What does the future hold? Glenn talks to entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis

February 13, 2015

Writer

Does college matter? What happens when 50% of current jobs disappear? What does the future look like? These are the kinds of questions that people across the country need to be asking, but many don't even know where to start looking for the answers. To help fix that problem, Glenn has started to seek out strange bedfellows, many of whom are on the cutting edge of shaping the future. Jason Calacanis is an angel investor, entrepreneur, and blogger. He knows better than most what the future holds, and more importantly how to prepare.

Start listening to the interview at 1 hour 36min into today's podcast:

Below is a rush transcript of this interview

GLENN: This is crazy. I don't want to make this about politics. I want to make this about the future. Does college matter really? Or is it what -- how you learn to think and can you remain nimble enough in your thinking. I don't want someone who's gone to college and just learned how to think in a box. If you can go to college and learn to think outside of the box, great, but too many times college is making you just draw this straight line that everybody is going down. The world is not like that anymore. We have Jason Calacanis on. He is really the father of the blog. He started one of his web logs back in -- I don't know when. Sold it to AOL for $30 million in 2005, and he's an angel investor, has been investing in some of the greatest new technology around. And he also runs something call This week in start-ups. He's also one of the biggest entrepreneurial festivals that go on called Launch Festival, and Launch Festival happens in march. I am actually going to speak there in San Francisco. 10,000 entrepreneurs come to this, and think out of the box.

So I wanted to start with Jason there. Does college matter in the future to the extent of you would be concerned about someone who didn't finish college?

CALACANIS: Great question. Thanks for having me, Glenn. One of the major issues is the value proposition. $10,000 for four years or $20,000 or whatever you paid and I am a little younger than you, maybe $30,000 for four years for me, as a product of Fordham University.

One year salary. Maybe it seems like an okay thing it would for a couple of years, as you mature, but do go into debt, the equivalent of five year's salary, no, makes so sense. Then if you look at what truly matters in the world, to make it today, a combination of skills that are in demand, that go out of demand probably every five, ten, 15 years for some of these very specific skills, programming a specific computer language, using a specific peat of design software. What you need to have is grit, ethics, morality, leadership and resolve. When I look at entrepreneurs, people always ask me hey, how did you pick Thumbtack or Uber or some of these? I said I picked the individuals, not the ideas. If you look in someone's eyes and you can feel the passion and you can hear the logic and the decision-making and problem-solving they approach a space with, whatever the space happens to be -- for you, it would be media. For me, it would be angel investing -- their approach and resolve and problem-solving leadership ability, these are the things that matter. We have to re-optimize the school systems for those things and even if we do, the fact is, we are going to live in a world with much less employment and that's going to be a scary thing for everybody, independent of party mines, so I know this show gets a little political at times, but when you look at just the world and the flattening of the world, which means hey, everybody is going to trend towards the same arrow we wage at some point, and that is happening, and there's too many workers in the world, we are going to live in a negative job economy.

GLENN: What does that mean? I was just talking to my son last night. He's 10. We were talking about great cars. I said when you are my age, you will tell your kid, when they are your age now that you remember when your dad drove cars, and you drove a car, but you probably won't -- you may live in a world where you are not allowed to drive a car anymore. And as I was having this conversation, what I really wanted to say to him -- and by the way, it will be a scary world, because by the time you get out of college, if you go, 50% of all the jobs that are currently available, are going to be gone. I can say that, but I don't know what that really looks like. What does that mean, that we are going to be in a much more jobless world?

CALACANIS: You can see what it looks like. If you go to the Middle East, if you go to some of the underperforming European countries, referred to as the pigs, perch gal, Italy, Greece, Spain, and you see what happens when 20-something-year-old males hit 20, 30, 40% unemployment, it means riots in the street. And it could mean people hanging out, drinking coffee all day, getting a stipend from the government, looking for somebody to hate for their lot in life. And having a lack of purpose in life is dangerous. Those are the people who can get picked up presently easily by people who are using religion Todd bad things in the world and drugs and just whatever?

GLENN: So who is doing anything on that?

CALACANIS: Very interesting question. Now you are getting to the heart of it, which is hey, we have a lot of rich people in the world, right? Polarization of wealth is happening. What do the billionaires think? What do the people in true power think, the people running these huge companies? They are staying up late about it. I have had many after night thinking about this issue, and there are some creative solutions. I think we will work it out and we'll be in a beautiful world in the future. What's going to happen, we'll have to-start thinking of creative solutions. I am kind of against this as a workaholic, group up with an Irish-Catholic for work ethic, we will move to a four-day work week. If you give everybody three days offer, we have created 20% more employment on a mass basis. Another one, double the number of teachers, double the number of health care workers. And you do that, then the number -- amount of time they each have to have with each of the people that are working with would double or triple. Those would be good things for society. Of course, if you say anything creative like that in the environment that we live in -- and you are part of that environment as someone who talks about this at stuff -- you have to be careful. If I said that, oh, you are a socialist. I would say I don't know what you mean by that word in this context N 2015, but the world is moving awfully quick. When a lot of people are under employed and you see Operation Wall Street, that was like our little preview of what happens when a group of people gets disenfranchised. That was a completely ad hoc poorly run organization. That's why none of us are thinking about it all that much today, but they had a great moment in New York -- I mean effective. I'm not endorsing it necessarily -- but they went to Bloomberg's house, put 30, 40 people out of his town house and started protesting. When that happens, someone like Mike Bloomberg will be like if you are taking it to my front porch and I have to deal with this, okay, that four day work week thing works well. Or let's think about -- the really scary one, which I was dead set guest, now I am kind of starting to think about, is minimum income. This is a super-interesting --

GLENN: Whoa.

CALACANIS: I know you are thinking -- what minimum income means is cancel all the social programs and just give everybody innocent country $1,000 a month. If all the social programs -- we have 300 million people, equals this amount of dollars, just give everyone $1,000 a month. Then, rich people get it too. Everybody gets it. You could probably waive it or something, but at least your rent and your health care, whatever would be paid for. Not necessarily endorsing its, but if we got to 40% unemployment and had to figure out what to do with everybody, oh, my God -- this is probably at the end of our lifetimes.

GLENN: This is -- I will tell you, this is something we do -- this is the kind of thinking that I think middle America needs to start hearing. Instead of just hearing the stat, there's going to be a loss of 50% of jobs buy the year 2025, someone has to start talking about what does that really mean. What does that look like. And what do people do? Because that's the -- what's happening right now, I think we are being led by the elites, and it's because nobody is talking about this with regular people. So they just -- we are just fed this technology and just like oh, we have this technology, but no one is thinking about the ethics of it, no one is thinking about the consequences of it, no one is thinking about what it means when it starts to punch in and what it means for our children, my child, who is 10, when they are 25. What does the world look like? Not the way it looks now.

CALACANIS: It will be completely different. If we put ourselves back in time when we were kid, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever it might be, the idea that you didn't work for one company for your entire life and pick that company and get a gold watch an get a pension would be terrorizing, but we don't have pensions today and we don't stay with the same company. There's upside as well. You could go out on your own and be like I don't want to work for a big network or big radio conglomerate. That's the freedom you have got front this unbundling of society and moving away from the control state, where you have this limited number of options. The unbundling -- and you having all this freedom to do whatever you want, the Internet and technology treeing you also means that yeah, the old structures are gone. The unions are gone. We have to have this many people build a car, because a union person said that's how many people its takes to build a car, as opposed to an expert telling us. That's changed.

GLENN: The real challenge here is, if you really do have freedom and the state is not in control of everybody's health, insurance, information, and they have clamped down as a totalitarian state to keep control, then I think we have a chance. But I'm afraid of the growth of the state at the same time, because while people don't like to lose power, governments certainly don't like to lose power.

CALACANIS: One of the things -- I think that interesting is the technology industry -- not endorsing, where observing -- kind of taking over the government and having a big say, just like some of the big industrial companies did for the last 100 years. So Megan Smith previously worked at Google. I'm friendly with her. You will see Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, I think you will see her take a cabinet position in Hillary wins, which looks like she's got a pretty good shot. And so I think you are going to see the technology industry be very involved in government more.

GLENN: Which I have to tell you, scares --

CALACANIS: We're coming.

GLENN: I know.

CALACANIS: We have the money to pay the politicians.

GLENN: I know.

CALACANIS: You know how this thing works.

GLENN: I do. And the idea that it becomes cozy bed fellows with everybody having a back door is really disturbing. The NSA is very disturbing.

STU: Can I ask a more important question here? How the hell did you get the Twitter name @jason?

CALACANIS: Good story. I'm at brunch with my friend Evan and Biz Stone. He created a blogging company. And I was in blogging. And he said look. Biz will tell you he's -- I will tell you I'm having the oatmeal, and you tell everybody you are having the pancakes. The SMS -- it was all SMS-based at that point -- shows what you had.

I looked at him and said Evan, you are going backwards in your career. Look, you took this post and got rid of the blog. Do you realize every idiot in America is going to start telling us what they think in a -- can I curse on this show? I was about to say the F word. It's not even a full sentence. It's a fragment. This is going to be a cacophony of idiotcy. I would never invest in something with a name such as Twitter. That's when you learn nobody knows. And if you think you know, you don't. Therefore --

GLENN: I would love to have you on again. I would love to -- in San Francisco, it should be quite interesting with two of us in San Francisco, taught about what future holds. Thank you so how much. Jason Calacanis. Launchfestival.com is the web site and thisweekinstartups.com.

Washington Post EXPOSED: How Watergate editors almost published a fake Pulitzer Prize-winning story

Episode 6 of Glenn’s new history podcast series The Beck Story releases this Saturday.

This latest installment explores the history of Left-wing bias in mainstream media. Like every episode of this series, episode 6 is jam-packed with historical detail, but you can’t squeeze in every story, so some inevitably get cut from the final version. Part of this episode involves the late Ben Bradlee, who was the legendary editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee is legendary mostly because of the Watergate investigation that was conducted on his watch by two young reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Bradlee, Woodward, and Bernstein became celebrities after the release of the book and movie based on their investigation called All the President’s Men.

But there is another true story about the Washington Post that you probably won’t see any time soon at a theater near you.

In 1980, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee wanted to expand the Post’s readership in the black community. The paper made an effort to hire more minority journalists, like Janet Cooke, a black female reporter from Ohio. Cooke was an aggressive reporter and a good writer. She was a fast-rising star on a staff already full of stars. The Post had a very competitive environment and Cooke desperately wanted to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Readers were hooked. And outraged.

When Cooke was asked to work on a story about the D.C. area’s growing heroin problem, she saw her chance to win that Pulitzer. As she interviewed people in black neighborhoods that were hardest hit by the heroin epidemic, she was appalled to learn that even some children were heroin addicts. When she learned about an eight-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy, she knew she had her hook. His heartbreaking story would surely be her ticket to a Pulitzer.

Cooke wrote her feature story, titling it, “Jimmy’s World.” It blew away her editors at the Post, including Bob Woodward, who by then was Assistant Managing Editor. “Jimmy’s World” would be a front-page story:

'Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict,' Cooke’s story began, 'a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms. He nestles in a large, beige reclining chair in the living room of his comfortably furnished home in Southeast Washington. There is an almost cherubic expression on his small, round face as he talks about life – clothes, money, the Baltimore Orioles and heroin. He has been an addict since the age of 5.'

Readers were hooked. And outraged. The mayor’s office instructed the police to immediately search for Jimmy and get him medical treatment. But no one was able to locate Jimmy. Cooke wasn’t surprised. She told her editors at the Post that she had only been able to interview Jimmy and his mother by promising them anonymity. She also revealed that the mother’s boyfriend had threatened Cooke’s life if the police discovered Jimmy’s whereabouts.

A few months later, Cooke’s hard work paid off and her dream came true – her story was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Cooke had to submit some autobiographical information to the Prize committee, but there was a slight snag. The committee contacted the Post when they couldn’t verify that Cooke had graduated magna cum laude from Vassar College. Turns out she only attended Vassar her freshman year. She actually graduated from the University of Toledo with a B.A. degree, not with a master’s degree as she told the Pulitzer committee.

Cooke’s editors summoned her for an explanation. Unfortunately for Cooke and the Washington Post, her resume flubs were the least of her lies. After hours of grilling, Cooke finally confessed that “Jimmy’s World” was entirely made up. Jimmy did not exist.

The Pulitzer committee withdrew its prize and Cooke resigned in shame. The Washington Post, the paper that uncovered Watergate – the biggest political scandal in American history – failed to even vet Cooke’s resume. Then it published a front-page, Pulitzer Prize-winning feature story that was 100 percent made up.

Remarkably, neither Ben Bradlee nor Bob Woodward resigned over the incident. It was a different time, but also, the halo of All the President’s Men probably saved them.

Don’t miss the first five episodes of The Beck Story, which are available now. And look for Episode 6 this Saturday, wherever you get your podcasts.

5 Democrats who have endorsed Kamala (and two who haven't)

Zach Gibson / Stringer, Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

With Biden removed from the 2024 election and only a month to find a replacement before the DNC, Democrats continue to fall in line and back Vice President Kamala Harris to headline the party's ticket. Her proximity and familiarity with the Biden campaign along with an endorsement from Biden sets Harris up to step into Biden's shoes and preserve the momentum from his campaign.

Glenn doesn't think Kamala Harris is likely to survive as the assumed Democratic nominee, and once the DNC starts, anything could happen. Plenty of powerful and important Democrats have rallied around Harris over the last few days, but there have been some crucial exemptions. Here are five democrats that have thrown their name behind Harris, and two SHOCKING names that didn't...

Sen. Dick Durbin: ENDORSED

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High-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin officially put in his support for Harris in a statement that came out the day after Biden stepped down: “I’m proud to endorse my former Senate colleague and good friend, Vice President Kamala Harris . . . our nation needs to continue moving forward with unity and not MAGA chaos. Vice President Harris was a critical partner in building the Biden record over the past four years . . . Count me in with Kamala Harris for President.”

Michigan Gov. Whitmer: ENDORSED

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The Monday after Biden stepped down from the presidential VP hopeful, Gretchen Whitmer released the following statement on X: “Today, I am fired up to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States [...] In Vice President Harris, Michigan voters have a presidential candidate they can count on to focus on lowering their costs, restoring their freedoms, bringing jobs and supply chains back home from overseas, and building an economy that works for working people.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ENDORSED

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Mere hours after Joe Biden made his announcement, AOC hopped on X and made the following post showing her support: "Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States. I pledge my full support to ensure her victory in November. Now more than ever, it is crucial that our party and country swiftly unite to defeat Donald Trump and the threat to American democracy. Let’s get to work."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: ENDORSED

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Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is arguably one of the most influential democrats, backed Harris's campaign with the following statement given the day after Biden's decision: “I have full confidence she will lead us to victory in November . . . My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal, and political.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: ENDORSED

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Massasschesets Senator Elizabeth Warren was quick to endorse Kamala, releasing the following statement shortly after Harris placed her presidential bid: "I endorse Kamala Harris for President. She is a proven fighter who has been a national leader in safeguarding consumers and protecting access to abortion. As a former prosecutor, she can press a forceful case against allowing Donald Trump to regain the White House. We have many talented people in our party, but Vice President Harris is the person who was chosen by the voters to succeed Joe Biden if needed. She can unite our party, take on Donald Trump, and win in November."

Former President Barack Obama: DID NOT ENDORSE

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Former President Barack Obama wasted no time releasing the following statement which glaringly omits any support for Harris or any other candidate. Instead, he suggests someone will be chosen at the DNC in August: "We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden's vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond."

Prominent Democratic Donor John Morgan: DID NOT ENDORSE

AP Photo/John Raoux

Prominent and wealthy Florida lawyer and democrat donor John Morgan was clearly very pessimistic about Kamala's odds aginst Trump when he gave the following statement: “You have to be enthusiastic or hoping for a political appointment to be asking friends for money. I am neither. It’s others turn now . . . The donors holding the 90 million can release those funds in the morning. It’s all yours. You can keep my million. And good luck . . . [Harris] would not be my first choice, but it’s a done deal.”

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It occurred just after 6:10 p.m. while Trump was delivering his speech.

Here are the details of the “official” story. The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He used an AR-15 rifle and managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building unnoticed. The Secret Service's counter-response team responded swiftly, according to "the facts," killing Crooks and preventing further harm.

Did it though? That’s what the official story says, so far, but calling this a mere lapse in security by Secret Service doesn't add up. There are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

If Trump had been killed on Saturday, we would be in a civil war today. We would have seen for the first time the president's brains splattered on live television, and because of the details of this, I have a hard time thinking it wouldn't have been viewed as JFK 2.0.

How does someone sneak a rifle onto the rally grounds? How does someone even know that that building is there? How is it that Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting so weird and pacing in front of the metal detectors, and no one seemed to notice? People tried to follow him, but, oops, he got away.

How could the kid possibly even think that the highest ground at the venue wouldn't be watched? If I were Crooks, my first guess would be, "That’s the one place I shouldn't crawl up to with a rifle because there's most definitely going to be Secret Service there." Why wasn't anyone there? Why wasn't anyone watching it? Nobody except the shooter decided that the highest ground with the best view of the rally would be the greatest vulnerability to Trump’s safety.

Moreover, a handy ladder just happened to be there. Are we supposed to believe that nobody in the Secret Service, none of the drones, none of the things we pay millions of dollars for caught him? How did he get a ladder there? If the ladder was there, was it always there? Why was the ladder there? Secret Service welds manhole covers closed when a president drives down a road. How was there a ladder sitting around, ready to climb up to the highest ground at the venue, and the Secret Service failed to take it away?

There is plenty of video of eyewitnesses yelling that there was a guy with a rifle climbing up on a ladder to the roof for at least 120 seconds before the first shot was fired. Why were the police looking for him while Secret Service wasn't? Why did the sniper have him in his sights for over a minute before he took a shot? Why did a cop climb up the ladder to look around? When Thomas Matthew Cooks pointed a gun at him, he then ducked and came down off the ladder. Did he call anyone to warn that this young man had a rifle within range of the president?

How is it the Secret Service has a female bodyguard who doesn't even reach Trump's nipples? How was she going to guard the president's body with hers? How is it another female Secret Service agent pulled her gun out a good four minutes too late, then looked around, apparently not knowing what to do? She then couldn't even get the pistol back into the holster because she's a Melissa McCarthy body double. I don't think it's a good idea to have Melissa McCarthy guarding the president.

Here’s the critical question now: Who trusts the FBI with the shooter’s computer? Will his hard drive get filed with the Nashville manifesto? How is it that the Secret Service almost didn't have snipers at all but decided to supply them only one day before the rally because all the local resources were going to be put on Jill Biden? I want Jill Biden safe, of course. I want Jill Biden to have what the first lady should have for security, but you can’t hire a few extra guys to make sure our candidates are safe?

How is it that we have a Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, whose experience is literally guarding two liters of Squirt and spicy Doritos? Did you know that's her background? She's in charge of the United States Secret Service, and her last job was as the head of security for Pepsi.

This is a game, and that's what makes this sick. This is a joke. There are people in our country who thought it was OK to post themselves screaming about the shooter’s incompetence: “How do you miss that shot?” Do you realize how close we came to another JFK? If the president hadn't turned his head at the exact moment he did, it would have gone into the center of his head, and we would be a different country today.

Now, Joe Biden is also saying that we shouldn't make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. Well, I think we can assume one thing: He wanted to kill the Republican presidential candidate. Can we agree on that at least? Can we assume that much?

How can the media even think of blaming Trump for the rhetoric when the Democrats and the media constantly call him literally worse than Hitler who must be stopped at all costs?

These questions need to be answered if we want to know the truth behind what could have been one of the most consequential days in U.S. history. Yet, the FBI has its hands clasped on all the sources that could point to the truth. There must be an independent investigation to get to the bottom of these glaring “mistakes.”

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Kevin Dietsch / Staff, Chip Somodevilla / Staff, Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Image

It feels like all of the tension that has been building over the last four years has finally burst to the surface over the past month. Many predicted 2024 was going to be one of the most important and tumultuous elections in our lifetimes, but the last two weeks will go down in the history books. And it's not over yet.

The Democratic National Convention is in August, and while Kamala seems to be the likely candidate to replace Biden, anything could happen in Chicago. And if Biden is too old to campaign, isn't he too old to be president? Glenn doesn't think he'll make it as President through January, but who knows?

There is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the current political landscape. Trump came out of the attempted assassination, and the RNC is looking stronger than ever, but who knows what tricks the Democrats have up their sleeves? Let us know your predictions in the poll below:

Glenn's Show Prep

What does the future hold? Glenn talks to entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis

Washington Post EXPOSED: How Watergate editors almost published a fake Pulitzer Prize-winning story

Readers were hooked. And outraged.

5 Democrats who have endorsed Kamala (and two who haven't)

Sen. Dick Durbin: ENDORSED

Michigan Gov. Whitmer: ENDORSED

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ENDORSED

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: ENDORSED

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: ENDORSED

Former President Barack Obama: DID NOT ENDORSE

Prominent Democratic Donor John Morgan: DID NOT ENDORSE

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Is Trump going to win the election?

Did the assassination attempt increase Trump's chances at winning in November?

Did Trump's pick of J.D. Vance help his odds?

Did the Trump-Biden debate in June help Trump's chances?

Did Biden's resignation from the election hand Trump a victory in November?

Do the Democrats have any chance of winning this election?