(alarm buzzes)
- [Kal] Rich people.
You know the type I'm talking about,
with their ridiculously lavish cribs,
their cars for every day of the week,
their tracksuits for every day of the week.
Let's just say it.
A lot of them come across as dicks.
There are Ponzi scheme running,
steal your life savings rich dicks,
take no political prisoners but if you do, waterboard them,
oh also, shoot a friend in the face rich dicks,
holy shit, how did these YouTube videos
make this guy 14 mil a year rich dicks.
- Blah, blah, blah, more material objects.
Guys, the point is I bought a lot of things,
including this Rolex.
- [Kal] Performance enhancing, we're going to have to put
an asterisk in that "W" column, rich dicks.
- How many times do I have to say it?
I've never taken performance enhancing drugs.
- Even Wu-Tang Clan disrespecting
pharma bro rich dicks.
What is it about having a lot of money
and a willingness to step over anyone
to get more of it that seem to so often go together?
Is there a correlation between richness and dickness?
And while we're asking questions, how many times can I say
the word dick in a show about the economy?
The answer may surprise you.
Whether you like it or not, we're all connected by money.
I'm Kal Penn, exploring this giant beast
that is the global economy.
If we're gonna spend the whole episode
unpacking a broadly drawn stereotype,
it maybe be helpful to have a concrete example.
So we scoured the world to find the perfect specimen.
His name is Justin.
Justin Ross Lee is an American entrepreneur
whose passions include leveraging his rich dick persona
to travel the world in first class, and then bragging
about his jet setting exploits on Instagram.
We're meeting for champagne and pedicures
at his favorite resort.
He is, in short, a total dick.
- Cheers.- What? No, no, no.
We don't say cheers in Thailand.
In New York, I'd say l'chaim.
Here, we say chok dee krap.
I know, I know what you're gonna say.
- I'm not saying anything except I don't trust you yet.
So okay, I'll play.
- [Justin] Chok dee krap. - Chok dee krap.
It's unclear how much Justin is worth,
but he's made acting like a rich dick
the centerpiece of his business.
- [Justin] It's not just about being an asshole,
but it certainly helps.
- [Kal] His company is called Pretentious Pocket.
They sell pocket squares with names like the Madoff
and the Bateman to a consumer base
who look at Justin and are like, "That guy!
"Yeah, I also wanna look like a bully
in a John Hughes movie."
- We make the world's finest pocket square
that's literally made of fuck-you silk.
People all over the world buy my product.
Why do they buy my product, Kal?
- I don't know. - To peacock,
to be pretentious, to be obnoxious.
And I think in a global economy in 2018, 2019,
you really need to be in your face
and completely unapologetic.
If 49% of the people love you
and 51% of the people hate you,
as long as people are talking about you,
I think you're doing something right.
You have to be bold, brash and obnoxious
in order to stand out and become best of breed.
- Yeah. - For example, if you're going to be in logistics
or shipping, you better be FedEx.
If you're going to sell condoms,
you better be fucking Trojan.
And unless you've made that impression,
you've failed in whatever it is that you do.
- Like for example, you, Kal Penn. - Yeah.
- If somebody thinks White Castle
and doesn't think Kal Penn, you failed as an actor.
That's it.
- If the thing that I'm known for is a movie I did
12 years ago, I'm doing something wrong, right?
- (laughs) You have to be in the back of their minds.
- I get it. (laughs) I'm not saying I don't get it.
I'm saying what, like, what are some of the things
that make people successful and why?
- Shamelessness.
Quite frankly, you have to be an asshole.
Like the founders of Uber needed to realize
they were gonna piss off a lot of cab drivers.
But then again, in 2018,
hailing a cab just doesn't really work.
I mean, look at what Airbnb has done
to the hospitality industry.
- [Kal] Ah, this dick may have a point.
Winning at business does mean someone else loses.
Uber may have saved everyone a fortune in DUI fines.
- These girls are crazy!
Ah! (laughs)
- [Kal] But it also cost thousands of cab drivers their livelihoods.
And Airbnb is a great way to make some extra cash
by letting strangers treat your home
the way Led Zeppelin treated hotel rooms.
- [Reporter] When Mark and Star King finally entered
their home after renting it out for the weekend,
they were shocked at what they saw.
- There's mayonnaise on furniture,
and barbecue sauce everywhere,
and chicken meat in my shoes.
- [Kal] But you can't hose off the damage Airbnb
has done to the hospitality industry.
- You really need to either adapt, adopt or die.
And so if you're at odds at being able to do
whatever it is you do best because you feel bad,
you're a fucking dinosaur, man.
- Alright.
- [Justin] Kal. - Yeah.
Ketokap, I'm gonna need my hand back.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Like how soft, feel that. - Thank you.
- This is great. -You gotta follow me on Instagram.
- [Kal] Oh, great.
Now I'm gonna be tagged on Instagram alongside this and this
and this,
when normally, my Instagram feed looks like this.
According to Justin, the path to personal success
is littered with the bodies of your competition.
There's a word for people with complete lack of empathy.
It's "psychopath."
When you think about psychopaths, do you think of this?
Or this?
More on this guy in a minute.
Author Jon Ronson has literally written the book
on the connection between sychopaths and business.
So I'm meeting him at a fancy bespoke suit shop,
the kind of place that he says
is a psychopath's natural habitat.
- [Jon] So have you come to have your suit fitted?
- I'm told this is what psychopaths do.
- This is what I am-- - I'm here to figure it out.
- There's a couple of weird quirks about people
who score high on the psychopath checklist.
One is that they really like to wear suits,
like really good, fancy suits.
- So you wanna measure my body.
- Well, I guess my first question
is do we want to design you a suit
that maybe fits the profile of Jon's ideal psychopath?
- Oh, hell yeah. - [Leonard] 'Cause I have some good ideas for that.
- Oh, yeah. - Yes, absolutely, show me a psychopath suit.
- Maybe we could line the suit with this--
- [Jon] Whoa! Look at that. - [Kal] What?
- [Leonard] Those are very predatory. - [Kal] That is awesome.
- The predatory animals is like a real thing.
Like high-scoring proper psychopaths,
they love predatory animals
because they see themselves as predators
going through the world, destroying these weaker creatures.
- [Kal] That sounds about right.
Can you tell me what are the things
that signify that you're a psychopath?
- Okay, well, it's a 20-point checklist
designed by a clinician.
His name is Robert Hare.
He was a prison psychologist in Canada in the 1970s.
- His name was Robert Hare?
- Yeah. - [Kal] Okay.
- The checklist is all about the kind of subtleties
and nuances of psychopathic ehavior: superficial charm,
grandiosity, lack of remorse, lack of empathy.
But of course, any one of these things
doesn't define you as being psychopathic.
- It's the collection. - Yes, the cluster.
- So I really wanted to talk to you
because I'm curious about this idea.
Do dicks become rich?
Are rich people automatically dicks?
If you're good at business, does that have some correlation
to you being either a dick or a psychopath?
- Well, the first thing I'd say is like being a psychopath
and being a dick aren't exactly the same thing.
I think psychopathy is a very particular clinical sort of dickishness.
But Robert had said to me that he regretted
spending his life in prisons,
because he should have spent more time in boardrooms.
- Whoa. - Because he has come up with the figure
that 1% of the general public is a psychopath,
but that figure rises to 4% of CEOs and business leaders.
- In the psychopath test,
Ronson profiled former Sunbeam CEO, Al J. Dunlap,
who did so much downsizing, people called him Chainsaw Al.
Al fired people by the thousands, allegedly told his ex-wife
he wanted to taste human flesh,
skipped both his parents' funerals,
and made millions of dollars for shareholders.
He also loved the jungle motif.
Does that mean you have an innate ability to be a dick,
and that's why you succeed?
Well, I think if you're a real proper
high-scoring psychopath and you've got no empathy,
what do you fill that gap with?
And what you fill it with is ruthlessness, the will to win,
the need to see yourself as a kind of predator,
exploiting weaknesses in other people.
And in business, of course,
winning means getting to the top.
But also, I think shareholders,
capitalism, at its most remorseless,
rewards psychopathic character traits.
It rewards a ruthlessness.
It rewards lack of empathy, lack of remorse,
superficial charm, grandiosity.
So I do think there's truth to Robert Hare's theory
that you're much more likely to find a psychopath
at the top of the money ladder than at the bottom.
- After a lifetime of research, his one regret,
you're saying, is that he wished he had spent
- more time in boardrooms? - [Jon] Yeah.
- Because of the impact that business has on people?
- Yeah.
You know, serial killers are gonna destroy
- a finite number of lives. - Yeah.
- Whereas a president or a CEO can remold society.
- [Kal] If capitalism rewards dicks, isn't that a bad thing?
- Cheers. - Hey, cheers, Kal.
- [Kal] Who thought up this crappy system,
and why are we all on board with it?
- [Violet] Who's Adam Smith?
- Oh, he's a famous economist.
He's the godfather of capitalism.
- Balloons!
Balloons. Get your balloons.
- I'll take a balloon. - Five bucks.
- That seems a bit high for a plain single balloon.
- Oh, does it seem like a bit much for a plain single balloon?
Well, guess what. No one else is selling balloons.
-Take it or leave it. - Fine.
- Have a balloon-errific day. - Dick.
- [Balloon Vendor] Sucker. - (balloon pops)
- Damn thing broke. - No refunds.
Move on.
- Balloons here! $4!
- All the colors of the rainbow. - Motherfucker.
- Brighten up your day with a colorful balloon!
- Violet, look at this. Adam Smith's about to avenge us.
That dick overcharged me for a bad product
out of greed and self interest,
but the park has let another dick into the market.
- Balloons here, $4!
- Now the customer has the freedom of choice.
- I see you have a taste for the finer things.
- Balloon animals here! Fierce animals!
- 3.99. - [Old Man] You see that?
Now, that's innovation.
- Oh, your balloon popped?
Well, I care about my customers.
- Here you go. - [Old Man] Aha!
Once he could lose revenue by selling a flimsy product,
it was in his self interest
to create something more reliable.
- Personalized balloons.
Your face on your own colorful balloon!
- Why be on a balloon when you can be in a balloon skirt?
- Lollipop with purchase. - Face paint.
- Locally sourced string. - Conflict-free helium.
- Organic air! - [Balloon Vendor] Charlatan!
- Simpleton! - That liar!
- Well, assholes, now that they learned to provide quality
to their customers and still make a profit, it looks like
capitalism has straightened the two of you out.
- Yeah, straightened us out all the way to the bank.
- Yeah, we still made fat stacks, chump.
- [KAL] I think I'm starting to get it.
Excuse me.
A capitalist structure channels the power of dick energy.
- Excuse me. - Just a second, man.
- And can actually help us all get better goods and services.
Take Thomas Edison.
In his race to beat George Westinghouse and electrify
the nation, he publicly electrocuted an elephant.
Sounds like something a psychopath would do.
But even now, Edison bulbs are the gold standard of hipness.
Excuse me.
Or take Henry Ford, a stone cold antisemitic asshole.
But in his quest to put a Model T in every garage
in America, he revolutionized assembly line manufacturing,
improving millions of lives for the next 100 years.
- Can I get a beer?
- Can I get you another one?
Yeah, of course, absolutely.
- Hey, fuck face!
- Sorry, sir. How can I help?
- [Kal] Maybe we should all be dicks.
It seems to get things done.
Dickishness... side effects may include
electrocuting an elephant, filming your hike
into a suicide forest, tweeting a picture of your dick,
comparing a government official to an ape,
implying slavery was a choice, driving drunk
and blaming all wars on Jews, jerking off into a plant,
price-gouging people who need life-sustaining medication,
throwing a hotel phone at a concierge.
Rich dicks seem like a breed apart, but can anyone,
even a nice guy like me, potentially learn their ways.
This rich dick says yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk earned an estimated $160 million
by being one of the first people
to tap into the internet's desire for mail-order booze.
- I'm on a one-man mission to create
the greatest wine club in America, maybe the world.
- [Kal] As well as a digital ad agency.
- I've completely crushed it.
A bunch of client meetings for VaynerMedia.
I've been focused as fuck, nothing super glamorous,
no keynotes, no fucking selfies on the street,
just fucking CEO life, trying to get it.
- [Kal] His no excuses, no holds barred business lessons
have earned him plenty of rabid followers.
But also some other responses.
I'm excited to hear his secrets to success.
- I mean that's on them.
- [Kal] Just as soon as he finishes dictating
this important message.
- You can tell them there's nothing to talk about.
I'm 100% not doing it.
Call them right back and tell them I looked
in your dead fucking face and said 100.00.
The likelihood of them convincing me doing it
is the likelihood of me becoming a Patriots fan.
- Give them that quote. - Yes, sir.
Cool.
- [Kal] Are there people who think you're an asshole?
- I'm sure. I curse a lot, so that's not good--
-(Kal laughs) -...you know, to a lot of people.
- I mean, sure.
- I'm a Jersey kid, so it comes with a lot of--
- Don't you hate on us. - [Gary] I'm a Jersey kid.
- And also, I come off with a ton of bravado and confidence, AKA ego.
So the answer is of course,
and then I really enjoy the process of winning them over
in the course of my life.
- We're talking about whether you have to be ruthless
in business and whether there are personal traits
and character traits that drive the ability to be,
a, successful in business, but b, rich.
- Business to me is sports. - Okay.
- Do you need to be ruthless? Sure, at times.
You know, at times, do you need to trip somebody
in an important playoff game
to find that slight angle that you're looking for?
- Probably. - Yeah.
- And in sports, it's crafty, clever, right?
It's not frowned upon.
And I think in a business, at some level,
that happens as well.
You know, sharp elbow doesn't hurt.
I also think being an immigrant
and having nothing and having ridiculously awesome parents
really worked out for me.
90% of parents teach their kids defense.
My parents taught me offense.
My environment taught me offense.
My circumstance created not too many options.
I have a report card hanging up there of Ds and Fs.
I had to go offense.
That's why I love entrepreneurship and business.
A purebred businessman and woman want merit.
Capitalism is awesome.
Just own it.
The people that I really shit on
are the people that won in their business
and then get to an age where they're tired,
and then try to use their money to manipulate the game.
- Give me examples of people who do this
that you're talking about that sucks.
- Most old wealthy people.
(laughs)
In sports, it's a great Hall of Fame player
has some scrub pass him on a play,
and he or she realizes, "Uh-oh, it's time to hang it up."
But in business, what people do is when they're tired
and they just wanna be on their yacht,
they try to use the money to change the rules of the game.
To me, that's the ultimate loser play.
- Okay. - If you're such a capitalist,
then you let the merit of the game play out.
Magic Johnson, Kobe, Shaq,
they don't get to go to the Commissioner and say,
"You know, now, one foul and you foul out.
"Let me give you some money."
But that's what a lot of business people try to do,
and it devastates me.
- [Kal] I came in here expecting Gary to teach me
how to be a dick, but he seems pretty reasonable.
- Nice save. - [Kal] Just really competitive.
- See that? You guys catch that?
That was some badass shit right there.
- I hope you guys caught that. - And now, he's got me worried
about a whole new set of dicks, people who make their money
and then change the rules to prevent fair competition.
Fuck!
In sports, you'd say that's fixing the game.
It's seven-zero, just so everybody knows.
But is there a name for this kind of dick move in business?
- Yeah, it's called rent seeking,
not to be confused with what my landlord does on a monthly basis in vain.
It's what Adam Smith says
a properly functioning system should prevent.
Welcome to Dick's. How many today?
- Two, please. - Mmm, okay.
I'm gonna have to give you one of these buzzers.
And your table should be ready in two to four hours.
- You know, that's okay. We're in kind of a hurry.
We'll just grab lunch from a food truck or something.
- Okay, but have you not heard?
Food trucks are prohibited in the state.
Yeah, they're unsanitary and bad for the environment.
- Really? - No.
But that's what we said publicly. (chuckles)
Really, we just don't want competition.
So our owner, Dick, lobbied to have them banned.
- Let's just go to Richard's across the street.
- You're more than welcome to do that,
but just know that we have acquired
the Richard's restaurant chain in a merger.
We own all the restaurants in a 50-mile radius.
It's a virtual monopoly.
- So help me, I'll start my own goddamn restaurant.
- That's the spirit!
But, hmm, we have enough money to change the rules.
So in order to start your own restaurant,
you need to have a four-year culinary degree,
win a reality cooking competition,
and earn the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Creating absurd barriers of entry, whoop-whoop!
(laughs) Classic rent-seeking move.
You know what I'm talking about?
- You know, let's just eat here.
They work so hard to protect their business.
I'm sure they do the same thing with their food.
- Not really.
I mean we don't not want the food to be be good.
We just don't need to.
So while you wait, let's take a look at the seating chart.
For an extra $9, you can pay for an extra space table.
- We don't need any extra special seating.
We'll sit in whatever normal tables you have.
- But with the economy tables,
you may not be able to sit together.
I know, sitting together isn't an innovation
that we created, but we noticed that people like to do that
so we started charging for it.
♪ Rent-seeking, bitch ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah ♪
♪ I got ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Where's the rent ♪
♪ I got your rent ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, whoo ♪
- Adam Smith talked a lot about competition and capitalism,
but what happens to the rest of us when rule-changing,
rent-seeking dicks make sure the competition isn't fair?
I can't ask Adam Smith because he's super dead,
so I need to ask another Adam, a guy who isn't afraid
to look the free market right in its cold dead eyes.
(heavy metal music)
The overlord of Planet Money,
the bad SOB at NPR,
the Conde Nast-iest.
He'll steal your lunch money
to teach you about fiat currency.
He's a producer on this show,
New Yorker writer, Adam Davidson.
- A good way to know if an industry is overcome
with rent seeking is do you hate that industry.
Are you really mad at that industry?
So what industry are you most mad at?
- I mean I can think of two off the top of my head,
airlines and cellphone companies.
- Yeah, well, those are a great example.
- They're both terrible. - Yeah.
- But both have competition, so why are they so terrible?
- They have limited competition, but they're still rent-seeking.
With cellphone companies,
there were auctions over bandwidth,
and only a handful were able to get that bandwidth.
You and I can't just start a cellphone company
and just start grabbing bandwidth.
- [Kal] So basically, because only a few cellphone companies
control all the bandwidth,
they can give you terrible customer service?
- [Adam] Yeah. - Okay.
- When you call them, the wait time,
the sort of attitude, it's really clear.
They are not fighting for your business.
- Yeah. - Now airlines,
it's an extremely regulated industry,
of course, and unbelievable costs to get into it.
You have to spend a huge fortune on airplanes and other things.
And then you get control over routes and berths at airports.
- [Kal] So if I wanna get from point A to point B,
there are only a few choices, and they're all terrible, right?
- [Adam] Yeah. - Yeah.
- They're able to make demands on you,
that they probably wouldn't be if there was more competition.
So the biggest dicks, in a sense, the people who are having
the worst impact on our society, in my mind,
would be corporations that control
some vital resource and prevent new people
from entering the industry and competing with them,
which means there's not enough of an incentive to really
create better products and services to get business.
And in the long run, that's very damaging to all of us.
- The American economy has its share
of game-rigging rent-seeking industries,
but there are some places around the world
where rent seeking isn't just allowed, it's mandatory.
In other words, what if a country
wrote rent-seeking policies into law?
Over the last 30 years, Dubai has risen
from a small oil state to become the UAE's
glittering international business hub where reality
can conform to whatever you desire or can afford.
I'm meeting with Ibrahim Baloushi,
one of the few Emirati business people
willing to speak with me.
Ibrahim makes his money
off a common type of law that places limits
on direct foreign ownership of corporations.
Here in Dubai, a small segment of the population
uses this state-sponsored rent-seeking
as a way to get crazy stupid rich.
Can you tell me about your company and what you do?
- I have a business setup company, so basically
if anyone wants to come in Dubai and do business,
we can get their visas, their procedure,
their license, office,
all set up, we provide them completely.
And if you want a license with this,
you must need a local sponsor.
So the UAE national has a 51 percent share,
and 49 for the non-UAE national.
But the non-UAE national is
fully authorized to run the business.
- Okay. So it's 51%, but it's not a controlling interest somehow?
- I mean, it is on paper
but it's not like the Emirati national is
taking the shares under their control.
He's only getting a sponsor fee annually, that's it.
- What's the annual fees? - It might be 15,000, or 20,000, or 25,000 dirhams.
That's it.
This is only designed to help locals,
to support locals by the government,
to support the economy,
to have some money for them also.
This is a small country and a good economy,
and they have money to look after their own people.
Because mostly the local people, they don't prefer
to enroll in business because they don't like it.
Okay, they are getting their annual fees.
- Is that an income?
Can you make a living by getting annual fees from, like,
- a number of companies? - Yes, yes, yes. It is.
- So if you're business savvy and you like, you want to--
- I know some people, they have 60, 70 companies as sponsorships.
- Really? - So imagine.
If 20,000 for each,
- how much am I making? - Oh, man.
- 1.5 million just sitting and signing paper every year.
- That's it. - And you don't have to.
- No, no, no. Nothing to do.
Okay, come on, you don't have to do anything,
you will be getting this money.
So what else do you want?
- Oh, that's cool.
But you know what's not cool?
Indentured servitude. Whoa, that got heavy fast.
But I'm talking about another way
rent seeking plays out in Dubai.
In addition to the 51/49 rule,
the country extracts rent from a captive audience
of over eight million migrant workers.
- On the right side is the City Center,
one of the shopping centers in Dubai.
We have more than 80 shopping centers in Dubai.
And that's why it's called DO BUY.
(Kal laughs)
- [Kal] Mohammad Yaqoob, who just goes by Yaqoob,
is a local driver who knows all the sites around town.
- So here is the gold market
which has more than 300 gold stores,
dried fruits, chocolates, dates.
It's an open market.
You can bargain around.
Because some people, they love bargaining.
- [Kal] He's also been a victim of Dubai's rent-seeking economy.
So this is my house.
We are living with all my friends.
- [Kal] Nice. - So please, welcome.
- [Kal] Thank you.
This is a powerful fan.
- Yeah, because we have about 10 people who are living here.
- [Kal] Okay. - So this is my bed.
- Oh, it is? - [Yaqoob] Yeah.
- [Kal] Who snores the loudest?
- Ah, this one!
(both laugh)
- Each and every person cannot afford one room,
because the cost of one room is around 6,000 dirhams.
- [Kal] Oh, wow.
- Which is around about, like, $2,000. - Yeah.
The cost of living is very high here.
- 12 years ago, Yaqoob left Pakistan and came to Dubai,
lured by the promise of a lucrative truck driving job.
While his roommate cooks, Yaqoob tells me about the hurdles
he's faced trying to make a living in Dubai.
When you first came, was it a tourist visa?
- No, actually, I got a visa that was a taxi company.
- Okay.
- The agent over there in Pakistan
promised me I will become a truck driver,
because I was a truck driver in Pakistan.
- Okay. - Truck drivers have good salary,
- like around 7 to 8 thousand dirhams a month. - Wow.
- But when I reached here I find a taxi company.
So then I asked, "No, I'm sorry I cannot work as a taxi driver."
So he said, "You don't have any option."
"Otherwise, you have to go back."
- Could you have gotten another job?
- No, we cannot get another job because
when I got a visa, I have to work only for them.
I cannot work with anybody else.
I have to complete the three years.
If I want to go before three years,
so they will cancel me and they will ban me from the country.
- Whoa! That sounds like you were forced to work
for the taxi company, basically.
- Yeah.
- Because, well, you don't have the money to leave.
Do you have to have a special license to drive a taxi?
And was the license expensive?
- In Dubai, they have paid around
10 to 15, 20 thousand dirhams to get a license only.
- [Kal] Oh, wow. That's like $5,000. - Yeah.
At that time I was only 11 dirhams in my pocket.
So one of my friends, he's given me some money,
I have paid for the license and I got my license.
- Interesting, okay. - So I work for a taxi company for three years.
And after that I started working on my own as a self-employed.
I bought one small car.
Now, God has given me two buses as well.
- Okay. - So I have two drivers they are working for me.
- Oh, nice.
There probably was some point where you said,
"Now I'm done with this three years in the taxi business.
I can go back to truck driving."
- Yeah. - But you didn't do that.
You created a business instead. Why?
- My father, he was always asking me,
"Son, always do business."
"Don't work as a servant."
"And don't beg."
"If you want to beg, beg from Alah, from God."
"So just do business."
- Dads, man. - The parents, they understand.
- (laughs) Exactly.
Yaqoob's hard work has made him a success story,
but he's about to be hit by rent seeking again.
He's in the process of expanding his business,
and that means he'll need to form the required
51/49 partnership with an Emirati local,
essentially subsidizing some rich dick
who probably owns a jet ski.
I'm meeting economist Raimundo Soto, who used to advise
the government of Dubai on economic development.
As an outsider who was once an insider,
he's in a unique position to speak freely about this system
which enables rich dicks to stay rich
and extracts rent from the working poor.
- [Recording] The next station is World Trade Center.
- So the things that happened to the driver that I met,
are these all just human rights issues?
Or are they parts of a rent-seeking conversation?
- Well, of course they are human rights things. - Yeah.
- But your driver that came from Pakistan
under the promise that he was going to be a truck driver,
better paid, probably,
than as a taxi driver,
that allows for rent collection
on the part of the agent or the sponsor.
- How so? - Because suppose that the worker is valuable,
100 dirhams an hour for you,
but you only pay them fifty,
then you're collecting the rest.
And you can do that because the worker cannot
move to another company and collect the higher wage.
That is the rent seeking part of it.
- So in terms of rent seeking itself,
what are the complexities associated with it?
Is it something as simple
as it's either good or bad for an economy?
Or is it more complicated than that?
- Well, what happens is that, if you're a rent seeker,
and you were already collecting a good rent
Then there are very few incentives
to become more efficient.
The incentives are to spend any money
in keeping that rent,
and therefore economies get sort of stuck,
because why would you make any effort
of being more efficient
if I'm already collecting money, right?
- So given the challenges associated with rent seeking,
how come the economy seems to be thriving?
How come things are still growing?
- Well, if you look at the growth in Dubai
and the rest of the Emirates
for the last 25 years,
it was growing very fast at the beginning,
but it's been slowing down a lot.
What you see here is basically construction,
tourism, financial services, and some logistics,
the port and the like, right?
But if you look at the exports of Dubai,
you don't see any manufacturing,
you don't see any industry.
No innovation is there,
no new initiatives, no new products,
processes, and the like.
Why would I be creative if I can collect the rent
from the 51/49 or from employing foreigners?
- [Kal] Dubai became prosperous quickly,
but the grand scale rent seeking
that made a small groups of its citizens ultra wealthy
also contributed to a slowdown in economic growth.
In fact, in 2018, the government indicated
it may be ready to make changes to the 51/49 law
because they've realized an economy
based on total dick moves is ultimately built on sand.
Surely, there's a better way.
So once again, we scoured the world
looking for a beacon of hope in a rich dick universe,
a competitive yet altruistic, non-zero sum, symbiotic,
shining dick on a hill we can all look up to.
Yes, we are totally committed to this joke.
Doc Johnson in North Hollywood, California
is one of the premier makers of fine adult products,
but their business success is eclipsed by something else,
their rock hard reputation for being a nice place to work.
Chad Braverman may look like an every man on the streets,
but he's a freak in the balance sheets.
As COO, he took his family's mom and pop dildo business
and erected a multi-million dollar empire,
selling over a throbbing 75,000 sex toys a week.
- [Chad] Everything you see here is like
this is the type of manufacturing we do.
- You can see things like this. - [Kal] Is that ready to go?
- Well, it's got to be put into a package,
-but that's the mold I did. -(Kal laughs)
- Chad credits his success to following
a few key principles that would make Adam Smith blush
in admiration.
Look, assembly line production, just like Henry Ford.
I wonder what other capitalistic tropes I can find here.
Are these butt plugs?
- [Chad] No, these are masturbators.
- [Kal] Oh.
- [Chard] So this is kinda what she was making.
- [Kal] Oh, wow. That's like an everything.
- You have the lips, the tongue.
And then a bullet goes through here so it's vibrating.
- Oh, come on.
- One of the things that Doc Johnson has been known for
for like 30 years is molding porn stars.
- Yup. - [Chad] You know, we've done
some of the biggest names in the history of the industry,
Belladonna, Sasha Grey, Jenna Jameson.
- So how does that work? Do you give them a onetime fee?
Do they own royalties?
- Most deals are royalty based, right?
So you have sort of a partnership.
They're getting paid for every single unit sold.
It makes them invested in the product as well.
- Are there folks who are not known in the adult industry
who also give you molds?
- Yes, we have a product here that actually was molded
from like a male gentleman, not a performer but--
- He had a huge ass dick. - It wasn't huge necessarily.
- Oh, it was just nice. - It was just like good looking.
-You know what I mean? - Nice.
-The product is still in our catalog,
and it's like going on like 30 years.
And it's like a huge selling item, pun intended.
- Sure, yeah.
- [Chad] This is Angiani. She specializes in clay work.
We're mimicking human skin.
Angiani's been with us for 20 years now.
- Well, how is it working for this guy?
- Chad has always been fair.
He always treats me like a friend.
If I've been here for 20 years, it means something is right.
- Are you allowed to tell me
how much you guys take in, any of that?
- I can tell you that the industry is estimated
to do well over $1 billion this year.
There are people pushing the industry forward
in new and exciting ways.
I mean, you need to have competition
that's making you reinvent yourself.
- You guys are doing well.
You're obviously making a lot of money.
So is there a dickishness that has to do
with making a lot of money and doing well in business?
- I think a lot of the rich people that I've met
are from that confident to that extreme confident.
Some of them have definitely been dicks too,
but there's a difference.
- What makes you different? - I just make dicks.
-(Kal laughs) -Instead of being a dick.
I just try to treat people fairly.
- [Kal] It's good just knowing
there are rich non-dicks like Chad out there.
And he's not the only one.
There are a lots of people who don't seem to be dicks
but still make capitalism work
for personal gain and the greater good.
But back to the original question.
Is there a connection between being rich and being a dick?
The answer is yes.
Being a bit of a dick can help you get rich
and may even benefit the rest of us,
as long as when it comes to innovation,
your motto is stoke it, don't choke it.
Because if you're the kind of dick who creates a system
that keeps you on top and won't allow other dicks to rise,
well, that just makes you an asshole.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is 40 times I said dick.
Make that 41.
(upbeat music)
- How are you enjoying your soup?
- Can we have some fucking spoons?
- Okay, well, spoons are considered a premium utensil.
- You know what? -No, I'm not gonna pay extra for a spoon.
I'm gonna drink the fucking chowder.
Oh.
Can I have a napkin?
(crew laughs)
- [Man] That was good.