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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.
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I m Dan Shepard and I m joined by Lily Padman.
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Hello.
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How are you?
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Great.
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Okay, this is the episode.
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Long time coming.
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Long time coming, but not very long coming.
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Like a week and a half coming.
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But this explains our trip to India, even though we ve already explained our trip to India.
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Yes.
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But this is the interview we got to do with Bill at the end of a 14 hour day in his hotel room.
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Very unique situation for us.
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Very, super fun.
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We had just had dinner, which was really lovely.
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Yeah.
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And then we sat down for a little chat.
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We were in a faraway land, another country.
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We were.
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I was about to say it s the only time we ve ever interviewed someone in another country, but that s not true.
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We did two in England one time.
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That s right.
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We need a map in here.
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There s so much wall space.
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Let s also put up a map, and we gotta put pins in where we- Yeah, that s fun.
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Yeah, places we ve interviewed people.
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And then that could be its own little weird challenge.
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Maybe we could do a standing globe, because we have more space for that.
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Oh, one thing I want to do before you listen to Bill Gates, he is supported by such an incredible group of people.
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And I just want to give a couple shout outs to Alex, Joanna, and Hari, who s on the ground in India.
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And Christy.
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And Christy, and Mara, and Guy.
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There were so many people.
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I guess it s what you d expect the team around Bill would be, but every person was so capable and smart.
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And we just truly enjoyed hanging with everybody.
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Yeah, it was such a good group.
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Yeah, it s hard to not give a major shout out to Hari, who is the lead person in the foundation in India.
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He is, yeah.
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He runs the India sector of the foundation.
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And before we began, he was generous enough to have a little meeting with us before the whole trip kicked off.
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And I basically was like, I don t know how it all works.
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Can you like kind of start at the beginning?
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And he gave us a soup to nuts how the foundation arrived in India.
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exactly what they do.
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So by the time we joined Bill the next day, we fully understood it, and we were just blown away with him.
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So shout out to Hari.
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I m sure he doesn t listen to podcasts, but regardless, maybe someone in his life does.
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So, please enjoy, live from India, Bill Gates.
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♪ He s an objects man ♪
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Did you bring us your luggage?
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Oh yeah.
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In fact, this and a backup.
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Check, check, check, check, check, check.
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Okay, great.
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No.
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Okay, that s it.
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We got it.
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Three, two, one.
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Get a little closer to you.
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I thought she was the technician.
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We actually have one, he s just not here.
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So you got us.
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Okay.
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This is a first in so many ways.
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We ve never been on a trip with someone for a week before we interviewed them.
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We ve never interviewed anyone in their hotel room.
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Well, you got to do that more often.
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This might be the best interview.
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I guess my first question I was thinking about is... Do you want to tell people who we re with?
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And yeah, who are we with?
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William Gates, I m assuming your birth name is William.
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William Henry Gates, the third is my birth certificate name.
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You re a third.
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I am.
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Did you have any impulse to do a fourth?
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Negative impulse.
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Negative.
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Yes.
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What happens, I know you would go by senior then junior, what does the third go by?
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My nickname in the family was Trey because I m the third, and my dad was Bill.
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But then the weird thing is when I got to be well-known, then people would call my dad Bill Gates Sr., which is not a real thing, but that was his name.
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That is weird if you re the second and you re junior.
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The nice thing was my dad s credit cards said junior on them, so when people would look at me and say,
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You re not old enough to have a credit card.
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It says junior right there.
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It s clearly a young person s credit card.
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All juniors are young.
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Trey, that s cute.
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I like that.
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I m curious if you recognize that press is part of the mission, right?
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That in order to be as effective as you can be for the Gates Foundation, there s some element of press and forward facing-ness.
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But I would imagine if I were you, I d feel like it was kind of such a waste of your resources.
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In general, how do you feel about having to do this part of it?
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Well, the work we do, the cost to deliver, even to say vaccines in Africa, even our foundation, although it s the largest by foundation standards, compared to the cost
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of actually buying all the vaccines and getting them delivered to, just say, all the kids in Africa, that would be too much for us.
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So we have to partner with governments who have these aid budgets and convince them, hey, let s pool money together.
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In that case, a thing called the Global Alliance for Vaccines.
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And so telling the story of saving children s lives and how incredible that is, that s how we get the voters and
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these democratic countries to say to their politicians, please use some very tiny portion, less than 1% of the government s budget to help other countries, including these amazing life-saving vaccines.
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And so telling the story is very important.
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That s what makes it legitimate for us to get politicians to step up.
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Well, this week we saw you give, I think three different speeches.
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And then of course we saw you in many situations where you re just kind of answering questions.
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And I was thinking you re abnormally good at it for someone of your tech prowess and scientific background.
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And I wondered, has this developed or were you pretty good at this aspect of it from the beginning?
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Now, in no sense would I say I m a natural.
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Steve Jobs was a natural.
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Although he would rehearse, and it was always fun to watch him kind of rehearse, because part of his genius was when he would finally do it, he would make it look like he s just thinking it up right there.
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And the person sitting in the audience would think, oh, he s looking at me and just making this up right now with me.
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And I ll never achieve that level.
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But in my 20s, the idea of telling the story of personal computing and how it would empower people and companies should give their employees these things to do email and spreadsheets, it was a big part of the job.
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We even called it evangelization.
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Some people might...
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Not like that we stole a term of religion, but telling the story of the magic of software is something that certainly by the time I was in my 30s, that was a big part of the job and going all over the world and understanding, okay, how do you do that in Japan?
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How do you do that in China?
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How do you do that in Brazil?
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I was watching you make the speech today at the IIS, which for people who don t know, the IIS is like the MIT of India.
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Indian Institute of Technology.
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And there s several of them.
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Did I not say it right?
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Did I say IIS?
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You might want to say it again because it was IIT, not IIS.
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I fact check and we need some things to fact check.
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Yeah, that s true.
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You ll find that it s IIT.
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Let me save you a fact to check.
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But, um, you re making a pretty long speech and I was checking in with like, how often are you glancing down at your notes?
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There s different columns of it.
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One is being able to have someone ask you a question that could be for you.
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I m sure you could get way too esoteric and lose everybody.
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So you have this, I mean, not to compare you to Oppenheimer, but
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They say his gift was being able to take these really complex thoughts and articulate them for people to understand.
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And so that s like one skill set.
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But then the just straight speech making is to me a completely other skill set.
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And you obviously at this point, you were just confident you can do it.
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Yeah.
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Like you didn t seem like you re panicked at all that you re going to get through those many pages.
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No, it s a big part of the job I had at Microsoft than the job I have now, explaining what we re up to in hopefully straightforward way that connects with a particular audience.
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Some thoughts have been drafted there, but I wasn t sticking that closely to it.
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You know, in fact,
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When somebody asked me, hey, should we just put out that draft thing?
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I said, no, because I had a lot of thoughts about how can I connect with this audience and how do I make the stories here work with them?
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Anyway, I like trying to explain things and I like getting feedback.
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Okay, what stories resonated or what didn t connect?
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Has it gotten harder, do you think, over the years as social media has gotten kind of crazier and news has gotten crazier and there s so much pushback?
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Do you feel like it s harder to do these things because you might get picked at more?
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You re always going to be picked at.
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The particular issue that is the primary thing for the foundation is global health, that is saving lives in developing countries, both in terms of research and resources to buy things like the vaccines or the HIV medicines or bed nets, that we should be generous in doing that.
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It has moved out of the mainstream
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somewhat.
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From the turn of the century through about 2015, the United Nations had these Millennium Development Goals, and they were very straightforward.
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There were just eight of them, and poverty was one, and saving lives was another one.
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That was so popular that when they did the next round, the Sustainable Development Goals, they picked over a hundred.
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And so it got very diffuse, you know, and you can t argue with them.
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It s like handicapped people should have wheelchairs.
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I agree, you know, small island states, we should try to avoid them being submerged.
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with sea level rise.
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So once you have something that seems to be like the agenda for the world that people paid attention to for those first 15 years when it was novel, then it got broader.
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And, you know, as the world gets near-term crises, Ukraine, Middle East, divisiveness domestically, something like Africa that s a bit far away,
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And not many people actually go there.
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It s going to be pushed down a little bit in terms of what people have time for.
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And so global health right now is not quite as central in the dialogue.
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And you even have, there s a form of politics, it s almost isolationist in terms of why should we help other countries, even if it s less than 1% of our money and it saves millions of lives and they re counting on it.
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Isn t that framework of caring about others sort of a sucker s deal?
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You know, we got to go to a lot of places with you this week.
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We went to the Microsoft 25th anniversary in Hyderabad.
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We went to an agricultural command center.
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We went to a reclamation project in a slum.
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I ll add right now, it s still called slum here, so don t think I m being
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disrespectful.
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I think that took us all by surprise.
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That s what I m talking about.
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Like, that s the thing we have to do now.
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It s like, we re allowed to say that guys, don t worry.
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It s not a pejorative here, but I watched you go to all these places.
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And one thing that was kind of impossible to miss being just nine feet behind you is you re warping the reality around you.
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They shoot all the dogs away.
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They didn t want the dogs to meet me.
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I don t know.
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Or bite me.
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Well, as you know, I appointed myself your security.
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So I was praying a dog would make a run for you, but I m watching you move through and there s a kind of bubble of excitement around you and people are very intimidated by you, interested in you.
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Let s also add you re there to potentially give life changing funds through the foundation.
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So there s this huge incentive for them.
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I d imagine to show great progress.
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And what I noticed was people are acting in a very specific way and I m wondering how you correct for that.
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One instance in particular is you were just simply trying to find out of the work that had been done, how much of the labor had been completed by the women in the community.
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And I saw you have to take like seven stabs at that before you got the answer.
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You ve got like many purposes for being there.
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It s like, A, you ve participated in it.
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You want to see it.
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You also want to let them know that you re sincere about all this, but also you re.
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You are always evaluating and imagining the efficacy of these endeavors and you re trying to get real answers and I wonder how aware of it are you and then how do you correct for what you re being told?
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I would imagine there s a bit of an exaggeration that s built in or progress that might seem a little suspicious.
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You know, when you take a tour, that particular project is going to put their best foot forward.
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Even the day before there was probably some cleanup done there.
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Yeah.
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I asked that question where I said, Hey, when your friends come to your place.
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Do they go, Whoa, you get picked for the before and after you said specifically, are your friends jealous when they come over?
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And that s weirdly what cracked through all of the weird warped reality.
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It was like they started talking amongst themselves immediately.
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Remember, I m looking more at the broad statistics, so nobody can fool me about children s deaths, because there s a data-gathering effort that we fund.
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We do autopsies of kids and really look at the cause of death, and we ask relatives.
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It s pretty fantastic that we not only know the number of children that die, but we really get to the bottom of what they re dying of, so that we re directing our resources into that.
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But you get a feel for, do women s groups bring women together?
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Because individual women may not be listened to, sadly, that by having them speak as a group, does that take their voice in terms of, hey, the school teacher didn t show up or the vaccines weren t available and create
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feedback for the super basic issues that they have this awareness of.
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And it turns out women s groups are a powerful concept.
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That s the first time I d seen one that was focused kind of on rehabilitating the slum.
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And the idea that that work of building walls and toilets, that they were really doing that, and that was the most efficient way to get that done.
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You ll see.
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I m going to have to learn a lot more.
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Now, that s not a huge area of funding.
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If I was confused about something having to do with malaria, because we are the biggest malaria funder, I would totally get to the bottom of it.
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And when I leave these visits, I m sending lots of mail asking questions about, wait a minute, when you construct a toilet, or even when you buy, they had that electric meter.
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Just so people don t know, so this was a slum that before this project started, no one had any toilets inside.
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There were no electric meters.
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No running water.
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There was no water, no sewage.
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Electricity, if they had it, it was scavenged or it was bootlegged.
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Yeah.
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Electricity in here, they regularized water supply, electricity supply.
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If the economics really work, if it s scalable, that s a much better life than in a really tough slum, like an African slum, where it s pretty tough conditions.
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And fortunately, the Indian government
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raises a fair bit of money.
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And so the projects we do in India, we typically are a pretty small portion.
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Like, if the government is willing to fund everything except having some very analytical, capable people, because they have a salary structure, it makes it harder for them to bring in an expert.
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We fund the expert salary, but that s maybe 1% of the money.
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It s just making sure the
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99 percent, and mostly it s in the health system or agricultural system where we are very specialized and deep in those areas.
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I m going to go through the steps which I learned on this trip of how it actually works from acknowledging or identifying a problem, then what could be a novel or creative solution, then getting a proof of concept, all that.
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I want to go through that.
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We re on the trajectory, which is the other thing I noticed.
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So there was that in the rehabilitated slum, but also at Microsoft, also when meeting with your friend, Nandan, and dealing with lots of experts, you have a very specific way you hear information.
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And then you can just see your head going three steps down the line.
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Well, that must be a problem there.
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Why would you add a step?
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Why isn t it end to end?
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What is kind of shocking is like you have no problem.
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I was saying to Monica, if I was a cartoonist, my cartoon of you this week would be poking holes in balloons.
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And that s what you do.
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And luckily, especially like Nandan loves that about you.
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He can t wait to see you attack these things he spent so much time.
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And I wondered, this is a weird analogy, but work with me.
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I watched a doc on chess players and a lot of the masters have ultimately become paranoid recluses because
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They have spent so much of their time forecasting disaster that their brain just works that way at some point.
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And I m wondering, is that just your nature?
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Do you think, or is there something about having coded for so long that you re going like five lines ahead all the time to see how is this going to break down in a little bit here?
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I wonder if you have an explanation for why your brain works that way or so quickly spots those inconsistencies.
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You know, I m always trying to figure out, okay, what is the simplest approach here?
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What are the necessary steps and what are the unnecessary steps?
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Have I ever seen something like this be done more effectively?
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Or can they explain why they go through all these things?
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Because after all, particularly in developing countries, the more complicated you make things, it makes it completely unaffordable.
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My 20s and 30s, I would take software projects and I d go through the design and I d say, okay, can we make this run faster?
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Can we write the code smaller?
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Can we share between these two parts of it and make it simpler?
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Fortunately, most of those software projects were wildly successful.
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The direction I was able to give on design or user interface played
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some part in our software out-competing and allowing us to sell at radically lower prices than other people did, which was a key element that personal computers got cheap and software got cheap.
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And so the idea that you can think through solutions and you may be able to point out bad architecture, I enjoyed doing that.
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And as I ve moved from software into global health, I ve been able to work with incredibly smart people and see the questions they ask.
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And we ve had a lot of successful things in global health.
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We ve had a lot of dead ends in global health.
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And over time, people who do reviews with me, they are able to
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even predict what I m going to ask.
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Sometimes you ll see someone who knows interviews where they ll see a group just saying things and they re going, oh no, they didn t explain that well.
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That s part of the learning curve is, okay, think through, could this have been simpler?
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Will this really work?
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We have competitors who are taking a different path.
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Have we really given credit to them that maybe there s something better about their approach than what we re doing?
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Socially, it s an interesting position to hold where now I imagine people
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expected of you and Nandan s case, he s looking forward to it.
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But is that hard for you socially to be so disagreeable and challenging at all times?
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In a meeting, you better not be confused about the purpose of the meeting.
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If the purpose of the meeting is for everybody to have a good meeting, then I m the guy who doesn t want to waste money and I want to make sure this is not soft thinking.
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I better moderate that.
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And so there s a spectrum of
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When I m testing my own thinking and I see some flaw, I m like, oh, you re so dumb.
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I ve got to think better.
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So I m very tough on myself.
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If it s a group of engineers at Microsoft that I ve worked with for 10 years and who know, I think they re smart and we re in it together, we re going to win or lose together.
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And there s no doubt of that.
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I can say that s the stupidest thing I ve ever heard.
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I think there s footage of you saying that.
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I don t say it much anymore.
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It s a very old thing.
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80s and 90s are some good footage.
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But we have very limited time.
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The stuff I agree with, there s no need to mention.
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So when I moved from Microsoft, where it s really top engineers, and some of the people sitting in the meeting would be people who work in the field, their genius is often a softer set of skills than thinking all the numbers through that this could be 10%.
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Community building and relationships.
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And the idea of using a little bit of sarcasm, it can come across as, I m not even sure you belong here.
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And so at the end of the meeting, you want feedback on was it motivating the people in this meeting to find the solution or did it motivate them to not work on this problem or refresh their resume when I wanted to keep them.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I did have to learn a lot about new domains.
2
SPEAKER_01
When people can say five smart things at Microsoft and one dumb thing, and I m not wasting any time on the five smart things.
2
SPEAKER_01
I won t bring them up, that means good job.
2
SPEAKER_01
Even inside the foundation, it s not that hardcore.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as soon as you re meeting with partners, you better say, oh, thing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are so smart.
2
SPEAKER_01
But maybe.
2
SPEAKER_00
You ve adapted to that way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Maybe.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I am in many contexts where I m meeting with politicians and.
2
SPEAKER_01
Prime ministers.
2
SPEAKER_01
Potential partners.
2
SPEAKER_01
Early in my press days, somebody would ask a question that had some assumption built into the question that was really wrong.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I d be like, hey, your thinking s not very good here.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I remember it was one I did in France when I was like 23 years old.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the guy ran France said, did you want that guy to feel bad at the end of the interview?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, no.
2
SPEAKER_01
But he feels bad.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, but he was wrong.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But was it important to correct him?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I had been behaving like I was in a meeting with very top people.
2
SPEAKER_01
So yes, it does take a while to understand all the different situations you re in.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let me take an extreme case.
2
SPEAKER_01
In Japan, there are meetings where
2
SPEAKER_01
Essentially, no information is exchanged.
2
SPEAKER_01
Just the fact you re there and being so respectful and you re saying, thank you all for coming.
2
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for coming.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it was so good.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you want to say, are you going to buy my product?
2
SPEAKER_01
But that would be impolite.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re just like, oh, thank you.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the guy who makes the decision is not the senior guy.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re being nice to the senior guys, even though the guy who s really going to make the decision is over there.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re hoping, well, after this ceremonial thing, I m going to go try and grab that guy.
2
SPEAKER_01
So yes, the world of motivating people and showing respect and having people learn very quickly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanted to run Microsoft so we were making mistakes and doing things right three times the speed of our competition.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s a certain type of personality that belonged in those engineering meetings, which is more like how I treat myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Steve Jobs was a person who could be brutal.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was clearly he was brutal to himself when he would make a mistake.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the idea of not applying that to others, sometimes he missed that.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s why I want to give you credit because I think a lot of people at the level you are
2
SPEAKER_00
don t do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
They don t adapt to the situation.
2
SPEAKER_00
They say like, well, I m me and I ve done all of this, so everyone needs to adapt to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have people who ve worked with me for a long time in those meetings and people who haven t.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so at the end of the meeting, saying to people, how did I do A, in terms of delivering the facts and B, in terms of motivating people.
2
SPEAKER_01
And one thing that s interesting is they ll often say to me, you were such a wimp.
2
SPEAKER_01
They don t realize you told them their thing is wrong.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, so absolutely there are cases you back off too far.
2
SPEAKER_01
Say I m 80% guilty of being too tough, and only 20% of the time do they kick me so many times I m like, you know.
2
SPEAKER_01
And somebody who knows me will say, the coded way you told them their approach is wrong, they didn t even get it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Having people who know you, who help calibrate you to the situation, send a follow-up email.
2
SPEAKER_01
Hey, I m sure glad you re on the team.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m really sure you re the one who can figure this out, but boy, it sure looks tough to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s figure it out.
2
SPEAKER_02
Did you ever have trouble transitioning to your inner personal life?
2
SPEAKER_02
For me, when I was directing movies, I d be somewhere 12 hours a day where my opinion mattered a ton.
2
SPEAKER_02
And on the car ride home, I d have to literally have a mantra.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s like, I m about to walk in the house and my opinion s the least valuable.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d say that being a CEO is even tougher than that, because you re in a meeting from 9 to 10, internal meeting, this design is wrong.
2
SPEAKER_01
10 o clock, there s a customer.
2
SPEAKER_01
11 o clock, there s an interview.
2
SPEAKER_01
12 o clock, there s an employee quitting that you don t want to quit, that was not on your schedule, and you re eating while you re dealing with that.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you better not carry over, wow, I saw a bunch of geniuses in that last meeting, or that was the bozo-est meeting of all time.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you carry that over to your next meeting, it s going to really randomize the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there are executives who don t get this, that what happened in the meeting before really matters to the way they behave in the next one.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I d say in my 20s, within a certain range,
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, I was forced to be so multitasking.
2
SPEAKER_01
I kind of enjoyed that, wow, now I need to reset.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I always take notes so that I can go back and recreate what I was thinking during the meeting so that when I may not get time to send follow-up email, but my notes are so extensive, I can essentially
2
SPEAKER_01
re-transport my brain back to what I was feeling at the end of that meeting and recapture what I want to communicate.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, that was one of my favorite parts of this whole week.
2
SPEAKER_02
As a fellow left-hander, I was clocking your hand every day.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, look at it right now.
2
SPEAKER_00
We need to get a picture of it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it looked like you stuck your hand up a can of paint s ass every day.
2
SPEAKER_02
By the end of the day, it was just covered in blue.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I thought, this is fantastic.
2
SPEAKER_02
This guy has created so many solutions, and he can t outsmart left-handedness in a pen.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was comforting.
2
SPEAKER_01
All right.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t care that my hand.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
Another thing that was kind of revealing is we got some really fun time with you one-on-one this week.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I would want to ask you a question and I would recognize the answer you d want to give me required so much prerequisite knowledge.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I asked you a question and you had to start at the beginning of
2
SPEAKER_02
This is the planet Earth.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re like, okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
So planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then you took me through the two different cell types that got together.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it was like 35 minutes and I both enjoyed it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I thought this poor fucking man can t.
2
SPEAKER_02
really tell you anything that s actually he s thinking about without bringing you up to speed all the time?
2
SPEAKER_02
And I know that s a hard question to even address, but do you find it at all laborious, or do you get lonely at all that you have to bring everyone up to speed so often?
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you feel a sense of isolation from that?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, not at all.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there are domains that people are specialized in that they re way smarter than me in.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d like to know which that is.
2
SPEAKER_01
I even have friends like Nathan Myhrvold or Lowell Wood
2
SPEAKER_01
that, in a very broad sense, are smarter than I am.
2
SPEAKER_01
We need to interview those two.
2
SPEAKER_01
But the idea of being able to explain something in a succinct form is such a cool thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it requires you to know a field so well, like, OK, where did life come from?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I really studied that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s taken me a long time to understand, OK, what are the key things, not the key things?
2
SPEAKER_01
The London Science Museum that I took my son to a bunch of times does a really good job on this.
2
SPEAKER_01
But no, it s kind of fun to explain computing because there s so much noise that people think, ooh, this is so complicated.
2
SPEAKER_01
But it s really just a few concepts.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you know the history of life or how computers work,
2
SPEAKER_01
And I know there s subjects like quantum computing that I vaguely understand, but I know I can t explain it to someone else.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I need to work on my understanding of it to get to the point.
2
SPEAKER_01
That is my acid test.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love teaching calculus because it s 100 times simpler than it s made out to be with all those funny symbols and all the nomenclatures.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the nomenclature is intimidating.
2
SPEAKER_01
Only the smart kids understand it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s how I feel.
2
SPEAKER_01
We don t even know why they invented it.
2
SPEAKER_01
They invented us to make people look stupid.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, but Newton invented it for a reason and I can explain
3
SPEAKER_00
to you why it s a thing about the world that had to be invented.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s why I like watching great courses is because you see a guy named Timothy Taylor teaching economics or the history of the Bible.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a couple of courses there where these guys know the subject so well that they re able to take the key points and explain how they fit together.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you don t have a great grasp on quantum computing?
3
SPEAKER_01
No.
3
SPEAKER_00
You d think it s the kind of thing I know because I have a huge mathematical background and a huge computing background, but I d still have to put months in.
3
SPEAKER_00
Have you gone to see the ones that are functional right now or the ones that are closed?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Microsoft has a big program on this, so I can bullshit about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you ll think I m telling the truth.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like your bar is much different than the rest of our bars.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, but I really don t understand it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Richard Feynman always said, the easiest person to fool is yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the idea of, do I really know this statistic?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do I really understand the chain of causation or why it s so complicated?
3
SPEAKER_00
Last night, I had a dinner about non-communicable diseases with experts, and there would be things that I would just stop them and say, you know, explain gestational diabetes, which happens to be diabetes a woman gets during pregnancy.
3
SPEAKER_00
I needed them to explain to me, okay, why and do you get diabetes later anyway?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s great when you have experts who bring you up to speed quickly.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you have no vanity about that, obviously.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, if I don t understand something, it s okay to say I don t.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m very lucky in that sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, when one s self-esteem is coming so much from your intellectual capability, I could see where it would be harder for you, actually.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not really.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s like if you re rich, you don t have to buy fancy clothes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s the people who want to surprise you that they re rich.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so my asking a stupid question, it s okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m able to try and learn complicated things because I always have people.
3
SPEAKER_00
will straighten me out.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when I fall off the rope and it s like, wait a minute, what is going on here?
3
SPEAKER_02
You have the little safety nets.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you ever decide to learn biology and you get confused, send me an email.
3
SPEAKER_02
You said it and we are going to take you off on it, unfortunately for you.
3
SPEAKER_02
You ll be getting emails.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ll have taught me how to play bridge first, but yeah, we ll get around to that.
3
SPEAKER_02
This feels like a good time for me to mention that you did a speech at IIT.
3
SPEAKER_01
Fireside chat.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got it right.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
For all the students, and it was so amazing.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they did a rapid fire, which I thought was awesome.
3
SPEAKER_00
Did you enjoy that?
3
SPEAKER_00
I like things where you go off and read for weeks and understand something and simplify it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I also like quick-fire things.
3
SPEAKER_00
And in a sense, because they can ask me anything, it gives them a better sense of how I think, because it can t be pre-canned.
3
SPEAKER_00
It can t be that I asked Chad GPT-4 to write the speech or I asked Nathan to write the speech about asteroids.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, one of the most interesting things I ve ever seen happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
We both wrote it down at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_02
She asked you in a quick fire, if you had a superpower, what would it be?
3
SPEAKER_02
And you said, I wish I was smarter.
3
SPEAKER_02
I would want to be smarter.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
The whole room could not handle that answer, including us.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_02
You tell me it didn t feel like that was faux humility.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s truth to you.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I d like to be smarter.
3
SPEAKER_01
More than you d like to fly.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like in my mind, I m like, well, you ve already got smart covered.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s fly.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s get invisible and take a walk through the showers or do something that you can t already do.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ll double down on the smart.
3
SPEAKER_00
The thing I m semi-decent at, I d like to be truly decent at.
3
SPEAKER_02
Zero ego.
3
SPEAKER_01
That one was shocking.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the one that was infuriating is you were asked if a time machine existed, would you rather go forward or backward?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then what a terrible answer you had.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why don t you tell people what a shit answer you have?
3
SPEAKER_00
I really didn t want to take advantage of it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you said neither.
3
SPEAKER_00
I read a lot about the past.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love history.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love history of science, but somebody summarizing that for me, actually going and seeing specific activities.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are a few that might be cool.
3
SPEAKER_01
Napoleon on a battlefield, maybe, or anything like that interesting?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
From a safe distance?
3
SPEAKER_00
It d be interesting, you know, to see Einstein doing this work to Bennett Lee Los Alamos when they re working on the bomb project, which I read most of the books that try and cover that.
3
SPEAKER_02
We have Christopher Nolan for that.
3
SPEAKER_02
We don t need to go back in time.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re only alive a certain amount, so taking a lot of it to go back and watch a specific thing in the past, I don t know, that wouldn t be that huge to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then the future, it s kind of like cheating.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I m reading a book, I don t let myself read the last chapter.
3
SPEAKER_00
I force myself to read the book.
3
SPEAKER_00
Delayed gratification.
3
SPEAKER_00
In sequence.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d be so confused the rest of my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
Did I just cheat and learn that because I was in the future, or did I actually figure that out?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s true.
3
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s talk about India.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s really relevant why you re here.
3
SPEAKER_01
I guess there were many aspects of you committing so many resources and having an office here that hadn t occurred to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
As far as the list of things that the Gates Foundation would hope to figure out and address.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re here, but it also has these crazy reserves and assets of technology.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s an incredible place for this stuff to get proven out.
3
SPEAKER_01
So could you just tell us the value of India and how things that can be modeled here can be then exported basically?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why is it such a great place for Gates?
3
SPEAKER_00
The U.S.
3
SPEAKER_00
is incredibly innovative and it gets smart people from all over the world and it s very advanced.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you take the way we do health care in the U.S., you know, we have tons of doctors and hospitals and tons of money.
3
SPEAKER_00
The way we do health care in the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_00
has no relevance to how you do health care in developing countries.
3
SPEAKER_00
Even the way we do agriculture, we ve got big machines.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t even have to get on the machine anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
You just sit in your office and have it go do things.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s not like if you took a farmer from the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_00
and took them to Africa and say, hey, help us out here.
3
SPEAKER_00
They d be like, where s the machine?
3
SPEAKER_00
And yet India over the last 30 years has gone from being quite poor to what s called lower middle income.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they ve done well, but particularly in the poor parts of the country, they re still dealing with incredibly limited resources.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so the idea of how do you get from where Africa is today to where India is,
3
SPEAKER_00
Within people s lifetime, they remember all the steps they took to get the vaccine cover job, to communicate with women by organizing them into groups, to collect a little bit of taxes so they could build more roads, they could do more education, because they really have
3
SPEAKER_00
been making progress.
3
SPEAKER_00
20% of humanity lives in India.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s a very, very important country.
3
SPEAKER_00
India as a whole is actually a little bit bigger than the entire population of Africa.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now Africa is growing in population and will get to be a lot larger.
3
SPEAKER_00
India still has some population growth
3
SPEAKER_00
They just passed China and China is starting to shrink just a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, India has a vibrancy to it and a willingness to try low-cost approaches that makes it a place where it s functional enough with enough talent that they can either take something that was done in rich countries and make it cheap or invent new ways of doing things.
3
SPEAKER_01
You started here with HIV, trying to educate and curb what was forecasted to be an enormous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Catastrophic.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you had success with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was incredibly successful.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what had happened was that HIV had gotten into the sex workers.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so there was a prevalence of up to 50%.
3
SPEAKER_00
And unless that was brought down, it would start to spread into the general population and then
3
SPEAKER_00
skyrocket and create an almost worst case situation.
3
SPEAKER_02
What year was this again?
3
SPEAKER_02
Sorry for context.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this is all in the early 2000s.
3
SPEAKER_00
The forecasts weren t fake.
3
SPEAKER_00
that unless interventions were made, you know, in fact, Highland had seen a pretty big explosion that had gone through commercial sex work into the general population, and India was tracking along those lines.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were lucky enough to hire an incredible team of people here, and that was their big priority.
3
SPEAKER_00
We worked
3
SPEAKER_00
very closely with the government, we d be like, hey, we re going to create a community for sex workers.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they d be like, what?
3
SPEAKER_00
You think I m supposed to tell my constituents that we helped pay for a community center?
3
SPEAKER_00
And we d say, yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
A clubhouse for sex workers?
3
SPEAKER_02
I think that d be hard to do in the United States, let alone India.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m impressed.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when they would get together in their communities, we d keep saying to them, hey, you need to use condoms and insist on condoms.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they d say, OK, fine, fine.
4
SPEAKER_00
The police are beating us up and we have no way of saving.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, and even the condom became evidence of the sex work.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the police had to be urged to not use that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was good.
4
SPEAKER_00
Not bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
The number of lessons in that where you d sit and listen to the stories of the sex workers, you know, why were you in this work and what s your aspiration for your children and what s it like?
4
SPEAKER_00
Those were very tough conversations, but that s what allowed us to build these communities that eventually did such a good job in insisting on, say, practice, basically condom usage, that a large-scale HIV epidemic was averted.
4
SPEAKER_00
in the country.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the government, to its credit, took on enough of that program that it stayed that way.
4
SPEAKER_01
Another enormous area in India has been the vaccines and the production of vaccines.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve all kind of benefited globally from this.
4
SPEAKER_01
So tell us the progress there and why India has been so instrumental in the vaccine space.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so the biggest thing the Gates Foundation has done, we ve done a lot of things because we re lucky to have a lot of resources, but so far the most impactful thing we ve done is in vaccines.
4
SPEAKER_00
To get new vaccines invented, to get vaccines to be made at very, very low prices, and then to make sure there s enough money that for the poorest countries, they get the vaccines for free so they can get them out to all of their kids.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we created a group to buy vaccines called the GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we worked first with the Western manufacturers to bring their prices down.
4
SPEAKER_00
But they have a limit because, you know, everything s fairly expensive.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when they first design the vaccine, they re in a hurry.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you re going to charge $200 for a vaccine, the fact that it costs you $20 to make it versus $2, it s not a big deal.
4
SPEAKER_00
If that saves you a year to be the first on the market, that s the right way to do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you reduce the cost and then the vaccine doesn t work, that
4
SPEAKER_00
That is very, very bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so a lot of the low cost vaccines are through partnerships with Indian manufacturers.
4
SPEAKER_00
The highest volume vaccine company in the world is here in India, actually in Pune, called Serum.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s very well run.
4
SPEAKER_00
They do a good job.
4
SPEAKER_00
We have to make sure that they have low cost competitors.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I met with a couple of other vaccine companies on that Tuesday in Hyderabad.
4
SPEAKER_00
We provided a lot of support to those companies to keep them strong and make sure the market has prices that are lower and lower and lower.
4
SPEAKER_00
So even as we add new vaccines, like an HPV vaccine to stop
4
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women from getting cervical cancer, that s a new one.
4
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We ve brought the prices down enough that we can still afford the overall vaccine package.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the Indian manufacturers have been fantastic.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, from the time you guys started working here in India till now, the amount of childhood deaths before five years old are a third of what they were when you started and the population s grown, and that s a gross number, not a percentage.
4
SPEAKER_01
So enormous success here, right?
4
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This is millions and millions of people.
4
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You have to make sure when you say it to people that they actually hear what you say, because mostly you d think,
4
SPEAKER_00
No, no, that s too good to be true.
4
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He must have misspoken.
4
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He must not mean that.
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But it s not a third less, it s a third as many.
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And that adds up to millions of kids that would have died.
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Their lives were saved.
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SPEAKER_00
Now, the Indian government deserves the
4
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bulk of the credit for that, but we were there showing them the way, funding experts, and so we got to play a catalytic role.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was educated on this while we were here, which is the unique thing you can provide is you guys can run very high-risk experiments where if they fail, nobody loses their job in government.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the real service you can provide, yes?
4
SPEAKER_01
Take these kind of high-risk gambles and prove that something will work.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s part of it.
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We can have a very smart team where we are doing these child autopsies and saying, hey, these kids are all dying of diarrhea.
4
SPEAKER_00
And people are like, really?
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, when we would say you should introduce rotavirus vaccine, they would say, you really haven t shown us.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that really what the deaths are from?
4
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Or there was a form of pneumonia they were dying from.
4
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They weren t sure.
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Yeah, it could be a lot of things.
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So making sure that
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We re saying, hey, if you bring out the rotavirus vaccine, it will save over 100,000 children per year.
4
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And so it s worth doing.
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SPEAKER_00
We had to develop all that evidence.
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SPEAKER_00
We had to fund serum to create a low cost vaccine.
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SPEAKER_00
And I would always have quarterly meetings at the foundation where I d say, OK, what percentage of the world s children are getting this vaccine, which is a vaccine that all the rich kids were getting?
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And none of the poor kids were getting when we started.
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So people would come in and say, OK, what s going on in Indonesia?
4
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What s going on in India?
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What s going on in Nigeria?
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And do we have the manufacturing capacity up?
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Do we have the price down?
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Do we have the evidence?
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The country hadn t introduced a new vaccine for 20 years.
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And so the whole idea of
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There s these vaccines you should introduce.
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SPEAKER_00
There was no one in government who had that in mind.
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But we found amazing people here, some of whom in their own way were already trying to say that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we got that very much to critical mass.
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And then once you get one country to implement it, countries are willing.
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If you say, hey, your country, you have twice as many children dying as this other country.
4
SPEAKER_00
Both the moral and political survival instinct of the person who s hearing that, one or both of those things kick in and they re like, hmm, what are you saying?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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And we have a group here that s funded by us and rich countries that pays for these vaccines.
4
SPEAKER_01
You just have to say yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And add it.
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SPEAKER_00
So it s a tiny bit more time when the kids come in because there s one more vaccine.
4
SPEAKER_01
As you move through this list, you start adding more and more stuff, or maybe from the very get, there s been more and more.
4
SPEAKER_01
But now on this list and the things that are happening in India are started with the HIV project, but the vaccines, the malaria, agriculture, education, and all the meetings that we attended address all of those things.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you shift focus as you get your arms around one thing, you start realizing, oh, this is feeding in more upriver.
4
SPEAKER_01
How does something like education get on the agenda or agriculture?
4
SPEAKER_00
The original two goals of the foundation were health globally, so inequality and health, helping poor countries have their kids survive as much as rich countries.
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That s that all lives have equal value.
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And
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That became by far our biggest thing.
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Over two-thirds of our resources are global health.
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Our second cause was education in the United States, which is the system that I and most successful people benefited from.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to public schools through sixth grade, and then my parents told me I should go to this private high school.
4
SPEAKER_01
Did you like it, by the way?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, at first I didn t because in my elementary school, I was the smart kid who didn t give a damn.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then when I got to this private school, that niche didn t exist.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, totally.
4
SPEAKER_00
There were only three niches.
4
SPEAKER_00
There were the smart kids who did give a damn, the sports guys, and the morons.
4
SPEAKER_00
And because I was such a joker in eighth grade, there was a quiz where they were pairing people up and they paired me up with a true moron.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, wow, I fooled them.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I m no longer in on the joke.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did I want to?
4
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I mean, this was a school where when you had three periods,
4
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The smart people got to go off in their own study hall and do whatever they wanted, and the rest of us had to sit in desks.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I decided I would join the smart students with the bullet.
4
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, how did I get off on that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Sorry, I took us there, but I find that interesting, schooling.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, right, right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now I remember.
4
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Education.
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So we had global health and education, and we stuck to those for quite a while because we had a learning curve in terms of
4
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us understanding it, hiring good people, understanding our role, building the partnerships.
4
SPEAKER_00
But when Warren Buffett made a gigantic commitment in 2006 to give, during his lifetime, huge resources to the foundation.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tens of billions of dollars, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
At this point, it s over $30 billion.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
We added agriculture.
4
SPEAKER_00
We wanted to add agriculture, but we weren t sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
His commitment helped us.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there s a history in agriculture of Norman Borlaug creating better
4
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wheat and rice and corn.
4
SPEAKER_01
The green revolution.
4
SPEAKER_01
This was one of the revolution.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful lectures we got on the plane.
4
SPEAKER_01
We learned the entire history of the green revolution.
4
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, we were there when they gave me the little statue.
4
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They offered me the medium sized one, but I, I went with the small.
4
SPEAKER_01
You got so many trinkets and plaques this week.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, there s going to have to be another plane that just takes all this.
4
SPEAKER_00
But global health, we are gigantic.
4
SPEAKER_00
Every disease we work on, we in the U.S.
4
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government are by far the biggest funders.
4
SPEAKER_00
In HIV, they re bigger than us, all the others.
4
SPEAKER_00
Two-thirds were in global health.
4
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Education, outside the U.S., we re a modest player.
4
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Now, it s super important, but thank God there are other people.
4
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I wish there were a lot more.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s about 80 million a year for us.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when we were going around
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of you, something that was ever present was how much AI is already being used for almost everything that you re addressing.
5
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It was fascinating.
5
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We learned about the DPI and the UPI and everyone in India now has a verified identification.
5
SPEAKER_00
Digitally and they can now get the funds that were promised to them that people wouldn t sign off on.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re also a way to move money that s been standardized through open source.
5
SPEAKER_00
And even when you get into the agriculture, the AI can read the nitrogen level and the forecast and it can update you on what you should be doing to deal with this vulnerability of this crop.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a little miraculous that these two worlds of yours are combining in such a complimentary way right now.
5
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t seem kind of interesting that this is now playing such a huge role in all these different
5
SPEAKER_01
I always knew that software, at first the PC, but eventually the mobile phone, there d be a lot we could do with that.
5
SPEAKER_01
In fact, one of the first foundation projects was putting personal computers in libraries in the United States so people could come in and use the internet because they wouldn t have a good connection or a PC in their house.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that was a project that worked very well.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was great working with all those librarians.
5
SPEAKER_01
The fact that now AI offers so much promise, it is wild.
5
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that the team at Microsoft has kept me engaged because I ve been writing memos about when AI comes, we need to do the personal agent.
5
SPEAKER_01
When AI comes, we need to do this.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so now they re like digging these memos out and going, oh, wow, would you come to our meeting?
5
SPEAKER_01
And the CEO of Microsoft, who s a very special person, Satya, has drawn me in.
5
SPEAKER_01
And some of the people only know my reputation from like 20 years ago.
5
SPEAKER_01
When I m in a meeting, they re just like, oh, he s going to rip that shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
out of everything.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s about to blow.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re like, oh, he s so nice.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I m like, no, I m not.
5
SPEAKER_01
See, that s great.
5
SPEAKER_01
You set the bar.
5
SPEAKER_01
You just thought I would be so rude.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bar is low.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wait, do you take time?
5
SPEAKER_02
I know you don t, but do you take time to be proud of all of this?
5
SPEAKER_02
You have to before you go to bed.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s very motivating that we ve hit a modest number of dead ends.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ve funded HIV vaccines so far, nothing.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we re, mm-mm.
5
SPEAKER_01
600 million of dry holes, and we re digging another $300 million hole that we ll see what s there.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the percentage that are like that is very small in terms of hiring great people, building partnerships, having impact.
5
SPEAKER_01
The foundation has gone way better than I expected it would.
5
SPEAKER_01
Weirdly, our U.S.
5
SPEAKER_01
education work, not our biggest thing, but still quite big, many billions.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ve had a positive effect, but nothing dramatic.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not a field where you can say,
5
SPEAKER_01
half as many kids drop out or math scores are 30% better.
5
SPEAKER_01
So unless you move the macro numbers, if you really have to say, okay, these charter schools I funded, please go visit them at noon and you ll be impressed, which yes, I can tell you that, but we haven t changed that field.
5
SPEAKER_01
We have not met our aspiration.
5
SPEAKER_01
In fact, nobody who works in that field has done anything revolutionary.
5
SPEAKER_01
We still believe in it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the latest iteration is, okay, we re going to use AI, God darn it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And this time we ll get it.
5
SPEAKER_01
The AI stuff you re seeing, to be clear, is very early.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the actual benefit of AI in many of these areas, it s still nascent.
5
SPEAKER_01
But over the next two or three years, agricultural AI, health advice AI, drug discovery AI, it s going to be really big.
5
SPEAKER_00
Even there is an environmental impact.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like we saw a way that people would be connected to charging stations.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s all kinds of outcomes for this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
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I mean, because AI is kind of like a free worker that can scan lots of things and come up with good advice.
5
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whether it s a technical support call or I m trying to figure out what college to go to or what courses to sign up for.
5
SPEAKER_01
In almost anything you think about, if you train the AI properly and you get the user in front of it, the fact that except for a little bit of cost of running that back end, it s kind of like free work.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so people are just getting their mind around all the incredible things that can be done.
5
SPEAKER_01
And of course, I m using it all the time and saying, OK, no, it s not good enough for this.
5
SPEAKER_01
But wow, it is good enough for that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can I tell you the one I heard this week, though, that I m concerned about?
5
SPEAKER_00
So much of it makes total sense, even health.
5
SPEAKER_00
The fact that there would be markers that it would make up a probabilistic call that would be very high accuracy.
5
SPEAKER_00
The fact that in agriculture, we know what percentage of nitrogen is optimal.
5
SPEAKER_00
The area that concerns me is these hypothetical questions, and they largely were around education.
5
SPEAKER_00
One was just a random question a parent could ask, like, my kid won t get off the screen, how do I get him outside, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And then the AI would make a suggestion on how that would be done.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or this kid s reading at this level, what should be done?
5
SPEAKER_00
I feel like in regards to humans, my fear of it is they re all high percentage guesses, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Or the highest percentage guess.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the data for this would be the social sciences, which are so flawed in so many ways.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not sure how AI is ever advising humans.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m concerned it s going to create a fake normal the way the DSM in psychology has created like a fake normal.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you think of 20% of kids being neurodivergent, how is this model, this LLM, going to not prescribe what is highest percentage success rate?
5
SPEAKER_00
Does it not reinforce this notion of the norm?
5
SPEAKER_01
If it s a problem that humans are not good at dealing with, then present techniques don t create some novel approach.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like if you re a telemarketing group and the AI has listened to every call and said, wow, some people close a lot of sales quickly and some people never close the sales slowly.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s going to learn from the very best and mimic that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so in that domain, even though you have a variety of customers, it can probably capture all the dimensionality and be an awfully good telemarketing thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that actually is happening.
5
SPEAKER_01
When it comes to psychological counseling, the amount of data we have and our ability to market and say, okay, this was a brilliant session, and the dimensionality of, okay, what was the problem of the kid when you said, okay, what are those horrible thoughts you re having?
5
SPEAKER_01
There s so many different things.
5
SPEAKER_01
We probably don t have a corpus of data either to make a superhuman psychologist or a computer psychologist.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we have to understand where we have data that embodies the expertise.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you have information that
5
SPEAKER_01
very capable humans who can make them super performers, you probably can make the AI be a super performer.
5
SPEAKER_01
And some things are very objective, like did you close the sale or not, or did the kids survive or not.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are some things in terms of like cheering people up, it s a little harder to come up with that metric.
5
SPEAKER_01
If your marriage counts are in half, your customers get divorced, is that a failure?
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe not.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you got them to get out of an awful relationship early.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s very hard to score.
5
SPEAKER_01
We find this in our health work, the clarity of,
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow, the kid survived.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow, the kid s brain developed fully.
5
SPEAKER_01
We don t get a lot of flack of, no, we don t care about children dying.
5
SPEAKER_01
But when you go into schools and you say, hey, we need to spend more time on math, then they re like, well, wait a minute.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s less time in band.
5
SPEAKER_01
or you re overloading that kid, or you told them they got the wrong answer, and that must have been very tough.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re just doing such a good job telling them their mistakes.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re ruining these kids.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re thinking that there s one right answer, and they re taking too many tests.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not trying to make fun of these things.
5
SPEAKER_01
In education, I naively entered in saying, hey, we all agree on what we re trying to do here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then I was like, actually, given the finite resources, how much time should there be for band?
5
SPEAKER_01
if you decide the school day is short and you only have a certain number of school days, I can make the pro-band or the anti-band argument.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
So education s turned out to be softer.
5
SPEAKER_01
Psychiatry and psychiatry counseling, I do think eventually this will be helpful because you want somebody who you ve been talking to for a long time
5
SPEAKER_01
that is immediately available and sympathetic, and if detecting certain circumstances can escalate to a human expert and really dump out very quickly what is going on.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I actually think in mental counseling, AIs will play a role.
5
SPEAKER_01
But boy, are we going to have to be very careful about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s going to require a lot of work that has not been done yet.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have three children, I only have two, but just having two, the notion that there would be a good piece of advice that would apply to both of them is preposterous.
5
SPEAKER_01
These AIs learn a lot about a lot of different things.
5
SPEAKER_01
Their ability to read is pretty incredible, and so if you
6
SPEAKER_00
You just wrote two pages about each of your kids and how they re different.
6
SPEAKER_00
I tried doing this in chat, GPT-4, and said, hey, what kind of encouragement advice should I give to child one versus child two?
6
SPEAKER_00
I think you d be surprised.
6
SPEAKER_00
The fluency of these things.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now, I wouldn t say, therefore, take it blindly.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, give up parenting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Go take a nap.
6
SPEAKER_00
Clock out for the day.
6
SPEAKER_00
But the night that I was blown away by the AI, I had said,
6
SPEAKER_00
passed the advanced placement biology exam, and it was incredible on the biology stuff.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then we said to it,
6
SPEAKER_00
Just to show that, oh, of course, won t know this, what would you say to a parent who has a sick child?
6
SPEAKER_00
And it gave a better answer than any of us in the room could have given.
6
SPEAKER_00
Really?
6
SPEAKER_00
The place where it falls short, and which there s still many, are not as easily predictable as you d think.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s an area that it hiccups?
6
SPEAKER_00
Actually, complex math, it doesn t know to check its answers.
6
SPEAKER_00
A Sudoku puzzle, you have to do a lot of recursive reasoning.
6
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t know to take extra time, so it just takes a very limited time, and it prints out an answer.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you say it s wrong, it ll say, oh, I mistyped.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s an arrogant system.
6
SPEAKER_00
Where is the typewriter that you mistyped on?
6
SPEAKER_00
What finger did you use?
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, but fuck, that s what.
6
SPEAKER_00
All the humans said whatever they were told they got something right.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m in the wrong bubble.
6
SPEAKER_00
To say that I mistyped and it s so apologetic and it says it ll try again but of course it gets it wrong again.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now you re kind of infamously optimistic and I like that about you.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re always a voice of optimism in a very Steven Pinker way.
6
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I love that about you.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s really a service you provide, but also I heard you say several times this week that there are elements of AI that not only do you not understand, but that no one really knows how it s working.
6
SPEAKER_01
And in that moment, I think you could go either way with that to recognize that you re not even sure how it s doing, what it s doing, nor is anybody.
6
SPEAKER_01
That could be a cause for alarm or maybe just wonder.
6
SPEAKER_01
It seems like you lean towards just wonder.
6
SPEAKER_01
Does that scare you at all that there are elements of it that can t be explained?
6
SPEAKER_00
Only a hundred humans in the world.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we all kind of knew each other and we were working on a, and we got to this point.
6
SPEAKER_00
We can have a meeting.
6
SPEAKER_00
and somebody could say, hey, let s go slow or let s table this thing for a little while.
6
SPEAKER_00
When you have 7 billion people in your countries that are competitive and companies that are competitive and AI is going to help you invent new drugs and create this tutor, the idea that there may be some level of capability that will make us wonder about
6
SPEAKER_00
how to organize society and spend our time.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, when people say, oh, well, in the world of AI, what should I teach my kid?
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a certain level of AI where I don t know the answer to that question because society will reorganize how it thinks about time and what counts.
6
SPEAKER_00
in this world of excess, maybe it s 40 years away or maybe we ll hit some limit and these things won t get as good as I expect.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t have answers for that, but the idea that we re going to stop and, okay, just one company will stop or one country will stop and that all these wonderful things
6
SPEAKER_00
that we know, just let us go a little further, but then will you know and will you get some collective motivation to all say, stop?
6
SPEAKER_00
I m actually thinking now, maybe we ll have a world where parts of the world have chosen to use AI in full and other people are more like, get your buggy out, baby.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Get your abacus out.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re going to figure this out the hard way.
6
SPEAKER_01
I work backwards from the reality you re addressing, which is, sure, maybe even the U.S.
6
SPEAKER_01
could make a policy and decide, but then Russia has it first, or then China has it first.
6
SPEAKER_01
So all we re doing is saying we won t have it and China will, and that I don t think is an option anyone s going to take.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, it s tricky.
6
SPEAKER_00
The collective action problem of maybe at some point down this path,
6
SPEAKER_00
is so confusing that reorganizing around, when it s basically by all our standard metrics, good news.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can work less.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can spend more time at home.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can have more food availability.
6
SPEAKER_00
When you get confused, you get a tutor who s as good as the two super smart people I know.
6
SPEAKER_00
You don t even have to wake them up.
6
SPEAKER_00
So there s so many good things down this path of increased productivity.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, people say we have aging societies.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, if the robots and the AIs are doing work, it s okay to have an aging society.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_02
But take a brain like yours.
6
SPEAKER_02
How would you feel just being by the pool all day?
6
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t fit how I ve organized my life.
6
SPEAKER_02
You would never do that, even if AI was sort of doing everything and taking care of everything.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it d be confusing if the AI... Everyone has experience in their lives where there s someone who s so much better than you, it s like, why do I even try?
6
SPEAKER_00
So if I, and the example I give is malaria eradication, I am very proud of the fact that
6
SPEAKER_00
I think that s a worthwhile cause and it s got a level of complexity in terms of science and risk and different types of science and regulation and experiments that my life s work
6
SPEAKER_00
puts me in a position to hire great people and build this team.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that team knows that they love their work because they are going to eradicate malaria.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they check in with me and I say, no, more of that, less of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let me get you connected up to this group.
6
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, we re on this quest that is so wonderful.
6
SPEAKER_01
It ll be in history books.
6
SPEAKER_00
If we succeed, of course then people won t know what malaria is.
6
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s the dog that didn t bark.
6
SPEAKER_00
If the machine literally says to me, hey, I m going to do this better than you are on this meeting, and I know you enjoy pickleball.
6
SPEAKER_00
And pickleball is a human endeavor that you seem to have accepted the fact that you re not even in the top 10% and you can still get fun out of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Whereas this malaria eradication thing, you really
6
SPEAKER_00
only enjoy it because you actually think you re unique.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re at the forefront.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you had to think it through in a way that hadn t happened before.
6
SPEAKER_00
So you go play pickleball and listen to somebody s jokes, and I ll take care of this for you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, and I ll end on this.
6
SPEAKER_01
The other great observation we made this week is how addicted you are to pointless and useless games, be it Wordle or Spelling Bee or all these things.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think the AI will know exactly what game to give you, and it ll just be an endless hedonic treadmill of games.
6
SPEAKER_00
Your whole life is figuring out the rules.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, those are social games.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I enjoy doing them because other people are doing them.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, I do actually play Bridge all by myself.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is kind of weird.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can actually go online and play with robots.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a little addict-y.
6
SPEAKER_02
I d limit it, but it s... We should tell people we didn t get to play Spades, but we will in this lifetime play Spades.
6
SPEAKER_01
As soon as your schedule gets freed up more by AI, we re gonna shellac you at Spades.
6
SPEAKER_00
When malaria s eradicated or when the machine takes it over, I will write a book about...
6
SPEAKER_00
optimal space.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, Bill, from the bottom of my heart, this has been such an incredible experience.
6
SPEAKER_01
I wouldn t have learned any of this without your invitation.
6
SPEAKER_01
I really don t know how we re here.
6
SPEAKER_01
Manak and I the whole week have been like, he s got to be wondering why the fuck these two are here.
6
SPEAKER_02
Why did they let them come here?
6
SPEAKER_00
India, to share together the beauty and mystery and the challenges of India, it s wonderful.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s so human.
6
SPEAKER_00
It does make you remember, okay, the great things that we have.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, as much as the U.S.
6
SPEAKER_00
is in this deeply polarized, troubled state, we are the gold standard.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
So much learning and aspiration.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I think to come here, it always takes you out of your normal life and it gives you distance, it gets you to appreciate some things.
6
SPEAKER_00
And in a way, things are simpler here because they re still dealing with the basics.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they re kind of focused on some great things, and so much talent and energy in the country.
6
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, it s fantastic you could come.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s palpable.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like we ve almost got to time travel to a period where America was in this stage.
6
SPEAKER_01
That sense that they re going to do it.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, that s fascinating, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
But even today, we were driving by something, and there was a little girl with her grandma, and she was just like pulling on her grandma.
6
SPEAKER_01
Annoying her grandma.
6
SPEAKER_02
Being so annoying.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, man, everyone has to go to another country and just see this so they recognize we really are all the same.
6
SPEAKER_02
Everyone is pulling on their grandma s shirt.
6
SPEAKER_00
And even in the very poorest country, taking care of your children and doing unbelievable things to help your family.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that you wouldn t even do for yourself.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s really cool.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s unifying, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
Cool.
6
SPEAKER_02
Well, thank you so much.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was a blast.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so we are at a very fun meeting right now and one of the members of the team said he was so excited to meet me and I said, what had you seen me in?
7
SPEAKER_01
And then what did you say?
7
SPEAKER_01
Tell them why you were excited at me.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because, because you know, I m married to Kristen, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
That s why.
7
SPEAKER_01
Let s hear it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
That was wonderful.
7
SPEAKER_01
I needed everyone to know that I was only famous by way of my wife.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
7
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned to hear Miss Monica correct all the facts that were wrong.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s okay though, we all make mistakes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Hi!
7
SPEAKER_01
Hello!
7
SPEAKER_00
I was just doing connections.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I m really jealous.
7
SPEAKER_01
I feel like you ve left me in the dust.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this is appropriate ding, ding, ding.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because didn t you learn about it on this trip?
7
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_01
If not learned about it, really got a hard pitch for it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I really learned about it on this trip with Bill.
7
SPEAKER_00
The New York Times game Connections, which is similar, I guess, like in the vein of Wordle, it s a word game.
7
SPEAKER_01
Word game, word play.
7
SPEAKER_00
And everyone probably already knows about it, but I ll explain it.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s a bunch of words.
7
SPEAKER_01
How many, 16?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yep, and you have to group them into four groups of four, and sometimes it s confusing, like one could go with another one.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s really fun, new one every day.
7
SPEAKER_01
That feels adjacent to one of our favorite games, that one where you have a list of words and you go, okay, this is three, I m going for three, and then you say proctologist.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, code names.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, code names.
7
SPEAKER_00
Similar to Codenames, but I think it s harder.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s harder than Codenames.
7
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, so Bill talked about it on the trip, and he plays it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then I had dinner with Callie and Max and my friend Robbie from home.
7
SPEAKER_00
He was in town.
7
SPEAKER_00
They all play it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so now we re all four on a text chain, and we send each other the results every day.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fun.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it s competitive.
7
SPEAKER_01
And what, you re just, time is the measure of success?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, really just how many mistakes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
So they measure your mistakes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you re going for zero mistakes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Time s not relevant?
7
SPEAKER_00
I think it is timed, but I don t care about that.
7
SPEAKER_01
Only if two people tied with the same amount of mistakes, then we go to the time?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s right.
7
SPEAKER_01
As a time breaker?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s fun.
7
SPEAKER_01
Similarly, the girls are now playing Catan.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they re finally of the age.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, from zero to 11, you re watching Paw Patrol and you re watching Blue s Clue.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know, I m making shit up, but you know, nothing s really at your level of interest.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s a concession.
7
SPEAKER_01
You re playing Uno.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
7
SPEAKER_01
Fun game, but for me, lacks a little strategy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
But now,
7
SPEAKER_01
They can play spades, albeit they can t get through a whole game, but they can play a few hands.
7
SPEAKER_01
But Catan, we play from beginning to end.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s so fun.
7
SPEAKER_01
It truly is like a huge breakthrough.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s like inching towards when your kids are just your bros and you hang out and do all your favorite things together.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s the benefit of having children that are close in age.
7
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because if they were further apart, you d have to wait until the youngest.
7
SPEAKER_00
You and Neil could have never.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh no, never.
7
SPEAKER_01
Delta knows how to play.
7
SPEAKER_01
She doesn t have strategy yet.
7
SPEAKER_01
So she builds roads in every direction without any real.
7
SPEAKER_00
Are you telling?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
But there s like a level at which
7
SPEAKER_00
She doesn t wanna hear it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, you gotta really tread lightly.
7
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
7
SPEAKER_01
You gotta go like, well, I just say, do you want any help strategy-wise?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, no, okay, great.
7
SPEAKER_01
Then build those roads.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
You can t build a house there because it s too close to the other two houses.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right, that s a rule.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it s a road to nowhere, but go crazy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s how people learn.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I rely on you to condense a five-hour show into five minutes for me.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I presume you watched the Academy Awards yesterday?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I did.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
What happened?
7
SPEAKER_01
What are the highlights?
7
SPEAKER_01
What did I miss?
7
SPEAKER_01
I saw on comments this morning that many armchairs clocked that Tom Hanson had been thanked directly.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, he did.
7
SPEAKER_00
Robert Downey
7
SPEAKER_01
Which is how I deduced that Robert had won, which is awesome.
7
SPEAKER_01
Congratulations, Downey.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I actually wondered that when he got shouted out.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I wonder if any armchairs are watching and then they know who that is.
7
SPEAKER_01
They did, they were, and they were excited and I was delighted.
7
SPEAKER_01
Did he say Tom Hanson or did he say my lawyer?
7
SPEAKER_00
He said Tom Hanson.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
One of the good boys, sexy boys.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of, wait, okay, okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
Before we get into the Oscars, but it s related.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
You did deliver the Best Boy Award to Jimmy.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
7
SPEAKER_01
Went to his house.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
7
SPEAKER_01
More information that is needed.
7
SPEAKER_01
But my suspicion was that it was like days before the Oscars.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I m like, there s no way I m going to see it.
7
SPEAKER_01
But you and I and Rob were all going to Austin to South By.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I just hit him up like, hey, I want to come give you something when you re free.
7
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, well, weirdly, I m free from three till seven on the same day that Rob presented it to us.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I got over there and I gave it to him.
7
SPEAKER_01
And he really, really liked it.
7
SPEAKER_01
He was very, very, I think I told you, Rob.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
He s pretty blown away with the quality and the craftsmanship of the award.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
He sent an email and it said,
7
SPEAKER_00
In quotes, best might be overdoing it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m a pretty good boy, but I love this skull trophy and will do my best to explain it to all.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you both for the kind gesture and thanks to my man Rob for the serious statuette.
7
SPEAKER_00
XOXO.
7
SPEAKER_01
Read your response, it s so good.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then I said, only a best boy would try to convince us they weren t a best boy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Classic.
7
SPEAKER_00
So glad you love your face, Trophy.
7
SPEAKER_01
Very funny response.
7
SPEAKER_01
When someone has a knockout response, then you ll notice I never responded.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was like, what are we going to do?
7
SPEAKER_01
Monica did everything that could be done.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think the Best Boy trophy really had an impact because he killed it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Did he kill it?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wonderful.
7
SPEAKER_00
He was so funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
I laughed out loud a lot.
7
SPEAKER_01
Really?
7
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm.
7
SPEAKER_01
Will you set the stage for me?
7
SPEAKER_01
Who were you watching with?
7
SPEAKER_00
I was watching with Laura.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, at her house or your house?
7
SPEAKER_00
At her apartment.
7
SPEAKER_01
So cats and dogs everywhere.
7
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, just wanna know the whole scene.
7
SPEAKER_01
Matt s cutting hair in the corner.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, Matt.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh no, he was working probably.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he had three clients that day.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_00
Matt, Celebrity Hairstylist.
7
SPEAKER_01
To the stars.
7
SPEAKER_00
But he was there for a chunk, so he watched with us for some amount.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
We had snacks.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fun.
7
SPEAKER_01
What was on the menu?
7
SPEAKER_00
Cheese eggs.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was in charge of some of the snacks.
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t do a great job.
7
SPEAKER_01
Dropped the ball a little bit.
7
SPEAKER_00
A little.
7
SPEAKER_01
Redragging ass a little bit yesterday like I was.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was so tired.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m still so tired.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think I thought it was my period.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m sure that s not helping anything, but we did have like a really breakneck paced trip to India where we went to three states within it for a week.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then we came home for a few days and then we went to Austin.
7
SPEAKER_01
Then we had a very full slate of activities in Austin.
7
SPEAKER_01
Then we flew home.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And on the flight home on Saturday, it was starting to hit me.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then yesterday I was just like, yeah, I m at like 57% energy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Were you able to relax?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, because I had been gone, so it s like, you know, super dad time.
7
SPEAKER_01
So no, I didn t really get a break.
7
SPEAKER_01
But I did go to bed on the earlier side.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was asleep before 10.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s good.
7
SPEAKER_01
But the craziest dreams, I won t bore anyone with them.
7
SPEAKER_01
But of course, as you would expect, one of the dreams that went on forever is that I had to fight in the UFC against two different people.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s a Easter egg.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Easter egg.
7
SPEAKER_01
That took up a lot of my thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
But okay, back to Laura s.
7
SPEAKER_01
You kind of shit the bed on the snacks.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, I got good hummus.
7
SPEAKER_00
I got, I was at Erewhon.
7
SPEAKER_00
So my choices, you know, were fancy.
7
SPEAKER_01
You can get a bunch of junk food there.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right, exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I got hummus and small carrots and crackers and oh, and then there s a Kismet Rotisserie there at Sportsman s Lodge.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I bought schmaltzy potatoes.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s fun.
7
SPEAKER_00
and a yummy dip.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that s pretty nice, but on the healthier side.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
No ruffles with ridges?
7
SPEAKER_00
No.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Unfortunately not.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so what I realized, my favorite jokes in general are silly jokes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, I like silliness.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t like jabs.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
7
SPEAKER_00
I just don t find that.
7
SPEAKER_01
You don t like mean-spirited ones?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s just not for me.
7
SPEAKER_01
Like, for lack of a better term, like the Ricky Gervais style, that s a pass for you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think he s super talented and super funny, but I like silliness.
7
SPEAKER_00
I find that much more entertaining and harder to do, like harder to pull off and be funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, but there was a great bit with Easter eggs, John Cena.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, what happened?
7
SPEAKER_00
It was great.
7
SPEAKER_00
So Jimmy said there was this crazy thing that happened at the Oscars in the 70s or something, whatever.
7
SPEAKER_00
They showed a clip of this guy streaking behind the announcer.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s just something like, that s crazy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like obviously like a cue.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then you see John Cena, like poke his head out from the back.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, Jimmy.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he goes up and he s like, what?
7
SPEAKER_00
That you re supposed to come out.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, I don t feel comfortable doing this anymore.
7
SPEAKER_00
And they have this whole bit.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he said, John Cena said, the male body is not a joke.
7
SPEAKER_00
And Jimmy says, mine is.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was so funny.
8
SPEAKER_02
So, so funny.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then he walks out, but covering his penis area with the card.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, he s naked.
8
SPEAKER_01
He s naked.
8
SPEAKER_02
How d he look?
8
SPEAKER_01
Great.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Great.
8
SPEAKER_02
Big, muscly.
8
SPEAKER_02
Very muscly.
8
SPEAKER_02
Buffet of muscles.
8
Ding, ding, ding.
8
SPEAKER_02
Ding, ding, ding.
8
SPEAKER_02
Easter egg.
8
SPEAKER_02
Easter egg.
8
SPEAKER_02
Buffet of muscles.
8
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, that was so funny.
8
SPEAKER_01
There was so many funny... I m sorry, I don t know why I found this joke so good.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was for an adapted screenplay.
8
SPEAKER_01
And he said, I wonder at what age they tell the screenplay it s adapted.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s funny.
8
SPEAKER_02
The only joke that got to me is somehow Kristen laughed looking at her phone.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I said, what are you laughing at?
8
SPEAKER_02
And she said, oh, someone just sent me that.
8
SPEAKER_02
Kimmel said, oh, Bradley, you re here with your, your date tonight is your mom.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_02
How many times can you bring your mom before you re dating your mom?
8
SPEAKER_02
That s pretty funny.
8
SPEAKER_01
How many times can you bring your mom as your date before you re dating your mom?
8
SPEAKER_01
That s very funny.
8
SPEAKER_02
And he probably had a good chocolate.
8
SPEAKER_01
He did.
8
SPEAKER_01
He s such a good sport.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he truly is.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was great, I thought they killed it.
8
SPEAKER_01
I texted Molly that morning, McNearney, and I said, hey, thinking about you today, hope it s minimal stress.
8
SPEAKER_01
And she said, ha, I feel like I m gonna die, but I can t because there s no room in the in memoriam.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then I told her to drink electrolytes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, she needed to keep hydrated.
8
SPEAKER_01
Classic, Monica 101.
8
SPEAKER_01
Speaking of.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah?
8
SPEAKER_01
When we were in Austin, someone collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_01
I won t go into details until I can, I guess, later.
8
SPEAKER_02
Maybe never though.
8
SPEAKER_01
Why?
8
SPEAKER_02
Because no one wants to be put on shout out that they collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to say who it was.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
We were somewhere and someone collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I got very panicky about it.
8
SPEAKER_01
I felt very thrown.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, shook.
8
SPEAKER_01
I didn t see the collapse.
8
SPEAKER_01
I just overheard someone saying, blah, blah, blah, collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_02
So-and-so collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_01
and we re calling an ambulance, and then we were leaving this thing.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we re making our quick exit.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I thought about it for like an hour.
8
SPEAKER_01
I had to reach out and get confirmation that this person was okay, and they were.
8
SPEAKER_02
Who you didn t know.
8
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know this person.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah, never met him.
8
SPEAKER_01
Never met him.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t know who he is.
8
SPEAKER_01
I had to like Google to figure out who he was, and then I had to text someone to ask,
8
SPEAKER_01
hey, I heard someone collapsed, do you know if they re okay?
8
SPEAKER_01
And I was given confirmation that they were okay, and it was just some dehydration.
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
So if only they had had electrolytes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
It is funny, I don t wanna get into an argument over it, but.
8
SPEAKER_02
There s not like a rapid test for dehydration.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it s like when, I think it is a bit of a blanketed explanation for a lot of stuff.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s not like the ambulance came and then they put a swab in his mouth and they looked at it and they went, oh, it was dehydration, or drew his blood and ran a test.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, they didn t do any tests.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think it s mostly pretty much a high probability guess that people make.
8
SPEAKER_01
But you can do a test.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think once you re in the hospital, you can tell your levels.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think you can tell your salinity levels.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly, which is correlated.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I just don t think they do that.
8
SPEAKER_01
They don t do that upon arrival.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, at the theater.
8
SPEAKER_02
And he didn t go to the hospital.
8
SPEAKER_01
No.
8
SPEAKER_02
Funny enough, I saw the unnamed person the next day in the, I thought, this is a funny story, kind of.
8
SPEAKER_02
I thought you and I were meeting for breakfast at the hotel.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
At 10.30.
8
SPEAKER_02
So I was like working out and I planned this thing perfectly.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I was confused that you texted me at like 10.20.
8
SPEAKER_02
I said, at like 10.10, I said, do you want to meet at 10.20?
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_02
In the lobby.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I was thinking to walk another flight of stairs down to the lower lobby.
8
SPEAKER_02
I thought that was a little like you were really ahead.
8
SPEAKER_02
But you had told me it was hard to get the reservation.
8
SPEAKER_02
So part of me is like, OK, somehow it was hard to get a reservation in our hotel.
8
SPEAKER_02
It seemed weird, but I just went along for it.
8
SPEAKER_02
But then I was like, I had planned everything out perfectly to be done right at 1030 to walk into the thing.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
You were off site, you were like.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was at the restaurant.
8
SPEAKER_02
You were seven miles away.
8
SPEAKER_01
Which is where the reservation was.
8
SPEAKER_01
I told you the name of the restaurant, but you must have thought, I guess.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was the name of it downstairs.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know, they give all these hotel, they all have a name.
8
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
8
SPEAKER_02
Even though it should just be the Hilton Restaurant.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then, so I then text you, this is like Abbott and Costello, because then at 10.30, I m down, down, wandering around the restaurant downstairs, I bump into the aforementioned man or woman who collapsed.
8
SPEAKER_02
They looked healthy as a horse.
8
SPEAKER_02
Great, I m so happy to hear it.
8
SPEAKER_02
I even felt weird asking about how they felt.
8
SPEAKER_02
I was like, how do you?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s nice to check in.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, how you feeling?
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, good.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, where are you?
8
SPEAKER_02
And you re like, I m seated.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I m on the back patio.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, you re outside?
8
SPEAKER_02
Cause I m in, oh man.
8
SPEAKER_02
So then I go outside and there s nowhere to sit outside.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I m thinking, anyways, then I had to get a Uber and then come to you.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then it was a delicious breakfast, but it was a comedy of errors.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay, back to the Academy Awards.
8
SPEAKER_02
So.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was great.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then, so Downey won.
8
SPEAKER_01
Downey won, Emma Stone won.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Killian Murphy won.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oppenheimer won.
8
SPEAKER_02
And this was, I think this was Downey s third time being nominated.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was.
8
SPEAKER_01
First win, though.
8
SPEAKER_02
First win.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
First big win.
8
SPEAKER_01
There were some great speeches.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was great.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was a great show.
8
SPEAKER_02
Wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Fun was had.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was fun.
8
SPEAKER_01
They did a great job.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then they re back at work today, you know?
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, right back at it.
8
SPEAKER_02
No rest for the wicked.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
So I watched that.
8
SPEAKER_02
We had a great time in Austin.
8
SPEAKER_01
We did.
8
SPEAKER_02
Several great meals.
8
SPEAKER_02
I got to sneak away and go to Barton Springs for an hour.
8
SPEAKER_02
It was closed really bad.
8
SPEAKER_02
Every now and then I like to come on here and complain about Barton Springs, even though it s my favorite place on earth.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s the dumb thing to close it during South by.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think it was a bad weekend for them to pick, because basically it was closed all weekend.
8
SPEAKER_02
But when I went on Google on Saturday, it said it was open.
8
SPEAKER_02
So I go down there, it s not open.
8
SPEAKER_02
So then we went to Acid Springs.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what I call Acid Springs.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, on the other side of the dam.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I went with Ange, who I had nominated for a Best Boy Award.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh!
8
SPEAKER_02
And you summarily rejected it.
8
SPEAKER_01
I did?
8
SPEAKER_02
With good reason.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
I sent her the clip, actually, because I thought she d get a kick out of it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Why did I reject it?
8
SPEAKER_02
I said, because she s too horny.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh!
8
SPEAKER_02
Remember?
8
SPEAKER_01
Is that why?
8
SPEAKER_02
I don t know, you just said- She is a best boy.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think it s just there s only so many slots.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and she s not a best boy.
8
SPEAKER_02
She s a rascal in a great way.
8
SPEAKER_02
She s so sweet though, and then her voice is so sweet.
8
SPEAKER_02
So we went down there for an hour and took a swim.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was really funny.
8
SPEAKER_02
Caught up.
8
SPEAKER_02
Found out that our babies are born on the same day, which was a big pop out for us.
8
SPEAKER_02
I don t know how we went a whole year without figuring that out.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then, Rob, did you have fun?
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
Saw a lot of people.
8
SPEAKER_02
Saw a lot of people.
8
SPEAKER_02
Had a lot of fun.
8
SPEAKER_02
Did you have a lot of good meals?
8
SPEAKER_02
We shared a wonderful meal on Thursday night together, Thursday night.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, at Uchiko and Arlo Grey, which were both really good.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_02
Wunderbar.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we had so much fun.
8
SPEAKER_01
I went shopping.
8
SPEAKER_02
Shop, shop, shop.
8
SPEAKER_01
I did some vintage shopping.
8
SPEAKER_02
Lots of vintage stuff.
8
SPEAKER_02
Which I enjoy doing.
8
SPEAKER_02
Big challenge getting that carry-on bag to fit.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I had to do a big squeeze.
8
SPEAKER_02
Boy, we really, you know, I don t think we ended up with a conclusive result.
8
SPEAKER_02
We kind of ran an experiment, which was,
8
SPEAKER_02
If you live where we live in Los Angeles, you have this really tough decision.
8
SPEAKER_02
Either fly out of Burbank, which is 12 minutes from our house and takes five minutes to go through security.
8
SPEAKER_02
It couldn t be easier.
8
SPEAKER_02
But the only direct to Austin out of there is Southwest.
8
SPEAKER_02
Or go to LAX and fly first class, which is 45 minutes away.
8
SPEAKER_02
LAX is a beat down.
8
SPEAKER_01
45 minutes on the easy side.
8
SPEAKER_02
We ll get to that.
8
SPEAKER_02
So by the time we exited the terminal, everyone was going up the front staircase and thank goodness the gate attendant said like, we re boarding from the back of the plane too.
8
SPEAKER_02
So when we walked out,
8
SPEAKER_02
I was like, let s go.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I sprinted to the back staircase of the plane.
8
SPEAKER_02
We went up and as luck would have it, right as the throng of people was coming towards us, they hadn t made it all the way to the exit row yet.
8
SPEAKER_02
So we got the exit row.
8
SPEAKER_02
I even got the seat without a seat in front of me.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you had tons of space.
8
SPEAKER_02
I was in heaven.
8
SPEAKER_02
There was a gorgeous guy that sat next to you.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes, he was gorgeous.
8
SPEAKER_02
Ooh, baby, from the Air Force, now works in publicity for JPL.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, shout out.
8
SPEAKER_02
What a hunk.
8
SPEAKER_00
He was.
8
SPEAKER_02
Easy flight there, it was great, worked out wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_02
So, so far, Burbank Southwest is winning.
8
SPEAKER_02
Then we flew out and that was nice too.
8
SPEAKER_02
We had first class and I got to watch Ferrari on the airplane.
8
SPEAKER_02
I brought a gang load of salt lick with so much, an embarrassing amount of barbecue on the flight with me.
8
SPEAKER_02
We landed.
8
SPEAKER_02
So far, I m like, oh, I think that s the move.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then the ride home was over an hour, I think.
8
SPEAKER_02
It was such a long car.
8
SPEAKER_01
I know it s Saturday, so, like, it shouldn t have been necessarily.
8
SPEAKER_01
It is a 100% no-brainer for me.
8
SPEAKER_01
If Burbank is an option, I m doing it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like, I m 100%.
9
SPEAKER_00
doing it every time I m flying Southwest, I don t care.
9
SPEAKER_01
Verdict s in.
9
SPEAKER_00
For me, it s like, I m never doing that again.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s different for you, I will say.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s different for you.
9
SPEAKER_00
For me- You can t tell.
9
SPEAKER_00
I can t tell.
9
SPEAKER_00
To me, the win of the 12-minute drive home is so much exponentially better than, because I can kind of sleep on the Southwest flight too.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s fine.
9
SPEAKER_01
For you, if it doesn t lay flat- Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_01
Then there s no real upgrade.
9
100%.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s totally negligible for you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
For me, the legs are something, but yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
If I were you, it s like, yeah, it reclines, I don t know, four degrees more.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you slept the whole way, though, I ll add that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did.
9
SPEAKER_01
You were cold.
9
SPEAKER_01
I know, and then I went- You farted and snored.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, I didn t.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and sneezed and coughed.
9
SPEAKER_00
Stop, I did not.
9
SPEAKER_01
Everyone in the cabin was like, whoo, who s smelling that?
9
SPEAKER_01
I was pointing at you.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was like, it s her, it s the little one.
9
SPEAKER_01
I did not.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, that s so scary.
9
SPEAKER_01
God.
9
SPEAKER_01
There s a little monster up here.
9
SPEAKER_01
A little gremlin.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, I didn t do it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was so quiet and smelled great.
9
SPEAKER_01
In fact, I didn t smell a single fart on that flight, which is very rare.
9
SPEAKER_00
You always smell.
9
SPEAKER_00
There were lots of farts on the way, or like just bad smells.
9
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, still worth it, still worth it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_00
But okay, so I slept that whole plane flight, and then I went to bed at nine, was like asleep I think by 9.30, and I woke up at 10.
9
SPEAKER_01
No fucking way, you slept, oh.
9
SPEAKER_00
But it was daylight saving.
9
SPEAKER_01
So you slept 12 hours, though.
9
SPEAKER_00
But yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
After the three hours on the plane.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I was still tired.
9
SPEAKER_00
Exhausted.
9
SPEAKER_00
That helps.
9
SPEAKER_00
I kind of kept lying down again even after.
9
SPEAKER_01
That makes me feel less bad about being truly exhausted yesterday, because I was like, what s going on, Shepard, you fucking wimp?
9
SPEAKER_01
Let s go, let s go, it s time to go.
9
SPEAKER_01
I had to hike and I did to do three loops of the rock climb part.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m like, come on you wimp, you piece of shit, you lazy bastard, push.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re allowed to sleep.
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, actually, I can t.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, if I m away on a hike, but I couldn t go upstairs and sleep.
9
SPEAKER_01
They come and go, what the fuck is going on?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was go time yesterday.
9
SPEAKER_01
They missed me, which is so nice.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m sure.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
What d you guys do?
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh man.
9
SPEAKER_01
So Delta was basically a fly girl.
9
SPEAKER_00
What, for what?
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember the Fly Girls?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, on- Living Color?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Jennifer Lopez?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
One of the Ridge.
9
SPEAKER_01
So these, I think fourth grade boys, third or fourth grade boys started a band called Bussin  Boys.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they all do sleepovers at someone s house that has some gear, and then the school has some kind of after school, but mine is a public school.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
So radical.
9
SPEAKER_01
They have like an after school program, maybe called Beats or something.
9
SPEAKER_01
So these kids wrote a rap and there s like six of them in the group.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re the Bussin Boys.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they did a live performance during the basketball game outside yesterday.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then so four of the gals wanted to be involved and Delta was one of them.
9
SPEAKER_01
So we had to go to the school and watch the Bustin  Boys with their first live performance, and they were rapping, and it was so cute.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was laughing.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was having that kind of cry laugh, where I just was, I couldn t believe how sweet this was.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s so cute.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was actually really good.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_01
They did two songs.
9
SPEAKER_01
They didn t mess up at all.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then what was so adorable is the Fly Girls, they would do cartwheels through frame.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
9
SPEAKER_01
One after another.
9
SPEAKER_00
Nice.
9
SPEAKER_01
Some of them were roundoffs.
9
SPEAKER_01
Some of them were, and just to see Delta every time run across and do her two cartwheels and then wait on the sidelines.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then, then the course can, they will go the other way.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I was laughing hysterically at how cute this whole thing was and.
9
SPEAKER_01
The songs were fucking good.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m like, yeah, this is how it happens.
9
SPEAKER_01
Two of the boys in particular seem to have written it.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re the best friends.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s not inconceivable.
9
SPEAKER_01
If this is where they re at in third or fourth grade, they ll probably be amazing artists.
9
SPEAKER_01
Jay-Z s?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, they are already certainly much better than Rob and I could ever be in a fucking rap group.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
Fun.
9
SPEAKER_01
India.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right, so I don t have any facts.
9
SPEAKER_00
Bill is Bill.
9
SPEAKER_01
Bill s Bill.
9
SPEAKER_01
Bills be billin .
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so there s no facts and we ve sort of talked about the trip.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did talk to my parents.
9
SPEAKER_00
We had a FaceTime.
9
SPEAKER_00
I told them about everything that we did and they were- You tell them how bad you want to go to Carolyn out again?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we were all talking about doing that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Were you planning?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, which is really fun.
9
SPEAKER_00
Let s see.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, well, I remembered, I don t know if I cut this last time, but I was trying to remember something last time I couldn t remember.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, okay, great.
9
SPEAKER_01
So a week later.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, a week later.
9
SPEAKER_00
What I wanted to tell you is that I broke my car a little bit.
9
SPEAKER_01
You backed into a rock.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
A small rock, but that was big enough to hurt the car a little bit.
9
SPEAKER_01
Rocks are that way.
9
SPEAKER_01
They usually win a fight with plastic.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was a decorative rock.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was backing up, I was frazzled.
9
SPEAKER_01
I wanna see it, I wonder how much of it I could take out with my old trusted number two rubbing compound.
9
SPEAKER_01
I make miracles happen with that number two rubbing compound, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve drugged cars along things and been like, oh fuck, that s gonna have to get repainted, look at all the shit on that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it was fine.
9
SPEAKER_01
Just get on it with that fucking number two.
9
SPEAKER_00
Number two?
9
SPEAKER_01
You know what the truth is?
9
SPEAKER_01
I actually don t even have number two anymore.
9
SPEAKER_01
Number two is a Meguiar s product, and I try to order it sometimes on Amazon.
9
SPEAKER_01
I just have a rubbing compound, but you can get so much out of it.
9
SPEAKER_00
What, number two s the brand or something?
9
SPEAKER_01
No, Meguiar s had like many different products and they were just numbered, which I appreciate.
9
SPEAKER_01
Fuck all these names.
9
SPEAKER_01
Just give me the numbers.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you ve got 10 products, just number the products.
9
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, Meguiar s number two was their rubbing compound.
9
SPEAKER_00
So now you have a different brand.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but I still call it number two.
9
SPEAKER_01
Number two is like, it s the miracle worker.
9
SPEAKER_01
Brie would like fuck up her whole Toyota and she d come in and go, I need the number two.
9
SPEAKER_01
I d get out of my toolbox and go down with the number two.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I want that.
9
SPEAKER_00
That sounds like something that would be helpful.
9
SPEAKER_01
Also number two, we like number two.
9
SPEAKER_01
We do.
9
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of number two, my pencils came.
9
SPEAKER_00
My fancy pencils arrived that were at the Rowe Fashion Show.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh right, that had been gifted.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they are so nice.
9
SPEAKER_00
Do you want one?
9
SPEAKER_00
I have a lot.
9
SPEAKER_01
Boy, that s a tricky question because I want one because it s probably pretty, but I don t ever use pencils.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t like pencils, I like pens.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then I have another thing that s just in my space that will never get used and I don t know why I have it.
9
SPEAKER_01
That gives me a lot of anxiety.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, do you get anxiety from that?
9
SPEAKER_01
I was even looking at my nightstand the other day and I m like.
9
SPEAKER_01
I should just take a huge trash can, take my arm and wipe the whole thing into the trash can.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because clearly, I haven t touched any of those things for a year.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I should just dump them all in the trash can.
9
SPEAKER_01
Even like a business, I ll stack a business card.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, throw it away.
9
SPEAKER_01
If I ever go to whatever, I m gonna, and it s like, I never go there.
9
SPEAKER_00
Throw them away.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then 10 years goes by.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, throw everything away, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, throw stuff away.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
But like that pet soul, I would look at it and, oh, Monica gave that to me, that s so nice.
9
SPEAKER_01
But this shit would be piling up and I d be trying to decide and then I d feel really guilty throwing something away that you gave me.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I m inclined to not want it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I understand that.
9
SPEAKER_01
You feel me, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, I feel that with the kids.
9
SPEAKER_00
With my kids?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, but I love it, but they draw me lots of pictures, which I love, but I think it s bad luck if I throw them away.
9
SPEAKER_01
It is, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but then I have 400 pieces of paper that has two lines of color on it.
9
SPEAKER_01
But that at least could be just put in one folder, folder.
9
SPEAKER_00
I put them in.
9
SPEAKER_01
Pencil in your folder.
9
SPEAKER_00
I put them in my memory box, which is a drawer now.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but I m sure they wouldn t take up more than one foder, like one trap or cuber foder.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, over these years, they ve accumulated.
9
SPEAKER_00
They have?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, which is great.
9
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I keep one on the fridge or two on the fridge, but- I don t want to advise your style in your home, but you should think about taking like eight of your favorites and pressing them all onto one board and framing it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I would, there s a few I wanna frame, but.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like a collage.
9
SPEAKER_00
But you know like sometimes I m over and Delta s just like, here you go.
9
SPEAKER_00
And she s just like, it s cute, it s lovely.
9
SPEAKER_01
But it s shit.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s not shit, it s just.
9
SPEAKER_00
She didn t put the time in.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s not a piece of work, she just like did it really quick and then wants me to have it and of course I want it, but I can t throw that away.
9
SPEAKER_01
And was it Lincoln that made you a full sculpture of you?
9
SPEAKER_00
No, a painting and I have it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, but what about the one that, um, the, the clay scape sculpture of you?
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, oh, with the big boobs.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
I have that too.
9
SPEAKER_01
She didn t Lincoln make that for you.
9
SPEAKER_00
She did.
9
SPEAKER_00
She did.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
That needs to be in a, that should go on a lucite box.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think it could.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s don t put that in a folder.
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause it ll get smashed into a pancake.
9
SPEAKER_01
Will you do me that favor and not put it in a folder?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I will.
9
SPEAKER_00
I will.
9
SPEAKER_01
I want to send my heart and love out to Mrs. Schieman.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, she s the one that spoke.
9
SPEAKER_01
Always said, folder in your pencil.
10
SPEAKER_03
Penso.
10
SPEAKER_01
Penso.
10
SPEAKER_03
Penso.
10
SPEAKER_01
Grab your penso and your foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
I loved it.
10
SPEAKER_01
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_03
How would you spell that?
10
SPEAKER_03
F-O-R-D-E-R?
10
SPEAKER_03
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
Grab your penso and your foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
There s a little bit of an O in there.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like F-O-W-D-E-R.
10
SPEAKER_01
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
Foder.
10
SPEAKER_01
Grab your penso and your foder.
10
SPEAKER_03
Did you think it was kind of hot?
10
SPEAKER_01
Nope, nope, nope.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you didn t.
10
SPEAKER_01
She was married to Mr. Sheeman.
10
SPEAKER_01
This is the cutest thing.
10
SPEAKER_01
I guess this is hot.
10
SPEAKER_03
Me cute?
10
SPEAKER_01
She was the home ex-teacher, so she taught us how to sew and bake.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then he was the shop teacher.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that s cute.
10
SPEAKER_01
So they were the hands-on couple at Muir Junior High School.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s cute.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_03
Who was the hottest teacher you ve ever had?
10
SPEAKER_01
Ooh, great question.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think Mrs. Briggs.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
Maybe second grade, third grade.
10
SPEAKER_01
She was like blonde and her, I think her husband was like high up in GM.
10
SPEAKER_01
So they lived in a really fancy house in our neighborhood.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there wasn t terribly fancy houses, but there was a nicer section of Axford acres closer to the water where the newer builds were.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I think she and her husband who was high up in GM lived in kind of a swanky house and she dressed really nice and she had like blown out blonde hair.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh wow.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, she s the only one that didn t, she did not look like a teacher.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
She looked like Joan Rivers or something.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh.
10
SPEAKER_01
No, but you know, like she could have hosted a talk show, daytime talk show.
10
SPEAKER_03
That s, Joan Rivers is very specific.
10
SPEAKER_01
But I don t, but I don t think that s, I don t think, I didn t have a crush on her, but I think, if I ever had a crush on a teacher, I think it was Mrs. Giglio, my, probably my kindergarten teacher, because she was so sweet and kind, and she was pretty.
10
SPEAKER_03
And she was probably young.
10
SPEAKER_01
She invited me over to her house to have spaghetti once.
10
SPEAKER_03
What?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
She had had my brother, then she had me, and then she had Carly.
10
SPEAKER_01
She did?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and she s the only teacher we all had.
10
SPEAKER_03
Was she, how old?
10
16.
10
SPEAKER_01
Was she young?
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, she had to have been if she had my brother, me, and my sister, because that s a 12-year gap.
10
SPEAKER_01
And she was still young when she had my sister.
10
SPEAKER_03
But wait, you re saying, yeah, was she young or was she like an old lady?
10
SPEAKER_01
No, no, she was young.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh, and she invited you over for spaghetti.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, in the best way.
10
SPEAKER_03
It wasn t grooming?
10
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no, no, no.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think she knew some wild stuff was going on.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh, she was taking you in.
10
SPEAKER_01
She was taking, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_03
And what did she talk to you about while she made you spaghetti?
10
SPEAKER_01
I cannot remember it all.
10
SPEAKER_01
I just remember, and fuck, man.
10
SPEAKER_03
Do you think you made it up?
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that d be a nuts thing to make up.
10
SPEAKER_01
But again, you can t really trust anything anymore.
10
SPEAKER_01
What was it you thought?
10
SPEAKER_01
You thought your mom was in the CIA?
10
SPEAKER_01
Is that she had an audition for NSA?
10
SPEAKER_03
No, no, no, I knew she wasn t in it.
10
SPEAKER_01
You thought she got groomed.
10
SPEAKER_03
No, I thought she got recruited.
10
SPEAKER_03
You said recruited.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_03
That s different than groomed.
10
SPEAKER_03
Groomed is normally- Wait, did you originally mean to work there?
10
SPEAKER_01
I thought you were saying as an asset.
10
SPEAKER_01
As a spy.
10
SPEAKER_03
To work there.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it made it sound, because we were talking, in fact, we were talking about the guy who had learned to recruit people overseas.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then you go, oh my God, my mom was once recruited.
10
SPEAKER_01
Recruited, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
I took that to mean they wanted to use her as a asset.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh no, no, no.
10
SPEAKER_01
As an informant.
10
SPEAKER_03
No, I thought she was recruited to work at the CIA.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that explains everything.
10
SPEAKER_03
But she wasn t, but she was.
10
SPEAKER_01
NSA.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yes, so, you know, I wasn t that far.
10
SPEAKER_01
But I m glad we cleared this up because I still up until this moment thought you meant she they had been trying to Yeah, like they were gonna like urge her to go get a job at the Indian Embassy or something She wouldn t be a good spy.
10
SPEAKER_01
No, she sounds like a southerner.
10
SPEAKER_01
She would not have passed as and she doesn t do accents like me
10
SPEAKER_03
Like she doesn t play with accents.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like you also don t do accents.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_01
Sounded like she doesn t do accents like me.
10
SPEAKER_03
So many confusions.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyways, I m pretty, I m gonna stand by the fact that Mrs. Giglio invited me over to have spaghetti.
10
SPEAKER_03
Okay, I think that s cute.
10
SPEAKER_03
Okay, so that s the hottest teacher you ever had.
10
SPEAKER_01
I know you had a bunch of hot teachers.
10
SPEAKER_03
Well, we all know about the hottest.
10
SPEAKER_03
That was a professor.
10
SPEAKER_03
I don t know if we can count professors in this game.
10
SPEAKER_03
Are we allowed to?
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
I wish I was hot for one of my teachers, because I would have been super charming and stuff, and I probably would have done good in the class.
10
SPEAKER_01
But you got a smirk on your face right now.
10
SPEAKER_01
You re like, you re remembering something.
10
SPEAKER_03
Well, I m remembering a hot teacher.
10
SPEAKER_01
Which one?
10
SPEAKER_03
I can t say.
10
SPEAKER_01
Why?
10
SPEAKER_01
Because they hooked up with a student?
10
SPEAKER_03
No, but I still have enough of a connection to this person in some ways that I couldn t get back to them.
10
SPEAKER_01
You wouldn t want them to know that you thought they were hot?
10
SPEAKER_03
This is where you and I differ.
10
SPEAKER_03
This would have been inappropriate.
10
SPEAKER_01
That you thought they were hot.
10
SPEAKER_03
Well, just it could get this person in trouble.
10
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
10
SPEAKER_03
He was very flirty with us.
10
Oh.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and he was hot.
10
SPEAKER_01
We had a teacher in my high school who was married to a 19 year old that had gone to the high school a year before.
10
SPEAKER_01
I didn t like the guy and everyone, he was everyone s favorite teacher.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I just, I was like, no, no.
10
SPEAKER_01
This dude s 40 and he s married to one of the students.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then the claim was they didn t start dating until after she graduated.
10
SPEAKER_01
He was 40?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, he had to, I m fucking, you know, I was younger, but maybe he s 38.
10
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh God.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
He was like not a young.
10
SPEAKER_03
But are you sure he wasn t like 28?
10
SPEAKER_01
Now I definitely wasn t cause I was, I was then 17, 18.
10
SPEAKER_01
I knew what 28 was all about.
10
SPEAKER_01
He was definitely late thirties or 40.
10
SPEAKER_03
Oh my God.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
And a friend of mine used to go, she was a grade ahead of me, but she was friends with the girl he married and she would go with her boyfriend was also older than her and went to U of M and they would go and hang out at this dude s house on the weekend and party.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh boy.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m like this is.
10
SPEAKER_02
That s not great.
10
SPEAKER_01
This is dicey.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s not good.
10
SPEAKER_01
But in general, do we differ on this or not?
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
I always wanted to get to somebody if someone thought they were hot.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think it s the nicest thing to hear ever.
10
SPEAKER_01
You and I agree.
10
SPEAKER_03
You do think that.
10
SPEAKER_01
I do.
10
SPEAKER_01
Don t you always want to know if someone thinks you re hot?
10
SPEAKER_01
Such a nice feeling to hear that.
10
SPEAKER_03
If it s gonna put me in a weird position, no, I actually don t want to.
10
SPEAKER_03
And that s rare that it would put me in a weird position.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m trying to think of a scenario.
10
SPEAKER_03
But there are circumstances.
10
SPEAKER_01
But let s just say that someone from the trip we just took to India told me on the side, like, Monica s really hot.
10
SPEAKER_01
We interacted with a lot of people.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we did.
10
SPEAKER_01
We probably met like 25 people from the foundation otherwise.
10
SPEAKER_01
If they had told me, Monica s really hot,
10
SPEAKER_01
you would want to know, right?
10
SPEAKER_03
I d want to know after.
10
SPEAKER_01
After, okay.
10
SPEAKER_03
I don t think I d want to know while I then had to interact.
10
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_03
It can make you alter or change how you re behaving, so yeah, we re different in that way.
10
SPEAKER_00
I guess you re healthier.
10
SPEAKER_00
What if it was someone you had the hots for, though?
10
SPEAKER_03
Are they single and available?
10
SPEAKER_03
Then... You wanna know immediately, because then there could have been a... I would wanna know then, I think, if it was a legit opportunity.
10
SPEAKER_03
But if it wasn t, then no.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m glad, it s crazy to me that it took us eight years to figure out the guidelines of when I should tell you you re hot, someone said you re hot or not.
10
SPEAKER_01
Although I tell you, because people tell me all the time.
10
SPEAKER_01
I send you texts all the time, screen grabs.
10
SPEAKER_03
But that s fine, because I m not around them.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, okay, good, I ll keep that up then.
10
SPEAKER_01
You can keep doing that.
10
SPEAKER_03
Don t worry, don t worry about that.
10
SPEAKER_01
But there was a guy on the trip, and I told him that the women thought he was hot.
10
SPEAKER_03
I know, I know.
10
SPEAKER_01
And he was very happy.
10
SPEAKER_03
But I wish you hadn t done that.
10
SPEAKER_01
I didn t say any names.
10
SPEAKER_01
You re giving me, Monica has like a couple signatures.
10
SPEAKER_01
She s got the eye roll, but then she s got the head tilted way down, looking up through the brows, and I m getting that right now.
10
SPEAKER_03
This is a very smart person, and he definitely knew who you were talking about, and so.
10
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
10
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well.
10
SPEAKER_03
It s fine.
10
SPEAKER_03
It s fine, but I do think you re a bit willy nilly with those types of things.
10
SPEAKER_01
Not as professional as I should be?
10
SPEAKER_03
You know, you re easy to talk to, right?
10
SPEAKER_03
You re so easy to talk to and people tell you things and people, they want you to be- In on their thing?
10
SPEAKER_03
Excited.
10
SPEAKER_03
Like, you know, they tell you secrets and stuff and want you to be into their story.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I agree, but I m accepting what you re telling me.
10
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_03
And I think people do that assuming
10
SPEAKER_01
that I won t pass it on.
10
SPEAKER_03
That s like secret knowledge.
10
SPEAKER_01
Boy, okay, so you might have a really valid point here.
10
SPEAKER_01
So if it fails like I was betraying someone s trust, I would not want to do that.
10
SPEAKER_03
I know you don t feel like that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t feel like I m doing it.
10
SPEAKER_01
There were a bunch of stuff I heard on the trip that I would have never said.
10
SPEAKER_01
But when I hear people think people are cute, and I don t say the name, I just say I ve heard from some women on the trip.
10
SPEAKER_01
Let s be honest too, what really happened was I offered for this person to go ahead of me.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like we were all funneling into a place.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I offered for this person.
11
SPEAKER_00
And they said, no, no, you go first.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I said, no, no, no.
11
SPEAKER_00
I said, good looks before height.
11
SPEAKER_00
And he said, I don t think so.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then I said, well, I disagree.
11
SPEAKER_00
I ve heard from some women on the trip that they think you re very handsome, so please go.
11
SPEAKER_00
So that was the situation.
11
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like I went and tugged the guy s shoulder and was like, hey, guess what?
11
SPEAKER_00
There s some people on the trip that think you re hot.
11
SPEAKER_01
No, no, you said if you heard the way some of the women talk about you, you d blush.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, that s exactly what I said.
11
SPEAKER_01
more than what you just said one second ago.
11
SPEAKER_00
Rob, would you love to hear that?
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s fine.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s fine.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m not talking about the way the men feel.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right.
11
SPEAKER_01
Now, if I had said- Talking about the way the women feel who talked about it.
11
SPEAKER_00
If I had said the specific women s names, I think I would have felt like I had violated your guys s-
11
SPEAKER_01
I know, but you re, you re doing it through your filter, right?
11
SPEAKER_00
I m willing to acknowledge that I m more comfortable with it than maybe other people are.
11
SPEAKER_00
And maybe that that s, that s worth me looking at.
11
SPEAKER_00
And so great.
11
SPEAKER_00
So you just hit me with your boundary.
11
SPEAKER_00
I ll respect it.
11
SPEAKER_00
And from my point of view, if you ever hear someone thought I was hot, please tell me.
11
SPEAKER_01
I do tell you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, don t get mad.
11
SPEAKER_01
I tell you all the time.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
I told you that the girl sitting next to me at the thing we were at thought you were hot.
11
SPEAKER_00
What thing we re at, where at?
11
SPEAKER_01
I can t say yet, in Austin.
11
SPEAKER_00
She didn t say I was hot?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, she clapped when you went up and she liked you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, that s my, I knew that that didn t happen.
11
SPEAKER_01
I told you about that.
11
SPEAKER_00
You told me that she clapped and it turns out she was a fan.
11
SPEAKER_00
And she was excited to be near you.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s lovely and I m really glad you told me that.
11
SPEAKER_00
I just specifically, no one said I was hot.
11
SPEAKER_00
She said it in the way she clapped.
11
SPEAKER_01
I can tell.
11
SPEAKER_00
No one told you that they thought I was hot, but if someone tells you that I,
11
SPEAKER_01
It s so hot.
11
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
11
SPEAKER_00
This means, that means so hot.
11
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no.
11
SPEAKER_01
I do tell you though when I hear that, and people tell you all the time to your face, you re so handsome and you re so buff and you re so, look at you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Boys definitely tell me I m hot.
11
SPEAKER_01
Girls too.
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SPEAKER_01
It happened, I don t remember, I should have written it down.
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SPEAKER_00
You should have.
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SPEAKER_00
But you re acting like it s so frequent, it makes me think that you d be able to remember a single example of it.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think I should spend my energy writing down when people are telling you you re hot.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, it s fine, just you know.
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SPEAKER_01
But it did happen recently, a woman did, and I remember thinking like, he says no women do, and then they did.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, but then you didn t tell me.
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SPEAKER_01
You were there!
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SPEAKER_00
I was?
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SPEAKER_00
Anyways, all right, moving on.
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SPEAKER_01
Anyways.
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SPEAKER_00
But you know my boundaries, they don t exist.
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SPEAKER_00
And then same for you, Rob.
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SPEAKER_00
Rob, if anyone ever tells you that I m hot, please tell me.
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SPEAKER_00
I ll let you know, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And then if anyone tells me that you re hot, would you like to know?
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SPEAKER_00
Sure.
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SPEAKER_01
Tell me, just not when the person is there.
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SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
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SPEAKER_01
You understand.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
I feel like I m similar.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I m the odd man out.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
That doesn t surprise me.
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SPEAKER_00
I accept that.
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SPEAKER_00
I m willy nilly, man.
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SPEAKER_00
I m like, you know me, I m flirty and wild.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s not everyone s comfort zone.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Rob, I think you re hot.
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SPEAKER_00
Everywhere we go, if I ever get the ear of any gals, they always think Rob s so cute, and he is, he s so cute.
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SPEAKER_00
I might have to do a cutest boy award for Rob.
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SPEAKER_00
It wouldn t be as good of a reward if you had to make your own bronze bust, would it?
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SPEAKER_00
No?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s asking a lot.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, well this was fun.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this was fun.
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SPEAKER_00
I like doing this show with you guys.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you, me too.
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SPEAKER_00
All right, love you.
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SPEAKER_01
I love you.