对话塔克·卡尔森，以及 OpenAI 内乱解析

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): This is Saks's big day. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:01): There he is. Jason Calacanis (00:00:02): Oh, there's talk. Oh, look at the smile on Saks's face. David Sacks (00:00:06): This is the greatest day in the history of the all in Jason Calacanis (00:00:08): part. Look. Tucker Carlson (00:00:16): Shame to that. It sucks. It's so fun. Jason Calacanis (00:00:18): I'm honored. Oh, woah. I think Tucker Carlson (00:00:22): it's gotta Jason Calacanis (00:00:22): get it got it should go out quickly. David Sacks (00:00:24): How threatened do you feel right now? This is the highest rated host in in cable history. This is the world's true greatest moderator David Friedberg (00:00:31): Exactly. Jason Calacanis (00:00:32): No doubt. No doubt. Oops. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:33): So then, Zack, where is this in relation to your marriage and the birth of your children? Jason Calacanis (00:00:37): Don't ask. David Sacks (00:00:38): It's right up there. Jason Calacanis (00:00:39): Up there. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:39): He's like, what children? Tucker Carlson (00:00:40): It is for me. David Sanders. Jason Calacanis (00:00:50): And as I said, we open source it to the fans and they've just gone for reason. Love you Alright, everybody. We've got an amazing guest for you today here on. He all in podcast Saks. His dream has come true. Tucker Clawson is with us today. You know, Tucker, he was the number one TV host for much of the past decade, including last year. Len, shockingly, he was fired from Fox News on April 24th. Reason for the firing It's never been pinned down, but maybe we'll get into it today. And we're gonna find out what is motivating, a post Fox news tucker, who has obviously launched a show on x, the platform formerly known as Twitter. He's done 42 episodes, and counting. He's had Everybody from Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, Dave Portnoy, and the newly elected president of Argentina on the program. So Welcome to the all in podcast, Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson (00:01:51): Thank you for having me. It is it is a legit honor to be here. Jason Calacanis (00:01:55): Two part question to kick us off here. First, have you figured out why you were fired from Fox, and let's get into that a bit And second, given that you were the number one host for for much of the past decade, and I think probably in the top 5 highest paid of all time. What's motivating now? What's the mission here as an independent journalist? Take those two questions to whichever order you like. Tucker Carlson (00:02:19): I I don't know why it was fired. I mean, it kind of is an agatha Christie story. There are like so many suspects. You know what I mean? But I I don't know. I was never told I can only speculate. There were a lot of different things going on. I had a lot of opinions that were unpopular you know, with people who might have influenced, my show getting canceled, so I I I really don't know. I will say you know, right after it happened, people said, well, how can they fire the top guy? And because that's what it is. I'm certainly not the 1st high rated host to get fired, it's not only about ratings. There are a lot of different factors. It's a big company you all have worked for and run big companies, and you know it's There's a lot of complicated stuff going on, and, and it's never exactly clear, you know, why things happen the way they do, but I was not shocked by it. I mean, I was shocked by it in a short term I didn't expect to have my show canceled that morning. But, but I was not shocked at all, when I thought about it for a minute, I'd expected that you know, you can't kind of give the finger to everybody, and persist in a in a corporate job. So I no hard feelings. I and I and I, in fact, I said on the call when I received the news. It's it's not my company. And I never felt like I had a right to be on the air. I was I was working at the pleasure of the family that runs the company, who treated me very well, and and, and they wanted me off. And so I was off. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:41): Did you ever have moments where somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, Advertiser XYZ is getting uncomfortable or we're trying to lend this new advertiser and they want you to shape things in route. Did you ever feel that pressure? Is that, or is that just a thing that is kind of like a boogeyman that doesn't actually exist? Tucker Carlson (00:03:59): Oh, wait. Well, it not only exists. It defines news coverage. Especially on pharma, you know, because pharma is the biggest advertiser in television is, I know you know, and so for sure. I mean, if you know, Pfizer sponsoring your show, you're not gonna question the vaxx. I mean, it's kind of that simple. So absolutely. And of course, that's why they're the biggest advertiser, so they can shape news cover I mean, that's that's the point. But, I personally never had a single person say to me, don't say this, that I ever I haven't thought about it too much, but that's certainly I was there 14 years, and I I didn't have that experience regularly at or at all, really, that I can remember. And and I think and I think you know, my producers may have been told that, but it it didn't ever get to me because I was always really clear, which is, I I always said, I'm allowed to the supervisors there, you know, I work for your company. I don't own this network. All I can control is what I say, if you don't like what I say, don't have me on TV, but as long as I'm on TV, I'm gonna say what I think is true, and and a million cases I said only part of what I think, not because of my employer, but just because you shouldn't actually say everything you think. I mean, I have some crack pod views too. Or I have resentments that I didn't wanna work out on the air. I mean, I did, you know, you're strain yourself and you walk to as you do in your personal life, but on no question of principle did I ever pull back? Because I just I wouldn't do that. And again, I was just super clear. If you don't like what I'm saying, take me off the air, but I'm not gonna you know, tow a line. And because I was so clear about that, I I just think they didn't think it was worth having some kind of dispute with me and to their great credit, for the time that I was there, and I said this many times in public, like, I took positions on the Ukraine war on the COVID vaccine, on the COVID lockdowns, among other issues that I think, you know, I've been vin vindicated on pretty conclusively on the origins of COVID. And all of those are super unpopular on January 6th, which was so hated at the company where I worked at people was a number of people, including on air people, four that I can think of resigned in protest over my over me suggesting that actually was more complicated than it looked and there were a bunch of federal agents in the crowd. Tucker Carlson (00:06:06): How can you say that? Are you claiming a false flag? Well, no, not wouldn't use that phrase, but like this is something weird going on here. Well, I've been vindicated on that. I'm that sounds like I'm bragging. I'm not. I'm just stating factually that, I said things that were truly hated by a lot of the people who work there, and they let me keep saying them. So it's kinda hard to complain, really, at this point, right? Again, it's not my company. David Sacks (00:06:30): Just from a business standpoint, I think it's weird for a company to fire their top performer and to do so without giving any notes. I mean, if any of us had a superstar executive or a superstar engineer, like a 100 x engineer, working at one of our companies. And like day in and day out, they were, you know, hitting every milestone and crushing it, Like, if you had a problem with them, you would give them a no. You would just, like, try to say, hey. Can we just, like so I just think from, like, a business standpoint, it's so weird. It just seems like self destructive. And I think it was. I mean, their ratings really cratered in the wake. Right. Making this change. Maybe they've come back a little bit, but I don't think it's ever been the same. I just think it's a crazy way to operate a business. So, yeah, it's their right. I mean, they can do whatever they want, but don't understand it as a way of doing business. Tucker Carlson (00:07:19): Well, I don't understand it as a way of living either. I mean, you know, you everybody in the course of life, whether as a a parent or an employer or just a friend has to deliver uncomfortable news or disagree with someone that you deal with, and you have a moral obligation to explain the disagreement. You you can't just, you know, levy the penalty and leave it at that. You have to explain why you're doing that. And and I think that's it's it's incumbent on us morally to do that. I wasn't that mad about it actually because I know the rules of that particular business, which are are really harsh. And and I've been in it, you know, my whole life. And so I've seen a lot of people as talented or more talented than I meet bad ends and in, you know, for reasons that I thought were not justified. And and I I know them all really well. So I you you work in a business like that. You know what it is you know, the black car is gonna show up at 3 AM and Toshya, and that's just what it is. You know what I mean? You can kinda whine about it, you know? Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:08:12): Well, how much of it was the you know, this is a family owned business. Mhmm. And the patriarch obviously pioneered opinion based you know, journalism slash entertainment commentary. And the younger ones maybe were on the other side of, the political aisle and maybe were not as, I don't know, cutthroat or maybe didn't share the same philosophy, of, their dad. What was your relationship like with the the new generation with Rupert, etcetera? And how much did that play into it? Do you think? Tucker Carlson (00:08:44): Well, my my relationship with the father and son who are directly involved in in that company was, from my perspective, very strong. And, I will say this about the Murdochs, they're very polite. I mean, they're they're really kind of very anglo, almost elaborately polite in a way that I'm not mocking, I'm complimenting, and, they're not confrontational, they're not nasty in the way that they deal with people directly. And and I prefer that as sort of a way of communicating with people. So I got along with them very, very well. I always liked them, and they were very nice to me, elaborately nice to me, and always gave me assurances of my right to say what I thought was was true. And so again, I can only speculate. I will say though, and you see this with Trump, especially I don't think I'm anywhere near as divisive as Trump. Obviously, I'm not as powerful as Trump. I'm not the figure trump is, but one thing that maybe Trump and I have in common is we're really disliked by a certain set of people, you know, affluent people, highly educated people, people who work at NGOs, government finance, you know, really kind of hate a certain brand of politics. So it's not being conservative. You can be conservative in that sort of, you know, I work at Kato or heritage, right? You know, we need to get back to free trade or whatever, that kind of thing, the Reaganite foreign policy, that's all fine. But if you start asking questions like, well, why doesn't our country act in its own interest. There's something about that that's uniquely offensive to them, to that whole class of people. Now, I could not have more contempt or loathing for those people having grown up among them. I know how repulsive they are. So, you know, their their hatred of me is I wear as a badge of honor, it actually makes me happy. But it's hard to take I would say. I mean, again, I'm I'm dyspeculating in my specific case, but I know more broadly, like it's very hard to have lunch at the Four Seasons in Jackson, during the winter because there's some private equity wife who's gonna scream at you in your way to the men's room because that world hates you. Tucker Carlson (00:10:37): And so if you live in that world and you're employing someone like me, you know, you hear about it. I guess that's my point. You hear about it. Like, what? That guy's a Nazi. Jason Calacanis (00:10:47): You know, like, Tucker Carlson (00:10:48): what's the deal with that? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:49): I wanna actually pull this thread. I would love your perspective on the state of American society. Just less on the political spectrum of Republican versus democrat. But just, just observe for us Tucker, what do you see in American society? Where are we as a society? What has happened? What is happening? Tucker Carlson (00:11:06): Well, this isn't an 8 hour podcast. I could actually give you my very lengthy theories and views on that, but I will just say one thing I've been thinking about a lot recently. I just have been had my college roommate staying at my house, and, you know, we're, of course, the same age, known each other, our whole adult lives, He's been very successful and he lives in a, you know, an enclave of very, very successful people. And and so we're we're familiar with this culture. And we were talking about American and he's an immigrant family. So he's got a kind of broader persp I would argue a broader perspective on, like, America. He's 54 as I am. And we're talking about how, obviously, this is not a democracy. It's not even a a sort of decent, facsimile of a democracy. It's to call it a democracy is like ridiculous, actually. But it's even worse than that. Our politics and not just our politics, but our public conversation reflects the very specific and parochial concerns of a tiny tiny group of people, which is middle aged affluent women who tend to be very angry and tend to, mostly with their husbands, but probably for other reasons too, and exercise this like wildly disproportionate power over what we can talk about and think about and and the rules that the rest of us live by it's just kind of amazing, and he happens to live in Jackson, Wyoming. So and I go there, you know, to ski into fish. And I have for a very long time, and I always say to him, I can't go anymore because I yelled at at lunch over my elk chili or in the lift line or whatever. Or at the, you know, west side market, literally, a relative of mine yelled at me while buying bananas in the, you know, in the west side market she lives there. And I'm thinking, what is it about this group of people that hates me so much when, again, I know them really well. I'm related in some cases to them. So I and I'm not quite sure, but I just I I see our politics and our concerns, which if you take 3 steps back or like insanely picky like trans black lives matter. Well, I never said they didn't, but like if that's your main public policy a to celebrate trans black lives in a country of 360,000,000 people. It's got a lot of big problems. Tucker Carlson (00:13:17): You are not seeing the whole picture. It's like What is that? And what it is again is the disproportionate influence of a class of people and their neurosis I wouldn't even say policy concerns, but like there are things they're worried about and they're weird personal ticks. And like the results of years of therapy and SSRIs on their brains, like that kind of controls our whole conversation. And, my friend was saying because he's really smart, he's like, yeah, but the good news is, this can't last because it's just too stupid. And at some point very soon, the country is gonna revert to the place that all countries begin, which is in a conversation about things that matter? Like, who comprises the population? Do we have enough water? Where are we on energy exactly? How are we gonna manage these complex relationships with other countries? Like the things that, you know, the stuff of government, the stuff of Resources. Yeah. Well, of course, resources, but like just the basic questions that should dominate the consciousness of any of any country and should dominate our public conversation. It's like our public obsessions are getting increasingly irrelevant, actually. Increasingly, it's like crazy David Sacks (00:14:24): as our problems get bigger. Tucker Carlson (00:14:25): Yeah. And David Sacks (00:14:26): the conversation becomes the conversation becomes more inane as the problems get bigger. Tucker Carlson (00:14:30): Thank you. Exactly. So when you look Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:31): at that, that cohorts disproportionate impact and then you translated, for example, last night, there was, I guess, like, an almost riot protests when folks were trying to light the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, I guess. And there was like a huge pro Chamath, I think, somebody check me out if this is wrong protest and then people were pushing back on the cops and all of this stuff. And all these folks were trying to do was just like the Christmas tree. Can you connect the dots? How does that cohort get to? Tucker Carlson (00:15:01): It it no. But it's it's actually a branch from the same tree. Christmas tree in this case, be because that whole conversation, well, I think it's interesting and I think it's, you know, geopolitically significant and and I've you know, been to those countries and I know people there, so I'm like interested in it. And there's a lot to care about and be interested in. But the displacement of all of our public passions onto a conflict in a foreign country. However, important that conflict may be really kind of tells you a lot. It's like, in other words, yeah, I care what's happening between Israel and Hamas. I have views on it which are probably pretty mainstream views, whatever. I don't have any very interesting views on it, but it it it's a little weird for your entire country 1000 of miles away to be so preoccupied with that conflict that they miss big history changing events happening like in their own country. And I think that's again a species of the same problem, we are unable to the the problems that confront us are so big that we can't deal with them. And I and, actually, my wife and I had this conversation the night. I was for years, magazine writer, and I'd have to file every Friday. I work for Bill Crystal at the weekly standard. And obviously, I regret that, but it was interesting at the time. And I have to find the story every week. And and I'd stamp all night because I'm very lazy and I put stuff off. And I'd stamp every Thursday night all night. Am I able to recall it's going to the print, you know, it's going to printing press in Pennsylvania. This was back when it was in print, and you gotta file it. And right around 8:30 AM on Friday morning, I would have overwhelming urge to rearrange the books on my shelves in my library by title or by subject. I didn't, like, have all these weird, kind of, like, librarian fantasies about rearranging books, which, you know, on a normal day, like, why would you do that and better things to do? But as my problems mounted and I couldn't like write the lead I wanted, I would transfer all my anxiety onto something I felt I could control or there was of lower stakes, less consequence. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing a little bit. Like we care more about foreign wars and trans lives as like the obvious things that hold our society together start to fall apart because like, how do you even deal with that? Am I'm I don't know if I'm being very articulate, but I think that's what's happening. Jason Calacanis (00:17:11): Perfect sense. What do you put on the top of that list of things we should be focused on, Tucker? Tucker Carlson (00:17:15): Oh, I mean, from my perspective, by Jason Calacanis (00:17:18): far the motion. 1, 2, 3, this is what America needs to put its energy on. Tucker Carlson (00:17:22): It's not even close. National cohesion, and by which I mean something specific, what does the majority of the country have in common with one another? Because look, if it it it it the arc of the last century's his American history is super super interesting. So you have this massive influx of immigration you know, the Ellis Island generation late, 18th or 19th early 20th century. And it's both good and bad. We only remember the good, but there was a lot of social volatility, like a lot. Like, the mayor of Chicago got shot in his house. It was bombings on Wall Street. Like, the whole the wobblies, the anarchists, like the foot soldiers that were were immigrants, working class European immigrants. And part of the problem was there was a lot of immigrants and Mitzaku and Benzetti, you know, who shot the shot the clerk in, Was it Brockton mass? Anyway, it was in mass outside Boston. They had been in the country for just a few years, and they immediately got sucked into radical politics. Well, why was that? Well, cause they weren't kind of bought in or rooted in or hadn't been fully assimilated into American society. So then you had the first World War, and we basically shut down immigration, and we have this period of settling We're like all Americans, let's through, think through our civic religion, what ties us together, and then that leads into October of 29, and you do have this national crisis, last for more than a decade and we didn't blow up. And we had a successful, you know, the CCC, we like had these big programs, which I'll say this is a conservative kind of worked. In keeping people fed and focused, gave them purpose, kept the country from from collapsing during the Great Depression. If that happened now, When there is no broad agreement on what it means to be an American, no agreement at all on what we all have in common, I don't think we can withstand it, actually. I really don't. And I'm not even convinced it matters as much what that civic religion is as it does that we have one. Tucker Carlson (00:19:13): If we don't have anything that ties us together, when that day comes, and you know what I mean when the economic crisis comes, because it's coming, like, what's that gonna look like? It's gonna be very scary. And I so that's what I'm most worried about by far. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:28): How do you define national cohesion, I guess, maybe then? Like, what are the few elements that you think America needs to agree on as a as a majority? Tucker Carlson (00:19:36): Wake me up from a deep sleep and ask me what it means to be an American. Okay. And then do the same to a 1000 other people, and we'll just do a survey on it. And do the majority of those people give the same answer? And if they don't, like, so this is okay. This I mean, I've all so many theories, god, don't I'm gonna I'm gonna control myself, but I would just say one other thing, which is we overestimate people's ability to metabolize change. It's, you know, I'm not like a strict Darwinist or anything, but I do sort of believe that over time people adapt to their environment and that, you know, in us is Most of our abilities are in born. Like that's just true. Sorry. I have dogs. I know that. And people just haven't, you know, the world didn't change that much from, you know, 4 60 or whatever the sacking of Rome until the Renaissance, it just didn't. And then the industrial revolution to now has been like such massive change that is driving people insane. People can't handle relentless change. And technologists love relentless change, and I like a lot of technologists. A couple of really good friends of mine, but their anomalies A lot of them are literally autistic. I'm not attacking them. I'm praising them, but they're different than most people. Jason Calacanis (00:20:43): -You know? -Sack's song. -Right now, Tucker. Tucker Carlson (00:20:45): -Right? Wait. You know, like, they can handle it. They can Like, they want a world that's totally different from today's world tomorrow. They want Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:52): that. They they they thrive in that flux. They like it. Tucker Carlson (00:20:55): Right. But they just don't they they don't understand how rare they are. And if you impose that on a society and you don't ever have a period where you pause and let things settle, you will blow up that society. And the Chinese who I don't admire from any things at all, know this. And I admire that about them. They think that change for its its own sake is dangerous. Now, they think it's dangerous to their power and they're absolutely right, but it's also dangerous just like the idea of a society. What is a society? And so, anyway, I I could go on and on and on, but that that's my main concern. David Friedberg (00:21:28): Let me propose a theory and and see if you react to it. I think that there's a big orientation in society where it's constantly about trying to shift the power dynamics that everyone always feels like they don't have something that someone else has. And that other person that has it for some reason, is advantaged in a way that to them always feels unfair. And everyone feels this way. Everyone. Tucker Carlson (00:21:53): That's right. David Friedberg (00:21:53): You're you're at the top of the food chain. You feel like someone else has something you don't have, and it's unfair and the system is set up that way. No matter where you sit, And as a result of that and and by the way, this goes about, I get, I get wax super philosophical element of stuff, but, like, Buddhism always had this point that, like, the desire that humans have is the one thing that causes all of societal suffering behavior, everything. But it all comes down to this. It's that you see that someone else has something, you desire it, and then you wanna change the dynamic of how the system, how society is organized to, to fix that. The thing about technology, if you think back, the catapult gave an advantage to an army that allowed them to win in a war, so did the rifle, so did the nuclear bomb, that ultimately technology was the enabling force that allowed a rapid shift in power dynamics. And all technology ultimately creates leverage for the creator of the technology initially, and then it diffuses to everyone. But that is perhaps why I this is a theory I have, which is that there's generally pessimism towards technology because it creates unfair advantages that shifts the power dynamic too quickly. And too advantageously. And it's also why I think you don't hear a lot of support for technology from most of society because technology creators are such a small percentage of society. So I don't know if that that resonates with your point, but for me, it's always been like Tucker Carlson (00:23:16): I think that's really smart, and I think it's indisputably true. Abs absolutely. I will say you're making an argument in addition to many other things against tribalisms because tribalism sensuates these pre existing impulses in people, which again, like all impulses are just inborn. Like, the human nature is immutable. So let's just start there. It cannot be changed. AI will not change human nature. It'll change everything, but but human nature. And, you know, NV and, you know, the the fact that the fact that prosperity is a relative measure above starvation Right. It's like if there's a famous Russian proverb, like, you know, I've got a cow. My neighbor has a cow. He gets a cow. Now he has 2 cows. I kill his cow. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:03): Right. Totally. Tucker Carlson (00:24:04): Right. It's just right. Okay. So but but tribalism, especially in a country like ours, which as noted doesn't have a working majority of people with obvious connection to each other. It really really exacerbates that a lot. And because it makes it more obvious, so it's not so all of a sudden, it's not just like, Hey, the smart kids are richer. They have 2 cows. It's like the Jews are richer, or the Indians are richer, or the whites are richer, or whatever. You know, it's like just name the group, and that once you go down that road, you know, it's it that that leads to violence and mass violence, actually. Jason Calacanis (00:24:41): A lot of p people listening right now Tucker are probably a little bit, confused hearing you talk about cohesion of the country when most people would look at, you know, the tribalism is almost most manifested in cable news. You and Rachel Maddow every night were, you know, number 1 and number 2 in the ratings, taking either side of the tribe. So Is this something that's evolved? And how did your time in cable news inform you to this? Because most people would say, like, wait, isn't Tucker and Rachel? Like, isn't that aren't those those the 2 tribe leaders? Tucker Carlson (00:25:14): I think I think there are dumb people who think that. But, no, here's the difference. My my views, Wait. Jason Calacanis (00:25:20): He's not coming. Tucker Carlson (00:25:21): Hold on. Jason Calacanis (00:25:21): I'm just saying I'm not including you with Tucker Carlson (00:25:22): that. I'm not including you. No. No. No. No. It's it's David Sacks (00:25:26): just show. I'm Jason Calacanis (00:25:28): sorry. It's all good. Why don't you do that different than the other catalysts? Tucker Carlson (00:25:38): No. I I love and not only do I love I don't always love, but I certainly think that reason disagreement is essential, it's the alternative to violence, by the way. That's what that is. Debate and politics are the alternative violence. You get 2 choices. We're gonna do it by arguing about it, or we're gonna do it by force. Okay? So so I absolutely think it's essential to debate things. Because if we don't, then we just have to shoot each other and I'm against that. But that's very different from tribalism. Because tribalism is based on things that you can't change. So for example, in 2002, I hosted a show on CNN it was the run up to the war in Iraq. I was uncomfortable with the idea that we would be invading Iraq to respond to an attack on America that had nothing to do with Iraq. I did think that didn't make sense. But I was sold on the idea finally by someone, and I foolishly, parroted the Bush administration's line on that. So I was a pro war person for a time. Then I went to Iraq and I changed my views completely. So I I switched sides completely and I wound up on the other side, the anti war in Iraq. And that took about a week. I was born a white man. You were born whatever you are, everyone's born, whatever they are. That can't change. So if we stoke division along lines that can't be changed, then we're really at a cul de sac. Our differences can never be resolved. You will always be what you are. You can't change it. And the same for me. And so those are the things that wind up becoming generational conflicts, civil wars, Rwanda. And so I've always been against that my entire life and my entire time on Fox, I argued against that. I think affirmative actions completely, not only moral, because it's an insult to the idea of America, which is like the people who do the best get the most, but it is also a recipe over time for violence. Tucker Carlson (00:27:30): And I made that case. I made that case every single day you know, since David and I had lunch 30 years ago, I've I've never not thought that. I've always had the doctor Seuss view of race relations, which is we should de emphasize race, and elevate, you know, merit, achievement, hard work, character, the things that we can control. And, and but the other side has gone and by the way, liberals used to agree with me. That used to be a liberal position within my lifetime, and then all of a sudden became a Nazi position. And I, you know, that's just an manipulation of language, but the truth is on the race stuff, which is what matters over time. If you convince people to hate others on the basis of their race, you've committed a massive sin and you've done a lot to wreck our country, that's coming from the left. I'm sorry. That's just true. David Sacks (00:28:17): To connect these ideas. I think that is a major source of our division is one of the reasons why people have a hard time saying what it means to be an American is because there are willing visions of what it means to be an American. The left has been trying to change or rewrite American history. So, for example, the key year in American history, the founding of the nation was not 1776 with the declaration of independence. It was 16 19. Right? This is the base of the whole 1619 project to the New York Times is that the founding of the nation began with the importation of slavery to the new world. That was the key year. And so I think there has been an effort for a long time on the part of the left to rewrite what it means to be an American and and to rewrite American history. It's actually in a weird way. It's the opposite of what Deng Xiaoping did in China where Dung basically he flipped the the doctrine over there from Communism to Capitalism. He didn't outright declare it. He said that, you know, it doesn't matter whether a cat is is white or black as long as it catches mice. And they didn't change the name. They didn't change the party. It's still the Chinese Communist party. They didn't change the flag, but he did a hot swap at the back end. To Calacanis. And, you know, they changed what the country was about in that in economically. It worked out great for them. I think in a similar way in the United States. They haven't changed the flag. They haven't changed the name, but there is an attempt to hot swap the back end of what it means to be an American. And I think this is the root of the conflict. Tucker Carlson (00:29:45): I mean, I agree with that completely, and I don't think we've thought through what it means to change you know, out of out of many one to out of one many, I I think that's, we've set ourselves up for something really, really scary for, again, for for violent conflict. Cause I don't see how that that resolves it itself. You know, you Why is people understand this in a diverse society, plural society, whatever you call it, a society where, you know, you've got a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds and shades and religions and all You need to deemphasize the things that divide us inherently and emphasize the things that unite us. I could I that's not hard. And it's also so obvious that if you're not doing it, my first question is why are you not doing that? I mean, why are you not? And and that kind of explains the true loathing that I have for the people in charge on both sides, because like, if you did that in your household with your children, your kids would be in rehab or jail or dead. It's that obvious, like you would never do that to your kids. So why would you do that to your population? Jason Calacanis (00:30:52): Sure. You had a question. David Friedberg (00:30:54): Well, where does responsibility lie there, Tucker? What's the mechanism for doing that? Cause we often and I find In conversations, everyone says the government should. And I often question why the government should anything. In my in my life, in in in my social settings, in how I live, how I do business, Does the government the federal government in the United States have a role in responsibility to do what what you're suggesting we need to do in the United States, or is it the media, or is it social leaders or is it business leaders, or is it local governments who is responsible ultimately for creating the social cohesion necessary for the US to enter a new era of prosperity and, and why is that the right group to be responsible? Tucker Carlson (00:31:47): Well, look, I would say, well, I it's a great question, and I would say a new era of pros era of prosperity, I don't think that's really the goal. We have prosperity. And I think it's a real question as to whether people want Right. Jason Calacanis (00:32:00): But Tucker Carlson (00:32:00): do people want pro I mean, I think there's actually a lot of evidence that human beings sort of hate prosperity actually. We're not designed to be prosperous. And the second we are, we invent climate crises to to to make us less prosperous. I mean, that's really what that is, right? But anyway, leaving that aside. It's it's incumbent on all of us, anyone with authority, anyone with a voice, anyone with money, and it's really kind of as simple, and and I do think you know, government is kind of the last to fall in line. It's it's really as simple as making things socially unacceptable. We certainly see I grew up in a world where people smoked on airplanes. Okay. Now, that was banned by the FAA, but it was also made totally socially unacceptable. You couldn't light a cigarette in someone's kitchen. Just wouldn't think to do that in the same way that you wouldn't think to give the middle finger to an old lady, which is not actually illegal, but nobody would do that because it's so appalling in the minds of everybody and everyone's happy to say, what the hell are you doing? And and I feel the same way about the race stuff. It's like oh, you know, raise this, raise that. Someone should say, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Stop that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:04): There's part of what you're saying, which I think is which I really agree with, which is this idea that we have gone as the human race, okay, from having to make major adaptations over the arc of our evolution as a species. To now what you're kind of saying is we're now dealing with all these minor adaptations, and it kind of breaks the entire circuitry of the brain, which is like before we had to fight to evade the animals, to feed ourselves, to build the machine, to all of a sudden go from an agrarian These were huge adaptations. And now we have all of this, almost surplus in excess. And it's a little bit of a head scratcher for a lot of people because now all the adaptations that are left are very minor in shape because all of these other things that would rather occupy your time, sustenance, survival, resiliency are taken off the table. I get that. The other part of what you say, which is very Renee's your art, which is like, hey, there's all this copying of people and desire, There's going to be violence if we don't figure out how to discharge it. What do you think we need to do in order to do that discharge? How do you get these people to stop focusing on the small order bits and how do we reorganize people to focus on the big order bits so that we minimize this risk of violence. We minimize the 1 group of immutable traits fighting another group of immutable traits. How how does that happen to you? Tucker Carlson (00:34:36): You know, I'm I'm I'm pretty pessimistic about about, a a country this big and we say the country. I mean, like, when I talk about the country, I'm talking about people I know or grew up with or people who speak my language. I mean, the country is so big. That something can happen in New Mexico, something big can happen in New Mexico or San Francisco for that matter, and like people don't even know. So like, but in general, I would say, you know, it's it's hard to see changing course before we're forced to. And so I, you know, I do think Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:07): You think basically there has to be a moment of something that's so egregious that causes a national reconciliation of some kind. Essentially that says, hold Tucker Carlson (00:35:16): on a second. Wanna know what I really think, which is like kind of crack pot, but I know that it's right. Yes. I I do think the problem is is is prosperity. And I've noticed this as a middle aged man, as I've gotten older, and I know people who've been successful, in some cases, very successful. And I've noticed that when they succeed when they get everything they want to destroy themselves, I've noticed this again and again and again. It's you are the dog who caught the car. And and it's and actually it's more than just having idle time. There's something there's a metaphysical quality. There's there's there are factors that I don't understand. That are are deeper, actually, but I just notice it. There's something about affluence that over time convinces people to kill themselves. And you see it like in a literal sense in the euthanasia numbers out of Calacanis out of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:06): Well, you you see it in the you you see it in a literal sense when you look at, you know, the incidence of diabetes as correlated to GDP. Tucker Carlson (00:36:12): That's exactly Exactly. Emerging economies. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:14): And as GDP cranks, the first thing that happens is heart disease cranks up and diabetes cranks up because to your point, Tucker, they start to enjoy the prosperity of their earned life. Tucker Carlson (00:36:25): But they're not enjoying it. That's the thing. The other thing you see Jason Calacanis (00:36:28): Right. Tucker Carlson (00:36:28): Is they stop having children, which is a former suicide. You're not reproducing. You you know, I mean, there's no other culture who has left a written record in history that didn't see having children as like the the primary, first of all, the primary shows a wealth and not just because they worked on your farm, but because they exist and and so do your genes, So if you start to see every it's not just a matter of culture. It happens in non christian Japan. It happens in post christian Spain. It happens in South Korea with a point 7 replacement re you know, re reproduction rate, point 7. So, what is that? And again, it's the same thing. It's that affluence kills you. And if you don't believe it fast for 3 days, Fasting by the way is a feature not just of, you know, Christian history, every religion and every culture that I'm aware of, has acknowledged fasting as an important religious ritual. Why is that? Why would foregoing food be so important? We'll try it for 3 days. And experience, you know, you're quivering like a tuning fork. You know, your sensitivity just explodes or something about eating too much, literally satisfying the most basic need of all, which is for calories, there's something about that that kills you. And there's something about foregoing it that in you, it's like super interesting. So I I and I'm Look, there's so much I don't know. I'm the last person you wanna listen to. These are deeper waters that I'm qualified to wade in. But my senses tell me very, very strongly that the core problem is having too much. And I'm not calling for taking things away. I think the global warming bullshit is bullshit. Okay? I mean, obviously it is. Climate crisis. It's propaganda, but it's coming out of it's also sincere to some extent. It's not just a power grab by Davos, It's more than that. It's people's gut level sense that we need to have less because this is killing us. And that is real. Jason Calacanis (00:38:21): Framework is Tuckertech global warming is, bullshit is David Friedberg (00:38:24): I'm just gonna pull up an image for bullshit. I just want it. I just want it. I just want his reaction Jason Calacanis (00:38:28): to it. You just said it's insulting of sides. Let's see. David Friedberg (00:38:31): No. No. But I've let's not have this out. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:38:33): No. No. David Friedberg (00:38:34): I think it's, like, just on that topic, you know, data shows, temperatures are getting warmer of a baseline of 500 years, and now things get worse. Jason Calacanis (00:38:42): Oh, no. Tucker Carlson (00:38:42): No. I'm I'm so sorry. Can I can I just make a small correction? Jason Calacanis (00:38:45): No. I I'm not Tucker Carlson (00:38:46): saying it's not getting warmer. It seems to be getting warmer. I'm really saying this whole elaborate theory that humans are causing this rise in temperatures and we know how to reverse it through say shutting down you know, the industry of hydrocarbons. Yeah. I mean, and and even if that were true, what we're doing to affect those changes shows how fraudulent the whole thing mean, you, you know, the whole arguments. I'm, but I'm not actually calling in a question that is changing. Temperature's always changed. I live in Maine, which was shaped by the glaciers 10000 years ago, so like, yeah, we've had some climate change. David Friedberg (00:39:17): Do you think that human civilization is not threatened by the change in climate? I just just this is a quick little point, but Tucker Carlson (00:39:23): Do I think him well, sure. I mean, it's threatened in some ways, probably help in other ways. I personally hate hot weather. So, you know, I don't care for it. I I think there's quite a bit of evidence that previous that that actually temperature changes can be much more radical than we think. And I'll just give you one example no one's ever explained, but you you're aware that there are all these woolly mammoths found in case to NICE in Siberia and the Soviet. Yeah. You know, early Soviet 1920s expedition to all of Russia found these things and at least one stranded expedition ate them. Okay? They ate the woolly mammoth because it had been frozen so thoroughly that the after thousands of years, the meat was still edible. David Friedberg (00:40:02): Yeah. Tucker Carlson (00:40:02): Well, the question is like, how did that happen? And I think it was the guy who ran bird's eye frozen food, who was an on freezing meat is like, wait a second. That weighs £1000, it would have to be frozen extremely quickly. And I know this from hunting too. You have to freeze meat very fast to keep it from spoiling. So how did that happen? Well, no, no, for real though, because it decomposes very a big animal if you shoot, say a moose or a big deer or a mule deer, you have to open it up immediately or the meat will spoil because the bigger it is, the more heat it generates. Right? We know it's like, okay? So how exactly did 100 or 1000 of large animals get frozen so quickly that the meat is still edible thousands of years later? An honest question that no one's ever answered. And the only potential or even plausible answer is temperature changed so fast it flash froze them. Well, how did that happen? Like, what? No. I'm and these are sincere questions. And so I'll I'll Jason Calacanis (00:40:59): look into it. David Friedberg (00:41:00): I'll get back to you. I've not about this. No. Tucker Carlson (00:41:02): No. But, like, what is that? David Friedberg (00:41:03): Flash frozen. Well, that's interesting. No. Jason Calacanis (00:41:05): I mean, David Friedberg (00:41:05): it reminds me of that Marlon Brando film. Do you remember where he, like, goes to an island and eats the, like, super rare food. It's like a kimono dragon or something. The graduates, Matthew Broadridge in it. So good. It's like the expedition to Siberia to eat the Flash frozen Woolley Mammut to make a good sequel, but it's interesting. I'm gonna look into it. I don't know the answer to how and why Tucker Carlson (00:41:25): the wind person. The the the climate that here's the point that we have physical evidence that the climate on earth within, you know, inside our atmosphere has changed dramatically so dramatically that it would, you know, kill every person who was affected by it like a number of times that we know of over the course of the history of the earth. So like I mean, I think there could, you know, we could be in for actual climate change that killed everybody. That's entirely possible. But the idea that it's the fault of the United States because of you know, you drive an F One Fifty is like so absurd. It's like hard to believe anyone takes that seriously. There's like no evidence of that actually. Sorry. David Friedberg (00:42:01): Yeah. I'm generally just an I'm a I'm an optimist about solutions anyway, but, you know, I think human ingenuity has always prevailed. So all this pessimism and catastrophizing. I, I, I do disagree out with respect to, like, there is science that indicates that there are elements that we're kind of affecting things in a, in an adverse way, a challenging way, but I'm not concerned about the challenges just because of where human technology sits and the things we can do. So I'm I have an I have a slightly different point of view, but I I hear you on it. I don't wanna, yep, debate the point. Sorry, Jamap. Go ahead. Tucker Carlson (00:42:33): Yeah. And that's whole other thing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:35): Yeah. I just wanna uplevel this back to something because I think if I had to summarize what you're saying is you're saying, Trump, our society is too prosperous And as a result, that prosperity creates, small fringe issues that dominate, which then creates an inability for us to be cohesive. So then if we have something that allows us to be forced to be more resilient, we will actually wake up from this fever and say, hold on guys. What are the big issues? Let's really figure out what matters. Let's get organized and let's go after those. And that both is a healing of the country, but it's almost like our insurance policy. Is that kind of a Is that a fair summary if I had to put what you're saying in a box, or is that Tucker Carlson (00:43:14): Well, I would I would hate ever to seem like I'm looking forward to catastrophe because I I'm not, and I I hope it I hope it doesn't unfold. Jason Calacanis (00:43:23): No, no, no, no, I No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:24): You're you're I don't Jason Calacanis (00:43:24): think so about that. Yeah. No. Tucker Carlson (00:43:25): I mean, I used to drink too much. And I know a lot of people used to drink too much and, you know, use drugs or whatever. And some of them didn't get better till they went to jail, you know, as people drink too much tend to do over time. That never happened to me and I'm so grateful for it. Like, you don't need to, you know, get to the bottom there. Jason Calacanis (00:43:40): Right. Tucker Carlson (00:43:40): You don't. I don't think that you do. I'm just I'm just really worried that we're not even having a conversation about this. And but I, again, would point to us a second ago, but there's something metaphysical here. There's something deeper than just, you know, the the search for advantage, which is a big motivator among people, but there's something more than that going on. Why are we intentionally wrecking the society? And we are. And I and I hear people say, well, it's because some people are getting paid and, yeah, it's not really an adequate answer. It's more than that. There's something going on, like instinctively people wanna some people want to tear it all down. And I don't think it's necessarily so they can rebuild it to their own advantage. I think like destruction is the point. And I just watch carefully and and I don't really know what's going on here, but something much deeper than what we're acknowledging is going on here. David Friedberg (00:44:32): Well, I think it comes back to this point about I can't get what these other people have. And there's now an insurmountable barrier that I cannot ever get there. David Sacks (00:44:40): Yes. I don't know. I mean, that doesn't explain why but hold on. That that doesn't explain, like, why, for example, Dustin Moskovitz is supporting revolutionary politics and Chase of BD, you need to be allowed. Jason Calacanis (00:44:51): I think it's a good example, Sachs. I think it does. When you have massive abundance to Chima's point about the idol mind, You know, Dasca Moskovitz has achieved more than any human could achieve 1,000,000,000 of dollars, and now he's got this surplus And then whatever, you know, to to Tucker's point, whatever he's dealing with personally now becomes this, you know, canvas under which he's gonna deploy that wealth in an source away. I think it actually does explain it. David Sacks (00:45:16): It fits more with, like, luxury beliefs than with the idea that, like, scarcity or envy is somehow driving it. Jason Calacanis (00:45:23): Yeah. But, yes, so those are luxury beliefs, and he's got a huge bankroll. Therefore, it has an outsized impact as sort of Tucker's been saying. I think the David Friedberg (00:45:31): the the luxury point is once you reach a certain point, your attention can then shift to morality. You you when you're starving in a street and you need to feed your children, Jason Calacanis (00:45:42): Correct. David Friedberg (00:45:42): You're not focusing your whole day on the morality and better treatment of others in the world and extending, you know, morality to the rest of the world. But when you have that luxury, you have to focus your attention in, in that sense. I do think that there's this large element that the term equality gets recast into every aspect of society, which ultimately leads to this general point of view of marxism, which is everyone has to have an equal outcome versus an equal opportunity And that's where the prosperity takes this. Tucker Carlson (00:46:12): You but I think I I I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I I I I think it's maybe more profound than that. I mean, you're absolutely right that only societies that have reached a certain point can afford to think about certain things. You don't see, you know, hunter gatherer societies don't debate effective altruism because they're looking for roots. Okay. So I agree with that. Yep. However, if you look at the behavior of, you know, some of the richest people in our society, and I can't speak to Dustin Moskowitz, but I I have the, you know, I know people like that. What they're funding are not exactly luxury beliefs. They're it's they're like funding instruction, actually. And so like previous generations of liberal rich people funded things like public libraries, summer camps for poor kids, remember the New York Times used to have these fundraisers, like fresh air fund or whatever. And and people made fun of it. I always kinda like that. Like you have extra money and like you know, help the poor kids. You know, whether it works or not, we can debate, but, like, I get it. But, no, Dustin Moss, if you're Dustin Moskowitz or any, I don't mean to pick on him, but any, like, really person you and you're at Baker's Bay or some discovery property that, you know, you and your billionaire friends go to. You might occur to you like, why not build one of these for like all the poor kids? Only poor black kids get to go to this resort for a week. And that might be it might work. It might not work. Like all of American social re the history of American social reform is kind of species of that. Like we're gonna help poor people by doing this or that. That's not what they're doing. It's like, hey, poor people, here's some more crack pipes. And like we're gonna it's immoral to criticize your drug addiction. And what we need are more black people selling weed or it's cool to set fires and we can't criticize you for burning down Wendy's. Tucker Carlson (00:47:44): Like, what? That is not the same thing. That is super dark. There's no even possibility of uplift or advancement. It's just the opposite. They know it. These are smart people. So like, what are we looking at? Sure. Jason Calacanis (00:47:58): Well, Tucker, he's in Dustin in Dustin's mind. I'm sure he believes he's doing the right thing. Yeah. He thinks David Sacks (00:48:05): he's funding social justice. I think, like, would be an even better example, right, where, like, it's hard to argue that what he's funding is not extremely destructive. So the revolutionary politics are not somehow coming from below the way you would expect a revolution to normally happen. They're being imposed from above. By some of the biggest winners in our society. And that is weird. That is a contradiction. Jason Calacanis (00:48:27): They're not being possible. Yeah. It is it is a bizarre outcome. Let let's it's Tucker Carlson (00:48:31): exactly what you'd expect. It's exactly what happened in the Bolshevik revolution. I mean, half of the Romanov household, the z, you know, Nicholas a second who was murdered with his wife and children in the base as you know, by the Bolsheviks, his extended households supported the Bolsheviks. Rich people and who are a small minority, by the way? There are a 1,000,000 different revolutionary groups at the end of the 1st World War in Russia, clearly was gonna be a change, clear the monarchy was doomed, and there were a lot of different options. And the most radical crazy nihilistic atheistic, option was the Bolsheviks, and they had the support of the rich people. And, like, including Desaard's family. So, like, what is that? It's the same thing. Always the same thing. It's the people with the most have the strongest desire to kill themselves and their society. That's just true. Jason Calacanis (00:49:15): It's an interesting theory. I mean, there are some people who are very thoughtful. Right? You have Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos who are thinking about philanthropy in a very thoughtful way. Now they can make mistakes, of course. But they're thinking, Hey, where's the most suffering? How do I work backwards from mosquito tends to, you know, vaccines or whatever? You know, we perceive as what they perceive is the is the most Suffering they can relieve in the world. So it does seem like it can go either way. Tucker, do David Friedberg (00:49:37): you think it's because most people that get very wealthy, very fast feel like it was unfair, and they feel guilty, and then they have to, like, destroy the system that got them there. Tucker Carlson (00:49:48): I think there's a lot. I think that's such a deep point, though, because and you I know that, you know, you live of an among people. I mean, you're familiar with this world. So, and only someone who is could say that because you're absolutely right. Rich people are not all the same, if you meet someone who made his money incrementally over time, he's much less likely to the desire. You know, you may not agree with him on everything. Maybe a good person or bad person, but he doesn't wanna tear it down. And he doesn't feel especially guilty for what he has. And I have found just a non political point as I get older, I wanna spend less time with people who hate themselves because they're not capable of loving other people. Like, that's not a good place start actually as a person to hate yourself or feel feel super guilty. It really isn't. You don't end up helping others when you feel that way. But when you find people who inherited a lot of money, we never talk about that. It's a huge problem in this country. I'm not I'm not arguing for the death tax at all. But I'm just saying as an observation, they're on off. There's a huge class of people with massive inherited wealth, and they're almost all horrible. Not all of them. I mean, I know, you know, very well. I know some of them and they're fine. Some of them are great. But as a class, they're awful and they don't help at all, and they're also super annoying and dumb. And I think it's the, well, no, it's just true, and everyone knows it's true. But I don't wanna forget about to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:02): do that for tens of 1,000,000 of Americans, right? You know, we're about to go the largest generation of wealth transfer beyond imagination. We're talking 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000,000. So that problem that you just encaps we're gonna cascade across tens of millions of Americans. Jason Calacanis (00:51:18): It's also happening in Japan. Agree. And in Japan, they have a negative growth rate as well. Let let's pivot to a a topic that Wait. Tucker Carlson (00:51:26): Can I ask you, have you been to Japan recently? Jason Calacanis (00:51:29): Yeah. I was there last year. Tucker Carlson (00:51:30): Okay. So me too. So so I you know, peep you always read like all the libertarian, economists in the Wall Street Journal, they're always like, Oh, Japan's a disaster, negative growth. And then you go to Japan. Oh, it's the best place you Jason Calacanis (00:51:44): could ever visit. It's my favorite country. It's his hands down. Did you go to Tokyo? Did you go skiing in the second? Where'd you Tucker Carlson (00:51:48): I went to Kyoto in Tokyo, and I'll be back to ski on the north island because it's like, why wouldn't you? It's like, the Oh, have you ever Jason Calacanis (00:51:54): skied in Secco? I never skied, but I'm It's incredible. I went last year. It is like, 25 out of 30 days in January February, it dumps powder, and the powder is like dust. It's it's like makes Utah powder look like heavy. It is insane. I'm going back if you wanna go, if I believe. Room. Tucker Carlson (00:52:17): You guys Jason Calacanis (00:52:18): should have, like, one piece. This is gonna make David Friedberg (00:52:18): Saks loses mind if Tucker and Jason Calacanis (00:52:22): I cut it in the cell phone. Tucker Carlson (00:52:23): But can I just ask you a question like if if Japan is is is the butt of every joke that economists tell or Yes? This focus of the concern of economy, you know, lots of chintugging and Friedberg about your pans negative rough economy. And then you go to Japan, and there's literally not one piece of litter and four year olds ride the subway on a company. Jason Calacanis (00:52:40): The highest function society you could imagine, but yet birth rate is going down. That's the only thing. The birth Tucker Carlson (00:52:45): rate is a real thing. I totally agree. That's probably the of getting atomic bombs dropped on you, or and maybe the fact also that, like, the highest testosterone males flew their planes into US aircraft carriers or whatever, I mean, probably a lot of reason. Jason Calacanis (00:52:57): Interesting theory. Tucker Carlson (00:52:58): But it it what? That's a real thing, by the way. You kill all the high teen males in your society changes, but but I don't think that we're using the right measurements, and I do think that we're taking economists a little more seriously than they deserve because they're not describing what Japan actually is, which is freaking awesome and way more functional than our society despite the massive disparity in difference. Jason Calacanis (00:53:18): What you'll find is every person in Japan takes their job that they're doing as incredibly important and has massive pride in it. That's why when you go there as an American, you're like, wait, wasn't this what America was about? It's it's it's really shocking as Americans. And she's like, this is what I want society to be. I want the person who works in the subway or the stock market or the newspaper to take their job, deadly serious, and put their best effort in. Tucker Carlson (00:53:40): So why should I care about growth rate? Wait a minute. Hold on. Why why should I care about economic growth at least as measured in the conventional sense? David Friedberg (00:53:48): The only reason is if you have a lot of That's it. Jason Calacanis (00:53:51): Yes. Yeah. Right. If David Friedberg (00:53:52): you if you if you didn't have all the debt, you don't care about it. You shouldn't care about economic growth rate with respect to the measure of prosperity. Jason Calacanis (00:53:57): The strange that happens. Right? David Sacks (00:53:59): I also, you know, if the pie isn't getting bigger and people aren't doing better, then that does sew the seeds for a revolution. I mean, all this divisiveness will start to explode if people don't feel like their circumstances are getting better off. This is where, I mean, in this in this one limited way, I guess I'd be in favor of rapid change, which is the technological area. I mean, I'm against revolutionary politics. I'm against that kind of revolutionary change because it almost never works out, but I do think that revolutionary change in the narrow category of technology is ultimately good for us. I know it creates challenges. I know it creates disruption. People do lose their jobs and have to find new ones. But it is the basis for American prosperity and the basis for our economy being productive at America having a powerful military and all those things. So I don't know if this is a difference between us Tucker, but I do think that in this area of technological change, I'm not sort of a dispositional conservative. I mean, this is kinda like Peter Teal. Right? I don't want us to slow down. Actually, I want us to be successful. And it and it feels like, actually, it's the people on the left who are generally in this camp of wanting to slow us down and admire us in regulations and make it harder to, make progress technologically, because that's something they don't control. Tucker Carlson (00:55:19): I agree with that. I just I guess the net result is what I care about. I think it's if you talk to old people, which I is now that I'm getting older and I've talked you know, older relatives and stuff. Like, what what bothers you? And I used to think it was, you know, taking a leak six times a night, but it's really not. The thing that bothers OB people I've spoken to anyway is the change. It's like they don't just don't recognize it, and that's really hard for people to deal with. And so All I'm saying, I'm certainly not calling for a halt to technological progress, that would be terrible. All I'm saying is in tandem with those advancements, should be the concern about people's ability to digest massive change. And like let's keep some things the same. You know, you just can't change everything. It's like bad. It's super bad. So, like, maybe we get AI, but let's keep Halloween, you know. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:56:08): And you're arguing for tradition and things that bring bring people together. This country was built off of, immigrants, obviously. And, this is one of the most polarizing issues tucker up in each election cycle and in the country, large right now. What what do you what is your vision for how American immigration should work here in the 21st century? Tucker Carlson (00:56:34): Ideally or right now? Jason Calacanis (00:56:36): Right now. And then then ideally. Let's start with what would you do right now? Short term. Tucker Carlson (00:56:39): Well, actually, let me, if you don't, if you don't mind, I'll quickly invert it and say, of course, the goal is just to, it's just a rational immigration policy. See whose purpose is to help your country. And so I can see, well, I can see an argument, for example, if you needed, you know, I don't know. There there was a time for guy who's just saying my call's roommate, my best friend, came to this country from India because both his parents were physicians and there was a lack of physicians with deindustrialization, everyone's moving out of the small towns, and so we expedited the visas of foreign physicians. Most of them are Indians. I think most were Indians. Parents actually came from Africa, but whatever the point is they're Indian doctors and they came here and they settled in a little town in Massachusetts, a rural town, Dying Mill town, and it was great. It was great for them. It was great for the town. He the guy became my best friend. I mean, like, it that's just that's what you want. Right? We need this and we're gonna in a very smart intentional way, try to get it on the world market and we can and we will. And I'm totally for that. What we're doing now is throwing open the doors to anyone who wants to come here from the poorest countries in the world at a scale that we can't possibly digest. How many people are here illegally working off the books? Some estimates, 60, 70,000,000. Those are real estimates, by the way, not crack pot estimates. But the truth is we don't know. We have no idea. So we've completely lost control, and we don't know who these people are. I honestly think most of them are here for a better life. I believe that. I think most of them are probably good people. I think most of them agree with my politics, actually, for whatever it's worth. Definitely much more than the private, unhappy private equity wise. Do. For sure, if the average guy from Nigeria is like on my side, every Salvadoran agrees with me. So I like that, but I also think it's too much actually. At exactly the moment when native born Americans birth rates are tanking, over 100,000 people die of fentanyl ODs, and we're pushing euthanasia on the population, which we are, you're you basically you're saying you have given up on the people who whenever their color or background, and we're just gonna import new people and replace them with new people. Tucker Carlson (00:58:39): That's literally what's happening. And when you say that out loud, they freak out and call you some crazed biggett for saying the word replacement, but that's what it is. And it's happening in Western Europe and Ireland, particularly, that's what those those riots were about. Not that I'm endorsing the rise, but that's what that was. And that's like insane for a government to do to its own people. It's just it's totally insane. And and more than anything, it is an expression of loathing for the people who live there. It's a dilution of their political power. It's a dilution of their economic power. It's the total destruction of the basic services that they paid for, like schools, hospitals, roads. Like those are gone. And so last thing I'll say is people say, well, immigrants are coming here looking for about a lot of life, and I believe that having talked to a lot of immigrants and grown up around them in Southern California, I totally believe that. But the question for government is, am I making the citizen's life better? It's like no one even thinks that. So is importing people making the life So when my friends' parents came, both physicians to the Little town, Little Mill Town in New England, his parents made the town better for the people who live there. They were the doctors. And they were super successful, actually, and great people. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:48): Tucker, can you give us a rundown of the current political landscape? Just tell us, I'm just really curious what you think about RFK, Biden, trump, Vivek. Maybe, like, 10, 15 seconds on each. Tucker Carlson (01:00:00): It's so hard. It's so hard. I mean, I I mean, the thing that jumps out today, my view changes all the time. I don't think Biden can be the nominee. His only point was to you know, stop Bernie Sanders, basically, and he's, out lift his usefulness. So I think he'll be I'm pretty sure it'll place. But, as on the rep on the republican side and the independence, you know, it's so hard to know. I'm just mesmerized by the love for Nikki Haley. Who's like the most and I'm sure and, like, for example, I saw Jamie Dimon who I, who I really like, and I know, and I have always admired, but when Jamie Dimon starts like free balling on, you know, Nicky Haley and saying nonsensical things with Nicky Haley, I'm like, I wanna call him and say you're humiliating yourself. First of all, you're way out of your depth. You have no idea what you're talking about. But for another, you're just betraying how completely out of touch you were. And I think Jamie got and again, I say it was admiration for Jamie Dimeman, which is long held. But, like, If you get to a place where you think that Nikki Haley has a shot of getting elected in a free and fair election, like, you have no idea what's going on in your own country. It's just embarrassing to say that. Super embarrassing. Jason Calacanis (01:01:07): Explain to the audience. Unpack that. Why is Nikki Ali not behind? Tucker Carlson (01:01:10): It really it's not personal. I actually don't care for Nikki Haley as a person, but that's immaterial. Nikki Haley's program, or what she stands for, which she believes, maybe moral or immoral godal judge, it's not popular with the with the public. And it's super easy to Jason Calacanis (01:01:25): know that. Stands on war specifically. Yeah. Tucker Carlson (01:01:27): Or stands on war and on economics. And and we know that from looking at the Gallup poll, which is a rolling survey of people's attitudes on things, And in an actual democracy, you would see the leading candidates for people who hope to become the leading candidates, articulate concerns and layout views that reflected the concerns of the population who are gonna vote them into office. Who does Jason Calacanis (01:01:48): that for most? Right now. Oh, Trump. David Sacks (01:01:51): Is it fair to say Nikki Haley is basically an unreconstructed bush Republican? Jason Calacanis (01:01:55): I mean, her David Sacks (01:01:56): views are basically the same views of George W Bush. She wants to get us in all sorts of new wars, and I don't even think she regrets the forever wars of the Middle East that were so disastrous. I I haven't heard one word of criticism from her or remorse that she supported all those things. And on the economic policies, this is kind of this like corporatism It's like the whole trump rebellion never even happened in the Republican party. Tucker Carlson (01:02:20): It's just like David Sacks (01:02:20): it's just like right back to the past. And the fact that the establishment sort of coalescing around her kinda tells me that as much as I didn't wanna believe this, I think that Trump is still the indispensable figure in the Republican party because if you take him away, they're gonna revert right back to where they were. They're gonna go right back to the factory settings of Republicans, which is Bush Republican. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:44): Tucker, can you just finish the rest of them? Trump? Tucker Carlson (01:02:49): Well, I mean, I, you know, I know Vivek well personally, and I I'm I'm it shows that I'm out of touch too. I mean, you know, 54. So I don't have my finger on every pulse. But so I like Vivek, actually. And and but I see these surveys where he's not, you know, he's not doing well and people don't like his person or whatever. He's he's a little overbearing that does never bother me at all. I'm just not put off by that at all. And I'm a little bit confused by why he's not doing better. Again, that's a reflection on I've just made fun of Jamie Dimon. Here I am doing it myself. Like, why isn't Vivek doing better? I'm sure there are reasons I just don't. I think his program is solid. I think he's reasonable. I think he's smart. I don't think he's some creepy agenda. So, but he's not he's not doing well. That's just a fact. Bobby Kennedy, I know quite well and and think a lot of him. And, he's a very, he's, I think, he's a decent man. And a principled person, the smart, you know, I'm I I don't have quite as much confidence in maybe some of the people around him. I'm not I feel like maybe there are other agendas that he's not aware of. You know, I don't know I can't assess, but, yeah. So that's what I said. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:00): And president Trump? Tucker Carlson (01:04:01): Well, I mean, you know, the New York Times had a a piece. I think it was Jonathan Swan, smart, and, had a a piece telling you what you already knew kind of, but proving it with numbers that Trump became the nominee in August of last year, 2022, when the FBI went through his wife's underwear drawer in his house. Like, that was so insane that even if you're like, I can't deal with more Trump, and he didn't actually do anything and put Jared in charge like there are lots of frustrations you could have about Trump. If you supported Trump and you could be disappointed, but the second, the FBI raids his house on a dock if they're charging him for that, that's a joke. Where are the felonies he supposedly committed? I was led to believe he like murdered people and mar buried them in the Meadowlands. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's the best they got. When they did that, I I know for a fact, and this piece showed it, but I knew it already. A lot of people are like, you know, have mixed feelings about trump or I don't wanna deal with more trump trauma, but if this is allowed to happen, our system won't continue. That's so outrageous that I mean, let's just stop lying about it. That's a political prosecution. You can't have that of the presidential front runner You can't have that. We already did it with Nixon. You can't do that again. And so I think that's the key to his surge. I really do think that. David Friedberg (01:05:24): Who's the Democratic nominee if you think Biden not gonna be Tucker Carlson (01:05:27): Oh, it's Gavin. Gavin. It's Gavin for sure. Well, of course, because he's by far the most evil person in the Democratic Party. And in the end, They just sort of rise to the peak. You know what? Oil and water, man? It's just David Friedberg (01:05:40): yeah. Tucker, just just comment on Gavin vetoing the bill that said that you could kind of remove the parents, remove the child from the parents if the parents don't affirm the transgender rights of a child. That I think there was a a lot of folks who sit in your camp, typically, who were shocked and surprised and said, wow, I didn't know Gavin actually you know, had a span, had a span of opinions, and this is interesting to see. I mean, what's what, like, you know Tucker Carlson (01:06:06): There's no one I know who thought that and everyone I know who watched that thought the same thing they thought when he met with Xi, which is, oh, he's he's gonna be the nominee. Jason Calacanis (01:06:14): Yeah. And of Tucker Carlson (01:06:15): course, that's what that was. I mean, I know I know Gavin Newsom, and, you know, I I think a lot about Gavin Newsom, many different things about Gavin Newsom, but one thing I know for a fact about Gavin Newsom is he has the capacity to be the light light detector test. Gavin Newsom will say anything he needs to say not like Biden's not like this, actually. Whatever Biden's fault, he's not like this. Like, Biden would you know, he has like guilt. If he's lying to you, he gets twitchy. Gavin Newsom's palm just don't sweat, His respiration doesn't increase. His body temperature doesn't change. Nothing changes in Gavin Newsom when he lies to your face. And, there are not that many people like that. Actually. That's a rare quality. Like to lock down the state, to keep people's kids from getting an education, and to arrest people for surfing, and then go have dinner at the French laundry. Like, most people couldn't do that. They'd just be Jason Calacanis (01:07:08): like, You're saying his sociopath. Just he can lie and not care. Tucker Carlson (01:07:12): I'm not a psychiatrist, but I So I don't know that I don't really know the category and I'm not gonna diagnose him, but I'll just say in 50 years of being around a lot of people, I've met very few who can behave that very, very few. It's very unusual quality, and of course, it's probably useful in politics. David Friedberg (01:07:27): Is he electable? Is he electable? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:29): Yeah. Exactly. Are the American people gonna see that the way that you see it? Jason Calacanis (01:07:32): Or Tucker Carlson (01:07:32): Well, as you know, the system in California does not include elections. I mean, it has nothing to do with what the people think. It's a it's a machine state. It's the most corrupt out of 50. Kamala Harris was like despised by most Californians, and she, you know, was a sitting US senator. Diane poor Diane Feinstein, my neighbor in Washington, I don't I don't think she was a horrible person just for the record, but she was noncompass menace and like she could have lived well beyond her death as a US senator. So it's like it's not a democratic state, small, democratic state. It's not run on the basis of what the population wants. It's a fixed game in Calacanis, and So it does make me very uncomfortable that someone from that political culture, which is an utterly corrupt political culture, an authoritarian political culture could like enter a presidential race because like, clearly, what are you running on if you're Gavin Newsom? As a native Californian, you know, I know what the state was like in 1985 because I live there and it's completely degraded from that from that time. And like, how did that happen? Well, part of the big reason the big reason is the political leadership in the state. You've got nothing to run on What are you running? Have you driven through LA recently? Like, seriously? So the fact that he would get in the race suggests you know, they think that they can win without the consent of voters. And that freaks me out. David Sacks (01:08:54): Well, he'll have the media working on overdrive for him. Right? I mean, they will turn him somehow into like John F Kennedy or something. I mean, they will paper over all of his flaws, and they'll, you know, they'll basically write puff pieces. It'll bet it'll be like nonstop, and then they'll be attacking Trump. So the media will put him over the top, I think, if he Tucker Carlson (01:09:13): Well, assuming that we have the same media that we had in 2020, that's true. But I mean, that's why you just gotta pray every night for Elon's health. And I mean it too. I mean it. It's the only platform at scale in the world that's pretty, you know, their censorship on it but there's not mass censorship, actually, there isn't, and that's the only platform of its kind at scale. The only So David Sacks (01:09:37): let's talk about that actually. So, I mean, we've talked in this conversation about how our public discourse is a name and self destructive and divisive, I would add another word to that, which is controlled, you know, controlled. A good example of this, I think, was just on the Ukraine war, David Aracomia, who is Zelensky's parliamentary leader who was the the lead negotiator for the Ukrainians at Istanbul in the 1st month of the war. When there was a deal on the table, he just testify, basically said an interview, there was a deal on the table to shut the war down. We just would have had to agree to make Ukraine neutral. And of course, the Biden administration told them not to. This war is and has always been about NATO expansion. And yet, the party line from the media, even as all of these proof points stack up, I mean, we're now on, like, the 10th person firsthand witness to say that this is what this war is all about. You still can't get the media to honestly report this. Just as one example, Okay? And I I believe that this is one of the reasons why you were a fire tucker is because you were literally the only person on mainstream network news saying what the war is really about. So this is like one really big example is that we cannot get any truth on an issue as big as Ukraine war. So I guess my question for you is, like, how does control like that happen? Like, I I don't really understand it myself. We live in a big what's supposed to be a big democracy. There's supposed to be, you know, a lot of, media Chamath, but yet they all enforce a certain narrative on pretty much every issue, but even, you know, again, I'm picking on, I think one of the biggest issues right now, which is this war we've got going on. I mean, how does that happen? I don't I don't understand it. How do they maintain that control? Tucker Carlson (01:11:25): This is one of my personal concerns about technology and about progress of all kinds, which is you don't actually know where going, you don't. I mean, your best forecasts are are very mine have very often been wrong. And the, you know, of course, the promise of the internet was diversity and access to information from a lot of different sources, unfiltered information. You can talk to people in foreign countries for free. You know, every American will have an encyclopedia at his fingertips and people are gonna be much more informed, and no one will be able to control it because it's it's free and open. And and the effect has been, you know, the opposite. There's less I I would argue there's been, less freedom in information than there was 30 years ago. How did that happen? I mean, that's it's a very comp I mean, you guys are much better situated to answer that question. Someone should think about that. I think But the bottom line is there are just not that many pipelines, actually. You know, in television, there were 3 big news channels, cable, you know, broadcast kind of receded in importance. It's mostly about prostate health now. And, so there are 3 big Chamath. 2 of them on one side, one was on the other. And then there were the social media giants, but there are not that many of them, and they were all locked down, and they were all riddled with Intel In some cases, actual salaried intel officers, Matt Taube's amazing reporting has shown this, not just American either from foreign countries, the whole thing was an op. It was insane. And, and, you know, you could I'm not gonna beat up on Fox News, but there was a kind of a fairly narrow band of acceptable views allowed on that channel. Is that control? Yes, it is. And so there there really was no remaining place with scale where someone with a dissenting view could give it voice. And that's just crazy. It's the opposite of what we were promised, but whatever, not to whine about it. But the existence of X where anyone around the world or in most countries anyway can get for free a whole range of opinions that aren't controlled that changes everything. Like the the the primacy of control information in a war cannot be overstated. Tucker Carlson (01:13:28): Like that's You can debate whether it's more important than ammunition, but it's right up there, you know. And, so I think this election, if that platform stays free for the next 12 months, you know, I think we have a shot at least of a real election, but if it and I think they're gonna do whatever they can to shut it down. Jason Calacanis (01:13:44): We also have web based shows podcasts. And that even predated a little bit Elon taking over, you know, X. There's a there is a self correcting mechanism here. If you feel too controlled, like maybe perhaps you felt or you felt pressure at Fox, I don't wanna speak for you if you did. Then all of a sudden, Joe Rogan, all in podcast, whatever, podcasts all emerge, and now you're showing and I I'm sure it's gonna be on other platforms as well. Maybe you can speak to what you think the impact of a post fox tucker Carlson Show will be, and how will you be able to sort of shape the show differently if at all? And what's the mission here? That was just my first question we never really got to, which is post Fox, post money, post fame, what is Chuckle Carson's mission statement going forward? What is your goal? Tucker Carlson (01:14:34): Just the same the same as before, and I should just be extra clear. I, I wish I could tell harder stories about Fox you know, forcing me to take some line or other, but they they really didn't. But, you know, they didn't want the show anymore, so that kinda tells you. But anyway, the point is, my intent in hosting that show is the same as my intent in hosting the show. We're about to launch on X, which is, you know, just do your best to say what you think is true. Bring perspectives and information that you don't think are widely covered to a larger audience, and, you know, try and stay firm in that. Admit when you're wrong, like be honest. It's it's actually not it's, you know, I got in this business because I hadn't graduated from college and my father's like, it's it's a pretty pure meritocracy in journalism. You should do it. And it's also pretty simple. No no real skills required. Just be literate, which I was. Jason Calacanis (01:15:21): And is the show gonna That's it. A little bit? Because you you've been doing experiment done about 40 episodes or so. Tucker Carlson (01:15:26): Here's the way here's the way that it already has evolved. So I got I got laid off in in April And I, you know, I like to I like to fish in bird hunt, so I did a lot of that. And then I was like, oh, I need to do something. So I've been stuck in a studio for all these, you know, many, many years. I couldn't really go anywhere. And I went I took 7 foreign trips in 4 months. I just went to all these places where I knew people. I was interested in what going on. And I just found it amazing. Two things I found amazing. 1, the view of America, the vantage you get from a foreign country on what's happening in your own is completely different. There's also a lot and the whole world is reshuffling in my view after the Ukraine war. February 2022 really did change a lot. Particularly with respect to America's place in the world. That's worth covering. And the second thing I learned, once I started putting videos up on X, was that it's international. I mean, I was just shocked by that. I mean, because think about it. I mean, I'm working for a US news channel. It's one of 3 US news channels I've worked for, CNN was international, but I was on CNN US. So I'm just used to thinking about America being viewed by Americans having a conversation about this country. I had no experience at all, of a of an of a big international audience, and that platform has that. And so I was amazed by that. And so, we're gonna continue to cover the rest of the world. I'm going over to Dubai in February interviewing Jason Calacanis (01:16:48): It's incredible. It's been spending time. Tucker Carlson (01:16:49): It's just It's just so interesting. This Jason Calacanis (01:16:52): is going on. Tucker Carlson (01:16:53): It's like crazy. People and this is not a political point This is like a human point that bothers me almost more than anything politically, which is the death of curiosity. It's like people are not curious. Like, what the hell? I thought that technological revolution would would set off like explosions in the brain of every person. Like, what is that? I wanna learn more and it had exactly the opposite. It's like a lonely to sleep with TikTok. Don't tell me more. I don't wanna know. David Friedberg (01:17:17): Double double down on what you already know, what you already believe Tucker Carlson (01:17:20): from and over and over Jason Calacanis (01:17:21): again. Yeah. Tucker Carlson (01:17:22): I know I'm less certain in my beliefs. I know that I know less than any time of my life, and I'm much more interested in many more things than I've ever been. I think that's normal. And I think there's something like in the water or something that's making people not care. The UFO thing. Like, what? Whatever you views of that. Like, well, what is that? Shut up. And that's normal people. Don't wanna hear it. Why? I don't know. Whatever. I don't wanna preach. Jason Calacanis (01:17:46): Well, I mean, post COVID, we still don't have an accounting of what happened, and Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:50): Tucker, what do you think about the, the the clip yesterday of Elon? Jason Calacanis (01:17:54): Let's play it for 45 seconds and then get your response. Tucker Carlson. Speaker 6 (01:17:59): Apology tour, if you will, that this had been said online. There was all of the criticism. There was visers leaving. We talked Speaker 7 (01:18:06): to Bob. I hope they stop. You hope, don't advertise. Speaker 6 (01:18:11): You don't want them to advertise? No. What do you mean? Speaker 7 (01:18:15): If if somebody's gonna try black mail me with advertising, black mail me with money, go fuck yourself. But go fuck yourself. Is that clear? Speaker 6 (01:18:31): I Speaker 7 (01:18:31): hope it is. Hey, Bob. Here in the audience. Speaker 6 (01:18:35): Well, well, let me ask you then, Speaker 7 (01:18:38): That's how I feel. Jason Calacanis (01:18:39): Alright, Tucker. Your response to be good for you, you know, g Tucker Carlson (01:18:43): f y. I mean, I I would Elon. You know, interviewed people every week for over 30 years. And so I know what it is to you. Drop my perrier, excuse me. And I know, you know, I know I have a lot of experience interviewing people and I've interviewed Elon, you know, and I don't understand how the the New York Times character I'll see a little guy from the New York Times. It's because he didn't laugh. Like, what? He just told Bob Ira to fuck himself. Jason Calacanis (01:19:08): Don't get me started. You and I are in seg. Andrew Rysorkin is amongst the weakest of moderators in your review. Tucker Carlson (01:19:14): But he's just what a what a fussy little douche? Like, That's the mother. Jason Calacanis (01:19:18): I mean, Tucker Carlson (01:19:18): we just Shoots dude. You erupt me to our total. Like, are you joking? Elon Musk's just told Bob Hagger to fuck himself Like, I've been texting my response. It's unbelievable. I know. No, of course, I love it. I love it. I I and the the Eiger thing, I, you know, I don't hate Bob Eiger or anything, but like, I keep hearing from people, you know, mutual people I know who know Bob Eiger very well that he's like very serious about running for president. And it's like, if you really think, if you're a buyback or you can run for president, you have anything to offer people or they want you to be president, like you're pretty out of touch. So I like that. But, you know, big picture, I'm I'm really gonna much as saying this because it it, you know, aligns with my interests of some kind. I mean it. I'm worried about the pressure this we brought to bear on that platform on this platform on X, because it's the only one, the only big one, you know, huge one, international 1, tens of millions of people, 100 of millions of people, like, they have to convey meaning the people who would like to maintain the status quo, kinda have to shut it down. And I am just so hoping that you know, I can help in any way and that all decent people, whatever their views add their voice to a chorus that says, no, you can't shut down the one big free speech platform in the world. You can't do that because then it's just dictatorship. You're not free if you don't have free information and you can't say what you really thought. Jason Calacanis (01:20:43): You are subject to a lot of these, advertising attacks. They they went after Fox and your show specifically. And and it worked. They got people to not advertise on your show. Yeah. So these advertising boycotts do work, media matters, whatever, you know, whoever's doing them. So I'm curious what you see the business model being for your show and then how you hope to be resistant to it. Are you gonna just go straight up subscription and hope that half your audience or 10% of your audience pays and you put half out for free, half out for sub, what are you thinking? Tucker Carlson (01:21:13): You gotta have a subscription component to it. And, of course, we're selling ads against our content, and we'll be doing that on x and on tuckercarlson.com. We'll be hosting the sis the subscription part of it, of course, we're selling ads. We're, you know, we'll have network ads too. I mean, there are lots of different things you can do but in the end, you you have to have some subscription component if you're gonna do it at scale. I mean, we brought our whole staff almost our whole staff from Fox with us. So we got a bunch of people. We've got, you know, bigger ambitions than have been on display so far. And, and we, you know, you gotta have more information. And and I would just say this about just having been in this one business my whole life, the range of stories is the problem. It's not that the stories are all totally dishonest, some are dishonest, but some are not. They're technically true. But they're taken from such a small pot of stories that it's like it's crazy. There's all this stuff going on, and it's just not I mean, I was completely obsessed and remained obsessed with the industrial sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. It's like that's like that's that's a major historical event like you just you just ended the EU. You just hobbled the economic engine of Europe, which is Germany. And like who did that? And there were like very few stories on that. That's like a very big deal. And again, back to the curiosity thing, but it's more than that. It's like the people sort of know what where not to go. And I just feel like that's first of all, that's soul death, you're not a free man if you're that constrained in your thinking. If you're letting somebody else tell you what you're allowed to think, how can your wife first how can your wife even sleep with you at that she no one can respect you if you live like that. A, b, you can't have a democracy. You can't have a free country under the circumstances. Tucker Carlson (01:23:07): So I don't think I'm overstating it. And so we're gonna try to, I hope be one of many different similar efforts to just add to the sum total of information and analysis of that information. Jason Calacanis (01:23:18): Well, the end of the end of democracy and sex would be kinda rough, I think. Yeah. Good job. Tucker Carlson (01:23:22): Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:23): I have a final question, and I'm and I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist. But If one of the presidential candidates called you and said, Tucker, be my VP. Tucker Carlson (01:23:36): And replace Kamala Harris I mean, I don't think I could do that. She's a historic Friedberg Tucker. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:42): Would you consider it if Donald Trump gave you that call? Jason Calacanis (01:23:45): Well, Tucker Carlson (01:23:45): of course, I would consider it. I'd con I mean, you have no idea how open minded I am. I'm just gonna consider anything, actually. But, I mean, the truth is, I kinda don't respect people who do stuff like that. I really believe I've got a lot of theories which I will not inflict on you, but which I do inflict on my own 4 children, And my main theory of life is that you should do what you are designed to do. I don't believe this whole, you can be whatever you wanna be thing. I think it's a absurd lie. I think we're made for certain things. We have certain aptitudes. They're inborn. They can we can hone them and we need to through practice, repetition, But it's very I I think it's a it's it's a sign of hubris, which is always the death of particularly of men, hubris, thinking you have more power than you do. When midlife, you're like, well, actually what I really wanna do is direct. It's like, you just won best actress, honey. Go back to acting. And I've never been involved in politics. I've never, I haven't even voted in all elections. I'm serious. So like the idea that I'm going to at 54 like run for national office. I as a little You know what I mean? Like, I don't take myself quite that seriously. I mean, I I can't imagine doing something like that. The reason Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:56): I asked this question is that if we're, at least the the Republicans will now prove that we've lived in a 12 year era of a nontraditional candidate. That was essentially a media personality that was able to then curate a plurality of support, right? Jason Calacanis (01:25:12): And Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:12): there's gonna be something that comes after him. And so I'm just trying to get a sense of if it's not you, it's probably to be very honest somebody like you. Right? And and what I'm So just talk to us about that for just a second. Tucker Carlson (01:25:26): I completely agree with you, and I I love your characterization Trump is someone who's from a media background because that that's closer to the I'm not diminishing. I'm from media backgrounds. I'm not attacking it, but that's a lot closer to the truth than most characterizations, casino magnet, developer, he's a media guy. Yeah. He had lots of businesses, but he was a media guy. He had the top show in NBC, And so you I think you're absolutely right. My concern is that and I have pure contempt for the professional political class. I've written a book about it. I've expressed it daily for a number of years now, so and it's real. However, I think that they're, you know, these are complex systems and it's better to have someone who understands the systems in an ideal world administer the systems because he's more effective at doing so. And I also think that once you decide that like, hey, we'll just go crazy and you couple that with true social disorder, like, you get to a place where you can't buy anything at CVS because it's chained up because shoplifting has been legalized as it has been in Calacanis, what you're going to get is fascism because people can't live in in that, and they can't live with chaos. Like, that's the one thing they can't deal with, and I've covered a couple of wars in was my main conclusion. The main problem with wars, not that people get killed, it's that people have to live with total uncertainty and craziness, and that's incompatible with what people want. Like that's the that's the worst thing. You know, we're all gonna die. Dying is not the worst thing. The worst thing is living in chaos, and we're starting to live in chaos. And so the return to order is what scares me. I think it'd be very easy, and I do think Gavin Newsom is a fascist. I think he's the kind of person who would have no problem, no hesitation, about using the DOJ to corrupt to imprison his political opponents. Tucker Carlson (01:27:11): Now Biden is imprisoning his political opponents, but at least they're lying about it. Gavin Newsom is the kind of person to be like, well, yeah, you're you're a threat to the general order and you're going to jail. And I think because we're in a moment of chaos right now, people kinda want that, actually. I think one of the purposes of degrading and confusing our society is to make way for authoritarianism, even more than we have now. So that kind of freaks me out, actually. I personally might what I would really like is a kind of colorless you know, boring non charismatic, like Gerald Ford, Mike Pence, without their views, both of those men were bad men in my opinion. But someone like that who could govern without making it about himself and restore the country to a sense of rules based order. That's what I really want. And I but I'm probably gonna be denied that. David Friedberg (01:28:05): Tucker, I I feel like one of the one of the other consequences of the way things have gone is that the solution has always been and what's your point of view on the fiscal condition of the US as a priority, the federal government benefits as a priority? And you know, do we need to shrink government, shrink overall discretionary spending? Do we need to cut these entitlements? Do we need to do it all? And how do we get there given that everyone gets elected by telling people I'm gonna give you more stuff. And then this just kind of cascades for decades until eventually that shit happens. Tucker Carlson (01:28:43): Well, who's gonna buy our debt? I mean, that's that's like it's scare it's so scary. You know, this is, of course, the problem with democracy, but think since, you know, from the Roman Republic until 17 76, like, how many democracies were there? David Friedberg (01:28:56): Exactly. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:28:58): Exactly. Let me Tucker Carlson (01:28:58): let me do the math on that. I approximately 0 in that range and this was the critique of course in Europe of democracy at the time is not that it gave too much freedom to the average person, but that it would result in tyranny. And when the majority discovered it could steal the goods of whomever it wanted legally, legally, you would wind up with dictatorship. I mean, this is like a very well trot path, but I mean, but I hope it doesn't get to that. I'm not making argument against democracy. I'm just saying it's a little bit harder to perpetuate than we thought that it was. And, and this is kind of the fear that people have had for 100 years. David Friedberg (01:29:38): The system condition is the manifestation of that structural problem. Tucker Carlson (01:29:42): Yes. Yeah. That's exact exactly. That's exactly right. Jason Calacanis (01:29:45): Let's end on this, Elon clip from yesterday just about virtue. We'd like to get your reaction to this Tucker. Speaker 7 (01:29:52): TESL has done more to help the environment than, all other companies combined. We're we're fair to say that therefore as a leader of the company, I've done more for the environment than everyone at any single human on earth. Speaker 6 (01:30:06): How do you feel about that? No. I but How do I feel Speaker 7 (01:30:10): about that? Speaker 6 (01:30:11): Yeah. No. I'm I'm asking you personally how you feel about that? Because this goes we're talking about power and influence in I'm saying Speaker 7 (01:30:16): I'm saying what what what I care about is the the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil. Fuck them. Jason Calacanis (01:30:28): Your thoughts on Berkshire Signal versus round? Tucker Carlson (01:30:31): It was like it was like It was like the hand of god massaging my central nervous system. Like, every erogenous zone Speaker 6 (01:30:39): was just a new Jason Calacanis (01:30:40): I couldn't do awareness. Like, that's Tucker Carlson (01:30:42): I I David Friedberg (01:30:43): could say full release. Jason Calacanis (01:30:44): Full chiropractic release. Wow. Tucker Carlson (01:30:47): So dirty. I'm sorry. No, man. I just I so vividly agree, and I don't even like electric cars. Think they helped the environment. I didn't even agree with that point. I just love his point, which is the point, which is what actually matters is what you do. It's not what you think. It m what matters is helping other people. And I also think that the fact that Andrew Rasorkin has a television job shows this is not a meritocracy. Like, I don't know how he got that. That was delightful. His response to that was like, he didn't even he he can't even look, I'll just kinda say this is like so inside baseball, but it's literally what I do for a liver have done all my life. Jason Calacanis (01:31:24): Yes, that's what we do talk. The Tucker Carlson (01:31:25): keen on interviewing people. Yes, is to listen to them. Larry King. I used to fill in for Larry King at CNN. He was number 1, 9 pm, all this stuff. The first time I filled in for Larry King, there was no research. On the guest said 2 guests, no research. And I said the producer, Larry was like in Cabo with wife number 7. And I said, where's the research? Oh, Larry doesn't do research. So I do the show went fine, and I called him after. I was like, dude, you you do know research? He goes, and he was number 1, most dominant figure in cable news by far. And he goes, no. I just listen. And if someone says something weird, I pause, and I said, wait, wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. You killed someone in 1962. Why'd you kill? You follow-up. Jason Calacanis (01:32:04): You're present in the interview. Yes. And then you follow-up based on what this guest said. David Friedberg (01:32:09): Jason's interrupting you right now. Ahead. No. Jason Calacanis (01:32:11): I listened to 110% and reflecting back to what he said, which is what because game realize It's quite Tucker Carlson (01:32:18): it's a colloquate. David Sacks (01:32:19): Jake House treating this as validation. David Friedberg (01:32:21): Yeah. Absolutely. David Sacks (01:32:22): There's actually Jason Calacanis (01:32:23): a written David Sacks (01:32:23): story in this Tucker that you don't need to know about, but Jason Calacanis (01:32:25): it's I mean, Tucker Carlson (01:32:26): you can tell it's it's tantalizing. David Friedberg (01:32:28): It is. It is. It Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:29): is. Trust me. Jason Calacanis (01:32:31): Well, let's end here. You know, we have a lot of fans of not only just about 18% crossover between all in and your work tucker, and they send me images. You out there in a out in the world. And, we just I just got this one in my DMs. I don't know what's going on. What's going on here? Parking in Hampshire where you guys can this is the problem that's just gonna David Sacks (01:32:54): pull these yet? Tucker Carlson (01:32:57): You know what? I'm not that's kinda hunky. I'm just being honest. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:33:01): Yeah. It's a lot going on here. Well, listen, we got like a Vineyard Funds T shirt. See, the the pro max is now complete. Tucker, we'd love to have you back on a regular basis. Actually, I thank you. David Friedberg (01:33:11): Fun. That was super fun. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:33:13): That was great. Tucker Carlson (01:33:13): And I'm sorry for talking too much. You guys spun me off from a frenzy, but I appreciate it. David Friedberg (01:33:17): Great guess. I understand. I understand why you were number 1 in media. And that was so fun. I really enjoyed it. Tucker Carlson (01:33:22): Thanks for that. Thank you. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:33:24): Really, really good. Thank you very much, Tucker. Thank you. David Sacks (01:33:26): Yeah. Thank you. Tucker Carlson (01:33:27): Thanks, guys. David Sacks (01:33:27): That was amazing. David Friedberg (01:33:28): Talk, sir. Jason Calacanis (01:33:29): Good luck with the new launch. Everybody go to tuckerfarlson.com. And when the subs come out on day 1, give them a sub. Okay. Sub e tucker sub. Didn't come out exactly how I want to eat either. Tucker Carlson (01:33:41): Yeah. Sure. Jason Calacanis (01:33:42): You could subvertucker, Sacks. Are you gonna be a subvertucker Sacks? Are you something? David Sacks (01:33:48): I'm gonna dom for Tucker. Jason Calacanis (01:33:49): Yeah. For Tucker. Alright. Thanks, Chuck. Tucker Carlson (01:33:54): See you guys. David Friedberg (01:33:56): What'd you guys think? That was fun. Jason Calacanis (01:33:57): That was great. David Sacks (01:33:58): Yeah. Let's show you a debrief. Jason Calacanis (01:33:59): I'm a soccer for Tucker. I'll be honest. Like, can we get them on group chat? I mean, this can you imagine if I can put a chat with Tucker? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:04): Fun guy. Great guy. Jason Calacanis (01:34:06): He's a great entertainer. And you know what? He's into I know he's right wing, the conservative, but he's actually, I think, a 1st principal thinker who thinks for himself. We we didn't get into January 6. We ran out of time, but You know, he he was, you know, not happy about that. He wasn't happy about election denial. I think he's intellectually rigorous. David Sacks (01:34:22): Wow, Jake. How? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:23): I really liked it. I like talking to people that have opinions that force me to, like, actually rethink about how I think and Yeah. It was I think the the most impactful thing that he said to me which touches upon my own life was just how one feels when you have a little bit too much too early versus grinding slowly and compounding success over many years. I think it does create in moments an element of self sabotage. I've lived it in my own life, so that totally resonated. This idea that there's just so much abundance that causes people to not really fight over the big issues and then fight over the the fringe issues, I, I do think that there's an element of huge truth in that. It was really, really good. I think like that, this is probably one of the very few ones that we've done that I would listen to over. Totally. David Friedberg (01:35:18): I'd say that was like one of my favorite episodes. Or probably Jason Calacanis (01:35:20): my favorite show. David Friedberg (01:35:21): Just just just as a listener, I just enjoyed listening the whole fucking time. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:24): That's the thing. I I just wanted to I could hear him talk for hours, probably. Jason Calacanis (01:35:27): I know. David Friedberg (01:35:27): I didn't wanna talk. I didn't have anything to say. I just wanted to chill and hang out, like, listen to. It was great. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:32): Me too. David Sacks (01:35:32): Have you done Tucker show Chamath yet? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:35): They asked me to do the show in December, which I couldn't do. And at some point in the spring, I will do the show, but then I was like, can you come on, Arcea? Sure. Yeah. I mean, David Friedberg (01:35:44): you got to be doing Jason Calacanis (01:35:44): it right. David Sacks (01:35:45): It's amazing. David Friedberg (01:35:46): Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Zack, didn't you, like, Go on his show. No. David Sacks (01:35:49): I've been on TikTok a couple of times when it was on Fox, and one appearance was about Chase booting, you know, the DA that we got tossed out. And then Jason Calacanis (01:35:57): Go team. David Sacks (01:35:58): I went on a couple other times. I think one one was about the economy. I was on a show a couple of times for, you know, short segments. But anyway, I thought I thought what was interesting about conversation was that it was much more philosophical than I was expecting. Jason Calacanis (01:36:10): Yes. David Sacks (01:36:10): We we touched it on a few, like, policy issues but we spent most of the time talking about his deeper clinical diagnosis of American culture and American discourse. And I would say that one of the things that's maybe unique about his take, and, I mean, definitely different than mine is it's much more psychological than David Friedberg (01:36:33): Metiflexical even. David Sacks (01:36:34): Metiflexical and psychological. I mean Yeah. Like, I don't really ask too many questions about why people believe what they believe, I just sort of take it as a given and then discuss whether they're right or wrong. Whereas he actually sort of psychoanalyzes why people have the views that they have. And, you you know what I mean? It's it's actually kinda interesting. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:36:54): That whole methodology for whatever it's worth resonates with me. I mean, I I think it's very it's the reason early on. I really gravitated to Renee Gerard because I thought it demonstrated a lot of how people behaved to me in a in a language that I could understand. So when Tucker described, problems in this context. To me, it's very powerful just because that is how I kind of frame things as I think humans are driven by psychological incentives. And I think that there is something very worth exploring here, which is these western cultures gets so prosperous that the big things we don't fight over, so then we fight over the little things, or David Friedberg (01:37:28): we have to invent things Chamath Palihapitiya (01:37:29): to fight over. Jason Calacanis (01:37:30): And the virtue signaling, he kind of brings up in his own personal brands, which is, hey, I go to Jackson Hole. I'm getting accosted, you know, in line at the lift. People's wives are upset at me. The husbands are upset at me. The hedge fund, people These are all people of incredible wealth, incredible privilege who have extra cycles. And instead of having a debate over the issues, in good faith, a full contact debate like we do here, they just wanna vilify people. And, you know, I tried to listen to him and say, hey. What what does he get right here? Now I obviously think he's wrong about climate change. I thought that was bonkers, but I do think he he understands human nature pretty well from doing 30 years of interviews. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:38:04): Yeah. Definitely worth exploring, Jason, this idea that the more successful people get, the more self loathing there is. And then it manifests in some, you know, really destructive ways. Think especially if Jason Calacanis (01:38:15): you don't have a foundation. David Friedberg (01:38:16): Once you get successful enough, there's very little progress. I think a lot of human happiness comes from progress. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:38:21): Progress. Exactly. Well, there's just there's just no higher order bits. You buy the house. That's a huge accomplishment. But then when you buy your 2nd house or 3rd house, I think the diminishing returns are severe. Jason Calacanis (01:38:35): Yeah. Severe. And then Chamath Palihapitiya (01:38:36): and then these things are just baggage. They're like counter trust. Jason Calacanis (01:38:39): Well, yeah. David Friedberg (01:38:39): And then you're spending all this time dealing with headaches, you know, it's exactly. What's your progress? Jason Calacanis (01:38:43): What's your progress? And what's the purpose of life? I mean, Sachs, when you bought 6000 in here. David Friedberg (01:38:50): Gotcha. Busy, reorganizing the US political establishments. I think he's made him on his own way. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:38:56): Saks is making progress. Yeah. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:38:58): Well, I I I, you know, he's where does he sit on the political from today, Sox, because you and and he are both. Yeah. Because you're both kinda outcast in the Republican party now, right? Tucker Carlson (01:39:09): Like I David Sacks (01:39:10): would describe tucker as probably the most influential populist in, you know, on the on the right. So David Friedberg (01:39:18): there's sort David Sacks (01:39:18): of populism Well, there's a populism of the left that I guess was Bernie Sanders before he told, you know, maybe like 5, 8 years ago, whatever. Jason Calacanis (01:39:28): Describe us describe for the audience your perception of populism, you know, on the left and the right and what they share and what they what they don't share kind of thing. Because it's seem to be the emerging party, I think we would all agree, is that people are sick of these extremes, and they want something new, and the something new seems to be populism. David Sacks (01:39:47): Well, one way to think about populism is is just democracy. Populism is the word that the elite gives to democracy they don't like. So for example, vast majority of the country once our borders sealed, for some reason, the elites don't want that. So that's labeled populism. I think the vast majority of the country regrets the forever wars in the Middle East and doesn't want us getting involved in more wars, this sort of hyper interventionism. I think that's like a major part of of the platform. And then, of course, I think the 3rd big area of reevaluation was around our free trade policies. You know, they really ended up hollowing out America's industrial capability and exported a lot of manufacturing jobs David Friedberg (01:40:29): Globalization. David Sacks (01:40:30): To to China globalization. So, yeah, I think on the right big picture, I would say that populism is a nationalist reaction to the hyper globalization that happened that was encouraged by the elites over the past few decades. Jason Calacanis (01:40:44): And and he he hit on that. He said, you know, at some point, are the politicians gonna match what the people want, and they they call this getting to Denmark, high functioning governments in the Nordics, you know, tend to reflect what, the the candidates reflect what what the people want. Right? And and we seem to have this kind of broken here We we have one other story where people have wanted us to comment on when we had our week off. So I thought we'd get into the open AI thing. I just wanted to point out, I don't mean to make this like a love triangle sax, but Tucker and I did go skiing last year. We we tried to keep it, but now that it's out, you know, here it is. I'm sorry about this, but we were actually in Naseko at the same time. So it's gonna come out at some point. Look. Look how Chamath Palihapitiya (01:41:29): look how old and nasty those keyclothes are. Jason Calacanis (01:41:33): Well, yeah. Well, you know what? We're both very woke and we don't want we're a virtue signaling that we don't we wanna recycle. So we bought all this, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:41:43): I thought that was Phil Halmeth on the left. Jason Calacanis (01:41:45): I guess that's not Jake. That's me before I was in quick phase. Alright. Let's do the Open Eye AI thing. If you guys have time, can we go over this real quick? I don't wanna David Sacks (01:41:54): We can. I just wonder if the story's stale, but Jason Calacanis (01:41:57): I mean, I think one of the things we can do here is just sort of now that the 3 acts are complete, we can actually talk about the epilogue just to for people who have David Friedberg (01:42:07): not been visited. I think the epilogue's about to drop. But Jason Calacanis (01:42:10): Yeah. Well, that's that's what we'll get at. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:42:12): I think we're still in the second act here. I don't think this is over by launch. Alright. David Sacks (01:42:16): So let me actually check this. I'm curious why that is. Jason Calacanis (01:42:19): I'm gonna architect and then I'm gonna hand it to you, Jamont. Act 1, Sam's fired, Act 2 chaos for a week. We were off, you know, what were all the reasons. Act 3, obviously, just yesterday, Sam's back. I think Eli is out. Microsoft's an observer on the board. So I guess the epilogue trim off is what we wanna know is what happened? Why did this all happen? Was there a major breakthrough? Was it Sam doing deals with Masayoshi san or in the middle east to make, you know, AI chips. What do you if we if the epilogue does drop or if, like, you're saying, this is the 2nd act and the 3rd gonna begin whichever metaphor you want to use. What will it say Jamaf? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:42:56): I think we can all agree on what happened, which is that the employees realized that in the absence of leadership, business leadership, that the enterprise value of that company was going to disintegrate And what would have been imperiled was an $86,000,000,000 valuation secondary. So I think the employees did what was in their best interests, and it makes the obvious and logical sense, which is we need to circle the wagons and get the business leadership of this company back into this place so that the value of the enterprise is sustained. They did that. So I think this valuation is gonna hold. I think the secondary is going to happen. So I think, like, from that perspective, Whatever was supposed to happen there happened. So what are the interesting threads that are left over? We don't yet have a full accounting of what precipitated all of the all of the decision making at the board. Number 1. Number 2 is the person who seemed to be the principal inventor is now no longer on the board. And I think based on Sam's blog post could probably no longer be at the company. That seems like an important thing. And then the third thing which I found out was Brett Taylor, who I worked with at Facebook, who I've known for a long time, very sober, reasonable guy, puts out his own addendum to the blog post that basically says his chairmanship of this board is purely transitory. Jason Calacanis (01:44:39): What do you what's what is that? Yeah. What do you take from that? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:44:42): My takeaway is whatever's happening is still TBD. There's enough question marks that look. I told my friends on the board without saying who it was. Whatever you guys do, the most important thing that you need to do, is you need to retain great council and make sure that they're and I said this publicly, make sure that there's phenomenal D and O insurance. And make sure that there aren't any issues where you could be held personally liable for whatever happens in the future. Jason Calacanis (01:45:10): You're saying of the Vowel, the corporate Vowel. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:45:13): Now that's a generic thing that I think all corporate directors should do. I think it's even more important here because you have a non standard governance structure that could change, and it could change because the people involved wanted to change, But it could also could change because the government says, Hey, hold on a second. This should never have been like this in the first place. I'll give you an example of that. You know, at Facebook, there was a moment where we divested all of our IP to a subsidiary in Ireland, and for tax reasons, and There were 2 signatories to that deal. It was me and Zuck. And 6 or 7 years later, this is long after I left Facebook, the IRS has Hold on a second. You misvalue these assets. We're owed X 1,000,000,000 of dollars in taxes. It was a huge, long, drawn out thing. So at a minimum, if there's great value created here, there will be consequences with respect to tax and who paid what And if you have the shielding of a non profit entity, there's theoretically a lot of taxes that could have been paid that month. So all of this to me says, lot of really open curious threads, which means it's not the epilogue yet. We're probably somewhere at the end of act 2. Friedberg? Jason Calacanis (01:46:26): My question to you. Is. There's been speculation that there was an superintelligence AGI breakthrough possibly, and that's what spooked everybody and maybe the claim that Sam wasn't forthcoming with the board was that he didn't tell him about it. The second thing was there's been some 4th gen posts. Again, this is pure speculation that maybe the AI they're working on could break in some way encryption, and that would have been cost a really chaotic global moment. What are your thoughts on those 3 potential items or more? Are are any of those possibilities in your mind, Dave, Friedberg? David Friedberg (01:47:04): No idea. Jason Calacanis (01:47:05): But I can just David Sacks (01:47:06): shot that. David Friedberg (01:47:06): Yeah. Go ahead, Saks. Jason Calacanis (01:47:08): Good. Saks you. Take your time. David Sacks (01:47:09): So I think the best theory on what actually happened here, what precipitated all of this was broken and a piece by Reuters. And what it said was that there was a letter to the board that was written in the few days before Sam's firing by the board in which they were raising concerns over the development of QStar, which was a new break through at OpenAI that allows these language models to do math. And previously, LOMs just weren't very good at math. It would sort of predict the next word, but wasn't actually based on mathematical reasoning. QStar actually allows the AI to do math and understand its mathematical reasoning Supposedly, the capability is only at a grade school level right now, but it is highly accurate and it can be scaled up with more computing power. And I don't think it was coincidental that Sam was supposedly in the Middle East seeking to raise 1,000,000,000 of dollars to create a new chip company, basically a new specialized chip or ASIC, to perhaps run these types of models. So they were gonna scale up this capability and what mathematical reason allows you to do is unlock a whole new problem set. So, for example, in chemistry, in physics, in computer science, in cryptography, Jason Calacanis (01:48:21): and David Sacks (01:48:22): encryption. All these things mathematic mathematical reasoning underpins all of these disciplines. And so it does represent a major new piece towards AGI. And so I think the best theory about what happened is that the board, but I'd say specifically Ilya, had a panic or moment of panic or Jason Calacanis (01:48:47): concern. You David Sacks (01:48:47): know, freak out or whatever concern, whatever, about this. And it combined with probably underlying concerns that the board had about Sam's other because he's got his fingers and a lot of eyes here. Jason Calacanis (01:48:59): So it hits 2 of the 3 potential reasons. You know, putting aside any personal behavior. It seems like there's no personal behavior here. So it's those 2. Right? David Sacks (01:49:09): Right. So they fired him, but they apparently didn't really think it through at all. And because they're news. Jason Calacanis (01:49:14): These are not a it's not a professional board. Yeah. That's constructive. Well, David Sacks (01:49:18): I don't know what to say, Adam. Adam, very professionals, Jason Calacanis (01:49:21): but the other 2 were considered. David Sacks (01:49:23): And then the 2 others who were, you know, from non profits are not very familiar. And so What happened is they took this drastic action, but didn't explain it. And with each passing day, it became more glaring that they would not explain it. So the pressure sort of built on the company to explain itself and provide a good justification for this. And then meanwhile, I think Sam just ran a textbook counter cooperation here. I mean, they got Parts. Jason Calacanis (01:49:51): Emojis. David Sacks (01:49:52): There was that aspect of it, but disguise behind the velvet glove of all these hearts and saying I love you and all this stuff was the iron fist. The iron fist was they got over 700 of the 770 OpenAI employees to sign a petition that they were going with Sam. And Sam went to Microsoft and set up shop. So the threat to the board was I'm gonna take the whole company with me and set up shop over at Microsoft. And that was sort of the compelling threat. Basically, all the employees threatened to to quit and go with Sam. And so the board was under immense pressure. And then at the same time, you got the sense that Ilya was under a lot of personal pressure from his friends, from people he knew at the company, it's not probably irrelevant that there's about to be a huge cash out. There's about to be a big secondary at a $86,000,000,000 valuation. So All these early employees were about to make a lot of money. In any event, for all of these reasons, I think I I don't think Eli is motivated by money. I think he's motivated by wanting to keep open tact. I think that he must have had a moment where he realized, wait a second. What we've done here in throwing out Sam is destroying the company. And then he recanted He basically apologized and signed that petition. And at that moment, it just became a fait accompli that Sam was gonna get his job back. And so that's basically what happened. Now in terms of the epilogue, where I disagree with, is that although they still have to form this board, they're gonna form a nine person board, and they only have 3 members so far. I think the conclusion here is it's sort of a foregone conclusion, which is the board can never Fire Sam again. I mean, they're they're not gonna go through that again. Therefore, he has total control. Jason Calacanis (01:51:34): It would say a lot. David Sacks (01:51:35): Yeah. It would say a lot. So I think that Sam has won, and he's gonna consolidate his control over the company. By the way, I thought he already had control. I thought that Jason Calacanis (01:51:44): Yeah. You outlined that in the previous episode. David Sacks (01:51:47): Apparently he did not. Do you Chamath Palihapitiya (01:51:48): think he makes sense? I think he spends Jason Calacanis (01:51:49): it out and make it a for profit? Do you think he just makes it a for profit? And then says, Hey, we'll give amount of the equity or whatever to this nonprofit, but we're gonna we're just gonna flip this thing and and and separate it out and clean up the original sin. David Sacks (01:52:01): I think, apparently, there's like tax ball with doing that. But I but I think that what happens is, look, they already have this for profit LLC entity, which is where all the investors have have basically put their money into, and they gotten shares or membership interests or some sort of profit interest. Jason Calacanis (01:52:17): Synthetic shares, whatever David Sacks (01:52:18): you think. Shares, we have some shares. And then the vast majority of that is owned by this foundation, the nonprofit foundation that I always always understands control, but, apparently, it wasn't. I think it now will be. I think that I just think that what's gonna happen in the next few months is that Sam will consolidate his control because he's proven that he has a total loyalty of the troops and they're behind him, and there's no choice. So why won't he get everything he wants? Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:52:43): I all of the All of the smoke, I think, leads to the fire that you point out, which is there was some great advance. There was some deals going on, and those things it matches what the board said. We we didn't feel like we who's being forthcoming with us. And it could be on 2 issues like that. It just totally makes sense. It it blocks the puzzle pieces in place. Dave, let's assume that they have now not only done language models predicting the next word and and and, you know, understanding that but there is some reasoning going on here, and they understand Chamath, and it understands how to do the next math problem. I don't know if we put that under reinforcement learning. It's obviously very different than which models. Explain what you think if that is what's happening here with the the q project, what that could mean on a scientific basis. David Friedberg (01:53:30): I don't know enough. I'm sorry. Jason Calacanis (01:53:32): I got a That's I mean, this is why we love you because you're honest when you don't know. Chamath ending here as we wrap. In terms of watching this whole. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:53:41): I think it's probably not the end. David Sacks (01:53:43): Yeah. Yeah. More drama. I think there probably will be more drama. Jason Calacanis (01:53:48): Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of drama. David Friedberg (01:53:51): Did you see the article this morning on where they started saying all the houses that Sam bought. He bought all these houses. And so I think there's a lot of investigators digging around now trying to figure out all story because the board wasn't so forthcoming with what happened and why they made this decision, there's a lot of people digging around trying to figure out more about Sam than they have been you know, looked into in the past. So this will reveal all sorts of new threads that'll start to become part of the the narrative. It's unfortunate. I think that the technology the progress is what really matters here, not all the kind of personal people stuff. It's weird. I also they they other comment I'll make, I thought one of the biggest takeaways for me on the whole drama last week was that the employees basically got their way. Employees got together voted and said, this is what we want, and the board did what they wanted. And it really, I think sets another precedent, much like I think Elon said a really big precedent in Silicon Valley when he came in and slashed heads at Twitter. The precedent that it triggered a lot of other executives to start to think, well, maybe that's possible. And I should think about doing, you know, more cost savings and so on. This is another interesting precedent where an entire employee base gets together and says, we want X and the board acquiesced and said, here you go. You can have x. Does that mean that other startups and other companies are gonna start to see employee groups band together saying we want X in a more vocal public way. Possibly. David Sacks (01:55:17): Well, I mean, Friedberg, this is not a new tactic. David Friedberg (01:55:20): Right. David Sacks (01:55:20): But, look, if the employees are willing to sign a petition en masse and you get over 90% of them supporting something, and then you also threaten to all set up shop somewhere else I mean, boards usually respond to that pressure. Yeah. But, look, I think that it's very clear that Sam has the support of the troops. I'm not questioning that, but I think it would be a mistake to just see this as some sort of spontaneous groundswell. I think there was clearly like some organization to it. Like I said, I think he ran a textbook operation there. Yeah. And wasn't it Paul Graham who said something like if Sam were dropped in an island of cannibal's, like, kind of a lord of the fly situation, you'd be Speaker 7 (01:55:59): the one to come out on top. David Sacks (01:56:02): He's, like, really he's in his element. Don't don't just assume Look, this is all covered up by hearts, and I love you. I mean, I've never read a corporate announcement with the word loving it more times. This was not about love and hearts all the, you know, this is there's some Jason Calacanis (01:56:16): He's a wartime David Sacks (01:56:17): homeless corporate in fighting here. Jason Calacanis (01:56:19): Yeah. And he's on the top. David Sacks (01:56:20): But look, the board was totally incompetent. I mean, listen, if if a board is gonna take a drastic action of firing the founder CEO when everything is going great. I mean, because everything's been going great at OpenAI. It's incumbent on them to explain their actions, and there needs to be Why Jason Calacanis (01:56:38): didn't they just do that? Why didn't they do that? Did they David Sacks (01:56:41): speed up? Jason Calacanis (01:56:41): Why didn't they do that? The even as a CIA or for their reputation, David Sacks (01:56:45): I'm saying it was towing Compton. Jason Calacanis (01:56:47): Yeah. They should have dropped David Friedberg (01:56:48): it. Yeah. David Sacks (01:56:49): Well, no. What I'm saying is either there's a smoking gun or there's not. I don't think you should take an action like this ever unless there's a smoking gun. And if there is a smoking gun, you need to communicate that Right. And I think with each passing day that they didn't communicate it, people came to the conclusion, there is no smoking gun. And so my guess is there is no smoking gun, and they were overly hasty about taking this action. Jason Calacanis (01:57:12): Yeah. This could have been a very simple discussion. Hey, Sam. Can we work on you telling us in advance when you're going and doing deal making so we can be in alignment on it. Like, there seemed like there was something that could have been done that wasn't firing him in this space. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:57:28): Yeah. I mean, like, you could, you could put somebody on a pit. You could do all kinds of things. So taking the step of, yeah, letting somebody go in that way with that orchestration. Again, I just, I just think that This stuff is too juicy and too interesting for the details to not come out. Jason Calacanis (01:57:49): Oh, it it will come out. Yeah. The fact that it hasn't come out yet is crazy. I I would have suspect they were to come out in the 1st 72 hours. David Sacks (01:57:55): So you think there is maybe not a smoking gun, but there's something. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:57:59): No. No. No. I think it I think it's what what we said, which is that the economically rational decision for all the employees and for Sam and Greg was to do what they did because it allowed them to get an $86,000,000,000 valuation and a big secondary done, right? So that makes complete rational sense. That is the rational decision that should have happened, and so that did. But it doesn't stop whatever Underlying chaos was happening that caused this decision to exist in the first place to not come out. I just think that the incentives for that decision to come out now, for example, from the 2 departing board members is quite high. Do you get this information from the incoming board members? How do they not say anything? All the new six people will that join the board will have to get read into this thing. Right? So you're just multiplying the number of people that knows whatever it is. And it's either going to be David, to your point, PA, which is the board didn't know what they're doing in the acted hastily or, you know, the self preservation of here's what we knew. But it is just gonna come out and leak after leak leak. And then to your point, the pulling the sweater of all of the other deals that may have been happening on the side or whatever, all of this stuff now comes up because just too salacious for too many people. The numbers are too big. Everything just looks too juicy. Now you have this like hidden technology that could theoretically ruin the world. Everybody will be leaking to everybody. And that that's the that's the only guarantee here, which is why I really think that you have to commend the leadership team for trying to become very militaristic about all of this. Everybody had the same tweets. They said the same things. They use the same heart emojis. I mean, it was extremely well managed. David Sacks (01:59:49): It was mantras. Jason Calacanis (01:59:50): It's amazing what a secondary will do to the troops. And, Tony, there's alignment of the stock price. David Sacks (01:59:55): The mantra. The mantra was that OpenAI is nothing without it employees or something like that. Right? Chamath Palihapitiya (02:00:01): We got nothing without our team or something. David Sacks (02:00:03): And that was that was basically something that on the surface appear to be up positive affirmation of camaraderie, but like I said, iron fist beneath the velvet glove, it's a threat. It's a threat. We can set up shop Chamath Palihapitiya (02:00:17): It's also the formula in in an Excel spreadsheet that says they are nothing David Friedberg (02:00:21): without the team. The enterprise value equals 0. David Sacks (02:00:24): You're the company is a 0 without us. And we can go step shop somewhere else. So it was perfect, velvet glove iron fist type stuff. Jason Calacanis (02:00:32): Yeah. Well done, Sam. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:00:34): Well, Jason Calacanis (02:00:34): well, Sam will be on the pod in the coming weeks, I think. I've been texting with him. So I think if Sam, Chamath Palihapitiya (02:00:39): I think what Elon said yesterday was also really interesting, which is He described Ilya as an extremely moral person who thinks about these things subtly. And so, again, and and I've known Adam for a long time. I think Adam is tremendous. He is Jason Calacanis (02:00:56): From Cora, Adam D'Angelo. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:00:58): He was a CTO at Facebook. We worked together in the trenches in war for years. He is just the best of the best. David Sacks (02:01:05): Totally. He's very smart. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:01:07): Oh, so incredible. David Sacks (02:01:08): Very knowledgeable. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:01:09): This is not an irrational emotional person. David Sacks (02:01:12): My guess is that that they had good reasons to want to act based on the ILLia's philosophy around AI safety. You may not agree with that philosophy, but their mistake was if you're gonna do something like that, you have to be able to defend Speaker 7 (02:01:32): it, you have to be able to communicate it. David Sacks (02:01:34): And, I mean, if your concern here was around AI safety, write a manifesto, you know, explain the values that you're invoking and supporting. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:01:43): That's right. I think that's a takeaway for all of us for for all of us on boards that at some point have to make these decisions because we're all faced with them, and we've made them. The lesson that I learned is We're at a point where it is so important that you give employees the transparency to re underwrite why they should stay. So when you make a decision like this in any company going forward, my reaction will be open the kimono and lay out the case Bear. So if you have to make a CEO transition, this is exactly why we did it. This was the precipitating events that caused it. Here's the evidence. And here's what we're gonna do about it. And I think that that's probably a good takeaway for all boards to learn, which is that level of transparency is gonna be needed in the future so that Folks don't fill in the blanks with their own conspiracy theories. Jason Calacanis (02:02:32): Also, there were apparently 2 companies or 2 organizations running in parallel here to build on your points, Jamapp, which is Ilya and the nonprofit, this might have been the right decision for that organization, but the right decision for the employees who are incented by the secondary that was to be shipping the employees, apparently, 1,000,000,000 of dollars, that for profit company, this would be the wrong decision. The for profit company should go fast. And it should be releasing where Jason. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:03:01): And Jason, like the I I I from what was reported, there's like this obligation. And it's hard to understand what it means of the board to determine when AGI is reached. And then as a result, essentially hit the kill switch on the commercial business. And if I were a board member dealing with that, I would want a gazillion trillion dollars of insurance to cover me. And the reason is that when that's litigated, not if, when that's litigated, It is that board that will be at the center of dealing with that financial responsibility and liability. This is the other masterstroke, I think, of what Sam did. He's not even on the board, so that liability is no longer his. Jason Calacanis (02:03:52): A week at all of David Friedberg (02:03:53): the business and and the actual foot none Jason Calacanis (02:03:55): of the responsibility. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:03:56): And and the actual fiscal responsibility, he doesn't have to bear. Jason Calacanis (02:04:00): Good. Well, can David Sacks (02:04:00): I speak to the kill switch for a second? So I I think it's a really interesting point. So so by the way, Jason, there is a for profitability here. The for profanity is this new LLC that created. Tucker Carlson (02:04:09): Correct. David Sacks (02:04:09): The nonprofit entity is above it at the governance layer and it kinda owns the LLC. Right. So, again, investors and employees get compensated out of the and then this nonprofit foundation was supposed to exercise a really complicated org chart. There you go. Jason Calacanis (02:04:24): Yeah. Whenever org chart has more than, like, 2 arrows. Oh, it's David Sacks (02:04:27): crazy. You're fucked Right. Jason Calacanis (02:04:29): How many arrows? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 arrows. David Sacks (02:04:33): That's Right. Jason Calacanis (02:04:34): Too many. David Sacks (02:04:34): But my point is that this plexity was justified by this idea of the kill switch that if the AI gets out of control, the AGI gets out of control, we're gonna have this board of super wise people who are not motivated by a profit incentive, right, because that we can't trust the profit and motive. Right? And so we're gonna have this board of of of wise elders who are going to make this, you know, super intelligent decision. And if this whole episode shows anything, it shows the structure completely failed. I mean, the board ended up acting in a completely incompetent way. Either they had good cause to do what they did and didn't explain it, which was incompetent, or they had no cause at all, which was incompetent. Either way, you cannot say that this board acted with a high degree of competence. No matter how competent any of the individuals are, I'm just saying that as a board dynamic, it completely failed. So they did not invent some higher form of governance as they originally claimed was Jason Calacanis (02:05:33): necessary. Frank Construction. David Sacks (02:05:35): So it didn't work. And I think this all I mean, it's a, I think, important lesson in human motivations, which is just because you take out profit motive does not mean that human beings all of a sudden become noble. They just pursue other agendas basically political agendas or whatever. And, so this idea that we're gonna solve the AGI problem or alignment issue by creating nonprofit structures. I think that this episode proves that's not gonna work like look elsewhere. Jason Calacanis (02:06:08): And you and I talked about this on a on Twitter spaces and x spaces. Which was, you know, people give VCs and and, you know, investors a hard time about, you know, I don't know, their existence and and how they operate in the world. Okay. Fair enough. I'm sure there's valid criticisms. But the share price and employees participating and the share price going up and secondaries occurring on a regular basis is the most perfect structure that has been created by humans to date for running an organization. I think we would all agree. And it's super imperfect, and there's weird things that happen. But if you want everybody to grow in the right direction, giving them some shares, and then everybody watching the share price go up and to the right is pretty phenomenal. This board did not have one VC unit. It was not. David Sacks (02:06:50): And all the VCs in the company were they were the biggest, you know, they they they were the most aggressive tweeters saying, you know, WTF, like, what are you doing? Because they could see their investment going up in smoke. Yes. Jason Calacanis (02:07:03): They had a lot of meat with the share price. But no controls. David Sacks (02:07:06): So so as much as you don't like the profit motive, it does create alignment, and that makes people predictable. And that's a good thing. And like Adam Smith, said in the 1700s, the reason we can trust that the butcher and the baker will service our dinner is because they're gonna make a profit. They're aligned with us. And, you know, we don't look to charity. We look to their self interest. And like you said, for all the shit that VCs take, that if you properly align people, it can create, I think, it creates a great enterprise. It creates a a potential Jason Calacanis (02:07:40): for David Sacks (02:07:40): great enterprise for great outcome. Jason Calacanis (02:07:42): Gray outcomes. Absolutely. Alright. This has been another extraordinary all in episode, probably top 5. Thanks so much for Tucker Clawson for coming on the program. And, 4, the Sultan of Science David Friedberg The rain man? Yeah. Definitely David Sachs. And the dictator himself, Molly Holly Hoppertia. I'm the world's greatest moderator who will see you next time. Tucker Carlson (02:08:09): We'll let your winners ride. Rainman David Sachs. Jason Calacanis (02:08:16): And it said we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy lately. We besties are golf. Chamath Palihapitiya (02:08:40): You should all just get a room and just have one big huge door because they're all just useless. It's like this, like, sexual tension, and they just need to release her mouth. David Friedberg (02:08:48): You're that's good David Sacks (02:08:51): for you. Jason Calacanis (02:08:53): Where did you get Murphy's