 Boom, what's up everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Alan Sokian. We are on site in San Mateo, California at the beautiful Hero City. We are now gonna be talking to Tim Draper. Hello. Hello. Great, thanks for having me on your show. We're super pumped to host you. I'm jazzed. Tim Draper's background, for those that don't know, Tim is a world-renowned venture capital investor, founder of Draper Associates, Draper Fisher-Gervits and DFJ and Draper University. His venture successes range from Skype to Tesla to Baidu. He's credited with originating viral marketing. He's bullish on Bitcoin taking down fiat currencies and is passionate about entrepreneurs driving their visions through funding, education, media and government reform. Tim and his family host Meet the Drapers, the first reality show where entrepreneurs pitch their startups, get asked hard questions by judges and viewers get the opportunity to you to invest for as little as $10. Find all of Tim's links below. Tim at the draper.com, draper.vcdfj.com, draperuniversity.com, Meet the drapers.com as well as his LinkedIn and Twitter profiles. All right, Tim, let's start things off with one of our favorite questions to ask our guests. What are your thoughts on the direction of our world? You know, this is really a great question because over the last 50 years, if you just watch the news, you think the sky is falling. You think the world is coming to an end. But over the last 50 years, think of how our world has, what's transpired. People talk about all the murders and murder rate is so far down. If people talk about, oh, you know, we're not moving progress along or whatever. The difference between how we live now and how we live 50 years ago is extraordinary. I mean, a lot of people didn't have, still don't, but still running water, electricity. Since then, things like the computer, the smartphone, Uber, you know, some extraordinary things have happened. We've been able to communicate across around the world. So if you ask me what I think is gonna be happening moving forward, I think we're gonna have an acceleration of progress. Amazing change is gonna happen and I think we're gonna see the decentralization of everything, of the world. I think the world's gonna go from tribal. We were all tribal because we were sort of protecting our things in our space and now we're gonna go global because the tribes don't matter anymore. The geographic borders matter much less than they ever did before and over time, I think governments are gonna have to compete across border the way Estonia has already started to do. So this is gonna be a really interesting time. I think we're gonna go through this amazing, there's gonna be an amazing leap forward for humanity. It's gonna go from this world where we really cared about what the borders were and what our government said to where we're starting to start thinking about how are we going to approach humanity and how are all of us gonna be doing flying through the world on this beautiful pearl we live on? Okay, so throughout the last 50 years, yes. We've had such an increase in the quality of life. There's been billions of more people added to the planet. Exponential technology is, and geopolitics are a little, can seem a little hectic at times and sometimes things like synthetic biology can do things like grow meat in bioreactors and that's fantastic. Also can be used as for biowarfare. So, and with all the other, like you said also there's this decentralization that's occurring from the turning the triangle to a circle, the me to the we, all these types of things. How are those, the exponential technologies, the geopolitics plus a lot of the issues with their disconnection from the planetary spirit, how are those coming together and playing out for you? So, you mentioned the population. The population over the last 50 years has gone from three to eight billion and the next 50 years it's expected to go from eight to 12 billion. Most of that growth is gonna be in the African continent. That's gonna show, we're gonna have a real boom in Africa because there's gonna be a much younger population there and that's gonna be great. Media and media age of about 18 right now. Yeah, and really booming and Nigeria'll be the biggest of all of those. And so, and I think that that world will rise and so we're gonna start and some of the other lesser developed countries are also gonna rise around the globe and I think we're not gonna feel so different going across borders and so I think that's gonna be really interesting. You mentioned a new technology that can do all this great stuff like you can replicate meat without killing an animal and you can, but you can also use it for bio warfare. That's always been our choice. Whenever there's a new technology, that technology first tends to win all the wars but it also tends to move society forward in a magic and imaginative ways. And I think that's always gonna be the case. There will always be the group that says, hey, how can I use this for power and then how can I use this to improve humanity? That'll be the other group. And the ones I think that are clinging to power right now are I think are sort of a dying breed. I actually think that humanity is winning out and it has to do with social media. With all the communications vehicles we have now, I kind of had the sense that when we had free communication around the world, when we did Hotmail and I came up with a viral marketing idea. Well, that was going to really open the world up and it really has. So that we're all very, very interconnected and interrelated through just friendships but also through businesses and through walks of life, different ways of operating. And so that's when you see one country threatening another. You think, wait a second. That's just that guy, that leader, so-called leader, being mad at that other leader because down at the human level, we already have great friends in those countries. I mean, I think of all this friction between the US and China. That's friction between the two leaders of those countries. It's not friction between us. We have amazing relationships with all those people in China. I've been working in China for 30, 40 years now and had built some amazing relationships. Now I look at any kind of a war or whatever that kind of the danger zone as the equivalent of just shooting off your own leg in order to see if you can hobble a little faster with your remaining leg. It really doesn't make sense except to those leaders who are trying to cling to power. That's gonna be the threat. That's gonna be we are moving to a new level. Society is moving to a new way of thinking. The leaders have to catch up. And it's interesting, the leaders of these smaller countries are going, yeah, how do I do this? How do I use Bitcoin? What do I do with, how do I get more venture capital here? How do I get more citizens to come to my country? And they're also saying things like, wait, how did Estonia do the virtual citizenship thing? How do I do that? Malaysia already has a virtual residency program and Kazakhstan's working on a virtual citizenship program. So there are lots of countries that are all kind of going, huh, this is interesting. Making sure people can't just disappear off of the face of the planet for their land or for their money, all different types of things in a decentralized way. You are, I'm really, I love hearing about the, you've been here for doing venture capital here 35 years. The relations with China, like you said as well, just to being able to see the internet and the exponential technology age really flourished thanks to a lot of the tech in Silicon Valley here. And then seeing some of the promises of the internet, when everyone is connected, when there is a true decentralized way of communication, can then we identify the signal that is being pushed up? And can we then, like you said, the power structures that are trying to hold onto greed or corruption, but rather have those die out, find the signal, have those die out over time? That mentality and view seems to be the one that is we're aiming to really all transition to. And I'm curious on a spiritual connection to earth, how do you see that maturity for us? Are we really connected to the essence of how we all evolved here together? Well, it's pretty interesting because if the media, the press, at least the popular press is trying to hold us back, going back the other way. I mean, they're very good at saying what's happening today, but the idea that we're moving towards something is not a part of our mainstream media. They're much more, they're much more happier to report on a military threat somewhere or a friction between two countries. They love reporting on that. Fear. They're actually, yeah, they sell fear is what really is going on. Well, it turns out that countries are not putting up with that as much anymore. So countries are sort of saying, well, look, we got a bad dictator. We got Facebook, we got Twitter, we got email, we can spread the word and have the overthrow of a bad government. And that kind of thing is going to start happening. Or we can spread the word, get out of this country and leave that guy to fall under his own weight. I think we've got, it is gonna be a really interesting time. We're about to go through something that is more interesting than the internet, more interesting than I think anything that's happened since we were first tribal. All of a sudden we've got this new thing. Humanity's gonna go through this new change and it may not change again for 20,000 years. Inclusive fitness. Yeah, this open, transparent world that all kind of figures out how to operate. And I think that that figuring out is gonna be a really interesting opportunity and you're gonna see a number of different breakthroughs. And a lot of it does come from new technologies. New technologies open people's eyes to new ways of thinking. Who ever imagined that people in the city would try to operate without automobiles? Simultaneously, simultaneously it's also doing the addiction process to the variable reward system that are the news feeds rather than the connection to the trees, the plants, the animals, the sun, the thing that gives us life here. So there's simultaneously technology causing a disconnection from source, from spirit while it also causes us to be able to talk to each other across the world. Yeah, I don't know what it is in humans that want that fear in their head. We're less fearful now, basically. There's less to worry about, really. I mean less life-threatening things to worry about. And so they're looking for those because that's the way we were made. It was like fight or flight and run and whatever. And that fear thing is a little bit of like it lights up the brain. It's like, whoa, hey, I'm afraid. Let me go figure something out. Well, now that figure something out is just, you can figure stuff out in your business or your life or whatever. Your love life, a lot of ways to figure things out. But if you've already kind of got all those things kind of figured out, you rely on the news to give you that fear thing that sends off the endorphin that drives it. And yes, it does take a lot of the soul out of society and people really do need to detox away from the news. Away from the news. And parse for signal with greater vigilance, critical thinking. Get connected with the world around them, the people around them, connecting with people. I've seen a lot less connections with people recently because of that. And I've seen a lot less connection with nature and the animals and the plants of the world. You see a lot less of that. And that's why all of a sudden there's all this attachment to dogs or to their cats. Yeah. And their kids, nuclear family rather than that global village vibe, which we're in many ways we're heading to. Tim, a couple more, let's do some rapid fire stuff. And then if we can, we may come back and do another round with you. On rapid fire stuff, 35 years venture capital, Silicon Valley, give us a profound takeaway from what this experience has been like. Right, technically 33 years. 33. That's 34 right here. Well, maybe it's 34 now. Okay, so we're getting there. So you'll ask me again and I'll say, wait, was that 33 or 33? As you get older, you miss those years. So here's the way it looked. Way back when it was very much a gentlemen's club and they all kind of got together and they saw an entrepreneur and they said, I'll throw a little money in, I'll throw a little money in and why don't we just say, we'll split it with the entrepreneur, 50-50. Well, that did very well and so more money went in, more people watched, more people realized that, hey, I can do that too and so it has spread and venture capital and entrepreneurship has spread to where now, rather than me going door to door and knocking on any door that said something software, now I am barraged. We have something like 20,000 business plans that come to my email address every year. A year, yeah. Wow. And so we're, and I get to fund about 20 or 30 of them. But you can also distribute the ones that you think to your network. So, but there are lots of other venture capitalists, there are lots of ways to do venture capital. There was the possibility that ICOs would replace venture capital. Crypto, Bitcoin have really kind of changed things. Eventually, I believe that I'll be able to raise a fund in Bitcoin, put it out in Bitcoin, have the entrepreneurs pay their employees and suppliers in Bitcoin and then have the whole thing build into a smart contract so that my investors get exactly what they're due at the exact time and it could end up being a really great experience. And inclusive stake holding to some of the consumers, all this type of stuff. Yeah, it gives lawyers and accountants more, they can give you more abstract advice rather than the boring stuff that they have to spend 90% of their time doing. Kind of brings up AI. One way to look at the world is everything is gonna be replaced by AI. So just think about what part of your job is mundane. That will be replaced by AI and then think, how will you respond? How do you do better with this new world? And it's kind of fun to think about. There are a lot of things that I do repetitively and I would be happy to do those by AI so that I was freed up to do other things. To your creative flow states. Okay Tim, let's talk about what the transition has been with civilization over the last thousands of years. We had money come into play and now with the internet and the decentralization of things and the speed at which we can just do something like communicate and then exchange value with digital currency that's on a decentralized ledger rather than a centralized currency. This is a massive moment with being able to exchange value. This is why you are I think so bullish on cryptocurrencies. And so I want you to just give us that core essence of like internet, exponential technology, digitization of currency. Why is it so profound? So most currencies were started just because people trusted them. It was like the promise of gold or started out being shells and then it was gold and then it was the promise of gold and then it was a promise that the government would back you up which is a little less of a promise. Well and that was a given government and that government was tied to a geographic territory. All of a sudden we have a currency that is not tied to a government and not tied to a geographic territory. Well that frees us because governments have always used that currency to control us in some ways, keep controls over that currency. Well this frees us. We can operate across border much easily. We can move money across border much easily, much more easily and we reduce the friction significantly. You wonder why are those banks so big and those bankers all so rich? Why are they all dressed so well? Well it's because two and a half to 4% of every transaction you ever do is picked up by the credit card company and the bank gets the bulk of that. That would go away and so you do see the banks feeling threatened here and for good reason because if you use Bitcoin instead of dollars, the banker doesn't control your Bitcoin, he controls your dollars. So I think you have this new opportunity for a currency that is frictionless, not no two and a half to 4% transparent. Everybody can see exactly where it goes so you keep perfect records. It is open, it's cross border so you can use it anywhere. You can go from one country to another, pull down your Bitcoin and everything's fine and it's a great store of value but it's also gonna be faster than the Visa network. So this is gonna be one of those things where it's a sea change. There is new technology and it is better, faster, cheaper than anything else out there. We're gonna move that way and governments have to figure out how they're gonna adapt to not controlling everybody through the currency. Beautifully synthesized and also the underlying technology of blockchain. You were giving some examples earlier about being able to have people be identified also to have smart contracts. You gave a couple examples of that as well. Some other rapid fire things on the way out. What are your thoughts about what happens pre-birth and post-death? Oh, that's fun. Pre-birth, I haven't spent a lot of time on pre-birth but I know post-death, we're still connected. So that is a really, I just know we are because I, and I wasn't 100% sure until my mom died and she left us with this giant rainbow, spectacular rainbow that came from nowhere and all of a sudden there was this spectacular rainbow and I thought, because we were all sort of flipping out, we had just lost our mother and just by going outside all of a sudden we saw this spectacular rainbow and we've seen, there have been other sort of interesting signs, I won't go into all of them. There is more. And I think that at first they wanna make sure, like when people die, they wanna make sure that everything goes according to their plan and after that I think they have another adventure and so that over time they move on to their other adventure. So I think there is more and I don't know whether the two things are linked, whether you, if you do well here, you do well there but I do know that we're connected. I also believe that we're interconnected with each other throughout the world. How many times have you thought of somebody and then seen them at the grocery store about an hour later? That kind of thing, we are all interconnected so there are all of these, there may be neurons firing in here and there may be, by the way, your gut actually, actually does have a brain to it. And so your brain and your gut, not only are in this body but they are also connected with all these other bodies. We are interconnected, we're actually connected with the plants and animals too and I think those connections are not as easy, not as strong but they are there and then the before birth, could be that adventure you were talking about, the next adventure. They could be in a previous adventure. Previous adventure to this next. I mean what's interesting is, I don't know if other people have felt this but I have felt that I would get some new piece of educational material and I'll look at it and I'll go, I already know this and I know it's new to my life but I already know it. I'm not sure why that is or how that happened but I already know it. So I think that there are things that connect from previous life to now and from now to future life. And so I'm, you know, after my mom died, all of a sudden I realized, hey, it's okay. It's okay, this is just a part of a longer, much more extraordinary adventure. In story of civilization. And then there's something I always like to sort of throw out to my students and other people. Look up at the stars and realize that you're just on this little marble flying through space. Pearl, I guess. Look up at the stars and then think how amazing, how many stars there are and all that. Think of, is there an end to that? And then you think, wait, if there's an end, what are you, boxed in, how does that work? Or is there no end to that? And both are equally freaky to think about. I love Draper University. I love what you do with them. Like the youth there, from around the world are coming together and you're helping them with entrepreneurship, telling them these stories. Tim, how about, are we in a simulation? No. I don't think so. I think there are too many fun, interesting things where you can control them and make interesting new things happen. You can go mold your future. You can mold the service you're gonna provide to people. You can do so many things with your life. Maybe there is some watcher, I'm not sure. And the last one is, what's the most beautiful thing in the world? Love. Love. Love is all you need. I love it, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it, we're very grateful. We would love for everyone to check out Tim's links in the bio below. Give us your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear from you. Also, go and talk to more people around the world. Your friends, your family, your coworkers, people online on social media about the topics that we discussed in this episode and the power that they actually have for our future. And support artists, entrepreneurs, people in your communities that you believe in support simulation. Our links are below and go and build the future everyone. Manifest your dreams into the world. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you soon. Peace.