Part One: How Jeffrey Epstein Helped Build the Modern World

Robert begins to explore the new Epstein files with Andrew Ti and unveils a conspiracy that crosses cryptocurrency, right-wing political power and, believe it or not, video game micro transactions. (4 Part Series) Sources: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/strange-saga-jeffrey-epstein-s-link-brock-pierce-1240462/ https://protos.com/brock-pierces-dark-and-disturbing-friendship-with-jeffrey-epstein/ https://protos.com/new-epstein-files-reveal-contact-with-bitcoin-dev-andresen-before-cia-briefing/ https://www.btcc.com/en-US/square/NodeS4mur4i/1476425 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/30/jeffrey-epstein-files-bannon-musk-00758613 https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet https://decrypt.co/348724/jeffrey-epstein-bitcoin-crypto-taxes-steve-bannon-emails https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/02/epstein-files-trump https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/us/epstein-powerful-men.html https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous-star-robin-leach-appears-in-epstein-files-dump/ar-AA1Voj3M https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/30/jeffrey-epstein-files-bannon-musk-00758613 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/26/musk-bannon-thiel-epstein-documents-00582627 https://www.cryptobreaking.com/how-crypto-figures-in-epstein/ https://bsky.app/profile/picklebee.bsky.social/post/3mdss63eemc2n https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/us/epstein-powerful-men.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/epstein-files-elon-musk-prince-andrew-richard-branson-b2911945.html https://medium.com/@areidross/neoliberalism-is-not-the-final-boss-and-it-never-was-63918dc68a51 https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01761115.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01968406.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00824843.pdf` https://bsky.app/profile/msmaxwellmusic.bsky.social/post/3mdsxo35qo222 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fbi-tip-alleged-trump-witnessed-epstein-victims-baby-being-killed-dumped-in-lake-michigan/ar-AA1T5KJc https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/31/politics/new-documents-trump-epstein https://barthsnotes.com/2026/02/01/conspiracists-focus-on-murder-and-sra-adjacent-allegations-in-epstein-document-release/ https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/jeffrey-epstein-files-reveal-dinner-image-with-tech-billionaires-zuckerberg-and-musk/news-story/8a640c675dcabf36f6a972254bd1dc8c https://www.thedailybeast.com/mark-zuckerbergs-wild-dinner-with-epstein-revealed-in-files/ https://transnews.network/p/epstein-backed-prominent-anti-trans-figures?modal=login https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation?utm_campaign=epstein-backed-billionaires-dinner-network-of-prominent-anti-trans-figures&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=transnews.network https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation?utm_campaign=epstein-backed-billionaires-dinner-network-of-prominent-anti-trans-figures&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=transnews.network https://www.edge.org/about-edgeorg https://transnews.network/p/epstein-backed-prominent-anti-trans-figures?modal=login https://www.totalprosports.com/motor-sports/ex-nascar-star-exposed-sexually-explicit-convo-jeffrey-epstein-email-release/ https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/epstein-files-elon-musk-prince-andrew-richard-branson-b2911945.html https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01894969.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01972089.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01972089.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://archive.is/ObiDP#selection-917.2-925.110 https://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacist-wants-more-control-over-women-after-girlfriend-missing-1834188 https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249566.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249566.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02382770.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02382770.pdf?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2016/05/07/bills-sex-accusers-echo-trump-hillary-enabler/ https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00782408.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02394746.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01615377.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search https://www.webcitation.org/6159jR9pC?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://www.webcitation.org/6159jR9pC?utm_campaign=here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.garbageday.email https://maxread.substack.com/about https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01761115.pdf 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https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/cryptocurrencies/epstein-files-spark-false-claims-linking-disgraced-financier-to-bitcoin-control/ar-AA1VvfOf https://archive.is/7tNPw#selection-1551.152-1551.226 https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/24/sec-drops-lawsuit-against-winklevoss-twins-gemini-crypto-exchange/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/17t6txf/how_bad_would_a_bank_run_have_to_be_to_push/ https://blocknuggets.com/news/tether-crash-threatens-crypto-world/ https://protos.com/new-epstein-files-reveal-contact-with-bitcoin-dev-andresen-before-cia-briefing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/steve-bannon-once-guided-a-global-firm-that-made-millions-helping-gamers-cheat/2017/08/04/ef7ae442-76c8-11e7-803f-a6c989606ac7_story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-may-07-mn-27448-story.html https://www.aol.com/news/child-star-turned-millionaire-brock-155613028.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKtPluqCxdqV4VcHB6HTxIxjXR83tFW5Uav6fNBwHvED7ZM4EnkIlshTjQmsCe4DushIa2m8yCN1LOOag1v5Da1JRt4Vg60GG-hCcHRAFaXNUQ0J_hgM9vJoWYu5FjwTJesqS6sFyF2S9UYAhKGh-gVahFSwfsqay3pKzyv3rKvw https://www.aol.com/news/child-star-turned-millionaire-brock-155613028.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKtPluqCxdqV4VcHB6HTxIxjXR83tFW5Uav6fNBwHvED7ZM4EnkIlshTjQmsCe4DushIa2m8yCN1LOOag1v5Da1JRt4Vg60GG-hCcHRAFaXNUQ0J_hgM9vJoWYu5FjwTJesqS6sFyF2S9UYAhKGh-gVahFSwfsqay3pKzyv3rKvw See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Robert Evans?

  What's Jeffrey, my Epstein's. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And as you may have guessed from my completely original introduction that I definitely haven't done before, we are back talking about Jepstein.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 0:26Robert Evans?

  Jeffrey Epstein, the big Eazy. What? As he's not called by anyone. Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't love that.

• 0:35Robert Evans?

  We're getting into the Epstein files. That's, that's what these episodes are gonna be. Uh, with my good friend and colleague, Andrew T.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 0:45Robert Evans?

  Are you a fan of Jeffrey Epstein? How do you feel about the guy?

• 0:47Speaker 03

  I mean, uh, he's, he's in a photo with, he is so many people just, he's on the gram with so many of my faves. So.

• 0:55Robert Evans?

  Right, right, right.

• 0:56Speaker 03

  Not to give it up.

• 0:57Robert Evans?

  You judge a man by his friends? I mean, he's got great friends, you know, obviously. Like half the New York Times is his buddy, you know?

• 1:07Speaker 04

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• 1:12Speaker 05

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• 1:42Robert Evans?

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• 2:47Robert Evans?

  I gotta come clean up at the top. I show up many times in the Epstein files. If you search for Robert Evans, you will find my name in there a lot. Uh, you know, I have to assume that, that I was up to, up to no good there. And I apologize, you know? After producing The Godfather, a lot of stuff got to my head. You know, I think I just kind of let fame and, and money, uh, drive me a little crazy, you know?

• 3:14Speaker 03

  That's, that's the great thing about you, Robert, is somehow you're going to be known as Robert Evans, comma, somehow the lesser scumbag.

• 3:21Robert Evans?

  Yeah, somehow the less evil Robert Evans.

• 3:26Robert Evans?

  Yeah, somehow the Robert Evans who's done the less drugs too.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:31Robert Evans?

  I think we can assume.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  You won't find me in the Epstein files and you won't find me saying anything nice about the guy, so.

• 3:37Robert Evans?

  No, this is not about, we're certainly not saying anything nice about the guy. Now, the problem is, obviously, we've got a shitload more Epstein files, right? Right at the top, there were a bunch released in 2025. And then right at the top of 2026, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch announced that even more were going to be released. Specifically, he revealed that the Justice Department was releasing 3 million new pages of files related to the Epstein case. Such a vast quantity of information can't be digested in short order. And we haven't discovered all of the secrets in this tranche of files or in the last, the stuff that came out last year. People are still picking stuff out, right? Um, which is why, because it's going to take so much time to find everything that's known.

• 4:23Robert Evans?

  noteworthy inside these files, Todd Blanch sought to set expectations prior to the file dump. So he insisted to the world that the only hang up in getting these files out, the only thing that had delayed them past the amount of time they were legally supposed to be put up in, was that the Justice Department had to scan them to see if Epstein had said anything that criminally implicated President Trump. Older files certainly had things that could be seen as implicating Trump. Releases in 2025 included a 2020 email from a federal prosecutor stating Trump had been a passenger on the Lolita Express a minimum of eight times between 1993 and 1996. On one trip, the three listed passengers were Trump, Epstein, and a 20-year-old female, name redacted.

• 5:08Robert Evans?

  So, like, he is certainly implicated in a lot. Yeah. You've seen probably the birthday letter in the shape of a naked woman signed by Trump for Epstein, right? You've probably seen there's a photo of Epstein and a young girl with a giant check from Donald Trump. You've certainly heard the rumors that he and Bill Clinton may have engaged in some oral sex together. That was almost certainly Jeffrey Epstein joking around rather than something that literally happened. But a lot of crazy shit is in these files that literally happened. And probably the single worst piece of data I have seen from an implicating the president point of view is this paragraph from an FBI interview with a victim of Epstein's.

• 5:50Robert Evans?

  I'll read it in a second, but it's particularly funny when you pair it with this statement from Todd Blanch. So here's Todd Blanch first. "In none of these communications, even when doing his best to disparage President Trump, did Epstein suggest President Trump had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims." Now, I want to read you a quote from the FBI. "During one of Jane Doe's encounters with Epstein, he took her to Mar-a-Lago, where he introduced her to its owner, Donald J. Trump. Introducing 14-year-old Doe to Donald J. Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully, asking him, referring to Doe, 'This is a good one, right?' Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and Doe felt uncomfortable, but at the time was too young to understand why."

• 6:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's fucking hideous.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:39Robert Evans?

  That's just disgusting.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say ew a lot on these episodes, but ew. The, the bit.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Thing that I don't understand is like, what did Trump think was gonna happen when these came out? Like, Was he just riffing? Did he think that some, someone was actually gonna go and falsify and redact shit?

• 6:59Robert Evans?

  I think he thought, first off, I can just brute force this not getting released. It hadn't been earlier.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:06Robert Evans?

  And I'm sure when it became inevitable, when it became clear that like, they literally could not politically afford not to release these. Like, not even just the legal stuff, like their base would have flipped out if they hadn't released this stuff. Because of how central the Epstein files are to the conspiratorial right, too.

• 7:26Robert Evans?

  I think at that point, he just probably, and probably was reassured by his people, look, man, you literally could shoot a guy in Central Park and your base will stand behind you. You'll be okay. And maybe he will, you know?

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:38Robert Evans?

  This is definitely hurting him, but not that much, you know?

• 7:42Speaker 03

  We're in the midst of seeing, but it is like, I'm just like, dog, you knew what was in there, right? Like, like, why, like, why would you stoke this? Cause, cause that's the thing is he did continue to stoke this fire and it's like.

• 7:55Robert Evans?

  He sure did. Cause I think, I think he thought he'd be able to have more control. They, it's also very sloppy. They very sloppily tried, like one person that I saw on Blue Sky pointed out, there's a lot of don'ts that are censored in the files, like the word don't. And the only reason for that is because like someone just went through and did like automatically any use of like Dawn tea. Like they just start blanking out that whole thing, right? So like there's stuff like, there's a lot of really like lazy attempts to, and they've, they've uploaded some stuff and then pulled it back down. There's all sorts of stuff like that, right? Yeah. I, I think in terms of the stuff that is most powerful to me, right?

• 8:38Robert Evans?

  It is that, the quote I just read you, in part, if you've seen, there's footage, Sophie will play it right now. There's some NBC archival footage of a 1992 party where Trump and Epstein hung out together. There's a decent chance you've seen it online and it's just the two, you can't even hear what they're saying really. But the, the two are like pointing it and talking about women and like laughing to each other. And the body language in that scene, which, which should be playing right now. If you read back over that statement with like Epstein elbowing Trump and being like, this is a good one, right? And Trump smiled and nodding and then both laughing, it's the same. Like you can, you can see a moment like that between them in this footage.

• 9:20Robert Evans?

  Like, that's part of why I believe this is literally true. Like, is because we have other evidence of them hanging out together that sounds exactly like this.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  And doing shit like, well, because it's also just like, it's just a pedophile frat house.

• 9:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  It's just like, once, when you like, kind of get the tenor of it, none of it's like, surprising, really. You're like, yeah, of course, these people act like this. I guess like, the, the amount of emails they sent is a little surprising, frankly.

• 9:50Robert Evans?

  You get at also, by the way, why I have focused the episodes the way I focus them. Because, as you've noted, there's a ton of, I mean, there's, there's, there's so much here, right? For one thing, like, you could, I could do episodes all year on this and not run out of content. There's so much fucking shit in here.

• 10:10Robert Evans?

  But, a lot of it is just, okay, yeah, the pedophile's told another gross pedophile joke. He and his pedophile friends continue to be nasty with each other. That's not surprising. What's really surprising to me is the number of things that Epstein has been revealed to have been central to that created the modern world.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  He was everywhere.

• 10:28Robert Evans?

  Yeah. I, I made a post earlier that was a little inaccurate. Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein was the first domino for fucking, uh, like cryptocurrency, for, uh, like, for mo- like, the modern, like, the cryptocurrency in, like, its modern, attached to the, the far-right sense. Uh, he was like, a, a starting domino for Gamergate.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Gamergate.

• 10:54Robert Evans?

  He was a starting domino for, uh, the fucking fu- 2008 financial crash. Like, there's all sorts of shit, and he's, he's also deeply implicated in, like, the growth and birth of right-wing media, right? Including sharing a lot of, like, fucking, really kind of fringe-at-the-time, far-right, like, podcasts and articles with his, with his friends. Like, he was, he helped create the modern far-right, and he helped ruin the internet in a lot of ways. And there's a good Garbage Day column on that. But we're, we're going to be focusing on how Epstein- Built the modern world or helped to build the modern world like his influence on particularly

• 11:33Robert Evans?

  development of the far right and like cryptocurrency and the like the online media ecosystem that has like fed into the far right, particularly 4chan. That's what these episodes are about is like how Jeffrey Epstein built the worst parts of the modern world because he was shot. He was even more influential than we knew. There's been a lot that that surprised me in these files, like stuff that I just would not have guessed was the case.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Do you do you think though, there's an element of just sort of like right place, right time, like he's talking about these things in a way that is like, but like, kind of like, yes, we're looking at the private communications of billionaires and the far right. And I, I mean, I just like, I'm like, there's probably a world where it's all like this, maybe throughout history, like Reagan's letters.

• 12:25Robert Evans?

  I think that you're throughout history, there have always been like, this has always been how a lot of things have gotten done. A lot of the sausage is made like politically, like, like this is how in every society, you have groups of elites who are all creepy friends and are all probably having creepy sex, often with underage people. And, you know, through their like petty bigotries and rivalries and whatnot, making policy that affects millions and millions of lives, right? That's, that's always been the case. And it, you know, when I said that Jeffrey was the first domino, that's not entirely accurate for any of those

• 13:05Robert Evans?

  things, except maybe for Gamergate. But he was like an early domino in all of these things. And so, yeah, it's one of these, like, you have to, you have to be, I don't want to frame it as like Epstein started any of these things or was the only idea. He was the guy who created microtransactions in video games. That's not really accurate, but he he heavily influenced the development of microtransactions in video games because he was talking up the idea and pushing it to a lot of influential friends in the industry. And that's generally how stuff worked with Epstein, right?

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:41Robert Evans?

  I mean, with the exception of the financial crash stuff is, is a little wonkier.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  It's interesting because like when you list those things, I might, my like, without knowing that this was the topic, I instantly think like Steve Bannon as well. And

• 13:56Robert Evans?

  Yeah, he was close with Bannon, as we'll be talking about. Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it's just like, motherfucker was everywhere.

• 14:04Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  And it's sort of just like, the question to me is like, is, is the causality, like, does being a pedophile make you more of a, make, turn you into a right wing freak? Or does being a right wing freak turn you into a pedophile?

• 14:17Robert Evans?

  Well, this is, and we'll talk about this.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Chicken or the egg?

• 14:20Robert Evans?

  I kind of think what happened, what?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I said chicken or the egg?

• 14:25Robert Evans?

  Oh, sorry.

• 14:27Robert Evans?

  Okay. Um, yeah, I, I, I kind of think when it, it, it comes to answering that question, I think Epstein, like Trump, like a lot of these guys, was socially someone that you would have pegged as more of like a liberal or progressive, based on the causes he supported and the people he hung out with most of his life. But is primarily a guy who's interested in his own personal power and wealth. And a lot of his rightward turn came after his conviction and, and his jail sentence in like 2008, 2009. And after that, he's increasingly angry and increasingly reactionary. And that's, a lot of these guys get on the right, he's a big cancel culture guy. He's freaked out by me too, right? So that's a big factor in why he goes far right.

• 15:09Robert Evans?

  I don't think him being a pedophile has much ideologically, other than, unfortunately, as we've seen, a lot of powerful men want to have sex with 15 and 16 year old girls, right? And that's not a left or a right wing thing, you know? It's not even just a politics thing, fucking priests and cops and whatnot, all like, you know? It's always powerful, I guess. Yeah, kids, you know? Yeah. Sometimes, but in part because if you want to molest kids, getting into a position of power makes it a lot easier to do that. Right. Yeah, yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  It's, it's one of the incidental, like,

• 15:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  If, if that's your goal, power is a good way to achieve it. Power also achieves other things, but yeah, right. That's probably the, the logical funnel.

• 15:54Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. And, you know, when it comes to, because we'll be talking a little bit about Trump in these episodes, but he's not, it's more how Epstein helped like build and prepare like the media ecosystem and the cultural like ideological environment to make Trump's presidency possible. Like his contribution to that is more interesting to me in these episodes than like what Trump was involved in with Epstein, which is why I kind of started the episode by pointing that out. But I'm not gonna, we're not gonna be covering that heavily because you can find that in a bunch of places. And anyone who's not an idiot knows that Donald Trump was deeply involved in Epstein. And if he didn't have sex with underage girls Epstein

• 16:38Robert Evans?

  was trafficking, then he had sex with adults that Epstein was illegally trafficking, right? Like, I don't, like, I don't know who he had sex with, but it wasn't good, right? Yeah. Um, so, uh, yeah, these episodes are going to be about what we've learned about Jeffrey Epstein and everyone else. Because the horrifying truth hidden at the center of the revealed Epstein files is that Jeffrey wasn't just a pedophile financier who knew the secrets of the elite. He was a player himself, and he actively used his influence and clout and money to shift the world in new directions. And despite his public persona as a philanthropist who hung out with scientists and philosophers and a lot of left coded kinds of people, he spent the last decade of his life building support for a global right wing power grab

• 17:20Robert Evans?

  with people like Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon. And this power grab succeeded. It left him behind, but he lived to see it come to fruition, which you can tell was very frustrating to him. That like, I helped, I helped make this all possible. And yet I'm not going to benefit from the impunity that I can see going to other people. Um, so I went back and forth as to where we were going to start with, with these episodes. Which of the reveals do we begin with? Because there's so many players, so many different people who were important and implicated with Epstein that it's impossible to not leave some stuff out. But I think the story I want to tell this week is going to flow best if I start with the tale of a little feller named Brock Pierce. Have you heard of Brock?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  No.

• 18:06Robert Evans?

  No, no. Okay, good. I have. You're gonna be, you're gonna, you're gonna recognize him in a second here, unfortunately. You really are. You really, really are, buddy. Born November 14th, 1980, Brock Jeffrey Pierce, another Jeffrey, came into this world in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city even now in the crosshairs of a fascist movement that at least partly exists through the consequences of Brock's actions. There was little sign of this in his early life, however. His parents seemed to want him to have a career in Hollywood. It's unclear to me how much they pushed their son and how much he genuinely wanted that for himself. Pierce has described himself as a simple hockey-loving boy from Minnesota when at age three, he started acting in commercials. This wound up building to his

• 18:50Robert Evans?

  big shot, a supporting role in the first Mighty Ducks movie. So he was in The Mighty Ducks. He was in The Mighty Ducks. He was one of the stars of The Mighty Ducks. Yeah. Yeah. You liked those movies as a kid? I seem, I think I did.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  I think so, right?

• 19:05Robert Evans?

  I, I, the second one taught me the difference between Iceland and Greenland, you know? Top customer, is that?

• 19:11Speaker 03

  I was probably nitpicking hockey formations a little bit. The Flying V is not so good.

• 19:17Robert Evans?

  Mm-hmm. I guess, sure. I don't know much about hockey, other than I like fistfights. If you're too young to have seen The Mighty Ducks movies and you don't understand what Andrew and I are talking about, they're a series, I think there's a trilogy ultimately.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Probably straight to DVD, there's a bunch.

• 19:34Robert Evans?

  Who knows how many there are, right? Yeah. There's, there's several of these movies and they're all kind of about a pee-wee hockey team from the Twin Cities area that isn't very good, right? It's a bad team. And then an attorney named no shit Gordon Bombay gets sentenced to community service and winds up coaching them and yada, yada, yada. You've seen one underdog sports team movie, you've seen them all, right? You know where this basically goes, right? It's kind of a, it's, this is essentially, it's kind of a hockey ripoff of Bad News Bears a little bit, right?

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:03Robert Evans?

  Um, you know, without, without the, the charisma of the raw, unbridled charisma of Walter Matthau. God, what a, what a champion.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it's Emilio Estevez, I think, right? And also Gordon Bombay, if I recall, he's doing this because he's, he got, um, he got busted for drunk driving, right?

• 20:25Robert Evans?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  He's Gordon Gin.

• 20:27Robert Evans?

  And he has to do it. Yeah, Gordon Bombay Gin, yeah.

• 20:33Robert Evans?

  So The Mighty Ducks premise was strong enough to sustain a trilogy, which no critics consider to be basically the hockey, children's hockey equivalent to The Lord of the Rings. Brock's career spanned 13 years as an actor and it culminated in the 1996 film First Kid, where Pierce played the president's son. During the movie's release, he got to visit the White House and even sit in President Clinton's chair in the Oval Office. Here's a photo with him and comedy legend Sinbad. Look at that. Look at them together. Look at that.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Honestly, pretty sick.

• 21:04Robert Evans?

  Pretty cool. Pretty cool as a kid to get to take photos in the Oval Office with fucking Sinbad. Yeah.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  I like that color blue carpet.

• 21:12Robert Evans?

  It's a nice blue carpet, yeah. If you need a description of this photo, I would say Brock looked sort of like the Sam's Club brand Macaulay Culkin, and I don't know how to describe Sinbad to you. That would be like explaining the sun to an earthworm, right? Anyway, Brock was 14 at the time of this visit, and per an AOL interview by Sean Newman, he was, quote, "thinking about leaving acting, determined to carve his own path as a Hollywood producer, which is an ambitious dream to have as a 14-year-old."

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, no offense, kid, if your dream is to be a producer at 14, something is straight up wrong with you. You can get drugs if you stay an actor.

• 21:52Robert Evans?

  You, yes, of course, but like, you, you, again, going back to Robert Evans, if you really want the high-grade cocaine, you've got to be a big, a big league producer.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, recognizing power in that way at 14 and wanting power only is

• 22:08Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  sociopathic.

• 22:10Robert Evans?

  I mean, it's like, I get like, the producing is can be a really cool job and stuff like I get why people want to do it. It's just weird for a 14 year old who's already an actor to be like, no, producing.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  14 is a time, because that means he's met producers.

• 22:24Robert Evans?

  Right.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  But and been like, no, that guy.

• 22:26Robert Evans?

  And again, it wouldn't be weird if he was like, no, I think I want to be a director more. It's like, hey, been in a couple of movies. You that's enough to know that you want to be behind the camera or whatever. Producer, that's, that's a weird dream.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:36Robert Evans?

  Now, I find this dream noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One, it kind, it takes some pretty unmitigated gall to decide at 14, I think I'm done acting. It's time to run shit. Right?

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:48Robert Evans?

  That's a, that's a crazy thing. And it's impossible for me to know how accurate Brock's later analysis of his own thinking was, but this sounds to me like a kid who had was forced to grow up way too fast. Remember, he's a child actor and I don't have enough detail about his childhood, to note that his parents push him. Was it an abusive situation? But it's rarely a good one, especially in the 90s. I think things are a little better now, but it's rarely good.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  My, my, the, the times I've worked with kid actors, I, I watch it and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if this is good for them.

• 23:25Robert Evans?

  I, I, I remember talking to a friend of mine who was like, uh, he's like a working class director, you know, not like a fucking giant Hollywood guy, but like a buddy of mine who like is a director, um, who said that, no, like you have someone on staff when you have child actors.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:43Robert Evans?

  Whose job is basically to protect them from their parents, to make sure their parents aren't pushing them too much, right?

• 23:49Speaker 03

  It's a whole thing. Yeah. It's really weird. It's a weird dynamic.

• 23:53Robert Evans?

  It's, it's a weird dynamic. It's again, I think a lot better now in part because of how bad shit was for a lot of child actors in the 80s and 90s.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  But even, even now, I'm just like, now that I see this, and I've seen it a little bit, like, when I, now I'm like, oh, I get why everyone on Saved by the Bell was like 28. Like, that's actually better for them as human beings.

• 24:15Robert Evans?

  It's probably fine. We should just like suspend our disbelief a little bit and let adults play teenagers, because the alternative is fucked.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  So bad for the people, I think.

• 24:24Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Yeah, and for an idea of like how fast Brock has had to grow up, this is him as a talking about himself as a 14-year-old and his attitude. I took a look at my life and asked my, I asked myself, is this what I want to be doing? Is this my calling? I said, no, I don't really want to be reading other people's scripts. I don't want to be a performer. I want to write my own script. I want to be the director of my own life. And I get that. It's also like, most 14-year-olds aren't in a position where they're like, is this really what I want to be doing with my life? Because they're 14, you know?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:55Robert Evans?

  So that, that says something, just about where this kid's head is. You know whose head is in a good place?

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Mine?

• 25:03Robert Evans?

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• 25:04Speaker 01

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• 25:38Robert Evans?

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• 26:37Robert Evans?

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• 26:44Robert Evans?

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• 27:28Robert Evans?

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• 27:47Robert Evans?

  We're back. You know, to make Sophie happy, I have stopped accusing our sponsors like the good people at [BLEEP] of committing crimes against humanity, even though they did murder those kids. So, you're welcome, Sophie. In self-defense. In self-defense. Those kids were coming at them, you know? Those children were complaining about being forced to pick [BLEEP] berries all day. You know, what was [BLEEP] supposed to do?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I simply cannot defend [BLEEP], which is why this is like an unfair argument.

• 28:15Robert Evans?

  I know, I know, I know. And we're still gonna bleep the name out for all of these. It's gonna be great. So. Quite a choice for old producer Sophie here. For old producer Sophie. You've got Brock's dream job, Sophie.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  I just want everybody to have like health insurance and like housing and like some form of financial stability.

• 28:35Robert Evans?

  That's not what Brock wants at age 14. So Brock has his crisis of confidence at 14, but he keeps working for about a year and a half, almost two years after this point. You know, he films 1997's Legends of the Lost Tomb, where an adult apparently pulled a prank on him and told him he had permission to carve his name onto a pyramid while they filmed in Egypt. Brock would later admit, it almost feels kind of wrong, and it certainly was. You are not supposed to do that to the pyramids. Did he do it? Jesus Christ. Did he do that? Yeah, apparently. He was 14. Again, he was 14 and the adult told him he could. Like, it's not his fault. There's a lot that's his fault in this story, but I won't really blame that on him. He filmed

• 29:16Robert Evans?

  his last three movies in 1998. 16-year-old Brock Pierce left the acting world entirely after this point. Now, he had become an early internet nerd. He loves gaming. He's a big gamer as a kid, and he's, you know, pretty early on the internet train. And he's got the good sense and intuition to know that the internet's going to play a major role in the future of entertainment. So, he co-founds a company, Digital Entertainment Network, or DEN, with two other founders, Mark Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley. DEN, as we'll call it, is most often described as a precursor or prelude to YouTube. Brock says it failed because the technology wasn't ready. Basically, streaming video, you just couldn't stream video well enough back in the 90s. And this is, you know, pretty much true. And that

• 30:00Robert Evans?

  puts DEN in, some people give him too much credit to be like, he knew YouTube was the future before anyone else did. And now, a number of people tried. Yeah, yeah. There were a few different failed YouTube precursors that just didn't quite work, because again, the tech wasn't there. DEN was one of a number of dot-com era failures, a number of companies that kind of reached for that brass ring just a few years too early. And it's worth looking at exactly what Brock and his friends wanted to create, though, how they were like billing this. The company had a 38-page manifesto written by Collins-Rector, who seems to have been the lead visionary. Part of it read, "The boob tube zombie television is dead. Global entertainment will be delivered over the

• 30:43Robert Evans?

  internet. Digital Entertainment Network will create the last network."

• 30:48Robert Evans?

  And so you can see this mix of, you could see that as prescient, like, but also very wrong, because we're still just watching TV over the internet. Yeah. And it didn't create the last network. There's a shitload of streaming sites. It kind of looked for a while like Netflix was becoming that, but there's so fucking many streaming sites right now, right? Like, that's, that's not even what happened. So Collins Rector was 40, and the oldest and most experienced of the group of founders at Din. And this is where we get into things being very problematic. And this is maybe something that, that Brock has sort of been raised to not see as weird, but Collins Rector is 40 years old. Chad,

• 31:30Robert Evans?

  who is Collins Rector's roommate, is 24. And the two had met on bulletin boards, whereas the LA Times writes, quote, "He, Collins Rector, apparently used to strike up relationships with at least two teenaged boys." Right. Cool. The two moved to get, moved in together when Shackley was 16, and Collins Rector would have been in his mid 30s.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Ew.

• 31:54Robert Evans?

  Shackley's parents seemed to have thought that this was mostly a business arrangement, that they were just, like, you know, founders and starting a company, and, well, we don't want to get in the way of our son. This was a sexual relationship. Like, this is a, there's bad, I mean, I say sexual relationship, this is rape, you know, he's 16. Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  The parents, end quote, thought it was a business arrangement. You let your child

• 32:21Robert Evans?

  That's all I've read about it. You know, I don't know.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Move in with a grown man. Bad.

• 32:25Robert Evans?

  It seems like a bad judgment, I'll say that.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Sorry. This is the only thing I could shake.

• 32:31Robert Evans?

  So Brock gets involved with these guys when Shackley's 24 and Brock is 17. So at 17, Brock is in business with a 40-year-old and a 24-year-old. Yeah. Starting this company, and he moves into them. They've got a mansion, as we'll talk about, and he moves in with these guys.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:50Robert Evans?

  Shortly before Din seeks its first round of funding. Now Din gets a lot of interest. Again, this is the dot-com boom. Venture capitalists are throwing a shitload of money in a bunch of dumb places. It attracts about $88 million in funding, including money from actor Fred Savage and $5 million from former US Representative Michael Huffington.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  I mean, they they were just everyone who had a concept like this gets $5 million and one of them becomes YouTube. That's their lottery ticket.

• 33:20Robert Evans?

  Exactly. Exactly. That is basically what happened, right? And this was one of the bad bets, although they got 88 million.

• 33:29Robert Evans?

  So this was enough to pay for this $88 million pays for about a two year wild ride for Pierce and his co-founders. They all live together in a 12,000 square foot mansion in Encino. They all drive sports cars. They threw these massive parties that celebrities show up to that they bill as work events. Basically, no, these parties are part of the business, right? We've got to build, you know, we got to make ourselves part of the culture in Hollywood, right? Like, that's kind of the argument they're making.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  But you're not in Hollywood. You're in Encino.

• 33:57Robert Evans?

  You're in Encino. Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  To be fair, this is the business model of many businesses.

• 34:02Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Right. So they're not they're not quite outliers, really.

• 34:08Robert Evans?

  Right. They're not. They're not out like this is. This is how Uber starts, right? They're not doing it in Hollywood. They're up in the valley, but they have like their big party house mansion, right? And they're arguing that like, well, these wild parties where a lot of people get sexually assaulted are a crucial part of the business.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:23Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Which is prescient to their eventual business, I suppose, but.

• 34:27Robert Evans?

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. A warning to us, maybe. For the LA Times, quote, "In his manifesto crafted to energize early employees, Collins Rector set his sights on segments of so-called Generation Y that he said were being ignored by mainstream television and movies. He identified punk rockers, extreme skaters, and hip hoppers, and put gay teenagers at the top of the list. The company would build a huge market by global casting to a narrow cast audience, he vowed." Now, here you can see some actual insight, right? I mean, it's ridiculous calling them hip hoppers. That shows a deep disconnect with at least a chunk of pop culture. But pointing out that like, the future is, uh, future of media is going to be catering

• 35:08Robert Evans?

  to these like really narrow groups of, of fandoms, of subcultures, is, like, that is a legitimate insight, right? That is, that did turn out to be a major part of the future of media, right? Um, and the fact that they seem to know, like, reach, and because he is a 40-year-old man who is molesting teenage boys, it's all, it's dark that he's also focusing on gay teenage stories. But that is, that, that a lot of very successful media in the 21st century is queer people telling queer stories, right? Yeah. So there's, there's a degree of understanding of where the media is going that's also mixed with deeply fucked up abusive stuff about this guy, Collins Rector. Well, it's like, it's, it just, this guy got to where he was because his self-serving

• 35:52Robert Evans?

  thing happens to have been profitable. Right. Let's talk about how he got to where he was. So Collins Rector raises this 88 million because he spends months crisscrossing the country while, while Brock and Shackley are kind of working out of the mansion. Collins Rector spends a lot of time drumming up investment money and giving his pitch to anyone who will listen. He brags about the features that Den is going to have. Users are going to be able to pause shows just as they're watching them. Oh my God. And this is something he points out, you'll be able to, if you see an actor wearing a shirt you like, you'll be able to click on the shirt on screen and it'll take you to a website where you can buy it, right? And that's, again, that's a, oh yeah, you definitely saw pieces of our horrible future, you know? Yeah.

• 36:36Robert Evans?

  Like, this is, this is, these are real, both of these are real features that are eventually materialized in various ways, right? But also, so did a lot of people. So it's, it's like, yeah. Yes. And more to the point, these features may as well have been Star Trek bullshit in 1998. Right, right, right. Because about 2% of the country had high-speed internet, you know? Yeah. You're not clicking a fucking t-shirt. You're not streaming video, most people. Yeah. You can say a lot of shit. This was the time when it was easy to say a lot of shit, but like, oh, can't build it yet. I, I had dial-up in 98, and I will tell you, streaming a video meant pulling up a video, pausing it, letting it fucking buffer for like 45 minutes, and then watching your four-minute video, right? Yeah, yeah.

• 37:22Robert Evans?

  So the company continued to generate buzz and investments through 1999, but one thing was off. No one seemed to know where Mark Collins Rector had come from, or who he really was. The LA Times tried to reach out to dozens of his past business associates, and even friends, all of whom either denied knowing him or offered conflicting stories about his life. Quote, "Collins Rector often claimed to be in his late twenties, and associates and employees say he gave the impression that he had been a computer student at UCLA, but company filings show that he is 40, and officials at UCLA say there is no record he was ever a student there. According to records in Los Angeles Superior Court, he changed his name in 1998 from Mark Rector to Mark Collins Rector."

• 38:04Speaker 01

  I don't like this man very much.

• 38:08Robert Evans?

  He's not a good guy. Not a good guy.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Sims, not great.

• 38:13Robert Evans?

  He's straddling the line between serial entrepreneur and con man. And any, as I say often, any founder, any point who wants to start a tech company, especially in this period, has some con man to him. Jobs, Steve Jobs is part con man, right? Because part of what you're doing is promising and guaranteeing people they will get something that you don't know you can actually make yet, right? That is a key part of the business, and that's a bit of a con. Now, Jobs wound up finding people who were able to make the things that he promised happen, generally, not always.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Well, it's, it's the successes are the ones that in hindsight, found the right person. Like Elon Musk is, like, we just have the benefit of Elon Musk likes being on Twitter to know he's a moron. If he wasn't on Twitter, we simply wouldn't know this shit.

• 39:01Robert Evans?

  If the company was just making products, and he was never making promises, or any of these, like, not, like, he would still have a lot of his aura to him, if he just kept fucking quiet. Anyway.

• 39:13Robert Evans?

  So, Collins Rector, yes, straddles the line between entrepreneur and con man. 20 years back, he had run, this is because the LA Times looks into him and they found that his first business venture was this telecom company in Florida called Telequest that he ran like, he started like 20 years ago. One of his investors described him as a genius who was too much into instant aggrandizement, right? Basically, he was great at certain things. He was really smart. He was a visionary, but he also wanted to spend all the money on fun shit like sports cars as opposed to building a business. That business eventually failed and he started another one called WorldComNet, which sold travel packages and reached a peak valuation of about $100 million before crashing.

• 39:55Robert Evans?

  So shortly after moving in together, because when he picks up this kid Shackley from a message board when Shackley's like 16 and they move in, or younger, and they move in together when Shackley's 16 and they start a business, which they sell for millions of dollars.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Wait, wait.

• 40:11Robert Evans?

  And they use that to buy the mansion that Din has operated on.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  He found this kid, did he like, on a trap board and then like,

• 40:17Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Got the kid's parents' permission and transported him over state lines?

• 40:21Robert Evans?

  I think it's within the state of California. But yeah, his parents let him move in with this guy because they think they're starting a business. I mean, they do start a business and they sell it and they make a lot of money.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  I do kind of see where this is.

• 40:32Robert Evans?

  This is just also an abusive sexual situation.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do see where this is going.

• 40:36Robert Evans?

  Or probably. We don't know exactly what went on, but that's heavily insinuated, right?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 40:43Robert Evans?

  So, they pay high salaries, Din does, and cash bonuses for their employees rather than giving them stock, which is really weird. Most startups are primarily compensating people in stock and the idea is if the company works out, then you get rich, right? It's sort of a sign that maybe they knew this wasn't going to work and they were operating a con, that they're paying themselves and their friends huge salaries rather than giving a bunch of stock options up, right? That's kind of a sign they know this isn't going to work out. In the first six months of 1999, Din made zero revenue and lost $20 million. Most of that money goes to salaries, but some of it is spent on giant parties that brought in an A-list guest roster. I want you to guess, just guess, one of the guests, one of the celebrity guests that

• 41:28Robert Evans?

  show up at these parties, the Din boys who throw in.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Uh, what year? What year are we talking?

• 41:34Robert Evans?

  This is like 99, 2000, 98, 99, 2000, like that period.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Seinfeld.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Seinfeld.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  The Friends, every, uh, uh, every friend.

• 41:49Robert Evans?

  No, it's Bryan Singer. It's Bryan Singer's 70's party.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:54Robert Evans?

  Bryan Singer and Gary Goddard, two of the allegedly sex pestiest sex pests in the history of sex prostitute, right? Like, fuck, you read some of the allegations against Singer, uh, who's not been convicted of anything in a court of law, uh, I have to say. Per Hollywood Reporter, and obviously the fact that they're having these parties, the fact that fucking Collins Rector is the guy he is. There's a lot of bad things happening at these parties. Kind of not unique, but I will say there are bad things happening to young men. Although I, I say young men, there are bad things happening to young boys, which is different from some of the other guys in Hollywood. To quote from the Hollywood Reporter. "A young man sued, claiming Collins Rector had started molesting him when he was 13. More litigation followed regarding alleged goings-on at the Dinn Mansion.

• 42:40Robert Evans?

  One alleged victim, Alexander Burton, claimed that Collins Rector, Pierce, and Shackley had supplied him with alcohol and drugs even though he was under 21 and that all three men subsequently assaulted him. Another accuser was said to have written a suicide note, reading in part, 'I can't go on. I let them use me as a sex tool.' The note was discovered before a suicide attempt could be made. There were also accusations that Collins Rector would intimidate his victims by brandishing a gun."

• 43:04Robert Evans?

  So.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 43:05Robert Evans?

  Bad.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Ew.

• 43:07Robert Evans?

  Again, to make it very clear, first off, for legal reasons, Brock Pierce has not been convicted of anything. He has not been proven in a court of law to have abused anyone at these parties. He has just been accused of it. There was at least one case where things were settled out of court. Um, but Collins Rector has been convicted of things and Brock Pierce is not. I do want to make that clear. But it's also clear, there are allegations against Brock Pierce during this time, that he sexually assaulted at least one child that I'm aware of, right? Um, or at least one alleged victim. Sorry. Yeah, who was under 21. Um, so, you know. Interpret that how you will. I know how I feel about Brock Pierce. But again, hasn't been convicted of anything. So the resultant lawsuit forced Mark Collins Rector

• 43:52Robert Evans?

  to leave the country before Den could IPO. And the company collapsed quickly after that. About a third of the employees were laid off and new management struggled to right a sinking ship. Collins Rector, under indictment for transporting minors across state lines for sex, took Shackley and Pierce to Spain with him in August of 2000. So the boys have now fled the country for Spain, where they're living in a nice villa, one has to assume. Yeah. And probably continuing to get up to things we don't want to think about. Yeah. One would assume. Now, in May of 2022, their home, one may assume because in May of 2022, their home was raided by Interpol. Like, not, not a great sign when your house gets raided by Interpol.

• 44:35Robert Evans?

  While, while you're on the run from the American feds. Right, for transporting minors across state lines. And the search of their home in Spain found weapons and thousands of individual pieces of child sex abuse material, right? Thousands of photos of like naked kids being abused. Pierce has claimed he was unaware that the photos were in the house. Thousands of pieces of porn I didn't know about, you know? He and Shackley were released, but their older friend was ultimately extradited to the United States for his many crimes and pled guilty to five counts of trafficking minors. And again, maybe Pierce didn't know about the photos. Legally, I have to say that, right?

• 45:15Robert Evans?

  Because he and Shackley were released, whereas, uh, uh, fucking Collins Rector was, was extradited, right?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Was that motherfucker in jail for a long time?

• 45:25Robert Evans?

  No, a few months. He does a few months in prison. Uh, and then he flees the country because he's still rich. And he seems to still reside in Europe today. Last I heard, he was there in like 2014. I don't know what he's up to right now, or if he's still alive, but... Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I hate it here.

• 45:42Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it's great. It's, it's not great. It's not good. Yeah. Planet Earth in this time.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yes, that's, that's what I mean.

• 45:50Robert Evans?

  After this all kind of blows over, Pierce returns to the US. He settles the claims against him. He has never been, he has never acknowledged or been convicted of any wrongdoing during this period of time. But while he was in Spain, before he goes back to the US, he creates his next company, Internet Gaming Entertainment, or IGE. You ever heard of this company, Andrew? I thought you were gonna say IGN, I guess. No, so did I for a second. When I first started reading this, I was like, no, he didn't make IGN, right? No, he didn't. Um, did you ever play World of Warcraft, like, after it came out? Like, right after it came out? Uh, not as much, but like, I've been in, I've been in the room when people are playing it, yeah. I was big into World of Warcraft right at, for like, the first two years after it

• 46:35Robert Evans?

  came out, like, released the first expansion pack, basically. And if you were playing WoW during that period, there's a good chance you know what IGE is, because this is the company that made gold farming into a thing, right? Oh, sure. Like, that, this is, they're not the, there were others, obviously, but IGE was the big gold farming company, and they were the company that kind of established gold farming as an industry for the chunk of time that it was, right? Oh, god. Now, the goal with IGE, though, this is what's important. The company's goal was not to do what it became, which was, it was basically farming gold in video games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft against the expressed desires and the stated rules of the developers that made those games, right?

• 47:19Robert Evans?

  IGE's actual goal was to enable and to convince the gaming industry to enable trading of real money for virtual goods, which is the thing that all, basically all big games do now, right? Yeah. This, the idea, IGE wanted to push that. That was controversial at this point in time. Collins Rector would later claim that he was the shadow founder of the company, that he had the idea and Brock took the credit. Pierce denies this. "I don't know the truth," but as The Hollywood Reporter makes clear, quote, "What's unclear is when Collins Rector stopped being a part of Pierce's life. In a lawsuit against Pierce, a former partner in IGE claimed that Pierce had told him in 2005 that Collins Rector, then living overseas..." And according to the feds, still consorting with teenage boys had been blackmailing him,

• 48:04Robert Evans?

  threatening to damage I G E in the lot in the eyes of investors. Pierce's rep says Collins Rector never threatened blackmail and denies that Pierce ever made such a statement. Pierce separated any business relationship with Din failed and the internet bubble burst in 2000. Pierce's personal relationship with Collins Rector lasted until 2003, the rep says. That's after Collins Rector's indictment in 2000 and after Interpol showed up at the house in Spain in 2002. But Pierce's rep says at the time of the his arrest, Collins Rector asserted his innocence. It wasn't until Pierce received additional information concerning Collins Rector's improper actions that he separated entirely. So, you know, I don't, I mean, he's still like, I don't think that I think he basically knew.

• 48:46Robert Evans?

  He is very young at this point, but he has also been involved in a lot of bad behavior. He is an adult now and he, right, you know, I, I don't, I don't have a lot of sympathy more.

• 48:57Robert Evans?

  Now, I will say eventually Collins Rector exits Pierce's life and whatever impact he had on I G E. This is Pierce's baby for the majority of the time that the company exists, right? And once Collins Rector is kind of out of the picture, you see, there's maybe this need in Pierce to have an older man. To give him advice and professional assistance. I mean, that's a good idea professionally in cases like this. But also it, it seems to be something Pierce maybe seeks out kind of pathologically. And in this case, the next older man that he seeks out as a mentor is Steve Bannon. Now, it makes sense.

• 49:38Robert Evans?

  What the fuck? It's not great. It, it, it, it's fucked up. Obviously, we know who Bannon is and he becomes. It makes sense, right? At the time, right? Steve is a fabulously wealthy producer, right? He gets his start as like a banker, basically, but he's a, he's, he, he helps like make fucking Seinfeld, right? Yeah. And Brock had wanted to be a producer himself. He came from Hollywood, so Bannon is the sort of authority figure Pierce had grown up listening to and respecting, right? Like, he clearly has a lot of respect for the job, so it makes sense that Bannon would be a guy that he'd kind of inherently trust.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:15Robert Evans?

  So by the time Bannon came to IGE, World of Warcraft was the biggest game in history, and there were millions being made selling easy access to gold and other in-game resources that normally you had to grind for dozens of hours to get. IGE had set up gold farms in China using cheap workers who could spend long hours doing that in-game grinding for the player. Now, this wasn't illegal, right? This is not a crime to operate a business like this, but it is a gray market. This may seem kind of hard to believe, given the present realities of the video game industry, but game developers initially had a big issue with the idea of gamers using real money to buy in-game assets. For one thing, if you actually care about making a good game, if that's your interest,

• 50:58Robert Evans?

  is actually making a game that's like a quality game and its construction, letting people buy their way to have better stuff wrecks the game, right? Like, it kind of fucks up the whole thing, you know?

• 51:12Speaker 03

  Well, it's like the two goals. It's like, is your actual goal as a game studio to make a good game, or is it to make money?

• 51:18Robert Evans?

  Right.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  And those are not necessarily consonant.

• 51:21Robert Evans?

  And the studios land on make money, but the game developers themselves often were very hesitant to embrace this kind of thing initially, right? And so, there's also, like, World of Warcraft has an in-game economy. The Blizzard spent quite a bit of time trying to set up and make, like, functional, right?

• 51:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:40Robert Evans?

  So they're also upset that this is fucking up the in-game economy. So they sought to ban gold farmers whenever they cropped up. In 2005, Pierce met Bannon and brought him into IGE to act as the adult in the room. The company needed major investment money if it was going to survive and thrive. And Bannon, basically Bannon, Pierce sees Bannon as the trusted old head, who investors would, because Pierce has a reputation, right? He's somebody who people have a degree of faith in, but they also see he's really young. So if they're going to invest serious money in a company he's starting, they want to see there's a guy like Steve Bannon, you know? So that's why Bannon's there. Bannon visits the company's Hong Kong offices, and he works out a deal whereby Goldman Sachs,

• 52:24Robert Evans?

  his old employer, invested $60 million, and he became the VP of IGE. Now, it's important to note, IGE is pretty evil before Bannon comes on board. Not only is it kind of ruining the spirit of the games that its farmers operate in, but the whole business hinges on a lot of questionable activity, as the Washington boast summarizes. It's like a digital sweatshop, right? Yeah, it is a digital sweatshop, right? Yeah. IGE employees in the Hong Kong office created accounts for the company's delivery avatars using the names and home addresses of unwitting US residents picked at random in a phone directory. The company used dial-up phone service that connected to servers in the United States, making it appear that they were using computers there rather than in Hong Kong.

• 53:08Robert Evans?

  "We were spending $20,000 a month on dial-up service," one employee said.

• 53:15Robert Evans?

  So, that's shady as fuck. Web 0.5 version of this business is so insane. Oh, my god. Yeah. Speaking of stealing people's identities for profit, you know who loves to do that?

• 53:30Robert Evans?

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• 55:46Robert Evans?

  And we're back. So, uh, gold farmers working for IGE in China made as little as $0.25 an hour, laboring in cramped factories the New York Times described as "virtual sweatshops." Bannon's job, then, was to convince old-money people that this business is a gold mine. And unfortunately, he has some success with this initially, but he doesn't succeed enough. He's able to get a lot of money for IGE, but the company still doesn't really, like, work out in the long run because he's not able to convince the people who matter most, right? The executives running game companies like Blizzard. Because...

• 56:26Robert Evans?

  Ultimately, IGE can only be viable as a business if Blizzard stops banning their farmers and deleting the accounts and stuff that have all of the money that they're trying to transfer to people. And Blizzard refuses to do that. They just do not initially accept, like, obviously Activision Blizzard eventually becomes perfectly fine with in-game purchases and all this shit, right?

• 56:48Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, on any, like, even the philosophical people that agree with them, it's not that IG, it's not the, what IG is doing that they don't like, it's that IG is not in-house.

• 57:00Robert Evans?

  Right, right, right. I mean, I think there is from people who care about the quality of the game. There's people who just have an issue with what they're doing. But right, yeah, you are correct when it comes to the, yeah.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  There's certainly plenty of people, even at the time at Blizzard, that were like, "Oh, my God, yeah, in-game transactions, amazing."

• 57:16Robert Evans?

  And that's why it's dumb that-

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Just not from these guys.

• 57:19Robert Evans?

  Yeah, IG was ever hoping the company would, like, that Blizzard or whoever would accept there being a middleman who makes money off of, like, their in-game world?

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Like, why would they?

• 57:31Robert Evans?

  Yeah, why would they be okay with this? So Blizzard constantly raids IGE, right? They find people's accounts, they delete them, they ban people who are buying gold. There's a bunch of lawsuits from people who bought gold and didn't get it, yada, yada, yada. It causes a bunch of problems for IGE. Pierce eventually has to step down as CEO, and Bannon replaces him. And it's kind of framed as, like, Bannon edges Pierce out, but that doesn't, it seems to have been perfectly friendly. Like, Pierce seems to have been fine with this and understood that, like, this is what's, you know, we need to do for the next stage of the business, right?

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:07Robert Evans?

  Ultimately, IGE stops selling gold entirely, and under Bannon, the company is renamed Affinity Media Holdings, and instead makes its money running and operating a series of chat rooms and forums for gamers. So the company pivots to running places where gamers communicate and socialize. And Bannon, first, he sees, he sees how angry these gamers had gotten at gold farming, and he starts paying attention to the social dynamics in these online communities. And it gives him a horrible, awful idea. And I'm gonna quote from the Washington Post here. Bannon became fascinated with the collective power of gamers who gathered on these sites.

• 58:49Robert Evans?

  According to journalist Joshua Green, who wrote a book Devil's Bargain about Bannon's rise in the Trump administration, selling virtual currency was highly unpopular with many gamers, and they railed against IGE in these chat rooms, putting pressure on the companies that operated the games not to partner with IGE. These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power, Bannon said. Right? So he's, he's starting to realize, okay, this kind of fucked us. The power that these, these inchoate groups of angry white dudes on the internet, it kind of fucked the business now, but you could manipulate these guys. Right. You could tune them up and turn them on an enemy and unleash them as a weapon. And they have the ability to do some damage, right? This is where Bannon makes that realization. Right.

• 59:34Robert Evans?

  And I know, folks, that we're 55 minutes in and I barely talked about Epstein past the introduction. Trust me, we're coming back to him. This is all necessary groundwork for you to understand Epstein's role in all this. Oh, God. So Brock Pierce would later describe Steve Bannon as his right-hand man for like seven years, which again suggests there were no hard feelings about Bannon replacing him as CEO of IGE. Not long after leaving the company, Brock gets involved in the world of cryptocurrency. That's kind of his next move after gaming. He founds a company called Blockchain Capital. And this is a, he is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative that he founds this under, right? Well, he's, he's like a part of the Clinton Global Initiative as he creates Blockchain

• 1:00:16Robert Evans?

  Capital, which again, the Clintons are very tied to Epstein, right? And that may be part of how Jeffrey Epstein heard about Brock Pierce for the first time is because Pierce is tied in through the Clinton Global Initiative. Now, let's perspective shift back to our old pal Jeffrey. He had served time in 2008 and 2009 for soliciting sex from a minor, right? But he was by 2010 a free man. He was still rich and he was still influential, but he was something of a pariah, at least to normal people. He's not a pariah to the power elite. He's not a pariah to the people running the New York Times, to a lot of people working at the Times. He's not a pariah to a lot of Harvard professors, to a lot of famous academics and scientists,

• 1:01:01Robert Evans?

  to a lot of celebrities, but he's like... In public is a guy who got arrested for fucking a kid, you know? Right? And this aided him. He hates the fact that like, he had to take an L, right? And that's, he sees it as this kind of petty, because his friends are like, man, you kind of got off light, which he did. But it, it really bugs him that he had to suffer any consequences at all, because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. Now, it would take years- Evidence suggests that his peer group will not face consequences for the same behavior. So- In a sense, he's right. Or whatever, but yes, yeah. Yeah. So it's gonna take years for the reality of Epstein's conviction and what the scattered

• 1:01:42Robert Evans?

  stories from his victims meant to coalesce into a widespread understanding of his crimes, right? In 2010, 2009, 10, not a lot of people are talking about Epstein as like this vast child sex trafficker who has this like secret empire that all of the world, that takes some time to build up as more stories come out, as our understanding gets broader. There's some people who, who, who understand that about him from this stage, particularly his victims, but it's not widely known at this point. But he can, he's kind of watching as he's sitting in his Manhattan penthouse or on his private sex island, he's slowly, over the years, watching the story come together, watching people start to become more and more aware of what he'd done.

• 1:02:23Robert Evans?

  And he seems to, this is, I think, his radicalizing moment, because he, he sees a few different enemies coalescing to ruin his life, right? And this, this alliance is roughly a mix between you've got your busybody feminists, right? Including a lot of his victims. You've got meddlesome reporters. And of course, you, you've got, you know, the actual people that he hurt, right? You've got these like feminist activists, you've got these meddlesome journalists, and you've got his former victims, all of whom won't shut up, right? That's how Epstein sees this. And the answer to all of these problems, he seems to have decided, was to use his position of influence to push for a change in the culture, to a culture where maybe journalists, or at least the kind of journalists who will report on this stuff, have less interest,

• 1:03:08Robert Evans?

  where maybe women are more frightened to speak up, and where maybe victims have fewer rights, you know? I really do think a lot of his- What a great guy. Yeah, he's a cool dude. Jesus Christ. So his feelings on all of this evolved as he tried to crack down on uncomfortable reporting about his life. In a write-up for the website Protos, Caspianzi writes, "In an effort to halt the decline, Epstein seeks out help from Alfred Sekel, aka Al Sekel, a serial scammer and illusionist who's been dating Gillan Maxwell's sister Isabel for years. Epstein tasks Sekel with what he presumes to be a relatively cheap and easy job: wipe the internet of his sins. This proves to be a pipe dream. Whether due to Sekel's own incompetence and greed, or due to Epstein's unreparable

• 1:03:52Robert Evans?

  reputation, a $25,000 job becomes a $45,000 job with an added luxury conference called the Mindshift Conference, hosted on Little St. James, and to be paid for by the Epstein Foundation." And this is meaningful. That's the most important thing about his connection to this con man Al Sekel, right? Is that Sekel says, "Hey, you need to hold a conference on your sex island about like all of the different shifts that are taking place in technology and like philosophy and psychology, right? Which is going to include cryptocurrency, which is why Brock Pierce is gonna get invited, right? Now, Al Sekel is a con man, and I think kind of similar to Collins Rector, perhaps a bit more shameless.

• 1:04:35Robert Evans?

  So the Mindshift Conference is a massive failure if judged by its stated goals. It is not go over well. Epstein, like when he starts getting involved in this, Epstein views the Mindshift Conference like this is gonna be my TED Talks. Like, I'm gonna create the new TED Talks, right? The new, the new TED Talks are on my private child molestation island, right?

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  This is where everything you need to know in all fucking domains is gonna happen. Oh, God.

• 1:05:03Robert Evans?

  God, it's... These people are so dumb. They're so dumb and they're all the same fucking sad weirdo, right? Like, the idea that like, "I need a TED Talk of my own, that'll make people forget I'm a pedophile." So, most of the panels at this conference are a bust, but one of the invited speakers is Brock Pierce. And again, maybe this connection comes because of the Clinton found, you know, because, because he's, Clinton is aware of this guy and Clinton knows Jeffrey. I don't exactly know. But Brock Pierce is invited to this thing, and he gives a talk about crypto, and Epstein likes this. He later writes to a colleague that he found the young entrepreneur interesting. And Brock is kind of the only good thing about this conference, as Epstein sees it, right? How old is Brock at this time?

• 1:05:47Robert Evans?

  Brock is in his twenties at this point, right? So Epstein increasingly finds Brock's pet cause cryptocurrency intriguing. This is what gets Epstein interested in crypto. As Pianci writes, previously Jeffrey Epstein had considered Bitcoin and its ilk to be only useful for criminals. And it's unclear what about Brock's presentation changed Epstein's mind, but the fact that Jeffrey was himself now a convicted criminal may have played a role. Maybe it's just that like, this is only for criminals. Oh, but I'm a criminal now.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:17Robert Evans?

  Maybe I gotta get on board this.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  So clear.

• 1:06:19Robert Evans?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  It's so funny that he had the correct like point of view on it.

• 1:06:25Robert Evans?

  Yeah, no, you're right.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  It's for money laundering. It's for money laundering, dude.

• 1:06:30Robert Evans?

  So Epstein's relationship with Al Sekul fell apart after the conference. Al tried to sell him a bunch of fake art and antiquities and got himself blacklisted. But Epstein's broader interest in Brock Pierce and cryptocurrency continue after this point. In June of 2007, Epstein starts emailing with Gavin Anderson, the successor to Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Now, we don't actually know who Nakamoto really was. This is a big mystery in the world of Bitcoin. But he picks Anderson to be the lead maintainer of Bitcoin development after he retires in April of 2011. And we don't know why he retired. Some people suggest that it's because of what Anderson was talking about doing at this

• 1:07:12Robert Evans?

  point in time, which is Anderson, right around the time Nakamoto retires, starts talking about how he's going to give a talk on Bitcoin to the CIA, like at CIA headquarters in Langley. And this is, to say the least, controversial among cryptocurrency advocates, right? The first wave of crypto enthusiasts are libertarian and they're very anti-state people. This is an ideological thing for a lot of them. And they don't like the CIA very much. The fact that Anderson, basically as soon as he becomes the director of the project after Nakamoto is like, I'm going to go talk to the CIA about it, is kind of giving up the game for the real money people in crypto, right? Which is. This isn't about escaping the state.

• 1:07:55Robert Evans?

  You're not freeing yourselves from the shackles of the government. You're co-opting it, right? Crypto is, as we've seen from the president, right? We're like, no, he's, fucking Bitcoin didn't free people from the clutches of the government and the Federal Reserve. It gave the president a way to take bribes.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Robert Evans?

  Right?

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  It privatized.

• 1:08:16Robert Evans?

  Crypto functions now.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  All those fucking horrible functions. So now any, any rich fool can do it.

• 1:08:22Robert Evans?

  Yeah. But this is really controversial at the time, right? So Epstein emails Anderson two days before he talks to the CIA. And he seems to have started fishing around. He's asking his contacts for Gavin's phone number. Does anyone know this guy? Does anyone have his number? A few weeks earlier, he starts by asking Bay Area socialite and professional hanger on Jason Calacanis, who is also close to Elon Musk. And eventually he gets the info. And the two seem to have gotten in touch on the 12th. He's like emailing and he asks Brock directly for his phone number. We don't know what the two, if the two talked on the phone. We don't know what they would have talked about. But on the 14th, two days after he connects directly with Epstein, Anderson speaks to the CIA at Langley.

• 1:09:07Robert Evans?

  The next day Epstein emails Anderson about meeting in person. And we don't know if they did, but we know that he declined several invitations to do so, right? Like, we don't know to what extent these people, we don't know if they talked on the phone. We know they're emailing a bunch. We know Epstein's trying to get in touch with them. We know Epstein talks about meeting him in person. We don't know what actually happens. And this will talk about there's some other times when Epstein will mention Anderson that make me think he and Gavin had more of a relationship than Gavin wants to admit, or that is publicly known, right? And one of the issues here is that we just have what these people emailed about. And in fact, if you search through variations of like, not for email, or like,

• 1:09:49Robert Evans?

  You know, for phone only or stuff like that in the Epstein files, you'll find them Epstein periodically being like, hey, we got to take this offline. Like this is an in-person conversation. This is something we got to talk about on the phone. So the fact that we can't prove via the emails that Epstein and Gavin were connecting or what they were talking about doesn't mean they weren't right? Because a lot of this stuff is just kind of off the record. But we know that Epstein was working hard to be in contact with them and that they had the potential to be in contact and that Epstein talks about Gavin as if they were in contact at other points. Right? So that's what I can say. Whatever the two discussed, if they discussed anything, Epstein plunges ahead into the world of cryptocurrency after this

• 1:10:32Robert Evans?

  point. He continues talking with Brock Pierce as well. The two met repeatedly in person in 2001 and Epstein offers Pierce financial advice. Brock eventually comes to him and admits that he hasn't paid his taxes in years and Epstein helps him sort that out. Their friendship continues into the spring of 2012, which is the first time that we have a record of Epstein providing girls to Brock Pierce. And you can see the email chain up on the website. It starts with Jeffrey Epstein saying, victim name and victim name are alone in LA. I had to leave. Please assist. Leave your girlfriend home. And then a large redacted section of the email and Brock responds, will do. Broke up with the girlfriend last

• 1:11:15Robert Evans?

  night, so that won't be a problem. Best regards, Brock. To which Epstein responds, call me a little later. And then Brock replies the next day, I had a great time with the girls. Hope they had fun, too. So we know at this point, and you know, I might say if this was any other group of people, well, girls, sometimes people refer to adult women that way. I'm not going to assume that here. I'm not going to assume these are not literal girls, because it's Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. You know? Ew. And Epstein's relationship with Brock and his interest in Bitcoin are only going to expand from this point on, and both are going to bring him into the orbit of several

• 1:12:00Robert Evans?

  major figures on the new right, including Steve Bannon. And we'll talk about all that and much more in part two. I know there wasn't as much Epstein as you may have expected. I mean, we got a bit, a good bit at the beginning and the end.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  We need contracts.

• 1:12:13Robert Evans?

  There's a lot you have to hear about Brock Pierce first to understand why all this matters.

• 1:12:18Speaker 03

  The reason people tune in is for backstory. You know, you find the shit that I'm like, yeah.

• 1:12:24Robert Evans?

  That's the pod. Yeah.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  And somehow Seinfeld did in fact come up, which was incredible.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Good for him.

• 1:12:31Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Robert Evans?

  Well, you got any pluggables to plug?

• 1:12:35Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. Making a show called Star Trek on our premium site, suboptimalpod.com. Uh, I saw you were watching a little bit of Starfleet Academy, Robert.

• 1:12:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I've seen the first couple. Yeah.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. But my, my co-host, Toni Newsom's a writer on that and she was.

• 1:12:51Robert Evans?

  Oh shit. Right, right, right. Yeah. I love Toni. Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 03

  Beckett, Beckett Mariner on Lower Decks. So, um, yeah, we, she's, uh, we're watching Star Trek episodes and I have seen a bunch, but I don't know nearly as much as her. So I'm, I'm.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  That's fun.

• 1:13:05Robert Evans?

  No, no, she, she's, there's very few people involved in making Star Trek that I feel like really know Star Trek and Toni is one of them.

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  Toni knows so much about Star Trek.

• 1:13:17Robert Evans?

  Toni really knows Star Trek. Yes.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Robert Evans?

  Um, I, I've got a thing to plug before we go out here. Uh, I met with just somebody last night when I was out at a bar, uh, who told me about a local Portland charity called the Artist Mentorship Program, AKA AMP, which supports youth experiencing homelessness, uh, and has done so for over 30 years. It serves young people aged 15 to 25 and provides essential supplies and job training with music and art programs at the heart of its work. Uh, if you'd like to support or learn more about AMP, you can go to AMPPDX.org. That's AMPPDX.org. Um, it's a good cause. Check them out.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedi.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit "Remind Me" on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips and our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/AtBehindTheBastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.

• 1:14:33Speaker 08

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• 1:15:03Speaker 09

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• 1:16:40Speaker 10

  How do you know that Claude won't become manipulative?

• 1:16:44Speaker 11

  This is a constant worry.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  And you can actually catch the model thinking, I think X is actually true, but I'm going to tell the user Y.

• 1:16:52Speaker 10

  I'm Walter Isaacson. On my new podcast, The Builders, I'm going inside the minds of the people shaping our future. Listen to The Builders starting October 13th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.