Lauren Goode: It sounds like you fit the bill of the successful tech entrepreneurs who were surveyed by a Palo Alto middle school for being liberal.
Michael Calore: No, I would say, I go further to the left.
Zoë Schiffer: Sounds like he’s Yang Gang.
Lauren Goode: Oh, Gang Yang. I once interviewed Andrew Yang.
Michael Calore: Andrew Yang was one of the first vocal supporters of a universal basic income in the political sphere, right?
Lauren Goode: Yes, he really was.
Michael Calore: Well, I don’t know anything else about him, so I can’t say if I’m actually Yang Gang.
Lauren Goode: Mike intends to start another third-party company just for UBI.
Michael Calore: Oh boy. There is no government like no government, I always say that.
Lauren Goode: Is that what you’re saying?
Michael Calore: Okay, Lauren, I’ll give it back to you. Where do you think this is going in the future?
Lauren Goode: It’s really strenuous for me to tell where this is all going politically because I’m so confused by what’s going on politically right now and I’m still trying to sort it out. I really think there will be more factions of self-proclaimed libertarianism and people adopting certain ideals from the left and right. But I think the original word is losing its meaning.
Michael Calore: Agreement. I like this fresh word “liberal.”
Lauren Goode: Yes, but again, it’s 2020 and everything is changing quickly.
Michael Calore: Zosia, how are you?
Zoë Schiffer: I think we will see more privatization than before. Right now we have people like Elon Musk, who is supposedly going to run the Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE, with Vivek Ramaswamy, and they want to get rid of the Department of Education. So my guess is that there will be solutions to the problems that government used to solve in the private sector.
Lauren Goode: And in the next episode Uncanny Valleywe’ll unpack all the successful companies that were run by two CEOs at the same time.