Connect your Claude, Codex or OpenClaw for full transcripts on millions of podcasts. Two week free trial, cancel anytime.

Start free trial →
SH Steve Hilton Steve Hilton Steve Hilton is a political commentator, a former adviser to UK Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2012) and a former Fox News commentator.

“We've become a state where if you do the right thing, you're punished. And if you do the wrong thing, you're rewarded. That is upside down. But that's the story beneath everything. And that's what we need to turn around. That's what this election is actually about.”

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · Money & Markets · September 2026

“We've become a state where if you do the right thing, you're punished. And if you do the wrong thing, you're rewarded. That is upside down. But that's the story beneath everything. And that's what we need to turn around. That's what this election is actually about.” — Steve Hilton, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Context

Hilton at a live All-In Podcast taping in Los Angeles in September 2026, after describing a family-owned shoe store whose block is lined with unlicensed street vendors.

Listen to the episode → More from Steve Hilton → More Money & Markets quotes →

Transcript

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg Around 17:55 into the episode
Steve Hilton

Can I just tell, I'm going to be.

Chamath Palihapitiya

It's called the side quest in our industry.

Steve Hilton

…about it. You've got, and Langers, you've got food stands there that are pouring their grease into the drain right in front of their store. You've got rats, you've got all of it legalized. And what does it tell you when you take that into account? And then what you see in MacArthur Park with the drugs. You know what you guys should do? Can I just tell you what this lesson is from this? That we've become a state where if you do the right thing, you're punished. And if you do the wrong thing, you're rewarded. That is upside down. But that's the story beneath everything. And that's what we need to turn around. That's what this election is actually about.

Chamath Palihapitiya

No, I really think it's important for you guys to be able to tell the stories of these specific laws because it doesn't matter your political persuasion. When you hear that, if it is as accurate as you say, it's functionally one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And if there's a 20 or 30 of…

Speaker 4

The craziest part about this, so there's, they say there's 50,000 food vendors, 50,000, and they made it more affordable. So most of them don't even have the permit that costs $21. But our city council, Green Lit, and they already did this. They gave these food vendors $500,000 to give them an…

Chamath Palihapitiya

What does it say, Spencer, if this city elects Karen Bass again? And what does it say in terms of lessons about your campaign that you can't beat somebody that incompetent?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

More from All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

“I've always said from the beginning of this that it's not going to be easy to win. It's going to be very difficult because of the structural factors in California, but it's not impossible. And given the seriousness of our predicament and how much I think the whole country depends on a successful, growing, thriving, leading California, then we should go for it. I always say California means to America what America means to the world.” — Steve Hilton, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg “Last year, the Google Cloud business for this quarter was generating $3.5 billion of operating income. This quarter, it's over $11 billion of operating income. And this is a lot like the SpaceX AI story, where the value of the compute infrastructure that's been built is just tremendous. The question is, does Google actually have the models that sit on top of it?” — David Friedberg, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg