Eric Jorgenson | What We Can Learn From Elon

Oliver Bullough | The Awful Consequences Of Moneyland Are Compounding

Four years ago, almost to the day of recording, Oliver Bullough was a guest on this show for the first time [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ub0njnAi2N0rmt1VkxmZV] to discuss his concept of 'Moneyland'. This borderless virtual country where the wealthy go to keep their wealth beyond the reach of any government, any tax office, any voter. Between then and now, I've maintained interest on this thread. Nicholas Shaxson [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1YtyfNgKFJt9ojdtUx6VXR] discussed on the pod the cancerous plumbing of the offshore world in Treasure Islands. John Christensen [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1y16qp6vRVXet5e0PRC034] showed how that plumbing quietly corrodes culture and politics. Bill Browder [https://open.spotify.com/episode/4e7Cpzx5M9iEMYmSToRDcc] shows where the abstraction becomes violence. Nathan Lynch [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wdmX0tBCgVxdGwfGnsfon] showed how Australia is every bit as dirty as anywhere else, and Matt Friedman [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a61NvHHN9VhzghEvyjvyk], just a few weeks ago, put a number on the human end of it: $236 billion a year in illicit profit from modern slavery. Oliver's latest book is Everybody Loves Our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won. His argument is bleak, precise, and very hard to wave away. We have spent decades and roughly $200 billion a year building an anti-money-laundering fortress, and by the best available estimates the share of the world economy being laundered hasn't moved since the 1990s.  We get into why governments have failed so completely at this one. We follow the money where it actually goes: not just through banks, but through cash (central banks printing $100 bills faster than they can build factories), through crypto and stablecoins, and through the oldest trick of all — value hidden inside shipments of used cars, watches, oil, grain, the way the Medici did it in Florence. We talk about the scam compounds of Southeast Asia, where trafficked people are tortured into defrauding pensioners on the other side of the world, and how that horror connects — directly, traceably — to the very top of global power, through Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald, and a US Commerce Secretary's family. And underneath all of it, the real subject: the relationship between money and power, and what happens to democracy when the two become the same thing. Oliver's "offshore bandits" — elites who loot their own countries while living and banking somewhere else, feeling none of the consequences — are a darker upgrade on Mancur Olson's stationary bandit. It's a Moneyland story, and it's spreading. There are lighter turns too — Wright Patman, the forgotten Texan congressman who fathered anti-money-laundering law; Peter Pomerantsev and the propaganda war; Bill Browder before he was Bill Browder; and an unexpectedly lyrical detour to the walnut forests and white mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Oliver Bullough... Links  * Oliver Bullough Books [https://www.amazon.com.au/stores/author/B003YLKH2S] * Curious Worldview Substack [https://curiousworldviewpod.substack.com/] Podcast Starter Packs * Investigative Journalists [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Investigative-Journalists-1baec29d0b358018bb55d01e71274eea] * Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Offshore-Finance-Kleptocracy-Money-Laundering-1baec29d0b3580e8afdcd887bf511614] * Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Geopolitics-Economics-Economic-Development-1baec29d0b358083ae54f2ac475f234d] * Explorers & Adventurers [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Explorers-Adventurers-1baec29d0b3580c58aeef3ac7d3b6020] Leave a review on Apple or Spotify (nothing does more to help grow the show)

Matt Friedman | Modern Slavery Is Getting Worse

This podcast has returned to modern slavery three times now. Lisa Kristine [https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TGvkc5VgohWTbzDKexsiA?si=wLzEhSUyQNeOqVyeJefXYA] showed us its face through her photography. Bruce Ladebu [https://open.spotify.com/episode/26XPKzWBiDT3qaElAhazvC?si=ffdc402b16014b71] described what it actually takes to pull children out. And Matthew Friedman, in Episode 76 [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a61NvHHN9VhzghEvyjvyk?si=bd62d0ca43444091], gave us the architecture: thirty-five years working across Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, the UN, and eventually the Mekong Club.  That first episode opened with the story of an 11-year-old Nepalese girl in a Mumbai brothel who ran across the room, wrapped herself around Matt, and begged him to save her. He couldn't, that day. He came back with police and she was gone.  This second conversation picks up in a deglobalising world. The USAID cuts have gutted sixty years of global anti-trafficking infrastructure. The $400 million available to address modern slavery has been halved. HIV clinics, maternal health programs, girls' education initiatives are all gone. And as Matt makes clear, the line from those cuts to a new trafficking victim is not abstract. It runs through hospitals, through debt, through desperation. This episode also goes somewhere I'm afraid I didn't communicate that well, the points of cultural judgement and critique. There's a story of a sixteen-year-old Bangladeshi girl, rescued after two weeks in a brothel, who was turned away at her own front door by a father who loved her because the shame she carried would make her siblings unmarriageable. That story sits at the centre of the hardest question in this conversation: when the cultural machinery enabling trafficking runs this deep, what can the outside world actually do about it? It's a delicate subject, I regret not treating it as such.  $238 billion modern slavery generates annually flows through the same offshore plumbing this podcast has covered with Oliver Bullough and John Christensen. Matt explains how banks are already tracking it and how the Mekong Club is working with Interpol, crypto companies, and social media platforms to find it and cut it off. It's a pleasure to welcome Matt Friedman back to the podcast.  Resources Walk Free Foundation's Global Slavery Index - https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/ U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report - https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/ Makon Club - Anti-Human Trafficking Organization - https://makonclub.org/ USAID Human Trafficking Programs - https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/human-trafficking Interpol Human Trafficking Unit - https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Operations/Operation-Scorpion Chapters 00:00 The Impact of Deglobalization on Modern Slavery 02:50 Statistics and Resources in the Fight Against Modern Slavery 05:54 Consequences of USAID Cuts on Global Health and Safety 08:38 Understanding Human Trafficking and Legal Responses 11:40 Cultural Attitudes and Enforcement Challenges 14:12 The Role of Vulnerability in Exploitation 17:23 Identifying the Most Egregious Examples of Modern Slavery 20:02 Cultural Change and the Role of Awareness 23:22 Internal vs. External Approaches to Addressing Modern Slavery 33:12 The Impact of Fiction on Awareness 36:24 Taking Responsibility: Individual Actions Against Human Trafficking 38:27 Creating Compelling Content: The Role of Film in Activism 40:47 Cultural Sensitivity in Addressing Trafficking 43:28 The Urgency of Addressing Human Trafficking 50:08 Financial Institutions and Their Role in Combatting Trafficking 57:47 The Power of Business in Addressing Human Trafficking 59:52 Finding Hope: The Starfish Parable

Joshua Bandoch | The Science of Persuasion - Why We Feel First Then Reason Later

Joshua Bandoch is the Head of Policy at the Illinois Policy Institute and the debut author of 'How to Get What You Want [https://www.amazon.com/How-Get-What-You-Want-ebook/dp/B0FDBGV22N]'.  It's persuasion and communication all the way down. Josh's argues that almost everything most of us were taught about how to win an argument is wrong and now the neuroscience proves it.  Aristotle, it turns out, had this figured out 2,400 years ago. Kant, the great rationalist of the Enlightenment, did not. We feel first and reason second, and any attempt to persuade that ignores that simple fact is doomed before it starts. Across the conversation we move from the Greeks to Adam Smith, from the Communist Manifesto as a piece of technical propaganda to what makes Steve Jobs, JFK, and Ronald Reagan so memorable as communicators. We talk about the difference between persuasion and manipulation, why authenticity is the most underrated tool in the kit, whether emotional intelligence can really be learned, and what Josh would tell the next Republican candidate trying to thread the needle between MAGA and the traditional conservative base. It's a wide-ranging episode, and one I throughly enjoyed recording. I'm thrilled to welcome to the podcast, Joshua Bandoch. ----- Link's To Joshua Bandoch * Joshua Bandoch Website [https://joshuabandoch.com/] * How To Get What You Want (Book) [https://www.amazon.com/How-Get-What-You-Want-ebook/dp/B0FDBGV22N] Timestamps. 00:00  Aristotle, Adam Smith, and the 2,400-year science of persuasion 07:18  Persuasion vs. manipulation — the three biggest misconceptions 12:26  Authenticity, politicians, and why we lose trust 16:45  The neuroscience: we feel first, then reason 18:37  Negativity bias and the power of being FOR something 24:43  The logic tsunami and the limits of pure reason 33:02  Body language, tone, and the 7% rule 41:25  Emotional intelligence, moral foundations, and what's universal 56:54  Storytelling, aesthetics, and the masterclass of practice 01:08:24  Reputation, the long game, and the deathbed test 01:23:17  Sales, Chris Voss, and advice for the next Republican 01:34:01  History's great persuaders, and serendipity Podcast Starter Packs * Investigative Journalists [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Investigative-Journalists-1baec29d0b358018bb55d01e71274eea] * Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Offshore-Finance-Kleptocracy-Money-Laundering-1baec29d0b3580e8afdcd887bf511614] * Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Geopolitics-Economics-Economic-Development-1baec29d0b358083ae54f2ac475f234d] * Explorers & Adventurers [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Explorers-Adventurers-1baec29d0b3580c58aeef3ac7d3b6020] Leave a review on Apple or Spotify (nothing does more to help grow the show)

Tony Abbott (Australia's 28th Prime Minister) On "Our Countries Remarkable History"

Tony Abbott served as Australia's 28th Prime Minister from 2013 to 2015. He is a Rhodes Scholar and among the most polarising and consequential figures in modern Australian political history.  Rather than writing a series of memoirs detailing the turbulent years before, during and after his leadership of Australia, he instead, wanted to re-introduce a pride for Australia's history which he is afraid 'the black armband view of history' has erased.  Tony makes the case that Australians have far more to be proud of than ashamed. His book is called 'Australia: A History' and tells the story of a not so long ago Australia. The evolution of Australia post 1788. Tony's speculated origins for Australia's egalitarianism. How settlers and convicts ending up working together  to create the institutions that endure through till today. And all the meanwhile, not ignoring the devastating consequences the English expansion into Australia had to the indigenous Australian's who were here as long as 60,000 years before.  This interview would be good to listen to alongside my interview with Robyn Davidson. They aren't two different idea's of history, but rather two differently sympathetic perspectives on an Australia both have travelled widely and thoughtfully.  Link's To Tony Abbott * Australia: A History [https://www.amazon.com.au/Australia-Minister-foreword-Geoffrey-democracy-ebook/dp/B0F393W9TH] This is a summary of what was covered in the interview today.  * [00:00] — The Black Armband view of history? Abbott defines the term and stakes out his "glass half full" position on Australian history. * [01:50] — Ryan pushes back: did Abbott downplay frontier conflict?  * [03:59] — The Myall Creek Massacre, the legal scandal of the first acquittal, the fury it sparked, and the eventual hanging of seven perpetrators. * [06:03] — How short Australian post-1788 history actually is.  * [08:35] — Peter Thiel's stagnation thesis  * [12:08] — What evidence does Abbott see of Australians being ashamed of their history?  * [15:09] — Ryan offers a different read: most Australians are curious about history, not ashamed of it. * [18:43] — Why isn't Australian history dramatised more on screen?  * [20:19] — Finding Nemo point: great fiction drives engagement more than philanthropy or think tanks.  [21:04] — Mark Twain visited Australia and described Sydney as "an English city with American energy." Abbott loves the line. * [24:47] — The convict origins of Australian egalitarianism.  * [27:26] — What made the early governors enforce the rule of law rather than create their own tyranny?  * [31:56] — Overrated / Underrated (Tyler Cowen's question).  * [35:05] — Indonesia. Why don't we have deeper cultural ties with a neighbour of 300 million?  * [39:13] — Serendipity vs. Providence.  Podcast Starter Packs * Investigative Journalists [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Investigative-Journalists-1baec29d0b358018bb55d01e71274eea] * Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Offshore-Finance-Kleptocracy-Money-Laundering-1baec29d0b3580e8afdcd887bf511614] * Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Geopolitics-Economics-Economic-Development-1baec29d0b358083ae54f2ac475f234d] * Explorers & Adventurers [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Explorers-Adventurers-1baec29d0b3580c58aeef3ac7d3b6020] Leave a review on Apple or Spotify (nothing does more to help grow the show)

Eric Jorgenson | What We Can Learn From Elon

Link's To Eric Jorgenson * ejorgenson.com [https://ejorgenson.com/] (personal website) * scribemedia.com [https://scribemedia.com/] (company) * elonmuskbook.org [https://elonmuskbook.org/] (book) Eric Jorgenson, author of the Naval Almanac and the Book of Elon, and CEO of Scribe Media joins me to discuss what makes Elon Musk the most consequential entrepreneur alive.  We dig into Elon's purpose-driven risk-taking, his philosophy of attacking bottlenecks, and why the people who make the biggest dents often pay the steepest personal price. Eric also reflects on his own journey from curating Naval's wisdom at 24 to defining an entirely new genre of book and what it means to do one thing so well the world notices. Timestamps 03:53 – "A Million Musks" — what Eric actually means by it 04:42 – Can you be a world-changer and still be a good family man? 07:22 – The canonical 2008 Elon risk-taking story 12:47 – Rolling the winnings: Zip2 → PayPal → Tesla/SpaceX Elon's pattern of compounding risk.  16:19 – Elon's talent attraction formula 18:20 – Has Elon's politics hurt his ability to hire? 19:44 – Elon's first principles communication style 21:23 – How much does Elon recognise his own luck? 26:09 – Vertical integration and the supply chain philosophy 32:36 – How Elon has influenced a new generation of hardware entrepreneurs 36:37 – ASML / Martin van der Brink — the supply chain counterpoint 38:25 – Could Elon disrupt chip manufacturing? 39:50 – Mark Andreessen on founder-led management 41:15 – How Eric got Elon's blessing to publish 42:32 – The almanac format and defining a genre 44:03 – Scribe Media: the business model and Eric's role as CEO 48:30 – What did Vance and Isaacson miss that makes room for the Book of Elon? 52:11 – Naval's foreword: the reaction and what it meant 53:13 – How the Naval Almanac changed Eric's life 56:03 – Eric's worldview in the Book of Elon 1:00:04 – What would Eric still ask Elon? 1:01:08 – "Don't aspire to glory, aspire to work" — what does Eric aspire to now? 1:03:21 – The serendipity question Podcast Starter Packs * Investigative Journalists [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Investigative-Journalists-1baec29d0b358018bb55d01e71274eea] * Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Offshore-Finance-Kleptocracy-Money-Laundering-1baec29d0b3580e8afdcd887bf511614] * Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Geopolitics-Economics-Economic-Development-1baec29d0b358083ae54f2ac475f234d] * Explorers & Adventurers [https://curiousworldview.notion.site/Explorers-Adventurers-1baec29d0b3580c58aeef3ac7d3b6020] Leave a review on Apple or Spotify (nothing does more to help grow the show)