How To Overcome Facebook & The Virtual Government With Patrick Bet-David & Chase Geiser | OAP #57
Patrick’s amazing story starts with his family immigrating to America when he was 10-years old. His parents fled Iran as refugees during the Iranian revolution and were eventually granted U.S. citizenship.
Bio taken from: https://www.patrickbetdavid.com
After high school Patrick joined the U.S. military and served in the 101st Airborne before starting a business career in the financial services industry. After a tenure with a couple of traditional companies, he was inspired to launch PHP Agency Inc., an insurance sales, marketing and distribution company – and did so before he turned 30.
PHP is now one of the fastest growing companies in the financial marketplace. Patrick is passionate about shaping the next generation of leaders by teaching thought-provoking perspectives on entrepreneurship and disrupting the traditional approach to a career. Patrick’s popularity surged and created a buzz in the hearts of entrepreneurs all over the world when The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Seconds, a video he created, accumulated over 30 million views online (It became a book in June 2016: The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Pages ). That video and scores of other videos comprise his library of edifying, educational and inspirational content about entrepreneurship – all available at Valuetainment, a media brand he conceived and founded. Valuetainment exists to teach about the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and personal development while inspiring people to break from limiting beliefs or other constraints and achieve their dreams. It has been referred to as “the best channel for entrepreneurs.”
Patrick speaks on a range of business, leadership and entrepreneurial topics including how and why to become an entrepreneur and the importance of learning how to fully process issues. He is particularly passionate about the need for every individual to pursue their desires, once stating, “Most of the greatest world changers and heroes of all time are at the graveyard undiscovered because they never sold out to their dreams and desires.” Patrick has also hosted a series of one-on-one interviews with some of the world’s most interesting people, including NBA Hall of Famers James Worthy and Magic Johnson, Author Robert Greene, Billionaire Entrepreneur and NBA team owner Mark Cuban, Indy-500 Winner Al Unser Jr., Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, author and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki, and many others.
From a humble beginning as a young immigrant escaping war-torn Iran with his parents, to founding his own company, Patrick has gained a first-hand understanding of what rags-to-riches means and how it is fueled by freedom and opportunity – the core tenants of the American Dream.
Uh Patrick Bet David, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
How are you doing, sir?
Very good.
Chase, it's good to be on with you.
It's a real pleasure.
So what's been going on?
I saw that you just got a new Ferrari.
Congratulations.
Yes, a thousand horsepower uh SF90 that's gonna probably get my license suspended for the third time, but it's it's incredible.
I drove it yesterday and today.
I came to work with it today.
It's absolutely insane.
That is awesome.
Well, I really enjoyed um I really I've really enjoyed your content for a number of years.
Um I remember I was starting, I own a small advertising business, and I started that in 2016.
And one of the first pieces of content that I saw from you, which is something I shared with you when we were direct messaging on Twitter was that that classic video about the entrepreneur's story, and people just see the Ferrari, but they don't see the all the hard work that goes into it.
And I remember I I cried when I saw that video, not like you know, a weepy uh what's cry, but like a man tear.
Yeah, it was like I, you know, I really hope that this I really hope that this this plays out, and it did.
And um, you know, I I um attribute my success to to many influencers and many books, things like Zero to One and Tim Ferris and all these these great minds that have been such an awesome source of um uh inspiration and knowledge for me.
And and you you fall into that category.
So I really appreciate all the work that you've been doing.
Well, glad to hear, man.
Congratulations on your success.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Um and one of the other reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is because um uh I started this podcast called One American Podcast, and the whole purpose of it is to sort of reawaken Americanism, the philosophy of like what it means to be American, what America actually means.
Not so much what the United States government is or the things that our government does, but what it actually is supposed to mean to be an American uh an American or to be American just generally.
And I thought that you would be a great guest to have on to talk about that a little bit just because your background in entrepreneurship and sort of um the I'm getting the impression from you that you've sort of got a pro-capitalism, pro-America sentiment and vibe behind you.
So uh uh what what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, so you know, I was raised in a family where my mother's side they were all communist.
They they their Bible was the communist manifesto, and my dad believed in imperialism.
So I was raised in a family where my mom's side thought rich people were greedy, and my dad's side thought poor people were lazy.
So I mean it's a very interesting dynamic there.
Now we came to the states.
I went to school, and I remember when uh I was in this uh, I don't know what it was, maybe econ, and everybody started talking about politics, Democrats, Republicans, all this stuff.
And I went home and I asked my mom, I said, Mom, what are we?
Are we Democrats or are we Republicans?
And my mom said, Well, we're Democrats.
I said, Well, really, awesome.
We're Democrats.
Why are we Democrats?
He said, Democrats are for the poor and Republicans are for the rich.
I said, you know what?
When I grow up, I want to be a Republican one day.
I'm gonna be rich one day.
I don't know what's Republican and Democrat.
But the point was I was sick and tired of being poor.
Parents got a divorce, welfare baby, 1.8 GPA.
I had a job uh right after I'm a six-four and a half guy.
I'm six, four and a half, six five, and I've never played organized sports.
And I've been tall since I was in ninth grade because I always had a job after high school.
So when school would get out at 3:30, I'd go straight to Hagendas.
Once school would get out, I'd go to Bob's big boy.
I'd go to Burger King.
I saw instead of playing organized sports, I'd go to my job because we didn't have any money.
I was not uh from a family.
I've never lived in a house in my entire life until I bought my own place.
I always lived in an apartment complex.
I don't know what it is to be in an in part.
Friends of mine who lived in an apartment with a swimming pool with a rich friend.
That should kind of give you an idea about my upbringing and where I was at.
But yeah, lived in Iran 10 years, two years in Germany at a refugee camp, came to the States, uh, went to the U.S. Army right after high school, sat out 1.8 GPA.
Uh went to Hunter First Airborne Air Soul Air Salt.
I got out.
I wanted to be a bodybuilder, you know, I wanted to be Mr. Olympia.
And then I met a girl at Venice Beach, California.
Her name is uh was Jean Vier, and she was working on working Stanley Dean with her.
She started telling me about how great of a career it is.
I said, I'd love to work there.
She said, they're not gonna hire you without a four-year degree.
I said, I'm not going to college.
It was a UCLA grant.
She said they're just not gonna do it.
Anyways, I submitted my resume.
Eventually I ended up getting a job with Morgan Stanley Dean Wooder at Glendale a day before 9-11, was my first day, one day.
The next day, 9-11 happens.
My 20-year anniversary in the financial industry just was celebrated three weeks ago.
Uh or Three weeks ago, thank you.
And uh got into the industry and the rest is history.
You know, everything uh from there went on to wasn't easy, obviously, the first couple of years, but uh yeah, I'm I'm a pro, pro, pro, pro-capitalism.
Absolutely.
So um uh tell me a little bit about your upbringing, and and you were in Iran for 10 years, is that right?
I was.
Okay, what what years would that have been?
Uh I was born October 1878.
And okay, so right before the revolution.
You got it, like three months.
And then I left July 15th of 89.
So you got roughly 10 and a half years.
Okay, so you're an infant, we installed the Shah, and everything changes in Iran, right?
What was that like growing up?
Do you have do you have memories of of what Iran was like in the 80s?
Well, vivid memories.
I lived in Tehran.
I went to a school, Armenian school and an Assyrian school, but Armenian school school was called Gulbengian.
And uh uh I remember I'd be looking outside the street and I would see thousands of men walking and flagellating their backs with a trail of blood.
I mean, this was a regular uh Tuesday uh in Iran.
It wasn't like it's a big deal.
There was a lot of protesting uh uh against US, uh the constant uh uh tone you would hear is mad bat omri call, which is death upon America.
And I was common.
So it wasn't a um it wasn't a scene you wanted to see have your kids see.
Uh and when the war take took place between Saddam and uh Khomeini, we kept getting bombs, and one day in Tehran, we got bombed 167 times, and all you would hear is a whistling sound.
So eventually we escaped, we went to a city called Karaj, which is like the Palm Springs of LA, two and a half hours out, like the desert type of area.
And then Saddam started bombing Karaj, and then from Karaj we skipped to Bandar Pahlavi.
Bandar Pahlavi is like Long Beach, is where we went.
And uh we stayed there, and then he started bombing a city right outside of Bandar Palawai called Rasht.
And then eventually, after all of these things taking place, my mother eventually said we got to leave because if we stay here, your son has to go in, meaning I have to go in the military at 12.
And my mom and dad agreed.
They left.
We went to refugee camp with my mom and my sister.
My dad came to US, and then my parents filed a divorce.
So it wasn't uh we had two channels we would watch, and the channel, everything was about how amazing uh Khomeini is and how terrible America is.
These are two channels you watch nonstop.
Any movie you watched was underground movies, like we would watch Rocky a hundred times.
I watched Rocky Four, but it was in Farsi, and if they knew you had it, you'd go to jail.
You can't have American movies.
Uh what else can I tell you?
First time I had Nutella was because one of my relatives from Germany sent us Nutella, and I thought this was the greatest thing some slice bread.
First time I had banana, I was 11 years old on Germany.
I couldn't believe God would create such an incredible fruit like banana, and we didn't have it in Iran.
Uh Ananas, Pineapple didn't have it till Germany.
Ananas is uh in Farsi is pineapple.
But I mean these small little things that's just not a big deal, but uh you eventually all these movies you would watch, how amazing America was in America's and all this other stuff, man.
One day we got to go to America.
So every time somebody would get their green cars to go to America or go to Germany or go to Australia, anybody that was leaving Iran, they'd be the biggest parties, and I'd never forget those parties because I would always get the leftover Legos and Lego was the toy for rich people in Iran.
So there's a lot of vivid memories of Iran.
So what percentage of the population, and I know you were just a kid, so I don't expect you to necessarily know this off the cuff.
But what percentage of the population do you think was actually that radicalized?
Do you think it was a small, you know, like 5% or 10% that was just bullying everyone in submission?
Or do you think that a significant portion of the population was actually very anti-American?
No, it's a small percentage.
It's just like just like America today, you know, like the media sells it as if everybody hates everybody.
It's not uh everybody that hates everybody.
Democrats, most Democrats don't hate Republicans, and most Republicans don't hate Democrats.
It's the extremist that get the biggest platform and who are the best complainers that get everybody to think everybody's like that.
And then when you have the mouthpiece of the mainstream media, they uh uh they get the populace to believe that that's exactly what's going on, which is not the truth.
I mean, I have friends who are Democrats, I have friends who are Republicans, independents, libertarians, And we'll sit down and have the greatest conversation over a few drinks and good food, and we laugh, we crack up, and we simply disagree on a few things.
But what you see in Iran was the same thing.
It wasn't a majority.
One thing that I've struggled with just as an entrepreneur the past um year or so, really, is really since COVID is that when I started my business in 2016, there was this great sense of optimism.
The economy was booming, it was constantly improving.
Um, Trump was president, which was something that resonated in a positive way with for me personally.
Um, but it's been difficult for me psychologically to overcome the overwhelming doubt and fear about what's happening in America today.
So, in terms of being worried about the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency, uh, being very suspect of uh everything that our government is doing, whether or not this administration actually is sold out or not to foreign interests, right?
And so, how do you recommend that people overcome that doubt?
Because it's very it's any, I firmly believe that anybody can be successful, but they have to believe that they can be successful.
And the challenge for me now is believing that the environment is conducive to success.
Not that I can do it, but that it's possible.
And I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
I'm sure you have have some.
Look, I mean, the environment is always conducive for success.
Uh, and if it gets too far left, then you lose your job creators and they leave, just like the job creators left Iran, just like the job creators left Yugoslavia, just like many of the job creators left Cuba or Venezuela.
The job creators are here's the best way to look at job creators.
Think about a drop dead gorgeous girl who's 21 years old, who's in a relationship with a guy for three years, huh?
What was that?
I said, no problem.
The easiest thing to think of in the world.
21-year-old drop dead gorgeous.
I'm talking drop dead.
Do whatever drop dead means to you.
She dates a guy who's an absolute a-hole, treats her like crap for two and a half years.
Daybreak up, she's heartbroken.
He says a lot of terrible words.
And she's got challenges for about a month, really, you know, trying to rego recruit and recoup and kind of get herself back up to say, okay, I'm gonna get back into the dating scene.
Do you think the market is filled with people who would love to be with her?
Massive.
I mean, the market is not lagging, you know, it's not going to be, oh, there's nobody in a market to find somebody like her.
Well, let me give you another one.
Let's just say a guy who's a stand-up guy, 24 years old, hardworking, attractive, works out, takes care of his body, uh, smart, you know, makes his own money, independent, respects his family, respects his parents, is a man with values and principles.
And he dates a girl and she leaves him and goes with another guy, and he's like, wait a minute, what did I do wrong?
And he's actually a great guy.
But she decides to leave him because she just meets another guy and she leaves.
Do you think the market lacks women who want to be with a man like him?
No.
No, with women that want to be black with a guy like him, right?
Those two are exactly what a capitalist and a job creator are.
Job creators are going to be needed everywhere.
It does, even if you're live in Cuba and you destroy your job creator, he's going to go to Miami and create a restaurant and have 42 jobs.
He creates and he'll make $800,000 a year running a restaurant that does 9 million years, and he nets, you know, 9% on it.
He's going to find a way to make his money.
Job creators are going to find a way to make their money.
So I don't think that's changed for the climate to be conducive.
I do think the climate today is pushing people out of certain states.
I do think a New York is forcing people out.
I do think a California is forcing people out.
I do think in Oregon, a Illinois, uh, certain places are forcing people out.
And these folks are going to places like, you know, Nevada, they're going to places like Tennessee, they're going to places like Texas, they're going to places like Florida.
They go to places like a lot of different places because those places welcome entrepreneurs and free thinkers.
So the moving around is taking place, but you're always going to have a demand for job creators.
Always.
So tell me a little bit about your career.
So you started your your sort of your existing career in 2001, right?
Right, right around 9-11.
And really 10 years went by before I I really noticed you on social media, I would say about 10 years ago, maybe, maybe even a little seven years ago.
I'm sure you were doing it before I noticed you.
Uh so how did how did you make the decision to really invest in content?
Because I know a lot of financial advisors, a lot of people in the finance industry, and some of them are excellent at what they do, and they sort of rely on on going to the chamber of commerce meetings and the rotary clubs and you know just shaking hands and kissing babies, but you really took it to the next level and and invested a lot in your in your content.
How did you make that decision?
And then after you made the decision, how did you figure out how to do it so well?
Yeah, so that's that's a good question.
I'm a late bloomer.
A lot of guys got on social early.
I didn't get on Twitter when it first came out.
I think I even got on Twitter in 20, I don't even know what year I got on Twitter.
I got on Facebook late, I got on MySpace late, I got on YouTube, I got on everything late.
I got on, I just got on TikTok.
If you go look at my first post on TikTok, it's just like recently.
So I'm not like I'm I'm the one that was there early.
I started creating content uh uh privately for my sales team.
So I was working on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in 2001.
In 2002, I go to Trans America.
I'm with them for seven and a half years.
In October of 09, after everything that was going on during that time on the marketplace, the I was looking at how the average agent in the insurance industry was a 57-year-old white male.
I saw women were getting uh becoming entrepreneurs at a very rapid pace, and it was women empowerment taking place.
I saw a major demand for the Hispanic community and the needs of insurance, and then a few other things I saw in social media was not a play in in the insurance industry.
So I left trans October of 09, started my own insurance company, and I used what I learned at Bally's military Morgan Stanley and Trans combine it together, and that formed our insurance company.
We grew it from one office to today.
We have roughly 150 offices nationwide.
We're in the United States.
And we have roughly 16,000 insurance agents today.
De la joya became one of our investors, Gabriel Brenner became one of our investors.
CIBC, the I think it's the biggest bank in Canada, is one of our bigger investors on what they've done.
And this thing's growing to what it is today.
So now social, I was creating content privately, and I was using that to train my sales guys nationwide.
And I did that for a while.
2013 was the first time I made a public piece of content A piece of content that went public.
Okay.
And then gradually for two years, I was shooting a video once a week.
And it was called Two Minutes with Pat.
Two years later, I was all over the place.
I said, choose one word, one topic that you can talk about, and add one word for me, became entrepreneurship.
And that's all star uh I started doing.
And three years later, uh, our channel was at like 455,000 subscribers.
I took a break because I was doing seven videos a week.
I said, This is just too much.
I'm not willing to do it.
It's creating content for entrepreneur magazine.
I was on the entrepreneur magazine on a monthly basis.
Centerfold was like pretty much me every weekend.
But it's draining to create a lot of content, especially when I'm having a kid.
I got four kids at this point, and they're young, and I'm, you know, startup CEO, found board.
And then the second time around, when we came back, we shut down the channel for 90 days.
I said, if we come back, I really want to come back because I want to I want to do something big with this thing.
So there was a company uh that was a publicly traded company called Value Tayment.
We came up with this name.
I didn't know there was another company called Value Tayman.
I Google it, it comes up.
I called a CEO guy named Dirk.
I said, Hey, would love to buy your domain.
He says, I'm a publicly traded company out of Germany.
I said, I know, but I'd love to buy your domain.
He says, I'm not selling my domain.
Uh I said, give me a number in case if I were to buy today.
So it's like a million bucks.
I'm not selling it today.
Anyways, I said, I just want to let you know I'm going to create so much content that the world's gonna see us as value team and not you.
I'd much rather do the deal today.
He says, I'm not doing anything with you.
Two and a half years later, I bought his domain for 27,000, and he changes companies into value teeth, and we became valuetainment.
He changed it to value tees.
Anyways, fast forward today, a few million subscribers, a few billion online views total.
And I think the bigger part was focus.
The other part is the fact that I'm talking about the pains I'm going through as a CEO, as a founder, as a man, as a all of the stuff.
I'm sharing those experiences with the audience on what tips I would give.
And the audience has grown, and then through my journey of doing content, I've interviewed some interesting people that I'm curious about, and that's brought a whole different level of interest.
But to you, I've never once said or ran a funnel to say, hey, now that you see my content, if you'd like to buy an insurance policy with me, click on this link below.
Zero times I've ever done that.
I've never done a content on valuetainment where I've said, if you ever want to be an agent, never.
Those words have never come out of my mouth.
Contact me, text me, call me, go on the site, never.
So because I've kept the two businesses very different and they've each respected each other, both audiences have stayed loyal.
I think sometimes people commingle audiences, and the audience knows you're using them.
So it's a very interesting thing.
Right.
Have you garnered a lot of business though from valuetainment in terms of your insurance just from people looking you up?
Purely because of my name and my exposure, you know, that getting bigger, not through direct.
It's through Oh, I know the guy.
Oh, I've seen him.
Oh, Patrick, good day, but I follow stuff.
I it's more through that than a direct way of, you know, getting it.
Well, it goes back to that, it goes back to that classic philosophy of you know, make sure you're giving value with your content rather than just uh constantly asking, right?
And so, like Gary V has the jab jab jab right hook kind of philosophy.
So he'll still make the ask, but the emphasis is still on the value given uh rather than the uh rather than the conversions at the end, right?
So if you focus on the value that you give your audience, you're gonna end up doing way better than that.
He's done a great job doing that over the years.
Obviously, he's done a great job doing that over the years.
But yeah, that's how we created the content.
So um have you noticed a change?
Because in 2013, you know, really even closer to 2010, Facebook was sort of the wild west in terms of if you posted content that that had that was good content that had viral potential, it was going to reach a lot of people.
And then sort of after they went public, you saw that the effort continue toward monetization rather than um organic reach, right?
So Facebook's algorithms have changed for a lot of people, a lot of pages where you know, if you post something, you're not really reaching your followers unless you boost it.
So, how did your strategy change and how have you been impacted by things like increased censorship and and things of that nature over the course of the last eight years that you've been really pushing?
Yeah, I mean, it's not easy because if you stay the same and you don't create yourself, people will be bored.
Eventually you will bore them.
It's like a relationship and a marriage when you're married and you eventually just keep doing the same thing over and over and over.
Like you get into a routine of a sex, you know, everything is just routine that you do.
That marriage is gonna lose spice.
You gotta mix it up, or else it's gonna be a boring marriage that you have.
As a talent, this is why a sting has a kind of respect that he has because he's had a number one hit in four different decades.
This is why Ray Charles is legendary because he's had a number one hit for four different decades.
And a lot of times you'll see an actor that did get in 80s, but you don't hear about him in 2000, 2010, or an actor that was great in 2000, but you haven't seen him do any work because it's just one-dimensional.
It's not easy, it's a lot of pressure.
And so you, as an individual, have to always, you know, both uh deliver.
Jerry Springer one time took a show, and he was a former mayor of Cincinnati.
So he says, I'm more than just a talk show host.
I know a lot about politics.
And he started going into the very serious uh stuff that he was talking about.
And his audience, like, what are you talking about?
The audience is a stay-home mom or stay home, you know, a wife that's staying home watching you.
They want entertainment, they don't want you to be talking about politics.
So his ratings drop.
So there's a balance of knowing who your audience is where you don't shock them all of a sudden, yet at the same time recreating yourself to create a new level of excitement for the audience to keep being interested.
There's a reason why these shows like friends, there's a reason why these shows that crushed it for a year, two years, three years, four years, eventually stop because it eventually is no longer exciting for the audience.
So you got you got to figure out a way to stay excited, you know, stay relevant and exciting to the audience.
Not easy to do.
One of the things that that's most fascinating to me from an advertising standpoint, since this has been my professional focus, is just the general concept of zeitgeist, right?
Like the spirit of the times.
And you can see it really obviously if you look at movies or entertainment or fashion in like the early 2000s versus after the crash in 06, 08 kind of time period, where before the emphasis was on, you know, there's there was a lot of gold chains, a lot of uh a lot of like rap music videos that were flaunting all sorts of wealth.
And then sort of after 06 and 08, you see this hipster fashion come in where it's cool to look like you're poor, even if your clothes are designer clothes, right?
And it I don't know if it had to do with people just being ashamed of having money after you know, so many people were struggling, but there are real world events that occur that change the zeitgeist or the spirit of the times.
And the content that we see that resonates, like with friends, for example, is a great example.
And to me, that show was popularized in an era where we had sort of our first generation of coming of age young adults who had divorced parents.
And the theme, the zeitgeist of that show was you can choose your family, your friends are your family, right?
They did Thanksgiving together.
It was friends giving, and the whole thing was choose your family.
It's not about where you come from.
It's about the family that you choose later.
And that really resonated.
And uh and yeah, you know, it it did it ran its course.
It had its time and it was over and I think it ended at the right time.
But I do agree with you that there's this sort of zeitgeist and I think a lot of people think that if they're doing something now that works it will it will always work.
When really the reason it works now is because it's resonating with an audience but that audience is going to grow and change.
We have different chapters in our lives so you have to kind of figure out how to grow and change with them and it's tough to do that.
Yeah it's not easy to do.
Yeah absolutely so what are you working on next?
A ton of things um I just launched a new app I launched a uh investment group congratulations by Tim and investment group thank you where we're helping raise five to thirty million dollars for entrepreneurs uh and they'll come up to us whether they want debt or they want to do equity deal or they want to raise capital we'll help them do that.
I just, we're doing our first 10 episode.
It's like a docu-series, but, you know, more like an interview sit-down with Michael Francis and Sammy DeVolge Gravano and Rudy Giuliani.
And it's narrated by Chas Palminteri.
It's called Mafia States of America.
Kind of talks about what happened in the 80s with the mob and how the mob trained the government to do what they're doing today.
And how many of these Fortune 500 companies in the gambling world or same-day payday loans were all trained by them.
It's a very interesting doc, you know, 10 episode series that'll be launched here soon.
But we're constantly working on new projects.
Absolutely.
So when it comes to the state of politics and leadership in America today, what are some things that you're most concerned about?
What are the things I'm most concerned about?
Three things.
I mean, at the top, you have to know who your number one enemy is.
Obviously, set aside the fact that we are our own worst enemy.
Let's set that part aside.
China.
China being number one.
No question about it.
You got to be careful with where they're at because they keep getting stronger.
And, you know, people are looking at them too lightly or they're just kind of like, well, you know, we have to respect their methods.
You have to respect their this.
They're making the world adjust to them rather than us making them adjust to us.
It's a very weird dynamic.
Very rarely does a number one adjust to a number seven.
But that's what U.S. did 20 years ago because China was number seven.
U.S. was number one.
Rather than number seven adjusting to number one.
Because if you look at Russia, Russia adjusted to U.S. when Reagan said, hey, you know, tear that wall down and they went to capitalism.
Russia adjusted to U.S. And they believed in capitalism, free enterprise, all that other stuff.
China's been like, we'll do capitalism, but we're going to run the government as communism.
We can silence anybody at any time.
But it's our way or the highway.
You disrespect us.
You're out of here.
And out of here doesn't mean you're out of China.
Out of here means you're out of anybody knowing where you are.
You're going to be going away for a while.
So that's the second part.
The way money is being handled today by us just feeling like we can just hand money out to people left and right.
And this is the solution.
Hey, you know, let's just print another three and a half trillion, another five and a half trillion, another one and a half trillion.
It's not a big deal.
We can afford it.
We're a richest family.
We don't know.
Although we're the richest country.
How is it the fact that the richest country cannot offer this and we're doing this with college education?
We are becoming that greedy kid whose parents died and left them with a billion dollars.
And he never worked for that billion dollars, but he's spending the hell out of that billion dollars.
And that's what these politicians are doing with the money that the job creators created the last 270 plus years.
They're wasting all that money.
And they're taking all that money and giving it to people that are not working today and making everybody else who's working feel guilty about it.
And they're silencing them, which is it's a big concern of mine when it comes down to inflation, printing money, all that stuff.
And last but not least, the third concern I would put on there.
there would be the whole thing that we can no longer have debates.
Everybody has to agree with each other we cannot sit there and God forbid somebody says you know Trump is a good president oh my gosh it's the end of the world God forbid somebody says Carl Marx is a you know humanitarian I interviewed a guy the other day who's a professor at uh Riverside community college and he said the two greatest leaders of our time are Mao and Stalin he says Stalin's the greatest leader of all time he doesn't get enough recognition the fact that he What does he mean by greatest he greatest as in the greatest leader.
Let me put it to you this way I asked this guy I said if if a 22 year old's watching this right now and I'm supporting capitalism you're selling communism if a 22 year old has a choice between being a Jeff Bezos, he goes and creates one and a half million jobs versus going and being the next revolutionary Stalin, which one's better for the world.
He says it's not even close, it's Stalin.
I said, Let me get this straight.
You would much rather have this 22 year old be Stalin over uh Bezos.
He says, absolutely.
Stalin did more good for the world than Bezos ever did.
This is his mindset.
But you know what's crazy?
It's okay for him to talk.
That's there's nothing wrong with him to talk.
We shouldn't panic about it for him to talk.
But we also shouldn't talk about people if they want to have a debate to see why aren't we doing more research on vaccine?
Why are we doing more research on this tax system?
Why don't we do more research on whatever it is?
Just more discourse rather than being so afraid of God forbid somebody disagrees with us.
So censorship concerns me.
The direction we're going with the economy concerns me, and China concerns me.
Those are the top three.
So what do you think the solution is to China?
I mean, if you were president of the United States, would what would you push for?
Would you cut, would you just cut off trade with China?
I mean, it seems to me like the CCP is a terrorist organization.
Yeah, you you can't just cut off trade with China because a lot of companies would take a hit and you would automatically see an Apple watch, the price would triple or Apple, Apple would be just prices.
It would, it would, it wouldn't be the strategic move to do.
But I think the tariffs route was great.
You got to figure out a way to slow them down.
You got to figure out a way to get other countries to stop doing business with them to say if you do business with them, you can't do business with us.
China has to know who's in, you know, who is the what is the philosophy that allows people to be free thinkers?
You have to tell them you want to do uh exchange, you want to do business together?
We do, yeah.
We want to have trade.
Fantastic.
You have to let Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google into your country, and you have to let free press into your country.
We're not gonna do that.
We're not gonna do business.
No problem.
Right.
Because you get our data because nonstop.
You hear Ted Cruz going up against AOC or AOC going up against whoever it is.
You see us arguing as husband and wife.
You see us arguing, and you know what problems we're having.
We know nothing about your country because press is not free in your country.
So you want to do trade, free press, allow Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, everybody in, then we'll start doing business together, because then we'll know when you say China's unemployment is only 2.2%.
What the hell do you mean your unemployment is 2.2%?
How the hell are we doing we know those facts, those numbers are factual anyways, rather than you making these numbers up?
How do we know what all the issues that happen with Wuhan?
If Facebook, Twitter, YouTube was there, we would have had people with Facebook lives.
Now we are trusting you a little bit more.
I'm sorry, China, we don't trust you today because everything to you is a secret.
And that concerns me.
So it would be that negotiation with certain things that we would want for from them.
Do you think that China intentionally released COVID or do you think it was more like a Chernobyl situation where it was an accident?
I I think it's 100% a great topic to debate.
John Stewart was the first person that came up and openly talked about it with Stephen Colbert.
And till then, if you talked about it on YouTube, you'd be censored.
The video would be taken down.
But a guy like John Stewart had to go on Stephen Colbert, who it was a show before, and he gives that, and then everybody's like, John, makes sense.
Maybe we should investigate.
Well, people have been saying this for a while, but you couldn't say, let's go investigate if it came from China or not.
I I'm just very suspicious of China, very, very suspicious of China.
And uh I I think uh uh Andy Grove years ago wrote a book called Only the Paranoid Survive.
If this next generation, America, if they don't stay paranoid, I guarantee you the country that's more paranoid will win.
And China is way more paranoid than we are.
So what have you done personally to prepare, if anything, for you know, dramatic um uh collapse of economy, like at the next depression?
Have you done anything to prepare for that personally in terms of I don't know what resources, what your investments are?
Uh what do you think?
What do you think is actually a prudent and wise thing to do rather than just sort of over the top reckless paranoia?
Where's the line there?
What's what's what's wise and prudent to do for for middle class Americans in the family?
Economically, are you talking about your voice?
Are you talking about family?
What do you what do you what which one are you talking about?
I'm concerned.
I'm talking primarily about economics.
So in in the event of another like Great Depression level collapse, not great recession, but great depression level collapse.
What's the best way to prepare for that?
So I'm worried about the currency not being worth anything.
You're right.
So So let's let's let's go to the one thing.
My my what I look at that retains value the most is non-duplicatable asset, meaning stuff that you cannot reprint or duplicate more of.
We cannot build more gold than we currently have today.
Right, right.
There is a limited amount of cryptocurrency you can buy today.
There's a limited amount of 1986 FLIER, Michael Jordan rookie cards, PSA 10 graded.
It's limited.
There's a limited amount of waterfront properties in Florida, in California.
There's a limit, whatever is a limited amount that cannot be duplicated.
That's one way to hedge.
Now, if inflation does take place, like what products would do well if an Armageddon were to take place.
Stocks, no, stocks are not going to do well if Army Geddon takes place.
So if you're going all the way to the Armageddon side, you need to have, you know, gold, you need to have certain uh uh uh you know uh uh uh certain things that will trade during that time where that's gonna be a value, uh, you know, whether it's protection for yourself, whatever that protection maybe based on the laws that your state offers with rifles, with you know, guns, with ammo.
There's a level of protection as a former military guy that you see that in case something somebody tries to do anything to your family.
But you know, you have to be ready with that part economically.
We know what uh does well when people think it's the end of the world, we know what investments do very well.
When people are extremely cocky, we know what does well and what doesn't do well.
So right now, people are way too cocky.
People are way too confident.
There's way too much fake success in America today.
Way, way too much fake success in America today.
And uh people assuming that this is gonna last forever are naive because inflation cannot stay at the rates it's at today.
It's gonna go up.
Michael Burry the other day was talking about what he's shorting and what is longing.
He said he showed he bought puts for Facebook, uh because he he uh uh I'm sorry, he he bought uh um uh yeah, he bought um I'm sorry, he bought puts, meaning that they're not gonna do good.
Tesla, 730 million dollars of options he's got on Tesla, that Tesla's gonna go down.
Now, on the opposite side, he's about call options on CBS, Walmart, because Walmart is not gonna if if market collapses, people need to go buy this stuff because they need to buy Walmart's not going to go away.
Right, Facebook's not gonna go away, Google's not gonna go away because people are gonna need those ads.
So he's sitting there weighing it up, but at the same time, he's saying one of the biggest collapses is coming up uh with the direction markets going in.
You can't constantly set aside inflation, not inflation, interest rates and keep them low for five, six, seven, eight years, assuming everything's gonna be normal.
No, when these are rates, this is the rates.
When rates are low, this is how it looks like when rates are low, prices of home are high.
But when rates are high, prices of home drops.
Rates are right now low, which means a million dollar home today could be a 600,000 home in 12 months if rates change.
So there's a lot of fake success and fake money being made.
And when this thing happens, you're gonna know who was really ready for it and who was not.
And we know history tells us more than half of people when they create a lot of fake success lose everything they had because they were not ready for rainy.
Well, I'm thinking that I'm very friendly toward um Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain tech as a whole, generally long term.
But one of the things that Burry has said that I find very interesting is how um how leveraged Bitcoin is.
I think there's a lot of people that have maxed out credit cards and put money in because that you know, it's like it's like it feels like gambling.
The volatility feels like gambling.
I mean, yeah, when you make 50 grand on a on a $5,000 investment within six months, it feels like you won the lottery.
And frankly, you did win the lottery.
It's basically what you did.
But if you max out a credit card in order to put that five grand in and then it dives down to $500 a coin or whatever, you're in you're in you're in big trouble.
So you know, what do you what are your thoughts on what's gonna happen to cryptocurrency in the event of a stock market-wide collapse?
Do you think there's gonna be initial dive in in in value?
I'll give you both sides.
So how many billionaires do we have that made a reckless that not how many billionaires do we have that made became a billionaire because they made a Reckless decision that worked in their favor.
Many.
So let me say that one more time.
We have a lot of billionaires that became billionaires because they made a reckless decision at a time where they got lucky.
So the point here.
You got certain people that have made a lot of money because they put 100% of their money in Bitcoin or Ethereum and they refinance, cashed out the equity out of their house, and they put it in crypto, and boom, and everybody calls them a genius, right?
During that moment, you're a genius.
But the moment it flips and that goes down and you lose all of that, plus the equity in your house, plus your credit card debt, plus all of that, plus the divorce, plus hell, plus anxiety, and you have a setback for three to five years, people also call you reckless.
So for every one person that becomes lucky and uh, you know, uh all of a sudden accumulates massive success and massive wealth for themselves because they simply made too big of a risky decision.
There's 99 people that are under, you know, that completely lost everything.
And we're gonna see this.
It's just time will tell.
You're not gonna know who's right, who's wrong?
But Michael Burry's not wrong in what he's saying.
When you in 2006, 2007, I can't tell you how many people I saw taking money out of 401ks and buying homes because they thought real estate was gonna keep going up and then real estate tanks, they lost their 401k, they lost their equity, they lost their house.
Now they got a are you know short sale, now they got all that stuff bankruptcy on their credit, filing, yeah.
It's it was a mess.
So, yes, some people are being overly greedy right now at a time that maybe it's not a good idea to be too greedy.
Interesting.
So do you think that we do you think that we're on the on the brink of um some sort of massive financial disruption in terms of all the inflating that we're doing to our currency?
And I think people forget that inflation really is a poor tax because it really only hurts people that don't have enough, the paycheck to paycheck class because is there people that don't have enough money to invest in assets that appreciate at the same rate or a higher rate even yet than inflation?
And so what happens is their buying power just goes away.
And and I wish that there was a way for us to communicate that to the average American person that these stimulus packages aren't just handouts, they are actually taxes on those who they claim to help the most.
Um, and I don't know, my concern is that if we continue to go down this road, we're gonna be in a position where there's really no middle class, there's only the incredibly poor and the incredibly rich.
It's in the it's and and maybe somebody wants that.
We don't know that.
Maybe somebody wants that to become a reality.
And you don't know why, but maybe maybe a group of people want the level of uh relying on a government to take care of them.
Maybe that's an automatic vote for that party.
Maybe that's an automatic control to that community.
Maybe, maybe that's part of the strategy.
You don't know that.
I don't know that.
We don't know that.
But uh, if we continue to go the way we're going, that's uh possibility is very likely.
Do you anticipate increased regulation on Bitcoin and blockchain tech?
Because you know, it's as as incredible as as the tech is and decentralized it is as it is, it would be very easy for the government to just shut down all the exchanges, hyper-regulate, hyper monitor, make it illegal to transact.
Um, do you think that we're we're uh gonna face those sorts of challenges over the next decade?
I do, and here's why.
Here's why.
Think about the DNA of a person that that is a crypto that supports crypto.
Think about the DNA of a crypto person, right?
Think about the DNA of an entrepreneur, think about the wiring of a job creator, they're driven by what?
Freedom.
They're driven by what?
Not that many rules.
They're driven by what?
Breaking rules.
They're driven by leave me alone, let me choose, let me do what I want to do, right?
That's the wiring of that community.
Now, flip it.
What's the DNA and a wiring of somebody that's aspires to be a politician and work for the government?
How are they wired?
What motivates them?
How do they get even?
How do they win the war?
They don't like these guys that become self-made.
They can't stand self-made people.
They can't stand billionaires, they can't stand those guys.
So how do they compete against them?
In a very simple way.
They say, You want to go make all that money?
No problem.
You know how I'm gonna make your life a living kill?
How?
I'm driven by control, and the way I control is by creating laws and regulation.
And the more they see these crypto people making money and achieving success, and crypto people are big trolls.
They talk a lot of shit.
The crypto community is not very quiet.
They're loud, they're not, they're trollers.
Right?
They're not like Peter Thiel quietly in the background making shit happen and keeping their mouth shut.
Well, he's a different story, though.
He's a different story.
He's in a league of his own.
But he's amazing.
He's amazing.
Yeah, he's in a league of his own.
So and these guys who are driven by power, by force, by control, all they say is, wait till you see how I regulate you.
Wait till you see how I make your life a living kill.
They throw an audit, they throw a new law, they throw a new this.
It's a very unique way.
So and they have no control over it right now.
They have some, but they don't have that much control over that they want.
They're salivating over control in that community.
Salivating.
Yeah.
Well, and part of the beauty of Moore's law and what we've seen the last 20 years with the development of tech, in my opinion, is that we've been able to innovate faster than government can regulate.
But it seems like that is curbing a little bit.
And I don't know why.
I'm not so I don't have a sophisticated enough understanding of tech and economics in order to say why.
But it does feel as if the regulatory power of the government is starting to move at a at as fast or faster of a rate than the innovative capacity of tech uh has been the last few years.
And I don't know if it's for economic reasons or what's going on, but it seems to me that as long as we're innovating faster than they're regulating, that you know, we're gonna have sort of an edge over regulators and we're gonna have a lean uh a bend toward uh freedom and liberty on thing on the internet and with the with these technologies.
But if that innovation can't outpace regulation, then we could be in serious trouble.
Yeah, I mean, you make a good point, but never underestimate the power of a control freak who likes uh regulating and uh telling you what to do, who cannot stand free thinkers, who independently make their money without needing their help.
You know, there are people who are offended when you don't think you need them.
Let me say that one more time.
There are egotistical people who are offended when you don't need them.
And those are folks who work for the government.
Many politicians are offended when a business owner said, No, I'm good, I got it.
If you need a permit, just let me know.
No, I got it.
We're under control.
No, you need me.
No, no, we got it.
We're cool.
Right.
If you need a permit, let me know.
Johnny, I'm telling you, we don't need to permit.
What do you mean you don't need me?
So now he has to create a problem for you for you to need him.
They're obsessed with you needing them.
There's this mentality that's so strange with the folks that are driven by force and control.
How do we get people who like you who are otherwise totally uninterested in being in politics in a direct way?
How do we get good people in to get involved in the in the public sector to run for office, to run for Congress, to run for Senate?
I mean, because it's one of those things where I I I would hate to do it.
Yeah, I mean, listen, what what what I what I would I had a meeting this uh Sunday morning, eight o'clock.
One of the bigger fundraisers for uh uh uh Trump was at my house, and one of the bigger donors, pretty well connected lady was at my house, and we're having a meeting together, and they're talking about do you have any desire of ever doing any kind of politics, stuff like that?
And I said, you know, I I love doing business, I love building business.
They're saying, well, you know, what if this, what if that?
And I said, Listen, it's not the first time I was in California at 29 years old, and it uh of a guy that was a pretty connected guy, sat down and had a conversation with me if I have any aspirations to be in a governor in California.
I said, I'm good.
I love business way too much.
I think the way I see it is the following way.
Uh I'm in Chicago, and in Chicago, I'm sitting at the Ritz Carlton.
I go downstairs from my hotel, I see 2,000 young, good-looking, sharp, well-dressed African American ladies, gents talking eloquent speakers, and I said, guys, what is going on here?
I go into the room, I open up wow, insane.
I said, What's going on?
We are uh the future African American uh men and women lawyers of America.
Who inspires you guys?
Barack Obama.
So good for you guys.
Good for you that somebody is selling that vision to go law.
Why?
Because you can create new laws, you can control, you can argue.
There's a lot of power in being a lawyer, right?
They they know how to make life a living kill, but they're also necessary in certain instances.
The free thinker community, they're so competitive, and there's so much about being left alone that sometimes they don't want to come together and sit down.
Let's get all the smart guys in a room who are like fully on the same page of free thinkers.
Get a hundred of them in the same room together.
And we ask, who would actually run?
Nobody.
Who do you know that would run?
And you talk to one another.
What are we going to do with the virtual governments?
What's the plan?
How are we going to go directly?
Virtual governments is in big tech.
You mean?
Yeah, this is what I talked to Rogan about.
And how are we going to go up against Twitter, YouTube, Facebook?
These guys are going to keep getting bigger.
What's our great equalizer?
We don't own mainstream media, but we also don't own social media.
And now many people on the left can't stand Facebook because their worry is they have the mainstream media in their pocket.
They don't have Facebook in their pocket.
They got to get rid of Facebook because God forbid, if Facebook allows the right to drive their campaigns, maybe they can win some elections.
So we have to figure out a way to hurt Facebook.
Now don't get me wrong.
I interviewed a whistleblower yesterday who was a former moderator for Facebook, and he told me what things was going on.
Facebook's got some problems that they got to address.
No question about it.
But I would much rather have that button of controlling the content be controlled by Facebook than that button being controlled by somebody at the government.
If Facebook's buttons controlled by someone in the government, you're screwed.
You're over with because they're already going to get access to everything you're talking about.
It's it's catastrophic.
If that does take place.
So my suggestion would be bring the 100 heads together from different industries.
Hollywood, real estate, business, media, sports, talent, sports ownership, and pick place to go where you go and sit down and have a two-day meeting together.
And then put up the top 10 issues.
How do we address these?
And then recruit people.
Hey, we think you ought to run.
We think you ought to run.
You know, Johnny, we think the way you communicate, you ought to run.
Run for what?
Whatever.
Go Senate, go governor, go president.
But you gotta, you gotta get involved in I have no interest.
And then there's gonna be the woman and selling and you know, can because no, you know, like the journey of a hero.
The hero never wants to be the hero.
It's just like literally alone.
And there's some convincing process.
So someone's got to recruit these people.
They're not gonna just wake up and tell them to go to someone's gotta settle behind Cold Zorn and say, You're the guy.
We gotta get you and we're gonna back you up.
That I think that needs to happen a little bit more than it is today.
You know, I really enjoy the part of the conversation that you had with Rogan about um uh the virtual governments, you know, the big tech platforms, specifically with uh social media, uh, not just Google, but social media.
And um, I I thought it was interesting how you asked him if he'd ever thought about starting his own platform.
And I thought he had a great response.
Like, listen, I love my life.
Uh that that's a full-time gig and I love what I'm doing.
But you know, it's when I look at these other platforms like Parlor and Gab and Getter, the problem with them is that they're not looking at how the existing platforms became successful, right?
So if you look at Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, MySpace, even right, if you look at these platforms that actually blew up in a viral way in a very hyper successful way within a short period of time.
What they did was they made something that was fun for everyone that was apolitical, and it had mass adoptive adopt adaptability, right?
And they had different nuance and different strategies to how they specifically executed that.
Facebook was, you know, started out at the elite colleges, MySpace was sort of for everybody with an emphasis on musicians and bands and artists and stuff like that.
So there were differences, there were differences in the details, but when push came to shove, they just made platforms that were fun for everyone to use.
Now, when you look at like getter, gab, and parlor, what they've done is all they've done is leaned on the promise for no censorship, and they've just gotten one hyper-specific demographic to join their platform, primarily people who are Trump supporters who are just pissed off at big tech and elections, right?
So basically you wind up with like three or four platforms that has everybody who would ever say the n-word or disagree with um uh the election results and no one else.
So, what what we need to do from the right, in my opinion, is create a platform that's awesome and just so happens to have freedom of speech.
That's not the branding strategy, that's not the land launch strategy.
We just have to make an awesome social media platform that everybody wants to use.
And then 10 years down the road, when censorship becomes an issue, it's just not gonna be an issue on this new platform.
So I don't know what the solution is there.
And maybe the problem is that the you know the greatest minds in tech aren't traditionally on the right in terms of what education background they have.
They tend to live in Silicon Valley, which is a very blue.
There's sort of uh a very monochromatic um type of person involved in tech.
But I I wish that there were somebody like a teal or you know, like the right's version of a Zuck uh or a Darcy who Could come along and create something new that had the promise of freedom of speech, but did not brand on that promise, you know.
Yeah, I agree.
So, anyway, thank you so much for coming on.
Where can people find you?
Just search my name, Patrick B. David, on Twitter, on Instagram, on YouTube, you'll find it.
Uh, or Value Tainment, either one of them.
Awesome.
Well, it was great to have you on the show.
Thank you so much for taking an hour of your time.
Uh, you were an awesome guest, and uh, I hope that we stay connected.
