Full interview: Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn | Code 2017

let's bring them out Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman hello so I you know he was Marc Andreessen has this habit of texting me really rude things almost continually and while I was sitting backstage within 10 feet of him he was tweeting at me about that last talk so what did you I think it's very important because I think Facebook is sucking the life out of us so what do you think that's the opening question outstanding so it's a sitting Facebook director I think I'd pull it with the client answer but I'll meet let me let me generalize out so this is something that one hears about the Internet a very Sunnis it hears about the Internet a lot so we start by saying that gentleman I'm sure he's doing fantastic work and he clearly means well I really really deeply disagree with everything he just said and the reason is because not just because I had some role in creating the whole thing but but a friend of mine o Cronin who works in VR and is the advanced thinker on these things has a term he uses called reality privilege and so it's a view from the from the box seats it's the view from it's a view from places in the world that's exactly the kind of view you get from places in the world in which there are super rich real world experiences to have right and so you grow up an upper-middle class community probably on the coast you have these incredible schools you have these incredible and rich activities you have all these after-school activities you you've always incredible people to talk to you go to a college campus you get to you know you get to hang out with all these incredible super geniuses for the point zero zero one percent of the population of the world who gets to do all those things then it's internet thing it's a big step down for everybody else the internet is a giant step up right most people don't have that level of reality privilege like most people grew up in places where there's a much higher level of what you might call intellectual deprivation there's just not that many people around to talk to there's just not that many interesting things being discussed there's not that many great experiences to have it's hard to learn new things the schools aren't good I mean all kind know most kids in the world don't even go to school like go to school up to the grade four grade six grade eight it just can't progress beyond that point because there's there's nothing locally there's no local system infrastructure or community to be able to engage on ideas and so the internet represents a giant level up on all those topics for most of the world and I think it's a fantastic thing all right okay well then find snapchat for everybody so three would you like to oh well so look I think that it's it's correct that there's various forms of kind of call it commercial system biases to come out which is companies try to say look when you want to occupy a bunch of time so we try to figure out how to have that time be occupied and this is the similar true this ranges everything from the agriculture industry which says well eat more sugar but you have these commercial biases the whole way through and we adjust them now that being said the overall system is better and we can tune it right and so I think that the one of the other things frequently is not realizing there's things you can do to change for more of the kind of the good and night and the bad and these things and and obviously I am less focused at the moment on questions around autoplay or kind of equivalent and I'm more focused on questions about like how do we get to discernment of truths and how do we get like you know truth the media and what is this whole fake news and all you know facts and all that kind of stuff and that is I think a much more deep issue that I'm focused on at the moment well I think one of the things that one of the reasons I wanted to have these two with one because you make investments you change companies you just thought you make a lot of decisions that impact other people too you're you're super argumentative and debating about what where that's going you know where it happened and I wanted people get a sense from both of you of how where innovation is going how it's going because you are in not in charge of it but very influential to the process both of you in different ways so let's start on that idea that you just talked about which brings in all of socially I'm not going to pull up Facebook but at all social media the idea is something I've been railing on recently for some reason is the responsibility the social responsibility the the civil responsibility of social media companies and other companies in Silicon Valley to not to stop pretending these platforms are benign so as someone who's created these platforms each of you each of you is done your part how do you look at them now because I think they've morphed in ways some people think social medias become weapon some people think other things but that that take mark and Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about this a lot the idea of the responsibility so how do you look at where we are right now for Silicon Valley why don't we start with you Mark III how do you look okay great I'm happy okay look so I think that the question is is that we had presumed that broad brush that most people could kind of make assert a ssin of truth within their kind of normal set and I think actually in fact it is somewhat hackable its filter bubbles is one of the things that people talk about a lot in the valley and how do you make sure that you're not blinded by it you have communications that go across that there's questions about assertion of you know what is the most relevant fact or in you know I don't think there is any such thing as an alternative fact I mean I think that's that's that's that's George Orwell and and Aldous Huxley speak but the but I think that the question is okay how do we help people figure out a better guideposts to the truth because simply being as part of the feed on the screen sometimes is treated as too much of that must be true and so what I think is good is is I think the whole industry and I'm been part of a number of conversations about okay what are the right ways to do that and part of the reason why they try to say it's more platform I don't know if it's trying to say it's benign is they're trying to say we're not trying to impose a point of view we're trying to help you get to truth it's kind of classic like what is the algorithm part of it and and so I think that there's a lot of thinking now about like what are the different ways you can do that one of the things that I think is is important is perhaps building that out of the kinds of things we trust like we trust other people and can we get to some kind of version of okay I know this kind of information is much more contentious there's a lot of people who disagree with it this kind of information is something that I can rely upon more and I think we need to get to that kind of scoring system and I think we need to make it simple enough that it helps unify discourse across country how do you look at this so I think truth has become shorthand for things that people on the coasts believe okay and fake news or false whatever alternative fact has become shorthand for people the things that people in the center of the country believe I think this whole topic is gone completely off based on how in the wake of the election so if you read the coastal press which is generally spectacular job I think of covering the election last year but if you just read the press in aggregate where all the stories the overwhelming thing that you were carried away with was there's no way on earth that Donald Trump can win this election right it's impossible you did your the fantastic editor of The Times up here on stage today they had the day of the election they had Hillary that morning at ninety two ninety two percent not to me like I think ninety two percent us so it actually turned out if you actually wanted to if you actually wanted last year and 2016 to read the story of the election actually get the truth you read breitbart now nobody wants to hear that because we all like have concluded that right Bart is like absurd right-wing propaganda and that somehow you know the traditional the coastal press is somehow the truth but like it's just like demonstrable last year that was not true so I just think we all just need to take a step back on this idea that there's absolute truth and that somehow we somehow have some sort of monopoly or preferential access to it and the rest of these people kind of don't understand anything by the way it's a surefire way to lose elections because emma-crats are ever going to lose elections are ever going to win elections again in the center of the country that's out of the country they have to show up the some message other than you're all a bunch of morons that's not going to work that's not that's like the point is are these you can let element that is the message yes I think that's what's being heard yes but that's an easy shorthand way of saying no matter what they say on the left though either coast is untrue you can say untruth to people and get them to vote a certain way I mean it's very you know you know if you want if you want if you like your health care plan you can keep it right right Obama 2008 right I don't care like how's that how's that well I'm gonna come in a close I'm gonna quote I'm gonna close Guantanamo my first year in office you do it like for some reason well the fact that politicians break promises to us is not it's not a very big if you read the press coverage of those promises at the time they were presented it's truth they're presented as yes these are absolutely things that are going to happen like there was there were reams of coverage around Obama care of how well it was going to work all right news coverage what is the responsibility these platforms do they have any because Dean would say no he did he said no they're just there as platforms he didn't he thought the New York Times that our responsibility they necessarily don't do you imagine all the all these technology platforms have any social responsibility mark has been talking about it a lot he's been visiting lots of the country he's been petting livestock quite a bit which is nice do you know how fluffy cows are that they are apparently hell's are super-high I have been around many cows I am aware of coke but how do you how do you look at that response because everyone seems to be visiting limits doing that kind of thing they aren't spoken about how do you look at there is there a social responsibility for this technology now they're all going where I grew up I know it's amazing thing I've ever seen Oh many left they're not going back so I'm going to frustrate I'm gonna I'm gonna frustrate I'm just not gonna I can't I'm sitting back for Facebook I need a website or talk about my next page but just in general like as technology evolved do you think that Silicon Valley needs to have more of a social conscience so I think it's definitely a good idea for businesses to have social conscience and I begin it's where I would say I believe there is much more but it's become very trendy to claim that Silicon Valley doesn't have a social conscience and it's just the default assumption is that all these companies are doing horrible things all the time and I just don't think it's true okay alright I don't think the situation is anywhere near as polarized as people are presenting it well people liked it but by the way Silicon Valley to Silicon Valley people people need to bear in mind good and you will so two years ago two years ago two years ago the conventional wisdom right around or much of the rest of the country that you read actually frankly in a lot of the press coverage in Silicon Valley was it's this hotbed of like these crazy libertarians like it makes crazy extreme outlier like you know fringe elements and of course our friend Peter is kind of I kind of held up a good friend Peter thank you very good friend Peter actually was held up it's kind of representative of the valley right a funny thing happened last year which was it turns out that was fake news okay it turns out that was not true in fact it turns out the opposite is true which is the 99.999% a song about last year voted for Hillary Clinton supported Hillary Clinton donated to Hillary Clinton like it was over it was like the money difference I don't I was like some giant multiple any money difference base because nobody nobody nobody get your trumpet so the valley not wholly plays it is not by the way may I point out you tweeted I'm with her correct that is if it is right well I will concede to that okay I subsequently believe it subsequently deleted all my tweets including that one I will cop to that so what about it I think Silicon Valley not only has it has a real sense of social responsibility if anything Silicon Valley is all the way over on the other side so value is extremely left-wing extremely liberal and actually think this is now this has become part of the problem kits now you have the other version of the problem which is actually I think it's really hard for a lot of people in Silicon Valley even articulate the other side at this point it's hard to even articulate the case for voting for Donald Trump I think it's hard to articulate what people in the Midwest in the South were thinking and I think this polarization thing it's the general problem that I was talking about earlier but I think that I think the valley is part of the Coast polarizing from the center of the country to a much greater extreme than we've ever seen in our lifetimes all right now and it just does not left unchecked this does not have to go places okay this is great if you didn't want to talk about politics all but great okay so you have been very active in that left-wing cabal apparently and that's a way you know it's it's like it's like nearly everybody know it took a ball so you talk about what you're doing because I think people are people are looking to you a lot everyone says we've got to get Reid as the leader of this goal yes that I do I do I don't know so talk about what you're doing brilliantly with Mark Pincus and others yeah so mark who's here in the audience he and I started talking years ago about how do you essentially try to create consumer net technologies to help shape a kind of pro-business and also Pro kind of social values future and how do you put that together into a moment because I actually think part of the whole thing is to get the bridge building to make the right thing and I think part of the social responsibility for these growing strength of tech platforms is to make that happen so I think there is I think there is responsibility I think it's a growing sense of it and I think people are trying to figure out what it means and how to operationalize it the right way and then personally you know it's everything from obviously part of the question that that that led to the election of Donald Trump is there's a lot of people in a number of states that are feeling in pain they worry that their children have less good features and they had there is you know kind of serious opioid epidemics and a number of different states and regions and they say look these need to be fixed don't tell us more of the same tell us how we have opportunity tell us how we make that happen and I think you know part of the thing about being inventive being problem solvers you know because that's part of what we try to do with technology and businesses and so it is we should do more of that now I think another part of it the earlier thing is I do think we have a problem I think the fake news thing is actually levelled both ways like I don't think it's a the coast saying mid Midwest I mean you've got your the president saying CNN is fake news etc etc I mean you know you have the erosion of these kinds of institutions and I we have to be able to talk but if you can't have some basis for conversation which says okay this is what we think truth is this is where we think we should be going it very difficult for democracy to work so you know is everything from the kind of win the future this is this organization yes that WTF WTF with a deliberate you know kind of on e I see what you're doing yes yeah uh I find it juvenile but go right ahead o what we specialize in German I know that I will believe me after many years covering all of you I come and so I'm a matter of fact actually one of my most favorite theories of the evolution humanities neoteny right we were born early and and that plasticity and ability to learn is key so so I think there's a whole stack of things and I think some of it is like what is the future work look like I think some of it is the question of how do we get communications channel how do we get to a rebuild of just some kind of communication like one of the projects that I've funded at the MIT Media labs called quarter Co which is done has done an analysis through the Twitter firehose or how fragmented the discourse is or how do we get that discourse somewhat less fragmented because with that with fragmented discourse of course you end up with you know kind of complete like different planets and that way it's the hellscape out there but go ahead yeah so anyway that's but that's well and then there's a whole question about how these things get hacked by you know autocratic hostile actors right and you know one of the things that we have to pay attention to is it is not necessarily purely just the diversity of humanity that's playing on it but there are people who have political aims that may be investing and you know I'm really interested to see what will emerge out of you know kind of Russian and foreign power influence on trying to hack social media because that that's kind of a key issue and I think actually one of the things that you know Brad Smith Microsoft called for that I think is really interesting is how do we get to a Geneva Convention and cyber I think that's actually an important thing to to look at happening because part of that is what's going to happen with these things being hackable a little bit like they talked just before us your attention can be hacked in ways that it isn't just code hacking this isn't just cyber but it's kind of a question of what do you presume to be true and and you know you want a vibrant democracy we have to try to to get to a ports who are having rational conversations and we're actually using evidence and argumentation to decide X is true and Y is not right all right I want to get to where innovations going think that's really what investments in are you you investing a lot of your money in this I'm not supposed to call you a certain thing of the last device what are you investing a lot of money do you want to run for office definitely not one process why well look I I prefer the partnering board member and vesting that's one of reasons I got behind it yes yes a guy behind me of LinkedIn smoking-room yeah yeah yeah role model rebels who didn't get the x-files right handy yeah and so and then but I'm betting a bunch of money I'm trying to actually facilitate conversations trying to facilitate what the right kinds of ideas are like what are the ways that we can make sure that we have you know vibrant economic ecosystems the middle-class jobs across the country makes planning work ultimately a lot I'd say thus far as probably millions millions but hundreds of millions you think there's we could get there could get there all right so let's talk about where and Mark you're not running for office I hope okay I would not advise can you imagine anybody voting for me why don't you I might just as a joke do well if I run I'll take the sarcastic jab all right so let's talk about innovation where it's going you guys have been around forever there's been a lot of different investments in periods of time and things like that and it is related to jobs the future of jobs let's start with there how do you look to me it seems like something I was doing a lot more serious thought about investing beyond into the into it to the next year cars automation robotics each of you want you start mark talked about you think the most last time you were here your talk about software in the world you talked about a wide range of things how are you thinking now about investment yes it's interesting we have two sectors two different kinds of economy in the u.s. so two different kind of categories of sectors divide them in one might call the fast sectors and the slow sectors but the fast change sectors slow change sectors so the fast change sectors are sectors like retail transportation media in which technology has had a huge impact software is eating those sectors there's massive change happening in those sectors massive productivity improvements as measured by productivity which is how economists measure the rate of technological change by the way gigantic churn in jobs right turn in obviously media and retail and you're in BuzzFeed you're in a bunch of yeah yeah exactly right and in lots of debates about the nature of that churn by the way however along with that rapidly falling prices right so the prices are basically everything and we you know and the experience everybody has as an Amazon customer prices in retail prices in media with all the free media and Internet and prices and transportation are going to fall you know dramatically with self-driving cars and so very rapidly falling prices but like a big and a big concern of where the jobs going to come from so that's part of the economy the other part of the economy is what you might call the slow change part of the economy which is all the sectors in which the opposite of that is happening and so these are sectors like health care education and construction elder care child care and also put away government so to call those kind of the big six in those sectors the opposite is happening which is in those sectors we have a price crisis right the price of all those things is rising super fast right so the FT had a story today 88% of all the price inflation in the US economy since 1990 is attributable entirely eighty eight percent of it attributable to health care education and construction right and so what's happening on and the sort of the slow change sector the economy is basically everything's becoming super expensive and if you try to buy a house or if you want to send a kid to school or if you need to get care for an ailing relative you experience this and hence all the concern around the cost of all these things those are the sectors of the economy that technology is having almost no impact on write software is playing a very small role at best those are also the sectors that have almost no productivity growth right as measured by economists and left unchecked those sectors are basically just going to eat the economy right if those if the products and services in those sectors keep rising in price they end up being everything we pay for health care is leading the account yeah healthcare healthcare education and construction of the big three and there's eating the economy fully-loaded construction costs have doubled since the year 2000 in the u.s. I mean just like absurd things are happening in real estate construction and so I think the opportunity and the challenge is for the tech industry in Silicon Valley and all of us to go figure out how to have a much bigger impact in the in the slow growth sectors of the economy the slow change sectors the economy I think if we do that if we're effective at it we have the opportunity to bend the cost curves over time and these by the way are very very big sectors with very very big kind of entrenched forces I play that by the way these also the slow change sectors also happened to be highly regulated right these are sectors of economy where the government plays a gigantic role in the economics of these sectors and so these are not easy sectors to disrupt these are this is the big leagues but the opportunity exists to really go after the price curves and systematically drive down prices in those industries if we do that like that maybe the single biggest thing we could do to improve quality of life for a living that for ordinary people we are actively investing so super actively investing education you'd absolutely one of our companies going directly after skills acquisition doing very well with an entirely new way to link with employers to do skills acquisition and training online we're very aggressively investing in healthcare we think there's a whole new very interesting thing happening at the intersection of healthcare and software that's just getting started and we're investing very aggressively on that constructions harder you know the big challenge that we're all going to have to tack on the long run is this sort of question of cities and this question of land use and whether cities are going to be allowed to get big enough where everybody who wants to get to them is going to be able to get to them Mayer Swisher in San Francisco I think it's going to have this on the top of her list yeah as thanks to solve at all really so that's the sector that's exactly you're going to be my deputy of something I am looking forward to it yeah yes I will take that on my business card so that's a big one we're also by the way elder care and child care are both both are increasingly central elements to the economy huge employers and both pasteurizing sectors we have a company on earth and I'm involved in that's trying to come up the fundamentally better way to work russell's no maker mean what about you so slightly different division so I think about things that are kind of classic for what we do which is kind of businesses with network effects which can include both consumer and enterprise side so those are things like you know obviously Airbnb or convoy which is kind of over for trucking we just recently can we still use that uber for that not allow say well I think we always use the version of them I mean before whatever it's a it's a quick did that for mark Nicholas no prefer X is better now because it has an extra element of danger okay the lips guy I let that one go ahead and so there's a stack of those sort of businesses which I think are the I think we will continually design new forms of software ecosystems that have these network effects that organize how millions to billions of people communicate work you know kind of coordinate to communicate all that sort of thing together and then part of what we look for is what are things that are substantive ly contrarian that are not in the kind of the current you know kind of bug cycle right the buzz cycle hey is AI arv are you know etc and then what are the things that they're you can actually do something that actually might be really interesting some of those will play out in to those industries so you know if you figure out different kinds of construction you know robotics so you figure out you know energy sources or other kinds of things those can actually play into those and can actually change those costs curves so it isn't it is it's a different way of looking at it which is kind of through the lens of these things they're defining kind of network effects software ecosystems with people and and devices you know kind of combined together and then these things are what kind of off the current beaten path what is that what do you name something so let's see what can I name well I mean so you know one of the things that we did last year is a energy company which I can talk about in depth all right what kind of energy so possibly fusion possibly too efficient okay oh god yes and and investing in that in a new and exciting way okay okay all right what about robotics so I think robotics is generally speaking one of the areas that everyone knows is going to be super important everything from autonomous vehicles to other kinds of things so there's a just a ton of them like the number of autonomous vehicles startups is yeah they're yes is like an uncountable set but it's clearly going to be there and then robotics are going to be like remember when you started saying construction I was like oh robotics is the interesting you know angle is the first reflex there and I think there's going to be a bunch of things there which some of which you'll see from the big companies I think some one that you'll see from startups what do you use that in robotics because you know Bill Gates interesting we should tax robust that's that right and then Mark injuries is a Mark Cuban you're saying we've got to get into it as China is going to do this first we should is horrible and evil but we have to we have we have to be really good at it yeah a little bit of a paradox in there so we should definitely tax robots right after we get done taxing pcs okay uh which took away all the secretary jobs all right okay so I propose we do it in that order okay all right so how do you look for Microsoft hasn't taken us up on that all right how do you get to what do you imagine in robotics going oh it's very the contrib will get to the job issue in a second but yeah but talk about the sector's automation and robotics together and I suppose AI also gets in that pot yeah so look so the big thing it's a big thing that's happening is that the so called so-called AI but machine learning to hold the whole sort of family of technologies around our own machine learning and sensors right something dramatic has really happened something dramatic really tipped about five years ago or a whole category of things that just didn't work at one point all the sudden work and so I just I think to I think at this point there's just a feeding frenzy in the tech industry in the valley to try to experiment with every single possible permutation what can be done with AI and robots at every possible shape size and description it's I think it's spectacular so it's one of the biggest it's one of the biggest booms slash kind of exploratory let's go the landscape let's go try all the ideas that I think I've ever seen and what do you and we're actively investing what do you like about that what do you and what do you worry in that area when you say if everyone's pursuing it just oh it's a classic hits of Silicon Valley it's the thing that it's the thing that gets everybody excited about Silicon Valley and then it's the thing everybody always criticizing Silicon Valley for which is of course we're going to overdo it like course there are way too many companies being funded doing self-driving cars but out of so what always happens to the valley right the great strength of the value I would argue is that when something starts to work we over fund it like we have way too many companies going after this most of them don't work but the ones that do end up becoming very big and important right and ultimately valuable and so well I think we'll get that exact exact same result out of this phenomenon for people who want to say the Silicon Valley just does well pulls over and over again there will be ammunition to support that view but I think out of that will come you know defining companies of the era that we probably haven't even heard of yet that are going to be on the on the scale of the big technology winners in that sector in that sector yeah the opportunities are very very very big do you worry either you about the job impact when we're talking and I want to understand where you look at where you feel the responsibility if you have any on the future of jobs it's something I'm very interested in well so and obviously I mean to some degree what I found in LinkedIn was trying to help people figure out what skills jobs opportunities of the future so taking software and networks to enable that and enable people to be able to find the right opportunities get the right skills get the right connections to those kinds of things that's actually very sensible let me give you a kind of a classic kind of thought on within the autonomous vehicles because people frequently say oh these home Thomas people is going to take a whole bunch of jobs there's an issue there and you have to get that transition but on the other hand once you have autonomous vehicles for example being able to have people now actually in fact go be able to get to work in a much more easy way to be able to actually when they're in transit to be actually doing things that are either relaxing or working as a way of doing it it also opens up a variety of productivity possibilities no I get that argument of like you can now text and drink I get that I get you know it's all that I think is the funnest thing with texting all right the but it is that happy shiny future idea of like oh it's going to be so much the same thing with AI same thing with that mark you were just going to say something but what I wonder about is when that happens there are millions of jobs driving take driving millions of jobs and I think when Travis was on this stage and said the problem is the guy he actually was honest compared to most people sit by saying the guy in the front seats the problem we need to get rid of the guy in the front seat you know I mean which everyone we had a sharp intake of breath I was like yay he said it but but what do you how do you look at that do you feel what are you going to do about that or do you have nothing to do about it so it's a fallacy okay it's the lump of Labor fallacy it's like the Luddite fallacy it's recurrent panic this happens every 25 50 years people get all amped up okay machines are going to take all the jobs and it never happens so let's talk about cars specifically because that that's front center for the conversation so when the automobile 100 years ago in the automobile went mainstream this concern literally existed exactly same panic happened it happened because of all the people whose vital to it literally was taking care of horses right so everybody running stables and everybody doing blacksmith's and like the whole thing oh my god what's going to happen cuz Ford Motor Company's you know in the world nobody else is going to have anything to do the car then created not only a lot of jobs building cars right it became a huge employer right now the car industry became such a huge employer that we had to bail out all the car companies to keep all the people working like it a hundred years it went entirely in the other direction not only that the car think of everything else that happens as a consequence of the car so the idea of surface streets right paved streets emerge because of the car right streets weren't paved before the car they were paid before the car so paving streets the idea of the idea of restaurants the idea that you might actually go someplace to eat something was an invention of the car the idea of motels hotels the place we're in here is it exists entirely because the automobile the idea of movie theater is the idea of apartment complex is the idea of office complexes the idea of at some suburbs the entire build-out of suburban America the jobs that were created by the automobile on the second third and fourth order defects were a hundred X a thousand X the number of jobs of blacksmiths had and so this goes to kind of the fundamental kind of flaw in the logic that they call it the length of labor fallacy which is technological change causes productivity growth productivity growth lets us produce more of what we can already make with less resources and then lets us create that that's what frees up the spending power to let us create lots of new things great but lots of new demand and that's what creates new industries and that's what creates new jobs and then 100 years later we look back on it we're like I can't believe anybody was ever a blacksmith and so this has been the pant literally this was like the panic every 25 50 years that's if you're a blacksmith and it never comes true the goods business didn't work out the good news is the car company the car companies and all of these other industries hired huge numbers of people and so I think the self-driving car has the opportunity to not only improve productivity for people in the car which will be a huge economic boost for those people not only has the opportunity to save lives right over a million people died worldwide and road deaths today caused by human drivers and I think we can take that very close to zero right which is very good for both human welfare and in terms of economic productivity right it's like it's a very serious down productivity when people get killed and then and then and then and then and then all the all the ancillary industries that end up getting built up so as an example maybe this whole land use thing everybody's worried about maybe with salt riving cars we just start to have excerpts that actually work which is to say another layer around cities write further out right they don't call it by our suburbs because you couldn't tolerate you couldn't possibly tolerate commuting in an hour hour and a half right so people in Silicon Valley are experiencing if you live south of San Jose your commute now might be an hour and half but it's our half in the car driving the car if you were in the self-driving car all of a sudden then you've got you made up a huge construction boom and all the outlying areas around these cities and that construction boom might hire for more people than were ever involved in driving cars hello and so the process works by the way as evidence of that after all of the technological disruption that has everybody all freaked out that got us to where we are today right unemployment in the u.s. is now batting below it's not below 4.3 percent right yes if you're living in areas like Kentucky there's six million there's six million job openings up in the US and the the Panic stories in the press have gone overnight from oh my god not enough jobs to oh my god not enough workers right and The Times is an example of Dean's paper had a very good story about two weeks ago on there's it now crisis in Utah there aren't enough people to literally milk all the cows they've literally run out of people to milk the cows and so what the jobs crisis we actually have in the u.s. today is we don't have enough workers to be doing the right thing by the way we might make that you know for this if these immigration policies continuing we might make that problem for worse yeah okay here is for immigration very much okay good what are you worried about are you worried about this at all then we're going to get to questions well so the one thing I agree with most what Mark said there including the fact that if you remap what is the logistics in space it prays a lot of different part to be not just construction but a lot of different ways that that may play out and changes cost rooms I think the transitions can be very painful so I think we need to pay attention to the pain that pain so example the agriculture - Industrial Revolution actually involved a largely very ugly and so while I tend to think oh look it works out it'll probably work out anyway the the question is let's try to make it work out in a way that's more humane more you know kind of the society that we want to be and kind of not as much pain in that kind of transition right absolutely do you think about that pain so look so what are you just Blofeld or what's going to be s so let's talk about what's actually happening so this is all hypothetical talk about actually happening so economists have a way of measuring the rate of technological change disruption in the economy is called productivity productivity growth would we expect based on everything that we read here and understand with this rate of technological change and in disruption would we'd think the productivity growth is at generational highs or lows probably high right and it turns out it's a generational lowest productivity growth is running super low and economists are writing books left right and centre agonizing over why productivity in a pasture would you expect that the rate of job churn the rate of both job creation and destruction in the economy which tend to go hand in hand would you expect that those the rate of churn is at a generational higher generational low no idea I'm not going to answer it's a trick it's a trick question as you anticipated oh just right god everything's a trick question with you the rate of job churn of American economy has been declining for 40 years and it shows no sign of growing would you expect that the rate of which people are turning over in jobs individuals turning over in jobs is increasing or decreasing well Millennials are who everybody but just everybody including moneyless probably at are decreasing all right people are staying in jobs longer and would you expect because of all the disruption that we know about would you expect at the rate of new entrants of new companies and existing industries is accelerating right go ahead it's decelerating okay we don't have the problem market 11:00 p.m. we don't have I haven't even had a Scott yet that can be fixed that could be fixed but we don't even we don't we do not only do we not have the problem is worried about we have the opposite problem we don't have enough change we don't have enough change we don't have enough creation of new jobs we don't have an up creation a new opportunity which is what in my view goes right back to the politics is what leads to zero-sum politics the reason our politics is going sideways is not because there's too much changes because there's not enough change because people don't see a future because they don't see anything changing and I think you see the zero the zero-sum politics you see that sense on both the left-right with you on the Bernie lap and on the Trump right I think that's the problem the way through that is not to slow down the way through that is to speed up right the way through that is more change more growth more opportunity right that's the path forward and so I'm this goes back to like I'm just I'm very worried that we've actually gotten off and we're just talking about completely the wrong thing right now and I'm hoping maybe over the next couple well yes we can massage this a little bit more towards the actual the actual crisis that we have all right questions from the audience right here hey guy who are weak state capital are you so this is a very Silicon Valley centric view which is where you guys are is the world changing that respect are we seeing more ideas and concepts coming from other parts of the world so I think the I think the answer to the question in some degree is both which is yes there's launched foreigner ship is more technology there's multiple areas not just obviously a huge amount of stuff going on in China but like when you get to Europe it's you know Stockholm and Berlin and London there's various cities across the u.s. on the other hand frequently that's the is the Silicon Valley losing some actually to Clara and I actually think that Silicon Valley is persisting because of the network effect of Silicon Valley in terms of lots entrepreneurs move here the ideation moves at a very fast pace rate because people will talk to each other about what's what's going on what it should what are you seeing in autonomous vehicles which things going to work etc etc and that also creates them so I think the answer is some grades yes to the rest of the world but also continuing very interesting patterns of leadership from Silicon Valley are you worried about ultimately losing it step never never not right now yeah well we're doing everything we can to kill it but Lamar we so far we keep so far we keep missing all right we okay collectively the state of California oh okay all right got it okay good I'm going to make it even worse anyway hello Manny QTL this is based on a quote from you read earlier on in the topic of politics but it goes to both of you you said that you think that we need more rational conversations and that one of the things you want to do is to be able to facilitate more rational conversation what would you say to the premise that the problem is is that too many of the conversations especially the ones that need to be rational are happening digitally and actually what we need is to facilitate more in person conversations and if you greet it as a print that that's an important premise that too many of the conversations are happening digitally how would you facilitate more in person conversation add that read has a new podcast correct called masters masters of scale masters of scale this guy was on and I think right yes yeah okay we should be and and it's very heavy conversational yeah so the so actually you know there's a whole Renaissance happening in podcast yeah yeah I like them yes exactly there's some very good one I know that mine in particular and so look I think the short answer is more conversations in person or good one of the things that I think is interesting and specifically the organization of Florida called Village Square and their basic theory is that you can cross the aisle and get through disagreements more if people essentially sit with each other so for example one of the things that actually makes you know Washington Congress dysfunctional is that they won't actually sit with each other and talk to each other as much so I think it's a good thing to have I don't think it needs to be an opposition to digital there's a great book so I recommend a great book on this stuff it's a great book called the tyranny of done what was it called infamous scribblers Eric Byrnes infamous scribblers I highly recommend it it's a story of the role that newspapers played in the American Revolution and people may know that founding fathers Benjamin Franklin most notably were heavily involved in the newspaper industry at that time and it was sort of there's a lot of the debates around the revolution took place in newspapers they were like 15 20 30 50 newspapers per city so it's a very kind of thriving kind of thing at the time and if you read that book you will be amazed at how polite people are today yeah they are as compared to what they were like that yeah and it's actually it's amazing the parallel well maybe you won't think the reply today but it's amazing that parallels newspapers in the seventh late 1770s 1780s they were basically blogs and the founding fathers actually were notorious for using pseudonyms yep and in fact they would use multiple pseudonyms and then attack each other they would have their students attack each other not sell papers yeah so Ben Franklin wrote under like 15 different pseudonyms and his different personalities would like go to war on the press and he sold a lot of newspapers and they would attack each other for stuff that even today you wouldn't expect politicians to take each other over and so I just go thrilled that to say I think it provides some historical perspectives which is there was never a golden age for everybody well yeah light and nice and fact-based like it never it never existed no we were always the idea that there's something change that's happened is just not true it's pretty vile oh it's terrible yeah yeah but it's been terrible yeah yeah it's been terrible for a long time now no no but this goes to and this maybe we're I'm a huge fan of everything Reid is doing but I'm a little bit less on the train of the right answer here I think more rational conversation is always fantastic I'm a little bit more skeptical that it happens because I don't think people basically want to have rational conversations and as a consequence of that I think we need a system that works without them which is I think the genius to the American system all right then vile it is go ahead hike union with the verge wanted to ask you guys whether you support the experiments that are now underway with universal basic income and if so what you think will learn from those experiments well look I think broadly I think there's a predisposition to try to do over planning so I think experiments are generally good I think the issues around basic income are I kind of think of it as that as a plan Z if you can't think of something better it's the plan you have to fall back on but I actually think that in work we don't just get like the money for you know sustenance and Maslow's hierarchy of needs we also have something where I feel meaningful I have part of a community that that I can strive to something better into and I think you want a system that's designed around that that doesn't necessarily exclude some notion of ubi in the future and there's you know there's a whole bunch of thing you need to look at in that but I think that the better plans don't just go to that they're actually in fact ways that people still have kind of work and still have a way that they have meeting and within their community ubi I'm gonna guess on this one I am completely in favor of the experiments I love experiments ubi is a policy as genetically engineered to alienate everybody okay I thought you just go communism and then that well if you're on the right it's communism okay if you're on the Left it's a diversion of critical resources away from a needs-based social safety net towards people who don't need the money I mean ubi is we're all getting checks and I don't know about you guys I don't like I think it would probably a little unfair for me to get the check and so and this is a serious serious poverty poverty advocates of box actually box around a very good couple years ago ran a very good interview with one of the leading poverty advocates who's a hard left winger super hard and he just said look this is just an absurd idea there's no way because we need the money to basically take care of people who need to help the last thing we should be doing is diverting the money away from people who need to help the people who don't need the help and so this is one of those policies that like simply can't be implemented so we can experiment we can talk about it but it's never going to happen alright i gu patel from box marked a quick question for you on the fast changing sectors versus the slow changing sectors if you if you just simulate your experiment out on the fact that you know the prices keep dropping up kind of dropping on the fast changing sectors the challenge that we have a tech disruption is not the productivity doesn't go up and not the new jobs don't get creators that the displaced jobs don't give a place class enough so the coal miner isn't getting retrained fast enough and the reason Trump won is because those people hit rock bottom in middle America and said you know it I'm just going to go out and vote for Trump what's there to lose and so is there a way that we as a community over here could go out and actually think of a sector which is the retraining sector where you could go out and take all of those paths kind of change sectors which are going to get disrupted over time for your theory and make sure that the employees in those sectors can actually get replaced to new jobs so that we actually don't have a deficit yeah so there's an obvious answer here and I'm actually kind of surprised it doesn't come up more often so the obvious answer for of the 10 wealthiest counties in the u.s. or suburbs of Washington DC which happens to be where all the federal federal bureaucracies are right and all the defense contractors Beltway bandits solve entire support system for the federal government it's all geographically right around Washington DC and so the obvious answer is move half of that to the Midwest a good start Department of Agriculture like Department of Agriculture's in DC like seems like maybe back to go to Wisconsin Department of Education there's a lot of kids getting educated in Pennsylvania that could go there Department of the Interior you know Michigan is part of the interior let's put that one there okay I'm voting for you at this point I don't know why he's totally straightforward it's actually it's a serious answer it's it's a serious answer in the following sense which is this idea that there it goes back to I talked about already but this idea that there's some sort of dramatic tech based transformation is somehow leaving people stranded as I think fundamentally untrue well let me put a finer point on it which is I grew up in rural Wisconsin right so I grew up in exactly where we're talking about including manufacturing agriculture my County voted for Obama no.8 Obama no.12 and guess who in 16 Crump it is not lost on anybody where I come from that we all care about this issue only after November 8 2016 like nobody was talking about these issues on November 7th and so this idea that there's some like a huge Krait there's the idea that these people yes immigrants what's that I'm just joking okay especially as immigrants yeah so the idea that there's some like systemic crisis happening in these communities that somehow needs to be solved on the outside that we need to you know basically we got done we just got done calling Mel deplorable during the election like they're all horrible people voting for this horrible person and now we're all going in and now they're all victims and now we're going to save them from the outside like I just tell you it's viewed in the Midwest and in the south is like what the hell man like it's just not it's coming across horribly it's like the worst possible message and so and it's become like a very trendy thing to do and everybody everybody who lives there is fully aware that we all everybody here all he cares about this since November 8 it's like okay which logically means right the next time a Democrat wins the presidency will go back to not caring right that's what screwed up like that's the problem that's it's the culture were like it's the cop it's the fundamental conflict between the cultures and so I just think we shouldn't I don't think we should indulge it I think it just makes things worse Michael Miller zbi and PC Mag real short mix up you've talked a lot about productivity and it's very interesting we know that the average person is spending 50 minutes a day on Facebook lots of time on YouTube TV viewing is actually video viewing is actually up not down is our social media and those kinds of things actually impacting productivity in either of your views I haven't seen anything that makes me think that it is except your daily life well I mean maybe it's impacting Tara's productivity come on come on come on and that one come on well but it's not clear like the fact that like it look to have it say that it's impacting productivity is saying that people are example not doing the work and actually watching video instead oh really that never happened right thank you in math you give children look chill that's different than me okay yeah thank you yeah do you have an answer to this you think it's great I think it's great I think it's good so Noah Smith use of calm mr. Bloomberg did a piece recently where he talked about this exact topic and I think you forget the exact math but I think you said if you assume if you assume a diversion of like two percent of work time or something like that away from work towards like internet or other other activities you basically completely explain those generational productivity slowdown that I mentioned but basically you reset the economics back to like you know much higher traditional higher productivity growth so if that's true there's two ways looking at it one is that's bad because it's detracting from productivity growth although presumably that would also not be viewed is good because it's slowing progress meaning it's slowing things like job churn and all the rest of the things everybody's worried about he takes a more optimistic view of it which is wow that's great we can have our cake and eat it too we don't have rapid productivity growth but at least it's positive it's not negative right so at least we're still working enough to make the stuff we need and we're having a lot of fun so so that's the other interpretation I'll let you decide which of those is you never get boring Marc Andreessen I'll tell you that anyway thank you so much this is really intellectually very stimulating [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Recode

Views: 36,760

Rating: 4.7788944 out of 5

Keywords: Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn, Marc Andreessen, Kara Swisher, Code Conference, AOL, interview, Netscape, technology, Walt Mossberg, Microsoft

Id: iZhBVBBBNs0

Length: 48min 33sec (2913 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2017