Reid Hoffman

But like, for example, you go, oh my God, quantum computing, it's going to break security and our banking system is going to collapse and our public encryption and security safety is going to collapse. And oh my God, there's a disaster. Like, well, look, we'll have to figure that out because that'll be an issue once we get to what is somewhere maybe

minimum 2000 or 5000 logical quantum bits, qubits. So that's at 2000 to 5000 or more is when you get into the encryption issues. I'd call it 150 to 250 logical qubits. So a complete order of magnitude down, quantum computers become great at helping invent new medicines, new drugs, new semiconductors, new physical materials, things at a micro scale.

That's going to be the first thing from quantum computing. So the moment that we can get there, it'll have enormous prosperity benefits well before we have to navigate these things. And so I'm very hopeful about quantum computing. I just don't know the timeframe.

So I think we have had people with that much power in history, but I think part of modern society is to create checks and balances, to create accountability within your government. So like, for example, Traditionally, when you have people who go into government, they put their business stuff in blind trust and do other things in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

So I think the worry is not necessarily the power as much as the conflicts of interest and navigating the conflicts of interest with ethics and integrity, which I think is the thing to watch with the next administration.

Yeah, look, and so I think we want that to be within the hands of democratically elected governments, or at least certain parts of it. And I think that's important. But by the way, you know, I mean, I think while there are things that I have been and probably will be in the future critical of Elon about, the electric vehicle revolution... owes itself to Elon.

The revolution in space ISPs with Starlink owes itself to Elon. And by the way, the initial defense of Ukraine would not have worked without Starlink. So there's enormous positive contributions here. So it's a complicated topic. Now, that being said, I would want the halls of democracy and government and the conflict of interest within personal businesses to be kept very distinct.

I think we may see some challenge in that.

Well, they actually kind of go together. Elon has a conviction that what he believes is true is absolutely true, even when all of the evidence is against his belief. That allows him to do, I can see that we can colonize Mars and here we go, right? And that creates SpaceX, that creates Starlink, that creates... And so huge amount of kudos and power.

But then that's similarly when he sees a conspiracy theory on Twitter...

probably being created by russian intelligent assets to destabilize the us it goes oh that looks right to me and then he'll retweet it that's correct and so it's the same impulse which has created these amazing things but also has these destructive things should one not have policing on tweets i had this debate before with many american guests and i'm like that can be very dangerous and damaging to have someone retweet with his power and weight to the audience that he does

Well, so I think there's a really interesting distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of reach. If you're standing at the local corner and standing on a soapbox and saying, the moon is made out of blue cheese and the earth is flat and so forth, it's fine, go ahead. When we have our collective media systems, e.g.

reach, it's important to have some ability to say, well, we should bring in studies and expertise into it. And by the way, this is what we've made progress with science. This is how we've made progress with law, is we use thoughtful groups of people to bring a notion of truth. In science, it's reproducibility of science experience.

It's scientific panels which decide on things being advocated as true. In juries, you have, in the US, 12 people who listen to it and have to agree. That's the way we do things. And so we need to kind of figure out how to apply that also within, call it,

Well, so, look, if I could, through a democratic process, because I believe in democracies, I believe in collective governance, get our society to agree to say, hey, what we should do is identify some topics that panels of experts can yield to a truth determination on. What I would prefer we do with all media, and by the way, it's not just social media. It's also cable news. It's also talk radio.

We say, look, if you're going to speak your opinion, which you may do, you can say the world is flat. I can get on Harry's podcast and go, I believe the world is flat. And then what you say is, oh, by the way, expert opinion says that's completely false.

And just along with my saying, the world is flat, expert opinion comes up and says, hey, by the way, if you're listening to this, you should also consider that expert opinion says this is totally false, right? And so it allows you freedom of speech, but it then allows a collective learning system. And it says, I would prefer that, but we need to get there through a democratic process.

I was never a client of Jeffrey Epstein's. I never had anything directly to do with Epstein. Everything I did was fundraising for MIT. My mistake, which I publicly apologize for, is I relied on MIT's vetting. to say, hey, we vetted him and it's okay to do this. I obviously regret that. I've issued an apology about burnishing brands because the damage to victims and other kinds of things.

But of course, the modern age is such that these things get reported and so then have a media impulse. So you have to be responsive to that.

Yes, exactly. And the funny thing is, is the right wing says woke is cancel culture. And yet that's the shit they do. It's, of course, normally so destructive. I'm very careful about the things I say. I only say them when I have some ground for evidence that I can speak publicly to, that I can have other people validate why it is I'm saying it, right? That kind of thing.