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1:04

welcome to Impact Theory. You are here,

1:06

my friends, because you believe that human

1:09

potential is nearly limitless, but you know

1:11

that having potential is not the same

1:13

as actually doing something with it. So

1:16

our goal with this show and company

1:18

is to introduce you to the people

1:20

and ideas that are actually going to

1:23

help you execute on your dreams. All

1:25

right. Today's guest is a hyper-intelligent, furiously

1:27

educated, one-man army hell-bent to create a

1:30

brighter future. While others may look forward

1:32

and see only a dystopian world where

1:34

the machines enslave us for our

1:37

heat energy, he sees only amazing

1:39

possibilities. And this optimism coupled with

1:41

a metric ton of grit and

1:43

degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace

1:46

engineering from MIT and... an MD

1:48

from Harvard Medical School, have helped

1:50

him shape himself into one of

1:52

the most potent entrepreneurial forces on

1:55

the planet. He is committed to helping

1:57

at least one million entrepreneurs create

1:59

companies. that matter, and he believes

2:01

that the best way to predict

2:03

the future is to create it.

2:05

As such, he's founded 17 companies

2:07

himself and invested in countless more

2:09

that are designed to alter the

2:11

very fabric of human society. from

2:14

Human Longevity Inc. and Cellularity, which

2:16

together aim to keep us all

2:18

healthy and add 30 high performance

2:20

years to the human lifespan, to

2:22

Singularity University, which is disrupting education

2:24

and business, quite frankly, and planetary

2:26

resources, a company that builds the

2:28

spaceships, humankind will need to, you

2:30

guessed it, mine asteroids. He's literally

2:32

constructing our future one game-changing enterprise

2:34

at a time. He's also the

2:36

founder and executive chairman of X

2:38

Prize, the legendary non-profit nonprofit. gave

2:40

birth to privatized space flight and

2:42

continues to incentivize some of the

2:44

biggest scientific and technological breakthroughs of

2:47

the 21st century. It is not

2:49

hard to see my friends why

2:51

Fortune magazine is named of one

2:53

of the 50 greatest leaders of

2:55

our time. So please. Help me

2:57

in welcoming the man who has

2:59

a stamp with his face on

3:01

it, the multiple-time New York Times

3:03

best-selling author of bold and abundance,

3:05

the future is brighter than you

3:07

think. Dr. Peter Diamandis. It is

3:09

so good to have you on

3:11

the show, man. It is so

3:13

great to be here, pal. I

3:15

need to get a copy of

3:17

that introduction, so I can send

3:20

to my mom. That is, I

3:22

think, very reasonable. And I love

3:24

the story about the fact that

3:26

your family really wanted you to

3:28

go to medical school, which you

3:30

did dutifully, as a good Greek

3:32

boy. I did. Sent them the

3:34

diploma, and then rapidly pursued your

3:36

dreams. Yeah, that was, my parents

3:38

both were born in Greece, in

3:40

the island of Lesbos, and came

3:42

over. after World War II and

3:44

I grew up in a in

3:46

a medical family and of course

3:48

back then right you know you

3:50

were either a doctor a lawyer

3:53

or maybe it may be an

3:55

engineer but doctor and lawyer was

3:57

the highest profession and and so

3:59

it was expected that I'd become

4:01

a physician and it it drove

4:03

a good part of my life

4:05

at the end of the day

4:07

I sort of rationalized becoming a

4:09

doctor was a great sort of

4:11

stepping stone towards my desire my

4:13

true desire of going into space

4:15

because when I looked at the

4:17

the actual stats out of every

4:19

hundred astronauts The largest chunk were

4:21

military, and I was not likely

4:23

going to the military. The next

4:26

largest chunk were doctors, and then

4:28

it went down to scientists and

4:30

engineers, and so I said, okay,

4:32

doctors, I could do that. There's

4:34

a lot of familial pressure to

4:36

go into that, especially as a

4:38

son of immigrants. What was the

4:40

narrative you were telling yourself when

4:42

you said, okay, I'm not going

4:44

to do that, I'm going to...

4:46

head of the altar boy, you

4:48

know, going to MIT to study

4:50

biology, gone my way to medical

4:52

school, and all of my space

4:54

interests were extracurricular, you know, up

4:56

in my, up in my room,

4:59

I had a closet packed with

5:01

explosives. Literally, literally, my, my, uh,

5:03

best they were just buying them,

5:05

right? You know, yeah, back then,

5:07

you could, you could mail order

5:09

explosives, and my friend Billy and

5:11

I... would have, would buy the

5:13

very best stuff we could. You

5:15

know, we start with potassium nitrate,

5:17

saltpetre, and charcoal, and sulfur, which

5:19

makes a reasonably good gunpowder. How

5:21

did you figure that out? Oh,

5:23

I had this great book called

5:25

Poor Man's James Bond, which was,

5:27

and then there was in the

5:29

anarchist cookbook, both of those gave

5:32

me every formulation I wanted. Listen,

5:34

I'm just saying the stuff was

5:36

available back then, right? You're really

5:38

in trouble with two boys, by

5:40

the way. Oh, listen, and if

5:42

they ever, if they ever watched

5:44

this show, I've them banned the

5:46

show for them. But, you know,

5:48

we, it was, my friend Billy

5:50

and I used to build explosives

5:52

and we learned. in the potassium

5:54

perchlorate versus potassium nitrate generates on

5:56

oxygen so it could explode under

5:58

water. And that was really great

6:00

because we made these little bombs

6:02

that we'd throw in the pool

6:05

and blow up until one day

6:07

I remember at Jonathan Lynn's home

6:09

we threw it in and you

6:11

know you got this explosion of

6:13

water going out and then we

6:15

heard this crack. and his pool

6:17

basically cracked across the entire... I

6:19

learned one of my rules of

6:21

physics that fluids are not compressible.

6:23

It's a good lesson, yeah. I

6:25

had a fun childhood, but all

6:27

of the non-medical stuff was sort

6:29

of literally in the closet. And

6:31

so you've got pretty specific advice

6:33

of... following your passion and doing

6:35

that, at what point do you

6:38

tell your parents, how do they

6:40

react, how do you keep going

6:42

in that direction? Well, so, it

6:44

was an interesting moment in time

6:46

because, you know, I went to

6:48

MIT and I was doing molecular

6:50

genetics during the day and at

6:52

night and weekends I would go

6:54

and sort of hang out at

6:56

the MDL, the manned vehicle lab,

6:58

which is where the astronauts were

7:00

being trained. And I volunteered to

7:02

do research and I would do

7:04

that in the side. And were

7:06

you doing molecular genetics because you

7:08

thought you would feed into it?

7:11

Yes, that was the highest medical,

7:13

that was the highest probability path

7:15

to getting accepted to medical school.

7:17

Got it. Which was where like

7:19

the second to last goal, graduating

7:21

medical school was the target. And

7:23

so I did everything space. I

7:25

was, while I was an undergrad,

7:27

I started my first organization ever.

7:29

It's called Students for the Exploration

7:31

and Development of Space, CEDS. It

7:33

still is. God knows, 35, 40

7:35

years later, the world's largest college

7:37

space organization. And Jeff Basos, I

7:39

met through SEDS, he was the

7:42

president of the Princeton chapter, and

7:44

I found myself running a national

7:46

and international organization of... fellow students'

7:48

space cadets. And a lot of

7:50

the guys I work with now

7:52

that have co-founded companies came out

7:54

of SEDS. It was sort of

7:56

my, SEDS was my magnet for

7:58

attracting like-minded people around the world,

8:00

right? It's sort of like this,

8:02

you put out this call and

8:04

say, this is what I stand

8:06

for, this is what I care

8:08

about, anyone wants to join me,

8:10

you know, concert. Did you actually

8:12

write like a manifesto? It was

8:15

interesting. The year was 19, it

8:17

was about 91, 1982. There was

8:19

a magazine back then called Omni

8:21

Magazine. Do you remember Omni magazine?

8:23

Okay. Well, it was, so it

8:25

got, this manifesto got published in

8:27

three magazines and it said, we

8:29

students, that space is our future

8:31

and the government is mortgaging our

8:33

future. It was this long letter

8:35

to the editor. that said, any

8:37

students who are passionate about opening

8:39

up space, you know, it's our

8:41

legacy, join me in this organization.

8:43

I got letters from around the

8:45

world that people wanted to join

8:48

and form a chapter of SEDs.

8:50

Anyway, it was awesome. Fast forward,

8:52

I get into medical school, and

8:54

I'm going through medical school, and

8:56

I'm still doing all my extracurricular

8:58

space activities. I'm still running. You

9:00

know, said I started a launch

9:02

company, I had started a university,

9:04

I mean I'm running two startups

9:06

during medical school, which was kind

9:08

of an insane thing. So much

9:10

time. So we'll get back to

9:12

that. So we're at a point

9:14

where we had to declare our

9:16

internship in residency, this thing called

9:18

match. And it scared the living

9:21

shit out of me. I found

9:23

myself in a situation where I

9:25

was able to escape by in

9:27

medical school in that there was

9:29

always someone else watching and if

9:31

I made a mistake would be

9:33

caught and it sort of got

9:35

known that my heart and soul

9:37

wasn't in medicine, it was in

9:39

other stuff I was doing. But

9:41

when it came time to become

9:43

an interment and resident... And you're

9:45

at that point, you're going to

9:47

become a real doctor. And if

9:49

you're not paying attention, you're going

9:51

to kill people. And that scared

9:54

me. It really scared me. So

9:56

I remember going and calling the

9:58

head of the man vehicle lab

10:00

at MIT and explaining the situation,

10:02

said, can I come back and

10:04

enter the doctorate program there? I

10:06

need a time out for medical

10:08

school to figure out what I

10:10

want to do with my life.

10:12

And I got accepted back into

10:14

the airspace engineering degree and followed

10:16

that. And eventually got my airspace

10:18

engineering degrees, went back and finished

10:20

medical school. But by that time,

10:22

the two companies I had started

10:24

were going forward. Like you said,

10:27

mailed the diploma to my parents

10:29

and said, okay, listen, I got

10:31

a fess up. I'm not going

10:33

to practice medicine. Wow, you took

10:35

that really, really far. I did

10:37

really far. But that is very

10:39

impressive that you could do that

10:41

all the same time. I mean,

10:43

just knowing you personally from a

10:45

time management perspective, your use of

10:47

time is unbelievable. I mean, it's

10:49

literally unbelievable. And I'm a guy,

10:51

dude, I grind, I work hard,

10:53

I'm not afraid of that. But

10:55

watching what you accomplish for 24

10:57

hours is pretty startling. So kudos

11:00

to you. Thank you. One thing

11:02

I want to talk about, you've

11:04

talked about, going back to your

11:06

dad, going back to your dad,

11:08

going back to your dad, You

11:10

once likened your dad moving to

11:12

New York and becoming a doctor

11:14

being akin to you going to

11:16

Mars Yeah, like talking to so

11:18

this is really similar to Lisa's

11:20

dad story So he grew up

11:22

in a tiny village in the

11:24

middle of the mountains in Cyprus

11:26

Yeah, goes to Athens and then

11:28

ultimately to London and when you

11:30

talk to him That's what it

11:33

sounds like like the the drastic

11:35

change in worldview and how that

11:37

impacted him. What was that like

11:39

for your dad? What did that

11:41

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period at shopify.com/tech, all lowercase. That's

12:34

shopify.com/tech. So I grew up with

12:36

the stories of my dad, of

12:39

him, you know, speaking about times

12:41

where he did not have enough

12:43

to eat. where when all his

12:45

friends, and he was in a

12:47

small village called Misignai in Island

12:49

Lesbos, and he talks about, you

12:51

know, tending to, you know, the

12:54

sheeps and goats and picking olives,

12:56

and that was, you know, how

12:58

he helped keep his family fed,

13:00

especially during the war, and when

13:02

he left to go take his

13:04

entrance exam to medical school, we

13:06

took the boat to Athens for

13:09

the first time. His father was

13:11

there waving him off and saying,

13:13

if you don't pass, don't come

13:15

back. Wow. And talking about pressure.

13:17

Wow. He did pass and he

13:19

goes to medical school and has

13:21

to work a job during the

13:24

day. And he couldn't go classes

13:26

to pay for his medical school

13:28

and to pay for room and

13:30

board. And so he ended up

13:32

studying at night. And I grew

13:34

up with this with this sense

13:36

of. You do what you need

13:39

to do to make it happen

13:41

and you pursue your dreams and

13:43

education is like the most important

13:45

thing you could possibly get. He

13:47

doesn't speak a word of English

13:49

and he just does what it

13:51

takes. And when I think about

13:54

the journey... he made from this

13:56

small village on Lesbos to becoming

13:58

a very successful New York physician,

14:00

it's like this epic journey of

14:02

improbabilities. And I think about that,

14:04

for me, the equivalent of going

14:06

from here to Mars, which is

14:09

something I do intend eventually to

14:11

do. Yeah. Did you look at

14:13

your dad as a hero growing

14:15

up? Oh, he was very much

14:17

a hero. I mean, you weren't

14:19

dismissing him. Oh, God, no. Oh,

14:21

no. I was not dismissing him

14:24

at all. I was in awe

14:26

and I listened as much. And,

14:28

you know, I have two six-year-old

14:30

boys now for eternal twins. And

14:32

I think about how do I

14:34

convey the lessons that I learned

14:36

from my father, because I'm not

14:39

growing up in that level of

14:41

hardship. I am, squeezing every... you

14:43

know nano second of time at

14:45

every hour but still I just

14:47

you know just am so appreciative

14:49

of what he did right I

14:51

would have it none of these

14:54

opportunities had he not taken that

14:56

leap he did I love what

14:58

you're saying about your dad that

15:00

he did whatever it took and

15:02

he got the result You've said,

15:04

this is one of my favorite

15:06

quotes of yours, I'm going to

15:09

paraphrase it, but people need to

15:11

stop focusing on the problem and

15:13

start focusing on the solution. How

15:15

do you teach people to do

15:17

that? What are you going to

15:19

do with your kids to get

15:21

them to be solution oriented? So

15:23

I have a belief that every

15:26

problem is solvable. I mean, not

15:28

be easy. Did you come up

15:30

with that? Because, for most people,

15:32

would seem pretty counterintuitive. So many

15:34

problems to achieve this extraordinary world

15:36

we live in today in terms

15:38

of global production of food of

15:41

energy of water of information We're

15:43

living in in the world of

15:45

Star Trek, you know, I mean

15:47

It's you think about that that

15:49

we can diagnose almost anything I

15:51

can read your genome for a

15:53

hundred bucks in a matter of

15:56

a couple of hours and understand

15:58

all 3.2 billion letters of your

16:00

life and have an AI analyze

16:02

it and tell me about yourself

16:04

right I can I can on

16:06

one of these devices call up

16:08

any piece of information talk to

16:11

anyone on the planet these are

16:13

this is magic this is crazy

16:15

stuff you know just 20 years

16:17

ago let alone you know a

16:19

hundred years ago or a thousand

16:21

years ago So, you know, the

16:23

realization is any problem is only

16:26

a problem contextually today. And we're

16:28

going to be creating the tools

16:30

and knowledge to be able to

16:32

solve that problem. And I believe

16:34

that any problem not forbidden by

16:36

the laws of physics is solvable.

16:38

And even then, we're going to

16:41

sort of learn where the... boundaries

16:43

of physics truly are. So just

16:45

to give you an idea why

16:47

this is such an important question

16:49

for me. So the whole point

16:51

of impact theory is me going,

16:53

okay, now I don't have to

16:56

worry about money, like what do

16:58

I really want to do? What

17:00

I want to do is overcome

17:02

the poverty of mindset. So most

17:04

people I just think have a

17:06

frame of reference that is so

17:08

counterproductive that they don't end up

17:11

ringing the potential out of themselves,

17:13

right? So God forbid, something happens

17:15

to you and your wife and

17:17

your kids end up growing up

17:19

growing up with somebody else, they

17:21

just have a different frame of

17:23

reference. ultimately stunts their development, right?

17:26

That's like my belief. And somebody

17:28

grows up in the inner cities

17:30

or in Tanzania, you know, don't

17:32

have access to the education system,

17:34

whatever it is that causes them

17:36

to have that mindset, they have

17:38

that mindset. And so I'm trying

17:41

to answer the question, how do

17:43

you at scale, by leveraging behavior,

17:45

not changing it, how do you

17:47

make sure that everybody encounters that

17:49

mindset? into the cosmos, right? It's

17:51

the realization if people truly believe

17:53

what you're saying, then everybody becomes

17:56

a problem solver. And then problems

17:58

vanish. I mean, ultimately at scale,

18:00

eight billion people solving problem after

18:02

problem after problem means that this

18:04

world is just... dealing with higher

18:06

order problems, which is fantastic. I

18:08

think it's by story. I think

18:11

it's by what you do here.

18:13

It's the stories that we tell.

18:15

It's the examples that we give.

18:17

You know, you have to ask

18:19

yourself a question. Is somebody who

18:21

has got that mindset smarter? Probably

18:23

not. They've just had... better experiences

18:26

and perhaps luck along the way.

18:28

So I'll give you one example.

18:30

I mentioned SEDS earlier. So SEDS

18:32

was my first organization ever. I'm

18:34

at MIT, I'm, it's my sophomore

18:36

year, and I'm passionate about space.

18:38

I find out there's no student

18:41

space organization at MIT. Oh my

18:43

God, it's, you're crazy. It's a

18:45

student space organization. And so I

18:47

go to the MIT Student Center

18:49

and I find out you need

18:51

to get five signatures to start

18:53

a group. Bill, Brad, and Roland

18:56

as the third, and then one

18:58

of their girlfriends, Natalie. And that's

19:00

our first five. And we get

19:02

it, and we submit it, and

19:04

I'm here, I'm running the Student

19:06

Space Organization. And I go and

19:08

I poster MIT, this is before

19:11

the days of the internet, right?

19:13

Before computers, like, like, rub on

19:15

letter type of days, like, you

19:17

know, photocopy days, this is 1982,

19:19

thereabouts. And I posted the entire

19:21

campus, and 30 people show up

19:23

at this meeting. where I pitched

19:26

this idea of creating a student

19:28

space organization. And after that meeting,

19:30

I was so enthralled by this

19:32

level of energy, like, oh my

19:34

God, this has a future. And

19:36

I remember standing outside the Student

19:38

Center, looking up at the stars,

19:41

and sort of seeing fast forward

19:43

this organization actually becoming what it's

19:45

become. And I sent out letters

19:47

along with two of my colleagues,

19:49

and it gets published by Astronomy

19:51

Analog in Omni Magazine. Hundreds of

19:53

people write letters back in and

19:56

the organization blossoms into an international

19:58

student space organization. I find myself

20:00

running in the living room of

20:02

my. fraternity, right? Now, it was

20:04

a success and I became addicted

20:06

to that feeling of success. Now,

20:08

had that been a failure, had

20:11

I done that and next year

20:13

no one showed up and it

20:15

flopped, maybe we'd be having a

20:17

different story. But in the success,

20:19

I was like, okay, what can

20:21

I do next? And next for

20:23

me was something called the Space

20:26

Generation Foundation and then International Space

20:28

University ISU, which is... You know,

20:30

another major non-profit success, but has

20:32

grown into a hundred million dollar

20:34

university, you know, around the world,

20:36

and it's just been amazing. But

20:38

I think part of this is

20:40

putting yourself out there and trying.

20:43

It's the ratio of zero to

20:45

one is infinite. And how do

20:47

you get people to just try

20:49

to overcome their fears? That's the

20:51

hard part. And it's the realization

20:53

that it's okay to fail, but

20:55

it's even better to succeed. Very

20:58

well said. So the key moment

21:00

in that for me, and you

21:02

put your finger on it, is

21:04

writing or getting the signatures to

21:06

start the organization to believe that

21:08

you could pull it off. Is

21:10

that optimism something that you cultivated

21:13

in your life or is it

21:15

something that you come by naturally?

21:17

So interesting, right? So it came,

21:19

what is, when you peel that

21:21

onion of taking that first step,

21:23

that zero to one and getting

21:25

those five signatures, what drove that?

21:28

So what drove that was my

21:30

childhood passion and interest in space.

21:32

I was so interested in space,

21:34

so enthralled by it, that ultimately

21:36

I was sort of like, myth,

21:38

there was no space group there.

21:40

And I was like, okay, opportunity,

21:43

I'll create one. So the question

21:45

then becomes, you know, what drove

21:47

that passion in me? And when

21:49

I think about going back to

21:51

my kids, I talk about the

21:53

three things I want for them.

21:55

I boil it down to the

21:58

three most important things that are

22:00

important. for any child, my children

22:02

in particular, that I'm driven

22:04

with them, is helping them find

22:06

their passion. I don't care what

22:08

it is. I don't care if it's like,

22:11

you know, Barbie dolls or,

22:13

you know, right now it's

22:15

Minecraft and Legos, but it's

22:17

fine that passion that will

22:20

drive them self-driven learning and

22:22

self-driven investigation. The second thing

22:24

is curiosity. In a world

22:27

where you can know anything. curiosity

22:29

is so critically important and then

22:31

grit and you know grit you

22:33

know grit and your story just

22:36

speaks volumes and so passion

22:38

curiosity and grit for me was

22:40

what I happened to have learned I

22:43

learned grit from my dad because I

22:45

saw him not give up right and so

22:47

in my in my household when for my

22:49

kids you know we we joke and seriously

22:52

say what's the one thing we don't do

22:54

and they'll say we don't give up

22:56

So it's like, it's just, it's, and every

22:59

day when I walk them to school, the

23:01

last thing I say to them is ask

23:03

good questions today. And when we're walking

23:05

to school, I say, what questions do you

23:07

have for me? And so it's, I want

23:09

to get a culture of question asking,

23:12

and a culture of not giving up.

23:14

And passion, it's my job to

23:16

observe the natural passion and then

23:18

just fuel it. What do you

23:20

want to do? Okay, paper airplanes,

23:22

fantastic. I love that. What I love

23:24

about that is it's systematized, right? Like

23:26

so few people can get to the

23:29

point where they can explain how I'm

23:31

going to inculcate this into my kids.

23:33

I ask people about their kids a

23:35

lot because kids are the one thing

23:37

that really forces people to say, what

23:40

am I trying to teach? What am

23:42

I trying to pass on? I've got

23:44

this universe of things that I think

23:46

about. I'm going to boil it down

23:49

to something that I can pass on

23:51

to the next generation, and gets to

23:53

the point where people are, you know what they really

23:55

believe in enough that they're going to try to pass

23:57

it on. But a lot of people fall down into

23:59

how. Well, so it's interesting. My kids

24:02

are going into kindergarten and I

24:04

think about, honestly, will they ever

24:06

go to college? And do we

24:08

actually reinvent what school is like

24:10

for them? What role do I

24:13

play? I mean, one of the

24:15

things that I'm excited about is

24:17

getting them involved in Dean Cayman's

24:19

first robotics competition, right? So first

24:21

robotics, if you don't know about

24:24

it, is this incredibly rich. after

24:26

school experience where kids first starting

24:28

with Legos build robotic Legos to

24:30

do certain things. And then at

24:32

the high school level, a first

24:35

robotics team gets basically a box

24:37

of stuff. They have to build

24:39

a robot that accomplishes a certain

24:41

task, like picks up basketballs and

24:43

shoots them into the hoop while

24:45

knocking out other robots. And it's

24:48

about learning how to think through

24:50

a problem and build the system

24:52

and become engineers. You know, ultimately,

24:54

our society tends to make heroes

24:56

out of who. Rock stars, sports

24:59

stars, your chance of becoming a

25:01

rock star, a sports star, or

25:03

probably, you know, the only thing

25:05

less than that is probably becoming

25:07

an astronaut. But at the end

25:10

of the day, you know, so

25:12

we idolize these rock stars, these

25:14

TV stars, these sports stars, and

25:16

that's okay, I guess, but we

25:18

should be idolizing. you know, people

25:21

like yourself and engineers and scientists

25:23

and, you know, incredible people on

25:25

the planet. And so first robotics

25:27

is all about recognition and celebration

25:29

of engineers and scientists. All right,

25:31

what is the most important elements

25:34

to thinking like an entrepreneur? Being

25:36

fascinated by how you would solve

25:38

it and then creating something that

25:40

you really want. and that you

25:42

authentically believe in, like you do

25:45

this show, and then being able

25:47

to express it to people. So,

25:49

you know... I'm working right now

25:51

on my 19th startup. And it's

25:53

a, it's, it's- Why undersold you

25:56

in the intro? By two, but

25:58

that's okay. But the, it's reinventing

26:00

the news media. Right. So it's

26:02

a really exciting one. I'm so

26:04

excited about it. I can't say

26:07

much about it. But right now,

26:09

when you're watching the news on

26:11

TV, whatever, you're counting on an

26:13

individual called a news editor to

26:15

decide what you put into your

26:18

brain. Right. And it's insane that

26:20

you should allow the crisis and

26:22

use network or the constantly negative

26:24

news network, whatever you call CNN.

26:26

I love my little, you know,

26:28

little tweaks, jabs on CNN, but

26:31

we allow them to decide what

26:33

I should see over and over

26:35

and over again. And your mindset

26:37

is everything. So imagine if you

26:39

could have some other mechanisms for

26:42

controlling what you see and when

26:44

you see it. Anyway, I won't

26:46

go into more than that. But

26:48

at the end of the day,

26:50

I'm... I'm excited to buy this

26:53

in theory, and we are building

26:55

the beta right now, and for

26:57

me, the tire hits the road

26:59

as an entrepreneur. If I love

27:01

it and I use it, and

27:04

until I love it and use

27:06

it all the time, it doesn't

27:08

go into the ethos out there.

27:10

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27:12

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28:25

For anybody who doesn't know what

28:27

is your fascination with Star Trek

28:29

and how deeply have you baked

28:31

it into it's that green chick

28:33

So so I was born in

28:36

the 60s and and Apollo occurred

28:38

Apollo 11 occurred in 1969 which

28:40

was an incredibly Formative moment in

28:42

my life the entire Apollo program

28:44

And at the same time, you

28:47

know, Star Trek debuted in 1966,

28:49

I didn't see it then, I

28:51

saw it in the reruns, and

28:53

it had three seasons in total,

28:55

but when I was seeing it

28:58

in 1969, 1970, Apollo showed me

29:00

what was going on right now,

29:02

and Star Trek is, this is

29:04

where we're going. And that one-two

29:06

punch just made me enamored with

29:08

the future in space, that this

29:11

was, this was a destiny of

29:13

humanity. We were about to launch

29:15

into the cosmos. And so I

29:17

became enamored with Star Trek and

29:19

the more you look at Star

29:22

Trek, Star Trek, Gene Rondbury, the

29:24

creator, producer of Star Trek, I

29:26

know his son, Rod Rondbury, Gene

29:28

Rondbury was a brilliant man. What

29:30

Gene Roddbury created was a set

29:33

of technologies on that show that

29:35

are still driving us today, right?

29:37

So he had the communicator. Right

29:39

that you would be able to

29:41

just tap into and talk to

29:44

anybody on the planet and of

29:46

course You know we take that

29:48

for you know that was a

29:50

crazy back in the 60s with

29:52

rotary dial, you know, landline phones,

29:54

he had the tri-quarter, right? And

29:57

we have just, within the X-prise,

29:59

as you know, we just had

30:01

the awarding of the $10 million

30:03

Qualcomm tri-quarter X-prise. The tri-quarter was

30:05

a thing that Bones or Spark

30:08

would use to diagnose someone and

30:10

go, you know, Jim, he's an

30:12

alien, you know, or he's got,

30:14

or Igillian fever, or whatever the

30:16

case might be. And so we

30:19

challenged teams throughout the world here

30:21

to create the Star Trek dry

30:23

quarter, a device that could diagnose

30:25

15 diseases for you as a

30:27

mom, two o'clock in the morning

30:30

when your kid is sick. He

30:32

has the replicator device that you

30:34

can create anything. And we're just

30:36

on the way towards that with

30:38

3D printing. And so Star Trek

30:41

just created these amazing. this view

30:43

of the future, and probably one

30:45

of the most interesting views of

30:47

the future that no one talks

30:49

about, is the future of Star

30:51

Trek had no economy. In a

30:54

world in which you can create

30:56

anything, money has little to no

30:58

value. You're living in a world

31:00

of abundance, where you can create

31:02

anything you want. disease is cured,

31:05

education is available through an AI,

31:07

you can create anything through this

31:09

replicator, you can go any place.

31:11

And what really had value in

31:13

the future, and will have value

31:16

for us in the future, is

31:18

raw material, like an asteroid worth

31:20

or a planet worth over here,

31:22

energy from the sun or from,

31:24

in that case, dilithium crystals, or

31:27

information sets to manufacture something. So

31:29

I see the Star Trek universe

31:31

as really... a target we're heading

31:33

towards. I love how, so one

31:35

of my favorite things is when

31:38

somebody who's very successful, who I

31:40

take very seriously as an entrepreneur,

31:42

as a think, or whatever, is

31:44

so... by something pop culture, that

31:46

it makes its way into everything

31:48

that they do. And so at

31:51

the last year's visioneering summit, literally

31:53

all the teams presenting a new

31:55

potential X- Prize had to say

31:57

how the X- Prize was in

31:59

line with Roddenberry's worldview. So that

32:02

was amazing. And then the tricorder

32:04

X- Prize. So let's talk about

32:06

how somebody can go and see

32:08

Star Trek. and see this absurd

32:10

device, which everybody else discounts, it

32:13

just says, it's fiction, it can

32:15

never be, and then the person,

32:17

namely you, that goes, no, no,

32:19

we can, there's a way to

32:21

actually make that. Like, is it

32:24

just been, like, first you're in

32:26

a little credibility with yourself, and

32:28

then a little bit more and

32:30

a little bit more, and it

32:32

stacks up till you're so brazen

32:34

that you go for the tricorder?

32:37

Like, how does that try quarter?

32:39

all science fiction, written, television, movies,

32:41

and so forth, create this believable

32:43

future. And after you've read it

32:45

or watched it, if you are

32:48

all of a sudden back in

32:50

reality here, there's this dissonance between

32:52

this should be possible and we're

32:54

here. And if you can make

32:56

that leap to say, okay, it's

32:59

possible. How do we get there?

33:01

And X prizes are all about

33:03

saying, I don't care where you

33:05

went to school, what you've ever

33:07

done, if you solve this problem,

33:10

you win. And so it's putting

33:12

out a bold, objective goal, right?

33:14

Like, here's the 15 diseases you

33:16

have to be able to detect,

33:18

and here are the vital symptoms

33:21

that we'll detect, and if you

33:23

do this, you win 10 million

33:25

bucks. And we're not too far

33:27

from that being possible for all

33:29

of us. What I mean by

33:31

that is... We're within 10 to

33:34

20 years from us being able

33:36

to be in a world where

33:38

we can speak our desires to

33:40

an AI. And that AI is

33:42

able to drive 3D printing technology,

33:45

synthetic biology, eventually nanotechnology, and your

33:47

thoughts, verbalized, become matter. Right? I

33:49

mean, it really is, it's going

33:51

from mind to matter to the

33:53

marketplace. And I talk about this,

33:56

you know, we're all going to

33:58

become entrepreneurs in the future, where

34:00

if I have an idea for

34:02

something that I truly desire, like,

34:04

like I want this mug, and

34:07

I can say to my AI.

34:09

Listen, I want something you can

34:11

carry, some hot coffee, and I'd

34:13

like a, you know, I'd like

34:15

a handle on it, and can

34:17

you color it white, and can

34:20

you give it the thermal property

34:22

so that something inside it will

34:24

stay warm for a much longer

34:26

period, and I'd like it to

34:28

be less than 10 cents. So

34:31

pick a material that's cheap, and

34:33

I can look at it and

34:35

say, yeah, can you scale a

34:37

little bit larger? I haven't written

34:39

a piece of code. I've just,

34:42

I'm expressing what I want that's

34:44

in my mind, in my mind,

34:46

And this AI is in taking

34:48

that desire and converting it to

34:50

the right code or the right,

34:53

whatever it might be, so that

34:55

it becomes a file that can

34:57

be then manufactured. And that level

34:59

of magic is coming very fast.

35:01

It's sort of Iron Man and

35:04

Jarvis materialized in the next decade.

35:06

What are you most excited about

35:08

right now with technology like that

35:10

getting so near term? What's well?

35:12

Everything man. So I'm I'm driven

35:14

by two moon shots that I'm

35:17

on right now I'm on a

35:19

moonshot for mining asteroids and the

35:21

mining of the asteroids is just

35:23

a part of the opening up

35:25

the space frontier Right that during

35:28

our lifetimes in the next 10

35:30

to 20 years that we're going

35:32

to be moving irreversibly into space

35:34

right? I'm so thrilled that Jeff

35:36

Bezos is doing what he's doing

35:39

with Blue Origin. I knew Jeff

35:41

at the earliest days of Amazon,

35:43

I remember him telling me, I'm

35:45

building Amazon, which by the way

35:47

is a half a trillion dollar

35:50

company. I'm building Amazon in order

35:52

to make the money to go

35:54

and open the space frontier. Wow,

35:56

right? And so it was about

35:58

two months ago He sold a

36:01

billion dollars of Amazon stock to

36:03

continue fueling his blue origin space

36:05

company and then Elon Musk who

36:07

I met now back in 2001

36:09

has been as passionate about opening

36:11

up space and really SpaceX is

36:14

just light years ahead of most

36:16

all the other airspace companies. So

36:18

you got two incredible, wealthy, passionate-driven

36:20

entrepreneurs opening up space. My part

36:22

of that is with a company

36:25

called Planetary Resources that's going out

36:27

to these asteroids that are rich

36:29

in fuels, in particular... hydrogen and

36:31

oxygen which is rocket fuel from

36:33

the shell and main engine and

36:36

then Platinum Group metals and construction

36:38

metals and so forth and these

36:40

are trillion dollar assets if I

36:42

can if I can last so

36:44

one of those and put on

36:47

the public markets I'd be set

36:49

for life. Our first target asteroid

36:51

is something like a ten to

36:53

a hundred trillion dollar asset depending

36:55

upon you know how you value

36:57

it or devalue it. Right. The

37:00

other thing I'm passionate about is

37:02

human longevity. It's the realization that

37:04

we are now gaining the tools

37:06

to begin to understand why we

37:08

age and ultimately why we die.

37:11

And the question is, do we

37:13

have to? You know, certain species

37:15

of life on this planet, sharks,

37:17

whales, turtles, have known multi-hundred year

37:19

lifespans. I remember seeing a show

37:22

on that while I was a

37:24

medical school. And I locked in

37:26

and said, OK, if they can,

37:28

why can't I? And I said,

37:30

clearly it's a hardware or software

37:33

problem. And so I've dedicated a

37:35

lot of my energy. And you

37:37

named in the two companies Human

37:39

Longevity. And cellularity, human longevity is

37:41

the genomic side of the equation.

37:44

cellularity is the stem cell. of

37:46

the equation, which are just two

37:48

of a couple of the different

37:50

technologies and there are many others.

37:52

Why does stem cells excite you?

37:54

Stem cells excite me because they

37:57

are our primordial stuff. So let

37:59

me give you a 101 lesson

38:01

in stem cells. So when a

38:03

woman gets pregnant and a fetus

38:05

starts developing in the uterus, what...

38:08

is surrounding that fetus and creating

38:10

sort of the nest for it

38:12

is the placenta. And the placenta

38:14

actually is supplying to that fetus

38:16

all of the stem cells that

38:19

it needs to grow every tissue,

38:21

every organ, every part of its

38:23

body. So a stem cell is

38:25

a primordial cell that can develop

38:27

into anything. Brain, liver, heart, long

38:30

skin, bone, cartilage, whatever it might

38:32

be. And when that child is

38:34

born... When my children were born,

38:36

I actually stored their placenta. There's

38:38

a company called Life Bank. People

38:40

store cord blood. My recommendation is

38:43

that's great. At a minimum store,

38:45

the placental cord blood, and there's

38:47

lots of companies that will do

38:49

that. But I think storing the

38:51

placenta is much more powerful, right?

38:54

It's not just the cells that

38:56

generate the hemoporetic system. It's all

38:58

of the stem cells that create

39:00

the child. Anyway, that's whose blood

39:02

and tissues are coursing with stem

39:05

cells whenever any damage takes place.

39:07

Any inflammation occurs. Those stem cells

39:09

go to that point of inflammation

39:11

and very rapidly repair what's going

39:13

on. But as we grow older,

39:16

two things happen. One, our stem

39:18

cell populations in our bone, in

39:20

our fat, in our organs diminishes

39:22

hundreds or thousands of folds. Far

39:24

less stem cells. going through our

39:27

body. And the stem cells in

39:29

our body have undergone genetic changes.

39:31

Because of radiation, the stuff you

39:33

drink and eat, it's just normal

39:35

degradation of your genome, which changes

39:37

over your lifespan. So if I

39:40

go and I extract stem cells

39:42

in my body right now, if

39:44

my bone marrow or fat, which

39:46

are the two largest reserves, and

39:48

I sequence it, and if I

39:51

could compare it to the stem

39:53

cells of my birth... I would

39:55

see that that's changed. So my

39:57

stem cells have now reduced in

39:59

number and have become somewhat senile.

40:02

So their ability to continue to

40:04

repair me has reduced, which is

40:06

one of the theories of why

40:08

we age. And so one of

40:10

my business partners, my co-founder of

40:13

human longevity, and my partner in

40:15

founding cellularity, Bob Hariri, Bob's an

40:17

MD PhD, and maybe a fighter

40:19

pilot, one of the rock stars

40:21

in the stem cell world, has

40:24

actually done the work to show

40:26

if you take... In this case,

40:28

he did the work in mice.

40:30

You take the placentas of that

40:32

mice, you convert it to dosages

40:34

of stem cells that you then

40:37

give to that mouse at the

40:39

end of its life, like in

40:41

this case, typically a 26-month-old mouse,

40:43

you will extend that mouse life

40:45

another 30 to 40%. Right? Right?

40:48

You'll add another year almost onto

40:50

it. That's been repeated in a

40:52

number of different ways. There's a

40:54

whole thing called the young blood

40:56

experiments being done at Stanford. And

40:59

right now, the experiments are going

41:01

on in humans as well. That

41:03

if, you know, it's sort of

41:05

like the sort of Dracula of

41:07

a vampire, but if you take

41:10

the blood of a young individual

41:12

and transfuse it with a plasma,

41:14

not the cellular portion, into an

41:16

older person, you will get a

41:18

lot of return to youthful state.

41:20

And in reality... It turns out

41:23

that there are a number of

41:25

stem cell clinics outside the United

41:27

States, and I happen to know

41:29

a number of 80-something. old billionaires

41:31

who go and don't get young

41:34

blood infusion but get stem cell

41:36

infusions. Why not young blood? Well

41:38

it turns out that the stem

41:40

cells actually generate the the growth

41:42

factors and all the chemical milieu

41:45

that is in the plasma and

41:47

they live for a hundred days.

41:49

Is it stem cells from themselves?

41:51

No it's stem cells from newborns.

41:53

Really it's the stem cells from

41:56

newborns. Really it's the stem cells

41:58

from the placentas or the cord

42:00

blood. that are typically thrown away.

42:02

That is utterly fascinating. I could

42:04

do an entire show just picking

42:07

your brain about that. And these

42:09

are kinds of conversations that I

42:11

think were verboden or were crazy

42:13

before, but there are a lot

42:15

of scientists today talking about aging

42:17

as a disease, not an inevitability.

42:20

Right. How do you feel about

42:22

augmenting yourself? Like, are you going

42:24

to do it? Maybe you won't

42:26

be an early adopter, but would

42:28

you? Oh, I would be an

42:31

early adopter. Yeah. I was on

42:33

stage speaking at Singularity University. And

42:35

the guy who spoke after me

42:37

was talking about implantables. And he

42:39

says, yes, we have these little

42:42

RFID things that you can put

42:44

data onto when you plant them.

42:46

And he's, and so afterwards I

42:48

said, can I? And he said,

42:50

sure. And so we went back

42:53

on stage and he implanted right

42:55

here. You can feel it. Whoa!

42:57

Wow! I've got this little RFID.

42:59

If you take your near filled

43:01

ID with your phone you get

43:03

my business card off of it.

43:06

Are you serious? Yeah. Do you

43:08

have one on your phone? I

43:10

don't have it turned on. But

43:12

we'll turn on after this. We'll

43:14

take a little while to do

43:17

it. That is crazy. But so

43:19

listen, I think there's got to

43:21

be some level of safety, but

43:23

I'm much more risk- Today, if

43:25

you think about the world of

43:28

sensors, I've got heart rate and

43:30

steps on here. Very soon, we'll

43:32

have glucose and blood. pressure and

43:34

other elements and we're probably within

43:36

five years Apple Samsung Google Facebook

43:39

everyone's working on on sensors for

43:41

your body so man I could

43:43

keep going on forever but so

43:45

limited time there's two things I

43:47

want to talk about is it

43:50

true that you have like a

43:52

board of advisors that are science

43:54

fiction writers we do we have

43:56

created at the X Prize Foundation

43:58

a board of 35 science fiction

44:00

writers that we will, we've just

44:03

formed it, but we'll call on,

44:05

because at the end of the

44:07

day, you know, coming up with

44:09

X-prises, coming up with, you know,

44:11

big, bold, crazy ideas that are

44:14

on the verge of just being

44:16

doable. You know. Why not call

44:18

them people whose profession is to

44:20

come up with those things? And

44:22

what do you think they do

44:25

to stay at the edge of

44:27

that? Are they just researching real-world

44:29

technologies? It's becoming harder to write

44:31

stuff, which is real hardcore science

44:33

fiction, because all the things we

44:36

used to think of, I mean,

44:38

once you've got AI and nanotechnology,

44:40

nothing's impossible. Right. We're sort of

44:42

like game over, or game start.

44:44

Well, that brings me to my

44:47

next question. So, and very interesting

44:49

that you switch it from game

44:51

over to game start. As this

44:53

happens, AI comes on just that

44:55

we're at a place where robotics,

44:57

AI, we can create just about

45:00

anything we want. Humans are essentially

45:02

wiped out from the current way

45:04

we think about jobs, or we'll

45:06

call it roughly 50%. What happens,

45:08

society, what happens to the generation

45:11

that would have to make that

45:13

transition, what does universal basic income

45:15

look like, like what is all

45:17

that? So, when people sort of

45:19

ask me, are you fearful of

45:22

AI? Is AI the devil? Is

45:24

it going to destroy? Is it

45:26

the terminator? I'm going to destroy

45:28

humanity? I answer no, it's not.

45:30

I think AI is probably one

45:33

of the artificial intelligence when I

45:35

say AI is one of the

45:37

most important tools humanity. planning

45:39

will ever create

45:41

that will become

45:43

our partner in

45:46

solving any challenge

45:48

we want. And

45:50

so I differ

45:52

with, you know,

45:54

Stephen Hawking and

45:57

Elon Musk and

45:59

Bill Gates. It's

46:01

kind of hard

46:03

to go up

46:05

against those guys,

46:08

but I disagree.

46:10

I think that's

46:12

their amygdala speaking,

46:14

and they've seen

46:16

Terminator too many

46:19

times. But

46:21

at the end the day, I

46:23

am concerned about AI taking our

46:25

jobs. I am concerned about AI

46:27

and robotics disrupting a lot of

46:29

our current jobs. I'm not concerned

46:32

in the long term because I

46:34

think we're going to adapt society

46:36

to that's fine. But in the

46:38

near term, it's the rate at

46:40

which we're going to be losing

46:42

jobs, right? We've all, we've lost

46:44

jobs over and over and over

46:47

again. I remember the number particularly

46:49

in 1810, we had 84 %

46:51

of Americans were farmers. And today

46:53

it's under 2%. 84 % to 2

46:55

% wiped out all those jobs.

46:57

And of course, we became far

47:00

more efficient and now robots, robotic

47:02

tractors and so forth will do

47:04

the farming and such. And that's

47:06

the kind of magnitude change is

47:08

fine of going from 50 % of

47:10

our jobs. I tell my sister

47:12

all the time as an anesthesiologist

47:15

that her job is going to

47:17

be replaced much better by an

47:19

AI and robot, right, than the

47:21

human doctor. And all surgery will

47:23

be done by robots and all

47:25

diagnosticians will be replaced by AIs.

47:28

But it's the rate at which

47:30

we do those transitions, truck drivers,

47:32

taxi drivers, all those things being

47:34

replaced. And today our meaning of

47:36

our life is wrapped up in

47:38

what we do. So the two

47:41

issues with technological unemployment is how

47:43

you earn your living and then

47:45

what you do to create significance

47:47

in your life. And

47:50

so the first I think is

47:52

going to be solved by universal basic

47:55

income. I think ultimately we're demonetizing

47:57

the cost of living. It's becoming cheaper

47:59

and cheaper to live. So the

48:01

example I give today

48:03

is, you know, this

48:05

device will eventually become

48:07

your teacher and your health

48:09

care provider for free.

48:12

The same way that

48:14

access to the world's

48:16

information is available across

48:18

the world for free. A car

48:21

today, you know, I love my

48:23

car and I'm not a car

48:25

guy, but I love the Tesla,

48:27

but I'm going to park

48:29

it. when autonomous Tesla is an

48:31

autonomous car has come online because

48:33

autonomous cars are going to be

48:36

10 times cheaper and far more

48:38

convenient. So we're going to give up

48:40

car ownership for something that's one-tenth

48:43

the cost and then a whole bunch

48:45

of things change. But how we deal

48:47

with the significance of our jobs and

48:49

our lives, that's going to be

48:51

an interesting question. And so

48:54

I'm concerned about that. people

48:56

feeling angry towards technology for

48:58

disrupting their lives. And that's something

49:00

I was sitting a lot of time

49:02

thinking about these days. Did you read

49:04

Fahrenheit 451? God, back in high school,

49:07

I think. The thing I found really

49:09

interesting about that, and it planted a

49:11

seed in my head, was that there

49:13

exists out in the woods, the people

49:15

who so were unwilling to give up

49:17

books, that they were more prepared to

49:19

give up society, and so they move

49:21

out into the woods. and that seems

49:23

an inevitability as we, especially when I

49:25

think about it, not so much as

49:28

AI, but I think about it as

49:30

human machine interface. So as

49:32

we begin implanting things into

49:34

our brains that augment it

49:36

or even just as we

49:39

begin messing with our own

49:41

gene sequencing and people that

49:43

refuse to start doing selection

49:45

on genetic criteria for their

49:48

babies and like eventually they'll

49:50

lose. Like it just doesn't seem

49:52

like eventually those people who are

49:54

the people who are the leadites.

49:57

Yeah. So it is true that

49:59

I think we're going to split

50:01

humanity into those who want to

50:03

retain their old ways and that's

50:06

been the case always. And those

50:08

who choose to, if you would,

50:10

plug in. And I think it's

50:12

interesting because I've thought a lot

50:15

about that and I've written about

50:17

that. I think that once we

50:19

are able to connect the brain

50:22

to the cloud and... Ray Kurzweil

50:24

puts that date as early to

50:26

mid-2030s, right? 2033, whoa, 2035, times

50:29

check, that's, you know, 16 years

50:31

from now, thereabouts, that's not very

50:33

far away. I mean, 16 years

50:35

ago was, you know, 2001, right?

50:38

I mean, not, I remember it

50:40

like it was yesterday. So, and

50:42

of course you've got amazing individuals

50:45

like Brian Johnson with Colonel and

50:47

Elon Musk with Neuralink and a

50:49

whole bunch of other players out

50:51

of Facebook, out of Google, working

50:54

on this technology as well. It's

50:56

about how do you enhance human

50:58

intelligence? And then ultimately, you know,

51:01

human intelligence is the most important

51:03

thing we can have. And I

51:05

think once you're able to enhance

51:08

your intelligence and sort of plug

51:10

into what I call the meta

51:12

intelligence where you, plug into the

51:14

cloud and I can know the

51:17

thoughts of a man woman and

51:19

child on this world and know

51:21

anything I want at any time,

51:24

it's so powerful, so addicting that

51:26

I think to unplug from that

51:28

would be to feel like you're

51:30

shut off and you're blind from

51:33

the world. It's

51:35

so interesting how much fear and anxiety

51:37

people have over the change and and

51:40

all that and my whole thing is

51:42

you get where you focus on So

51:44

if you're focusing on that then it's

51:47

going to be big and scary But

51:49

at the same time if you focus

51:51

on the potential beauties of the you

51:54

know billions of new minds coming online

51:56

and being connected to them and the

51:58

revelations that will happen and as we

52:01

really take control of the next phase

52:03

of our evolution like how interesting Have

52:05

you read Humu dais? I haven't yet.

52:07

You're going to love it. You're going

52:10

to love it. You're going to love

52:12

it. So I've become a total evangelist

52:14

for this book. Absolutely obsessed. Got to

52:17

get the author on here. And he

52:19

basically walks through sort of how the

52:21

way the human mind works, you know

52:24

my obsession with narrative and fiction. He

52:26

does the most eloquent job of explaining

52:28

that our fictions, the stories that we

52:31

tell, are like David Foster Wallace's notion

52:33

of This is water. like they're so

52:35

ever present these stories that we're telling

52:37

each other we don't even realize that

52:40

they're stories so one of the examples

52:42

he gives is money right money is

52:44

an intersubject truth it is only real

52:47

in as long as we believe right

52:49

the second people don't believe in it

52:51

like that like it ceases to have

52:54

any value whatsoever and he said any

52:56

list like I mean just five six

52:58

seven different narratives and one of the

53:01

that we're all taking for granted and

53:03

one of the most beautiful was how

53:05

during the Crusades, the Christians and the

53:08

Muslims lined up perfectly. And it's, it

53:10

is in their cemetery in that they're

53:12

telling the same fiction just from opposite

53:14

sides, right? One true God, one true

53:17

God, one true God that wants us

53:19

to reclaim the Holy Land, that wants

53:21

us to reclaim the Holy Land. The

53:24

only part that's different is their true

53:26

God is different than theirs, and so

53:28

they collide and kill each other. But,

53:31

and he talks about how if either

53:33

of them, like... the story had been

53:35

different, like, oh, pretending, you know, one

53:38

true God, what he wants is for

53:40

you to live in peace and harmony,

53:42

and landmass is totally irrelevant, when it

53:44

meets this force that has to have

53:47

the landmass, then they would acquiesce, right?

53:49

It is only because they're telling the

53:51

exact same story from opposite sides that

53:54

you get the historic collision that we

53:56

got. And he talks about how to

53:58

anybody living back in that time, like

54:01

it would have made sense, right? So

54:03

if you're this kid growing up in

54:05

England that's about to go fight the

54:08

Crusades, the woman whose attention you want,

54:10

like she's looking at you, like, oh

54:12

my God, you're going to go off

54:15

to the Crusades, and you know, she's

54:17

fluttering her eyelashes and their families, like,

54:19

oh my God, you're going to bring

54:21

glory to the family and to the

54:24

church, like this is amazing, you should

54:26

be doing you should be doing it.

54:28

back at it, it seems so absurd.

54:31

And so, and he says, you can

54:33

take any time in history you want.

54:35

And to those people, the fiction would

54:38

have been invisible. It would have all

54:40

seemed absolutely objectively true. And it was

54:42

being mirrored back to you at every

54:45

level of your society, to the point

54:47

where you can't see it. But that

54:49

with enough distance, you'll say, well, that

54:51

was obviously ridiculous. And he said, so

54:54

what are you believing right now that

54:56

a hundred years from now will seem...

54:58

Patently ridiculous. Yeah, just got the chills.

55:01

So it's like that to me is

55:03

when I look at the stories people

55:05

tell themselves whether it's the terminator whether

55:08

it's the Borg whatever story they're telling

55:10

about this scary future it's like okay

55:12

well as long as you're in a

55:15

group that's sort of self reinforcing that

55:17

I get it I get why it

55:19

seems like we have to like we're

55:22

already at war with AI like emotionally

55:24

and it hasn't even been truly created

55:26

yet it's just it's the other right

55:28

it's the different so How we get

55:31

over that as a species is something

55:33

that I find utterly fascinating. I don't

55:35

think at all that I have the

55:38

answer to. And we're going to find

55:40

out during our lifetimes. I mean, that's

55:42

the most incredible thing that I keep

55:45

reminding people. Like, wake up, the next

55:47

20 years, this game plays out. Right,

55:49

which is why I'm so convinced we're

55:52

in the middle of a video game

55:54

anyway. Yeah. It's like, we're living during

55:56

the most extraordinary times, it's all playing

55:58

out, we're in the final phase of

56:01

the game play. Clearly were. This is

56:03

a simulation. It's interesting. There are, I

56:05

heckled you a little bit at X-Prise

56:08

when you brought that up. I want

56:10

to believe that because it fits so

56:12

well with my like Matrix mythos, but

56:15

for whatever, I can't get over time.

56:17

And if somebody can explain to me

56:19

how either the people watch it, because

56:22

the only reason to do a simulation

56:24

is to watch it play out. And

56:26

if you don't live long enough to

56:29

watch it play out. then there would

56:31

be no point. So for us... Yeah,

56:33

but you could create a simulation and

56:35

have it play out at a billion

56:38

times the clock speed. So that's where

56:40

I... And replant it and restart it

56:42

again. And you know, this whole notion

56:45

of parallel universe is... I mean, the

56:47

notion that, that, I mean, if I

56:49

were a scientist trying to create a,

56:52

if I could create a virtual computational

56:54

world, right, using whatever, quantum computers and

56:56

set up an AI inside and set

56:59

the original conditions and let it play

57:01

out and tweak the conditions and how

57:03

it play out and run a Monte

57:05

Carlo simulation. What's that? It's a, it's

57:08

a, it's a simulation in which you

57:10

change. a few small variables and run

57:12

a million of them in parallel, or

57:15

a billion of them in parallel, imagine

57:17

a world in which in alien civilization

57:19

you set the starting conditions and literally

57:22

let an infinite number of these play

57:24

out in parallel and then see what

57:26

happens. I don't know. I find these

57:29

thoughts too compelling to just let go.

57:31

Yeah, I'm with you. The one that

57:33

I think freaked me out was when

57:36

I realized that the DNA, first of

57:38

all, can be represented as zeros and

57:40

ones. So already, just life could essentially

57:42

be digital code. But yeah, I find

57:45

that stuff utterly, utterly fascinating. Yeah. And

57:47

again, next 20 years, dude. Anyway, it's

57:49

just an amazing life. I consider myself

57:52

so lucky to be alive right now.

57:54

Exactly. All right, before I ask my

57:56

final question, where can these guys find

57:59

you online? So, Diamandis.com is my website.

58:01

I put out a weekly tech blog.

58:03

I work a lot on this on

58:06

Friday and Saturday. Thank you. And on

58:08

Twitter, I'm just my name, Peter Diamandis.

58:10

You know, Singularity University, come and get

58:12

involved in SU. We run programs for

58:15

executives, for graduates. Xprise.org, X-P-R-I-Z-E-D-O-R-G, you know,

58:17

we're taking on the world's biggest problems.

58:19

You know, fun stuff. I love it.

58:22

What's the... impact you want to have

58:24

on the world? So my MTP, what

58:26

I call my massively transformative purpose, is

58:29

to inspire and guide the transformation of

58:31

humanity on and off the earth. And

58:33

just to peel the onion there, I

58:36

believe that we are undergoing a transformation

58:38

as a species from what we have

58:40

today to this. notion of a meta-intelligence.

58:43

And that transformation is happening both on

58:45

the earth and off the earth. I

58:47

had to add that non-earth part for

58:49

the child in me, right? And I

58:52

think that's going to have to be

58:54

inspired and properly guided to have the

58:56

minimal negative impact. I think this is

58:59

happening. I think we are, the lungfish

59:01

coming out of the land. I think

59:03

we are speciating as a species. There's

59:06

just way too, the rate of change

59:08

is way too high. And so I

59:10

think about that. I want to help

59:13

make the human race a multi-planetary species.

59:15

And for me, it's about changing the

59:17

mindset of people from scarcity-minded to abundance-minded.

59:19

I think that changes the game when

59:22

people go from, no, it's all mine

59:24

to, there's an infinite amount, let's share.

59:26

So far, so good, having fun. I

59:29

love it, man. Thank you so much

59:31

for coming on the show. Thank you,

59:33

pal. Absolutely, fantastic. All right. Guys,

59:36

I'm telling you this is somebody that

59:38

you're going to want to get to

59:40

know at every conceivable level I really

59:43

believe that he is leading the world

59:45

in terms of understanding not only where

59:47

we are near-term future where we could

59:49

be And how we're going to get

59:51

there into the future and I think

59:53

there are very very few people that

59:55

do it with the level of compassion

59:57

Brotherly love like one about this guy

59:59

that you learned very quickly behind the

1:00:02

scenes, like he's got that Greek warmth,

1:00:04

he is so kind, brings you into

1:00:06

a big hug, it is amazing. And

1:00:08

he greets the transition from where we

1:00:10

are today to where we are today

1:00:12

to where we can be, in the

1:00:14

future, to where we can be, in

1:00:16

the future, to where we can be

1:00:18

in the future, with that, in the

1:00:21

future, with that same sense, from where

1:00:23

we are today, to where we can

1:00:25

be in the future, with that same

1:00:27

sense of love, to where we can

1:00:29

be profitable. and most importantly and this is

1:00:31

a thing he will never get enough

1:00:33

credit for. He has a huge

1:00:35

long-range vision but he always starts

1:00:37

with what do we have to do

1:00:40

today? How do we do today

1:00:42

and then tomorrow one step after

1:00:44

another until the grand dream becomes

1:00:46

very... Blase, where you've seen him execute so

1:00:48

many steps that it becomes an inevitability. I've never

1:00:50

met anybody else as good as he is at

1:00:52

that, and for that reason, I beg you, go

1:00:55

learn from him, don't even just listen to what

1:00:57

he says, watch what he does, because that will

1:00:59

highly instruct you and what you should be doing.

1:01:01

All right, he and I are in the middle

1:01:04

of a bet right now. It is the first

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of three million followers, and I'm begging you.

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Help this man beat me. Go

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follow him. It will improve your

1:01:12

life. I'm not kidding diving get

1:01:14

to know him And guys if

1:01:16

you haven't already be sure to

1:01:19

subscribe and until next time

1:01:21

my friends be legendary. Take

1:01:23

care Hey

1:01:25

everybody, thanks so much for joining us for

1:01:27

another episode of Impact Theory. If this content

1:01:30

is adding value to your life, our one

1:01:32

ask is that you go to iTunes and

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Stitcher and rate and review. Not only does

1:01:36

that help us build this community, which at

1:01:38

the end of the day is all we

1:01:41

care about, but it also helps us get

1:01:43

even more amazing guests on here to show

1:01:45

their knowledge with all of us. Thank you

1:01:47

guys so much for being a part of

1:01:50

this community, and until next time, be legendary

1:01:52

my friends. There

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