Palanteer we talked a lot about
different philosophy that you you do
teach us and talked about dialectics and
one of the animating dialectics is you
know between pessimism and optimism and
what's the best case for an optimistic
view for the United States right now
>> you know America
uh produces
crazy outside the norm people that are
driven
um we're not constrained the way other
cultures are by um intergenerational
risktaking. So, I mean, it's proverbial.
You're allowed to fail here. It's a
benality, but it's it really is true.
We push responsibility in all contexts.
Uh generally to people who um are first
generation achievers.
Um so that is very different than um
other cultures. Um perhaps there's some
good and bad facts around that, but we
really do reward outside the uh
traditional you could the short version
be outside the box thinking whatever the
box means. Um more than other cultures.
Um we have a deep and very very
successful
culture of um sophisticated
uh technical accomplishment especially
on the west coast born out of
universities but then financed
um
uh in a way in which there is at least
as much alignment as humanly possible
between entrepreneur and investor.
They're obviously not always complete
alignment and we on the entrepreneurial
side. [laughter]
You're you've been on both sides, but
there there obviously issues there. The
tech community on the west coast of
America is more important than all other
communities combined in the world.
That's kind of rolls off the lips
easily, but we forget
um how important that is. We still are a
beacon for the most talented people in
the world to come here.
um our educational institutions
uh and in our general culture of
cooperation
um one one of the most
valuable and least read books partly
because I'm not sure it's in English is
um this book by Pleaser who was a um a
philosophical anthropologist which is a
way of saying he was talking about uh
structures that are precultural that
impact
human behavior was about how America
allows you to choose the community
you're in, but then the rules of that
community apply to you. So in Europe,
for example, the state decides which
church, what synagogue, what mosque is
actually real. Like when you start a
company here, you start your own
culture. Um, and then I think all of
these things cascade together. So if
you're sitting in any part of the world
and you want to do do something
interesting, your number one choice
right now
without a good choice number two is to
come to the US and build it. Um and I
would say on top of everything else for
all the class issues we have in this
country we are very forgiving of
successful people. You know, [laughter]
it's uh in most cultures success could
land you in a very first generational
success is very dangerous.
Um and I I that's just a limited list. I
I think America
and then like if you wanted to to do a
simple reductionist version of this, you
could say, well, why why are almost all
software products in the enterprise
context built in one part of the world?
It's very hard to answer the question,
but it is true. And if you went to any
country besides the US and said, could
we have 10% of that? They would do
really anything to have it. But it's a
mystery how we continue to do this. Um,
and so we're so successful at this that
we don't even notice it. And then we're
very focused on the things we're less
successful at like um making our
highways and schools and other things
run
our healthcare system. We can go back.
You can go do a diagnostic on what on
why and there'd probably be disagreement
between us on the why. But it is true
that we're just the best in the world at
a certain set of things and we're not
the best in the world at others. And
we're very focused in America on that
and that obfuscates
um that without you know I don't I had a
slight advantage that I spent so much
time abroad that when you kind of
reimigrate back to America you see these
things in a more wondrous way than maybe
if you're you're looking at some of the
things that really are below the say
European standard.