Special Episode of We The Builders from Hill & Valley Forum 2026: Conversation with David Friedberg on rise and fall of empires, the state of US economy, robots as an economic platform, what has changed since the Winning AI Race Summit featuring President Trump, reindustrialization, the end of institutional education and of course the California bankruptcy.

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Timestamps:

01:21 - Shifting landscape between Silicon Valley and DC

02:51 - AI has become a political attack vector

04:46 - Late-stage empires and the impact of national debt

07:03 - Potential for AI to rewrite the story of US economy

08:26 - AI’s recent performance and productivity gains

10:03 - Bullish outlook on humanoid robots

11:16 - Robots as a platform for economic mobility

13:41 - Reindustrialization and energy production challenges

15:15 - The “functionally bankrupt” status of California

16:50 - The declining value of institutional education

18:46 - Personalized AI-driven tutoring as the future

20:01 - Emerging private sector models for education

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