乌克兰反攻，对华关系紧张，新冠零号病人，小罗伯特·肯尼迪引发争议

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): So wait a second. You guys, I saw that you were at a co 2 conference or a TPG conference or at some banking conference. Sachs? David Sacks (00:00:09): Brad and I were both at the co2 summit. Jason Calacanis (00:00:11): Co2. Co2 is, an a large investor. Is it a a hedge fund? Private Equity? David Sacks (00:00:16): They're a late stage fund. It's a big late stage fund. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:18): Summit's a really big word. Was that a summit, or is it more like a meeting? David Sacks (00:00:21): Well, it's like a 2 day conference in Santa Barbara. Jason Calacanis (00:00:26): Oh, nice. David Sacks (00:00:27): They've done a number of years in a row now. Last year, Brian and I went, and we met with SBF. Speaker 4 (00:00:35): Did I David Sacks (00:00:35): ever tell you that SBF story? Jason Calacanis (00:00:37): No. Let's go. Who's got crazier hair Take that off. You or SPF. Give us a quick I David Sacks (00:00:42): mean, Jason Calacanis (00:00:42): take that hat off for a second. Take that Moncler Speaker 4 (00:00:44): off for a second. Let's get a side by side. Oh my god. Saks is using no product. David Sacks (00:00:52): So bad. Jason Calacanis (00:00:52): It's not that bad. You're starting to look like the emperor, like Senator Palpatine for stallwood. I mean, people are having a field day with this crazy hap. But what was the vibe? If you said there was a vibe 2 years ago, the vibe was Cryptomania, SBF was the bell of the ball. I suppose it'll be the bell of the ball when he goes in the, Hooscow as well. Speaker 4 (00:01:12): I know David Sacks (00:01:12): it looks like he's getting off. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:13): He's getting up. I thought he was getting off. Speaker 4 (00:01:15): I get Jason Calacanis (00:01:15): is the fix in? Is the Izz fixes in? Speaker 4 (00:01:18): Oh, god. David Sacks (00:01:18): I mean, he gets off. I agree. Jason Calacanis (00:01:20): Can you imagine if he gets off? David Sacks (00:01:22): He's almost as protected as Hunter Biden. Speaker 4 (00:01:25): Here we go. Okay, everybody. Jason Calacanis (00:01:27): Friedberg not here this week. Insert jokes in conspiracy theories for the mids. There's gonna be about 8000 messages on a subreddit about Friedberg missing this week and Saks missing last week. I'll let you guys all read into it. But what would you say, Brad? Brad Gersonnerback. Of course, Fift bestie. Brad, what would you say the vibe was at this one? If it was SBF, lunacy, 2 years ago, What was the vibe this year? David Friedberg (00:01:51): Well, you know, first, they put on an incredible event. It's called the East meets West, and it was really about bringing, you know, CEOs and founders for China to the states and connecting them with, founders and CEOs in the United States. Listen, I think it's somber Right? There's a recognition that we've seen a Calacanis the public markets, you know, off of this devastation in 2022, but I think, listen, they gave a great tough love speech discussion with the 1400 unicorns that are out there, and they said, do not expect your unprofitable tech company to bounce like 1 of the Magnificent 7. Right? Those are highly profitable companies trade at 1920 times earnings. And if you are burning cash today, there you can't come back to the well. So you need to either figure out how to get profitable, figure out how to get fit, or you need to sell your business. Because, you know, the there's not an endless stream of money. So I I thought it was a silver view. You know, Larry Summers was there, and I think a lot of the people who call 22 right were looking for a hard landing in q 1 of this year, probably including you know, as the Larry was probably more in that camp. And I think everybody still views this distribution of probabilities over the course of the next four quarters. And you know, whether it's Druckenmiller Sterling this morning on CNBC or whether it's Larry Summers, they're all saying, well, we could 30% chance of a hard landing q 4q1. So I I would say it was sober. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:23): Yeah. I could tell it Jason Calacanis (00:03:24): was sober Sachs. Go ahead. You want to say something? David Sacks (00:03:26): Well, I would say last year, it was some a different way. Because you gotta remember in the first half of twenty twenty two, you had this huge decline in the markets around growth stocks because interest rates had started going up. We had the whole regime change. But I don't think founders had internalized the way that it applied to them. And then the thing that has happened over the past year is that sales have been hit. You know, every software company that I know is reforecasting down. It's so much to grow. Customers are consolidating vendors, sharpening their pencils, seat expansions been replaced with seat contraction, Jason Calacanis (00:04:02): negotiations are hard. Right? Yeah. Speaker 4 (00:04:03): So the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:03): the the Jason Calacanis (00:04:04): headwind on revenue is really David Sacks (00:04:05): now to sell software than it was. Let's say a year ago, you know, 2 x is now the new 3 x. If you can go to 2 x in this environment, it's basically just going through x before. It's funny to me that how much the Fed's actions impact buying behavior. That's the thing that I understand. Jason Calacanis (00:04:23): The psychology is distinctly different. Yeah. David Sacks (00:04:25): Yeah. The psychology really is different. Speaker 4 (00:04:27): Yeah. David Sacks (00:04:27): I mean, we knew that the Fed's behavior influenced valuations and sort of capital markets, but the way that it influences the business outlook and and how willing companies are to spend money. Jason Calacanis (00:04:38): And co 2 is no different. I see they hired Billy McFarland from Fire Festival to do the food. What is this? I mean, co 2 Speaker 4 (00:04:46): should be ashamed of themselves. Jason Calacanis (00:04:48): Look at this Fakata, Speaker 4 (00:04:51): some vegetable soup Jason Calacanis (00:04:52): with the broth trained out super David Friedberg (00:04:54): outstanding measures. Speaker 4 (00:04:55): So wrong. That is so wrong. Jason Calacanis (00:04:56): Look at this. Speaker 4 (00:04:57): I mean, it looks like a dog went to the bathroom. David Sacks (00:05:00): Routing and I opened our lunch bucks and we're like, let's let's go somewhere else. Speaker 4 (00:05:03): We don't Oh my god. Go to on a budget. Wow. David Sacks (00:05:06): Yeah. Look. I a surprise that someone had put a surprise in our Jason Calacanis (00:05:10): It looks like Friedberg dog, for surprising the co 2 lunch box. Wow. Well, listen. It's good. Co 2 LPs should be very happy looking at that $7 lunch that they put out there. I mean David Sacks (00:05:22): Rat, should we tell the SPF story from last year's summit? I mean, last year, we talked about the maybe founders hadn't internalized yet, but the markets had corrected. But the one founder who was super bullish and optimistic in talking about how he was spraying money all over the place, and he was acquiring companies, and who was followed around by minions and had everyone like, a beehive surrounding him and trying to talk Speaker 4 (00:05:46): to him David Sacks (00:05:46): was SPF. And so I remember yeah. So I remember thinking, like, who's gonna be this year's SBF? You know, somebody here Somebody Jason Calacanis (00:05:56): with an eye company with Sam Whitman there? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:59): So, basically, the co 2 conference went from bullshit to dog shit. Speaker 4 (00:06:06): You have to go. Brad is like, look at Brad is so uncomfortable. Brad's like, I like this invite. David Friedberg (00:06:12): She's like, I Speaker 4 (00:06:13): I got a good invite. Shamoff and I are invited to nothing. We give Jason Calacanis (00:06:17): no shit about code 2 or their budget. David Sacks (00:06:20): They do put on a really good event. David Friedberg (00:06:21): Incredible firm. David Sacks (00:06:22): And I think that the message they gave to founders Thanks Jason Calacanis (00:06:25): for the invite. David Sacks (00:06:26): This year and last year was great. It was actually really appropriate. Whether founders choose to listen is a different story. But the message they've been conveying is similar to the message we've been conveying for the last a year and a half. Jason Calacanis (00:06:36): Hey, Jamoff. Any more, jokes we can make about coaches since you and I get invited to nothing? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:42): No. I mean, I I'm not front of code to. I was just making fun of the fact that we went for literally bullshit with SPF to what looks like dog shit. David Sacks (00:06:51): By the way, I bet they would invite you if you wanted to go. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:54): I'm pretty sure they would send 10 invitations if I if I even fainted a desire to go. But I'm in Milan right now. David Sacks (00:07:02): The pod's very popular there, by the way. Speaker 4 (00:07:04): I know I'll have Jason Calacanis (00:07:04): to look up. Yeah. Tell everybody, and can we play the focus group, or was that I think we can play it. David Sacks (00:07:09): Well, just a fan a fan came up to me. I mean, when I say fan, this is like a very high profile person. Jason Calacanis (00:07:15): This woman works at Netflix She's David Sacks (00:07:17): She works at Netflix and her husband is the founder of a startup. She said she's a fan of the pod, so I started asking her questions about Speaker 4 (00:07:23): it. David Friedberg (00:07:23): Well, focus group. David Sacks (00:07:24): Because, you know, we've been having this debate over the last couple of weeks about what issues we should be talking about. And Mhmm. Certain people on the pod never wanna discuss politics It's not like I only wanna discuss politics. I just don't want to exclude it. Speaker 4 (00:07:39): I David Sacks (00:07:39): think we should just be talking about whatever the biggest issues are in the world in any given week current events. Jason Calacanis (00:07:44): Yeah. I mean, let's say David Sacks (00:07:45): business markets or politics. And she confirmed that was basically right. Don't change it. So I I don't know why we would wanna change the formula for the pot at this point. Jason Calacanis (00:07:54): Every week, Sacks. There's a group of people who are like, stop talking about politics. And then there's another group of people, and their feedback is, why didn't you talk about hunger abiding Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Putin, China, whatever. And so the docket is the docket just to let the audience know, not that It it's like all that big of a deal. It should be fairly obvious. Everybody has equal input on the docket. So it's not like anybody, owns the docket. If you wanna about something you can talk about something, but some people wanna not talk about politics. Some people wanna talk about a lot of politics. The magnificent 7 for those people who didn't catch their reference, is I think something Kramer's been talking about on CMBC. 7 stocks make up the mo most of the gains this year. Meta Tesla NVIDIA, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:39): Can I tell you guys? My welcome back to Milan story. Jason Calacanis (00:08:43): Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:44): So I'm back in Milan for the summer. David Friedberg (00:08:46): On this round. Jason Calacanis (00:08:47): Sarah, chef, Stefano. And if you could stay high to, Stepano. Yeah. All my friends, Butler's everybody can David Sacks (00:08:53): tell you're back in Italy because the buttons are gone. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:57): I'm working from my office here, but this morning, I went to Copala, which is my stylist, my hairdresser, Oh, and the thing is there's like a hierarchy in the hairdressers. And so Roberto, this guy Roberto, he's like the sort of top of the ticket and Nat has first dibs with Roberto, and I have this other guy who's excellent. His name is Joquino. Jason Calacanis (00:09:15): Yes. You guys Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:16): will see Joquino in a few weeks. Anyways, The best thing about the haircuts at this place, Copila, is you get a hair fluffer, which means that as Joaquino Roberto cuts your hair, A guy comes and he just, like, he, like, does this, and then he, like, he does. Jason Calacanis (00:09:32): You're patting your hair in Speaker 4 (00:09:33): a Jason Calacanis (00:09:34): very He he fluffs your hair. He's a very uncomfortable. It's a rough Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:39): thing that doesn't exist anywhere that will never get disrupted by AI. And it's incredible. Speaker 4 (00:09:47): A hairstyle. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:48): The air fluffer the air fluffer gets like a €50 tip. Doesn't matter what he does. Jason Calacanis (00:09:53): Wow. When Saks rolls in, you're gonna need 2 fluffers with that hair. You're gonna need one on each side. I mean, the tuffs are getting crazy. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:00): Sacks, tell me if you want Shakina to cut your hair because when you come is. He will do it. He'll do an incredible job, and I'll ask him to bring the airfluffer. Jason Calacanis (00:10:07): Alright. Listen. I I think we're just going back to the co 2 thing. I know we're in a high interest rate lunch environment. The HARP environment is hard right now for everybody, but we did get the feedback. Let's play the feedback. David Sacks (00:10:19): Hey, guys. I'm at the Coach Summit and just met a fan here who wants to explain the magic of the pod because you guys keep wanting to change things and mess things up. So Speaker 6 (00:10:31): World War 1. My husband and I were listening to your podcast payments religiously, and there is this incredible magic the 4 of you have, the red party, the back and the forth. It's super informative, but you're all sort of rooting for characters almost. So it's almost like a scripted show in some way. So I have my favorite character. My husband has a favorite character. I won't say who's who because I want you all to stay together and keep doing the show, but it's fantastic, and we we love it. David Sacks (00:10:56): And you work at Netflix, right? Speaker 6 (00:10:57): I work at Netflix. Back in the day I produce shows. So pick Jason Calacanis (00:11:00): up the shows Speaker 6 (00:11:01): as telling David. Trying to get that magic, you can put any number of scripts together, but once you get the cast on the floor and actually start getting, you know, that comes be going. That's when the magic happens, and you guys kinda just nailed Speaker 4 (00:11:11): it. So, yeah. David Sacks (00:11:13): Alright. So that's a professional right there. So stop screwing with the formula. Stop protesting. Speaker 4 (00:11:19): Oh, fantastic. Woah. I mean David Sacks (00:11:23): The camera really does add £10, doesn't it? Jason Calacanis (00:11:26): I take 2 things away from miss Shamoff. Number 1, she's much more charismatic on camera than Saks. She stole the show. She's delightful. And then 2, that sweater. Oh my lord. What what's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:37): fantastic? No. The sweater's fantastic. The shirt's fantastic. I just think they may not have been I don't think the intention was to mesh the 2 together, but around the Jason Calacanis (00:11:45): course with each other. David Sacks (00:11:46): Too many buttons for each month. Jason Calacanis (00:11:47): No, bro. Too many buttons. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:48): When you cream colored sweater. You can't wear a red checkered shirt. It's just not yeah. Yeah. I agree. David Sacks (00:11:54): Red striped. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:55): Anyways, it's Jason Calacanis (00:11:56): Yeah. I mean, it looks like you're wearing an Italian table cloth under there from a pizza weighted line combined with, like, an $8000 sweater. It's, I agree. Put the hair. I mean, the hair's under control. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:07): I think the hair is fantastic. Jason Calacanis (00:12:09): I do. Don't don't chair. Do not Speaker 4 (00:12:11): cut the hair. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:12): Don't let Joaquino touch your hair, bro. David Sacks (00:12:14): I'll just get it fluff. Speaker 4 (00:12:15): I'll tell him just fluff it. David Sacks (00:12:16): Don't just sit. Speaker 4 (00:12:21): To let your winners ride. Rainman, David Sachs. And it said, we open so Let's talk about the Zucky launch. David Sacks (00:12:38): Oh, yeah. Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (00:12:40): This is I'm a David Sacks (00:12:41): little worried for my friend here. Speaker 4 (00:12:43): Yeah. I don't know if Elon David Sacks (00:12:45): is completely up to date on what kinda shape Zuck is in. Zuck is in tremendous shape. He's got like a dojo at his house. He's been getting training in, you know, mixed martial arts from Jason Calacanis (00:12:57): Jujitsu. David Sacks (00:12:57): The gracies or whoever, you know, usually in jujitsu. He's been competing in events. Zuck is in tremendous shape. And, Jason Calacanis (00:13:05): No joke here. David Sacks (00:13:06): Now e Elon's a big guy. Elon's a monster, but I mean, Elon's not. Elon's not in this kind of shape. You don't have time. To work out like this. I hope you get some sort of gracey on your team to train you up for this thing. Also, Elon has a neck injury that he got Yeah. From the sumo thing years ago. Yes. And he's had to have surgeries on it. So it really suck if that would get retriggered. Jason Calacanis (00:13:30): Here's the thing though. He did take on a sumo wrestler. I we were there for that at his birthday party. And he held his own against the giant sumo wrestler. Ewan does get on top of and do the worst on top of Zuck. Zuck has no chance. He will get worse. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:47): You're telling me what he should do is abandon the mission to Mars Jason Calacanis (00:13:54): Yes. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:56): Stop electrifying the world. Totally. And stop free internet around the world. Yeah. So he can beat up Zuck Speaker 4 (00:14:04): I mean, if you were to consent to a vote, I think both beat up with seeding up suck is number 1. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:11): This is the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard in my life. Oh my Speaker 4 (00:14:14): god. David Friedberg (00:14:15): I love the banter between the two of them. And let's just say We can all agree out of all the companies. Right? There's only one contender to getting fit, right, getting that company fit, getting himself fit is Elon. Yeah. 70 5, 80 percent of the people gone in product velocity is on fire at Twitter. So this is this should be a cage match between the two who have defined this era of getting fit. Jason Calacanis (00:14:41): Alright. Let's get to the docket here. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:44): What the fuck are you talking about? Jason Calacanis (00:14:46): He's using the fitness. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:47): The guy burned a quarter $1,000,000,000,000 and then found a way to stop it. David Friedberg (00:14:52): Oh, there you go. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:53): That's very different. Than firing on all cylinders and 3 compass. Speaker 4 (00:14:57): I didn't David Friedberg (00:14:57): say it was firing on all cylinders. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:59): And by the way, I am the only one of anybody, I think, that knows them both well. Oh, maybe socks. David Sacks (00:15:04): Well, it's kinda like, you know, if you've got, like, a faucet running, you know, spilling over the sink and then you turn it off, that doesn't make you a firefighter. Speaker 4 (00:15:12): Exactly. He'll just make you a plumber. You know, they got interested in trying to stop spending money on. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:20): There's a feature of a bathtub where when you get into it and the water gushes so violently over the over the outside of And then there's a drain at the top as well as the bottom. And so then eventually it just stops. Jason Calacanis (00:15:32): Yes. You could Speaker 4 (00:15:33): bombard the drain. David Sacks (00:15:34): Yeah. Yeah. But Shamauthor is a good point, which is, look, Elon's a big guy. If he got training in MMA, I'm sure he'd do fine, but we don't want Elon spending 2 hours a day for the next 6 months or whatever. Because Zucks been doing MMA, I guess, for a while. Couple of years. Yeah. Years. Jason Calacanis (00:15:49): He's into it. Speaker 4 (00:15:49): Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:15:49): Alright. Well, listen. There's been some updates. This, war between Russia and Ukraine or the invasion of Ukraine by Russia You wrote a piece about it in, what was it, the federalist, I think, this week? Title the truth about Ukraine's falling, failing counteroffensive, and the peace that could have been. Why don't you give us an overview of what you wrote and what your take is on the state of affairs right now? David Sacks (00:16:16): Well, the the thing that's been going on since around June 4th or June 5th is this long awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive, This has been touted for a long time as is gonna reverse Russian territorial gains. Ukraine's gonna use all of this modern western equipment. These leopard tanks that have come from Germany and bradleys from the United States and a lot of other NATO or American equipment, and they're gonna push rush out of their country. This has been told to us since the fall of last year since that sort of car key, counteroffensive, produce some Ukrainian territorial gains. You've had former generals like Ben Hodges and Petreas say that this counter fence is gonna be highly successful. Where it stands right now is that around 18 or 19 days into it, it has produced minimal gains. In fact, it's been somewhat of a disaster. It's hard to get conclusive estimates of personnel and material losses, but I think as many as a quarter of the tanks and armored vehicles have already been destroyed And the casualties may be as high as around 10,000 out of an army that was trained up for this purpose of around 50,000. So so far, it has not gone well. The the Ukrainian army hasn't even made it to the 1st line of defense. So what the Russians did is they created 3 fortified lines or belts of defense. And then in front of that is what they call a gray zone or security zone or crumple zone, which is an area they can test, but it's not technically a fortified line. The Ukrainians are still in that sort of gray zone. They are not punching through. They are not even at the first Russian fortified line. To give you some idea of what's involved here, The Russians have these obstacles. There's basically trenches of them and dug. There's ditches that would stop tanks or sort of force them to go into certain direction, steer the traffic. There's extensive mine fields. They've got these things called dragon teeth, which are concrete ballers that stop tanks or move them in a certain direction, then the Russians have massive amounts of artillery. David Sacks (00:18:32): They've got infantry on the ground that spot the artillery. And if all of that doesn't take out these Ukrainian tanks, they've got these attack helicopters that come in almost uncontested because at this point, it doesn't look like the Ukrainians have any air defense. And they've also got fixed wing aircraft that are capable of dropping precision munitions. So it really seems like the Russians have fixed a lot of the problems that they had last fall in their army. And so far, it seems like this counteroffensive is not going anywhere. Jason Calacanis (00:19:04): We're 16 months into this Chamath and clearly fatigue is setting in. It's not commanding the new cycle here in America. And on a percentage basis, even the Neocons and Republicans are dropping their support for this at a pretty precipitous rate, which, is predictable. Americans don't want to be in forever wars. We all know that. So what's your take on how this winds up, especially in relation to, a, our budget and be this upcoming election, which this seems to be will be a major issue if this isn't resolved by the time we get into the 24 election cycle. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:43): As part of answering this, I have a I have a question for Saks, but is it true that there was a ceasefire? Like, Putin had a press conference where he showed A document that he said was a ceasefire that then the United States apparently sent Boris Johnson over to Russia, Ukraine to basically blow it Speaker 4 (00:20:00): blow up Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:01): the agreement? Jason Calacanis (00:20:01): Is that just a Yes. David Sacks (00:20:03): This is formally correct. Jason Calacanis (00:20:04): This wasn't a ceasefire. This was a peace deal before the war started. Correct? No. It's after. So claim? David Sacks (00:20:10): There were rounds of negotiation before the war. Notably, there was a round of diplomacy between Lincoln and Lavrov in January, the month before the war, where Lincoln said that we cannot compromise on NATO's open door policy that that sort of diplomacy fell apart. But then after the war, there was a meeting of the Russian delegation and Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul under the supervision of of Erdogan and Turkey. Nafthali Bennett also had a similar process. In both cases, the West rejected a peace deal. Jason Calacanis (00:20:43): Allegedly, we don't this is Putin. We're talking about running. David Sacks (00:20:46): No big deal. Yeah. Hold on a second. Let me come back to the evidence for it in a second. Jason Calacanis (00:20:49): But Yeah. David Sacks (00:20:49): What the deal would have provided is that the Russians will move back to pre war lines if the Ukrainians would agree not to become a member of NATO. However, the Ukrainians could still receive specified security guarantees from the west. That was the deal. Now definitely. Well, we have now multiple data points. You've got Naftali Bennett saying that he thought a deal was, you know, on these lines. But it was rejected by the west. You also have now Putin showing the very document, which was signed by the Ukrainian delegation. So this was but just flash Jason Calacanis (00:21:22): the document. Right? Nobody has this document. David Sacks (00:21:24): It hasn't been released yet. I hope the Russian government releases it for the purpose of history. So we can inspect it. But nobody contested this document as real. Remember, if he's just making this up, you would think that Erdogan would basically come forward and say, no, this is fake. There's too many people who are in that room who'd be able to say this document is fake. No one has done that. So I think there's every reason to believe this document is real. Now it is not a final agreement. It appears to be a preliminary agreement or an outline, but the outline is that Russia is saying we will move back to pre war lines if you agreed not to come part of NATO. And that deal was rejected when Boris Johnson flew into Kyiv and basically told the Ukrainians we do make a deal with Putin. We wanna pressure Putin. And the source for that is not the Russians. The source for that is a Ukrainian publication called, Ukrainian Pravda, UP. And they ran an article in May of 2022 that I can put on the screen. And it is the source for saying that Boris Johnson came in and told Zelensky, we do not wanna make a peace deal. We, the west, are not ready to make a deal with Putin. We want you to fight Putin or pressure Putin. And if you do, we will give you advanced weapon systems. And that is when the deal fell apart. If you look at the timing of it, this is this happened on. This has Jason Calacanis (00:22:41): been so this has been lightly sourced here. So let's David Sacks (00:22:43): see here. But you have to consider the source here. This is a pro Ukrainian publication writing in May of 2022. Now the tone of the article and what they basically say in this article is that Zelensky accepted Boris Johnson's offer. In other words, he took the gamble. And at this point in time, you gotta remember this is 2 months after the war it looked like the Ukrainians were doing well. So UP was essentially praising Zelensky in this article for taking the west up on this deal to pressure Putin rather than make peace. Now a year later, it looks like this gamble was a disaster. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:18): Yeah. David Sacks (00:23:19): And so that is the real conclusion here. A deal was available, but the west chose not to take it. By the way, Fiona Hill, who is a Russia Hawk, and you could almost put her, I'd say, NeoCon adjacent has basically said that this type of deal was available the west did not want to steal. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:38): I think Jason maybe to give you an answer. My thought is that this week was a very bad week for establishment politics and institutions. Because on the one hand, if you take the Russia incident in the Ukraine war, what you saw was that there were ample numbers of off ramps that we chose frankly to not take so that we could engage our enemy in some long drawn out war on the hopes that it just depletes their resources. That's kind of rolling the dice, I think, in a very dangerous way. I think this week, we also saw some published stuff on COVID and the COVID vaccine, which also debunked a lot of widely held truths, and it turned out that folks that may have been conspiracy theorists, quote unquote, were right there as well. So I think it's just an uncomfortable set of facts that again, just reinforce that if you're not really thinking for yourself, you're not going to see the totality of what's actually going on. I think with respect to Russia, Ukraine, everybody has moved on. And so sadly, the only people that are left over are the people that have to Fight the war. We're still separated from their families. There's the people that are dying. There's an article, I think, Today, they recruit prisoners, right? So obviously some of the prisoners of Russia users are still pretty crazy. That person went on some rampage inside of a train killed a couple people stab some other people. There were just pictures of blood everywhere. I mean, this is just a horrible situation. And it's still not clear to me why we didn't take the offer. Jason Calacanis (00:25:16): If in fact, real. So I just wanna keep putting that disclaimer out there because Putin flashing it up, and it doesn't make all this true. Speaker 4 (00:25:23): It doesn't mean it's not true. David Sacks (00:25:24): So you're pretty impromptu. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:25): Jason, I would say What David Sacks (00:25:26): about Nufftali Bennett? Speaker 4 (00:25:27): I I Jason Calacanis (00:25:28): am just being clear here that none of this is confirmed. David Sacks (00:25:31): Data points do you need? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:32): I would say. Jason Calacanis (00:25:33): What are David Sacks (00:25:33): you talking about Nufftali Bennett confirmed it? What incentives does the Israeli former Israeli leader have to lie about this? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:39): Here's what I would say, Jason. I think that something like that is so profoundly important that if it were not true, I think it would have been very important for the powers that be to discredit it almost immediately so that they didn't have to look like they were warmongering unnecessarily. David Friedberg (00:26:01): Can I also up level and connect to to this point about the establishment? Because I think there's been a lot of pushback to even challenging the status quo, even having a conversation about Ukraine or having a conversation about COVID. And I think If there's one thing this pod represents, the fight going on at Twitter represents is the need to have this conversation. If we look at the wars the US has engaged in since September 11, it's estimated 3 to 4000000 people have died in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, we spent $8,000,000,000,000. Inflation adjusted, we spent 4,000,000,000,000 in World War 2. 8000000000000 represents 25% of our entire national debt. And I've yet to meet a single parent who said to me, I care so much about this Ukraine situation. I would be willing to put my children in harm's way to fight for the defense of Europe. Okay. So those data points tell me at a very minimum, We need more of this discussion, more of this debate, not less. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:16): The idea that that we could be tiptoeing closer and closer to some land war in Europe unnecessarily, and I think the bigger issue is, and you can't trust what you're being told. And I think that that's what's very problematic. Speaker 4 (00:27:29): That Jason Calacanis (00:27:29): is a bigger picture. Speaker 4 (00:27:30): And and Jason Calacanis (00:27:30): just so we're clear here. I'm not saying, on either side of this, I'm just pointing out that this is all still very thinly sourced. David Sacks (00:27:37): No. It's not. Jason Calacanis (00:27:38): Until the west confirms any of this, I think. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:41): Expect the west to do. You expect the state department to issue a press release saying, yep. We fucked up what's on me. Jason Calacanis (00:27:46): My my theory is what are Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:48): you gonna Jason Calacanis (00:27:48): do? My my theory in the beginning has been, I and I've been very clear on this podcast. My theory has been, since the beginning, they want to deplete Russia, and they want to deplete their Speaker 4 (00:27:58): army and accept capabilities and have regime change in Putin. I'm not saying I'm for that just for the Jason Calacanis (00:27:58): people who want to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:05): No. No. No. No. Speaker 4 (00:28:05): No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. David Sacks (00:28:06): No. No. No. No. No. Jason Calacanis (00:28:08): No. That's what they plan on doing. Yes. I think that's what they're doing. And I Lloyd David Sacks (00:28:13): Austin, our secretary of defense said that our purpose was to weaken Russia. Jason Calacanis (00:28:16): Yes. David Sacks (00:28:17): So to knock it out Speaker 4 (00:28:17): against the great powers. Jason Calacanis (00:28:18): Purposes. Yes. I think they want regime change. Yes. David Sacks (00:28:21): That's what Boris Johnson went to Ki Bin said. We wanna pressure Putin not make a deal with him. So they courted this war. They they preferred Jason Calacanis (00:28:26): That's been my theory since the beginning. David Sacks (00:28:28): Prefer to fight a prosecution that was easily avoidable. I'm not endorsing that. Speaker 4 (00:28:34): I'm saying that's my table. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:35): This is not about you, Jason. I'm asking people questions. But Saks just Jason Calacanis (00:28:39): said it was too much. So I'm just He just said he said that was your position, and I'm correcting. David Sacks (00:28:44): Okay. Fair enough, Jason. You have Jason Calacanis (00:28:45): the right director. Yeah. I that was not my position. I said that's David Sacks (00:28:48): my point. Fine. I actually agree with you if you're saying that that was our government's objective, which was Speaker 4 (00:28:53): Yes. David Sacks (00:28:54): To weaken Putin. I agree with you. They've proposed to fight an optional proxy war choice that was easily avoid both it. Just taking NATO expansion off the table because they thought it would weaken Putin, but here's the rub on this. It has not weakened Putin. And has weakened the United States and our allies. Any way you wanna look at Speaker 4 (00:29:10): this thing, look at David Sacks (00:29:10): just the weapons and munitions. So we are out of a 155 millimeter artillery shells. We cannot produce enough. This is the crazy thing. We spent 800,000,000,000 a year plus on the Pentagon and our national defense. We're out of ammo. I mean, we must be getting so royally ripped off by the military industrial complex. Okay. We cannot produce ammo fast enough That's why Ukraine's losing this war. The balance of artillery favors Russia. Russia is basically using about 20,000 shells a day. The Ukrainians are using somewhere between 36,000. We are out of ammo. We cannot produce enough. Jason Calacanis (00:29:48): And this, actually dovetails nicely with another story this week. There is a journalist named Matt Euglesias. Is that his how you pronounce David Sacks (00:29:58): his name? Jason Calacanis (00:29:59): Yeah. Euglesias. And he said I mean, he literally said the quiet part out loud, and I'll just quote because he was criticizing You and Chamath, for hosting RfK. We'll get to that in a second. But he basically said, this is actually a really good idea for us. Basically, NATO, plus Ukrainian lives are being traded for Russian equipment and Russian lives, which leaves NATO coming out ahead. That's doubly true because NATO is much richer than Russia, So we win a long term game of everyone explode their weapons as fast as they can, make them. Again, though, what makes that really true is NATO material is killing Russian soldiers while Russian material is killing Ukrainian soldiers. That's a deal in our favor. I mean, that is a cynical. David Sacks (00:30:43): To be clear, Jason Calacanis (00:30:44): you wrote that. David Sacks (00:30:45): Yeah. He wrote that last year in defense of the war. Basically, like all the neo cons, he's sort of an establishment approved intellectual. They think he's smart. I think he's really foolish. He basically wants to fight the last Ukrainian here for the sole purpose of blowing up Russia's stockpiles. The reason this is so dumb is Russia can always make more. Those lives aren't coming back. But they can always produce more artillery, more weapons. And in fact, the Russian war machine is now ramping up to full production. Okay? They are ramping up the number of people in their army. I think it's estimated that by the end of the year, they're gonna have 750,000 men under arms. They've ramped up artillery shells production. They were at something like 1a half 1000000 at the beginning of the war. We were only producing 14,000 artillery shells a month mostly for training purposes in the United States. We've since ramped that up to 20,000, but that still massively trails what the Russians can do. Jason Calacanis (00:31:35): They're trying to haul David Sacks (00:31:36): and they're trying to ramp it up to 90,000 a month, but that's gonna take till 2028 because, you know, it takes time to build it. You gotta build up new factories, new production lines. You gotta issue contracts to suppliers or or vendors. It takes time to do this. Speaker 4 (00:31:50): But the Russians basically have ripped David Sacks (00:31:51): up their war machine. And then the other thing that's happened is that Russia and China have entered a day factor alliance and including Iran. So you now have the cementing of this giant alliance in Asia between China, Russia, and Iran, they're sharing equipment now together. Iran is producing drones for Russia. Russia is now gonna be giving advanced fighter jets to Iran. So this idea that this war has made the west stronger. It's depleting the west over an objective. We didn't need to fight. This war was easily avoidable, and we have now created, I think, the most fearsome opponent that America has ever faced. We have never faced a adversary with a combined manufacturing capacity and raw materials of China, Russia, and Iran, if we were to get in a war, a new world war against this sort of new axis, we could lose they actually have more manufacturing capacity and produce weapons of war and munitions and ammo than the United States does. Jason Calacanis (00:32:55): China has been clear that they're not gonna provide weapons to to Russia. And so I'm I'm not sure that that alliance is exactly accurate. Speaker 4 (00:33:03): They David Sacks (00:33:03): have given us no such assurance. All they've said is they haven't done it yet. Jason Calacanis (00:33:07): It's a theoretical thing that you're talking about here that could be very serious. I think your point, and this is to Brad's point, should be having a very thoughtful discussion here because if China did pick Russia, which they haven't, and they went to war, it would be war with. David Sacks (00:33:22): Well, we should talk about the China relationship, actually. Jason Calacanis (00:33:24): Yeah. Okay. Blinkin just went to China, and this was the first trip for an American secretary of state since 2018. Obviously, things have been shrained with the spy balloon, and the visits to Taiwan. Blinking gave some basic goals for this engagement with China the fentanyl problem, some detained Americans and protecting US citizens working in China. Those were kind of the Easy checkboxes, but they wanted to create also an open line of communication between our militaries which China wasn't super stoked on or wouldn't agree to. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:06): Tony did a great job. Jason Calacanis (00:34:08): Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:09): Okay. I think what's really disappointing is that while Tony's over there doing this hard work, which is must be tough to do because it must have been a little bit like dancing on egg shells a little bit. Right? He had to be Jason Calacanis (00:34:20): It's intense. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:20): He had to be very thoughtful, very measured, But as far as I could tell, he did a fabulous job now full disclosure. He's a friend of mine, so maybe I'm biased. But Then over here, Biden at some mid level fundraiser in California is calling G a dictator. How hard must it be for you to try to do your job when your boss is just like completely undisciplined like here, and here's the problem with that is that if the United States actually thought that g was a dictator, Do you think that a mid level fundraiser that we were all invited to in Northern California that none of us said yes to is the place to announce a foreign policy shift like that? Absolutely not. So it just means that, again, there's just more evidence about Biden being very undisciplined. Now, again, that could be an age issue. It could be a mental acuity issue. We don't know because we're not given a chance to really prosecute that problem. Meanwhile, Tony's there trying to do the best job he can and the sand shift underneath him. Thank god he was able to get the trip done before this thing is what I think. But that gap was a very big gap and a very big problem, I think, because whatever goodwill he built up was practically flushed down the toilet if you saw the reaction from the Chinese, which was to be deeply offended. And it makes no sense to poke. Yeah. When he went to see NBS and they had to negotiate a fist pump versus a handshake. Like, what is all of this either unplanned or undisciplined theater Why are we engaging in any of this stuff? It doesn't make any sense. Jason Calacanis (00:35:52): Shamoff, he Joe Joe Biden's always been known for being a liability in terms of these statements. When he worked for Obama. And he was the VP. He also said things, you know, he shot from the hip a lot. You should not be calling the dictator when you're trying to do this critical work. It's a stupid move. I think everybody can agree. You were to say something, Brad? David Friedberg (00:36:10): Yeah. I was just gonna say, you know, kind of market reaction going in. So the K Webb, the Chinese index, was up about 20% heading into these series of meetings. Now, notably, Blinken was not scheduled to have a meeting with Xi. And so what happened is on day 1, there was a meeting with the foreign minister. Right. And it seems that there was some positive trend lines coming out of these first two meetings with the top diplomat with foreign minister, which led to the meeting. And notably in the meeting, he did say the United States has not changed his policy on Taiwan. We don't support Taiwanese independence. Now the market reaction post visit was down 10%. And I think this is owing to what Chamath said that people felt like maybe we took a step forward here that we at least had a meeting, but then it was, another step back. And so I think where we sit at the moment is there probably gonna be some follow on meetings coming out of this. This was not you know, a a a a path back Jason Calacanis (00:37:12): to where we were, but David Friedberg (00:37:13): I think it was a stabilizing moment. And, you know, again, we were just at the east meets west conference where there are a lot of Chinese CEOs and founders who are there. And I think the idea there was like things are stable, like not getting worse. And by the way, 6 months ago, there was a real concern that things were deteriorating quickly. So I think it's, you know, you can see some constructive coming out of this? Jason Calacanis (00:37:37): Not getting worse was how I felt coming out of it and then Biden then makes it worse. Is it really it is a I agree. It's just a stupid gap. David Sacks (00:37:44): Let me tell you about some of the reporting from the the Chinese side. So after these diplomatic events and and you're right, Lincoln met with Wang Yi for 7 hours, then he got an audience with Xi Jinping. They do these readouts where each side basically produces a public summary of the meeting. In the Chinese readout, they said that US Chinese relationships are at the lowest point they've ever been. I mean, since, I guess, diplomatic relations were kind of reestablished under Nixon. So that from the Chinese standpoint, they believe that relationships are at the worst they've ever been. Moreover, the US sought to put Ukraine on the agenda. The Chinese response to that was we are not interested in discussing our relationship with Russia that is none of your business. So this idea, there's been this neocon fantasy that somehow China would help us in this war between Russia and Ukraine. And I've said all along that the last thing China wants is for Neil Conso achieve their objectives with respect to Russia because then China alone will be in the gun sites of US Hawks. So China will do what it has to do to support and even prop up Russia if they have to. Remember, China and and Russia And, specifically, she and Putin, they are the 2 leaders who've met with each other more often than any other leader. And they've called each other their best friends or most I think the the language they use were was most bosoms. Well, most bosom friends was what they called it. Jason Calacanis (00:39:17): Okay. That's a little weird. David Sacks (00:39:18): Boys about it. Yeah. But yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:39:19): Somebody a great TV show. Good post. David Sacks (00:39:21): Yeah. Exactly. Jason Calacanis (00:39:21): Just to give people exactly what happened, Biden, when he was at this campaign fundraiser in NorCal that, again, yeah, we were probably invited to people on the show. He was talking about the military Chinese spy balloon, and he said she got very upset quote that this was a great embarrassment for dictators when they don't know what happened. And he continued to say that she didn't know the balloon had been over the continental US and was off course near Alaska. This is the kind of thing where he's basically saying she is stupid or, you know, whatever, or there's some level of incompetence over there. It's exactly the wrong message you wanna send. Calling him a dictator and calling him stupid and saying he was embarrassed. Like, why would you provoke that to raise money or to be a tough guy? It makes no sense. I mean, it sounds like Trump's version of foreign funny choice. David Sacks (00:40:08): From the Chinese standpoint, they thought the whole balloon thing was a travesty. I mean, I I don't know what the truth of it is, but they feel like it was just this continuous drumming up of outrage on the American side against China. And they wanted to put that behind us in terms of the relationship I heard Lincoln interviewed about this. Chamath, I agree with you. I have no complaint with Lincoln in terms of how he handled this meeting. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:33): Tony did great. David Sacks (00:40:33): Complained about how I have a complaint about in Sanlam, Moscow, but but not Beijing. But they wanted to put this balloon business behind them. My guess, I've always said that it never made sense to me that the Chinese would use such a ham fisted way of conducting espionage to fly. A deliberately fly a balloon over the US. Jason Calacanis (00:40:53): It's obviously never deliberate. It never made sense to me. Yeah. I would. Of course. David Sacks (00:40:57): And and it it became this cost celeb in the US. And I think the Chinese at a minimum wanted to put it behind us and then Biden reopened the issue. Jason Calacanis (00:41:05): Like this submarine tragedy, the balloon is like made for network television because it's a live event where you can put live cameras up and you can cover it 20 fourseven. It's just Like Trump We've been a real struggle. Yeah. Just for the media account. It's for the media. It's catnip for them. David Sacks (00:41:20): We have to be very careful now, I think, in our relationship with China. Because again, you would now have this asiatic alliance between China, Russia, and and Iran. It is the most capable let's say, adversary of the United States ever faced. Remember that when we faced the Soviet Union, their economy was never bigger than 1 third of the US economy. The Soviet bloc versus the western bloc the Chinese economy on a purchasing power parity basis is roughly the same size as the US. And they've got more manufacturing capacity. So if you think about the type of manufacturing capacity United States had during World War 2. That now belongs to China, not the US. We have hollowed out. Jason Calacanis (00:41:56): I just don't understand why we why our foreign policy, Brad, bring you into discussion, why our foreign policy isn't being driven by some of the things that we could do together to collaborate on like we have global warming. We have, you know, issues on this planet that we could collaborate on, and it seems like we're spending no time on those issues and saber rattling Cuba, another example, why can't we set a goal for the United States to normalize relations with Cuba and get them on our site since they are the equivalent of let's say Ukraine, David, to America, you've you've brought that comparison. Why don't we make peace with Cuba? Why can't we have a peace based foreign policy where we're trying to build bridges. God, Cuban, United States could do amazing things together. And we should be trying to win that relationship instead of living 50 years in the past over it. I don't I don't I'm not sure. David Sacks (00:42:48): There was a legitimate outrage over the past week because we discovered that China was planning on they already have an intelligence outpost in Cuba. Listening outpost, but also they're thinking about doing training of troops in Cuba. And that would be a violation of Monroe doctrine, and we should basically get our backs up over that. The Monroe doctrine states that no distant great power can bring troops' weapons or bases into the Western Hemisphere. United States spent over a 100 years basically enforcing Monroe doctrine. It would greatly diminish US security if we allowed any foreign gray power to have troops in the western hemisphere. So we deserve to have our horns out over that. The problem is that we have our horns out over everything. And so we're not really taken seriously. We've Friedberg wolf so many times. I don't think we're really taken seriously by the Chinese on this. And this should be a teaching moment to the foreign policy establishment because this is Russia's objection. Russia's objection is to having American troops' weapons and bases directly on their border. This is our objection to what China is seeking to do in Cuba. Jason Calacanis (00:43:54): Okay, Brad. Do you wanna add something to that, or can we move to Kona? David Friedberg (00:43:56): Just real quickly, I would say. Yeah. There's a real appetite in the business community to be engaged. This idea that we're going to decouple the world, never have to deal with these folks, right, is just a farce. Bite dance bought a $1,000,000,000 worth of in Nvidia Chips announced this week. Right? Like like, the world is entangled, and I think we would be better off having our political and business leaders in more sync over how to achieve this long term safety and prosperity as opposed to what feels like a disjointed foreign policy relative to the global reality around AI and and and what's happening on the business front? Jason Calacanis (00:44:37): I agree. Well said. Yeah. And I mean, it it's just so obvious. Why can't we be collaborating on stuff? And we see, when you and I made our trip to the UAE. And then we see the Saudis, you know, bringing movies back. We have certain regions. We're doing a pretty good job of engaging with engagement, You know, reasonable engagement is a good idea. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:55): It's because and I think RfK has said this. We have created a very dangerous revolving door between our most critical institutions and the largest industrial companies in the United States. And that revolving door creates all kinds of conflicts of interest. And those things get sorted out via revenue and dollars and profits. Jason Calacanis (00:45:19): Incentives. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:20): And so those incentives will drive us if it's the military industrial complex to go to war. And you're seeing that. It'll complicate our foreign policy. So this is why I've always said the most important thing that we're doing is something that the military industrial complex cannot stop, which is our energy independence. And when you have energy independence and abundant costs of energy, I do think that the biggest thing you get is this peace dividend. You stop fighting these wars. You become much more rational abroad, and you're like, okay. I don't need to fight with all of these people because you know, things are so great within our borders. Jason Calacanis (00:45:53): You're so right, Jaumab, because we actually have stopped those wars. And now we've created 2 other ones. Russia, Ukraine. We can't. China. What's that? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:46:01): We can't help ourselves and we'll use the scarcity of commodities as a boogeyman to basically incentivize us to go in these foreign misadventures, and it really has to stop. David Sacks (00:46:13): By the way, just two quick points on that. On Taiwan, there's an election next year, and it looks like right now that the pro China party might actually take power. Right now, the party that's in power is more of a pro western party. And the reason I think is that the Taiwanese are looking at what's going on in Ukraine, and they're looking at the corpses of the Ukrainian youth pile up and they're thinking maybe it's not such a great idea to be an American proxy state, or in the words of Henry Kissinger, he wants quip that it's dangerous to be an American enemy, but it's absolutely fatal to be an American friend. I think that this war may be back firing in terms of the incentives is creating around Taiwan. Remember, Biden said that this war would basically help protect Taiwan by deterring China. It might actually deter Taiwan from opposing China. So we'll have to see how that plays out. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:04): All an able-bodied person in Taiwan of voting age needs to do is read the newspaper and understand it in the last two and a half years. We've essentially started a multi $1,000,000,000,000 program to delever selves from all the critical resources that China and Taiwan gives us. And so if you're a Taiwanese citizen, the writing is unfortunately on the wall is that we are giving ourselves the optionality to not have to do anything. So to your point, David, if you're a rational thinking Taiwanese person, Unfortunately, you're forced to be in a position where you may have to hedge your bets. And if the United States can basically have a chip supply that comes from Europe and Mexico, now all of a sudden, the criticality of TSMC goes away. To wit, I published his tweet yesterday about Buffet and his trades in Japan, right? He bought these 5 trading companies. And so just a really novel carry trade that I've really fallen in love with just understanding it. But the code out to that is that when he did this and going long Japan, what he actually also did was he delivered himself from China. He had a long position in TSMC, and he said, I'm out. And when they asked him why he sold TSMC, he said, this is a very complicated thing. And he basically said that it's not a bet that's worth making. And I think underneath that, if I had to guess what he's trying to say about Taiwan indirectly, through a sale of TSMC is the odds are that we are not going to get into a land war over there, which means that that asset and its equity value is in danger, and I don't want to own it. And I think that that's a very clinical summation of his rational actions. So to your point Jason Calacanis (00:48:44): Well, here's what blink people Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:45): speak with their dollars. Jason Calacanis (00:48:46): I think it's very important. You know, the one China policy says Taiwan is part of China. It's not an independent country, but we've had a very ambiguous intolerance for this ambiguity of Taiwan acting as its own nation while saying we support the 1 China policy. And that ambiguity has served us very well in the China relationship. Here's a blanket set at the press conference quote, We do not support Taiwan independence. We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. The status quo he's referring to here, Brad, is that they get to be independent in, Taiwan, but we don't say they're independent. They are obviously acting in an independent manner, but it is not our business to tell a Taiwanese people that they're independent or not. It's their decision to determine if they're independent or not. Any any thoughts on the the trade by Buffet and Blink and Speaker 4 (00:49:38): I think David Friedberg (00:49:38): that this conference Jason Calacanis (00:49:39): in this ambiguity. David Friedberg (00:49:41): I think we wanna maintain the ambiguity. I think we're basically saying, to China, don't change the status quo at least for now. Right. While we rebuild these chip fabs in Arizona and other parts of the world, I think most of the wealthy families I've talked to from Taiwan believe that 5 or 6 years from now, the US will no longer be in the position where they will need Taiwan and Taipei as much as they do today. And there were How many years do you Jason Calacanis (00:50:11): think it will take to be independent? Say it one more time and explain it. David Friedberg (00:50:14): Well, it's not about being independent. It's how much longer will Taiwan have what they believe to be de facto protection from the United States? And I was told by one very influential Taiwanese family that they believe when the 5th chip shop comes online in Arizona. Which I think is scheduled for 25 or 26. They intended to have most of their family members out of Taiwan. At that period in time. Now I think most Taiwanese don't envision this being, you know, a violent invasion of Taiwan. It's more of a take under in the same way that Hong Kong was, and so I don't see an American president, frankly, going to war nor would I want them to go to war over Taiwan, but I think it's in all of our interest to maintain that status quo, which is why taunting the Chinese over the course of the past few years over Taiwan has seemed like, a policy that's not fit with our goals. Speaker 4 (00:51:15): Right. Well, if you look Jason Calacanis (00:51:16): at skin in the game, the fact that the chips act went through so quickly, the fact that Warren Buffett, as you pointed out, Chamath made his bet, and this family that has obviously, you know, skin in the game quite literally are making these decisions. I think we know where this is headed. You can just follow the bets if you look at the bets in 5 Speaker 4 (00:51:33): years, all of the dollars. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:34): All of the dollars. Jason Calacanis (00:51:34): All of the dollars. I mean, and and also where people put themselves, geographically, everybody left Hong Kong when the turnover happened or before it. They went to Singapore. They went to UAE. They voted with their feet and their dollars. And that's obviously what's gonna happen here. This is a good pivot. Because this criticism of the Ukraine policy by Matt, that Sachs pointed out came because There is a belief on his part and others that the pod here, all in, is putting its unilateral support behind RFK. And that is not true. There are two people on the pod who hosted a fundraiser last week. And here is what Matt incorrectly said because I have not put my support behind RFK. I think he's very interesting. And, I'm glad he's in the race. And neither has Friedberg, but Shamoff and Sachs did host 1 and he'll hand it over to them. But here is what Matt said in his substack. And even though it's not the subject of this post, I do want to say that I think it's really sleazy and gross. For the hosts of the all in podcast to be engaging in this Kennedy Boosterism as a bang shot way of harming Joe Biden's reelection prospects, not what's saying the recent conversions around Russia policy. Kennedy represents precisely the trend of progressive thought that right of center business people have highly have rightly spent the better part of the century of emoting. His is an anti progress, anti technology, ultimately anti human twelve view that stands against biomedical progress against energy progress and against human flourishing. David Sacks (00:53:10): Blow up as many Ukrainians as possible Speaker 4 (00:53:13): in order David Sacks (00:53:13): to complete Yeah. Exactly. This is anti human. Listen, I don't even think we should be giving him this much time. Jason Calacanis (00:53:19): Well, no, but I think it is important that because people now have connected this pod with the rise of RFK. Was the first major podcast he did. David Sacks (00:53:26): When a glacier a glacier is accusing us somehow of do of of supporting RfK, not because of issues, but somehow because it's a bank shot for Donald Trump, which is ridiculous. None of us support Donald Trump. He's not even my preferred candidate in the Republican. Lane. Jason Calacanis (00:53:41): Well, what he said was a bank shot against Biden, just to be clear, a bank David Sacks (00:53:44): shot against Biden. I prefer I prefer RfK to Biden. It's that simple. What's what's wrong with that? He's not even making any arguments here. Look, we've explained in a lot of detail, and I explained in my response, all the issues where I support RFK, he supports free speech over censorship. He supports civil liberties over the surveillance state, He supports peace instead of war. He supports sealing the southern border virtually alone among Democrats and talking sense on that issue. And I believe that he's completely correctly diagnosed what we're doing in Ukraine. So on the issues, I support. Disagree with him on Jason Calacanis (00:54:20): some issues. Right? You disagree with him on nuclear, and you may disagree with him and his anti vaxx stance, if he is in fact anti vaxx. Speaker 4 (00:54:26): I just hold on. That sax finished those. David Friedberg (00:54:28): I think he David Sacks (00:54:28): was right about COVID lockdowns, and I think he was right about Right. COVID, the the so called COVID shot that wasn't even a vaccine that that should not have been required. Jason Calacanis (00:54:36): But what about those 2 issues? You obviously disagree with him on some things. Do you disagree with him on his divact stuff and his nuclear stuff. David Sacks (00:54:44): I don't know enough about those issues to have, like, a firm stance. What I would say is that every candidate represents a bundle of issues. And you support the ones who are aligned with you on the issues that are most important to you. Got it. On the issues that are most important to me, which are these questions, the great questions of warrant peace and the questions of free speech and censorship, And even I would say the question of the economy and who do we prioritize? Cause he wants to prioritize the middle class, on those big questions, I feel like I'm aligned with RFK. Jason Calacanis (00:55:20): Perfect. Speaker 4 (00:55:20): So that's David Sacks (00:55:20): why I support him. Jason Calacanis (00:55:22): Let me go to Jamaica. Speaker 4 (00:55:23): By the David Sacks (00:55:23): way, do you think Jack Dorcey is is supporting RFK as a bank shot, something rather? No. He's supporting it because he agrees to RFK on these questions of war and peace. Speaker 4 (00:55:32): Okay. David Sacks (00:55:33): And free speech. Speaker 4 (00:55:34): Correct. Jason Calacanis (00:55:35): I'm just letting everybody be very clear about their position since this is becoming the support of RFK by this podcast or 2 of the four people in the podcast is now becoming kind of national news. David Sacks (00:55:45): Galaces is even making any arguments here. He's just applying derogatory labels to us. Jason Calacanis (00:55:49): Yeah. No. It's not common. David Sacks (00:55:50): What this is, this is a disciplinary tactic or a shaming tactic Speaker 4 (00:55:55): Yes. David Sacks (00:55:55): By the sort of enforcers for the establishment. Right. You want to prevent independent thinkers from stepping out a lot. Jason Calacanis (00:56:03): I agree. David Sacks (00:56:03): That's what this is about. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:04): It looks like this outsider went to the dolphins school in Harvard City. So there you have it. Yeah. David Sacks (00:56:09): You got a $2,000,000 education. Doesn't know what a basis point is. Speaker 4 (00:56:13): He's the guy with the basis points. Right? Congratulations at Dolphin And Harvard. Jason Calacanis (00:56:19): Good luck with your subs. Speaker 4 (00:56:20): Thank you. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:21): Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (00:56:22): Chamath, you are pro nuclear. Been very clear about that. Although you're pro renewables mostly, you've been clear about that on this podcast and many conversations I've had with you. You are also pro vaccine, but you're anti what happened with the lockdown. So maybe you could expand upon your support of RFK why you held a fundraiser firm and what things you agree with them on and maybe what things you don't necessarily agree with them on. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:45): Well, first, I actually did What do I think a lot of people haven't done, which is just listen to him? Just stop talking. Zip the old yapper, and there is an enormous amount of long form content where you can really understand where he stands on some of these topics. He's right. About the war on Ukraine. We shouldn't be in it. He's right about free speech, which is we should have it. He's right that the COVID vaccine was not a vaccine. And really what it's done is actually discredit the word vaccine, unfortunately, in a lot of people's minds. He actually is a person that is pro vaccine for all these other vaccines. He himself is vaccinated. His children are vaccinated. You would all know this stuff if you just took 2 minutes to just listen to it. He is against the COVID vaccine. And what I would say is I'm very sympathetic to that. I'm very sympathetic to the job the FDA had to do, and I think they generally did do a great job. But we ran something through and we allowed it to be labeled a word that misappropriates what it is. It's not a vaccine. And the problem with that is that it now makes people mistrust the measles mumps and rubella vaccine. That's crazy. You shouldn't mistrust the MMR vaccine or DTAP, but because those things are lumped in with the same thing as a COVID vaccine that at best 30 or 40 percent efficacious, we have these problems. He calls that out pretty honestly. So I like the fact that he actually speaks in nuance. I like the fact that when I listen to him, I find that the talking head think police are generally lying. It confirms what I believe about them. Because he just says things in a very plain spoken intelligent way. And I think that there are a lot of folks who don't wanna think, who'd wanna be given the simple answer, who want to just reject what he stands for, and just take the establishment view in the hopes that they'll get, I don't know, may be accepted by the establishment. The establishment just wants to curate power. And I just think that people should be thinking for themselves. If you listen to the Rogan podcast, if you listen to the Jordan Peterson podcast, There are 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of links and page views and discussions and thoughts. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:26): And there's probably thousands of minutes of RFK. Explaining what he thinks on basically any topic you can imagine. You can get to your own conclusion. And now I think what I think you'll find And this is true for me. Is there's 10% of stuff you are just vehemently supportive of? 70% of stuff that's, like, quite reasonable and fair. And then there's the rest, which is a spectrum of things I disagree with, but then you're left with a blended expected value where you're like, man, this guy is really better than all the other alternatives. Jason Calacanis (01:00:01): Brad, I'll let you go and then I'll give my David Friedberg (01:00:03): What I find most insidious about the opposition to this discussion is people are upset that you're not swearing an allegiance to a dogmatism. Right? The truth of the matter is this group has hosted dinners for Rosanna for Senator Mansion. We've hosted dinners for DeSantis. Right? Had I been here? I would've put my name on the dinner for Kennedy because I want to gather information. I'm an analyst. I wanna think for myself. How can we spend trillions and put ourselves into potentially harms way without having a real conversation in congress and on these pods about the risk of war. Why can't we have an authentic postmortem about the efficacy of the COVID vaccine without being seen. The revolution going on in this country, which is fantastic from my perspective, is that there is no longer a monopolistic control over the discussion, and that's why this podcast and this friendship And the conversation we all had here is resonating with people because they also wanna hear all the different sides because most people are capable are way smarter than the elites on the coast think. You know, I'm from Indiana. Lots of smart folks who think for themselves in Indiana but they're told told by coastal elites what to think, and they reject this. And that's what you're seeing in this discussion and so many of these others. It's not about the it's not about vaccines. It's not about a war. It's about their control over how you think and them wanting to force you to swear to an orthodoxy. Jason Calacanis (01:01:48): I think that's really well said. Yeah. David Sacks (01:01:50): Yeah. That is well said, but the the way they credit control, what you think, is by labeling candidates. So as to exclude them or make them sound crazy. So Jay Cal, I mean, you kind of introduced RFK as an anti vaxxer. I don't think that is the correct way to describe his position, or the singular way that he should be labeled. Jason Calacanis (01:02:11): No. I don't I don't believe that. I said, here are the things he believes that we agree with, and then I gave the things that the media is saying, You know, so I I was trying to present the totality of it. And they said he is obviously in favor of the middle class and all this stuff. So Speaker 4 (01:02:25): Well, he was I wanna Jason Calacanis (01:02:26): be clear on my position here. So I am in support of vibrant long form debate. Like, we have here, And I'm in support of anybody who takes on the establishment because there are crazy incentives. As we talk about here, incentives matter, and we are long overdue for a discussion on vaccines. But it's very important that everybody understand here that everybody on this podcast took the COVID vaccine And everybody here, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:50): our kids have been vaccine. It's not a vaccine. Jason Calacanis (01:02:53): Exactly. So they took the Speaker 4 (01:02:54): We David Sacks (01:02:54): were unchecked with an experimental mRNA treatment because we got hoodwinked by the media into thinking it would prevent us from ever getting COVID, which it did not do. 2 months later, I got vaccines Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:07): vaccines are good and the COVID thing was not very good. Jason Calacanis (01:03:12): And it reduced death in older people and probably was the only group of people. And we'll we'll know when we do postmortem. But do not take Speaker 4 (01:03:20): Now we David Sacks (01:03:21): got this MRNA like flowing through our bodies. Who knows? It might be a time bomb. Jason Calacanis (01:03:26): Well and then for people who are wondering, like, if we should even be having these discussions, the the hypocrisy of the media I think is very important to look at here because the media is gonna be attacking this podcast over and over again, not that it matters, but when we moved into the top 100, top 50, top 10, that's when the knives came out. And I I would like to remind the media of the long history of investigative journalism and debates. What was once a conspiracy theory often goes on to win a Pulitzer prize. And you know, the the hypocrisy here is crazy because if you look at some of the greatest stories, and investigative journalists pieces, they started with these debates, rumors, etcetera. Abu Grab. That was the New Yorker, Ralph Naderman. David Sacks (01:04:11): That was slash nurses reporting. That was slash nurses reporting, and he can't Jason Calacanis (01:04:15): get the time of Speaker 4 (01:04:16): day. Right. They David Sacks (01:04:17): can't he can't get the time of day for his report on who really destroyed Nord Stream? Jason Calacanis (01:04:21): The Catholic church sex scandal, the Boston Globe. David Sacks (01:04:24): The mainstream media does not perform the function that you're describing anymore. They act as the bodyguard for the elite for the establishment. Jason Calacanis (01:04:31): They actually have even of late gun. David Sacks (01:04:33): Ethnographers for the people in power. Jason Calacanis (01:04:35): Not exactly true. They have actually done incredible reporting, but there is a group of them, which is towing the party line, because you have the New York Times and their expose on the taxi commission. That won a Pulitzer in 2020. Speaker 4 (01:04:48): What? Jason Calacanis (01:04:48): And then you you look scabs. I know you don't follow pulitzers or investigative journalism. In 2020, Brian Rosenthal at the New York Times did a massive expose on the predatory New York City taxi industry. And at the same time, that's anti food and anti admit. David Sacks (01:05:03): There's a few other issues that might be more important to the nation. Jason Calacanis (01:05:06): It was an example of protectionism and rent seeking. The enron scandal, big tobacco, 60 minute Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:13): what about the pretzel monopoly in the south part of the Bronx? David Sacks (01:05:17): What about that hot dog vendor on? Jason Calacanis (01:05:19): No. No. You guys are uninformed David Sacks (01:05:21): didn't have all of his licenses up to date. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:23): I thought there was a David Sacks (01:05:24): whole lot. We're not the big experts in that. Jason Calacanis (01:05:25): Botulism. You guys Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:26): will get rid of the butt. Jason Calacanis (01:05:28): The fact is at the same time, that the New York Times CNN were attacking what Uber was doing. The New York Times won a fucking Pulitzer for their coverage of predatory loans by rich, powerful people in New York City. Speaker 4 (01:05:43): I know David Sacks (01:05:43): they also did a great story on the guys selling drinkets outside, Penn Station without a license. Right? Jason Calacanis (01:05:48): Who's a man of the people like yourself, so actually should actually be more informed. Okay. David Sacks (01:05:52): Well, that should be reporting on for example, what the Yeah. If they really if the poolers has worked the way they should is where patient 0 came from on COVID. Because Michael Schellberg just reported this over the last week, and it got picked up by the Wall Street Journal. That patient 0, it turns out, was a researcher at the Wuhan lab who was performing gain of function research. Jason Calacanis (01:06:16): Yeah. Shocker. David Sacks (01:06:17): Another conspiracy theory proven true. Jason Calacanis (01:06:20): And we'll wind up being a Pulitzer. David Sacks (01:06:22): He deserves a Pulitzer. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:24): He does. And the crazy thing about this quote unquote conspiracy theory turned out to be true is it brought together the most odd bed fellows, Rand Paul and John Stewart. When Rand Paul and John Stewart can be in a room and agree on basically the totality of a topic. We should Jason Calacanis (01:06:41): all just pay attention because it's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:42): not it's not a normal in which these Jason Calacanis (01:06:44): two guys would otherwise get along. David Sacks (01:06:46): Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:48): And both of them nailed it from day 1. David Sacks (01:06:51): Right. They have the same name but now connect the dots further. Okay. Why was the truth suppressed? Why did it not come out? Because Fauci had funded gain of function research at the WuhanLab via EcoHealth Alliance. So he knew that if at the beginning of this pandemic, it turned out that he had been partially responsible for the creation of this virus that had now turned into pandemic around the world, his career would have been over. Jason Calacanis (01:07:19): And it's worse acts. It's even worse than that. 46% of the advertising on TV news comes from pharma. And we did not always allow pharma spending. And this is may not be one to 1. It may not be that a specific person doing a report at CNN or Fox or any of the networks is saying, oh, I'm gonna lose my job if I write something critical of pharma, but they're not doing the investigative pieces on, I can tell you this, on the people who have 46% of their advertising revenue, unless it really you know, gets to the final ending on something. And Right. And that is something that we need to question. Right. The media is funded. 46% by pharma companies, and pharma companies were given a pass. And if you criticize any of the pharma companies, The media is gonna come for you. And so listen. I'm not, tin foil, but you do have Speaker 4 (01:08:15): to look Jason Calacanis (01:08:15): at it. No. That is not David Sacks (01:08:16): tin foil. Listen. The media is funded by Big Pharma, and it's primary sources are these high level government employees who've been there forever who leak them information. That is why the New York Times was carrying water for Fauci and Big Pharma. This is the marriage of state power and corporate greed that RfK junior denounces. Jason Calacanis (01:08:36): Yep. Well, there you have it, folks. So and, he believes he could be assassinated by the CIA. David Sacks (01:08:42): No. He didn't say it like that. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:44): He didn't say it like that. He was asked, what what is his strategy on Campaigning and all of that stuff. And he said, look, I'm gonna do as much as possible, but one thing that I'm going to avoid are like these open air parades just because there's just a lot of folks that we can't control, crowd control. Yeah. Okay. Reasonable. David Sacks (01:09:06): Yeah. I mean, the the conversation on Rogan went something like this. Rogan was asking questions about the Kennedy assassinations and RFK believes, like, something like 60% of the American public believes that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Then Roganassen, well, do you ever feel afraid running for office. And his answer was basically, no, not really. It's not something that I'm preoccupied with. But, yeah, I'll take precautions. Does that mean he thinks the CIA is gonna assassinate him? No. That's not what he said. But that is how the media reported it, including Fox News that became the soundbite. Jason Calacanis (01:09:39): Well, the sound bite from this podcast was that he believes his uncle was in a in his father were that the CIA was involved in transformation. Yeah. David Sacks (01:09:47): Jason, a lot of people. Jason Calacanis (01:09:49): I am not giving my opinion on it. I'm giving his opinion on it. He said it on this podcast, and the CIA won't release all the information. This day, even though they've been commanded to do so, so you've made your own decision, folks, according to Bloomberg, there is a ton of action for startup shares in secondary markets. If you don't know what a secondary market is, That's when one investor buys shares in a company that's not yet public directly from another investors on the cap table. So if Stripe, which is not yet public or Reddit, There are shares floating around in those companies, either previous employees or previous investors. One firm might see an opportunity there and buy them, as this process of bottoming me out has occurred, pitch book reported Tiger Global told secondary investors, and that's a class of people who like to buy these that they could bid on any individual private company in its portfolio. They tried to sell a bundle of these, shares, about 30 startups at a time. But they couldn't find buyers according to the reports. So now they're allowing people to bid on per company on a per company basis. Some of these are being marked down a third, 50%, etcetera. Here's the quote from Bloomberg. Has it made 31st shares startups were trading at a median discount of 61% compared to valuations at their latest funding rounds according to a report by Ford Global Holdings. A 16, according to the report, is actively buying shares in secondary, Excel Bain, Bessemer, Kleiner, are also using secondary to grow stakes in their existing investments doubling down. As it were, crossover firms like Coto Tiger Growth Global, and even Brad's Altimeter are actively searching for deals. So, Brad, your thoughts on this, is this sign of a bottom. And why are you doing this? David Friedberg (01:11:26): It's fine. You're doing Speaker 4 (01:11:27): it. Yeah. David Friedberg (01:11:28): Yeah. It is it is true. I mean, our job is to look at all these companies understand that Okay. You know, I'm sitting here looking at a list that I was given this morning, a 125 companies, secondary. You know, the Goldman Sachs unprofitable tech index in the public market is down 64% as of this one. Jason Calacanis (01:11:46): Unprofitable public companies. David Friedberg (01:11:48): They they put together a basket. They track unprofitable public companies down 64 p percent off of its peak as as of this morning. So you just quoted the Bloomberg article saying, yeah, these unprofitable tech companies in the private markets, are down about 60, 61%. That smells right to me. The repricings have to occur. These have to occur. Right? There are 1400 unicorns at the end of 2022, and a 100% of them will likely do a down run. And if you said, what is the average that they're gonna be down? It's over 50%. You saw the repricings out of some of the best ones. Like a Canva or a strike where it was down, let's call it 30, 40, 50%. But, you know, they're gonna be companies like in the public market that are down 80 or 90% and disappear altogether. So we didn't see the reprices. Okay. And by the way, When we say, you know, that article quotes forge, that is what the sellers are offering to sell shares for. That is not where transactions are clearing. Right? So why has an altimeter purchased any of this? Because the prices aren't low enough to induce me to get off the sidelines to purchase the shares, but we're within kind of, you know, we're starting to get in the zone where we can underwrite to a margin of safety, competitive, or better than the public markets for companies that we think are great companies. Now out of those 4 1400 unicorns at the end of 22, there are probably less than 5% of those companies I would even want to own. At the right price. Right? So it's a small subset of companies. The price has to get to this clearing point But, you know, I think over the course of the next, 18 months, we're gonna see an acceleration of market clearing events as these companies need to raise capital as their employees wanna get liquid on shares, and it's a it probably see some great opportunities. David Friedberg (01:13:48): But most of these things that get put on sale should not be purchased. Right? Most of them, even, you know, the first sale price is never the last sale price. The mark down on the black t shirts will continue. Jason Calacanis (01:14:01): Jamoth or Saks, any thoughts? Are you buying in secondary? Are you looking at this? Yeah. David Sacks (01:14:05): We'll look at secondary deals. It's not primarily what we do, but we're open to it. But, Brad, if you were to categorize the 1400 unicorns into 1 of 3 categories, what do you think the percentages would be? Those 3 categories being zombiecorns, like unicorn companies that just don't deserve to exist that our product market fit, and they're gonna go away. Category 2 would be viable companies that are just overpriced and are headed for a down round. And the number 3 would be the ones that are actually headed for an up round. David Friedberg (01:14:35): Yeah. I would say 30 to 40% are these companies that were valued over a $1,000,000,000 that don't have product market fit. They'll disappear. Jason Calacanis (01:14:44): Zombie companies that will disappear. David Friedberg (01:14:46): Right. And and listen. I'm just Just to be fair, let's explain. Most of these companies, right, have less than 200,000,000 of preference, preferred shares, that venture capitalists invest into the company. And many of those companies in that 30, 40%, there's a team. There's some asset of value they may be able to, you know, sell the talent of the team and recoup David. Let's call it 30, 40% of the prefs stock right, in that transaction. We're starting to see some of those occur. Then I think the lion's share of the companies that are left, let's call it, you know, another 40%. These are companies that should never have been marked at these prices. Right? But they do have a business. And they're gonna be marked down, you know, 50 to 80%. But all of the, like, none of those have been able to grow through it. Then there's less than 10% of the companies, right, whose growth has been so robust through this period that they've actually grown into or within 10, 15% of those prior prices. And if you do all of that work, it puts us back on trend line. Right? The only thing unusual here is how far off trend line. We had 1400 unicorns. Right? In 2020, We had, I think, a 145 IPOs. In the last 2 years, we've had 4. Okay. So there is a huge backlog. These companies aren't getting public. Why? Because public market buyers like ourselves, we're not willing to pay the prices that were in the private market. So the first step is to just have these clearing events. And as David, you and I heard, sober talk over the course of the last couple of days. I think they you know, said to founders very clearly, you need to sell your businesses or you need to get profitable. There is no middle ground. Jason Calacanis (01:16:36): In other news, Ford has been issued a conditional $9,200,000,000 loan from the US Department of Energy to build out 3 123 EV battery factories, specifically the loan is coming through the Department of Energy's LPO. That's the loan program's office. They've got about 400,000,000,000 to lend out. You might remember this from 2010 when they gave Cylindra a 123 batteries, which eventually went bankrupt and got bought by a Chinese company, I believe, and Tesla, a $465,000,000 loan. Tesla paid it back. The other 2 didn't, Tesla paid it back with interest. Jigar Shah, the director of the loan program office described the lending moves as a way to onshore and re shore manufacturing. The goal of the program is not innovation, but to get more of the supply chain to be manufactured in the US. Guests Some people are criticizing this just out of the gate with, why should we be giving these loans to company should this be the private sector doing it, Jamath, what are your thoughts here? Is this, a good idea, a great idea, a neutral idea? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:43): It's a great idea. Jason Calacanis (01:17:45): Explain. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:46): It's us using our balance sheet to make sure that we get to energy independence. So this is actually a perfect role for government. It's shaping incentives so that capitalism can do its job. What this does for Ford is Ford is a partnership with SK. And so SK has a lot of capability in Korea, but they can bring that know how now domestically on short of the United States. You'll be hiring thousands of people. You'll be building battery factories. Fortmeans batteries. Their forecast is they'll be selling 2a half 1000000 electric vehicles by 2026, 2027. So whatever Ford does, you can expect GM will also do You can expect all of the other big companies to do. So this is all just great. And at the end of the day, for people to not over this is 9,800,000,000. I guess it sounds like a lot, but we're probably spending $9,800,000,000 a day fighting wars. So this is a day of just taking a pause on all these dumb wars and actually becoming energy reliant, carbon neutral, fixing the climate. It's great. Jason Calacanis (01:18:52): Jobs, energy independence, and less dependency on autocratic nations. It seems like a good idea. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:59): Yeah. Everything should be how about instead of thinking about it in terms of wars, let's think about it in terms of So if if the the DOD budget is $800,000,000,000, okay, per year, what is that 2.6 1,000,000,000 a day, 2,700,000,000 a day. Okay. So we're talking about 3 days. 4 days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You wanna sanction it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Speaker 4 (01:19:24): Should the Jason Calacanis (01:19:24): government should probably be doing that? David Sacks (01:19:27): I I agree with Chamath about the wars. But this is all money we don't have. I mean, we shouldn't be spending the money on wars, and we shouldn't be spending it, I think, on industrial policy. So first of all, of our friends used an energy investor, we should beep his name, but was telling me that the energy subsidies that were in the you know, misnamed inflation reduction act, it is like the biggest bonanza of all time. He said that the energy sector is going crazy now trying to figure out how to exploit these incentives. And his view is that although I think it was supposed to cost about $350,000,000,000, he thought that it would ultimately cost the government somewhere around a trillion. Because the way these subsidies work is that you just qualify for them and then you get the subsidy. It's not like the credits run out. So if you qualify, you get it. So this could end up costing the government way more than what was originally projected. And so the question is, what are you gonna get for all of this money? And in this article on Ford, they were talking about these 7000 jobs that are being created at a cost a $440,000 per job. So it's great that the jobs are being created, but if you look at the efficiency of that, that spend per job doesn't really make sense. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:42): I don't understand how you get that number. You take that. David Sacks (01:20:44): That's where the article the article said it. The article said 44 140,000 Speaker 4 (01:20:49): for stock. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:49): Do do you take 9,800,000,000 and divide it by 7000? What do you do? David Sacks (01:20:53): I'm just quoting that paragraph for the Cool. Speaker 4 (01:20:55): So David Sacks (01:20:55): Yeah. So the job creation is good, but you gotta look at the efficiency of the job creation. The other thing is the question I would ask you guys actually is Who wants one of these Ford EVs? Do you want an EV by Ford? Speaker 4 (01:21:09): I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:09): think there are a lot of people that drive a Ford pickup truck. We talked about this before. So that's Jason Calacanis (01:21:14): one that was coming. Yeah. Very popular. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:17): There was a an an article in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago which talked about the brand consideration cycle that has been going on. And there was a large, look, we're friends with Elon, but we should acknowledge there's a large number of people that are frankly a little bit turned off by him. And they've been very clear that they want an alternative to Tesla because they don't wanna buy Tesla because they don't necessarily prefer him as a brand ambassador. For their car. And the reality of life is that even if you're like maximally incredible, unless you find some clever way of creating a monopoly, in which case you can be a douche or evil, you're only ever gonna capture 30 plus 40% maybe of a mark. Coke Pepsi is a good example. And so there's always going to be long tail alternatives. And you know, I had a chance, for example, in Vegas to drive a Rivian. I was surprised at the quality or drive in a Rivian. I was surprised at the quality of Rivian only because I've been so focused on Tesla my whole life. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of people that'll buy forts. Doesn't take anything away from what Elon's doing, but I do think there are a lot of people that'll David Sacks (01:22:20): My problem with industrial policy is this. You you think about that EV summit that the White House did. They didn't even invite Elon, and that that was for political reasons. Jason Calacanis (01:22:28): Union reasons. David Sacks (01:22:29): Yeah. Partly because of his views on speech, but I think mostly because he's not a union shop. Jason Calacanis (01:22:34): Right. David Sacks (01:22:35): And so that's the real reason why Ford is doled out this sort of 9 point something $1,000,000,000 loan is because they're politically connected with the right people in this current administration. And that's the problem with industrial policy is that the money gets handed out by government to the politically connected. Jason Calacanis (01:22:53): In this case, Tesla David Sacks (01:22:54): did as opposed to the companies that may be producing the best products. Jason Calacanis (01:22:57): The fact is Tesla did get one of his loans in 2010 when it was a very nascent company. So You gotta give them some credit. They took a big risk Speaker 4 (01:23:04): there. David Sacks (01:23:04): But let's think about that for a second. Okay? Cause I know that example comes up a lot. Jason Calacanis (01:23:08): And a 123 and cylinder. David Sacks (01:23:10): Yeah. So Elon was basically a fluke. I mean, you get, like, a once in a generation entrepreneur who have to be working on this EV problem and he got that loan. If you're to take Elon out of that government portfolio, it all looks like Cylindra. Yep. So the question is, like, what is this portfolio gonna look like? Is there really gonna be another Elon in there? Because if not, there's gonna be a lot of cylindres Jason Calacanis (01:23:33): even if they break even. There's David Sacks (01:23:34): gonna be a lot of subsidies to companies like Ford, which are politically connected. And I think a point Friedberg would make if he were here, is that at some point, you're gonna have to turn off the subsidies because we can't afford it. And then at that point, is that factor gonna be self sufficient? Jason Calacanis (01:23:50): Brad, you wanna you you've heard the two sides of the story here. What do you mean? David Friedberg (01:23:54): Listen. Well, generally against industrial policy, I I I come down on Chamath side. I think This is a once in a generation opportunity to reduce our national security risk profile and to achieve What is really a national security imperative, which is energy independence, it's not going to happen just according to the visit invisible end of the market. We see our, you know, great power competitors who are using this against us, frankly, and have robust industrial policies. So I'm willing to stipulate that there will be those inefficiencies in this system, but I was lucky lucky enough last night. I was having dinner with the deputy secretary of the treasury, Wally Adiyamo, who was out here, meeting with founders, including battery founders in Silicon Valley, on this very subject. And I know some of the companies who are getting checks from the US government to scale up, right, innovative Battery Technologies, in innovative chip manufacturing. And I have to say this is the best of America. I see some really great public private partnerships that are onshoring vital national interest in chips and batteries. And so I'm happy to see it happening but I also know there will be drift and there will be waste along the way, but compare that, David, to the 8,000,000,000,000 we've spent over the last 20 years on war policy and what we've gotten from that. So, you know, if you would rather see us take chances here on innovative battery technologies that waste Jason Calacanis (01:25:26): potential waste, but not as wasteful as a war. Got it. David Sacks (01:25:28): Well, of course, I mean, the first thing we gotta do is turn off all these crazy wars, but that can't be the bar because that's a very low bar. I mean, anything's more productive than Speaker 4 (01:25:36): war. David Sacks (01:25:36): Wasting the money blowing up other countries that we don't need to be involved in. I mean, remember, we do have a $32,000,000,000,000 debt. Jason Calacanis (01:25:44): I think a great thing to do here is what they should have done with Tesla, which is when they gave that $500,000,000 loan to Tesla. They should have gotten 10% of that in warrants to buy Tesla shares at the IPO. 50,000,000 at that IPO would have gone, what, 200 x? And that would have been an incredible payday. So if they give this 9,200,000,000 to Ford, why not get 900,000,000 in 1 So David Sacks (01:26:05): you want governments to come a VC? Jason Calacanis (01:26:07): No. I want them to get a little participation in the, upside of the company. I don't want them to own it. I want them Speaker 4 (01:26:13): to have Jason Calacanis (01:26:14): potential participation. Well, I I I'm giving a modest number here. So Right David Sacks (01:26:18): now, they're a VC without participation. Speaker 4 (01:26:20): But Jason Calacanis (01:26:21): Right now, they're a loan that gets paid back with interest. And I'm saying give them some upside in the equity, even if it's a small piece. Would you object to that, Saks? David Sacks (01:26:28): You basically want to make them a venture debt provider, like, SVB? Jason Calacanis (01:26:31): Basically, yeah, like venture death. Like, give them a pot sweetener. Yes. Speaker 4 (01:26:35): Yes. Give them a pot sweetener. David Sacks (01:26:36): Why not? You didn't work out so Speaker 4 (01:26:37): good for SVP. David Sacks (01:26:38): You may not remember that. Speaker 4 (01:26:39): But It would have worked Jason Calacanis (01:26:40): out incredibly well with their pressing David Sacks (01:26:42): It doesn't solve my problem. You might drive a better deal for the US government in that case, which is fine with me, but it doesn't solve my objection, which is at the end of the day, these decisions are gonna be made based on political criteria. Jason Calacanis (01:26:54): Yes. Got it. Okay. And we're David Sacks (01:26:55): gonna end up with crony capitalism and state capitalism. As opposed to entrepreneurial Calacanis. Speaker 4 (01:26:59): Well, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:59): this is in support of that because this is a deal where that 9,800,000,000 does come over, but these are basically like loans and loan guarantees. You still have to put equity yourself. That doesn't solve anybody's problem, meaning you need to still be entrepreneurial, and there needs to be risk capital. In this case, the risk capital is coming from Ford and SK. And I think that that's my understanding of this Speaker 4 (01:27:19): top is that this was like 90% Jason Calacanis (01:27:21): of the costs or 95% of the costs. So there's not much risk capital here from Ford. Or SK. I mean, it might be opportunity cost, but it's not. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:28): The full cost of these 3 factories is almost $13,000,000,000. So there's still a nontrivial amount of risk risk capital that has to get put to work here. Jason Calacanis (01:27:37): Man, I would love to only have to put up 20% on the dollar. 30¢ on the dollar at my investments. David Sacks (01:27:43): I think Brad does make a good point about the security of our supply chain. Speaker 4 (01:27:47): Mhmm. David Sacks (01:27:47): I'm more willing to use the sort of industrial policy we're talking about something that is vital to the security of the United States. I think you should make You were Speaker 4 (01:27:54): you were scoring that. With chips. David Sacks (01:27:56): I don't think electric vehicles rise to that quite that level. Jason Calacanis (01:27:59): Batteries might? I don't know. David Sacks (01:28:01): I wouldn't say batteries do, but I think obtaining a secure supply of the rare earths that are needed to make batteries. There's maybe a role for government David Friedberg (01:28:10): in there. David, the reason batteries must is because the only way to wean ourself off of the dependence we have on fossil fuels around the world. And even though we produce and we're now a net exporter of of oil, the reality is we're still in entanglements around the world because the world is dependent upon those fossil fuels. And so I I I do think that that is a national security risk, having, you know, energy independence, not only for ourselves. Jason Calacanis (01:28:39): If Germany was energy independent and kept their nuclear running and didn't have Nord Stream, we'd have a different situation here right Speaker 4 (01:28:44): now. We'd have a David Sacks (01:28:46): We got plenty of oil and gas over here. Jason Calacanis (01:28:48): Alright, everybody. There you have it from the architect that drove a trail trigger warning. I liked your Greta Thunberg tweet Schlamath. That was a really good tweet. Shout out to Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:58): Oh my god. The number of number of people. I I mean, did Jason Calacanis (01:29:02): the mids like it or the mids hated it? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:04): What happened? Can I just address what this means? So when I think of somebody as a mid, it's somebody that is just a hapless impotent cuck that can't think of themselves. David Sacks (01:29:16): Dramataglasiast? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:18): And so what I what I did need is that, you know, You Jason Calacanis (01:29:21): you you're just going to be in the end of summer week. You know what this is? It's the all in podcast for clicks. If you, ten people have started Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:28): Can I finish that? Jason Calacanis (01:29:29): Yes. Go ahead. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:30): It has nothing to do with your financial status. It's just everything to do with your open mindedness. And there are these people that are just so reactive on Twitter. I feel a little bit sad because like in a few years, they'll still be very unaccomplished and yet still be wondering who they can blame now, and it'll just be them. Jason Calacanis (01:29:50): Blame themselves. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:51): So I would just encourage these people to just fucking do some work. Put your head down. Jason Calacanis (01:29:56): Do the work. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:57): My god. Jason Calacanis (01:29:58): Build something. Make something. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:59): So anyways, most most of the comments were really great and interesting. And then there's a couple of people who are like, oh my god. How dare you? You know, and it's like, how dare I what? How dare I what exactly? Jason Calacanis (01:30:10): You can tell that, this podcast has truly become successful when The mainstream media fights up and punches up to try to get us to respond to them to get more people to subscribe to their sub stack while playing, Matt. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:21): I'll tell you the funniest thing. The funniest thing was I I did this tweet about Buffet. And then people are like, oh, but I thought you compared yourself to Buffet. And I was like, no. No comparison. Just benchmarks. And if they get tweaked about the word comparison versus benchmark, And then Carson Block jumps in, and I texted Carson on the side. I was like, bro, I'm just trolling the mids. Just don't worry. This is all bullshit. It's not just for shits again. Just to try do it. I do it when I'm either pooing or I haven't jet lagged. Jason Calacanis (01:30:52): It's one of the It's on ambient or while taking a dump or both. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:56): No ambien. No. Jason Calacanis (01:30:57): For the dictator, the architect, and Besty Brad, the 5th bestie, and our mass our new mascot, Matt the mascot, who'll be writing 3 more substacks about us. I am The world's greatest moderator. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:12): Can we make that shit bread logo, our logo? Speaker 4 (01:31:16): Yes. Make it to co twos Jason Calacanis (01:31:20): austerity measure lunch, we salute you. The all in lunch will not be a By the way, did Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:26): you guys touch it? Do you know what it was? Was it Brett? David Friedberg (01:31:28): Did you touch it? I didn't touch it. David Sacks (01:31:30): No. Jason Calacanis (01:31:30): What was it? David Sacks (01:31:31): I abandoned it immediately. David Friedberg (01:31:33): It's a vegan pretzel. I don't know. Speaker 4 (01:31:35): How is a vegan? Is that what they call dog poop now a vegan pretzel? Jason Calacanis (01:31:40): Is that what they call it? David Friedberg (01:31:41): Friedberg was gonna be there. Jason Calacanis (01:31:42): A vegan? Speaker 4 (01:31:44): Well, the Jason Calacanis (01:31:44): I mean, David Sacks (01:31:46): The WEF wants us eating insects. So this is next. So this is next. Jason Calacanis (01:31:49): I think that's probably what it is. It looks like a vegan doughnut slash a do do. It's it looks like David Friedberg (01:31:56): a French old sassy face face when he opened that box. Speaker 4 (01:32:00): He just stroked it up around. Just, like, literally let your goddamn tags and David Friedberg (01:32:04): let it fall. As good. David Sacks (01:32:06): I thought my seven year old had played it trick on me because he came to those types of, like, It looks like Speaker 4 (01:32:11): one of those peak doodos, the rubber ones. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:13): I know that. I honestly throw in Amazon once. I've done that, Danny. You throw it on. Jason Calacanis (01:32:18): Fake doo doo is great. I'm gonna buy some fake doo doo. Actually, you know what they should do? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:22): They should put that. Code 2 should make fake doo Jason Calacanis (01:32:24): doo and put it in the gift bag for all in summit. That would be a great little merch item. Alright. We'll see you all next time. Bye bye. Speaker 4 (01:32:33): Your winter's ride. Speaker 6 (01:32:36): Rainman, David Sachs. And it said Speaker 4 (01:32:37): we opened sits to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. David Sacks (01:32:49): Like, what, airliners ride. Speaker 4 (01:32:53): Besty's our car. That is my dog taking it. I was driveway steps. We should all just get a room Jason Calacanis (01:33:04): and have one big huge, George, because they're always useless. Speaker 6 (01:33:07): It's like it's like sexual tension, Jason Calacanis (01:33:09): but they just need Speaker 4 (01:33:09): to release that mountain. David Friedberg (01:33:13): What? Your feet? Speaker 4 (01:33:17): Where did you get mercy's artifacts?