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Is Silicon Valley actually libertarian?

    Lauren Goode: It sounds like you're kind of on par with the successful tech entrepreneurs surveyed by the junior college in Palo Alto in terms of being liberal.

    Michael Calore: No, I'll go further left than that, I'd say.

    Zoë Schiffer: He sounds like he might be Yang Gang.

    Lauren Goode: Oh, the Yang gang. I interviewed Andrew Yang once.

    Michael Calore: Andrew Yang, he was one of the first big proponents of universal basic income politically, right?

    Lauren Goode: Yes, indeed he was.

    Michael Calore: Well, I don't know anything else about him, so I can't say whether I'm Yang Gang or not.

    Lauren Goode: Mike is going to start a third party, especially for UBI.

    Michael Calore: Oh boy. There's no government like no government, I always say.

    Lauren Goode: Are you saying that?

    Michael Calore: Okay, Lauren, I'll give it back to you. Where do you think this will go in the future?

    Lauren Goode: I'm really struggling to say where this is all going politically because I'm so confused by what's happening in politics right now and I'm still trying to figure it out. I do think that there will be more factions of self-proclaimed libertarianism and that there will be people who adopt certain ideals from the left and right. But I do think the original word loses its meaning.

    Michael Calore: Agreed. I like this new word, liberal.

    Lauren Goode: Yes, but then again, it's 2020 and things are changing quickly.

    Michael Calore: Zoe, what about you?

    Zoë Schiffer: I think we will see more privatization than before. Right now we have people like Elon Musk, who is supposedly going to head the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, and they want to get rid of the Department of Education. So I suspect we'll see private sector solutions to the things that government used to solve.

    Lauren Goode: And in our next episode of Eerie Valleywe're going to unpack all the highly successful companies that were led by two CEOs at the same time.