry.
So last question for Todd. If you could host a dinner party with three people that are alive, what are you eating and who's at the table? I think it would be interesting. What are we eating? Why don't we have sushi. And um I want to pick right here. Who do I want to have? Dead or alive? Okay, well that's How about Washington, Jefferson, and uh Franklin.
That'd be interesting. You're eating sushi with them? That'd be a wild experience to eat sushi with the founding fathers. No, wild boar with them. Wild boar? Yeah, that we just shot or something. Do you like to go hunting? I No, I'm a I'm a fisherman not a hunter. Okay. Thank you so much for doing this.
Sure. Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Katie Miller podcast. We're live 6:00 p.m. every Tuesday night where you get your podcast. See you then.
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