Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsShopContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

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

February 13, 2015
Wilson

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.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

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

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.

Is Trump repealing the 14th Amendment? Here's the truth.

NBC / Contributor | Getty Images

Did Trump really promise to put an end to the 14th Amendment, or is this just another mainstream spin?

This past weekend, President-elect Donald Trump sat down on NBC's "Meet the Press" for his first interview since the election. As one might expect, it was a particularly hostile interview, but Trump handled it with grace. The biggest takeaway from the interview was when the interviewer, Kristen Welker, pressed Trump on his immigration plans, specifically his plans to end birthright citizenship.

Despite Walker's claim that the 14th Amendment protected birthright citizenship, Trump defended his stance with the backing of legal scholars, who argue that birthright citizenship has to be granted within the proper "jurisdictional scope." As Glenn reiterated on his show this week, the 14th Amendment was enacted in the context of slavery "not illegal immigration. The 14th Amendment doesn't say, "Come over here, get into a hospital, have a baby, and congratulations, everybody is a citizen."

The media still pushed the narrative that Trump is trying to overstep the 14th Amendment.

But what is the truth? What is birthright citizenship, and what does the 14th Amendment actually say about it? Here is everything you need to know about the "birthright citizenship debacle" below:

The media outrage

NBC / Contributor | Getty Images

If you have glanced through any mainstream media articles, they would convince you that Trump will repeal the 14th Amendment altogether and catapult the country back 200 years before slavery was abolished when Congress passed the Constitutional Amendment. But how do these accusations stack up to reality?

What the 14th amendment actually says

NBC / Contributor | Getty Images

To get to the bottom of this, we have to understand what the 14th Amendment actually says and the context in which it was created.

During Trump's NBC interview, Welker "quoted" the 14th Amendment as "all persons born in the United States are citizens," but anyone who took a government class in high school can tell you that is wrong. The actual14th Amendment says:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Notice that Welker conveniently left out "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." This was no simple oversight.

First, let's define what birthright citizenship actually is and how it relates to the 14th Amendment. Birthright citizenship is an interpretation of the previously quoted section of the 14th Amendment: that by simply being born on U.S. soil, you are automatically granted U.S. citizenship. This has been the historic interpretation of the amendment. However, the border crisis has been incentivized by an abuse of birthright citizenship, which is colloquially called "anchor babies." This refers to when a pregnant woman crosses the border, gives birth, and is granted residency since her child is automatically given U.S. citizenship.

However, Trump says the clause "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" could enable the federal government to crack down on this abuse of birthright citizenship. If a person is here illegally, then they are not under the jurisdiction of the U.S., and therefore, their child would not be given automatic citizenship. This would not apply to legal immigrants who have secured citizenship, despite any claims to the contrary.

What Trump actually said

NBC / Contributor | Getty Images

When questioned about the constitutionality of ending birthright citizenship and the possibility of using executive orders to get around the 14th Amendment, Trump's first suggestion was to pose a potential amendment to the 14th Amendment as a national vote. When Welker pushed back, Trump stressed the importance of ending birthright citizenship and conceded that, if necessary, he would use an executive order.

As usual, the mainstream media has spun a mountain out of a molehill and blown the entire issue out of proportion. They have spun Trump's reasonable and legal proposition into a dictatorial decree that would send the country back 200 years.