百期回望：粉丝提问、核威胁、市场与亚马逊

David Friedberg (00:00:00): Jacob, do you have intros today? Jason Calacanis (00:00:01): No. I don't have time for intros. Oh, come on. Alright. Fine. He started as a nerd with no followers on Twitter. Now he's a nerd that gets recognized when leaving the shitter. He turned water into wine. He just wants to please us. Now he's a mixture of Kermit DiFrog and a science near Jesus. He's the man with the stands, the queen of Kinwal, the Sultan of Science. The prince of Prozac, the lord of Lexapro. He gets stops for selfies all over town My producer fee gave him a mental breakdown. The zolton of Zoloft, Mister Galeb Freberg. David Friedberg (00:00:30): It's true. It did give me a breakdown. It's true. Jason Calacanis (00:00:33): But you're over it Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:33): now. You just name dropped 3 SSRIs, and that intro is incredible. Jason Calacanis (00:00:37): Well, I talked to his I talked to his psychiatrist. He said he's working on the cocktail. David Sacks (00:00:41): Yeah. Save some for me. Jason Calacanis (00:00:44): Oh oh, you, speaking of you. He's got a very quick wit and impeccable grammar known for building beautiful products that don't work. Oh my god. like Colin and Yammer. He used to invest in SAS quite a lot. Now he's fighting a brigade of Ukraine bots. He's spending so much time in his bunker. It's starting to get smelly. We see him only three times a week, all in Tucker and Megyn Kelly. He'd invest in your startup if you had the knack But right now, he needs that cash for his GOP Super PAC. The world's biggest hassle, the rain man himself, Mister David Sachs. David Friedberg (00:01:15): That's full. David Sacks (00:01:18): That's that's a repeat joke because that's not David Friedberg (00:01:19): -- Jason Calacanis (00:01:20): I know, but it it kills every time. So I'm gonna keep repeating it until you stop laughing. His wardrobe costs so much. He can't get into a scuffle. He bought all his friends with his white truffles. He scaled Facebook to a Billy. That wine collection, it's just fucking silly. He's on the world tour a meeting with princes and kings. Is he talking luxury sweaters or maybe bigger things? The dictator himself, Chamath polly Happadia. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:43): That was really nice, actually. Jason Calacanis (00:01:45): Well, I mean, I appreciate it. David Friedberg (00:01:46): You you were obviously trying to get invited to dinner tonight. Exact I'm trying Jason Calacanis (00:01:49): to get off the alternate list. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:51): He's trying to the alternate. That the email was harsh. 9 was alternate. Jason Calacanis (00:01:55): And that you would troll me. I know I have a seat. As for me, I'm the world's greatest moderator who can't take a note. Compared to these guys, I'm just a millionaire who's broke. The all in summit almost killed us, but we came back from debt store. I knew we peaked when Friedberg took over the dance floor. We love the fans, but we love each other more. Thanks for the first 100, Fellas. Here's to a 100 more. David Friedberg (00:02:16): Really good. David Sacks (00:02:17): Wow. David Friedberg (00:02:18): That's really, really good. Look at you touching him. David Sacks (00:02:20): Surprisingly, you can compare it today. First time. He David Friedberg (00:02:25): after a 100 episodes, he finally figured out he has to prepare. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:29): That was the note. Just prepare. David Friedberg (00:02:31): It's just a mere job. Do your job. Do your job. Do your job. David Sacks (00:02:35): Do your unremuterated job. David Friedberg (00:02:37): Do your job. Jason Calacanis (00:02:38): Speaking of Unremunerated, we heard that somebody's grip thing off the pod. David Friedberg (00:02:43): Oh, yeah. So good point. What we heard, Saks, is that you got a big care package for Montclair. David Sacks (00:02:49): Yeah. That's true. David Friedberg (00:02:51): What? What I think we're all gonna declare today is that we all wanna wet our beak. And if Montclair sends each of us a care package, we will all wear Moncler gear at episode a 100 and -- -- David Sacks (00:03:02): my brand. Go go your own brand. David Friedberg (00:03:04): Yeah. We decided to David Sacks (00:03:05): Jamasco Laura Piano. I got Montclair. You go get, like, you know, Isaac or something. David Friedberg (00:03:11): I saw Isaac. I saw it. David Sacks (00:03:13): Actually, I got eyes on too. You have to do Jason Calacanis (00:03:16): I have Uniqloq. I got Uniqloq. David Friedberg (00:03:18): We got Gap Kids for JCal. In fact, you didn't you didn't declare your Montclair packaged by David Sacks (00:03:24): the fact David Friedberg (00:03:24): that that was the discovery we made this weekend. David Sacks (00:03:26): So I wanna thank I wanna thank the folks that there's a company called And they sent me this gift actually, this hoodie, this Moncler hoodie, which I never Jason Calacanis (00:03:36): seen before. What is this plug you? They sent you a hoodie for $1200, and they get a -- No. You don't remember the exact spot. David Sacks (00:03:43): There were several other things that I'll bring you guys each a shirt. from Montclair. Jason Calacanis (00:03:47): Oh, sure. I am tonight. Sure. David Friedberg (00:03:48): Yeah. You go as we're speaking, these guys are getting 100 of 1000 of dollars of revenue. -- is the Korea of the shirt. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:03:55): How bad is your portfolio that you're grifting? Did you put this Moncler stuff onto, like, eBay after you got it? David Sacks (00:04:01): I was already wearing it. sent me more. Speaker 5 (00:04:03): So, I mean, we're this hoodie is pretty cool. David Sacks (00:04:05): What can I say? I'm not gonna Jason Calacanis (00:04:07): lose you. David Friedberg (00:04:07): -- Jason Calacanis (00:04:07): is 3¢, and all of a sudden, you're grifting. David Friedberg (00:04:10): I I Just for everyone listening, I'm looking for a wardrobe upgrade. Can you just send my package to my office? -- tell you something. Jason Calacanis (00:04:16): There's no upgrade that's gonna help Freeport. I think you're fucked. David Sacks (00:04:19): No. I'm gonna bring you guys Moncler shirts to the poker game tonight. David Friedberg (00:04:22): Gee. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate that. How did how did Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:24): you guys even find out that he got this gift? David Friedberg (00:04:27): We're at his flea week party. And there was a blue angels party, and there was someone there who started telling me, like, did you hear that Saxx got this whole thing -- Oh, Jason Calacanis (00:04:37): so somebody there's a rat? David Friedberg (00:04:39): was a I'm not telling you the rest, but he's got a lead. He's got a mold. We were talking about the podcast. We were talking about the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:44): size it has. 100 100%, it was wool weigh. David Friedberg (00:04:47): 100%. No. No. It wasn't wool weigh. 100%. Jason Calacanis (00:04:50): Was it Jeff? And David Friedberg (00:04:51): then -- One David Sacks (00:04:51): of my one of my friends was in the man cave, and he saw this, like, care package from unclear, and he really admired this, like, jacket. It was like a puffer jacket, but with, like, wool sleeves or something. Speaker 6 (00:05:02): Oh, so Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:03): you gave it to him? David Sacks (00:05:04): And I gave it to him. He liked it so much on my I'm like, here you take Jason Calacanis (00:05:07): your -- -- not even on the pod. He's not even on the podcast. Give it to producer Nick. Speaker 5 (00:05:11): So he was walking around with it, David Sacks (00:05:12): and he was really appreciative. So maybe he said something or or what? David Friedberg (00:05:16): Well, I can't believe he's not horrific anymore. -- crazy. Let's just say there was a lot of conversations going on about your care package, Saxx. Jason Calacanis (00:05:22): Well and it makes us wonder, Saxx. Are there other care packages that have come in and that, like David Friedberg (00:05:27): -- Or to months? Jason Calacanis (00:05:27): Have you been promoting other stuff on here? So who makes capped behind you. David Friedberg (00:05:31): -- David Sacks (00:05:31): magazines that you wouldn't wanna Tamar, David Friedberg (00:05:32): how much of your LoRa Pianna have you actually paid for over the past year? That's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:36): a funny surprise question here. David Friedberg (00:05:38): 100%. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:38): I would never I would never accept it for free. Oh. It's it's important look. Wait. No. All joking aside. It's hard if you're running a clothing business especially if you're like a small niche provider stuff. So, yeah, you have a responsibility to pay for this stuff, not to grift and get it for free. Jason Calacanis (00:05:55): When I was at the LoRa Piano store on 57th Street in Manhattan, the 18000 Square Foot store, I was thinking the same thing. These poor people How do they survive? David Friedberg (00:06:04): Well, Lornby on a -- $270 square foot rent. Jason Calacanis (00:06:08): How would they make it? David Friedberg (00:06:09): I would bake it. -- purveyors, Friedberg. exploiting poor baby goats. Jason Calacanis (00:06:14): Well, whatever. I mean, the fact is the market's down. There's gonna be a little gifting on the margins. It's understandable. to let your winners ride. Rainman, David Saxon. And Speaker 7 (00:06:27): I said, we open source it Speaker 5 (00:06:29): to the fans and make discoveries. Freeberg, he Jason Calacanis (00:06:32): loves to produce every 17th episode, he does a great job. David Friedberg (00:06:40): Oh, no. I like to prepare or at least know what the heck we're gonna talk about when we get together instead Jason Calacanis (00:06:44): of -- -- prompts. He he got these promises. David Friedberg (00:06:46): -- doing his job. Yeah. Go ahead. Jason Calacanis (00:06:48): Thank you, sir. Oh god. Alright. So first up on Friedberg curiousness. This is what I Freeburg -- This is David Friedberg (00:06:55): how you're gonna do it. Let's head to the next section. Come on. No. Jason Calacanis (00:06:58): No. No. Okay. So David Friedberg (00:07:00): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:00): Go. Go. Go. Jason Calacanis (00:07:01): Why do you think Chamath people love the podcast? Why do you think they listen? Why do you think They love it. What what is the the phenomenon? What what what lightning has been captured in this bottle? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:11): First is I think that they appreciate our friendship. It's kind of like odd and quirky. And I think a lot of you know, it maps to, like, relationships that they have amongst their own friends. So that's what makes it relatable. But the second is that all of us uniquely have a point of view about stuff that matters more and more in the world. I think that's just the basics of it. Like, it's not like technology is going away. And it's not like its impact in the world is going away. And the more it becomes mainstream, the more it's important for a lot of folks to understand what's happening? And I think we provide a pretty unfiltered view of it. And we do it where and this is a lot of credit to Saks. more than anyone else on the show has to take a counterpoint and steal man what would otherwise be controversial views. And if he didn't have his 3 friends around him, that would make the pod meaningfully worse, I think. Jason Calacanis (00:08:08): Can you evacuate for people who don't know what's the old manning is, what that means? Well, it just Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:12): it just means, like, to in have intellectual honest around a point of view and actually put your best foot forward in trying to explain it even when it's not orthodox, even when it's not what the mainstream would say is right. And so what it actually does is it creates a contrast against every other alternative that you have to learn about things which you find incrementally is biased. And I think that's what we've gotten right. We are four friends that have a reasonable point of view rooted in some amount of success. And I think that that's important because it gives us credibility. And we take all sides of issues. Yeah. And oftentimes it is not the obvious simple reductive answer. And I think that that's where it really shines. Jason Calacanis (00:08:58): Just so people know about the steel man argument, I just wanna make sure people are correct. I think most people refer to it as the act of presenting the other argument in the strongest way possible, to be intellectually honest. Like, the opposite straw man. David Sacks (00:09:09): Exactly. Obviously, strong man. because the the way the way the debate happens on Twitter and so forth is it's almost like the intellectual debate is being attacked using opposition research tactics like who were a political campaign. So in other words, they go back through anything you might have said or written take the the the thing that was most wrong or at least justifiable or the thing they can even just take out of context. And then they'll try to make it that as opposed to the argument you're actually making. And we just see this tactic over and over again, and it's not an intellectually rigorous way of having a debate about somebody. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:47): You don't learn anything. Speaker 6 (00:09:48): Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:49): And deep down inside, you know that it's contrived. And that is the in a nutshell. So it does it almost in many ways has less to do with how good we are, but frankly, how bad all the alternatives are. So even if you wanted to learn about tech and you go up and you sign up for these newsletters or if you look at some of these tech sites, They're really terrible and they have done an increasingly terrible job over the last 5 years in telling The most important things, the truth and everything in between. And so if you can find a source for an hour a week that is trying to tell you how basically the world is going to come together in a really integrated, multifaceted way. It's not like we're right and it's not like we know better than people. In fact, many times a lot of the criticism I get is how dare you talk about x or how dare you talk about y. Because it makes people who are experts in that field you know, feel like how dare you come into my realm and even have an opinion on, you know, what Russian politics was like in the 19 eighties. And those things really annoy these folks because they feel that those opinions in that knowledge should be cordoned off and held tightly as this secret that only they are allowed to talk about into the world. And this is the point where with the Internet, all this knowledge is accessible So the value of that knowledge, in my opinion, is the least it's ever been. It's the interpretation that's valuable and it's the ability to actually like think narratively around how all these things connect. And this is where I give a lot of credit. I think you guys do an incredible job. I think the way Freebrook thinks is super unique. I think the way that Sakses thinks is unique. I think Jay Kallett, your courage to basically fight back is very special. All of it together is a really unique recipe. It works. And what I will tell you consistently is the number of people that listen to this of import and influence. I am constantly shocked and if you are not sure of it, you need to get out of this stupid little echo chamber of Silicon Valley Go to New York, go around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:57): And if you're in the right meetings, it's incredible how folks are getting educated using this pod and I think that's that's really amazing. David Friedberg (00:12:03): Yeah. I think I I think there's, like, been a tendency in, like, what we call media today, historically kind of you know, communication amongst humans, it it was very slow for a communication cycle to go from beginning to end to close because we had print and books and then telegraph and then telephones and then television and then and radio. And the Internet, I think, has really changed the cycle, the loop cycle to the point that, you know, a story iterates and proliferates very quickly. Now a lot of people talked about the news cycle being very short nowadays, and what that means is that there is a group think approach to resolving to a point of view on what the news is. So the news comes out, Everyone iterates on it. They form their point of view, and all of a sudden, everyone's on the same point of view. And so there is no room for dissent or debate or discussion because the cycle closes so quickly and everyone coalesces around the same point of view. And nowadays, I think we see not just that unipolar behavior, but we see this bipolar behavior where everyone coalesces on their point of view and how their point of view is is the opposite of the other side. and everyone has their own heuristic for what the other side is. There's this populism versus elitism siding. There's this red versus blue siding. There's this us versus them citing, US versus China Siding. Everything is now bipolar. And so you very quickly coalesce around what your poll says and what your poll is instructing you to believe, and that is what is fundamentally wrong with how the system is working today. And I think what people find refreshing about a discourse that doesn't succumb to that bipolarity as a standard, is that it provides people the ability to have a real rational out of sync point of view that maybe changes one's point of view and changes one's mind in a meaningful way. David Friedberg (00:14:00): And I think that's what's really missing today, and I think maybe sometimes we do a good job and we touch on that. And so that's what I would to do is to always try and avoid that bipolarity on everything, you know, the Zen Budists call it dualistic thinking. You know? The human brain and Generally, the universe seems to evolve into this kind of dualism on everything. And it's not really always the case that there are shades of gray that there is nuance that there is a complex dimensionality to things that I think people really if they take the time to understand, recognize that maybe it's not left and right, maybe it's not elite in populism. maybe it's not all black and white. And that's an important, hopefully, framing that maybe we can bring bring to light through through our diagnosis of what's going on. in things right now. Jason Calacanis (00:14:46): Yeah. And I I I like to add to that. I think there's there's a ton of great journalism going out there. We see it. There's a ton of great subsaks out there. People go deep. There's other great podcasts out there. And right now, it's a tumultuous time for media journalism and and getting information. And do what trust what sources do we actually trust? who actually is thinking in a crisp way and informing people? And, you know, having been a former journal When we were journalists, we knew that we would get 10, 20, 30, 40 percent of a story. We would publish it, and we would try our best. But journalism has changed dramatically. in the last 20 years. And I can tell your nalazine. It's dead. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:24): Sorry. Okay. Just well, there Speaker 6 (00:15:25): I'm sorry. Jason Calacanis (00:15:25): There's still some great churn on wisdom occurring. It's on the margins. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:28): It it it's irrelevant and I'll tell you why because the facts are known instantaneously on Twitter and through the Internet. We don't need people to relay facts. We need people to wrap facts in context and allow us to come to our own conclusions. That's why I think journalism isn't what it used to be. That's why people who are historically journalists struggle because now they actually have to create context and narrative and have an opinion. But when you publish that into The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, it becomes very confusing. They don't know that that's what they were supposed to do. That's not what they used to do. That's not how Pulitzer surprises were were historically given out. And that's why everybody then, you know, rants and rails about things Jason Calacanis (00:16:06): kinda going is, you know, if you if you look at it as journalists, people don't know this. But journalists are being compensated Their little salaries in many cases are based on their follower accounts. They're based on what audience they're bringing to the table. And you see this in substack. Substack just said, we're gonna hire the top journalists on who have the most followers on Twitter. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:25): But you have to change the word so that you change how people think about it. These people are not journalists. These people are opinion makers. Jason Calacanis (00:16:31): Okay. In some cases, they're doing journalism. In some cases, they're staying right. No. No. There are some cases where they're actually doing real journalism, Chamath. There are people doing investigative reporting still. It's not the majority of what you see, but it still exists. It it's just a very much smaller percentage. But putting that aside, if you think about But you can't follow -- You can't Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:47): wrap a virtuous blanket around every a thousand people because of the acts of 1. I I'm not. And I'm not. I said, there's a range here. It's a small percentage, but this there's still a range of action rates or less. What do you think that percentage is? Jason Calacanis (00:17:00): Of content creation, I put it at 5%. So, you know, 1 out of 20. Yeah. Shot. Speaker 6 (00:17:04): And I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:04): I think it's less than David Friedberg (00:17:05): 1%. Jason Calacanis (00:17:06): But let me just finish this one thought here. You know, if you are gonna be hired and compensated. And we we talk about systems here a lot. So just thinking from first principles, if you're a journalist, if you're a right opinion writer, whatever, you produce content, for Wall Street Journal for podcasts, etcetera. Today, let this sink in. Your follower account is what your book advance is. it's what your compensation is. It's who hires you. Now if that's the truth, then it's it's not all the time, but I think it's a jargon time. David Friedberg (00:17:35): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:35): point that your job is not to relay facts. We can get facts in David Friedberg (00:17:39): 1000 Jason Calacanis (00:17:39): words. Let me finish my thought here. And so then what happens is how is follower account on Twitter actually derived? How do you get that follower count by being tribal? And so what's happened is journalists have became tribal. They get big followings. They give spicy takes. They pick a side, and then their compensation follows it. And that's why New York Times said, can we all stop on Twitter? And they literally put an edict out. Then you look at this podcast. I think people look at us as, you know, in their mixture, podcasting long form taking the time week after week to spend 90 minutes chopping these things up, I think that's what, to the original question, Friedberg, you had is what people find so great. I I when people ask me, I say it's really about the fact that there's a there's a friendships here, and it's funny. But it's also informative, and it's insightful, and at times, as you pointed out, Shamoff. you know, random acts of bravery in taking positions that are not popular. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:30): And and to think that you and Friedberg almost blew this up over a few 100 k. Jason Calacanis (00:18:35): I didn't. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:36): Oh, yeah. No. The 2 of you equally should Jason Calacanis (00:18:38): share it. David Friedberg (00:18:38): I wouldn't classify it that way. By the way, I think the -- Here we go. Jason Calacanis (00:18:41): Now the bad feelings are ready. Getting spicy. David Friedberg (00:18:44): I'm like, can I -- Speaker 5 (00:18:45): I have David Friedberg (00:18:45): I have more of an ethical framework, but, yeah, that's fine. Go ahead. Oh, that's even worse. Look at Tim Roth during the pot. David Sacks (00:18:53): Just to chime in on this point. I mean, I think I'm in violent agreement with you guys, but I'd frame it a little differently. I think the reason why people seek out our podcast and other podcasts and sub stacks is and and sort of this kind of independent journalism and are willing to pay for it. is because the mainstream media has become totally devoid of substance. It's as partisan and idial in ideology as it's ever been. Reporters are extremely ideological. You look at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the you know, major television networks. It's all kind of the same thing. And, yeah, there is, like, you know, a little bit of an echo chamber problem in terms of the partisan politics. But The mainstream media is the most ideologies it's ever been. I mean, just to give you one small example that we talked about in the pod, the you know, we had 2 quarters of negative GDP growth, which the media is always considered to be the definition of recession. And then all of a sudden, they said, no. We can't know what a recession is anymore. because they know that'd be a horrible headline for Biden right before the midterm elections. That's more of a partisan version. I think on the, you know, a more ideological gold version would be just around this Ukraine war. I mean, it's just incredible how biased the coverage is. They don't even present the other side of the story, like, this is called the Mearsheimer take about how we got to this point that we're in. So the American people just aren't being informed at all. I you know, we we we love to talk about how the people of all these other countries are being propagandized by their governments. We never talk about how propagandize the American people are. The media does not present the other side of the story at all on how we got into the Ukraine war and how we're now at the brink of what Biden calls armageddon. Jason Calacanis (00:20:34): Yeah. So how are we gonna get David Sacks (00:20:35): out of it? How are we gonna get out of it? David Friedberg (00:20:37): Any topic, by the way? I I just thought that was my punch. Yeah. Speaker 6 (00:20:41): It's so tough. David Friedberg (00:20:41): -- topics that we see, you know, effectively short form and short form meaning it can be presented in a sound bite or on a TikTok clip or in a couple paragraphs where someone's attention span before someone attention span lapses out, always misses the dimensionality that got us to that point. And so there's one perspective, one point of view, on one dimension. And the dimension like Saks is talking about about the time and the history of the dynamics of all the countries and all the people and all the interactions that have happened for the past couple of decades that led up to this moment. But then this moment has taken in its context alone and reclassified as being something that is good versus evil. It completely misses the entire storyline of what happened. It's like going to be end of a fairy tale and saying, here's this moment of what happened, and all the build up and all the things that occurred are often missing. And all the different sides of the story are missing. And I think that that's really what makes it so difficult today to feel like you can trust authority and that you can trust the the the media that's presented to you as a consumer not just in the US or in the west, but around the world because there's so much that's left out and manipulated and kept away. And what people are waking up to is the fact, as Chamath points out, it's so much of that information. The direct information is available now. And so this investigation, this ability to uncover the data and the storylines and the perspectives that are typically missing from one form of media is making people realize that there's so much that's being left out. The live -- 100 100%. 100%. Jason Calacanis (00:22:18): And I think in this podcast, David Friedberg (00:22:19): it's what's really shocking to people nowadays, and I think that's what makes maybe to some degree -- Jason Calacanis (00:22:23): Hold on. David Friedberg (00:22:24): -- conversation a little more appealing. Jason Calacanis (00:22:26): I'll I'll I'll I'll drop to you in a second there, Sax. But I did see this happen in 3 specific topics that we discussed here. If you remember, we talked about abortion, and we were on that topic very early. And no one wanna talk. I remember when we started talking about the number of weeks, maybe how Europe looks at this. That wasn't part of the popular conversation. It was always just are you against choice are you for killing babies, it it was like a very two dimensional look at it. Immigration, same thing. Nobody would talk about the numbers. Nobody talked about recruitment. Nobody talked point systems used in other countries. It was almost like those basic things were not allowed to be discussed. Why can't the media discuss those nuances and freedom of speech is, I think, the biggest one and the search for truth. You know? Nobody wants to talk about the fact that the ACLU used to actually protect unpopular speech and unpopular speech is, you know, the hardest thing in the world to protect it. How did that become something we can't even talk about now. Right? And and just the snap silencing of any opinion, whether it's Chapelle or you know, pick a topic in freedom of speech, Trump, etcetera. You know, who gets protection for freedom of speech? And we'll talk about it later in the news Jones, obviously, a very controversial topic as well. Go ahead, Saxx. You want to add something to it. David Sacks (00:23:38): Well, I think just to take this Ukraine situation as an example, I think the media is biggest power is the power to define when time begins on an issue. So Jason Calacanis (00:23:48): especially Yeah. I'm gonna say David Sacks (00:23:49): Well, like, right with Ukraine, we're part of an exploratory spiral that's been going on for well more than 8 or 9 months. This issue has been going on since 2000 Yeah. He's over a decade. So in other words, if you come in in, like, the 7th inning, okay, so to FreeWorks' point, you come in at the end of the story. and it's been an escalatory spiral. But the media just pretends like time begins on February 24th. Of course, you're gonna have a certain kind of view on the subject. Whereas, if you know the history of the situation, if you know that back in the 19 nineties, you had people like George Kennen, who was the architect of our cold war containment policy. You had William J Perry who is Bill Clinton's defense secretary. You had Henry Kissinger, you had John Muirshimer all warn that bringing NATO right up to Russia's front porch was extremely provocative to them, that they would see that as a provocation. It would eventually lead to a moment of crisis. When that moment of crisis finally came, You know, we're not told that this was predicted. We're told that anyone who says that this war has anything to do with NATO expansion. is basically a Putin apologist and is spouting Putin talking points. Jason Calacanis (00:24:57): Alright. Let's not let's not let's save some of that for the Ukraine talk. We're gonna talk about it in a new section. Nobody get your budget. David Sacks (00:25:02): You could you could agree or disagree with that. take, but the point is the media doesn't even portray it. Jason Calacanis (00:25:07): They really just pick a side, and they I think I like your analogy of, like, just coming in for the last 15 minutes of the game and just describing that. You know, we you need to have a deeper discussion of how did we get here? How do we get here on immigration? Why don't we have a point system? Why do we look at people suddenly coming from south of the border differently than we did just 20 years ago. How did that become a politicized issue? What's the right solution here, especially if we can't hire people for basic jobs in the United States, everybody wants to know this question. What what's your you have a favorite moment or a least favorite moment. A a a a great moment in the show history, and and then I guess we'll move on maybe to some audience questions here. But let's let's get this one because An embarrassing moment, your favorite moment, your least favorite moment, a a moment now you look back on, and you you're you're particularly proud of. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:53): I love the cold opens. I I think that they are unbelievably human and funny and normalizing, they are, by far, the best part of the pod. in my opinion. And yeah. But that's my that's my absolute favorite part by by, like, miles and miles. Jason Calacanis (00:26:14): Sachs, you got a favorite moment other than Ukraine other than Ukraine. I know you got Ukraine on the brain. David Sacks (00:26:21): Probably you when you started talking like Joe Pesci, The John Pesci voice. Jason Calacanis (00:26:26): I can't do it on command. I'm not your monkey sacks. Don't you talk to me like that? Fucking a fucking bad idiot. No, seriously. You have any other favorite moments? are. Or things you're particularly proud of, things that people tell you, you know, hey. I love what do you I love this part of the show. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:46): I'm also proud that we we were able to air our dirty laundry a little bit public and still get over ourselves and our own egos, and we're still here. I think that takes a lot of courage and a little bit of a little bit of maturity that's that's not in public visibility all the time in the media. Jason Calacanis (00:27:03): I like I like that sentiment a lot. You think there's David Friedberg (00:27:06): a lot of -- -- question. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:27:07): They were uncomfortable about it. You know, I I think there's a lot of personal growth that's going on here for all of everybody involved. Yeah. A free break, you got a favorite moment other. You know? I like David Friedberg (00:27:18): it when you and Saks fight. That's just a that's Jason Calacanis (00:27:21): your least favorite moment when we are. I mean, David Friedberg (00:27:23): just leave my -- -- literally turn I turn my headphones off, and I, like, do some emailing. Jason Calacanis (00:27:27): It's it really is just it it really is just this political thing, but, yeah, it does come up. You know, I don't like the fact -- All David Friedberg (00:27:33): the moments I've been interrupted by you that, like, that just happened 5 seconds ago. Like, you know, those are usually pretty tough. Jason Calacanis (00:27:40): go go ahead and break. David Friedberg (00:27:42): I don't know. No. I what I what I did enjoy I did enjoy meeting people at the summit who shared that this has been, like, a really important thing for them to listen to. I I think I I was at a Pete's coffee in the city and some guy came up to me. This was one early after early when we were doing the podcast, and he was like, listening to you guys, has really helped me get through COVID, and he was, like, locked in his apartment, and he didn't have a lot of friends, and he didn't have a lot of people to talk with and just being able to hear through, you know, kind of a a good conversation around when is this gonna end, how's COVID gonna you know, what's gonna change in the city and hearing our friendship really made a big difference for him, and it was actually really interesting. That was off the show, but it made me realize that the show acts is impactful and helpful and made gave me kind of the energy to keep going even though I've had frustrations in the past. So I don't know. I I like I like those moments a lot, to be honest, that there's real value here for people. I I also I thought the summit was a lot of fun. I mean, I had a good time. Jason Calacanis (00:28:50): Well, I you know, it's I I think we're steering towards I think we're steering towards summit 2023. That David Friedberg (00:28:56): was me starting the pod a little bit. I think -- What I've Jason Calacanis (00:28:59): done, man. -- during 2023 -- -- done. David Friedberg (00:29:02): One of them. Jason Calacanis (00:29:02): Listen, I I as far as I'm concerned, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:04): you do it, you produce it, or you hire a producer, I'll show -- Done. Jason Calacanis (00:29:08): I'm have you I don't need to make a producer fee. You can do it. You can take the producer fee, whatever it is. Alright, David Friedberg (00:29:13): guys. I got a couple of questions here from the audience. Do you guys see this list? Can we stand out for you guys? Jason Calacanis (00:29:19): Well, you pick. You pick. David Friedberg (00:29:20): So here's a question. We got it over email. from Nathan. And Nathan said, we know the reasons the reason you guys started the pod, what is the motivation of each bestie continue doing it every week. David Sacks (00:29:36): No. I ask myself that every week. Speaker 6 (00:29:38): You and me both. David Friedberg (00:29:38): -- to say. You and me both. Jason Calacanis (00:29:40): That sex is derpy. It was those therapy yesterday. Why am I doing that? David Friedberg (00:29:44): -- David Sacks (00:29:44): thinking about taking a break, not because I don't like doing it, but it is time consuming. And I do want time to get back to doing some business writing. I was on a pretty good track to publish a book about SAS before he started doing the pod. I had written a lot of business blogs. And David Friedberg (00:29:59): -- David Sacks (00:29:59): Well -- -- this is kinda Speaker 6 (00:30:00): cutting itself. David Friedberg (00:30:00): -- Jason Calacanis (00:30:00): a break? What you how how many weeks? David Friedberg (00:30:02): -- David Sacks (00:30:02): about it because David Friedberg (00:30:03): -- Jason Calacanis (00:30:03): Wait. 10 weeks? What are you thinking? David Sacks (00:30:04): Maybe, like, a month or something. Jason Calacanis (00:30:06): Yeah. Oh, 4 weeks. We you can take that's no big deal. David Friedberg (00:30:09): -- David Sacks (00:30:09): maybe. I don't know. David Friedberg (00:30:10): 4 Jason Calacanis (00:30:10): to 10. Alright. David Sacks (00:30:11): There's there's a I've got, like, a Jason Calacanis (00:30:12): hot -- Right now, a black person is, like, doing jumping jacks in his backyard Speaker 6 (00:30:15): to put Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:15): me in the game. David Sacks (00:30:17): Well, we could do that. I mean, I've got, like, 5 half written business blogs in my hopper that I really wanna finish. And So I don't know. Jason Calacanis (00:30:25): The show does take a lot of cognitive energy is what you're saying. It takes a lot of those cycles. -- a lot David Friedberg (00:30:29): of your time each week, sex? David Sacks (00:30:30): I mean, As you guys know, the tapings are only a couple hours, but then it's just keeping track of all the issues. And then, you know, if I'm preparing take for this pod, I also turn some of those takes into articles David Friedberg (00:30:41): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:41): This is this is the cost. David Friedberg (00:30:42): -- David Sacks (00:30:42): week or the American conservator, whatever. Speaker 6 (00:30:43): And responding and David Sacks (00:30:44): responding and then tweeting takes as I'm coming up with them. David Friedberg (00:30:50): This is my free Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:51): name, which is I think the the load for Saxx because he is the most hetero docs is the heaviest. And this is, like, poorly understood. It's easy to just basically be on the side of the current conventional wisdom. or to not have an opinion and to talk about things that are orthogonal. But David is consistently the one that wades into the middle of the ocean, and it is I can I can understand why Jason Calacanis (00:31:13): you -- There's an underdog there. No. Because he he no. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:15): He gets dragged under. No, Jason. He has to be more prepared than the rest of us David Friedberg (00:31:19): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:19): Yes. -- because he is more open to the attacks from all of these nitwits. David Sacks (00:31:24): It's true. I mean, you know, Jason Calacanis (00:31:26): on every day David Sacks (00:31:26): on Twitter, I'm being told I'm Speaker 6 (00:31:28): a little David Sacks (00:31:28): cheaper on our blah blah blah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:29): These are, like, uninformed nitwits. You know, they're the the cancer the cancer of people who comment on Twitter is the following. They suffer from the worst kind of cancer which is a lack of belief in themselves. And so what they do is they point to other people and try to convince yet more people to not believe in them. But that has nothing to do with anything. It's just misdirection from their core problem, which is they don't believe in themselves. And so, you know, David has to fight all of that stuff off, but he has to fight it off with logic, which must be exhausting. You know, my approach has just been to turn off comments and to not start. This is the single biggest problem I think with social media is It's at this heightened point where it's this virulent strain of a lack of belief in oneself that manifests in this hatred that you direct to anybody else that believes in Jason Calacanis (00:32:14): some interesting comp interesting theory. David Sacks (00:32:15): Yeah. And I would just just add to that. You know, it it's not like I haven't heard any of the arguments that they're making. Oh. I guarantee you, they have not heard the arguments I'm making, but but I've heard all the arguments are making. David Friedberg (00:32:29): 100%. David Sacks (00:32:30): I'm totally familiar with 1938, Munich, Neville Chamberlain, all this kind of stuff. I just don't think that is the correct understanding of what's happening right now. I think the correct historical analogy is either 1914 with war or 1 and the blank check guarantee or is 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis? The people on the other side generally don't understand that. They are just kind of part of this, like, Twitter mob who's buying into the current thing and whatever they're told by the media. So it it is it is a little bit exhausting. Jason Calacanis (00:32:58): I think that that's what people don't realize is, you know, you when this thing got very popular, the 2 or David Friedberg (00:33:04): 3 Jason Calacanis (00:33:04): days after an episode comes out becomes your text, your email, your DMs, and your replies become filled, especially -- Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:13): I would I would encourage you to keep doing this thing and just to turn off comments and don't come back. It's hard for the it's hard for the 1st few weeks, and then you realize 99% of people who comment have nothing important or useful or interesting to say. Like 0. Like negative David Friedberg (00:33:27): 0. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:27): And you've turned out -- Replacing. David Friedberg (00:33:29): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:29): there is, like, 99.999 percent of the world that just reads your content and couldn't even care about their comments. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:33:37): That's a good point. David Sacks (00:33:38): I would focus on what you have to say and Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:40): ignore and ignore all these other newbies. Twitter. David Friedberg (00:33:43): -- David Sacks (00:33:43): agree that would make it less exhausting, but it would still be time I mean, I there is a bunch of business blogs I wanna get done. So David Friedberg (00:33:48): -- Jason Calacanis (00:33:49): I mean, as I said, you take 2 weeks off. You come back and see how you feel. Alright. I mean, you can do it week by week too. I mean, just take 1 week off. and see it. See, David Friedberg (00:33:56): I think you'll miss it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:57): I think you'll I David Friedberg (00:33:58): think you'll miss it. He'll be back. He'll be back. He'll be back. Of course. He'll Jason Calacanis (00:34:01): be back. David Friedberg (00:34:02): Great Great question from Nathan. Thank you for your participation. Yes. Nathan. Next question. I actually like this one. I'm gonna pull it out. It's a email question from Juan t. Jason Calacanis (00:34:12): Oh, hey, Wantson. David Friedberg (00:34:13): Wantson Bill Gurley recently put out a piece explaining how this might be as good a time as in a decade to build a company. How are you guys seeing your own portfolio companies trying to take advantage of the situation? And I guess I'll add you guys agree and how do you think about this as a moment for company building? Jason Calacanis (00:34:29): I could take that one. I am seeing a lot of the companies that were, you know, had done a great job racing around, seed round, series a, never got product market fit, now wrap it up. Right? They're they're shutting down. They're doing the wind down process. And then we're seeing lists of very talented people, and I've talked about this before on the show, the consolidation of talent behind the winning ideas, the the the experiments that actually worked Products that got some traction are now having an easier time hiring talent. And so to Bill's point, he's got a lot more experience in this than the four of us put together. is absolutely right. When you build in this down market, yeah, it's harder to raise money, of course. But talent is what makes great products and products that delight customers get the flywheel going. And if you survive through this and you have that talent, you're not going to face 20 copy cats and there's not 50 new products coming out a day, people have more time to actually engage and try a product. which they've been burnt out on. And the peanut butter spreading, you know, we got this thin layer of peanut butter talent. Now it's getting consolidated in the winter. So absolutely a great time for 5 CEOs with and founders or, you know, 10 founders across 5 companies to consolidate down to 2, do those tuck in acquisitions and get focused and build really good teams and cut the weakest people on the teams. There's a lot of weak talent that have been overpaid and aren't actually contributing to these teams, and they need to get cut, and then you pull in the all stars. It's a fantastic time. He's a 100% right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:58): All of the if you look back in history since 2000, All of the best performing funds of all times were the ones that were formed right in the middle of the downturns, David Friedberg (00:36:07): 03, 08, 09. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:08): These are the vintages that have always been the best. And what that means it's a proxy for investing, which is it's the hardest time right now. It's when you have the shakiest hand when you're writing the check. But it'll probably be where all of the real money is made or the real generational wealth both for the entrepreneurs who have the courage to start. and the investors who have the courage to invest. There was a story that I heard in New York. I was talking to a a a really well known hedge fund or family office. And they were talking about how they were meeting with a CEO of a Fintech Unicorn, very well known Fintech Unicorn. And they said they left the meeting and they said this person had an unbelievable disrespect for money. And it was the most arrogant interaction that they had ever heard and they said under no circumstances would we invest in this guy and this company at any price And, you know, lo and behold a year later, that company is now visibly going through a bunch of hiccups. And it just reminds me that, Jason, we've always had 2 problems when times are good. Problem number 1 is that there's never been a check-in balance on that kind of behavior, a lack of back for capital and a and a almost a disregard for business models, which is just inexcusable. And I think it's partly the fault of a very young entrepreneur, but it's also partly the fault of a board who doesn't know how to direct that person. Jason Calacanis (00:37:32): Enableament Israel. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:34): But then the second the second thing is we've always had this you know, this big tech put on the table where every time you would try to really hone in on running a lean, highly efficient organization, The alternative would be to go work at Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft where the terms are just completely different to what the experience was you know, at a start up. And the bigger the gap, the harder it was for you to be able to hire and retain good people without just copying them. And now that that's also coming off the table, that is a key moment. So Girly is a 100% right. There is no longer the big tech put. those are the generals that are about to get shot over the next 8 to 12 months in my opinion in the public markets in terms of market cap and employment and perks. And then second is that these really thoughtful investors who felt pretty deeply disrespected will now be able to call the shots. And these founders will have to come back hat in hand and either apologize or just completely find a different religion. And I think in that, you'll have a lot of amazing opportunities to build companies. Jason Calacanis (00:38:40): I think it's well said. Sachs, what are you seeing? David Sacks (00:38:43): Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, look. When times are as as they were, a lot of bad ideas get funded, and there's a lot of bad behavior that occurs. I don't think all of it's intentional. Some of it is just the lack of discipline that when capitalist is so freely available, people are building their businesses in ways that we're optimizing solely for one variable, which was top line growth. They just weren't paying enough attention to gross margins or burn. And when you then have a downturn and capital is not available. You have to build your business in a much more capital efficient way, and you can't create fake businesses where you're buying growth that's not economically justified, you know, where you've got negative uneconomics around the growth. So I think that this downturn is going to create a shake out. It's gonna weed out bad ideas, bad practices, and and a lack of David Friedberg (00:39:33): -- David Sacks (00:39:33): Bad board. -- focus, bad boards and David Friedberg (00:39:36): or on they're also interested in esports or indicators. 1 David Sacks (00:39:41): trick pony's. You know? There's just a lot of one trick pony's out there who've optimized growth, but don't have a real business. And it's gonna require it's gonna require entrepreneurs to to play sort of more, like, multivariable calculus or math, not just single variable. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:57): It is extremely difficult to convert TVPI to DPI. you know, the value paper values into actual distributions, and that takes a skilled hand. And I think that a lot of young folks were hired into venture that fundamentally did not know what they were doing. They've neither ever built a company or helped build a company or actually learned how to generate returns. But they became very good at buying, you know, free call options on companies. You know, I remember, like, a lot of people, the way that you these young people, I remember I heard a story that you would sell against girly. Right? So let's just say you were trying to do a deal and Bill gives you a term sheet from benchmark and you get, you know, somebody else. The young folks are like, oh, Bill's too negative and he doesn't get it. And they would try to convince these entrepreneurs that these rainy days don't happen. My experience with Gurley is he is the most sophisticated investor of our generation. And what I mean by that is he was trained as an equity analyst that really David Friedberg (00:40:57): understood business models and cost of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:01): capital. And so in a moment like this, the way that girly would help you on a board is meaningfully more important than how some, you know, middling VP at some Randall Startup who's now a junior partner at a venture firm because that person has literally no clue. And so these companies are gonna go through a very difficult moment, which again is the reason why a good, steady hand who knows what they're doing will make a ton of money in this cycle. Jason Calacanis (00:41:29): And for people who don't know TVPI, let me just give you a quick definition. This is the total value divided by the paid in capital. So total value is distributions. Like, hey, here's your Robinhood stock. Here's your Uber stock. Here's cash plus the net asset value. What's that fancy word for the value of the shares of the companies that haven't had an exit. And so you divide those 2 numbers you get a ratio, 1.5,1.2, etcetera. But to Schmaltz point, net asset value is debatable in some of these. Right? And distributions are what matter. You can't you can't eat the the IRR. You gotta you gotta eat the stuff that's been distributed. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:42:03): Alright. Let's keep going. I've I'll I'll do one more. I'm gonna skip over Well, I'll just the the the question on Twitter that got the most votes was what's the exact net worth of each pesky I would make the case if that's probably not the best way to measure oneself. And, you know, I don't think we're gonna do it. I also would argue that we're probably all exposed to a lot of fuzzy math with private assets that we own in in terms of companies we're investing in. -- Jason Calacanis (00:42:30): cares. Like, how does sex correlate with happiness in life. It doesn't. David Friedberg (00:42:33): Right. So it doesn't really -- Stupid question. And I don't think it's a big focus in terms of objectives. I'll say the next one, they got a lot of votes, which I really like. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:42): it's a lagging indicator and a byproduct of what we do. There are moments when what we do reflects in value that frankly where we are over earning And then there are periods where what we do is under reflected and we are under earning. And so the through line has to be that you need to survive in both good times and bad times which means you gotta like what you're doing. And if you get caught up in a numerical number, there's all kinds of math you can do to make it look a lot bigger than it is. but it's all meaningless. David Friedberg (00:43:10): Yeah. I would argue your as as long as you're actively developing yourself over time, the weighing machine will do its job. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:18): Something told me in my twenties when I was at AOL, he said, you know, if you're could pick us at the time. I you know, I grew up on welfare, I thought the goal was to make money. I didn't know any better. I've learned later that there's a lot more leading indicators of happiness and things that actually create happiness. Jason Calacanis (00:43:38): White truffles. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:39): White truffles. I was gonna say friendship, my family. But yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:43:42): Friendship and family. Left. I I define it as laughs and friendships. David Friedberg (00:43:45): You know? Friendships. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:47): But but but he said to me, you know, your goal should be to just be in the upper few percent of your age bracket and just enjoy what you're doing. And he said, let time take care of everything else. Because as long as you find something you're, you know, you decently enjoy and are good at, you'll just get better and better at that thing. And then at some point, you know, you will lose track of what the measurement of that is because you're just too caught up in in how much you enjoy doing the thing. And I thought that he had no idea what he was talking about. And now 25 years later, I can tell you he was totally right. Totally right. David Friedberg (00:44:26): Yeah. By the way, this this was a question I was trying to skip over. So -- Jason Calacanis (00:44:30): No. But wait. It led to a good fork. Yeah. Okay. What is happiness? Yeah. Yeah. David Sacks (00:44:35): I think after, you know, observing out comes for 25 years in tech. What I would say is that if you're smart, hardworking, don't have behaviors that sabotage yourself and, you know, take intelligent risk, you will be successful in this business. I mean, technology is such a win to at your backs It's such an engine at wealth creation. How can you not do well? But the exact magnitude of how well you do, I think, is ultimately it is substantially affected by timing. And, you know, like, if you were employee, whatever number x at Google, you're gonna do better than most founders even of a unicorn company. And when you found your company and then when you exit what the market is doing, those things have a huge impact on the act on the magnitude. So, you know, whether you end up being, you know, a billionaire or a centimillionaire, you know, a decamillion or whatever you want to those things are very affected by timing and chance, but not whether you're gonna be successful at a substantial level. And so just, you know, be smart, be hardworking, don't sabotage yourself, you know, get into tech, and you will do well. And use that amount Jason Calacanis (00:45:43): of -- Trust Speaker 6 (00:45:43): the process. David Friedberg (00:45:44): -- David Sacks (00:45:44): the exact amount of how well you do will be dependent on some, you know, stochastic factors, but not the fact that you're gonna do well. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:50): We are enormous beneficiaries of having been born when we were because we were a bunch of late 40 early 50 somethings that in the prime of our career in tech, the Federal Reserve took rates to 0. And we had no idea a priority how important that would be in all of our outcomes. but they were. Jason Calacanis (00:46:13): And even more importantly, PCs, Internet, and mobile happened. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:46:17): All of that hard work was done beforehand by an entire core to people that had to fight much stronger headwinds than we had to fight. So, you know, David, I just wanna build on that. Like, we were extraordinarily lucky. And so don't get caught up in that because there's all these factors you don't. You cannot control. David Friedberg (00:46:34): I'll say one more thing that I think is the most important. observation I've made in terms of whatever it is building wealth over time is to make sure you're building equity in yourself. If you're in a services business and every day and whether that's serving the clients of the company you work for or just serving clients on behalf of your self, and everything you do is a transaction. And that transaction doesn't build on itself, doesn't compound value in some way. then you're missing out on an opportunity. Every year that goes by that you're earning income where you're not building equity is is a non compounding year. and its compounding equity value that I think ultimately pays off for you as an individual. And I can give a lot of examples of this, but if you're in a a, let's say, a brokerage business and you just do deals, and you might make have a good year, you might have a bad year. The real question you need to ask yourself is, What is compounding? Are you growing a client base? Are you growing your skill set? Are you, next year, able to do more things or have more options than you had this year? And if the number of options you have is declining or static every year, then you're limiting your equity value, and that ultimately will translate into limited wealth creation. David Sacks (00:47:47): Hi, Chime in on on that point around equity. So David Friedberg (00:47:50): -- Yeah. -- David Sacks (00:47:51): when I discovered what equity was, this was when I was in law school. And, actually, the guy who explained to me was Antonio Gracias. A light bulb really went off for me because my dad is a doctor, and I was on a path to becoming a lawyer. And in both those cases, you're a professional. The way you get paid, is you more or less charge an hourly rate. And so the amount of money you can make is capped. Right? Just take the number of hours in the day and in the week multiple apply it by your rate, and that's the most money you can make in a year. And the difference between that and equity is with equity you own a piece of a business, and that business could be ultimately worth, you know, any amount. And so your equity could therefore be worth virtually any amount. And so you're uncapped. And so just, you know, if you wanna have outside success, you have to have equity in something. I think that is exactly right. If you're just basically working for wages, you even if you are the best at what you do and you get paid, an insane hourly rate, you again, you could be successful, but you're not gonna be uncapped. And so that is the beauty that's the beauty of Silicon Valley is All these companies offer equity to everybody. David Friedberg (00:49:01): And it's not just shares in something. You can actually get equity and create leverage in your life. In this era, more than any human has ever had in any era prior because of software and computing and automation. you can create a website that prints cash for you every day if you wanted to. Or you can create a service that you get leverage out of, and there's equity value in that. And I think that's really key because then you can go build another one, another one, and you're building value over time. And that's just the the most simplistic example of how technology today provides leverage that can Speaker 6 (00:49:33): really allow anyone to pursue a path of equity. And and and I think you made a good point about what David Friedberg (00:49:33): what are you getting leverage off David Sacks (00:49:40): of? Yeah. So there's there's a bunch of other things you can David Friedberg (00:49:43): get leverage off. -- labor. Right? Right. More. David Sacks (00:49:45): So the old way was leverage off labor. And I guess if you were to own, like, a consulting firm, the or, like, some sort of factory than the more people you have working, the more money you'd make. The other way would be, like, you can get leverage off capital like a fund manager, or you can get leverage off of technology because software can basically create these super scaled outcomes. So you need to figure out, like, what is it you're getting leverage off of David Friedberg (00:50:09): Yep. I'll go so I'll do the last one, which I I thought was a really good question, and it it got a lot of votes from Marcos Ortiz If you had to start from scratch, no money, no connections, only the knowledge you have right now, and a hundred bucks, what would you build in 2022? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:26): I would build something in energy transition or in life sciences Speaker 6 (00:50:30): with a David Friedberg (00:50:30): $100. Jason Calacanis (00:50:33): Yeah. I would build a startup incubator venture fund of some type. a way to fund entrepreneurs and just be a capital allocator much earlier in my career. David Sacks (00:50:47): I would create a b to b software Speaker 6 (00:50:48): company that actually, I'm already creating it, so I haven't David Sacks (00:50:48): unveiled it yet. but there's a man that keep getting right now. Jason Calacanis (00:50:56): Oh, damn it. Go. Woah. Woah. Speaker 6 (00:50:57): Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Where's the Jason Calacanis (00:50:58): bet week? Wait. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Speaker 6 (00:50:59): Where's the bet week? David Friedberg (00:50:59): Wait. Woah. Jason Calacanis (00:51:00): Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:01): Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. haven't gotten the subscription. Jason Calacanis (00:51:04): Have you raised money, sir? Speaker 6 (00:51:05): No. I've Speaker 5 (00:51:05): not raised money yet when I raised money, guys. That's right. documents, sir. It's you did think of this idea as Yam or David Friedberg (00:51:06): 2.0. David Sacks (00:51:11): Jacob, you're not aiming because you criticize the Amber. But David Friedberg (00:51:14): -- Jason Calacanis (00:51:14): It was a joke. I gave you the I let you win TechCrunch Fifty. I put the fucking fix in for you. David, just to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:19): put my pitch in, I ran Amen ICQ, help Facebook, was an investor in Yammer, was the for series a investor in Slack, so I'm ready for you. Yeah. You were there when you were there for us when we needed David Sacks (00:51:30): you. back at Yammer Days unlike Jake Hall. Jason Calacanis (00:51:33): What are you talking about? Speaker 6 (00:51:34): Your wife came to my end and they're like Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:51:34): You don't have to worry. Sachs a week to fridge David Friedberg (00:51:39): 50. Speaker 6 (00:51:39): Let me in sucks. Let me in. Let me in. When I do the round, you guys are in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me lead it. Let us do it. David Friedberg (00:51:39): 1,000,000. Jason Calacanis (00:51:39): Give me one million. We were a free round Pretty round. Pretty David Friedberg (00:51:50): round. Pretty round. Thank you. We've inquired. Speaker 6 (00:51:52): Did you Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:52): disagree on TV? David Sacks (00:51:54): Well, assuming, oh, and there's one thing you have to do, which is you gotta rip out Slack and use this instead. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:59): Yes. 100%. 100%. I will -- Just so you know. -- community. Wait. I'm I'm gonna be very honest with you. The day I left Facebook, I stopped using it. The day we sold we distributed Slack. Stop using it. Don't worry about me. I am I am a 100% aligned. -- with you. Jason Calacanis (00:52:13): I'm all in. I'm all in. Absolutely. Alright. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:15): Well, let's do the show. David Friedberg (00:52:16): Let's do the show. Jason Calacanis (00:52:18): Freeburg, you didn't answer that question. What would you do? Well, actually, I would get some water vaporizers, and then I would get some molecules, and I would make a new super protein that was made out of Got it. Sorry. No. David Friedberg (00:52:30): No. Keep going. I I like it. I think it'd be Jason Calacanis (00:52:33): something with a protein slurry. You make some kind of steak that takes better than Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:36): steak. -- slurry. Jason Calacanis (00:52:38): it's some type of protein. David Friedberg (00:52:39): I would definitely build a business again. I think the, you know, the challenge is as you move past that stage in your career where, you know, you have the willingness and the time to be a 120% building one product every day. It's it's really hard to go back to that. And I think if I was in a position again where I had no money and had no Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:03): I think that's the key part of the question, not the $100 part. David Friedberg (00:53:07): Yeah. I think I would go back to building something. I do think the inner of life sciences with software creates this era of opportunity. It would probably be something in the realm of AIML meets life sciences where you can actually work in a leveraged way with software to drive outcomes in Speaker 6 (00:53:25): these important markets. So -- I would David Friedberg (00:53:25): actually create the -- Great. Jason Calacanis (00:53:26): Friedberg and I. Friedberg and I could have been COVID. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:31): We can be -- Yeah. David Friedberg (00:53:32): We could have started something. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:33): Maybe we can still. Oh. David Friedberg (00:53:35): It's not too late right now. Jason Calacanis (00:53:37): The cofounders. David Friedberg (00:53:38): Sachs will let you in the pre round if you let us in your pre round. David Sacks (00:53:41): Okay. Sounds good. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:42): Damn it. Alright. Speaker 6 (00:53:43): Jake, how David Friedberg (00:53:43): do you wanna take us forward? Jason Calacanis (00:53:44): Should we go forward? Okay. Let's see what's on the docket. We've got Russia's invasion of Ukraine. David Sacks (00:53:53): You had Biden. last week saying we're facing the risk of Almerget it. And how is that not the top story? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:59): Go. Saxi Poo. Go take it. Alright. Here we go. Jason Calacanis (00:54:01): Let me just queue it up for Saxx. David Sacks (00:54:03): By last week, so we're facing risk armageddon. That's your tea up. Jason Calacanis (00:54:06): Okay. We go. David Sacks (00:54:07): Alright. And then Leon Panetta, just let's tee up Jakeao. We don't need everyone knows what's going on. Then you have Leon Peneta Leon Peneta just it was a former secretary of defense and director of Central Intelligence wrote an op ed for political, saying that intelligence analysts have now raised the probability of a use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine from 1 to 5% at the beginning of the war to 20 to 25% now is what he says. So and I don't think he'd be saying that if this wasn't pretty much conventionalism in Washington now. I mean, Haneda is sort of an a very respectable figure in in the beltway. Jason Calacanis (00:54:46): And Biden said it right for the first time to issue. David Sacks (00:54:49): Yeah. -- said that we're facing the most dangerous situation and the highest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis crisis, called the risk of Armageddon. The problem is that nobody is willing to say what we should be doing differently to avoid this situation. So, you know, people are always attacking us or having a point of view on foreign policy. First of all, this affects us. I don't know why we're not allowed to have a point of view. But, you know, in in our business thinking, where there's an existential issue, you have the attitude of drop everything and figure this out. If somebody told you that there's a 25 percent chance of your company blowing up maybe in the next few weeks, you would drop everything and focus on that problem. But it's like, you know, after the Armageddon comments, it's like the media just passed over it. It's like, oh, this is like crazy Biden or whatever. It was minimized. It was contextualized. The White House walked it back. Nobody's really focusing on this and we should be doing differently. And in fact, what Pineda recommends, and Patreya said the same thing. is that if Russia uses attack nuke in Ukraine, then we should respond by attacking Russia directly. Now if we do that, we are literally in World War 3. And remember, at the beginning of the war, Biden was really clear that we weren't gonna get directly involved. He vetoed the idea correctly of of the no fly zone, which would have required us to shoot down Russian planes. Biden, remember he was asked in the press conference at the beginning of the war by Lester Hall. He said, Holt said, you know, Mister President, what if Americans are trapped behind enemy lines in Ukraine? Would you send in American troops to go get them? Biden said no. I think very properly said no because he said, listen, we do not wanna risk war 3. But now because of mission creep and the slippery slope, We've all gotten more involved in this war. David Sacks (00:56:32): We've gotten more emotionally committed. You now have Pennetta and Patreas calling for us to directly attack Russia and get in war 3 the Russians almost certainly would respond with nuclear because that's all they've got. They don't have the conventional forces to stand up to us. So look at how close we have now gotten. to the brink of a nuclear showdown. And has anybody reassessed? Is anyone calling for us to reevaluate? Because that's the conversation which we're having right now. Jason Calacanis (00:56:58): And free break, this brings up two points that I think we you you can comment on. Naval actually the founder of AngelList, Angel Investor, and just public thinker, I would say, public intellectual. He came on to call in with the 2 of you And he, you know, outlined, like, who does get to have an opinion on Ukraine and other issues, which has dovetail with this, like, who who gets to be an expert in the world today. And, of course, at the same time, not only Saks has been commenting on, hey. What's the off ramp here? Elon has been talking about hey, you know, how do we get out of this? Do we have some votes, you know, by these regions that have been annexed or that are in dispute? AOC now is getting criticized on officer people shouting her down at a public event today or yesterday that she's a warmonger and she won't speak out against war. how do you frame the public dialogue about this Friedberg? And then do you see a potential off ramp here other than Putin leaves Russia, which is, I think, the public stands by a lot of folks. You know, Putin can end this. He just has to leave Ukraine in order for this to end. So two questions there for you, Freeport. David Friedberg (00:58:06): It's very hard to have good dialogue about any situation where an argument could be made on the grounds of morality in an absolute sense. making it really difficult to have a discourse around what the right thing to do is because you don't agree fundamentally on the objective you're shooting for. One side says the objective is to preserve the integrity of democracy and the freedom of people. And the other side says the objective should be to secure the interests of the West and the United States and preserve the world from nuclear holocaust. I think that's what makes this a challenging conversation. the objective can be reframed, and then from that objective, each side can make their own case without being forced to take in the point of view of the other side. And it's why we're at a bit of a standstill, and it's also why it's so easy to get swept up in a mass point of view, a coalesce point of view of the masses that makes one feel good about what may end up being a very bad situation. It feels good to say I'm doing this for freedom of the people. I'm doing this to save lives. and the end of the day, it may cause a nuclear war. And it's okay because I feel good going into this debate that this is the right thing. It's the morally superior thing to do. What's very hard is that we can't actually say As a group, our objective should be to preserve the integrity of democracies around the world to an extent, and that's a nuanced point of view. To an extent means I'm willing to preserve the democracies through certain actions, but I'm not willing to cross a certain line. and absolutism doesn't need to come into play. That's what I think is making this such a very difficult conversation, and it's why it's so hard to actually have a conversation around it. And it's really I I would argue the most poignant and the most dramatic moment in what we talked about earlier which is this deep seated kind of, you know, bipolarity. And once you're sitting on your pole, you don't wanna come off. And you don't realize that so much of the dialogue is in this middle, and we have to come to some point of view that maybe this isn't about an absolute outcome. It's not absolutely gonna be nuclear war, and it's not absolutely gonna be the end of democracy. David Friedberg (01:00:38): There's some conversation in the middle that's very difficult to have and people that work somewhere in the world hopefully, ambassadors, foreign policy people, state department people, hopefully, are having the more nuanced critical conversation about how do we resolve to the maximal outcome that doesn't necessarily take us to an absolute end. Jason Calacanis (01:00:59): Shamaf, to to that point, it's gonna be an imperfect outcome here. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:03): I think this is much, much simpler than all of this. Leon Panetta is a senior counselor to this defense contracting agency called Beacon Global Strategies, who works on behalf of Raytheon. I found that out while Friedberg was talking in a 2 second Google search. I suspect that if you looked for Petreas' conflicts of interest, you would find that through some Byzantine set of, you know, Strategic consulting organizations and whatnot, he also works on behalf of the defense industry. So you have these people who will generate more revenue and more profit if there is a massive war. And those people have been trying to push us into a land war in Europe since this whole thing started. And so this is just yet another attempt. It's just the most final way of doing I would just encourage people whenever you see all these folks clamoring for war. is just to keep in mind that they are riddled with conflict and that you can find it out. Again, this information is sitting in plain sight on the Internet. and you can figure out whether this person is is really advocating a truth that makes sense or they're getting paid to chill a revenue generating mechanism for some part of the military industrial. Jason Calacanis (01:02:17): Sex, how much of this is people talking their book? Their book being the military industrial complex in your mind. Speaker 6 (01:02:22): I think David Sacks (01:02:23): that's a big part of it. I think all of these Washington think tanks are funded by defense contractors. I think it's shortsighted, obviously, because if it leads to a nuclear war, There's nobody in the defense industry. There won't be anything left. So but look. I think that I think that Washington is wired for war in part because there's a huge lobby for it for all these defense contractors. And what's the lobby for peace? I mean, there's no one really arguing for peace. Jason Calacanis (01:02:48): Speaking of this, Elon. Speaker 6 (01:02:50): Oh, I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:50): I'll tell you I'll tell you what's lobbying for peace. And I'm gonna connect what may seem 2 disparate ideas together. But the single biggest thing I think that will prevent nuclear war is the inflation that we're feeling. And the reason is because it allows the fed in my opinion, for the first time really in the last 15 years, to act properly. And if they hold the line and they take interest rates to 4 or 5 percent. I think one non obvious outcome of all of that is that it becomes extremely expensive next to impossible to finance military adventures abroad. And that's a practical economic outcrop of really meaningfully high rates greater than 0. And so I actually think the reality is that for a lot of these governments The more that inflation sticks around, the stickier it is, the higher rates are in general, the bigger the problems at home are, and the less prone they're going to be likely. I actually think that explains that explains the escalation of this rhetoric because people want to try to make this issue and put it on the table. But you understand that, you know, these folks don't say it's a 90% likelihood. They go from 1% to 25%, which if you understand probabilities, is effectively a left tail risk that's effectively the same. And the reason they're trying to do it is they're trying to get it back David as you say to time stamp it to get it in front of people's perspectives to make it important in a moment where everybody increasingly, not just in the United States, but in the UK, in Europe, are looking internally and trying to figure out how to keep their economies in a reasonably functioning way and how to make sure that their financial and other infrastructure keeps working. Jason Calacanis (01:04:34): So you're saying David Friedberg (01:04:34): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:34): And that is not necessarily a priority when rates are 0. But when rates are 4%, I mean, just by the way, if you guys saw what happened today, it was the competing of 2 narratives this week. There is the financial narrative of the UK having to bail out their pension system. Right? Of all of a sudden, the pensions being forced sellers of those forced sellers now, you know, spilling into the United States debt markets around CLOs and collateralized loan obligations and junk debt, which then could theoretically spill as a contagion to other parts of the market. that was narrative 1. And and all of that, by the way, is a result of hiding inflation and the, you know, Fed moving up rates and other countries being forced to attack inflation with higher rates and creating all these dislocations, narrative 1, versus narrative 2, which is, hey, all of a sudden, we have to put the nuclear risk on the table. And if you actually saw the print that was spilled the disproportionate amount of the rhetoric actually focused on the former narrative and not the latter. And so I think that that's why the these folks are escalating the rhetoric in order to kind of create an equality so that they get enough print -- They want David Friedberg (01:05:47): -- -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:47): of that version of the outcome. Jason Calacanis (01:05:49): what you're saying is you have the world saying, we can't afford to have this conflict. We are broke. We've got too many chaotic issues. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:57): The world is saying, we are increasingly under enormous domestic pressure. And as a result, we cannot spend on things abroad. We can't afford this. And then Jason Calacanis (01:06:08): the other side is saying, well, we need you to afford this. So nuclear is gonna happen. There's gonna be a nuclear analogy. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:13): No. No. Then there's a and there's a small screen. David Friedberg (01:06:14): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:14): more attention to there's a small strain of folks who would economically benefit Speaker 6 (01:06:18): and Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:19): who are now ratcheting up their rhetoric so that that second path Jason Calacanis (01:06:22): becomes more Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:22): and more on the table. Jason Calacanis (01:06:23): do you think of this Friedberg, this analysis that Chamath has? These 2 polar these these two groups vying for the attention and or budget of the world? David Friedberg (01:06:36): The the military industrial complex Jason Calacanis (01:06:39): Versus yeah. Citizens saying, our country can't afford this. We need to focus inward. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:44): Not citizens. It's central banks. Jason Calacanis (01:06:46): Okay. But I think the central banks influenced by citizens. Right? Like, this is a whole system here we're talking about. People are, you know, watching their tensions go away. They're watching Jobs get cut. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:56): If I was a betting man, I spent the I I would guess at the next half a trillion to a $1,000,000,000,000 that is spent in Western World Economies. David Friedberg (01:07:05): will be Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:05): to subsidize something that's broken internally inside of one of our countries, whether it's the UK pension system or whether it's the high yield credit markets, and it will not be to finance military adventures in Russia. David Sacks (01:07:20): just to show you that point. So there's an article today in the Washington Post about how the US government's debt service is gonna be around 570,000,000,000 this year, which is a 45% Increased Biden's budget for 2023 is only 1,600,000,000,000. So you're talking about something like over a third now of the official budget is already going to debt service. Jason Calacanis (01:07:40): Because it's on variable. Right? It's a variable. Right? David Sacks (01:07:42): Exactly. because so much of it is is that it's not locked in a long term rate. So because interest rates have gone up so much, the debt service gone up, and interest rates are still going up. And so, you know, Drucky Miller had those points around how the debt service is within a decade is gonna eat up practically the whole federal budget. So Chamath is right that we've never really had to choose between guns and butter before in the past. ask, it was just let's just do both and we'll rack up more national debt. I do think there will be more and more pressure to question this type of spending and why we've already given Ukraine $80,000,000,000 in the handouts when we can't afford to basically pay for you know, major entitlements at home. So I think there'll be more pressure. Now I think I don't know if that pressure is gonna come in time, though, to de escalate this Ukraine war. Jason Calacanis (01:08:30): It's not. Speaker 6 (01:08:30): And David Sacks (01:08:30): that's what concerns me. And just to just to cut to the chase on this, I think where the rubber meets the road on Ukraine, is Crimea. It's and why? Because the Russians have a major naval base there at Sevistopal. It's the home of the black sea fleet. And they will never give that up. They are willing to use noose, I believe, to basically protect that asset. It's a vital interest of theirs. Hold on. 80% of the population of Crimea, they're Russian. And three quarters of them, according to polling that was done by Gallup and by a German polling firm, so not Russian polls. indicated that they see themselves as Russian and will be part of Russia. So if we support a self determination, we'd be fine with Crimea being part of Russia. But here's the rub. Ukrainian nationalism demands that every square inch of Crimea goes back to Ukraine, and it is state department policy right now that we will never recognize Crimea as being Russian, will never recognize the annexation, which happened back in David Friedberg (01:09:26): 2014. David Sacks (01:09:27): So something's gotta give here. Something's gotta give either we have to sit down Zelensky and say to him, listen, you're not getting back Crimea. We're gonna make that part of a piece deal, or we are gonna back the Ukrainians in their military effort to retake Crimea with the result that I think is quite likely that the Russians will be willing to use a tactical nuke to prevent their total defeat. So at some point, we're gonna have to choose here. Which these outcomes do you want? Do you wanna basically go for a negotiated settlement, which means telling the Ukrainians they cannot have everything? They want or do you really wanna risk a nuclear war to take back Crimea, which is Russian and the people there see themselves as Russian? So we need to make a choice here. Jason Calacanis (01:10:08): Yeah. Yeah. So Elon put out a tweet for and and got savage for it, and and he outlined sort of what you're saying here. So do you think his plan? He said redo elections of Annex regions under UN supervision Russia leaves if that is the will of the people, And then he says Crimea formerly part of Russia as it's been since 1783. What are supply to Crimea? A short, as you're saying, Ukraine remains neutral. Should the west force Ukraine to accept these type of terms essentially re elections, and I don't know why Crimea wouldn't be part of that election process. Do you think UN supervised elections in those regions should occur, and we should force Zelensky to do that. So actually David Friedberg (01:10:48): -- -- David Sacks (01:10:48): who pays the pipe recalls the tune. Of course, we need to have a point of view on how this war should be resolved Jason Calacanis (01:10:54): when we do that. David Sacks (01:10:55): Listen. It's not about force. they can fight on and do whatever they want as long as they want. Hold on without American weapons. Jason Calacanis (01:11:02): That's what you said. David Sacks (01:11:03): American weapons. If they want Jason Calacanis (01:11:03): Do you think he should do that? We should pull the American weapons if he doesn't, Yeah. David Sacks (01:11:07): If Zelensky wants our weapons and support, which appear to be infinite, we should not give him a blank check guarantee. The blank check is is what started World War 1. The German Kaiser gave Austria a blank check guarantee and it led to World War 1. That is how great powers get pulled into the wars of minor powers. And we absolutely have to have a point of view on how we do not get pulled into this. And I think our one of our lines should be that we are not gonna fund the Ukrainians in retaking Crimea. Jason Calacanis (01:11:36): Got it. So just to put a to clear this so we can move on to the next topic. You're in support. of removing our not giving further weapons support to the Ukraine in Las Vegas and negotiate this. David Sacks (01:11:48): It's not going to come to that. We need to have a point of view on how the score gets resolved. Jason Calacanis (01:11:52): Stopping our support if they don't sit down and negotiate a settlement here. That's what you would do. David Sacks (01:11:57): America needs to have a point of view of what is in its own interest. What is in our interest is for this to get resolved diplomatically at some point through a negotiated settlement not for it to escalate into a nuclear war that we could get pulled into. The only way that's gonna happen, okay, is if Crimea goes back to Russia. I'm telling you, they will be willing to pull out all the stuff. Jason Calacanis (01:12:16): And, by the way, David Sacks (01:12:17): they could even use Tech Nukes before Crimea. Can you Jason Calacanis (01:12:20): answer the question, though, that I asked three times? would you remove American support in weapons if they don't accept that? If Ukraine doesn't accept that, would you be comfortable taking away our support in weapons? I don't think David Sacks (01:12:29): it's gonna come to that, but yes, we should be willing to threaten that. Yes. Okay. Jason Calacanis (01:12:31): That's it. I'm just trying to get you to answer that one question. They are David Sacks (01:12:34): claw hold on a second. They are a client state of the US. They do not call the shots. We're America. We call the shots. we're the big dog here. Speaker 6 (01:12:41): Alright. David Sacks (01:12:41): That's the bottom line. Alright. And you really wanna get pulled into a nuclear war because Jason Calacanis (01:12:44): I do not. I just wanted you to answer that one question. We should pull it into your steel thing down. David Sacks (01:12:48): Let's get real. Jason Calacanis (01:12:49): Okay. Got it. David Sacks (01:12:50): This is about our future. You know, we are American nationalists, at least I am. I'm not a Ukrainian nationalist. I support self rule. I think we accomplished something by preventing Kyiv from getting toppled, but I wanna support self rule for the people at Columbia. Jason Calacanis (01:13:03): So it's time for a settlement in Saks and my team. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:05): I think the most important thing that we can all be thank for, which I think will prevent a lot of wars in the next 10 or 20 years is inflation and non zero interest rate. it's just gonna be really tough. David Friedberg (01:13:16): Like, you know, for example -- -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:18): the UK cannot do anything right now other than make sure that they have foreign currency reserves. to back up the pound, which they don't really have that much. They're going to need money to bail out their pension system. Whoever thought it was a good idea to allow pensions to run levered risk was it's obviously insane. Could you imagine if it turned out that the teachers' pensions and the firefighters' pensions in America were running levered long? I mean -- Oh, they are? They're not a there's has Jason Calacanis (01:13:44): to get resolved now. I mean, it's just a breaking point. No. Yeah. It's clear. Do you David Friedberg (01:13:47): know what a pension is? Speaker 6 (01:13:48): I know. I I David Friedberg (01:13:48): I'm not trying to tell you the only Yeah. It's just a dead endowment. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:51): No. No. I'm saying that's all David Friedberg (01:13:52): it is. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:53): I I'm saying don't use some fancy intellectual argument. I'm saying practically speaking, the treasure is not allowed to call Goldman Sachs and say I'm gonna run 2 turns of leverage on this money. That is not allowed to happen in the United States. Okay? I get in some fancy way it could be thought of as levered long with all kinds of indirection, but that is not how the world works today practically speaking. It is how the UK works. A treasure in a UK pension system is allowed to call an investment bank and actually run levered. That is insane. Okay? So my point is when rates are non zero, all of that jig is up. Governments are forced to batten down the hatches. and, you know, husband cash for god knows what will break in the system. And I think that that is and and and as disruptive as that is, it may actually be the bullwork against war. Jason Calacanis (01:14:45): The jig is up, folks. I mean, I think that's what we should take away from this is We can't afford this. And the United States is funding it. We have to force a settlement here, and it will be a profound courage. David Friedberg (01:14:55): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:56): maybe the silver lining of inflation. Jason Calacanis (01:14:58): Okay. Andy Jassy's had an all hands meeting. Amazon is freezing hiring for corporate roles in its retail business. Almost 90 VPs are higher. Level execs have left Amazon since David Friedberg (01:15:07): 2021. Jason Calacanis (01:15:08): Earlier this week, there was an all hands presentation. The slides were leaked to business insider. Some of them, constraint breed, resourcefulness, self sufficiency, and innovation. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense, the slide instructed employees to accomplish more with less sounds familiar. Sounds like something the US needs to do and foreign policy needs to do. Amazon leadership team urged employees to double down on frugality Jesse also spoke in the meeting just a couple of quotes, and then I'll get your thoughts, Shamoff. It's on a lot of people's minds and, of course, none of us know for sure what's gonna happen. but there are a lot of signs that point to this being a difficult and rough economy ahead of us, and I don't know how long that'll last. But I think it's one of the things that we are thinking about, and we decided that We're going to be more streamlined in how we expand in 2023 good companies that last a long period of time who are thinking about the long term, always have this push and pull. Tremoth, what do you read into this? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:04): I'll say 3 quick things. One is that today, Thursday, October 13th, we had an inflation print which was worse than expected and the markets are materially higher. Right? So, you know Strange. Why? Well, I you know, we talked about this a few weeks ago, but, you know, my thought then and same is it's the same that I think now is that we've effectively seen the near term bottom and we're now consolidating. And so every opportunity people have to justify that most of the news is behind them. They take and they use that as a reason to buy. Okay? So that's number 1, which is that we are sort of near the end. The second however is that If we do see another leg down, there is really only one cohort of company that hasn't been really whacked And I'll summarize it very quickly by saying it's Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Google. That's it. Even Facebook has now been sort of put into the bucket of everybody else where we've been crushed 60%, 70%, 80% in those companies. So so so what does that mean? Well, those 4 companies are now being identified for what they may be, which in capitalism is called over earning. Okay. They are making more money than we think is appropriate. This letter from Andy Jassy is his way of effectively telling his major shareholders that he is now moving the business to become more of a cash cow business. Tim Cook made this incredible decision in David Friedberg (01:17:33): 2016, 17, 18 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:35): that effectively did the same thing. That's when Buffett came in. That's when he established a huge ownership in the stock. That's when the stock absolutely ripped. because it moved into a different bucket in people's minds. It became growth at a pretty reasonable price. And I think Andy is making the case that Amazon is going to become one of GARP stocks growth at a reasonable price. He's gonna generate a ton of cash flow. He's gonna keep expenses nominal he's going to return a ton of cash to shareholders with buybacks. That's the reading in between the lines of that letter. I think it's a really profound statement and a very smart move because you haven't seen that letter or a version of that letter yet from Microsoft and you started to see hints of that letter from Sundar. where he said, Jason Calacanis (01:18:20): you know, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:21): it's it's and he's not David Friedberg (01:18:22): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:22): He's saber rattling. He's not there yet. He's in the appetizer part. You know, he's in Emma's bush where he's like, oh, you know, You gotta work harder. Hey, guys. Let's create some fancy acronyms. But Sundar's got courage. No. No. No. But he's got courage. He is gonna rip the Band Aid off too. And so I think what it means is these 3 and maybe these 4 companies are gonna draw a hard line in the sand and say we are not over earning do not abandon the stock. That again will help put in a bottom in the stock market. Jason Calacanis (01:18:51): What do you think, Freiberga? You worked at this company and, you know, the the the principles across the board. The saber rattling will turn into saber swinging in q 4q1, you think? Google Apple? David Friedberg (01:19:06): Cuts coming? Amazon is affected in a different way because they operate this physical supply chain business. They're delivering goods to people's homes that people are buying, so they're they're they really have to change their trajectory very quickly. It was incredible. You guys remember when COVID hit, you tried to place an order on Amazon. It was, like, 3 weeks to deliver because the infrastructure wasn't there to do it. So they actually were seeing more orders than their system had predicted and they did massive build out. They hired, what, a million people or something in their network to meet demand. And then over the next year, earnings went through the roof Their infrastructure and employee headcount went through the roof. And now we're obviously coming back down the other side of a mountain, and they're having to shift strategy and and shift their operating model yet again. There there's a broader set, and that's because they're in the the Direct commerce business. Microsoft, Google, and other kind of software companies, some of which benefit from advertising, which is almost like a first derivative on the con consumer market or a first derivative on the spending of companies that sell to consumers. have a little bit of a different calculus. They're a much higher margin business, 30 percent EBITDA kind of business. with EBITDA Margin Business with a very distinct kind of set of challenges on how advertising revenue is gonna be affected over the next couple of quarters and balancing that against their cloud platform, which is sold to enterprises and their media consumption platform, which is generally like YouTube at Google's case, which is less affected. So it's not as much of a direct calculus. I will say what's happened over the past which we're now seeing change is these companies have had extraordinary growth, hiring people to no end. There's always been you know, kind of this extended expense on capital on human capital, and that expense on human capital has driven the average cost per employee through the roof, and it's not just the salaries. It's the cost of the RSUs. It's the cost of the facilities and the free ice cream and the gyms and all the other stuff that's gone on to compete, that's now changing. David Friedberg (01:21:17): And so it really is creating a different model for operating that hasn't existed for the last decade where everything has been how many more things can we throw in the kitchen, you know, throw, like, the kitchen sink at this problem to get all the human capital here? And I think that's really you know, what's what's gonna kind of structurally change in the valley. It's not as acute as what Amazon is dealing with. Jason Calacanis (01:21:35): It does feel like that those are the last Cities to fault them off. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:41): They are the ones they are the ones that take the index to 32100. If we're gonna try to do it, There's only one place to look. You've whacked everybody else. Everything is down. You know, 50 to David Friedberg (01:21:52): 90% Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:53): in some cases. Jason Calacanis (01:21:54): So Well and then finally, You know? And by the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:57): way, Mary, just just at the end of last year, a quarter of every S and P dollar was crowded in those names. A quarter. So you gotta go there. Jason Calacanis (01:22:05): Yeah. I mean, and, also, they're automatically bought. Right? They're automatically bought by these index funds. And and so who is at the wheel saying, we're not we're gonna take the money out of them. Right? Who who in their right mind is taking money out of Apple, Amazon? And Microsoft, where do you put it? I guess is everybody's question. Right? Shamoff? Like, if if you take it out of there, where do you put it? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:23): Well, no. I think I think it's just that when when you have patterns of selling, typically, as I've seen it, my experience is that initially, it's the algorithms. that really start to push a market in a direction. Then you have the more traditional fund complexes, that's the hedge funds and the long onlys, they follow suit. And then the last group tends to be retail. and it works in reverse the other way as well. And so, you know, obviously, there's exceptions to all of these but as a general rule. Jason Calacanis (01:22:54): So if retail starts bailing on Amazon and -- Well, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:57): they are right now. David Friedberg (01:22:57): -- Jason Calacanis (01:22:57): an Apple. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:58): They they they are sellers now. Jason Calacanis (01:23:00): But, again, time to buy it. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:01): Right? But, again, this is this is where sort of organized capital now is finding a bottom. Again, like, when you start to shake just think about the psychology of, like, being delivered bad news after bad news. You go through the cycles. Right? There's denial. There's anger. There's depression. There's bargaining. But then at some point, there's acceptance. And in that acceptance phase you're like yeah you're right. Things are bad. But when you see a market rally into a print like this it's a it's really, really interesting psychological turning point. Jason Calacanis (01:23:32): As a proof point to what you're saying, Saxx Chamath and Saxx, I wanna get your comment on this, Venture Capital Firms like Sequoia, Excel and others that have now changed their status as, you know, just private companies but also dabbling in public are buying public equities, which basically means they see more opportunity in public underpriced tech stocks, growth stocks, etcetera, than they do in late stage private companies. Correct? And you saw the Wall Street Journal story, I'm assuming, Saks? David Sacks (01:24:03): Yeah. I saw that. Jason Calacanis (01:24:04): What is what what do you read what you read into that? Are they is it overblown, or is it indicative of something? David Sacks (01:24:08): I think it's probably overblown because Sequoia created that fund. That is a hedge fund, and and Andreessen Horowitz came a registered investment adviser so they could buy public securities. So look, I don't think most venture funds are all of a sudden investing in public markets. We aren't even allowed to do that as far as I know, nor would we ever try to. So I think probably it's exaggerating. David Friedberg (01:24:28): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:28): give up Saks your VC exception, but you could do it. Jason Calacanis (01:24:31): It could do it. Yeah. David Sacks (01:24:32): Yeah. I mean, we wouldn't want to, but it's kind of the point. But look. I can't explain why the market did what it did today. It could've like Shamas said, it could've been some sort of algorithmic, you know, buying or selling. but I just think that the overall news today was the economic news was just another really bad report. I mean, just look at these headlines from the New York Times today. Okay. I'm gonna you the headlines on a single sort of scrolling page here. Number 1, inflation came in much faster than expected, bad news for the Fed. Takeaways from another painful inflation report. 3, disappointing inflation data keeps Democrats on defense head of midterm elections. 4, food prices climb again weighing on household budgets. 5, rent inflation remained tepidade, troubling sign. 6, used car prices aren't declining as much as the of the host. Speaker 6 (01:25:21): Slow down. David Sacks (01:25:21): Slow down. Jason Calacanis (01:25:22): Give give Friedberg a chance to take some Xanax. Take his Xanax Freeburg. David Sacks (01:25:26): Gas prices fall slightly, but overall energy costs are soon expected to rise and 8, retirees are getting an 8.7 percent social security cost living raise the biggest in decades. I guess that one is sort of positive. But it's like, literally negative headline after the headline in the New times. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:40): But can I reinterpret that for you? Jason Calacanis (01:25:42): I think I think the way Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:43): to think about it is this gives the Fed the resolve it needs. It's gonna go by 75 probably gonna go another 75. We're gonna have rates by 4 to 4 50 to 5%, probably within q 1 which means if you're trying to figure out where the bottom is, it's roughly now ish. And so that's why you see smart money David's shaking this thing off. and starting to enter the market. And so again and the other version interpretation is when rates are 4 or 5%, the cost of servicing United States debt is so meaningful as a percentage of their budget. The incremental spend that they would need to make to enter a new war is too much, I think. Jason Calacanis (01:26:21): I love this point. I love this point. We're we're we're we're weaving all these things together. Do we -- Yeah. David Sacks (01:26:26): Look. You so so Right. So on the e economics page of the New York Times, you it's just disastrous headline after the disasters headline. Then you turn to the foreign policy page. You got Tom Friedberg writing a column here saying we are suddenly taking on China and Russia at the same time. And Top Freeman historically has been a huge hawk, and he is even saying Jason Calacanis (01:26:44): He's saying pump breaks. David Sacks (01:26:45): Yeah. Pump on the break. never fight Russian China at the same time. Yeah. So he says we are in uncharted water waters. I just hope these are not our new forever wars. It's like, Woah. So bay basically, look, our economic base, our economy is crumbling at home at the same time that we are doing unprecedented saber rattling abroad this does not compute. We -- We like to take a time out here. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:06): My my prediction don't make sure if I ran. But my my prediction is that we will not enter a new war with rates flexing up as aggressively as they are. Jason Calacanis (01:27:15): I love it. I love weaving these two stories together. I think it makes a lot of sense. We didn't Time for Alex Jones, but we'll save that for another episode. Gentlemen, I think it's our best episode ever. It's an honor and a privilege to spend this hour and or so with you every week. I love you like brothers. And it's been a great 100 episodes. I look forward to a 100 more sacks if you need a mental health break. Talk to Freightberg. So he's got him doped up. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:38): David David will be back next Friday. I just wanna Jason Calacanis (01:27:40): say -- -- for replies, David. Don't read your replies. Get off over that. Speaker 6 (01:27:42): I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:43): just wanna say how much I love you guys, and I'm really proud of what we created and I'm really excited to get to the next 100. And I'll see you guys tonight. I'll break out the Jason Calacanis (01:27:53): light trouble. David Friedberg (01:27:53): So we're all we're You wanna keep going? That's the news today? Off the Jason Calacanis (01:27:57): last time. I'm in for Hyundai. I'm in for Hyundai. I love you, Saks. David Sacks (01:28:00): I will say that Jake House moderation's been a lot better since he got bregated. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:05): That is his way of saying he'll be he'll see you next Friday. That's Speaker 6 (01:28:08): it. For everybody. It's been Jason Calacanis (01:28:10): a 100 episodes. I love you, Shamak. I love you Friedberg Let's see if we can get Saks to do it. It's been a 100 episodes. He hasn't said it yet, but I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:17): love Dave Saks. Davis, are you coming tonight? Saksipur, are you coming tonight? David Sacks (01:28:20): Yeah. I'll come. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:20): You're coming? David Sacks (01:28:21): Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. Let me check. I'll get back to you offline. Jason Calacanis (01:28:24): Oh, Jesus Christ. God Jesus. David Friedberg (01:28:25): Alright. But hold on a sec. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:26): Hold on Jason Calacanis (01:28:26): a second. The sacks, I love you. Speaker 6 (01:28:28): So let's Jason Calacanis (01:28:28): see if we can Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:29): just try it. I love you. David Sacks (01:28:31): Back at you. Speaker 6 (01:28:32): That's true. Jason Calacanis (01:28:32): That's true. Like, going around the horn? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:34): Back at you. Jason Calacanis (01:28:34): Raybert, can you say I love you too? Can you say David Friedberg (01:28:37): I'm exactly you? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:38): I see that I love you. David Friedberg (01:28:40): What did you tell, Julio? Jason Calacanis (01:28:41): Freebrook. I David Friedberg (01:28:42): love you. Appreciate you. Oh, you appreciate it. Okay. Well, then we got back at Jason Calacanis (01:28:45): you and I appreciate you. David Friedberg (01:28:46): You gotta That's a 100, baby. Jason Calacanis (01:28:48): That's a 100. We'll see you in Florida. Have a such a I love you too, Janice. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:51): I'll see Jason Calacanis (01:28:51): you tonight. Bye bye. Speaker 7 (01:28:54): We'll let your winners ride. Jason Calacanis (01:28:57): Rainman, David Saffens. I'm going home. Speaker 7 (01:29:00): And it said, we open source it Speaker 5 (01:29:03): to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it. Jason Calacanis (01:29:10): like, white air when they're trying. Besty's are. I know the 13. That is my dog thinking, and I was in your driveway. We should all just get a room and just have a one big queue, George, because they're all It's like this, like, sexual tension that we just need to release them down. What? You're the thief. What? You're the thief. David Sacks (01:29:36): Speaking. would. Jason Calacanis (01:29:37): What could be it? Speaker 6 (01:29:38): Where did Jason Calacanis (01:29:38): you get Murphy's artifact? going all in.