[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you didn't invite me to the party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you didn't invite me to the party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you didn't invite me to the party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you ruined my new dress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you ruined my new dress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you ruined my new dress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you never ask about my day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you never ask about my day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you never ask about my day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you came home late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you came home late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you came home late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you lost my bracelet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you lost my bracelet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you lost my bracelet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you spilled juice all over the carpet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you spilled juice all over the carpet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you spilled juice all over the carpet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His car got broken into last night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His car got broken into last night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. It's the last day of class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. It's the last day of class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His wife left him for another man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His wife left him for another man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His wife left him for another man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. He's been in the hospital all week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. He's been in the hospital all week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His parents just got divorced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His parents just got divorced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cut him some slack. His parents just got divorced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't live without my HBO subscription.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't live without my HBO subscription.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't live without my cellphone. I can't live without my cellphone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told you we should have parked in the garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told you we should have parked in the garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really good at getting what I want. I'm really good at getting what I want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I won't be a successful person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I won't be a successful person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I won't be a successful person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is losing someone I love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is that my friends secretly hate me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I'll never find someone who will love me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I'll never find someone who will love me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is I'll never find someone who will love me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is that a shark will eat me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is that a shark will eat me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is getting stuck in a job I hate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is getting stuck in a job I hate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My greatest fear is getting stuck in a job I hate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is hang out with my friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is hang out with my friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is hang out with my friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is relax on the beach with a good book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is relax on the beach with a good book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is have a picnic at the park.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is have a picnic at the park.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is have a picnic at the park.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is discover new places.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is discover new places.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is discover new places.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is camp in the mountains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is camp in the mountains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is paint with watercolors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is paint with watercolors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing to do is paint with watercolors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm on my way to a comic book convention now. I'm on my way to a comic book convention now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm on my way to a comic book convention now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be more famous than the Pope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be more famous than the Pope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be more famous than the Pope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a ballerina in the Paris Valet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a ballerina in the Paris Ballet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a ballerina in the Paris Ballet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day, I want to be a private detective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be an animator at Pixar Animation Studios.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be an animator at Pixar Animation Studios.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day, I want to be an animator at Pixar Animation Studios.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a set designer for plays.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a set designer for plays.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I want to be a set designer for plays.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why haven't you apologized to your sister?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why haven't you apologized to your sister?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why haven't you checked to see if the door is open?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why haven't you checked to see if the door is open?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'll have the last slice of pizza.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'll have the last slice of pizza.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'll have the last slice of pizza.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, Matt is going to spend the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, Matt is going to spend the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, Matt is going to spend the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I am going to take charge of the project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I am going to take charge of the project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I am going to take charge of the project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to take a nap now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to take a nap now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to take a nap now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, we are going to walk instead of drive to the show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, we are going to walk instead of drive to the show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, we are going to walk instead of drive to the show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to wear your new jacket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to wear your new jacket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's alright with you, I'm going to wear your new jacket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to save money for a rainy day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to save money for a rainy day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to save money for a rainy day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to shop around for insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to shop around for insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to shop around for insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to eat lots of vegetables.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to eat lots of vegetables.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to eat lots of vegetables.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to go to bed on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to go to bed on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's always a good idea to go to bed on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to get my nails done?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to get my nails done?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to find prom dresses?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to find prom dresses?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to find prom dresses?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to propose to someone?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where is the best place to propose to someone?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to ask you where you get your hair done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to ask you where you get your hair done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to ask you where you get your hair done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to schedule an appointment with my therapist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to schedule an appointment with my therapist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to schedule an appointment with my therapist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to finish writing my history essay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to finish writing my history essay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been meaning to finish writing my history essay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you like your school campus? How do you like your school campus?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that honey never expires?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that honey never expires?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that horses can sleep standing up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that horses can sleep standing up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that when a panda is born, it is smaller than a mouse?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that when a panda is born, it is smaller than a mouse?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that when a panda is born, it is smaller than a mouse?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true koala fingerprints are nearly the same as humans?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true koala fingerprints are nearly the same as humans?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true koala fingerprints are nearly the same as humans?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that some sharks can live to be 500 years old?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that some sharks can live to be 500 years old?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true that some sharks can live to be 500 years old?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true there are more trees on earth than stars in the galaxy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true there are more trees on earth than stars in the galaxy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it true there are more trees on earth than stars in the galaxy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We should try reading before we go to bed each night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, but we aren't taking any more orders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, but we aren't taking any more orders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, but we aren't taking any more orders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't finished looking over the documents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't finished looking over the documents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always forget to respond to my emails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always forget to respond to my emails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always forget to respond to my emails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always forget to eat a snack before the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always forget to eat a snack before the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The following is a conversation with Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin. This is his first time doing a conversation of this kind and of this length, and as he told me, it felt like we could have easily talked for many more hours, and I'm sure we will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the Lex Freeman podcast and now, dear friends, here's Jeff Bezos. You spent a lot of your childhood with your grandfather on a ranch here in Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I heard you had a lot of work to do around the ranch. So what's the coolest job you remember doing there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But just the image of the two of you fixing a D6 bulldozer and then going in for a little break at 1pm to watch soap opera.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how I imagine Clint Eastwood also in all those Westerns when he's, when he's not doing what he's doing. He's just watching soap operas. All right. Uh, I read that you fell in love with the idea of space and space exploration when you were five, uh, watching Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let me ask you to look back at the historical context and impact of that. So the space race from 1957 to 1969 between the Soviet Union and the U.S.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was in many ways epic, it was uhm, a rapid sequence of dramatic events. First satellite to space, first human to space, first spacewalk, first uncrewed landing on the moon, then some failures, explosions, deaths on both sides actually, and then the first human


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walking on the moon, uh, what are some of the more inspiring moments or insights you take away from that time? Those few years, that just, uh, 12 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course you named, uh, the projects, the Rockets that Blue Origin is working on after some of the folks involved. I don't understand why I didn't say New Gagarin. Is that? There's an American bias in the name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those early days were for Gagarin, for, for Glenn, for everybody involved. Like how, how big of a risk they're all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of interesting that Alan Shepard is not quite as famous as John Glenn. So for people who don't know, Alan Shepard is the first, uh, astronaut. The first American in space. American in suborbital flight. Correct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, good. Uh, so, so back to maybe the big picture of space when you look up at the stars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and think big. What do you hope is the future of humanity? Hundreds, thousands of years from now out in space.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what do you think that looks like? Giant space stations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One interesting ideas you had is to move the heavy industry away from earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So people sometimes have this idea that somehow space exploration.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eventually we have to do that. Exactly. So you don't often talk about it, but let me ask you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On that topic about the Blue Ring and the Orbital Reef, uh, space infrastructure projects. What's your vision for these?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A W S S. Okay. So, uh, so compute and space. So you get, you get a giant chemical rocket to get a payload out to orbit and then you have these admins that show up this blue ring thing that manages various things like compute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to ask you about that. Well, let me, let me actually just, uh, step back to the old days. You were at Princeton, uh, with aspirations to be a theoretical physicist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What attracted you to physics and why did you change your mind and not become, why, why are you not Jeff Bezos the famous theoretical physicist?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and he describes in all kinds of different ways Walter Isaacson does that, uh, creativity, uh, combined with childlike, uh, wander that you've maintained still to this day. All of that combined together. Is there, like, if you were to study your own brain, introspect,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you think? What's your thinking process like? We'll talk about the writing process of putting it down on paper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At, uh, Amazon, but how do you, when you sit down,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe alone, maybe with others and thinking through this high dimensional space and looking for creative solutions, uh, creative paths forward. Is there something you could say about that process?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you wander, I think one key thing is to notice a good idea and to, to maybe to notice the kernel of a good idea, maybe pull out that string. Cause I don't think, uh, good ideas come fully formed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like that's a Mark Twain quote. Okay. Alright. You gave me an amazing tour of Blue Origin, Rocket Factory, and Launch Complex in the historic Cape Canaveral. Uh, that's where New Glenn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The big rocket we talked about is being built and will launch explain what the new rocket is and not tell me some interesting technical aspects of how it works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even the, uh, the foundation of the launch pad. I mean, this is Florida. Like, isn't it like Swampland? Like how deep do you have to go?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's humbling also because your humans are so small compared to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then there's all the different components, uh, and you know, the materials involved. Is there something interesting that you can describe about the materials?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that's comprised the rocket, so it has to be as light as possible, I guess, whilst withstanding the heat and the harsh conditions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Relatively low temperature and I guess high temperature is what makes them, the, the, that's the, that makes it a weak point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, even just, uh, looking at the fairings, the result of that, the, the complex shape that it takes and, and like what it's supposed to do is kind of incredible because so people don't know it's on top of the rocket, it's going to fall apart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's its task, but it has to stay strong sometimes and then, uh, disappear when it needs to. That's right. She's a very difficult task.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you want to go from 100% structural integrity to zero as fast as possible is explosive. Is explosive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The entirety of this thing is so badass. Okay, so we're back to the two stages. So the first stage is reusable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Question, but also is there a path towards reusability for the second stage?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just the only interesting thing is reducing the cost. You know, you can describe every single problem facing human civilization that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The physicist would say, everything is a solved problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've solved everything. The rest is just, uh, well as Rutherford said that it's just stamp collecting. It's just the details. Some of the greatest innovations and inventions and, you know, brilliance is, uh, in that cost reduction stage, right? And you, you've had a long career of cost reduction. For sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, what are some of the biggest challenges on the manufacturing side and the engineering side that you're facing in working to get to the first launch of New Glenn?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first one is produced in a way that enables the production of the second and third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there's something fundamentally different about the quote unquote business of space exploration. Yeah, for sure. It's a grand project of humanity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They will of course, as kids do, uh, take all of this hard infrastructure building for granted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As it stands now, are both the first test launch and the launch of Escapade Explorers to Mars still possible in 2024?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I got it. But you're optimistic that, uh, the launches will still...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I got to visit the launch, but it's pretty, uh, I mean it's epic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 100%, when the thing is fully assembled, it comes up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Speaking of which, if that makes you nervous, I don't know if you remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you, uh, were aboard, uh, New Shepard on its first crude flight. Uh, how was that experience? Were you, were you terrified then?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And I mean, there's just a epic nature to it too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've talked a lot about decision making throughout your time with Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was that decision like to uh, to ride, to be the first to ride New Shepard? Like what, just before you talk to your mom. Yeah. What, what, like the pros and cons, like actually as one human being, as a, as a leader of a company,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, on all fronts, like what was that decision making like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you actually describe what do you mean by escape system? What's involved?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, for, for tourism rockets, safety is a huge, huge, huge priority for space exploration also, but a little, a tiny, you know, a delta less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there a part of you that's frustrated by the rate of progress in Blue Origin?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've talked a lot of different ways to sort of, uh, at Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, part of the skill here is to, to, to know the difference in one way and two way. I think you mentioned Amazon Prime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The decision to sort of create Amazon Prime as a one-way door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it's not, it's unclear if it is or not, but it probably is and it's a really big risk to go there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, one of the things I really liked, perhaps it's not a two-way door, decisions is, uh, I disagree and commit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Phrase. So don't, so somebody brings up an idea to you. If the two way door, you state that you don't understand enough to agree, but you still back them. I'd love for you to explain it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you want to get to the resolution as quickly as possible because that ultimately leads to a high velocity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At every scale in a distributed way, try to maximize the velocity of decisions. Exactly. You've mentioned the lunar program. Let me ask you about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot going on there and you haven't really talked about it much. So in addition to the Artemis program with NASA, uh, Blue is doing its own lander program. Can you describe it? There's a, there's a sexy picture on Instagram with, with one of them. Is it the MK1, I guess?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the idea with Mark 1, both Mark 1 and Mark 2 is the new Glenconn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, carry it from the surface of earth to the surface of the moon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so there's a few questions there, but one is how do you stay on the moon? What, what ideas do you have about?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, like a sustaining life where a few folks can stay there for prolonged periods of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there any chance Jeff Bezos steps foot on the moon and on Mars? One or the other or both?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have to ask the bigger picture question about the two companies pushing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Humanity forward out towards the stars. Blue Origin and SpaceX. Are you competitors? Collaborators? Which and to what degree?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you know, I spoke to Elon a few times recently about you, about Blue Origin, and he was very positive about you as a person and very supportive of all the efforts you've been leading at Blue. What's your thoughts? You worked with a lot of leaders at Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That blue, what's your thoughts about Elon as a human being and a leader?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have a kind of friendship that would inspire just the entirety of humanity. Cause what you're doing is like one of the big grand challenges ahead for humanity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, going back to, uh, sexy pictures on your Instagram, uh, there's a video of you from the early days of Amazon, um, giving a tour of your quote, sort of offices. I think your dad is holding the camera.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're like explaining the, the genius of the extension cord and how this is a desk and the CRT monitor and sort of that's where the, that's where all the magic happens. I forget what your dad said, but this is like the center of it all. So, uh, what was it like? What was going through your mind at that time? You left a good job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In New York and took this leap. Were you excited? Were you scared?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in some sense, you don't want a single day of comfort. You've written about this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many times we'll talk about your writing, which, uh, I would highly recommend people read in just the letters to shareholders. Uh, so you, you wrote up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, explaining the idea of day one thinking, I think you first wrote about in 97 letters to shareholders. Then you also in a way wrote about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sad to say is your last letter to shareholders and CEO. Uhm, and you said that day two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is stasis followed by irrelevance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Followed by excruciating painful decline, followed by death. And that is why it's always day one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you explain this day one thing? This is a really powerful way to describe the beginning and the journey of Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, to the question of how to fend off day two, you said, such a question can't have a simple answer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you're saying, there will be many elements, multiple paths and many traps. I don't know the whole answer, but I may know bits of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's a starter pack of essentials. Maybe others come to mind for day one defense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends and high velocity decision making. So we talked about high velocity decision making. That's more difficult than it sounds. Uh, so maybe you can pick one that stands out to you as you can comment on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, eager adoption of external trends, high velocity decision making, skeptical view of proxies. How do you fight off day two?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is a nuance, but uh, that's a big problem, right? There's something so compelling to have a nice metric to try to optimize.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, what does it take to be a, the guy or gal who, who, uh, who brings up the point that this proxy might be outdated? I guess what does it take to have a culture that enables that in the meeting? Cause that's a very uncomfortable thing to bring up at a meeting. We all showed up here. It's a Friday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The senior scientists and the junior scientists, and then there's a hierarchy of humans where the somehow seniority matters in the scientific process, which it should not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're saying implicitly or explicitly give permission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For people to have a strong opinion that as long as it's backed by data.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So speaking of happiness bias, data collection and anecdotes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to, how's that for a transition? You have to, you have to tell, uh, me the story of the, the call you made, the customer service call you made to demonstrate a point, um, about wait times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that, that speaks to the, the obsession with the customer experience. So one of the defining aspects of your approach to Amazon is just being obsessed with making customers happy. I think companies sometimes say that, but Amazon...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is really obsessed with that. I think there's something really profound to that, which is seeing the world through the eyes of the customer, like the customer experience, the human being that's using the product that's, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Enjoying the product that what they're like the subtle little things that make up their experience like how you optimize those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where would you put on the, on the paper cut spectrum the buy now with one click button, which is I think pretty genius. So to me, like, okay, my interaction with things I love on the internet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's things I do a lot. I may be representing a regular human. Uh, I would love for those things to be frictionless. For example, uh, booking airline tickets. Just saying, but you know, it's buying a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With one click, making that experience frictionless, intuitive, all aspects of that. Like that, that just fundamentally makes my life better. Not just in terms of efficiency, in terms of some kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Cognitive load and peace, inner peace and happiness. First of all, buying stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, isn't it a pleasant experience? Having enough money to buy a thing and then buying it is a pleasant experience. And like having pain around that is somehow just ruining a beautiful experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess all I'm saying as a person who loves good ideas, is that a paper cut? A solution to a paper cut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But to keep coming up with that idea, with those kinds of ideas, I guess is the day one thinking effort.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of, uh, books written about you. There's, uh, there's a book, Invent and Wander, where, uh, Walter Isaacson does an intro and it's mostly collective writings of yours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I've read that I also recommend people check out the founders podcast. Uh, that covers you a lot and it does different analysis of different business advice you've given over the years. Uhm, I bring all that up because, uh, I saw that there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I mentioned that you said that books are an antidote for short attention spans. And I forget how it was phrased, but that when you were thinking about the Kindle, that you're thinking about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How technology changes us, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's some aspect, you know, even just inside business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you don't just make the customer happy, but you also have to think about like where is this going to take humanity if you zoom out a bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think, uh, you've spoken about the value in your own life of focus, of singular focus on a thing for prolonged periods of time. And that's certainly what books do. And that's certainly what that piece of technology does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I bring all that up to ask you about another piece of technology, AI.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That has the potential to have a uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Various trajectories, uh, to have an impact on human civilization. How do you think AI will change us?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, really interesting to say that it's discoveries that, uh, it's true that we don't know the limits of what's possible with the current language models.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like it could be a few tricks and hacks here and there that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That uh, open doors to hold entire new possibilities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and there's some more nuanced aspects about human beings that it's interesting if it's able to accomplish like being truly original and novel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To you know, large language mouse being able to come up with some truly new ideas. Uh, that's one and the other one is, uh, truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems that large language models are very good at sounding like they're saying a true thing, but they don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Require or often have a grounding in sort of a mathematical truth. It could just basically is a very good bullshitter. So if there's not enough data, if there's not enough sort of data in the training data about a particular topic is just going to concoct accurate sounding narratives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is a very fascinating problem to try to solve. How do you get language models?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To infer what is true or not, to sort of introspect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the other stuff, because you're still a bit involved in the Amazon side with the AI things. The other open question is what kind of products are created from this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How to, there's so much value can be gained by training on private data, but you want to keep the secure. That's a fascinating technical problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, do you think there will be a day when humans and robots, maybe Alexa, have a romantic relationship?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next question. Uh, what's a perfectly productive day in the life of Jeff Bezos? You're one of the most productive humans in the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's your exercise routine just to linger on that? What do you, how much do you curl? I mean, what are we talking about here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's work look like? What do the productive, uh, hours look like for you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you actually describe the crisp document? Like this is one of the legendary aspects of Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the way you approach meetings. This is the six page memo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe first describe the process of running a meeting with memos and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's that feel like when you've authored a thing and then you're sitting there and everybody's reading your thing? You're like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there, uh, art science to the writing of the six page memo or just writing in general to you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so that part is crisp and then the rest is messy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we're about to run out of time, which is a good time to ask about the 10,000 year clock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I'm known for is the humor. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, can you explain what the 10,000 year clock is?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On that grand scale, a human life feels tiny. Do you ponder your own mortality? Are you afraid of death?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the most incredible companies in history and thank you for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying your best to make humans a multi-planetary species, expanding out into our solar system, maybe beyond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To meet the aliens out there, and uh, thank you for talking today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thanks for listening to this conversation with Jeff Bezos to support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now let me leave you with some words from Jeff Bezos himself. Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on the details. Thank you for listening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We started with the concept that it couldn't just be people waiting to meet Taylor. We kind of thought there had to be some other things going on to keep them entertained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've known Zayn for a really long time. I think his voice is one of those that is really rare and I think he's really special and wonderful and it's really, really amazing to get to work together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about games. Games are things that we play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my part of the world, we play a lot more games though in the fall, the winter, and the spring than we do in the summer. We play a lot of outdoor games in the summer. But this is a lesson about the games we play inside. The games you play while sitting around a table with friends or family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe you play with cards, maybe you play a board game. There are a variety of games that you can play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kids play a lot of games. Most of the games that I played as a kid were very simple. Uhm, but they had some of the same vocabulary as the games I play now as an adult.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So hopefully you like games or at least want to learn some English phrases and words that you can use when talking about games. So welcome to this English lesson about games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do want to mention that there is a study pack for this lesson. There is a link in the description below, or if you go to BobTheCanadian.com


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The study pack has all the original slides as a PowerPoint and it has a crossword puzzle handout, a matching handout, a matching with pictures handout, a vocabulary sheet. I think there's nine or 10 handouts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So BobTheCanadian.com if you want to have a look at that. Board games. So we refer to games that you play on the table, uhm, in two ways in English. They're either board games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Board games are games where it comes in a box. You open the box and there is a game board. There are pieces. There might be dice. I'll talk about a lot of this stuff later. And there are rules and you play a game using the board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cards we play with here, there are four suits, uhm, you do something called shuffling, I'll talk about that later, uh, and you sit with people and you follow the rules for whatever game you're playing. Maybe you're playing bridge, maybe you're playing rummy, there are a variety of card games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With board games, maybe you're playing Monopoly. That's a popular game in my part of the world. Or maybe you're playing a game called Scrabble, which is a word game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So board games, any game you play on a table, uhm, where you sit around a table with other people and enjoy playing a game that looks kinda like this and other variations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The people, just like a sport, the people who play a game are called players. Uhm, and a common question you might hear is how many players?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So someone might say, hey, do you wanna play a new game? And you might say, how many players? And they'll say, oh, we can play with four or six, uhm, uh, players. They'll say, oh, you can play with just two. But the people,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who play a game are called players and of course the verb you use is to play. You play a game with other people and those people are called players.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then again, the question, how many players? I have the little orange arrow here because on the box, I think it says four to six players. It also says ages six plus, so you can be quite young to play that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every game has rules. Usually when you open the box of a board game you can find a piece of paper and it will say rules for playing Monopoly or rules for playing Scrabble. It's very important


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very important that all the players have read and understand the rules. Sometimes when you're playing a game, you need to explain the rules to people because they haven't played it before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This past week I played a game at work. Teachers sometimes play games at work. And the person I was playing with had to explain the rules to me. They had to tell me how the game worked. What I needed to know to score points and to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's always nice when you're learning a new game if you can read the rules or if someone can explain the rules to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is a very common sight in my part of the world. It's called a card table. It's a table where the legs fold up. We have a card table in our back room. And usually in the fall and winter, when it's colder outside, we have the card table out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not just to play cards. We also use it to do puzzles, to play board games, and of course to play cards. But it's a table where I'm not sure if you can see it. I'll zoom in a bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the legs can fold up and it has some folding chairs as well. Although we usually use normal chairs, but a card table is a table where the legs fold up and you can store it somewhere and you can take it out and set it up when you want to play a card game or a board game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a deck of cards. So this is a deck of cards. I believe a deck of cards has 52 cards in it. It has four suits. It has clubs and spades and diamonds and hearts, at least the cards I play with. Um, and it is usually something where you buy it in a pack and when you take it out, you call it a deck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's also something called the joker. If you add the joker, there's 54 cards. I think there's two jokers. We don't usually play with the jokers though. Uhm, if you don't know what the jokers are, I think that was the card that was on the thumbnail of this lesson. So this is a deck of cards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is to shuffle. There are two ways to shuffle. So you can also, here I have a deck of cards right here. This is how Bob shuffles, okay? Bob shuffles like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you do this to mix up the cards. You want the cards to randomly come off the deck. So you don't want them to be in order. You want to shuffle them to mix them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish I could shuffle like that. I know a lot of people can shuffle like that. I have friends who can shuffle like that, but I can't. By the way, it's a fun word, shuffle, uhm, and it means to mix up the cards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you have shuffled the cards, you need to deal the cards. Oh, by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the Joker, but in this deck, the Joker is a horse for some reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I guess I shuffled the jokers in. Anyways, when you deal the cards, it means you give the cards to the people who are playing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Generally you give people one card at a time. So if we were playing a game, we would take turns being the dealer. I'll talk about take turns in a bit. Uhm, and we would then deal the cards to people. So I would shuffle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to drop the cards. And then I would deal. So if everyone needed seven cards, I would then deal and give every person seven cards. One at a time. You don't give a person seven cards right away. You do one person at a time until every person has seven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A very common question when playing a card game is, whose deal is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Generally, when you are playing a card game, each person deals. So you deal, you play a round. When that round ends, the next person deals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's usually not the case that one person deals all the time. Unless you're like gambling at a casino, then they'll have a dealer. I don't really know what that's like, but generally when you're playing a game, this is a very common question. Whose deal is it? Because sometimes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You forget who the last person was that dealt the cards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your hand, when you're playing a card game, if I'm playing a card game and if I was dealt,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 7 cards. This would be my hand. So this person's hand, depending on what game they're playing, might be a good hand or a bad hand. But you take the cards you've been dealt and you kind of fan them out a little bit like this. And then this is your hand. I usually hold mine


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kind of bend the cards a little bit and I hold my cards close because I don't want people like, it's bad if you put your cards like this because then people can see your hand. So I usually hold my cards fairly close. So that is your hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to stack the deck. So this is a hard one to explain. But if I was dealing...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cards. If someone said, whose deal is it? And I said, oh, it's my deal. And if I did something like this, if I, let's say there's four people playing, and if I put, let's say twos were good, and then I made,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every fourth card a two and then I deal and then I get all the twos, I would have stacked the deck. So stacking the deck is cheating. You shouldn't stack the deck. Uhm, but if you do stack the deck, it means that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You make it look like you're shuffling but you arrange the cards secretly so that when you deal you or your partner


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gets really good cards. So we also have an English phrase, the deck was stacked against me. You know, I applied for the job and I didn't get it. The deck was stacked against me because the man hired his own son.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in life, when something doesn't go your way, you can say the deck was stacked against you. So you can use a game term in real life as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's talk a little bit about turns. So when you play a game, you need to take turns. You need to know whose turn it is. In fact, we often say whose turn is it when you're playing a game. So let's say you're playing with three people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has a certain amount of time to do what they want to do in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe if it's a card game, you pick up a card and you maybe put a card down depending on the rules, but you would do that during your turn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then again, a very common question is whose turn is it? Sometimes when you're playing a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're also talking, like games are meant to be fun social activities. So you might talk and laugh and then at some point someone might say, okay, uhm, whose turn is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, because you've had so much fun talking about something else that you've forgotten whose turn it is. So, when you play a game, you take turns, and a very common question during a game would be, whose turn is it? At least if you're playing with me, that's a common question. I'm often saying, whose turn is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, die or dice. We don't use the word die very often anymore. So this is a pair of dice. I don't know if it'll focus. It'll focus by my face, so I'll put them over here. This is a pair of dice. Uhm, if you have just one, it's called a die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Generally, a game requires two or more dice, so you usually just say dice. Uhm, they make a nice little sound. Uhm, and you can see that they have numbers represented by dots. Let's see if we can get it to focus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's used to randomly generate a number. And then if I roll the dice, these are a little bit different than mine. If I roll, let's pretend my hand is a table. If I roll the dice, then a number will come up. This is the number. Oh, it was a six. Now it rolled over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should have brought a little table here. Do you think I can roll the dice onto my phone? We'll see if we can. So you can roll the dice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, there we go. And the number that came up is a seven. Anyways, you roll the dice. And again, you have dice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To randomly generate a number and then you do something in the game with that number depending on the rules. Maybe you get a six and you move your game piece six times on the game board. Uhm, but that is what you would use dice for. That's a lot of people chatting. We should, uh, we should roll dice more often. When you play a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You usually need to keep score. You might do this on a piece of paper. Uhm, there might be a little device that comes with the game with sliders that help you keep score. You know, it might have the numbers 1 through 10 on a piece of plastic and a little thing you can move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but generally you need to keep score to dis- to figure out who wins and who loses. So this game is called Yahtzee. When you roll the dice, you get a certain number of points, and someone will write that down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A common question in a game is who wants to keep score?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Usually one person will keep score during the game. So they'll get a pencil and a piece of paper and it might be like this where it comes with the game or you might just get a piece of paper and write everyone's names and then at the end of every round


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When a round is over, you'll record everyone's score before you play the next round. And it depends on the game, but you need to keep score. Again, a common question before you start playing a game would be, who wants to keep score?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're playing a board game, it probably comes with a game piece.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boggle, I think those dice with letters are from the game Boggle, but many games have special pieces that you use in order to play the game. So you would call them game pieces or game tokens. It depends on how it's used in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't lose the pieces. It's hard to play a game. Um, we have a few games where instead of the regular piece, there's just a Lego piece in the box now because Lego pieces make good replacements for lost game pieces. So we often will do that. And then two things. When you take turns playing a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might go clockwise, or you might go counterclockwise, or anticlockwise. In Canada we say counterclockwise. And I think you get the point. If you take a clock,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you were to lay it on the table, if you take turns going in this direction, you are going clockwise. If you take turns going in the other direction, you are going counterclockwise. Most of the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we play games, we go clockwise when we play a game. If I was to deal the cards, the person on my left would go first and we would take turns in that direction. So we would go clockwise and not counterclockwise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not sure where they say anti-clockwise, but on the internet it seemed more common than counter-clockwise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who goes first? Often when you are playing a game, you will ask this question. Who goes first? If we go back, you'll realize I have a few questions in here. Whose deal is it? Whose turn is it? Who goes first? So often a game will have rules about who goes first. Sometimes you roll a dice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Notice I said dice. I should have said die, but we just say dice in English most of the time. Uh, sometimes it is the person who's the youngest goes first. Sometimes there is a certain, like everyone picks a card from the deck and whoever has the highest card, that person goes first. Um, generally though with card games,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You choose who's going to deal the cards, and then the person to the left of the dealer goes first. That's generally how we do it in card games. But yes, another common question, who goes first?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's talk a little bit about partners. Sometimes you play a game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you are by yourself. You tried to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But sometimes you play a game where you have a partner, so someone who's on the same team as you. I mentioned a game called Yooker. When you play Yooker, the person sitting facing you across from you is your partner, and you work together to try and win the game. I enjoy playing games when I have a partner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you can see in this picture, partners refers to people who are on the same team. So those two guys are partners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, it depends how the game works. You might sit beside your partner, or you might sit across from your partner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I changed the slide, I don't know if you saw that. The arrow shows the two people who are sitting close together with no one between them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some games where you play, some board games you might sit with your partner or beside your partner. And you might have more than one partner. That happens sometimes too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's something called table talk, and this was referred to earlier. Um, table talk is any time if you have a partner, you say something or do something,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they kind of know what cards you have or what you're going to do in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's say Jen and I are playing euchre and I touch my nose a few times. I might be communicating to Jen that I have, I have good cards. Okay. Or in this case, this person is saying, oh, I don't feel so good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So maybe someone shuffled the cards, someone dealt the cards. You got your hand and you have really bad cards. You might say, oh, I don't feel so good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're not saying you have bad cards, but you're using what's called table talk to, uh, let your partner know that you have bad cards. It's considered cheating by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and that is the last slide, cheating. So cheating is when...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't follow the rules. You do things so that you have a better chance of winning the game. So when you cheat, maybe you put a card up your sleeve. Maybe you stack the deck. Maybe when someone's not looking, you move your game piece. Maybe you roll the dice. And then when someone's not looking, maybe you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here let's, here I'll show you how cheating works. Bob doesn't cheat, but this is how it would work. So I roll the dice. I'm like, oh look, uh, uh, uh, cat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when you're not looking, I, I flipped the dice. So now I have two sixes, which maybe that's good in the game. Anyways, don't cheat. Cheating is, cheating is bad. No cheating allowed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you could be arrested or not. And I said, listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has like control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like how are we better than Putin if that's true? Killing Navalny during the Munich security conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding? Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh wait, no, we do it a lot and have for 80 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was very surprised by that. And I thought he seemed like someone who'd overthought it a little bit, who had a plan. And I don't think that's the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done a lot of them for a long time, is that it's better to know what you think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Student and I'm thinking why is, why is he nervous? Um, but you know, I guess because he thought a lot of people were going to see it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I was totally shocked by that and very annoyed because I thought he was filibustering. I thought he would, I mean, I asked him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I usually do, the most obvious, dumbest question ever, which is, you know, why'd you do this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, he had said in a speech that I think is worth reading, I don't speak Russian so I haven't heard it in the original, but uhm, he had said at the moment of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians in which he explained


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the fullest extent we have seen so far, why he was doing this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said in that speech, I fear that NATO, the West, the United States, the Biden administration will preemptively attack us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought, well, that's interesting. I mean, I can't evaluate whether that's a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fear rooted in reality or, or one rooted in paranoia, but I thought, well that's, well that's an answer right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I alluded to that in my question and rather than answering it, he went off on this long, from my perspective, kind of tiresome, uhm, sort of greatest hits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of Russian history and the implication I thought was well Ukraine is ours or Eastern Ukraine is ours already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I thought he was doing that to avoid answering the question. So, you know, the last thing you want when you're interviewing someone is to get rolled. Uh, and I didn't want to be rolled, so I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A couple of times, interrupted him politely, I thought, uhm, but he wasn't having it. And then I thought, you know what? I'm not here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To prove that I'm a great interviewer, it's kind of not about me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna know who this guy is. I think a western audience, a global audience, has a right to know more about the guy, and so just let him talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, cause it's not, you know, I don't feel like my reputation's on the line. People have already drawn conclusions about me, I suppose, to the extent they have. I'm not interested really in those conclusions anyway. So just let them talk. And so I calmed down and just let them talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really, really interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, whether you agree with it or not or whether you think it's relevant to the war in Ukraine or not, that was his answer. And so it's inherently significant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't afraid at all. And I wasn't nervous at all. Did you drink tea beforehand?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, no, I'm not a tea drinker. I tried not to eat, you know, all the sweets they put in front of us, which is that, that is my weakness is eating crap. Um, but you eat a lot of sugar before, as you know, before an interview and it, and it does dull you. So I, I successfully resisted that, but I know I wasn't nervous. I wasn't nervous the whole time I was there. Why would I be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm 54, my kids are grown. I believe in God. You know, I'm not, I'm almost never nervous, but uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I wasn't nervous. I was just interested. I mean, I couldn't, I, you know, I'm interested in Soviet history. I studied it in college. I've read about it my entire life. My dad, you know, worked in the cold war. It was a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Constant topic of conversation. And so to be in the Kremlin in a room where Stalin made decisions, either wartime decisions or decisions about murdering his own population,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, I just couldn't get over it. You know, we were in Molotov's old office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for me, that was, I was just blown away by that. I knew, I thought I knew a lot about Russia. It turns out I knew a lot about the Soviet period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the 1937 purge trials, the famine in Ukraine, like I knew a fair amount about that, but I really knew nothing about contemporary Russia. Less than I thought I did, it turned out. And uhm, but yeaah, I was just, I was just blown away by...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where we were and that's kind of one of the main drivers at this stage in my life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, that's why I do what I do is because I'm interested in stuff and I want to see as much as I can and try and draw conclusions from it to the extent I can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was very much caught up in that, but no, I wasn't nervous. I didn't think he was gonna like kill me or something, and I'm not particularly afraid of that anyway, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not really. No. I mean, again, it's a time, you know, it's an age and stage in life thing. I mean, I have four children, so there were times when they were little where I was terrified of dying because if I died,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would have huge consequences, but no, I mean, at this point, I don't want to die. I'm really enjoying my life, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I have really strong feelings about uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's happening, not just in Ukraine or Russia, but around the world, I think the world is resetting to the grave disadvantage of the United States. I don't think most Americans are aware of that at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More information brought to the west so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea. I mean, I just, I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective, which is, you know, a tiny group of dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won't really explain and you don't have a role.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In it, at all, as an American citizen, as the person who's paying for it, whose children might be drafted to fight it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, just shut up and obey. I just, I just reject that completely. You know, I'm a, I think, I guess I'm a child of a different era. I'm a child of participatory democracy to some extent, where your opinion as a citizen is not irrelevant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About it was starting to drive me crazy and I've said, and I will say again, I am not an expert on the regional really any region other than say Western Maine. I just don't, you know, I'm not Russian and uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was obvious to me that we were being lied to in ways that were just, it was crazy, the scale of the lies. And I'll just give you one example.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea that Ukraine would inevitably win this war. Now, victory was never as it never is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Defined precisely. Nothing is ever defined precisely, which is always a tell that there's deception at the heart of the claim. But, um, Ukraine's on the verge of winning. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm hardly a tactician or military expert for the fifth time. I'm not an expert on Russia or Ukraine. I just look at Wikipedia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Russia has 100 million more people than Ukraine. 100 million. It has much deeper industrial capacity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] War material capacity than all of NATO combined.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For example, Russia is turning out artillery shells, which are, you know, significant in a ground war, at a ratio of 7 to 1 compared to all NATO countries combined. That's all of Europe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Russia is producing seven times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined? What?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's an amazing fact. And it turns out to be a really significant fact. In fact, THE significant fact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you ask your average person in this country, even a fairly well informed person of good faith who's just trying to understand what's going on,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's gonna win this war? Well, Ukraine's gonna win. They're on the right side. And they think that because our media, who really just do serve the interests of the US government, period, they are state media in that sense, have told them that for over two years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, I was in Hungary last summer, talking to the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who's a, you know, whatever you think of him, he's a very smart guy. Very smart guy. Like, smart on a scale that we're not used to in our leaders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said to him off camera, so is Ukraine gonna win? And he looked at me like I was deranged, like I was congenitally, you know, deficient.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are they gonna win? No, of course they can't win. It's tiny compared to Russia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Russia has a wartime economy. Ukraine doesn't really have an economy. No, look at the populations. He was like, look at me like I was stupid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said to him, you know, I think most Americans believe that because NBC News and CNN and all the news channels, all of them, tell them that because it's framed exclusively in moral terms and it's Churchill versus Hitler and of course Churchill's gonna prevail in the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's just so dishonest that even, it doesn't even matter what I want to happen or what I think ought to happen. That's a distortion of what is happening. And if I have any job at all, which I sort of don't actually at this point, but if I do have a job, it's to just try to be honest. And that's a lie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, I guess that conversation needs to begin by defining terms and the key term is when. What does that mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, as a, and I should just restate this, I am, uh, not emotionally involved in this. I'm American in every sense, and my only interest is in America. I'm not leaving. Ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I'm looking at this purely from our perspective, what's good for us. But also as a human being, as a Christian, I mean, I hate war, and anybody who doesn't hate war, uhm, shouldn't have power, in my opinion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree with those, that definition, vehemently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A victory is like not killing an entire generation of your population. It's not being completely destroyed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be eaten up by BlackRock or whatever comes next for them. So yeah, we were close to that a year and a half ago and the Biden administration dispatched Boris Johnson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The briefly prime minister of the UK to stop it and to say to Zelensky, who I feel sorry for, by the way, because he's caught between these forces that are bigger than he is, to say no, you cannot come to any terms with Russia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the result of that has not been a Ukrainian victory. It's just been more dead Ukrainians and a lot of profit for the West. It's a moral crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my opinion, and I tried to ask Boris Johnson about it because why wouldn't I?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After he denounced me as a tool of the Kremlin or something, and uhm, he demanded a million dollars to talk to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this just happened last week. And uh, and by the way, in writing too, I'm not making this up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said to his guy, I said, I just interviewed Putin, who was widely recognized as a bad guy, and he did it for free. He didn't demand a million dollars. He wasn't in this for profit. Like, are you telling me that Boris Johnson is sleazier than Vladimir Putin? And of course, that is the message.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I guess these are really, it's not just about Boris Johnson being a sad, you know, rapacious fraud, which he is obviously, but it's about like the future of the West.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the future of Ukraine, this country that purportedly we care so much about always, people are dying and like, what is the end game? It's also deranged.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I didn't imagine and don't imagine that I could like add anything very meaningful to the conversation because I'm not a genius, okay? But I felt like I could at the very least puncture some of the lies and that's an inherent good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess it, it does seem like the one Putin statement that Western media take at face value. Everything else Putin says is a lie, except his criticism of me, which is true. But, I mean, I have no idea what he meant by that. I can only tell you what, uhm, my goal was, as I've suggested, was not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To make it about me, I watched, you know, he hasn't done any interviews of any kind for years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the last interview he did with an English speaking reporter, western media reporter,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was like many of the other interviews he'd done with western media reporters. Mike Wallace's son did an interview with him that was of the same variety and it was all about him. You know, I'm a good person, you're a bad person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just feel like that's the most tiresome fruitless kind of interview. It's not about me. I don't think I'm an especially good person. I've definitely never claimed to be, but people can make their own judgments. And again, the only judgements that I care about are my wife and children and God. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just not interested in proving I'm a good person, and I just want to hear from him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and I had a lot of, I mean, you should see, I almost never write questions down, but I did in this case because I had months, well, I had three years to think about it as I was trying to book the interview, which I did myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were all, it was all about internal Russian politics and Navalny and, and I had a lot of, I thought really good questions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then at the last second, and you make these decisions, as you know, since you interview people a lot, often you make them on the fly. And I thought, no, I want to talk about the things that haven't been talked about and that I think matter in a world historic sense. And the number one among those, of course, is the war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanted Putin to release him to me and I was offended that he didn't. I thought his rationale was absurd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, which of course it does. Uh, but other than that, I really wanted to keep it to the things that I think matter most. You know, people can judge whether I did a good job or not, but that was my, that was my decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably asked more asshole questions than like any living American. You know, I'm, as has been noted correctly, I'm a dick. By my nature. And uhm, so I don't, I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just feel at this stage of my life I didn't need to prove that I could- LIKE VITERY PUTIN ANSWER THE QUESTION! Sure, for sure. You know, I think if I had been-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale people do not understand the US dollars going away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was of course inevitable ultimately because everything dies, including currencies, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That death, that process of death has been accelerated exponentially by the behavior of the Biden administration and the US Congress, particularly the sanctions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And people don't understand what the ramifications of that are. The ramifications are poverty in the United States. Okay? So, I just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just wanted to get to that, uhm, because I'm coming at this from not a global perspective, I'm coming at it from an American perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. You know, I've thought about it a lot. I've known a lot of people in prison, a lot, including some very good friends of mine. So I felt instantly sad about it. Uhm, from a geopolitical perspective, I don't know any more than that. And I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I laugh at and sort of resent but mostly find amusing the claims by American politicians who really are the dumbest politicians in the world, actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, this happened, and here's what it means. And it's like, actually, as a factual matter, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened. We have no freaking idea what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can say, and I did say, and I will say again, I think,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't think you should put opposition figures in president. I really don't. I don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Period. Uhm, it happens a lot, around the world happens in this country, as you know, and I'm against all of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, do we know how we died? Short answer, no, we don't. Now, if I had to guess, I would say...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over 60 billion dollars in Ukraine funding? Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I just don't, I don't see it, but maybe, you know, maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him in prison, which I'm against. Uhm, but here's what I do know, is that we don't know. And so when Chuck Schumer stands up and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it could be, I mean the United States could also be involved. I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh wait, no, we do it a lot and have for 80 years and it's shameful. I can say that as an American because it's my money in my name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeah, I'm really offended by that. And I never thought that was true. And I spent, again, I'm much older than you. And so I spent my, my, my worldview was defined by the cold war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And very much in the house I lived in in Georgetown in Washington DC, you know, that's what we talked about. And yeah, and the left at the time, you know, I don't know that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Et cetera. Like the hard left was always saying, well the United States government is interfering in other elections and I just dismissed that completely out of hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we should always proceed on the basis of what we do know, which is to say on the basis of truth, knowable truth. And if you have an entire policy making apparatus that is making the biggest decisions on the face of the planet, on the basis of things that are bullshit or lies,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're gonna get bad outcomes. Every time. Uhm, every time. And that's why we are where we are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course it bothers me. I mean it bothered me when I got there. It bothers me now. I was sad when he died. Yeah, I mean that's one of the measures of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's one of the basic measures of political freedom, are you imprisoning people who oppose you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, are you imprisoning people who pose a physical risk to you? I mean, there's some subjective...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decision making involved in these things. However, big picture, yeaah. Do you have opposition leaders in jail? It's not a free, it's not a politically free society and Russia isn't, obviously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I said, a friend of mine from childhood, an American actually, he's a wonderful person, lives in Russia with his Russian, Moscow with his Russian wife. And I had dinner with him. He's a very balanced guy, totally non-political person. And uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And speaks Russian and loves his many Russian children and loves the culture and there's a lot to love. The culture that produced Tolstoy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's not a gas station with nuclear weapons, sorry. Only a moron would say that. It's a very deep culture. I don't fully understand it of course, but I admire it. Who wouldn't?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, well, you could get hurt. You could wind up like Navalny if you did. Uhm, but also it's just too complicated. You know, the Russian mind is not, is not exactly the same. It's a Western, it's a European city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not quite European. And uhm, the way they think is very, very complex. Very complex. It's just, it's too complicated. Just don't get involved. And uhm, I would just say two things. One, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My sense from talking to Putin and the people around him is they're not really focused on that. I mean, in fact, I asked one of his top advisors, when's the election? And she looked at me completely confused. She didn't know the date of the election. Okay. She's like a March.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, uhm, and I asked a bunch of other people, just in Moscow, who's, who's Putin running against? Like nobody knew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, it's not a real election, right, in the sense that we would recognize at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Second, I was really struck by so many things in Moscow and really bothered by, deeply bothered by a lot of things that I saw there. Uhm, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing I noticed was the total absence of cult or personality propaganda, which I expected to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And have seen around the world. Jordan, for example. I don't know if you've been to Jordan, but go to Jordan. In every building there are pictures of the king and his extended family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's a sign of political insecurity. You know, you don't create a cult of personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless you're personally insecure and also unless you're worried about losing your grip on power. None of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's interesting and I expected to see a lot of it, you know, like statues of Putin. No, there are no statues of anybody other than like Christian saints. So that was like, I'm not quite sure. I'm just reporting what I saw. Uhm, so yes, it's not a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a political sense, it's not a free country. It's not a democracy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in the way that we would understand it or want, I don't want to live there. Okay. Cause I like to say what I think. In fact, I make my living doing it. Um, but it's not Stalinist in a recognizable way and anyone who says it is should go there and tell me how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean it when I say I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there. Maybe I just didn't. And I feel like I've got a pretty


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strong gut sense of things. I rely on it. I make all my decisions based on how I feel, my instincts, and I didn't feel it at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, my lawyers before I left, and these are people who work for a big law firm, this is not Bob's law firm, this is one of the biggest law firms in the world, said you're gonna get arrested if you do this by the US government on sanctions violations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, well, you know, I don't, I don't recognize the legitimacy of that actually cause I'm American and I've lived here my whole life and that's so outrageous that I'm happy to face that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That risk because I so reject the premise, okay, I'm an American, I should be able to talk to anyone I want to and I plan to exercise that freedom, which I think I was born with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was a, let me put it this way, I don't know how much you dealt with lawyers, but it costs many thousands of dollars to get a conclusion like that. Like they sent a whole bunch of their summer associates or whatever. They sent, they put a lot of people on this question, checked a lot of precedent, and I think, and they sent me a 10 page memo on it, and their sincere conclusion was, do not do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course it made me mad, so I was lecturing him on the phone and I had another call with the head lawyer and he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin. If you're seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back. And I was like, you're describing a fascist country, okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't think for a second, I mean maybe, look, I don't speak Russian, I'd never been there before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything about the culture was brand new to me. You know, ignorance does protect you sort of when you have no freaking idea what's going on. You're not worried about it. Like this has happened to me many times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm like a bumbling English speaker from California. But uhm, I didn't feel it at all. But the lawyers did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, it scared the crap out of people. You're gonna, look, and I, you have to pay in cash. They don't take credit cards because of sanctions and you have to go through all these hoops, just procedural hoops to go to Russia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I was willing to do because I wanted to interview Putin because they told me I couldn't. But then there's another fact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is that I was being surveilled by the US government, intensely surveilled by the US government. And this came out, they admitted it, the NSA admitted it a couple of years ago that they were up in my Signal account. And then they leaked it to the New York Times. They did that again, before I left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I know that because two New York Times reporters, one of whom I actually like a lot, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Said, oh, you're going, and called other people, oh, he's going to interview Putin. I hadn't told anybody that. Like anybody. Like my wife, two producers, that's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they got that from the government. Then I'm over there and of course I want to see Snowden, who I admire. And so we have a mutual friend so I got his text and come on over and Snowden does not want publicity at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, but I really wanted to have dinner with him. So we had dinner in my hotel room at the Four Seasons in Moscow and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, I tried to convince him, you know, I'd love to do an interview, shoot it on my iPhone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'd love to take a picture together and put it on the internet because I just want to show support because I think he's been railroaded. He had no interest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In living in Russia. No intention of being in Russia. The whole thing is a lie. But anyway, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All this stuff. And he just said respectfully, I'd rather not anyone know that we met. Great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only reason I'm telling you this is because s- and I didn't tell anybody and I didn't text it to anybody. Okay, except him. Semaphore. Semaphore! Uhm, runs this piece saying,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Report, reporting information that got from the US intel agencies leaking against me using my money in my name in a supposedly free country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They run this piece saying I'd met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So again, my interest is in the United States and preserving freedoms here, the ones that I grew up with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you have a media establishment that acts as an auxiliary of or acts as employees of the national security state, you don't have a free country. And that's where we are. And I'm not guessing because I spent my entire life in that world. 33 years I worked in big news companies. And so I know how it works. I know the people involved in it. I could name them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ben Smith of Semaphore, among many others, and I find that really objectionable, not just on principle either, in effect, in practice. I don't want to live in that kind of country. And people are like, they externalize all of their anxiety about this, I have noticed. So it's like, Russia's not free! Yeah, I know. You know, neither's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Burkina Faso, like most countries aren't free actually, but we are. We're the United States, we're different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's my concern. Preserving that is my concern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so they get so exercised about what's happening in other parts of the world, places they've never been, know nothing about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's almost a way of ignoring what's happening in their own country right around them. I find it so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, one of the things I did before I went, uhm, just because of the business I'm in, all of us are in, just because we live here, you know, we all have theories about secure communications channels. Like, signal is secure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I thought, you know, before I go over here, I was getting all this, we're having all these conversations, my producers and I, about this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I decide, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna actually find out like what's really going on. So I talked to two people, uhm, who would know. Trust me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's all I can say, and I hate to be like, oh, I talk to people who would know, but I can't do it. I mean it. They would know. And both of them said exactly the same thing, which is, are you joking? Nothing is secure. Everything is monitored all the time. If, if state actors are involved.