the new world ultimately yielded benefits that were unimaginable at the time. and one could argue, yes, there was travesty and loss of life, and all these terrible things that happened because of it but ultimately, it did enable a lot of progress for all of people that i think arose from discovering and realising the opportunities in the new world. so, i m not going to rush to judgment to say that someone choosing to invest their wealth in discovering new frontiers whether that s microscopic biological frontiers, or whether that s space frontiers is doing right or wrong. i think time will tell what the benefits will be that will accrue ultimately to all people, if those discoveries do pan out, and they do yield benefit for us. dave friedberg, we have to end there, but thanks very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks for having me.
or will the motivation of the market, the market that says, if this works, i will get paid for it will that source the billion? and by the way, it s not. if i may interrupt, i mean, that sounds like, frankly, a billionaire mounting an extremely, er, persuasive defence of capitalism. but we live on a planet which is dominated by capitalism. and what we see is inequity of every different sort, across this planet, we see billions of people living with virtually nothing. we see a tiny, tiny few in the elite like you, dave friedberg living with unimaginable wealth. capitalism doesn t work. capitalism has its downside. have you read any of steven pinker s books? yeah, in fact, we ve had him on the show. so, i think he does a greatjob of framing the arc of progress. and the arc of progress, i think, is one where if you look at the relative condition of people as a whole, of the bottom
well, my guest today is the san francisco tech billionaire, dave friedberg. he says science and technology can and will fix humanity s problems. should we believe him? dave friedberg, in san francisco, welcome to hardtalk. yeah, thanks for. thanks for coming by. it s a real pleasure to be here. you describe yourself as an extreme optimist when it comes to we humans, and our ability to overcome the most fundamental challenges we face. what do you base that optimism on? well, i think history s a good predictor. so, historically, humans have. ..found themselves facing
is the san francisco tech billionaire, dave friedberg. he says science and technology can and will fix humanity s problems. should we believe him? dave friedberg, in san francisco, welcome to hardtalk. yeah, thanks for. thanks for coming by. it s a real pleasure to be here. you describe yourself as an extreme optimist when it comes to we humans and our ability to overcome the most fundamental challenges we face. yeah. what do you base that optimism on? well, i think history s a good predictor. so historically, humans have. ..found themselves facing
and is the billion dollars ultimately going to yield the best benefit for the market, for the customer, and ultimately for the end user, for the consumer, for the people in need, for the 95% of the world that are desperate to move themselves up the ladder in the world? or will the motivation of the market, the market that says, if this works, i will get paid for it will that source the billion? and by the way, it s not. if i may interrupt, i mean, that sounds like, frankly, a billionaire mounting an extremely, er, persuasive defence of capitalism. but we live on a planet which is dominated by capitalism. and what we see is inequity of every different sort, across this planet. we see billions of people living with virtually nothing. we see a tiny, tiny few in the elite like you, dave friedberg living with unimaginable wealth. capitalism doesn t work. capitalism has its downside. have you read any of steven pinker s books? yeah, in fact, we ve had him on the show.