WEBVTT

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Welcome to the show. This is Mount
Rushmore video games. We're going to

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have Bobby Kodic and Elon [music] Musk.

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Of course, Ben and I. Rushmore started

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actually with Elon, Ben, myself, and my

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wife Stodd. We were in Greece. Stood

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goes to Elon. I think Ben asked me,
"What would you do for your last meal if

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it was your last meal?"
It was a bunch of answers.

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>> Mine was uh Lamboise. That's right.

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>> On divorce in Paris. >> In Paris. Yeah.

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>> Shake Shack. Mine's Shake Shack.

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>> Okay. [laughter] A solid pick. A solid
pick. Honestly, Shake Shack is underrated.

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>> You can you can never go wrong.

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>> I I've honestly never regretted a meal

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from Shake Shack. [laughter] >> So,
from that that it evolved into

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Rushmore. >> I mean, I mean,
you're pretty funny for

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like carving meals into
the side of a mountain, you know?

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>> I guarantee you Mount Rushmore would
make a lot more money if they had a

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Shake Shack at the bottom.
[laughter] >> Exactly.

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>> Yeah. So, one of the things we do, but
I don't think we need to do it with the

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two of you, is for you two to introduce

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each other, but I don't think Elon needs

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any introduction. No disrespect, Bobby.

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Bobb's Bobby. He ran Activision, just

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sold it. As we're planning this, one of

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the funniest text exchanges when Bobby

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threatens Elon, you couldn't handle
24 hours of retirement, which Bobby has

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gone through, and Elon laughs
hysterically on the text exchange. I

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thought that was fantastic. So, this is

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a conversation about uh video games.

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>> No, I don't play like Eli.
He >> There's nobody who plays like Eli.

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>> More serious video game player. He

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actually should own Blizzard. Like, like

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>> that's probably true. I do love video
games. Um, and when people ask me what

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do I spend my, you know, nonwork time on,
I said, well, first of all, I

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probably work every day, uh,
seven days a week. But, uh,

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>> at 3 in the morning, what do you do?

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>> Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like u I my my
hobbies are sort of spending time with

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friends and family and video games.
Um and then you that's it's probably not

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like the sexiest thing to say, you know.

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In fact, I was looking at some list
of things that turn women off the most and

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one is if your hobby is video games.

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[laughter] >> What was the
first one you ever played?

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Do you remember?

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>> I mean, I was a little kid. Um, it was

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this pre-tari game which had like uh

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basically Pong and a racing game. It
didn't even have cartridges. It just had

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like four games that were built in.

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>> Do you know what that was, Bobby?

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>> Yeah, let's think about it.
So, the Magnavox Odyssey,

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>> maybe that was it.
>> Magnavox Odyssey came I I think it was

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with four games, but I don't
remember >> who owned that company.

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>> Magnavox was owned
by Phillips of the Netherlands.

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>> Got it. Those were all 6502,

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you know, one megahertz processor games

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that like that's what I started playing
too is Apple 2 games and Atari 2600

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games. >> And Elon, had you
played all his games on Activision?

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>> I played a lot of games. So, I mean,
there's Activision makes a lot of games,

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so I haven't played them all, but I
played uh a number of them. Played the

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Call of Duty series from the beginning.

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I didn't look. I should have
looked your KD ratio, but [laughter]

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>> do you know what it is, Elon?

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>> No, but I mean I'm pretty good at video
games. You know, when Quake first came

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out and was multiplayer and there there
was a what I was told was the first paid

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esports tournament in the US.
>> How old were you?

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>> So, I was probably 23,
24 or something like that.

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>> Okay. >> My like final
semester in undergrad, I

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spent more time playing Quake
than I did all my classes.

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>> [laughter] >> There
was some startup that was trying

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to make esports, paid esports, uh, a

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thing in like 96 or 97 and they they

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held a paid tournament. Uh, so four
person teams. Um, I was the second best

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person on the team. >> Who was first?

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>> The guy who later became out CIO.

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>> How much money did you make?

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>> I I think like $5,000,
something like that.

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>> Were they all kids you met playing
online or did they go to school with Did

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Brandon go to school with you?

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>> Actually, I'm not sure how I met
Brandon. might have met him playing

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Quake and then he later became uh the
sort of chief information officer of my

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company. [laughter] >> That's wild. All
right, Elon, what's your four on Rushmore?

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>> I guess I'd probably
have to put Quake up there.

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>> Okay, >> I would too,
actually. I mean, I didn't

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say it, but I think Doom and Quake were

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the most transformative games
from a multiplayer perspective.

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>> I never played it.
>> I played Doom. I never played Quake.

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>> All right, keep on going. And these
things obviously have to be evaluated

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against the time that they were.

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>> Okay. Okay. Stop qualifying. Just
keep on. Let's let's see the other three,

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please. >> I think HalfLife
2 is an amazing game.

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Bioshock. DSX. >> I don't know that game
at all. Sorry. Do you know that game?

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>> No. >> That should
absolutely be like a a TV

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series or a movie or something.
That's >> When did it come out?

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>> 20 years ago, maybe.
No, more than 20 years ago.

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>> Who made it? >> Ion Storm.
>> Yeah, Iron Storm.

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>> What's the concept of the game? It's
some of the best writing and and and one

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of the most interesting plots of any
any game. [music] Uh it takes it takes a

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minute to explain. It is funny in that

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it in the game they use a a sort of an

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an engineered bio bioweapon virus to

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cause massive fear in the population

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so that the population demands a

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lockdown. [laughter] >> Keep on going.

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>> Yeah. I'm like, wait a second. This

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sounds Wait, this sounds familiar. So So

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there's an engineered boweapon

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that terrifies the population and uh and

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and and the government is the only one
with the cure and then but there's a

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limited amount. And so out of fear, the
population demands lockdown and demands

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martial law. >> Wow.

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>> And then control over the world is is

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given to the UN security forces. I mean,

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I'm I'm doing some some plot spoilers
here if you [laughter] but I guess we

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can do a few plot spoilers, but it turns
out that the head of the UN security

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forces was the one who
engineered the virus >> for power.

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>> Exactly. So, you say like how do you
let's say you work backwards from you

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want to get absolute power somehow.

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Well, you put yourself in charge of the
rescue forces and then you create the

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the the crisis >> that makes you in power.

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>> Yes. and and then
people actually demand

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that you you take power um because

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you've got the because to to deal
with the crisis and you've got the cure.

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>> But what character
do you play in the game?

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>> You play this guy JC Denton who is you

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start off as part of the UN security
forces. It turns out you're sort of a

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biological experiment and you can get

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all the these uh cyberware adaptations

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to enhance your abilities. So, as you
go through the game, you get these like

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various cyberware implants to enhance
your abilities. And then as you

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progress, you just you think you're
working for the it starts off you think

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you're working for the good
guys >> and you realize

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>> Yeah. And and you've got to stop
these these terrorists who are trying to

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undermine the UN security forces.

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>> Bobby, did you ever play this game?

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>> Uh but you know what? When it came
out, I mean, you know, I tried it.

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>> Had you owned Activision at the time?

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>> Yeah. John Romero, you know, we had
worked with ID for a long time. He left

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it. He started Iron Storm, but the guy

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who wrote that, his name Warren Spectre.

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>> Yeah, Warren Spectre is excellent. It's

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a very thoughtful plot and and um
dialogue. It's it's it's very clever.

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>> He lives in Austin.
Like I think he teaches

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>> I should say hi to him or something.

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>> Yeah. Everyone was surprised because
nobody thought that Romero could come up

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with a great game after ID and he did.

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>> But ID's not on your guys list.

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>> Well, ID is Quake and Doom.

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>> Oh, yeah. That's what Yeah.

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>> Oddly, John Romero

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used the money that he made from ID
to start an aerospace company called Arvar

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Aerospace >> or Armadillo.

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>> Oh, yeah. Armandillo. [laughter]

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>> And I wasn't always sure. He wanted
to launch somebody into orbit, but I don't

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think he cared if they came back.

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>> I mean, John Com is actually a good
friend of mine, and we've been friends

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for a long time. John Comx is really one
of the world's best engineers, but he he

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kind of likes kind
of likes being a lone wolf.

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>> Isn't he working on an AI program now?

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>> Yeah, but he's he he he doesn't want
to manage a company or anything like that

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is my understanding. >> He left
Facebook and now he started his

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AI company by himself, his own AI company.

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>> Yeah, he made a huge contribution
to Oculus, making Oculus successful, but

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then wanted to just do his own thing.

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But John and I see each other, you know,
every month or two. He comes down for

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launches at Starbase.

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He's very he's very knowledgeable about

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rocket technology. So John and I comic

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and I can have very in-depth
discussions about rocket engineering.

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>> Yeah. I mean he started it like in a

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little warehouse, but you know he he's

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he was probably the most capable
graphic programmer that >> ever

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>> I ever knew. >> Yeah, he might be.
Yeah, >> he's definitely on Rushmore.

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>> He'd be on Rushmore programmers.
Yeah, >> absolutely. He's he's incredibly

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talented. There's a guy named Peter Pike
Sloan who is like in that category, but

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very few people like that.
>> All right, so we now have two Rushmore.

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Well, I got a question on both Rushmore.

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I think Elon,
all of your Rushmore are FPS.

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>> No, didn't you say Diablo?
>> I mean, I only have four, so I probably

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put Diablo I on Rushmore. If we're

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speaking about actual time allocated,

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like right in the past uh year or so,
the game I've played the most is Diablo

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4. >> So, let's look
at the screen time for

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the truth. Uh, screen time. Screen time.

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Don't lie. >> Over the game
you introduced Ben to.

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>> Oh, Poltopia. I had to stop playing
Poltopia. Yeah. I think I finally got

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like like ELO up around like
1609 or 1614, something like that.

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>> Jesus. >> That's a crazy number.

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>> It is a crazy number. But the I started
seeing Poltopia when I closed my eyes. I

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[laughter] would close my eyes
and I'd see the Poltopia.

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>> I deleted it from my phone.
I had to delete it from my phone.

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>> Exactly. So I had
to delete it from my phone.

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>> The most addicting game.
Bobby, have you ever played this game?

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>> I didn't play it.
I know. You know, a lot of

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>> They tried to explain it to me.
It was way out of my league.

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>> Strategy games were not my thing, but

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everybody like my friends who are real

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gamers all love Poltopia. And but it is

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completely timeconuming.
>> The final straw was like I was at my

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friend's birthday party. Great birthday
party and all I could see was the

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Poltopia board. >> Didn't you
beat the guy that made the game?

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>> Oh, Felix. Yeah.
[laughter] >> That's so funny.

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the the win to loss ratio is about even
between me and and Felix. So, he's he's

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quite a good player or he'll say he's
not a good player, but he is he is a

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good player. >> You got up
to the fifth in the best in

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the world, right? At one point.

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>> Well, I mean, at one
point I I I did get [laughter]

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I was number one on the leaderboard.

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>> So many hours of Polytopia.

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>> Yes. So, that's why I had to delete it.

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Yeah. [music]

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Heat.

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[music]

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Heat.