#1795 - Antonio Garcia Martinez

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. So what's up, man?

Antonio García Martínez (0:13)

How are you?

Thanks for having me, Joe. I'm very excited to be here.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

It's always interesting to meet somebody that you only know from their tweets. You know, I only know you from your tweets, which I found very interesting, and then I started reading your book or listening to your book where another person reads it, and I've seen some interviews of you, so I thought it'd be fun to have you in there.

Have a little chit chat.

Antonio García Martínez (0:33)

Great. Thanks for having me, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:34)

My pleasure. So you just got back from Ukraine?

Antonio García Martínez (0:37)

I know. I'm totally throwing a wrench in the agenda.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

No, there's no agenda.

Antonio García Martínez (0:39)

We were supposed to talk about cancellation or whatever, but yeah, for a bunch of reasons, I just up and went to Poland and Ukraine to see what was going on there.

Joe Rogan (0:47)

So this was just your own idea to just take a trip?

Antonio García Martínez (0:51)

Not totally. One of the gigs I have, I have a gig at a DC think tank, and one of my colleagues who's done, like, real in the field correspondent work before, proposed a trip, and a bunch of people expressed interest. And I'm basically the only one who didn't wimp out and went with him.

Joe Rogan (1:06)

So it was just you and this one guy?

Antonio García Martínez (1:08)

And we had, you know, drivers and fixers and stuff, because I don't speak any Slavic languages, and you basically need it to sort of navigate that world.

And also, in a wartime economy, regular transport doesn't work, so you need to get around somehow. And so we did have, we tended to have a driver usually.

Joe Rogan (1:24)

So what is that conversation like?

So when someone says, hey, let's go to Ukraine, what was the goal? Was it just to see it firsthand? Was it to get, is there any information that you can get when you're on the ground that would sort of clarify the situation for you?

Antonio García Martínez (1:43)

Yeah.

I mean, we can get into this, but I think the view that you see of Ukraine from the United States, I think is so blinded by both American domestic political priorities and the whole kaleidoscope that is the Twitter experience. I felt you have to go there to see the real thing. And it's history with a capital H in the sort of Francis Fukuyama sense of, this is a real invasion, the likes of which we haven't seen in Europe in whatever, 70 plus years.

And it's just something that I've lived in Europe. I have an EU passport, so I feel a little bit European in that regard. So I think I engage with the story a little bit differently maybe than Americans do. And so I felt I just had to go there and see it for myself.

Joe Rogan (2:24)

So when you went there, was this idea related at all to business, to your...

Antonio García Martínez (2:31)

Oh, no, no, no.

Joe Rogan (2:32)

So this was just for your own edification?

Antonio García Martínez (2:34)

Well, I did, I am doing a story. So there's a publication that I occasionally pitch stories to called Tablets, a Jewish magazine. The Israelis are doing a bunch of stuff on the Polish border to get Jews out. And so there's a whole Jewish angle to the story.

And then also just... So I have a sub stack, which I should probably plug, I guess, the pull request.

Joe Rogan (2:52)

What is it?

Antonio García Martínez (2:53)

The pull request.

Joe Rogan (2:54)

Pull, P-U-L-E?

Antonio García Martínez (2:55)

Yeah, P-U-L. It's like a nerdy term.

Joe Rogan (2:57)

P-U-L?

Antonio García Martínez (2:57)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, P-U-L.

A pull request is like when a coder is actually coding a piece of software. It's like they request that the main code base pull from them. And so it's like saying, hey, read my shit and like integrate it with your shit. And so in some sense, it's like it started as a similar to my book.

So I've worked in tech for a long time. I've had a whole career in the advertising industry. I was an early member of Facebook's ads team, which is what the book is about, which we'll probably get to. And the thought was I wanted to give a perspective on tech from the insider perspective rather than the outsider perspective. And from there, it's gone into religion, culture, and then now even geopolitics as my interests kind of meander through the world.