Billionaire Cliff Asness: Can Technology Outrun 'Stupider and Stupider' Government?

Co-founder of AQR Capital Management, Cliff Asness, discusses the decline of market efficiency, the dangers of populist economics, and his libertarian outlook on capitalism.

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Billionaire Cliff Asness: Can Technology Outrun 'Stupider and Stupider' Government?

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"I feel fear… because they're somewhat vindictive people. I don't care who you are, having this set of people mad at you is not comfortable." That's today's guest, Cliff Asness, talking about President Donald Trump, his administration, and his supporters. Asness is the outspoken billionaire co-founder of AQR Capital Management. He is also a pioneer in quantitative finance, University of Chicago Ph.D., and self-described "part-time Republican and full-time libertarian." He talks bluntly about why Trump is spectacularly wrong on tariffs and trade, his concerns about the authoritarian tendencies of the president and his supporters, and how capitalism may actually be getting less efficient due to social media.

Asness tells Reason's Nick Gillespie how he came to his libertarian beliefs, where right-wing populism overlaps with its left-wing version, and why he thinks free minds and free markets will eventually win—but only after a long slog. This conversation was recorded live at an event in New York City.

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1:17- Asness's hedge fund: AQR Capital Management

4:15- The state of capitalism

7:30- From delusion to grift

10:51- Trump, tariffs, and comparative advantage

13:48- Is the Trump administration "grifting"?

16:30- Criticizing Obama and Biden

17:42- Is Trump the naked emperor?

23:57- Markets are not perfect

30:45- Social media's effect on markets and politics

37:07- Asness' politics and background

40:40- Does the arc of history bend towards libertarianism?

42:00- Left & right economic illiteracy

44:29- Median income has increased, morale hasn't

47:01- Politics rewards resentment

Upcoming Reason events:

• The Soho Forum Debates: Dave Smith vs. Alex Nowrasteh on immigration, May 21, 2025

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Mother's Lament - (Sarcasian Meanister of Foreign Affairs)]

"I feel fear… because they're somewhat vindictive people. I don't care who you are, having this set of people mad at you is not comfortable."

All the Never-Trumpers want to portray themselves as his worst enemy and pretend they are the first person he wants to put in the camps.

Never mind that Trump isn't the one who tried to censor their speech and kick them off the internet. Never mind that Trump didn't send a bunch of crooked lawyers to try and bankrupt them or have them arrested on novel charges.

Trump has done nothing to his adversaries unlike all the terrible, vengeful things that they tried to do to him, but all these vindictive putz's are all like "tRuMp'S vinDiCtiVE". Pure projection.

[Speaking for normal people]

HE doesn't want to lose money so he poses as a public intellectual warning us about tariffs. The buck stops with Trump. As for this guy, maybe his buckS are stopping because of Trump. If he is Mr Honest Billionaire he is the first.

[TJJ2000]

Think the current $37,000,000,000,000 US Debt says NO. Technology can't outrun stupid-and-stupider government.

As-if nobody ever told the [Na]tional So[zi]alist Empire they're going to destroy the USA.

I for one think it can still be saved so long as the focus isn't how to save China instead under the "comparative advantage" flag of Zero-Import Taxes and 85% US Manufacturing Taxes. As-if that's "comparative advantage" or not precisely why production has ran-away from this nation.