Transcription
This is a very difficult question, but if anyone I was going to ask anyone, it would have to be you. What's one of the first things they should be considering at this moment to safeguard their future, their family, their finances?
I don't think it's a difficult question. I um I think it's it's very clear they have to understand how the life cycle works with robotics accelerating at the speed of of light with Optimus and Tesla and all the things they're doing and all these other companies, humanoid robots, and then with artificial intelligence having trillions of dollars plowed into it and accelerating. We're in this crazy boom at the moment. With these two things combining, you're going to be able to have a humanoid robot who that can navigate human spaces, but is also smarter than I am. lawyers, accountants, lots of people in the medical profession. Why would one need them if we had a humanoid robot that is smarter than all of us and has a PhD and everything?
There'll be be uh a limited number of winners and a bunch of losers. And um I think it's going to create much greater polarity. I'm a practical guy. I'm a realistic guy. I made my money. I'm in the business. And it's my nature to try to be realistic and to bet on how things will transpire. If you look at the probabilities um and the paths and the symptoms, there is a challenge. The United States is facing a number of those challenges. And we're at a moment where it's a question of whether the system and the people can get control of the situations and deal with it strongly in a way where they are not fighting to the point of damaging each other and damaging the prospects for the future.
The United States and China are in the big technology competitions. The others are really not in the game. They don't have the money that this innovation and talent in a sense to play at that scale and so on. So we have a great you know technology war which can be used to create great advances but at the same time could be used for great conflicts. And so now the question is going to be who wins the technology war because the winner of the technology war is going to win all wars. Okay? In other words, they'll win the economic war. They'll win the geopolitical war because technology. And I'm not saying anything that hasn't repeated through history.
Well, what happens next in history?
Well, usually there's a big fight for control, political revolutions and things like that. the system breaks down because they don't trust the system. Will the legal system resolve that? Will the parliamentary system resolve that these disputes satisfactorily to the satisfaction of those people and the other people who have different points of view and the sides won't believe it. And this goes back this goes back to Rome. It goes back to Caesar. It you know the Senate and you know this goes back through history all the time.
Do you think much about time frames? Cuz when I was watching when I was going through the changing world order, there seems to be somewhat consistent or predictable time frames when these these transitions happen. Do you think about where we are?
Well, they're long-term big cycles. It's it's like a life cycle. On average, they are about a life cycle. About 80 years.
We're 80 years from World War II.
80 years from World War II. Yeah.
And you're seeing the symptoms.
Yeah. Symptoms are clear. They're all in that book. You can see the charts of all the systems.
Is it something to be worried about or concerned about if you're in the United States?
No I mean, yes. And then the question is how you as an individual handle it?
How do I as an individual handle it? Well, first of all, I think I think you have to be aware of the situation and the risks for me and my family though in terms of risks and how I should um counteract those risks. Is it a case of me saving for a rainy day?
Is it?
That's part of it.
Yeah.
There's a saying in Hong Kong um a Chinese saying which is a smart rabbit has three holes. And what that means is you can see is it the UK or the US and and I can then move to the better place and get out of the place that's a terrible place. So can I successfully be an immigrant or whatever and change my location throughout history that's been important. So the ability to go to good places and away from bad places. Um so that's part of it. Um secondly, building your financial strength is important which has to do with how you earn, spend and save. That will determine the amount and then what you do with that amount is invest and so how you invest uh is also important. So if you have your financial ability and you can make the move and then you have knowledge you know about what's happening so that you can change things those are the things you need.
So I want to ask about your early life cycle and what the most important strategic or wealth generating decisions you made that you would encourage everybody to consider if their nature is aligned to yours.
Okay. My nature was I hated school. I didn't like the whole thing of remembering this and remembering this and then give it back to me. And there were these uh you know history like there's William the Conquer in 1066 and what did he do and you know like all of that was what education represented. And when I was um 12, a kid, I earned money with odd jobs like um I had a paper route and um I mowed lawns and I cattied and I took my catting money and when I was 12, I got everybody was talking about the stock market. So I put some money in the stock market. I didn't know what I was doing, of course, but I um I picked um the stock that was the only stock I ever heard of that was selling for less than $5 a share. And my reasoning was I could buy more shares, so if it went up, I could make more money. Okay, that was a stupid criteria, but it was a company that was about to go bankrupt. And another company acquired it and it tripled in price. and I said, "I like this game."
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If you make your work and your passion the same thing so that you're really enjoying your work, you'll have an enjoyable satisfactory life and you'll probably be better at your career as a result. You probably advance and so on. So you have a happier life and you will have a more probably a more successful life. But it is true that the careers that you choose will have financial implications. And if you say I want to be a poet or something along those lines, you better consider the financial implications of that, that doesn't mean that you have to go make a ton of money cuz I think that that's I think a lot of people fall into that trap that they think the money is um like vast amounts of money is vast amounts of success and that's not true. In other words, is your work and your passion the same thing? So I think that what brings people happiness is meaningful work and meaningful relationships. If you have meaningful work, you know, that you're into and your, you know, your passion and your work's the same thing and you have meaningful relationships, whether through that work or beyond, you're going to have probably a great life. Okay? And so you have to keep that in mind. And it doesn't have much correlation past a certain level of money.
Mhm.
uh doesn't have much correlation with um that well-being with the amount of money you have. And if you see studies across societies and you'll see that past that certain basic level, there's no correlation between the amount of money they have and how much happiness they have or well-being. Okay? That the highest level of correlation across societies and studies of happiness and well-being is community. Do you have a sense of community? you have those around you who are your community, you'll live longer that way. You'll have a more joyous life and it'll be a better outcome. But anyway, so thinking about those things I think is important.
AI is um a bit of an alien that seems to have entered the room um and has is going to change more almost every every industry.
Great.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. No, truly if you are um working with it, controlling it, if it's a good partner to be able to get a lot of leverage, it's truly fantastic. As I said in almost everything I did, we had the criteria, we had the systemized. Would you do that? Would you not do that? How do you know how does reality work? What are the principles? and and so it's a fantastic leveraging like I described you know I would make the decision-making model like the computer chess game that would make it well now it's better than ever those those resources so it leverages you enormously we will not need a lot of those jobs for the reasons that you're saying okay and then the question is what our society does
and what do you think we do in such a world.
I think we fight over about what we do unfortunately. Um but as I say I I don't think we have escaped a world where most people to have a healthy society most people have to be productive and prosperous. And there certainly needs to be a redistribution policy.
I don't think that's just a redistribution of money policy because uselessness and money may not be a great combination. So I think that has to be figured out and the question is whether we're too fragmented to figure that out and agree on it. And I'm worried about that. We have to enable people. Okay. What what works is finding great people, talented people, and identifying those who you want to bet on and enabling them. And that works. That's the most important force, much more important than money. Okay? Because you could see who's got the money and power and where did they come from? Where did Nvidia come from? Where did where did they all come from? Okay? There are guys like you, entrepreneur in a sense, who's been enabled, okay, by you because you have the talent and people want to bet on you and that's the capital market. So they give you money to help enable you cuz they want to bet on you and then good things happen.