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TikTok, Tariffs, and Tech Wars: Phil Fersht pods with Fareed Zakaria
142 Plays14 days ago
Global alliances are shifting. Tech stacks are splitting. And social media is reshaping democracy in real time. In this electrifying episode, Fareed Zakaria, a renowned journalist, CNN host, and global affairs analyst, joins Phil Fersht to unpack the messy intersection of politics, AI, and power.
What You’ll Hear in 30 Minutes
- Why Fareed says global allies are hedging their bets on America
- The new Cold War over tech stacks: Chinese vs. non-Chinese
- Social media’s algorithmic grip on democracy
- Are we facing the systemic breakdown of compromise?
- Why the next election might hinge on a TikTok
- Urban America’s affordability crisis: housing, healthcare, education
- What Gen Z’s radical turn means for politics
- How Fareed is fighting back against digital distraction (spoiler: karaoke is involved)
Guest Snapshot
Fareed Zakaria is a globally recognized journalist, author, and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. Known for his razor-sharp commentary on international affairs, economic policy, and technology, Fareed has been a leading voice on globalization, democracy, and disruption for decades. His work appears in The Washington Post, CNN, and bestselling books like The Post-American World and Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World.
Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome and Introduction
00:36 – Global Alliances Are Fraying
02:41 – The Bipolar Tech Stack: US vs. China
04:42 – Nvidia, Intel, and Chips in Geopolitics
06:44 – Democracy, AI, and the Social Media Machine
09:45 – Charlie Kirk, Virality, and Political Radicalization
13:05 – The Power (and Danger) of Algorithms
15:40 – Is the American Dream Still Alive?
18:30 – The Urban Crisis of Affordability
20:22 – Why Gen Z is Embracing Radical Ideas
21:59 – How social media is Rewiring Our Brains
24:20 – Deep Work, Human Connection, and Staying Sane
26:30 – Fareed’s Final Reflection
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Transcript
Introduction with Phil First
00:00:11
Speaker
You're listening to From the Horse's Mouth, intrepid conversations with Phil First. Ready to meet the disruptors who are guiding us to the new great utopia by reshaping our world and pushing past corporate spin for honest conversations about the future impact of current and emerging technologies?
00:00:30
Speaker
Tune in now.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello, welcome to the latest episode of From the Horse's Mouth.
Welcoming Fareed Zakaria
00:00:39
Speaker
And today and joined by a very popular figure who keynoted at our recent conference, Fareed Zakaria.
00:00:46
Speaker
And he doesn't need too much introduction, I think. that Very good to have you back, Fareed. And um maybe you could just share a little bit about, you know I think we spoke about three months ago. How the how has the world changed since then? what is What is top of your mind at the moment?
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, gosh. I think the... thank First of all, thank you, Phil. It's a huge pleasure to be with you.
Global Alliances Shift
00:01:07
Speaker
I think probably the biggest shift that is taking place right now since we last spoke, I'm just back from Ukraine. I was in Europe.
00:01:17
Speaker
Countries around the world are realizing that they're on their own a little bit more than they had thought they were. By which I mean the old structure of the international system in which you had this very broad, deep alliance structure of the United States is fraying.
00:01:36
Speaker
And it's fraying to a large extent because of actions of the Trump administration and Donald Trump putting tariffs on our closest allies, quarreling with India, quarreling with Brazil. The net result of that, abandoning Ukraine in some sense, right?
00:01:51
Speaker
The whole effect of that, what I've noticed is People are beginning to realize they're on their own and they're asking themselves, how do we create a path for ourselves where we rely so much on the United States that we get ourselves into a situation where if the United States abandons us, turns back, withdraws, whatever, we're screwed.
00:02:12
Speaker
So everyone is beginning to hedge. Now, that doesn't mean that they're turning away from America or becoming anti-American. I think that overdoes it. Everyone is self-interested. They understand that they're powerful benefit but to partnering with the largest economy in the world. They're, in many cases, trying to cozy up to the United States.
00:02:33
Speaker
But they are also asking themselves, what is plan
Bipolar Tech World
00:02:37
Speaker
B? What is the way in which we kind of ah make sure we're okay? Now, this becomes very difficult in one crucial area, which is one that you care a great deal about, which is tech.
00:02:49
Speaker
Because what is happening is the world is essentially moving to a bipolar reality in the world of technology. The global economy continues to be fairly integrated.
00:03:03
Speaker
Globalization's death is much overhyped. The reality of global trade is very omnipresent. But in the high-tech arena, we are moving into a Cold War and a bipolar world where there are going to be basically two tech stacks.
00:03:19
Speaker
One is going to be Chinese, and one is going to be non-Chinese. I don't want to call it American, It is largely American-dominated, the non-Chinese one, but very crucial elements of it come out of Taiwan, out of South Korea, out of the Netherlands with ASML.
00:03:37
Speaker
But it's a Chinese-non-Chinese tech stack. And countries are trying to navigate how do they get the benefits technology being part of the highly productive non-Chinese tech stack, and that crucial relationships are with the United States there.
00:03:53
Speaker
But at the same time, you know do you want to leave yourself totally dependent on on America? Do you have an option? That's what people are kind of trying to figure out. But I think that is the new world, you know which is a globalized economy, interdependence, all that stuff, but a real bifurcation on the issue of technology. And you're beginning to see, you know, the UAE had to, in order to get the chip server AI deal that they got with the United States, over the last five years, they ripped out entirely from their all their systems, all Chinese components, and they replaced them with South Korean American Taiwanese components.
00:04:34
Speaker
That's the new reality. Yeah, absolutely. And it was significant when we saw Jensen Huang and Nvidia have to buy a big chunk of Intel this week because the Chinese government is now blocking their own companies using Nvidia chips. I mean, that was a, they may have not gone particularly noticed, but that was a big development as well because Nvidia is an incredibly powerful player in the semiconductor market. Yeah.
Nvidia and Intel Partnership
00:05:01
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, you part of it is, let's be honest, Trump has now tied the U.S. government's fate with Intel. Intel's stock was sagging, and I think he wanted to do something that kind of boosted in Intel's fortunes.
00:05:16
Speaker
But what the hopeful sign here and the positive sign here is... What Intel needs to understand is it is it has lost the battle on chip design.
00:05:27
Speaker
It just made too many bad calls. It didn't go along with the move from desktop to tablet and to iPhone to mobile. It missed the design shift that took place that NVIDIA is at the heart of, which is moving to essentially GPUs and things like that.
00:05:46
Speaker
what it can still do is manufacture. you know And the NVIDIA investment suggests that Intel realizes that its future is essentially in becoming an American TSMC.
00:05:59
Speaker
And it it's going to have to junk all the ah all the design elements and just focus on manufacturer, which is what the market had gone there. Intel was kind of almost defying market forces because of its history of having done both.
00:06:14
Speaker
And NVIDIA investment maybe is a sign that like, we'll invest in you. But if you notice, the NVIDIA investment is entirely for manufacturing, not for any design.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah.
Social Media's Political Influence
00:06:26
Speaker
So we have to talk about some of the topic du jour and the impact of Social media as well as AI is having such an impact on industries right across the board.
00:06:39
Speaker
But how much is this reshaping yeah democracy? right and It's happening right now We've got this mix between politics, entertainment, media, and AI. It seems to be all coming together and we can't discount what happened.
00:06:53
Speaker
this week with the Kimmel show getting canceled and things like that. So where are we headed with all this? is our democracy still resilient or are we closer to a systemic breakdown, Fareed? I hate to use the word crisis and systemic breakdown, but I think it would be very ah rash and naive not to see the effects of all this stuff. It's very deep, it's very serious.
00:07:17
Speaker
And I think you know people who say we're going through this enormous technological revolution, or we are this is ah the my biggest thing that's ever happened or whatever. Well, if that's all true, to then expect that it has no impact on the society and the politics and our psychology,
00:07:34
Speaker
is naive. I think both are true. It's incredibly revolutionary and there's a huge positive and upside economically for those particularly who can surf the wave, but it's also incredibly disruptive.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I think it has fundamentally changed the way in which we conduct politics, we do all of that stuff. And the main thing you realize, I think, in this whole episode that involves Charlie Kirk, the rise of Charlie Kirk, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the aftermath of Charlie Kirk, and the Jimmy Kimmel firing is that social media has this extraordinary ability to allow people to find allies around the world, gather those together, reinforce their views, make those views more extreme, and then
00:08:25
Speaker
burst onto the world with that. So you think of a Charlie Kirk, you know it was an amazing success story of how he built his fame and his credibility, but it crucially rested on social media.
00:08:37
Speaker
So people talk a lot about him going to college campuses and being willing to engage with any and all, which is completely true. What people don't focus on is the reason Charlie Kirk became as famous as he did was not that he went to college campuses, is that he had a four to five person media team with him when he went to those college campuses filming for the three hours that he was there.
00:09:03
Speaker
and From every ec college campus then, they would put out three, four, five, 45 seconds, 60 second, two minute, four minute videos, which would go viral and be seen by millions and millions and millions of people.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's not the 3000 people on campus who made Charlie Cope famous. So the campus event was almost the occasion for a series of made for social media clips that then went viral.
00:09:29
Speaker
And that was the core of how Charlie Kirk was able to build his fame and the momentum that came out of it. And as I say, it's total genius the way they did it, and he deserved an enormous amount of credit.
00:09:41
Speaker
But it is a social media phenomenon. Then, of course, you have the killer, entirely seems to have gone down social media, silos, rabbit holes, radicalized himself.
00:09:52
Speaker
Then you have the aftermath which in which each side, because they're only talking to themselves, become more and more extreme in their reaction. Like nobody, I think, or at least I would argue very few people would in a face-to-face encounter with a small group of people say something as gross as, you know, the guy was killed, good riddance, you know, kind of celebrate that death.
00:10:16
Speaker
If you have a pseudonymous Twitter handle and you're talking to your group of followers online, somehow it becomes much easier to say things like that. You know, I've been attacked a lot on social media over the years.
00:10:28
Speaker
I've almost never been attacked in person. Very few people come up to you at an airport or and say, I hate you, I hate what you write. But people ah feel very free to say that online, particularly on Twitter and X because it's yeah the handle is often fake or pseudoor it's a pseudonym or something like that. So you you have the shield of anonymity.
00:10:50
Speaker
And that, I think, has created a whole new politics that has come out of this. And i think it has radicalized the political parties, it's radicalized media, it's radicalized our responses to each of these events.
00:11:05
Speaker
And I think it makes democracy very hard because at at heart, democracy is about compromise. but Democracy is fundamentally a way of engaging in politics that says, you and I disagree.
00:11:20
Speaker
We will not kill each other. We will not harm each other physically. Instead, we will navigate and negotiate this in a democratic framework, which means I'll get probably half a loaf and you'll get half a loaf over time.
00:11:34
Speaker
And we'll have to be content with that. Well, it's incredible how... the social media algorithms are evolving. You know, we saw what happened with Musk, you know, obviously buying X and really helping derive the outcome of the last presidential election. And now we've just seen TikTok, which is incredibly powerful.
00:11:55
Speaker
You know, now it feels like the algorithm could be owned by the Chinese. I mean, the people who are owning these social media algorithms are wielding incredible power, right? Oh yeah. I mean, I think that this is probably the greatest political power that non-politicians or have ever held because it is much more, I think, much more powerful than the power that people had when they owned a CBS in the glory days. Because what people forget is, the key is that in the old days, if you owned CBS, you had 40, 50 million people watching.
00:12:29
Speaker
There was a bunch of liberals, conservatives, independents, centrists. You had to present a pretty broad, some might even say mushy middle ground in your views, because you knew you had to cater all these people.
00:12:43
Speaker
The thing about the algorithms is you can slice and dice. And you can slice and dice and you can push people in one direction or another by what they see on their feed.
00:12:55
Speaker
So I think you're absolutely right, Philip. People have not thought about this. Now, the people who have the algorithms will say, we're powerless, we just do, you know, we're just trying to max. But the choices you make, the choices that Facebook and Instagram make about how they want to engage you and what deepens the engagement have a very powerful political effect because we know that, for example, anger and hate are very viral phenomena, you know, and that the more you press those, the more you're going to produce a certain kind of political effect.
00:13:33
Speaker
I think that we have fundamentally, misunderstood the power of these these algorithms. I think they should be regulated more. I think it's very, I don't want to say dangerous, but it strikes me as very unusual to allow the Chinese to continue to own the TikTok algorithm in the way that the Trump administration is doing.
00:13:54
Speaker
From what I can tell of the deal, the Chinese are getting everything they want. And all that's happening on the US side is a bunch of rich people are going to be able to recoup their investments or make money off their investments. and You've created a more liquid market for US holders of TikTok, but you haven't fundamentally addressed the criticism that was at the heart of the ban, which is the algorithm is owned by entities that are completely beholden to the Communist Party of China, which remains true.
00:14:23
Speaker
So let's flip the conversation to, I think, the younger folks of today. We spend a lot of time in New York, right? And you you know you can see the cost of living is out of control. you know These kids, over half their income goes on rent.
00:14:40
Speaker
Is the American dream still alive for young professionals for it?
Young Professionals' Challenges
00:14:44
Speaker
I think you put your finger on exactly the the issue, which is, I think the American dream is actually alive in the sense that the US is navigating this periods of extraordinary change better than any ah any country in the world. I mean, our per capita income is high, high rising. It's at this point, 50% higher than many European countries.
00:15:05
Speaker
As you know, Phil, we've talked about this, the per capita income of Britain is today lower than the per capita income of Mississippi and Alabama, the poorest states in America. So Britain would be the 51st state of the United States, but the 51st poorest state were to join the American Union.
00:15:23
Speaker
The same is true of France, ah same is true of Japan, same is true of almost every country in the advanced industrial world with the exception of some of the small Northern European countries.
00:15:35
Speaker
But I think in urban America, which is the engine of economic growth, let's not forget, the most of the growth in the United States essentially comes out of 50 metro areas in America.
00:15:46
Speaker
In urban America, you have basically a crisis of affordability along three dimensions. Housing, healthcare, and education. Which for young professional, the first one that hits you usually is housing as you go into the workforce.
00:16:01
Speaker
The one yeah that you are carrying with you is education. And the third one is healthcare, care which is if you're not part of a large company, particularly if you're in the gig economy, if you're trying to start your own thing.
00:16:14
Speaker
And those are very powerful kind of depressants to this idea that America is doing well, right? Because you have this huge crisis of affordability. To me, what's really interesting about that is all three of those areas are places where you have very weird non-market activity with the government playing a huge role and distorting markets, right? So housing, the single biggest reason you cannot build more housing is there is huge amount of zoning that makes it difficult, large number of regulations, lots of things like environmental reviews. or all
00:16:53
Speaker
So housing is a market massively distorted by government regulations. Healthcare care and education, I don't even have to explain. The government is the consumer, the regulator, the financier.
00:17:03
Speaker
So in all three of those cases, we've created markets that are much less efficient at doing what markets do best, which is producing supply when there is demand.
00:17:15
Speaker
and I think that least two of them you could solve very easily. Housing is frankly trivial. You just get rid of a bunch of those. You know you just relax a lot of the nimbyist regulation, relax a certain amount of the things that make it very difficult or expensive to build.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think with education, similarly, you are allowing a great great deal of cartels and price fixing and things like that, which I think you could easily get rid of. There's a lot of credentialism that you don't need. You could ah you know a lot allow a lot more community colleges.
00:17:47
Speaker
You could allow a lot more competition, price competition. Healthcare care is genuinely complicated and you know we can get into a much longer conversation. But the key thing to understand is we just need to increase supply in all of these areas. That is what is holding back the ability for people to feel that life is affordable because you just have too many constraints on supply.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you sort of look at what's happening with the mayor election in New York and they're going hard left. The youth are getting the vote out and they see hope in somebody who cares about them. And um I think this could send some big warning signs to the government and the rest of the country for the outcome of that election, which looks like it's almost sent to result in a Mandani victory, right? Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
I think that's
Radical Ideas in Politics
00:18:40
Speaker
exactly right. And, you know, when people feel frustrated and they have this crisis of affordability, they want to listen to, you know, they're open to radical ideas. And first all, Mamdani super charismatic.
00:18:52
Speaker
Secondly, amazingly good on social media, back to our social media. He comes across as authentic. He comes across as real. And he has an answer to this crisis of affordability.
00:19:03
Speaker
An answer beats no answer. And I think I would say that the answers are wrong. yeah You know, the answer is not government-run grocery stores and rent freezes, both of which will actually restrict supply, but it's an answer.
00:19:17
Speaker
And as far as I can tell, Eric Adams has no answer and Andrew Cuomo has no answer. And it's a good reminder in politics that an answer will beat no answer every time, just as Trump.
00:19:28
Speaker
Tariffs and deport immigrants is an answer to but lot of people feeling their country was out of control. There's all this weird stuff happening. Why is change happening so fast? And his answer is, too much trade, too much immigration. I'll shut both down.
00:19:43
Speaker
You'll prosper. An answer beats no answer. You're absolutely right. So finally, maybe at a personal level, you have... so many amazing conversations I watch them every Sunday morning. But what conversation has shifted your worldview the most maybe over the last few months and why, Farid?
00:20:03
Speaker
God, that's a very
Technology and Social Isolation
00:20:04
Speaker
interesting question. I would say probably the conversation I had, I did ah a special on social isolation and the issues that people worry about now with regard to not just social media, but in general with this technology.
00:20:20
Speaker
And ah yeah i talked to Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, and a couple of the other academics. And i think I've always thought of myself as somebody who can handle technology fine.
00:20:35
Speaker
The problems it creates are for other people. and I can write about them and talk about them. I bet most of us feel that way. Like I would check my phone, the first thing I get up in the morning, last thing I do at night, I would say to myself, I'm immune from all these things because to a large extent, I say to myself, I'd read a lot on my phone.
00:20:54
Speaker
but I think, well, that's not, I'm just using the phone as tablet. tablet But the more I've been thinking about it and the more I've talked to you know those conversations and recognizing the effect that these things have on your brain and on your the dopamine ah rush, the the reality that you may be reading, but you're one click away from checking your email, from gabe from you know ah getting those messages. And even when you're reading, there is a kind of short-termism to the way you read because you can flip between things.
00:21:25
Speaker
And it it has made me realize that two things. One, that this is actually a very powerful way of rewiring your brain almost. And I'm trying to spend more time doing deep reading and deep thinking, spending time where I'm really focusing in on the thing that I'm trying to understand or appreciate.
00:21:47
Speaker
Sometimes with ah just books, sometimes with papers, sometimes I'm scheduling time to just think. and ask myself, what you know, it's a very, very useful thing to do when you have so so much of this other stuff, is to stop being reactive.
00:22:01
Speaker
I'm sure you've gone through days, Phil, where you you're at the end of the day, you've answered every email and text, and you ask yourself, what did I want to do today? Not but that how did I react to what everybody else wanted me to do, but what did I want to do? So to set yourself some strategic goals and ask, i so that's one piece of it.
00:22:19
Speaker
And the second piece has been more in-person contact. I mean, I hate to some make it sound like ah so clinical, but ah you know we're doing a lot more with my with my team of in-person.
00:22:32
Speaker
I'm trying to make sure that we do a kind of karaoke night or a drinks night or pizza night or you know things like that. With friends, I'm trying to do more in-person where you're you know actually spending time with the person because i think that that that human contact is the thing that we, you know, human beings are social creatures.
00:22:56
Speaker
And when you don't have that, I think it creates a sense of loss and a social isolation and a feeling of loneliness. And that feeling of loneliness is not overcome by texting your five best friends.
00:23:09
Speaker
you're still in some, there's a barrier there. there'st There isn't that human connection. So I've become much more self-aware ah about how to do something about these technologies.
00:23:20
Speaker
And I want all the advantages of the technologies, but I want to try to mitigate some of the downsides. Yeah, are so right. and um And I talk to my staff all the time about and get out, walk the dog, just do more. we We organize so many more social events and things as as possible because I think if people are just stare at a laptop or phone all day long, it's terrible for your mental health and people end up with you know real issues.
00:23:49
Speaker
Anyway, um this has been wonderful to catch up with you again and very excited to have you join our community in New York next month for another fantastic summit that's coming up. And Thank you very much for your time today.
00:24:04
Speaker
Always a pleasure to talk to you. for Thank you.
Closing and Engagement
00:24:10
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to From the Horse's Mouth, intrepid conversations with Phil First. Remember to follow Phil on LinkedIn and subscribe and like on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite platform for no-nonsense takes on the intricate dance between technology, business, and ideological systems.
00:24:30
Speaker
Got something to add to the discussion? Let's have it. Drop us a line at fromthehorsesmouth at hfsresearch.com or connect with Phil on LinkedIn.