 This mortgage hopefully the video will be intelligible enough news on Washington targeting the big tech companies and looking to potentially break them up. Definitely regulate them more. I wonder if that gives you flashbacks as to your own time running Microsoft. And I just what advice would you give these CEOs who are dealing with this right now? I think whenever you get to be a super valuable company, you know, affecting the way people communicate and even political discourse being mediated through your system and higher percentage of commerce through your system, you're going to expect a lot of government attention. Now notice he's not going to be critical of that. You're going to accept a lot of government attention that unfortunately in the world in which we live that is absolutely true. And he, you know, at least here, I'm sure in private, he might say something different, but at least here that's value neutral in his mind, right? It doesn't elicit a condemnation. It doesn't elicit any kind of anger. When he was asked about this, you saw him kind of smile and laugh. You'll see him smile and laugh later on as well. That seems to be defense mechanism. The whole experience of anti-trust was not a pleasant experience of Bill Gates at all. It was actually a disaster. I'll read you some quotes about it afterwards. It was a disaster from a PR perspective. It was a disaster I think for his legacy. It was a disaster for the company. The whole experience was horrific, but he can't process it really because as you'll see he has no principles, he has no moral framework or even political philosophical framework to frame what happened to Microsoft to him. It's just, yeah, if you're big, you're going to attract government attention. And it's truly a sad because I have to say that when I watch Bill Gates' videos, he strikes me as a nice guy, obviously brilliant and it would be amazing, amazing. If somebody as successful as him were principled, took the objective as ideas seriously, imagine if that happened, the kind of, what an earth-shattering event that would be. I mean, it would be unbelievable if one of these tech guys turned out to be a huge, turned out to be an objectivist. That would be, that would take us for 20 years in terms of visibility in the culture, in terms of influence in the culture, in terms of importance in the culture. Unfortunately almost all of them are pragmatists. It's not that they're leftists or on the right, they're just pragmatists and they don't have a coherent philosophy. Now Bill Gates has been influenced by some pretty bad philosophy, I think primarily by John Rawls, by kind of Gallatin philosophy, but he's not an egalitarian. It's not like he believes everybody should be equal in any kind of sense. But there's a drag, a tinge, a pull on him and you see this in other interviews of not completely feeling comfortable with the fact that he's as rich and successful as he is, even though I think he thinks he deserves it. I was naive at Microsoft and Naive, he was naive at Microsoft. He's still naive and it's not naivete, you know, he was innocent in Microsoft. He was running a company, he was busy running a company and he says, listen to what he says here. That our success would lead to government attention and so I, you know, I made some mistakes, you know, just saying, hey, I never go to Washington. He said, I never go to Washington. I'm not interested in Washington. I'm not interested in what Washington has to say. You leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. What's the point of going to Washington? I'm running the largest company in the world, most successful company in the world. Why would I go to Washington? Now that is a great attitude. That is the right attitude. I wish these executives today would refuse to go to Washington. But he has caved on that attitude. He today regrets that attitude. He's saying that attitude is naive because you know what? When you go to Washington, when you don't go to Washington, what happens? They come to you. If you don't go and try at least to defend yourself against the gun, what happens? The gun shows up in your house. And this is the whole point where libertarians and others talk about cronyism and the evil of cronyism and these businessmen are all cronies. What choice do they have? What choice do they have? What lesson did they learn from Bill Gates? The lesson they learned from Bill Gates is don't be arrogant. Don't stand up to Washington because he tried. Don't ignore Washington. Indeed, you know, participate in the game. Protect yourself, defend yourself. Hand out money all over the place. Google famously from day one has been giving contributions to the Republican Party, to Democrats, to Democrats, to Republicans, all over the place because they understood. They looked at Microsoft. They said, we never want that to happen to us. We need to do more about this now. It looks like it's going to happen to them in spite of that. We'll see how it all plays out. And they forgot, I think, to grease the wheels in Europe where they're being harassed. But yeah, it's what are they going to learn from Bill Gates? Play the game. And even Bill Gates has learned from Bill Gates. Play the game because for a while he didn't and he wasn't successful. He's lost. Now you could argue maybe he lost because he wasn't principled enough, but that's a hard argument to make, given that the people in Washington have the guns and can force this on you. Trevor asked, does Bill Gates not understand philosophy or is he evil? I don't think he's evil. I don't think you could say he's evil. I mean, I think he's, I don't think he understands philosophy. I think to the extent that he knows somewhat about philosophy, he's wrong about philosophy. I think he's very confused philosophically in interviews where he talks about his personal life. I think he's torn between his productiveness and his reason and rationality and between a sense that he should be altruistic and a sense that that's right, that there's something just about altruism and something just about egalitarianism. And he can't actually bring himself to believe that. So no, I don't think he's, I don't think he's, he's evil at all. I think he's one of the good guys, but very, very, very confused and wrong and, you know, it's not that everybody who evades, I mean, that's immoral to evade is immoral, but not everybody who evades is evil. And I'm sure Bill Gates evades. I'm sure he read Atlas Shrugged and evaded some of its lessons as many of these executives have. But would I call him evil? Never. Never. A dragon, something or says, I hear socialists say the opposite, they say capitalist class owns the government, not the other way around. I've seen that statement numerous times in socialist groups, and if that were true, then there would be no antitrust going after business that would now there's been less over the last 30 years since Reagan, there's been less antitrust, that's good, but you'd expect that to be zero. You'd expect that to be very little regulation, regulations that often harm business. You'd expect, so no, I don't see any evidence to suggest that Washington is in the pocket of business. Now it does, we've created in America, not capitalism, we don't have capitalism anymore, we don't really have a capitalist class, what we've created in America is a mixed economy with a heavy dose of cronyism. So today there is a lot of interface between the business and between government. But the fault is government. The fault is government's ability, the fact that government has a gun, the fact that government doesn't have any fear in pointing that gun, and the need of businessmen to defend themselves. That is at the end of the day, I think the source of the cronyism. Let's keep going with, and now that's a source of it, but it's not the end of it, right? So for example, Microsoft today filed, joined a lawsuit against Apple claiming antitrust violations for that gaming company, I forget the name of the gaming company, that a gaming company, here it is, I've got it here, Epic Games. So they joined the Epic Game lawsuit against Apple. So today, once they're beaten down, right? Once they're beaten down, businesses join in and businesses use the antitrust laws and businesses use regulation in order to protect themselves. And in that sense, they protect themselves from competition, and they, I don't think own government is the right way to do, but they have a much, they have a say. And a lot of laws today, a lot of congressmen today are lazy, stupid, don't want to piss anybody off. So what they do is they write bills that are empty. And then the regulatory agencies fill them in. And the regulatory agencies in order to fill in what the actual regulations will be, not Frank was like this, actually consult with the industries, the industry sends people to help write the regulations that will regulate it. So it's a complete mess today. It's a complete disaster. But the source of this, and this is really, really, really, really important, the source of this is the power we have given government over our lives. The source of this is the power we have given government over business. And you could see historically, whenever government has power over a particular industry, that industry becomes their master of government. You get the corruption, you get the lobbying, you get the, you know, the cronyism, starting with the railroad industry in the 19th century and on. But the blame here is by get that we've given government too much power, or you could think of it as government is taken without our objection, too much power. Somebody said, Peacock didn't think much of it gets you. Yeah, I mean, in a sense that he never stood up for himself in a sense that he never really defended himself on principle. He's always been a pragmatist. And philosophically, obviously, given given his success, given his prominence, given his genius or his brilliance, however you want to categorize it, it would have been great if he had, I still have an immense appreciation for him as a businessman, I have an immense appreciation for him as a technologist, and I have an appreciation for him as, as outside of philosophy, outside of politics, as I think, particularly in technology, business. Here we go. You see, and now I don't think that naivety is there, these companies have lots of sophisticated advisors and they've tried to engage in various ways. But there's going to be, the rules will change somewhat. It is kind of poignant that the tech companies have done so well at a time when things are very tough. And so that's an element of the increased attention. It would be nice to imagine if he'd said, there's envy because they've done so well. Instead of just pointing out the fact that when you do so well, it's going to attract attention and people are going to go after you because you've done so well. He could have just said, it's envy. But sadly, he won't. And then he says, the tech companies are doing a, they're not as naive as I was. They're doing a better job. Now isn't that sad that today successful companies have to devote huge amounts of resources? Because Bill Gates lost in the 90s. He lost his case in the 90s, and I'll get back to that quote in a minute about him losing. Yeah, let's keep listening. You think additional regulation could be good? Look at this smile now. Let's say for America, for consumers overall, or you think it runs the risk of cutting down on innovation. What is that smile telling you? It's telling you, of course, I don't think it's going to be good. Of course, I think it's going to be cut down on innovation. Of course, I think it's terrible. But he's not going to say that. That's what his face tells us. That's what his smile tells us. It's, it'll really depend on what they come up with. You know, and we have to get the pragmatism all over this. Is there some rule about acquisition? Is there some rule about splitting parts of the companies either to create open? Which is what they want to do originally with Microsoft, to split up all the companies, his company, and they managed to fight that and get that stopped. They had other problems, but that at least was not done to Microsoft. And availability of those resources, we're in uncharted territory here. A lot of industries like the railroad industry or the movie industry, they created special policies that they thought were effective for competition. But this is a new industry with different issues. And so to get it right, we'll take a lot of good thinking. That smile to get it right as if it's possible. I'd say the chances of them doing something is pretty high. And you always have Europe as well as the United States. Europe has to stop in Europe being even more regulatory. Yep. So you see the pragmatism, but you also see, you know, if he was honest, if he let that smile talk, he thinks it's absurd. And he says, you need a lot of good thinking. Well, first, I don't believe you could have a lot of good thinking. But, you know, who's gonna do this good thinking? There's nobody there to do the good thinking. And he doesn't, somebody says he puts money over principle because he thinks it's rational. No, I don't think he puts money above principles. I don't think this is about money at all. I think this is about, I think this is the reality. And he faces that reality and he puts a survival above principle. Look, the more he would have fought, the more principled he would have been, the more likely it is that they would have broken up Microsoft and destroyed him. He didn't do it because of the money. It's about survival. I don't think Bill Gates is an evil socialist. There's nothing about him that's socialist. He's wrong philosophically. He's corrupt philosophically. He's primarily a pragmatist with tinges of, you know, pulled by John Rawls-like egalitarianism. Trevor Smith asks, if you were put in charge of Gates Foundation, would you disassociate from Africa? Would that not be objectively better for Africans? No, I don't think it would be objectively better for Africans. I'm not sure why it would be objectively better for Africans. I don't think what Trump, what Bill Gates is doing in Africa is bad for Africans. I just don't think it's that good for Bill Gates. And I don't think it's that good for Africa. I think it's better than zero. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's ideal for Africa. What Africa needs are ideas. What Africa needs is a pro-liberty, pro-freedom, pro-capitalist ideology. That's what I would promote in Africa if I was going to go to Africa at all. But it's not about, right, it's not about the damage that Bill Gates Foundation is doing in Africa. On the contrary, if you value human life, then Gates Foundation is, I think, doing a lot of good for Africa. Not good that it'll change anything fundamentally. But it's saving lives in malaria, it's saved lives in polio, it's saving lives in various diseases, it's doing good. I don't buy any of the conspiracy theories, any of the stuff about all the damage that the Gates Foundation is doing in Africa. I don't think that any of that is real. I think it's just, in a sense, a waste of money. And if they advocated for free markets and capitalism in Africa, that would be a lot better for Africa. If I were put in the, so I would leave Africa not because it's good or bad for Africans, but because I think there's more important work to do and the most important work to do is the work to promote capitalism in the world and in Africa and the United States and Europe everywhere. And that's why I would focus hundreds of millions of dollars. And that's, imagine, imagine how you could change the world if that was your focus. If that was your focus. Gates' awesome productive courage couldn't withstand the establishment's fury for challenging the model of the zeitgeist and your rights. Only modern principles could provide him with the strength. I agree completely. I agree completely. I mean, this is what this author wrote about that trial now. The trial involved three days of depositions where Bill Gates was queried by a lawyer about details of emails he sent about this, about that, about policies, about all the minutiae that is involved in the government's case that claimed that Microsoft was using its so-called monopoly power to a strict competition. He says, there's a videotape deposition of Bill Gates. At its most basic level, the deposition underscored the utter contempt he had for an action he believed impringed on the ability of his company and others to follow he warned to design products and conduct businesses they saw fit. That's great. If that's what he conveyed, that's great, but he couldn't convey it in principle. He conveyed it in his attitude, and that's what I think you see with Bill Gates. He has an attitude that says, just leave us alone. Just let others do a thing. Of course, regulations will restrict innovation, but he doesn't have the principled conceptual philosophical knowledge to say it and to stand by it and to defend it and to fight for it. Emotionally, I think it's there and maybe at some level cognitively, but he can't fight for it because he's not principled and he doesn't acknowledge principle. He doesn't recognize principle. He won't admit to principle. He says the strategy during the three-day deposition was classic Microsoft, and this is the pragmatism, obstruct, paint the government is out of touch, policy wonks who had no idea how tech and real markets worked. That's pragmatism. Now, that's hard to tell if that was Bill Gates' strategy or if it was his lawyer's strategy. That's also you can't tell from these things, right? And above all, deny even the most basic of the premises in the government's case. The plan from Gates' army of lawyers and PR handlers seemed to be to wield his image as a software wonder kid who dropped out of Harvard to bootstrap his company and went on to become the world's richest man. Even Gates planned to use that same domineering force of will to beat back government lawyers. The problem is that's not the right strategy. The right strategy is principle, but he doesn't have it, so he couldn't fight on that level. And the damage done is huge. The damage done to Microsoft was enormous. For years, you know, Microsoft couldn't innovate, couldn't advance, couldn't really build because it had a government appointed, a court appointed bureaucrat sitting at Microsoft's office dictating what they couldn't, couldn't do, couldn't say, which everybody who worked at Microsoft in those years will tell you. Everything shrunk the scope of thinking. It's a great illustration of the fact that force restricts thinking, Microsoft. And as soon as the bureaucrat was gone, Microsoft started flourishing again and today it's a very successful company. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist, broods. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least a hundred. I figure at least a hundred of you actually like the show. Maybe like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it, but at least the people who are liking it, you know, I want to see a thumbs up. There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to a hundred. 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