YouSaid · the spoken record

Bill Browder

lines on the record: 85
first: 2019-09-23
most recent: 2019-09-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, I On a symmetric basis, they lost it. But now they're playing plausibly deniable asymmetry and they're winning it right now. Vladimir Putin is just laughing at the chaos that he's created, at all the anger, the sort of intellectual and cultural civil war that's been created with all of this stuff, which costs him nothing, 100 million bucks, 200 million bucks is the cost of the budget of the internet research agency and the other people that are doing this stuff. I mean, compare that to the military budget that they can't compete with. Right.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, what's interesting is, I call it the New Cold War. They lost the Cold War and they certainly were inadequate to the task of winning it, by the way. I mean, I think we overstated their abilities. On a semiconductor,”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go ahead. It's the same thing. It's the technology which they've mastered and they've mastered it on Twitter. They've mastered it on Facebook. And it's very, very difficult. It's difficult for two reasons to stop. One is there's no rules, the legislative legislation to say that people can't do it. And it doesn't appear as if these companies, these major social media companies, have any proper barriers in place to stop it. And they don't seem to feel responsible. I mean, it's interesting. If BP does an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, they get sued for billions and billions of dollars for the damage they caused. Facebook and Twitter have caused a lot of damage. There's no question it's acknowledged, it's been proven, but they're not taking any responsibility. And so until there is something.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the Russians are good technologically. And when I say Russians, I should say certain people in the Russian part of the Russian government. Not all Russians are bad, but the Putin regime is bad. And they're out there on a very, very, what I would call low-cost, high impact basis. They've got this troll farm in St. Petersburg where the internet or research agency. And I know all about that because I'm one of their targets constantly. If you ever want to tweet something nice about me, you'll have like 50 tweets underneath you from the troll farm from all these supposed Americans saying terrible things.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if you look at Russia right now, Russia has got an economy the size of the state of New York. The military budget is 90% less than the US military budget. And it's such a corrupt country that 80% of the military budget gets stolen. So it's really 2% of the U.S. military budget. But at the same time, there's sort of Vladimir Putin wants to be a proud, muscular, aggressive country, but they can't do it on a symmetric basis. And so what they do is they go out and they try to find places where they can be asymmetric. In other words, where they can sort of hide in the shadows and cause trouble. And one of the best places to do that these days is the internet. And the internet that's all sort of plausibly deniable, it's all diffused. Nobody knows who doing what to whom.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're back with Bill and Josh Broder. Bill is the CEO of the Hermitage Capital Management, and Josh, his son, is the CEO of Do Not Pay, which has been talking about his business. I want to get into what it like to be an entrepreneur today. But one of the things that you've zeroed on, even though you're dealing with sort of high-level international finance stakes, is the Russian continue to abuse an abuse of platforms for their benefit and against the benefit of consumers, voters, and different and to manipulate people. Talk a little bit about that because I think it does the ability of them to do it so easily had a lot to do with how they're.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see. So I want to talk a minute about entrepreneurs when we get back, like what the entrepreneur mentality is among young people now. And then, Bill, I'd like to talk with you. It's like the same thing sort of happens with services we use and the Russians taking advantage of those things when we get back. We're here with Bill and Josh Browder, their father and son, and they have some very different and interesting things they're doing both related to the internet.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, maybe an octopus, but 80% of America have anxiety, and pets can be really comforting for that. And so we just want to make, and this thing already exists, you have to pay like $500. So it's available to the rich. What we want to do is make these tools available to everyone”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's all down to the budget. I'm not sure how big Facebook's budget is this year, but if you compare that to what the average American's budget is with a negative bank account, it can explain why they can afford to hire so many people to figure this out.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Other than pro corporation, why do you imagine the internet has gotten so far away from that idea of consumers being the focus versus least corporations?”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Few. No, I understand. Thank you so much. But I've already had a problem that, oh, I could switch the credit card. No, I'm not on a freeze. Anyway, let's not go into my ridiculous problems with America Online that continue to this day 30, 20 years later. So sorry, go ahead. So the idea is the idea of doing things that are not necessarily in the interest of taking advantage of people.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way to trick all the big companies into getting past the payments grip. I just had a fight with someone over this. Yes, they kept going”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And lots of people set calendar reminders, but they ultimately forget to cancel. And so what we've done is we created this free trial credit card that you can use on all your subscription free trials and you never have to worry because when you use it, it will just cancel the free trial for you.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that as we speak, people are brainstorming in every big corporation. How can you get the most money? How can you get the most data? Meanwhile, as a person, you're just feeling incredibly exploited and you need a way to fight back.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So talk about the idea of people's rights on the internet because I think you're at the heart. The reason I did want to talk to you is because you're at the heart of, I think, a growing feeling that the internet is controlling you vice versa. And you could do this on privacy. You could do this all kinds of ways is that you're just an object to be acted upon. And you haven't been able to use the powers of these amazing technologies for yourself, except for maybe finding a date or getting your car delivered to you at the right time.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But one thing I would say that I've learned from my father is that I'm never phased by anything. I remember waking up when he was stuck in Russia. They were detaining him at the airport. I've seen really terrible things. And so when some lawyer or someone is after me, something that would scare the average person, really I don't care that much.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the concept, Josh, is that you've been, he's been doing it on a macro level. This is a major macro level, an international, global, and macro level, and you're doing it on the micro level. How do they fit together? Was that being a justice entrepreneur?”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he's also a justice activist. And so what I discovered, I mean, I loved being an investment guy. I loved the intellectual challenge and, you know, being right was measured by investment returns. And that was all very wonderful and very satisfying. And nothing wrong with it. But I have to say that fighting for justice is literally a thousand times more satisfying than fighting for money. And one of the things that I'm most proud of with Josh was that he's found a way to combine the two in his life and his career. He's one of the most successful young people I know. He started a company, he raised venture capital to fight for consumer rights, to fight big corporations, and to sort of level the playing field. And so I'd like to think that maybe a little bit of parenting had something to do with that.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What does that do? What does that do to a person? I mean, it's interesting to be able to move away and create that. And I don't want to talk about how you, you know, you have a son who's entrepreneurial.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, thanks, Bill. Unexpected consequences. Unexpected consequences. So you were doing your own thing. You were investing and things like that. Moving away into this area when you wrote about and read notice.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was on that basis, and on the basis of Putin's general predisposition towards Donald Trump and away from Hillary Clinton, that he pushed for Donald Trump to become the president of the United States because at the top of his list was repealing the Magnitsky Act. And so in a very weird and strange way, this one murder over my lawyer has led to the motivation for Russia to interfere in the U.S. elections.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So after the Magnitsky Act was passed, Putin said it was his number one foreign policy priority to repeal the Magnitsky Act. And if you remember, there's a very famous meeting in which a Russian lawyer went to Trump Tower on June 9th, 2016. Her name was Natalia Veselnitskaya. She represented the Putin regime, and she was there specifically to ask Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner if Donald Trump is elected. This is before he was elected. If he's elected, would he repeal the Magnitsky Act?”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in terms of moving to do something like that, because a lot of it, you know, a lot of, there's a lot of Russian players in tech and all kinds of stuff, and obviously the Russian interference in the elections, it has been in the news. But this is sort of more at the heart of their issues, right? The money.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And in 2012, the Magnitsky Act was up for vote. It passed 92 to 4 in the Senate. 89% of the House of Representatives. And it became a federal law on December 14, 2012. And this became probably the single biggest irritant for Vladimir Putin because he's a human rights violator and he's got a lot of assets. And this puts his money at risk.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we couldn't get justice in Russia because the people who killed Sergei were protected by Putin. He actually openly exonerated them. And so we said, we need to get justice in the West. And how do we get justice in the West? Well, the answer is that the Russians who commit these crimes, who With a Democratic senator named Benjamin Cardin and Republican Senator John McCain. And of all the things that people don't agree on in Washington, the one thing they could agree on was that Russian tortures and murders shouldn't come to America and shouldn't be able to spend their money here.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hedge fund manager in Russia, I ended up exposing corruption. I was expelled from the country, but Putin declared a threat to national security. Offices were raided. I hired a young lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky to help me defend myself. He uncovered a $230 million Russian government corruption scheme. And he exposed it and he was subsequently arrested in Russia, put in pre-trial detention, tortured for 358 days, and killed 10 years ago at the age of 37. And so I put aside my hedge fund business entirely and now am a human rights activist focusing on justice for Sergei Magnitsky and justice for other victims of the Putin regime.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Bill, so you have a hedge fund manager. You make investments and things like that. You have a little more of a reputation for other things.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And so this idea of people joining online has been lost over the years. There used to be a lot of stuff early on in the internet time when there was going to be a lot of buying together. There was going to be a lot of joining together. It sort of shattered into a million ugly little pieces for a lot of people.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why You will do that. Yes. You will do that, or else you'll just say we're an unleashed legal documentation on you because everybody shares the same gripes.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see do not pay as a sort of consumer union. We have workers' unions, so why not have a consumer union? If we have millions of people using our service, one day we can go to a Comcast and say, you have to treat all of our customers better, or you'll face havoc.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a result. And so, what's the big picture of doing this besides you getting parking tickets? Which often entrepreneurial idea comes from stuff like this. But what's the bigger, how can you carry it out to a larger idea of certain acts that we think of as sort of artisanal almost, that we have to hire lawyers? I've interviewed a divorce lawyer who said a lot of this can be automated, for example”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sir Equifax leaked the credentials of hundreds of millions of Americans, and as a result, they got hacked, they had credit card fraud. And so everyone was waiting for this class action settlement years later where everyone, it now appears people won't even get like dozens of dollars. And so what we said is why not take Equifax, a small claims court using technology? And when we did it, lots of lawyers said this will never work. But because it's very difficult for an average person to just read a script and prove negligence against a large corporation. So it was really an experiment, but it was actually successful. We had hundreds of people win thousands of dollars against Equifax.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they have to go to this fall claims court. How different is from Nolo or some of the other sites that provide forms and things like that?”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The law. So, the concept of robot lawyer, I mean, I welcome it. I have to say, I welcome our robot overlords in general. But talking about the concept, because a lot of legal stuff is, you know, a lot of people talk about AI replacing this and that and everything else, but legal stuff seems perfect in that regard.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you for having me. So I met Bill at a party in an Aspen Security Summit where we were talking about lots of important security issues, which Bill is rather familiar. He told me about Josh's company, which is a startup in San Francisco, correct? That's right. I wanted to sort of get them together to talk about this, not just a father and son, but where entrepreneurism right now, we're investing, is what's important thing. So let's start first with you, Josh. Explain your company. Do not pay.”
2019-09-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT