Our guest today is a successful entrepreneur, influential thought leader, and best selling author. Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of Skybridge, a prominent investment firm. He also serves as the founder and chairman of Skybridge. Salt, a globally recognized thought leadership forum and venture studio.
Before founding Skybridge, he worked in investments and private wealth management, which included time at Goldman Sachs. Additionally, Anthony has been recognized as one of the top 100 influencers in crypto and blockchain by Cointelegraph. He’s also been featured the most powerful people in global finance by Worth magazine’s You may, however, recall Anthony’s notable and infamous tenure as the White House Communications Director under President Trump.
Additionally, as mentioned, Anthony is an accomplished author, having penned six books, including his latest release, From Wall Street to the White House and Back, The Scaramucci Guide to Unbreakable Resilience. Anthony, it’s a pleasure. Welcome to the RUNGPG podcast. Well, I mean, it’s a great introduction and you’re, you’re a very generous guy.
You didn’t mention I got fired from the white house during that tumultuous period, but of course, since everybody knows that it’s not a big deal. I mean, but that, but that was a precursor for the book, David. That’s why I wrote the book. I wanted to talk about. What happened to me seven years ago, how I got fired, rolled in margarita after they skinned me alive, the American press and the American comedians, they rolled me in margarita salt.
And those, how do you survive that? And, and so listen, it’s a, it’s a humbling book. It’s a fun book and I really appreciate you reading it by the way. So thank you for that. Yeah, and I do want to get into the specifics of it in a moment here, but I do want to get a little bit of your background and your take on some current events, especially because these are right in your wheelhouse, like the markets, crypto, blockchain, and maybe the current state of the union, I guess we could call it, right?
and. You know, like I said, getting into the details of the book, but first, you know, I do want to get a little of your background, for those who aren’t aware of who you are and, where you’ve been over the last few years. Who is Anthony Scaramucci? where are you from? Where did you grow up? Cause your backstory is actually pretty fascinating.
Well, listen, I, I, I appreciate it. So I grew up out, out on Long Island and, not to give a G geology lesson, but I will give it quickly. is a remnant of the Ice Age. And so when the Ice Age pushed over your home of Canada and Mo down the Adirondacks and the Catskills when it receded it left Long Island.
Why is that important in my life story? Is that the largest granulated sand the largest density of supply of granulated sand in North America is out here on Long Island. And, and why is that important? Well, my family, they moved from Italy, into the Northeastern Pennsylvania coal mines. And my grandfather, who died of black lung disease, told my pops, do not go into these coal mines.
You’ve got to find another job. And my dad responded to a classified ad to come out to Long Island and mine sand. So this was in the local paper. It literally said, don’t. mine coal. I’m out to Long Island. It’s outdoors and mine sand. And so my dad graduated and he took a bus to Long Island and he got, he got his start as a laborer on a construction dock and he eventually graduated up to a, a crane operator.
Now, why is this important to my life story? Because I grew up in a, Fairly affluent community, David. This was a great public school system in the town that I grew up in, in Port, Washington. my dad, put us in the middle class. He had a hourly job. It was a wage earning job, but we were decidedly in the middle class.
I, I wasn’t in want for anything. I would never dishonor my dad’s work ethic by telling anybody I grew up poor. As I referenced in the book, I did not grow up poor. We had air conditioning and food and, you know, he was strict and we had a tight budget growing up. And there was always some economic anxiety because of the volatility of his earnings as a result of the economic cycles.
but it was a great place to grow up. And I went to the public schools. I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody this story, so I’ll share it with you. cause my sister reminded me of it. There was a gentleman by the name of John Zanetti, May his soul rest in peace. He was an Italian American that worked in the high school.
He was my guidance counselor and he came to my father and my mother who were not educated. My dad and mom never went to college and we were in a blue collar neighborhood and he came to my family’s house and he smoked these cigarellos. With my father and they had like 40 cups of expresso together One night with like a half a pound of granulated sugar and he told my father in Italian Don’t send your son to the state school.
Not that the state school isn’t good It’s very good and I have hired a ton of people from our state school But he said to my dad give the kid a chance let him go to the private school I had gotten into a place called Tufts University. The differential, David, was 24, 000 a year at Tufts. It’s like 80, 000 now, but it was 24, 000 in 1982, or 4, 000 for the state school.
Now, my dad was making 32, 000 a year at the time, and so he told Mr. Zanetti he couldn’t afford to send me to that school. And Mr. Zanetti said, it’s okay, you know, Anthony’s a hustler. He’ll figure it out. You’ll help him figure it out. but send him there. It’ll provide a bigger opportunity for him from an educational perspective.
And so so my dad in april of 1982 He handed me a ten thousand Dollar check and I said dad. What is this? Well, he had cashed in his union Life insurance policy and so I said, well you gave up your life insurance policy to yeah I want to help you go to school. That’s really all I have and But I want to help you do this.
And he listened to John Zanetti. Well, two things happened on that day to me. Number one, I got way more serious. I was like, Oh my God, this is so important to my parents. Okay. And so I was a little wayward at the time. And I, I got myself way more serious. And then the second thing that happened is that, I realized I was going to make it.
And so I borrowed money. I worked at work study programs at Tufts. And then that led to me getting into Harvard. I don’t think I would have gotten into Harvard had I not gone to Tufts, you know, maybe, but I doubt it because Tufts was two miles down the road. And my faculty advisor played squash with the head of admissions.
At Harvard Law School and I, I don’t think that could have happened if I had gone to the state school, you know, and again, I had very good grades. I had a very high SAT score. These places are very competitive and, and that led to my start, David. So that, that, that is the early beginnings. My dad was strict, you know, he was a hard ass.
Yeah, you know, we’re roughly the same generation. It’s similar, right? Like, you know, that generation before us was a little bit more, you know, they, they wanted their children to succeed and made them learn the hard way. And, you know, they came from a real blue collar background for the most part. I think most of us.
Did or that generation did, if you were roughly the same age, but here’s what I really wanted to ask you, like, what was it about that upbringing that drove you into the world of, finance wall street and eventually entrepreneurship. And when I ask that, I mean, what drove you to play big because it wasn’t like you worked for, you know, your local community bank branch, you went to Tufts.
As you mentioned, a Harvard law school, you ended up at Goldman Sachs and you know, you have your own investment firm and eventually ended up in the white house. So what inspired you to play big? Like what drove you? Well, you know, since you say it like that, because I didn’t, I never really saw it like that.
You know, I, I, I was like, okay, I, I’m at Tufts, I got to make the most of it. I had really good grades. I went to law school for literally one of the most simplistic, naive reasons. They were paying first year attorneys at these corporate law firms in New York City, 65, 000 a year. Which was double my dad’s salary and I was like, oh my god, that’s more money than I could ever want or need And so i’m going to go to law school when I got to law school david I liked the study of the law, but I didn’t fall in love with the practice of the law And so I spent my time at law school looking to get a job outside of the law And so I ended up getting a job, at Goldman.
The joke in my family always was my mother, she’s 87. My mother used to tell her friends in the local neighborhood that I was working at a law firm. I was at Rosano’s Italian American Deli, after I graduated from law school and, Mrs. Cosenza came over to me and said, well, how’s that law firm you’re working at, Goldman and Sachs?
I said, the law firm, she goes. Yeah, your mother says you’re practicing law at Goldman and Sachs. I said, oh, no, it’s great. Mrs. Kazan. Then I called my mother. I’m like, mom, why are you telling your friends in the neighborhood that I’m at a law? I’m not at a law firm. I’m at an investment bank. My, my point is, is that this was very.
Simplistic thinking at the time, and this was a family that didn’t have any connection into the corporate world, and so I guess my naivete to all of that allowed me to have more balls, if that makes any sense. I was like, I didn’t even understand it, so I was swinging, at pitches that were, probably should have gone over my head or through my body, but I didn’t realize it at the time.
Yeah, no, that’s interesting. Yeah, because you did you played big like when you take a look back over the last 60 years Where you’ve been it’s just kind of wild anthony, you know, it is nothing nothing bigger than the white house You know one of the things you know, whatever my differences are with donald trump at this point He he said something to me My first day and I was sitting in the oval office with him I looked up if you if you look up in the oval office, there’s a plaster freeze of the presidential seal On the, the top, on the ceiling.
And I looked up at him, I looked up at that, I looked over at him, I said, Hey, I said, we’re both sitting here in the Oval Office. I said, let me ask somebody, the first day that you got behind that desk, the Resolute desk, I said, how did you feel? And he said something to me very human, and Trump is not a human guy, at least he doesn’t try to present human.
He looked at me, said, you know, I was, I was unnerved. I was unnerved when I sat behind this desk, and this is an unnerving place to work. He said, but what ends up happening is you get inundated with the work, and then you just realize it’s like every other place. There’s a lot of work to do. Let’s go do the work.
And he said to me something very interesting. He said that, he’s sitting behind the desk and the phone is ringing. It’s his assistant. And she says, the White House. Office of protocol is calling. Okay. He takes the call. He’s got he’s on the phone and and the office of protocol says to him, you know, Mr.
President, the prime minister, Theresa May is coming. I guess it was five or six days later and they needed to prepare him for that visit and what the protocol was in terms of greeting her. And then he hung up the phone. He looked at me, he goes, holy , I’m the president of the United States. Okay. And, and there’s something about that.
Okay. That really describes. America, you know, Ronald Reagan felt that Barack Obama felt that, you know, there’s nothing that prepares you for any of that. You know, my, you know, when I did my press, I mean, I got fired after 11 days. I was fighting with Trump. I’m happy to discuss that with you. But when I did my press conference on the first day.
It was seen by 40 million people. So you just imagine, you know, but I handled it. I handled it the same way I’m talking to you. I just wanted to be upfront and forward and, share my views to the extent that I could, but it’s a, it’s an unnatural thing. And, you know, while there’s been aspects of my career that have been great, and there’s been aspects of my career where I’ve actually flat out failed, what I would say to you is that the whole thing is very humbling.
And I tried to write. In my book, a human story about the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, recognizing that you’re going to make mistakes, come hell or high water. I think we sometimes idealize our lives, David, right? We want them to go up and to the right at a 45 degree angle with no volatility.
But if you’re really going to live a, a, a big life, as you’re pointing out, you have to accept the risk and you have to accept the volatility curve associated with those things. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, no, I, I mean, it’s, it is fascinating and, and, you know, the book does cover a lot of that and it’s in a humorous way, which I really appreciate it.
That’s why it’s so engaging. I think the book, and like I said, I want to get into that in a bit more detail, but I want to unpack the story a little bit because you had some extensive time in finance and wealth management and then Trump calls, like what’s the story behind how you ended up in the white house?
Well, I had a relationship with him. You know, we had mutual friends. We had gone to a couple of charity dinners together. I had sat at a lunch with him for the lupus foundation. we went to the Yankee games, not that we went together to the Yankee games, but we were. Invited by the Steinbrenners to their box.
And so we happened to be mutual guests in the box on more than one occasion I had also had a relationship with him through nbc where I was a cnbc business channel contributor At a time when he was on nbc at the apprentice and so so I was fond of him I’m, not going to bs people and pretend. Otherwise I was with a Makeup artist this morning.
I did morning joe here in new york and the makeup artist had worked for him and said oh, I I I enjoyed working for him. He’s a charming guy I think he’s a different person than he was back then. I’m happy to also explain why but there I was in march of 2015 I’d gotten a call from his assistant.
He wanted to have lunch with me Or breakfast, I guess it was breakfast. So I went to the Trump Tower to have breakfast with him. It was the morning after the Apprentice finale. And I was sitting in his office and he said to me, You know, did you watch The Apprentice last night? I said, no. He said, ah, you were the only one that didn’t watch it.
You know. The ratings were stupendous and phenomenal and I was great. And he said, well, you know, that’s the last time I’m, I’m doing the apprentice. I’m giving it all up to run for president. And I literally laughed. I looked at him and said, you’re not running for president. You’re just saying that. I mean, for publicity purposes, he had been saying that for probably 15 or 20.
Years, he said no. No, i’m really serious. I’ve hired some people. I’ve got some people downstairs working for me and you should join my campaign. The reason I want to have breakfast is you’re good on television You’re a lifelong republican. You should join my campaign. Well, I was working for scott walker at the time He was the governor of wisconsin and he said well scott’s not going to make it You should join my campaign after Scott.
I said, well, a lot of my friends are with Jeb, George Bush’s brother, Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. I said, I have a, OZ to them. I’d end up working for Jeb if Scott comes out of the campaign. And then Trump says, famously, he says, oh, well, you know, Jeb’s got low enters. Which by the way, Jeb does not have low energy, but you know, I said, okay.
He said, well, he comes out of the campaign. You should come work for me. Well, I faithfully shook his hand, David, and said, well, if he comes out of the campaign, I’ll come work for you. I shook his hand. And, when Jeb came out of the campaign after the South Carolina primary, I went to work for Mr. Trump.
And I. Flew around with him and it was one of the learning experiences of my lifetime because And I tried to write this in the book you get the confirmed biases Of the people that you surround yourself with in life and I detached unfortunately from the people I grew up with I I was in albuquerque, new mexico with mr.
Trump at a campaign rally And there were people at that rally That were there that were dissatisfied with their lives. They felt like the establishment didn’t take care of them. You know, I remember talking to one guy and he said to me, yeah, you know, you think you’re in New Mexico. He said, but new New Mexico, that would be Mexico.
That’s where my job went. You know, that’s where the factory moved to. And I remember thinking, Oh my God, I’m actually talking to my dad. I’m talking to people. My dad was born in 1935, but these are people born in 65 or 75 and they were working with their hands. They were laborers. and the jobs we had hollowed out manufacturing, we lost 65, 000 factories in this country since the signing of NAFTA.
We were hollowed out. And we took a group of people, I grew up with a group of people that I describe as economically aspirational. they were blue collar, but they were economically aspirational. We took those very same people, and through the policies of the United States, bipartisan policies, an indictment, both parties, we made those people economically desperational.
And Mr. Trump saw that whether you like him or you dislike him, he did see that. and, it was a big eyeopening, big enlightening experience for me. Unfortunately, he didn’t do anything to help those people when he was president, but he did see the problem. You know, it’s interesting. I, I guess you would have gained a ton of experience just looking back, but in the opening chapter of your book, you called your experience at the White House, like falling into a pit of venomous snakes.
It was, it was exactly that. It was, it was, you know, here, here’s the thing. Okay. We could hate each other’s guts on Wall Street. Let’s say you hate me, David. There’s a billion dollars on the table. And all we have to do is pretend to like each other for us to split the billion dollars. Well, you know what?
You’re going to fake liking me. Okay. You’re just going to do it. In Washington, there’s no green team. And what I mean by that is people are not motivated by money. They’re motivated by where they’re sitting, they’re motivated where they’re sitting on Air Force One, or, or, or are they in the executive wing?
Of the west wing or are they in the executive building which is further away from the president and so Everything is about status and position and image And as a result of which the incentives are always crazy And hard to understand in washington, you know Uh another trump thing that he said which was very true and made me laugh and i’ll share it with you I was with him And this was on a Wednesday.
The reason I know that David, I was only there for one Wednesday. So I know it was a Wednesday. We were sitting together in the study and he said to me, man, I thought I was thought I was a killer. I was a real estate billionaire working with these real estate sharks in New York. He says, these people are a bunch of babies.
Compared to the viciousness that goes on in Washington, a secretary here in Washington could pick your eyeball out with an ice pick and still talk to you while you’re bleeding out. You know, there’s a, there’s a level of viciousness in Washington that would be very hard for me to describe. the only people I think they get it like this is Hollywood.
And of course it’s the Hollywood friends tell me Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, David, you know? And that’s, and that’s basically. what it’s like if you really want to know the truth. It’s like, it’s like Hollywood for ugly people. I’ve never heard that. That’s amazing. Well, that came from the Hollywood people, but the point is, is that it’s that kind of infighting, that viper’s nest, that, you know, the guy’s pretending to be your friend while he’s slicing your throat.
I did want to ask you though, you know, brief, but notable time at the white house. What was your most, significant moment, any surprising or memorable moments that you experienced over that brief time there? Well, I think probably the most significant moment was the 45 minute press conference that I did, where I had the opportunity to engage the press.
I think that was probably the most significant moment. I think the thing that I, I always reflect back on were the, the private moments and sort of the classified moments. I think what I would say to you, one of the CIA guys that was briefing me, said something to me that I’ll never forget.
I’ll share it with you. He said that there are workhorses and there are show horses in Washington, and you’ll learn very quickly who the workhorses are in the show horses. And it was very telling because we have agents in the field that are uncovering terrorist plots and they’re putting them down. We have navy seals that are working all over the world to stop interdict on drugs or to stop violence or to prevent something from happening that could be harmful to the homeland of the United States.
there are people in Washington that are helping people. And then there are show horses in Washington that are there to help themselves or they’re on their own personal vanity project. And so, so for me, the, the, the, the most seminal thing for me was the recognition that a lot of things that happen in the government we need, whether the, whether the American people realize that or not.
But, you know, we. We do these surveys, we do these polls, and people are decidedly against their government. But if I listed for you all the things that the American government has done, even in this year, in terms of protecting people, saving people’s lives, food and safety standards, and of course, all these things have room for improvement, you know, I think you’d be blown away.
The other thing I would say, though, which has me worried for the society is the amount of money that is dumped into the political system. Since, since Citizens United, and again, not to bore your, your podcast listeners, but just quickly, what is Citizens United? And in January of 2010, the Supreme Court made a decision that if you were a billionaire or a large corporation, you could dump unlimited amounts of money.
into the political system. That was your right. Scalia said it was a First Amendment right to use your money as you saw fit. This has perverted the system, unfortunately. And so I can look to Big Pharma legislation that’s gotten passed, favorable to Big Pharma, possibly not favorable to U. S. citizens.
Big food, additives that have been put into the food that aren’t allowed in the Canadian food system or the European food system, all passed after 2010 as a result of lobbying and dumping money into these congressional or political campaigns to get what they want out of the system. And so what’s happened in the system is it’s, it’s skewed now towards the very rich, tax cuts, tax breaks, corporate welfare, regulation that favors big corporations, and there’s nobody sitting there anymore that’s lobbying.
For the average citizen. And I think it’s very, very dangerous. I compare Citizens United to Plessy versus Ferguson. and that was a very famous Supreme Court case in the 1800s where the court said that you could have separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites. And of course, that was an 80 year disaster, led to segregation, more racial hatred, more racial divide.
It took 80 years to repeal that with Brown versus Board of Education, which integrated the school system. So, so we had this Citizens United that’s glaringly hurting the country. Had I had not gone to Washington, even though it was a small period of time, I don’t think I would have realized the impact that this has had on the body politic.
Yeah, it’s crazy. I think because of all that you’re seeing, you’re seeing this unrest, a lot of it, you know, the, the, the middle class is going, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy what’s happening now. And, it brings up a lot of, I don’t want to get too political on this one, but it’s, you’re seeing it, that the unrest over the last little bit, it’s getting worse.
People are, people are frightened, you know, which I think your book is good for, which I’ll, I’ll get into in a minute here. I just have one more question and then we’ll move on to the. the book and crypto and some other things, but Donald Trump as a person, I wanted to get your, you know, don’t get a lot of opportunities, interview somebody who works so close with them.
But Donald Trump as a person, what are your thoughts on Donald Trump as a person? You said he changed over the years, from the first term to now you think he’s changed. Yeah, well, see, I think this is the mistake that a lot of his adversaries make, I think his mistake is they demonize him, you know, and they try to portray him as this, Hitler like fascist demon, and they try to, they try to push that narrative.
And I think what ends up happening is, you know, I think that hurts their case. You know, I think they’d be better off just suggesting that his lack of curiosity, his lack of understanding the American system and his need for attention and his need for personal adulation, self adulation and the adulation of others is a very dangerous thing for the system.
I think, I think that’s. What people should be pushing, you know, he can be charming, uh in small groups He has a media personality second to none if we’re being objective on your podcast. I always like to be objective You know, this is a guy that was a real estate person, but he got a lot of attention from the media He went on to have a very successful network television show for 15 years And oh by the way when he stopped that show 18 short months later, he became the American president.
So if you’re underestimating him or you’re underestimating his political skills or his intelligence, you’re doing that at your peril. there are redeeming qualities to him, but here are the things that are weighing against him, in my view. He is a non loyal person. He’s somebody that only believes in asymmetric loyalty, which is loyalty one way.
Number two, for some reason, and I can’t figure out why, he’s drawn to these autocrats. And so he’s always praising autocrats, whether it’s Xi or Putin or the North Korean Dictator Kim Il sung and he he he gives off this feeling about him That he wants to be unchecked in the system I can remember this and if you never get paul ryan on your podcast, he could verify this You know, he he used to yell at paul ryan and say that you work for me and paul ryan would look at him and say Well, you know paul ryan, of course was the speaker of the house at the time.
I actually don’t work for you I’m in a totally separate District article in the constitution. And moreover, we all work for the American people. And so, so these are the things that, that if he returns to the presidency are going to hurt us, it’s going to hurt the system, whether you like everything about the system or dislike Parts of the system the system over the last 80 years since the end of the second world war has by and large worked We’ve had Resounding peace resounding prosperity.
It’s not perfect. What could be perfect? We’re human beings And so therefore it’s definitionally going to be imperfect, but it’s by and large worked and there’s been a rules based system Our alliances have worked. if you read our intelligence briefings and Speaker Johnson more or less said this, he said that after consulting with our national security experts, reading our intelligence briefings, I put the Ukrainian vote for the aid package up.
And if you understand what’s at risk in the Ukraine, you would support that. And remember, it’s six or 7 percent of the US national defense budget. but the Ukrainians are working against our number one adversary. and again, you say, well, why are they our adversary? Well, they want to disrupt and bring down democracy in the West, and they want to disrupt and hurt and cripple the American way of life.
Why do they want to do that? They’re upset. about the grinding down of the Soviet Union, and they see us as political adversaries. Some of it is jealousy. Some of it’s jealousy related to our prosperity. Some of it’s jealousy related to the stability of our system. Autocrats hate democracies, because democracies, are flexible and democracies, require by the nature of the democracy, a peaceful transition of power, David.
And that means that the position that you’re in is temporary. You know, Mr. Trump, has said openly that he likes dictatorships and people should like dictatorships. Mr. Trump has said openly that he wants people to praise him the way Kim Il Jung praises him. Mr. Trump has said openly that he would use the Department of Justice to persecute his adversaries.
A lot of his, reasons for running again are about revenge. he told, Sean Hannity he’d like to be dictator for a day, which is, an auspicious thing to say at this time, in global history. And, you know, it, it, it worries a lot of people that understand history and understand how fragile these democracies are.
So, so for me, you know, I’m a lifelong Republican. I reject that point of view. I believe in our system. you know, you, you, you talk about coming from Canada. But you’ve obviously been affected by America because, you know, of the size of Canada versus the U. S. And one of the brilliant things that happened in America is the checks and balances.
We decentralized the government so that no one person could be in charge of the whole thing. But because what we’ve learned throughout history, if you get an autocrat. There’s danger, there’s danger in the power that that autocrat has. It ultimately becomes a kleptocracy, it becomes a funnel to feed the people at the very top that hurts the rest of the people.
And there are 5. 7 billion people living under some level of autocracy right now. And that’s a big threat to the West. That’s a big threat to the things that made your family achieve. In Canada and made my family achieve here in America. I don’t, I want to preserve and protect those things. Yeah, it’s, I, first of all, I appreciate you breaking that all down for us.
it is very interesting. It’s fascinating. And I, I appreciate your, your thoughts on that. one of the things that comes up on the show, like I’ve heard this term a few times on the show with certain guests is, is the deep state I hit. They go the deep state, this, the deep state, that the ones that actually pull the strings of secret manipulators for policies and decisions.
Were you there long enough to have an opinion on this? Like, what did you observe? Well, remember, you know, I’ve worked for the government. You know, I’ve been on the board of the business executives for national security. I’ve been to places like Afghanistan and Iraq on troop support missions. I, I, I, I think what happens because of the internet.
we are naturally drawn to conspiracy theory. why? Because we have so many unknowns, David. Okay, we can’t explain, you know, we have all this smart technology around us and we’re using it even to talk to each other right now, virtually. But we can’t explain so many things about life. We can’t explain the origins of life.
Really. We can’t explain the mystery of it We can’t explain where we go when we die we’re sitting here on this beautiful planet. It’s temporal for all of us. We know that god or the universe bats a thousand Or in the immortal words of mel brooks, none of us are getting out of here alive. You follow what i’m saying?
I mean, that’s that’s where we are and so We like conspiracy this way if I can explain to you that some family controls the world or I can say that there’s a deep State in the united states that’s pulling the levers and all of this stuff Then we’re drawn to it because it helps us, you know, it almost offers us this underlying explanation to things But but I mean, I think where there’s some legitimacy is that there is a permanent class to the government There are people who are that work in the government, three, four, five decades, a result of which they are, in the national security infrastructure.
They could be working in the Pentagon or the agency like the CIA, et cetera. But you would be blown away, in my opinion, about the respect that these people have. for the system and the integrity of the system. And so I would submit back to people that believe in these conspiracy theories, that if those things were true, I don’t think we could have the stability that we’ve had all of these years, in the American government.
And with, there’s been some unstable situations like the depression or the civil war, but we’ve had really more or less 80 years of great stability, great peace, and great prosperity. as a direct result of the constitutional system and the republican nature of our democracy, right? And remember what Churchill had, has said, you know, he said that democracy is a terrible form of government until you consider all the other forms of government.
It’s messy, it’s sloppy, but I don’t believe that there’s a deep state the way the conspiracy theorists think of it. And now that I’ve said that on your podcast, people say, well, Anthony’s saying that because he’s, He’s part of the deep state and all this sort of nonsense, but you know, it just it just isn’t you know what I mean
Moving along then to uh crypto blockchain, etc. What we’re seeing, um Recently, you were number 47 on Cointelegraph’s top 100 influencers in crypto and blockchain. You also wrote the book, The Suite Life with Bitcoin, right? our company transacts in crypto, which I, you know, so this has been on our radar.
We always ask about it if we can. what’s your take on what we’re seeing right now? You know, we had a bull run, a little bit of a pullback here. it’s a little bit of a, you know, it’s a little bit of a roller coaster. What are we seeing and why, in your opinion, and what’s your short term long term prediction for Bitcoin?
Well, I mean, it’s a, it, you know, I wrote a book about it. I’ll just be brief for your viewers and listeners. Bitcoin and the blockchain is a wonderful de layering mechanism. So if I had you in the elevator and you said to me, okay, we got three minutes in the elevator, I would just say that, we have always used third parties to do our transactions.
And so we use a credit card company. If we’re paying a bill at a, restaurant, if I’m going to buy your house. You’re going to wait to hear from your corresponding bank that I wired the money to that bank so that you could, give me the deed to that house. And what the blockchain affords us is an opportunity to transact with each other permissionless where there’s no third party involved, but we both know that it’s a secure transaction and money.
Or value has been transferred between the two parties. And when you stop and think about that, that’s a magnificent thing, because we spend 7 trillion a year in global GDP on the banking system, 4 trillion of that is in transactions. So if I told you that I could write a check back. to the global economy of 4 trillion, where I could save 4 trillion of friction and transaction costs over time, that would be very compelling.
It would unleash great amounts of economic innovation and great amounts of efficiency. And so when you think about it that way, Bitcoin represents a piece of digital property, on the internet, as Michael Saylor would tell you that this, this, this thing, as it adopts, it’s got all of the features that we have looked for in money for the last 5, 000 years.
And it has one feature that we’ve never had in our money. And that is direct scarcity. You can’t make any more of it. you can find more gold, you can print more dollars, you can fake wampum and reshine a different set of seashells, but with Bitcoin, you can’t make any more of it. And a result of which as it adopts, it will scale.
And if you’re me, you believe it’ll scale to the size of gold, which is 16 trillion. And if you’re Michael Saylor, you believe it’ll end up becoming the global reserve currency, which is a hundred plus trillion dollars. I’m not suggesting that I just, I just think it’s 60, 000. Could Bitcoin be worth a half a million dollars over the next 10 years?
I believe it could be, it’s very volatile. the market is thin in Bitcoin. the ETFs, brought Bitcoin’s, price appreciation up with the demand. some of those people are short term in their orientation. They’re selling Bitcoin right now because of some weak price. Performance. I think that’s a mistake, obviously, but I think that’s also affecting the price, that there’s some near term selling.
but I think if you step back and you look at it over the next three to five years, people that own Bitcoin are going to be very rewarded, because of its scarcity and because of the nature of its long term utility. No, no, I agree with you. actually Saylor had an interesting take recently, you know, because the big, you know, the people that don’t know, understand Bitcoin and the, you know, they always talk about it, you know, not being used as a currency and Saylor was like, it doesn’t have to be, you know, people don’t spend a portion of the building they own, you know, or the real estate they own when they buy a coffee.
I, his take was, fascinating on that. We had a Saifedean Amus on the show, Bitcoin standard. and you know, I. Personally, I have an issue with like Bitcoin maxis completely, you know, because they, they turn regular people’s crypto a little bit. I find, but, the other interesting thing is, is your involvement with FTX.
You were involved with, Sam Bankman, freed and FTX, I believe skybridge capital sold one third, right. To FTX, if I’m not mistaken. 30%. Yeah. Yeah. We sold 30 percent of the company to, Sam’s, company. in the process of getting that back now through the bankruptcy and the court system. That was a terrible, period of time for us, frankly.
And, but you were going to ask a question. Go ahead. I’m happy to talk about it and I do, I did write about it in the book. You know, I will bring it full circle because it was interesting when, when I was preparing for this originally, SBF was found guilty and I was listening to a Twitter spaces, I believe in it, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on the FTX saga and SBF personally, because you knew him.
Well, I liked him. You know, here’s the thing. You know, he’s going to be in jail now for 25 years. He did some things that, were fraudulent and he did a lot of lying about those things. And then I think he made a very big mistake once he was caught not to plead out with the government. He probably could have served 10 years in jail for his crimes as opposed to 25.
but he was insistent, him and his parents were insistent upon fighting the government and trying to prove his innocence. But there really wasn’t a way to prove his innocence because people that worked with him to create that fraud all pled guilty and all explained to the jury. And so, I think this was a really big misjudgment on their part.
Obviously, the biggest misjudgment was creating the fraud in the first place. But I like Sam, and Sam, had an aura of kindness about him. people are not going to like me saying that, but that’s fine. I just like telling the truth. and where I missize Sam is that he grew up on the campus of Stanford University.
The city is Paris for two. tenured Stanford Law School professors. They seemed like lovely people. And I thought Sam grew up in an ethical, good family. And I thought his career success was related to his genius and less related to fraud. In fact, he had hired some top attorneys. Now The learning lesson of that fraud, and I always try to tell people, well, what do you learn when you make a mistake, take that with you, is that he had a financial crime going on that he was able to perpetrate because he had a very small group of people perpetrating it with him.
And so the way to commit a financial crime is to have three or four people control the purse strings. you can’t commit a crime if you’ve got 50 people in the mix because there’s always a person of conscience, David, that will say, geez, this doesn’t work for me, I’m sorry, you know? And we have bells and whistles and different checks and balances at Skybridge where we run people’s money successfully for the last 20 years.
Sam’s didn’t do that. and Sam thought he was smarter than the market. He thought, okay, I can borrow or take this person’s money fraudulently, put it into my account, but I’m so smart that the markets will race upward and then I’ll be able to move it back into their account and no one will be worse for the wear.
and that’s always what sociopaths do when they’re perpetrating a crime. And so, of course, the bottom fell out in the markets, he was exposed, and then he tried to, live in denialism about what he did. And so it was very sad, it was very painful for me. one of the things about having a high profile is when something goes badly, they write about it profusely.
they, they write your financial obituary. They explain to people how stupid you are and so on and so forth. And I understand all that. I’m a big boy about that. but I think it’s very important if you have something like that happen, That you speak about it and you’re up front about it. I had people, whether they were PR crisis management people or partners.
Hey, don’t talk about it. Go away. Don’t speak about it. I think it’s absolutely the wrong thing to do because you’re better off opening up and you’re better off telling people. Exactly what happened and then people can say you’re a dummy and therefore they can not want to give you money or they can say, wow, that’s a really honest person who’s telling the truth about something.
And I want my money managers and I want the people around me to be accountable and to be human. And so those are the people I’m trying to attract to my business. And that’s why I’ve been so willing to talk about it and even willing to, you know, write a book about it, frankly. Yeah. And you know, it’s interesting.
The one thing you can’t say about Anthony Scaramucci is he’s dishonest. You’re transparent and you call it like you see it, which I. I mean, you talk about it openly, which I think is fantastic. You know, people are more likely to trust you, you know, I appreciate that. Listen, I have no personal trading account, well documented.
I, all my money’s in my, the funds of my business. I don’t, you know, I, I try to tell people upfront, I’m not saying I haven’t. Made mistakes. I haven’t said I’ve done things that I regret. I’ve certainly done that. Imagine getting to age 60. How uninteresting a life if you’ve never done anything wrong or made no mistakes, David.
So. It’s exactly what goes through my mind. But you know, the words that came to my mind, you know, was redemption and vindication. The opening chapter in your book, you, you, you mentioned the sinking ship of your crypto position. You know, you were talking about FTX, but it’s funny because we recently had an all time high, right?
And bigger and bigger firms are taking massive positions. And I thought you must feel a little vindicated here. Yeah, it’s early. You know, let me tell you something. I’ve been humbled by life and I’ve been humbled by markets so that I don’t want to be feeling overly vindicated. but I, I guess I would say it a little differently.
I would say, listen, if you believe in something and you’ve done the homework, ignore the noise and stick with it. What you fundamentally believe and if you do that, I think you’d be you’re rewarded long term by markets, you know Yeah, and I and I would like to think that we’re gonna get this thing, right?
We look very right right now Even with the current 20 percent correction in crypto prices from the high at least on the Bitcoin high I think we’re gonna get this thing right long term people gonna look back and say wow That was really smart of those guys to hang in there as long as they did Yeah, I’m going to use the word vindicated before you wrap up.
Do you want to talk about the book here? Because like I mentioned, I really loved it. It’s very introspective, retrospective. I found it cerebral in a way I wasn’t expecting that. But you know, as I said, I could not put it down. as I was reading. I was thinking, you know, if you really do want to be resilient, if you do exactly what you say in the book, I think it’d be bulletproof, honestly.
And you draw from a lot of experiences, you know, through the book with some humor. What inspired you to write it, you know? And what’s the book about? What should we expect if we pick it up? Well, listen, you know, I try to write it in a way that anybody could pick it up and read and hopefully enjoy parts of it, if not all of it.
I also wrote it for the modern era. So it’s a thin book. I, I call it a flight book. You can get through it. If you’re flying coast to coast, you can finish it in one session. It’s, it’s, it’s set up in lessons, not chapters. So they’re short. that’s for our, our new age of attention, which is certainly we have attention deficit.
Let’s just admit that to each other. But what I tried to put in the book was an honest story about the trial and tribulations of being an entrepreneur, about somebody that went into the political system, but perhaps was inexperienced, didn’t understand the nature of the things that I was getting myself involved in.
And I write about honestly the aftermath of that. And I, I think for me, it would be a success for me if somebody read the book, David, and said, okay, this has fortified me. It’s given me some ideas for, embracing failure and recognizing that if I’m going to live my dreams or fulfill whatever my potential might be in life.
I’ve got to be willing to take the risk of being out there to potentially embarrass myself or have something bad happen. But I know in my heart that even if something bad does happen, I can survive it and thrive even in that environment. And I think that was the message of the book. Yeah. And it really came through and I loved how Each chapter, you know, was dedicated to different personality traits, disciplines, or qualities that you need for resilience and strength, right?
Like, for example, joy, right? You dive into the topic of joy, highlighting And number one thing, I mean, you, you know, you’re not, if you’re searching for happiness happiness is ephemeral and it is very elusive because you’re biologically designed to worry. worry is what keeps you alive. Worry is what, kept you alive when you were sitting in that cave dealing with woolly mammoths.
Okay. So, in a society like ours now, I try to remind people that you’re living in a 100, 000 year old piece of machinery that hasn’t had a software upgrade in 100, 000 years. Your phone went from 1 to 15 over the last 15 years, but you’re still living with a caveman’s brain. And so it’s up to you to hit the override switch, to override things like fear, to override things like envy and jealousies, petty jealousies, and to try to be somewhat transformative with your life.
And, The way to do that is to recognize you, you can’t. Be permanently happy, but you can find joy in things like gratitude and the simple things in life Even serving yourself this cup of coffee. there’s a joy in that there’s a joy in being present And being here with you today Listen, I I mean, I don’t know if it’s something that happens when you get older, but it’s it’s You know, living in the moment a little bit more, right?
Like, you know, you know, one of the topics in the book was, you know, find meaning or purpose. And I really, you know, I really studied that chapter, in a little bit more detail. We used to talk on the show about legacy. You know, we have, you know, some of the greatest entrepreneurs, billionaires and whatever on the show.
And we’d ask about legacy, but now we’re starting to focus on purpose. And I think it’s important to find your purpose and pursue it. You found your purpose and what advice do you have for somebody who’s trying to find their passion and purpose in life? I mean, see to me, I feel like I have because I’m doing something I love and and I think what you know It’s interesting.
Jerry Seinfeld was interviewed recently He is a student of Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius And he said, you know, one of the big Aurelian comments, Mark, the general once said You know, you’re only relevant to your time. Many of us don’t know our great grandfather’s first name or our great great grandfather’s first name.
And so, we lose our relevance, once we, once we perish from the earth. And, you know, what Seinfeld said, which was very funny and ironic, he said, well, of course, Aurelius said, you don’t leave a legacy, so don’t, Worry about it, but obviously Aurelius left the legacy by writing this beautiful book.
We’re still sharing it amongst ourselves 2, 000 years later. But it really doesn’t matter. The point, the point being is you’re here right now, what happens after you leave here You certainly want to leave the world a better place to accept that you’re able to, with your life force. but you can’t overly worry about legacy because, you know, very few of us are going to be remembered, frankly.
And, and, you know, I submit to you it’s 10, 000 years since the pyramids. we don’t, we, we know King Tut because his, he was a minor king and his grave was discovered a hundred years ago, but we really don’t know The pharaohs that ran Egypt from 10, 000 years ago, and nor will people really focus on the names of the people that were running these places that we live in today, 10, 000 years from now.
Yeah, these are all great points. we, I, it was interesting. I, did an interview recently where we focused on the Japanese word for purpose in life, Ikigai. You know this word? Yeah, Ikigai. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I have a friend that, has named his business Ikigai, Ikigai capital. Yeah. Incredible. Right. And finding what, so I have it here.
One, finding one’s Ikigai involves identifying what one loves, but one is good at what the world needs and what one can be paid for in the intersection of these elements is considered one’s purpose. No question. Unreal. a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. Be tough. Nice. Did you invent this word?
Be tough, nice? What does it mean? Yeah, it’s not a word, right? Like I said in the book, I was channeling George W. Bush when he used to make up words. I think that you gotta be tough, and you have to be, Nice about it, but you have to be tough in life, you know, and so if you know, you don’t have to please everybody in life.
I think it’s a very big mistake that people sometimes get themselves involved with where they’re people pleasing and they’re getting stepped on or they’re avoiding conflict. you can be nice about being tough, but you have to be tough. You have to tell people where you stand in situations. You have to hold your ground.
Yeah. And there’s one other concept I want to ask you about from the book. It’s, it’s in the chapter discipline yourself because no one else is going to do it. I love this. we do need to discipline ourselves and You know, speaking of discipline, there’s a, there’s a really profound thought in this chapter where you said the most important lesson I’ve ever learned, the one that has allowed me to get up off off the mat after taking some pretty intense haymakers to the jaw is that the most important conversations you’ll ever have in your life are the ones you have with yourself.
That was your quote, right? Oh, it’s totally true. I mean, you know, listen, you’re, you know, you know this and your viewers and listeners know this. You’re never really alone because even in your moments of solitude, you have yourself and inside your own mind, you are having a conversation and inside your own mind, you’re developing and thinking of different things.
things. Okay. And you’re weighing the benefits and the negatives of things. And you know this, that, you’re never alone. And if you’re a Buddhist, you know, that the, the secrets are to drop your ego and to recognize that you’re connected into the stars that made you, you know, because we’re all products of the star dust.
And so therefore there has to be some level of connection. And so drop your ego. And feel that and when you do feel that I think you get closer to the things that you want to do and you get closer to the things that make you happy. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, the wrap up. Final two questions. These are fun.
Speaking of discipline, do you have a daily routine? What does that look like if you do have one? So I have a daily routine that I invariably screw up, okay, and so I, we’ll talk about it, you know, I try to get up every morning and get to the gym, and so I’m up at 6 a. m. and I try to hit the gym starting 6.
15 to 7. 15. this morning I had to do television, so I missed it. tomorrow, I have to, speak in an event, so I will miss it again. So I’ll try to get a workout in tonight, but, but my point is, is that my routine on a regular day is get up and work out. Because I feel like if you get up and work out, it’s like what Admiral McRaven said, if you make your bed, you’ve already accomplished something.
If I can get into the gym and out of the gym by 7. 15 in the morning, even if it’s a really crappy day, I’ve at least got something accomplished. And I also feel That the exercise does help you, you know, I participated in that, special forces reality show two years ago, where they had us jumping out of helicopters and all different kinds of things at the age of 58, if I wasn’t, conditioned, I could never do that.
But I also think that the ancients are right about this as well. There’s a mind body connection, you know, be careful what you eat and be careful how you exercise and how you think, cause it’s all, it’s all connected. And, and so that’s my routine. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, you had to ask because you look so young, Anthony.
okay, here’s a fun one. If you could have dinner Yeah. With any three people, any three people in history, past or present, who would they be? I often think about this, and so, and everyone will say things like Jesus and, and so forth. but the people that I’m most interested in are actually political leaders who have dealt with great strife.
And so the three. Presidents of great consequence in this country are the ones I would actually like to meet and have dinner with. And so it’s Washington. Remember what George III said about Washington. If he actually gives up power, he’ll be considered to be one of the greatest humans ever. And he did, of course, he gave up the power and he returned to his farm at Mount Vernon.
Lincoln, who understood that he needed to keep the union together, that ultimately, philosophically we’re better together. Okay, and that was a time of great strife in the country where the country was separating. And then the third one would be Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, who in a time of crisis, both the Great Depression and the World War helped us out of those two things.
And he was a primary architect of the peace. You know, he doesn’t get credit for that because he passed away in April of 1945, but he did build the architecture of the peace. and, and, and he did develop a lot of the concepts around. The un and the other alphabets like the you know, the bank the world court all of these things that have helped our society Since the end of the second world war so I would want to have dinner with the three of them And if I was doing my job, right david, I would be keeping my mouth shut during that dinner the uh Yeah, which brings up the question.
I didn’t ask you about this, but were you actually fired for mouthing off at a reporter? Well, I mean that was the reported story So there’s always an underlying thing and why I was fighting with trump if he asked general kelly why I got fired he would tell you that uh Trump accused me of being in the deep state.
he wanted to release certain files that I disagreed with and he He wanted to do certain things that I disagreed with that had nothing to do with the deep state. It just had to do with what I thought was in the best interest of the country. And he looked at me and said, Oh, I thought you worked for me.
You’re a deep stater. I said, Mr. President, I’m not a deep stater. I work for the American people. I love the country. I’ve never had any governmental experience. I’m just looking at what’s right or wrong for the country. And so he fired me and, you know, Kelly, if you ask Kelly, Kelly felt that I was getting too much attention, my press conference seen by a lot of people, a lot of press coverage of me.
Trump doesn’t like that. He, he wants her to be one spotlight and one camera. And he wants it really to be focused on him and Robert Greene, my friend that wrote the 48 Laws of Power in that book, he says, you know, you can’t ever be in a situation where the person you’re working for feels like You know, you’re eclipsing him in any way.
I’m not saying I could eclipse the president, but I think I was getting too much attention. And so I got my ass fired, all of which I’m responsible for, David. I’m not, I’m not blaming my firing on anybody, but me. I deserve to be fired because I got fired. Okay. And so the actions, mouthing off at the reporter, if you really know Donald Trump’s personality, you know, he loved that.
He thought it was really effing funny. And, that wasn’t the reason I got fired. Although that was the public. reason that was presented. Yeah. John Kelly fired you, I believe, right? But now you’re friends, you’re friends though. Yeah. He’s a great guy. He’s an American, true American. He’s a four star general, 40 years in the Marine Corps.
And unfortunately he’s also a gold star family member. He lost his son at war to have an enormous amount of love and respect for him. Interesting. Okay. Final question, Anthony, you’re opening a bottle of champagne one year from now, celebrating something you’ve accomplished. What would that be? Well, I’m above ground, so I’m going to definitely start with that.
The fact that I’m still here would be great, right? You know? And then the, then the second thing I would say to you is that, hopefully it’s something good happening to my family. Fantastic. You know, it makes you think it’s goal setting, right? So Anthony, thank you so much for joining us today. Really compelling conversation.
So good to get to know you. And you’re really great to be on with you. Let’s stay in touch, please. David. Dude. A hundred percent.
