Meanwhile, a progressive Democrat wants to push a wealth tax
on
California's very rich people with a global net worth of
more than a billion bucks would be taxed and an
additional
1.5%. The proposal would also force those who recently moved
out of California.
You still have to pay California.
How crazy is that? That could potentially include our next
guest,
8 VC managing partner Joe Lonsdale,
who recently left California for Texas and he joins us
live from the Lone Star State.
Hey, Joe.
Good morning, Steve. OK, the whole idea of a wealth
tax is
you're a rich guy, you're a billionaire,
you can afford it. But here's the thing.
It's so UN American because you have already paid taxes
on the money you've made.
It's fundamentally UN American. You know the French try to
even the French lost a bunch of millionaires and billionaires.
You know Steve this is really more a theatrical production
going on in California.
This is one of the most mismanaged states there is
right.
The top 1% already pay about half the taxes their
most progressive state and and they waste the money on
crazy things with their far left friends.
You know half $1,000,000 for a toilet dollars for NGOs
that elect progressives and SF and LA the best paid
prison guards in the world.
It's the state's a total mess and what they're doing
here is there signaling something crazy and you want the
they're probably just going to compromise and tax the billionaires
more some other way. But it's it's it's it's really
ridiculous.
You're right, you're right. There's also going to be if
you have more than $50 million,
you'd be hit with a 1%
annual tax on wealth. Joe,
I know your family initially moved to California because anything
was possible there and and you made a lot of
money.
Why did you move to Texas?
I mean you can afford
1.5%. You can afford that.
But obviously there's something going on that it's like it's
not about the money,
it's about the place. And I'm getting the hell out.
Yeah, you know, there's there's there's a lot of things
that went wrong culturally with San Francisco and and with
California.
It's really hard to build there.
It's really expensive to hire people there.
You're basically either some form of billionaire or some form
of service worker who's driving 2 hours,
you know, to work for them.
Not a healthy place to raise kids and not that
you know,
not you know technology Steve has spread all throughout our
country.
We can build things in defense and logistics and bio
from from so many different states.
And Texas is a much healthier place to base your
business in California these days.
And I understand a lot of your friends from the
old days in in the San Francisco area,
they've moved to Austin or they or or Texas or
they've moved to Miami or they've moved to Nashville or
they've moved to Las Vegas.
How many people do you think are
going to say, hey, you know what,
I'm going to start a big business and I'm going
to go to California knowing that there could be a
wealth tax and all sorts of regulations and all this
stuff you have very aptly
detailed.
Yeah, I mean a lot,
a lot of the best,
a lot of best people have moved here.
Elon's out here in Texas.
You know, it's it's, it's something where you may be
the best technology talents in Silicon Valley.
You might even need their help to start something.
But you're certainly not going to scale up there.
You're certainly not going to build a big business that
stays there.
As soon as you can with these kind of people
in charge,
you're going to get out somewhere less corrupt.
You know, I mean, there's cartel violence going on in
California now because they made dealing drugs,
you know, totally legal. So you have these cartel guys.
They're fighting over territory. They just sadly just killed,
you know, a whole family,
you know, in the, in the,
in the, in the, in the farm area outside of
San Francisco.
These cartels are fighting each other.
It's bringing up Mexico from the South.
It's a mess. All right.
Joe Lonsdale, who lives now in Texas.
Joe, thank you very much for joining us live.
Thanks, Steve. You bet.