Coinbase 上市、直接上市与 IPO 之争、工会问题——对话布拉德·格斯特纳

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): Any word from the dictate, or should we just do a -- I David Friedberg (00:00:02): don't know, man. I got it. I I cannot spend my whole day sitting on Zoom waiting for Or Jason Calacanis (00:00:07): I could have Brad Gershner come on and sit him for -- David Friedberg (00:00:09): Isn't he richer than Shamoff? David Friedberg (00:00:10): He is now. Brad Gerstner (00:00:11): The largest pack in the world. Jason Calacanis (00:00:12): Should we do that? Should I just have Brad come on the pod? David Friedberg (00:00:14): Oh my god. Yes. I've been fucking smart. Oh, sorry. David Friedberg (00:00:17): We have a new spacking. David Friedberg (00:00:18): Start it now. Get him on. Start it. And then Timok comes in later. Timok comes in later. He's like, what the fuck? We're like, we replaced you with the new spack king. Brad Gerstner (00:00:25): Oh my god. David Friedberg (00:00:25): Oh my god. Get him on. Brad Gerstner (00:00:26): Is this like a kidnapping, and you guys are gonna take me out and drop me out behind Behind the railroad car. So what's going on here? David Friedberg (00:00:34): Okay. Good. Here we go. Speaker 5 (00:00:36): I'm good. Jason Calacanis (00:00:38): Gains. Gains is great. David Friedberg (00:00:39): Good. Get Jason Calacanis (00:00:39): 3. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:41): Get into it in Jason Calacanis (00:00:42): 1. Speaker 7 (00:00:45): Let your winter ride. Rainman, Speaker 8 (00:00:48): David Sanders. Speaker 7 (00:00:52): And it said -- We open source it to Hey everybody. Speaker 8 (00:00:57): Hey everybody. It's Jason Calacanis (00:01:01): another episode of the all in podcast we took last week off because it was spring break, and we all needed a break. Hope you had a great one too. With us today, of course. the queen of Kinois from an undisclosed sunny location, David Friedberg -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:16): It looks like Redwood City. Is it Redwood City? Jason Calacanis (00:01:19): The rainmen themselves david Saxx, ready for governor sacks.com, and, of course, the king of all specs. Brad Gershner is with us again. The new dictator, filling in for Chamath, Palihapitiya, the dictator. Oh, wait. Shamath, Polyhopatia, the dictator is here as well. And special bestie, guys. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:38): Jason. Jason. It's not when you Jason Calacanis (00:01:45): I don't know what that means, but we're editing that David Friedberg (00:01:47): out of the show. Jason Calacanis (00:01:48): That's a bunch of beeps, but welcome Brad sitting in just for a moment here, because Chamath was gonna blow us up. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:01:56): He got -- Shamath was a he was a no show. We needed us back king. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:59): Sorry. That's -- -- use backing. I apologize. Emergency. Brad Gerstner (00:02:03): It's just it's just a little flattery for Chamaat. The truth of the matter is Chamaat is pioneering here. And, you know, I think it's been incredible to watch the competition in choice. And as Chamath knows, I participated in a couple of the deals that he's done. And I think we all share the same feeling, which is, you know, there's been a a a system that is pretty Byzantine that wasn't serving the founders who we all you know, care deeply about. And so I'm just I'm thrilled whether it's direct list like Roblox did a few weeks ago that we we helped do and you know, or whether Chamath and the incredible innovation that that he's helping to do or, you know, we're we're lucky we've bet we've you know, building Palihapitiya markets business on top of this this stack and and and then, you know, worked with Grab to bring a great public company out this week? Jason Calacanis (00:03:01): So let's get to the direct listing, good segue. Clearly, the biggest news of the week is Coinbase, the largest direct listing ever. Bill Gully somewhere is smiling. And that's on top of Roblox, which I think was the 2nd biggest. 2020 revenue, 1,200,000,000. Sorry. Brad, did did Snowflake direct list, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:21): or that was a traditional -- No. Brad Gerstner (00:03:22): That was traditional IPO. David Friedberg (00:03:23): Traditional IPO. Jason Calacanis (00:03:24): I don't know who got their bet weak their wet their beaks on this one. Sachs, did you have a little bit? David Friedberg (00:03:31): I had a little tasty poo. Jason Calacanis (00:03:32): Little tasty poo. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:33): I had I had a lot showered upon Jason Calacanis (00:03:37): me. Explain bites. -- David Friedberg (00:03:39): because you're because you're in ribbit. Right? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:41): I am I was Mickey's one of Mickey's largest LPs. Yeah. Who's Mickey Jason Calacanis (00:03:44): for the audience who doesn't know? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:45): Mickey Malka who runs Ribbit Capital, who owns 7% or 10% or 7 or 8% of Coinbase. And what was incredible was I got distributed all of it yesterday. Which, by the way, I think for a direct listing, the strategy to me makes a lot of sense. I made a mistake in hindsight if I think about my distribution strategy because myself, Excel and Andresen, when we did the Slack direct listing, we distributed probably 5%, 10% and then we waited and then we trickled it out over time. But by definition, I think the price action on direct listings shows you that you top take the top price at in the moment on the open print. And so, you know, if you're going to sell You're probably better off selling absolutely right away. And if you look at the price action on direct listings, it's basically been one way direction down from the point of the direct listing. Spotify did that for 2 years. It kinda languished, you know, Slack did that until the Salesforce acquisition. So in general, I think if if a direct listing happens, when you get distributed to stock, you should probably sell it right away. Jason Calacanis (00:04:47): And that means it was priced correctly as opposed to underpriced. Is that what we should take from that? Well, no. Because, yeah, there's no price. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:56): What's what's TBD is what is the morale hit to the company to see a one way direction down in, you know, a stairway down on the stock price. So maybe it was good for selling shareholders. It's not necessarily good for the morale of employees, which then could impact the long term enterprise value that's being built at a company. So I think there's a bunch of TBDs. I do think that direct listings are administratively clean in some ways. But company building may not necessarily win. David Friedberg (00:05:21): But, Chihuat, you had you had a point of view. I think it was last year or 2 years ago about how you know and and I I read some papers that one of the analysts at Wall Street put out showing that there isn't much of a benefit to lock up with respect to short or long term price volatility. Do you still hold that point of view? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:39): Like -- I think lock ups are I think lock ups are really unfair because they their their attacks on the people that have been there the longest, which are the employees. So, you know, the idea that somebody that comes in at the absolute last minute You know, Brad and I have done a bunch of IPOs recently where he'd like, you get allocations in a book. He and I had nothing to do with companies, but we get it shares and we sell it day 1. then there are people that have been in that company for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years who sit around, you know, twiddling their thumbs, watching all these other people David Friedberg (00:06:10): Make money. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:11): One one day returns, there was a tweet that Bill Gurley had yesterday that says there's a well known crossover fund that over the last year has printed a $1,000,000,000 of one day share gains. Well, that's crazy. So I think that lockups are kind of a a regressive tax on the people that do the work and they they are just rewarding people that have nothing to do with companies. David Friedberg (00:06:32): Brad, what what are you doing, grab? because you lock yourself up, right, for a couple years and Or is there a lockup for the existing shareholders and grab? Brad Gerstner (00:06:39): Yeah. So first, I totally agree with Chamath. Lockups are one of the most insidious things I think about the traditional IPO process. You know, the fact that DoorDash employees are sitting there watching the stock go from a 100 to Jason Calacanis (00:06:52): 200 Brad Gerstner (00:06:52): and then, you know, all these other folks are selling while they'll watch the stock go from 200 back to a 100. I I would think it's incredibly demoralizing. And it doesn't here's the thing. It doesn't need to exist. In Roblox, there was no lockup. The employees were free to sell, but guess what? A lot of them chose not to sell. Right? It's fairer and and and quicker price discovery when you actually allowed the supply and demand to to exist in in balance. So what we what we did at a grab was we fought hard for the most open unlocked, right, day 1 we could possibly get. In that case, there are a lot of big shareholders who are on the board. So they're deemed affiliates under section 60 of securities laws. So they can't sell. Right? They're deemed to be insiders. Right? And but we at the end of the day, all employees can sell. There is a group of senior management that said, hey. We wanna entarily locked. It's a signal to the market, but all other employees in the company can sell. So there are over 5000 employees in the company. and all of the early shareholders can sell on day 1. And I think this was the first time I've seen this in in, you know, this alternative IPO. So we have almost a third of the entire share base of the company that is available for sale on day Jason Calacanis (00:08:08): 1. David Friedberg (00:08:08): Incredible. Hey, Brad. Can I ask one more question? The the the economics for grab, are are they better under your structure than they would have been for traditional IPO to get the same capital, and they're paying 7% to the underwriting banks? Brad Gerstner (00:08:23): You know, as you're as we all know, you know, Bill Gerley has has laboriously pointed and documented that there are 2 expenses to a traditional IPO. Right? There's the upfront fee 5 a half, 6%, whatever they're paying on the amount of capital raised. But he would argue the much bigger expense, right, is the indirect cost of the structural under pricing. David Friedberg (00:08:46): Right. Brad Gerstner (00:08:46): Right? So in a traditional IPO, let's say you have a $10,000,000,000 value raising a $1,000,000,000. If it's being underpriced, he would argue structurally by 40%. We can all debate that, but that's $400,000,000 of dilution. to employees and to existing shareholders. I I think everybody in the grab process, both the buy side portfolio managers from Fidelity, Janice, T. Rowe, etcetera, as well as the company believe that we got a 20 to 30 percent higher price than a bank would have got because of the conviction the portfolios managers had as a result of the significant investment we are making in the company. As a result of the fact that we were locking up our promote shares or sponsor shares for 3 years, And so if you say it's 30 percent on a $4,000,000,000 raise, that's over a $1,000,000,000 of savings. Right? Over a Jason Calacanis (00:09:38): $1,000,000,000 Brad Gerstner (00:09:39): of indirect cost savings to the employees and the shareholders. And, like, for me, our North Star is founders. And so we literally have deducted the IPO at every step of the value chain. And to say, you know, like, Rich Barton, my my thought partner in this, he's taken on the board of Netflix, when it went public, took Zillow public, took Expedia public. And he said, like, we can make this better at every step of the value chain. And so we've thought about it a product. And we build into Capital Markets business that says part of it, right, is eliminating the commission. Part of it is getting a fairer price. But part of it is curating that day one cap table. Right? Because these companies are stepping into the public markets. And, you know, as Rich has said and others, it said, Think about all the curation that goes into a private cap table. Now when you go public, Rich calls it a cap table randomization event. Right? You lose total control over your cap table. Right? Whereas in the case of grab, we hand select it. what we think are the world's best public market shareholders to be their day one cap table. So it's a very different outcome, and it's not just about cost savings. It's not just about trying to get a fair price. It's actually making the process better at each step of the value chain. Jason Calacanis (00:10:55): Alright. So we were talking about Coinbase last year when they had a big brewer and Brian Armstrong said, we are not gonna talk about politics inside the company. You can have political views but not inside the company. Saks you did some tweets about this. What are your thoughts? David Friedberg (00:11:11): Yeah. I mean, Apparently, Coinbase is banned on politics in the workplace, and their refusal submit to New York Times interviews did not prevent them from creating an $85,000,000,000 company. You know, I'm I'm shocked shocked that they were able to to do that. That's basically what I tweeted. And, you know, it just shows the founders can do things their own way. They don't have to submit to, you know, the woke mob. And that's basically what I tweeted and then, you know, of course, I well, the first it's been interesting to see the reactions. The first day, got, like, 10,000 likes. And then the second day, it seemed like some sort of SOS went out. And now I've been sort of surrounded. There's been this, like, outcry And my takeaway is that the woke mob really doesn't like to be called out as a woke mob. And they're sort of they're sort of surrounding me with pitchforks now saying, how dare you call us a mob? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:06): Sacks, do are you running for a governor because it looks like you've taken -- Yeah. Did you take Botox? Jason Calacanis (00:12:14): He's in Miami, so it's probably Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:16): why he's going on with your lates them off. Speaker 5 (00:12:17): Lates them David Friedberg (00:12:18): off on the Botox. He's also wearing lips. Speaker 5 (00:12:19): Yeah. Your Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:20): lips are incredibly swollen. I mean, they look very soft. succulent. It's unbelievable. Sorry. David Friedberg (00:12:25): I've got a new lens. I've got 5 different technologies making me slimming me here. Jason Calacanis (00:12:30): But you do have your pin on today, and you do look very governorial. And I noticed that you bought -- David Friedberg (00:12:36): I'm wearing my Miami pin. This is City of Miami Pen. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:39): Francis gave you that PIN. David Friedberg (00:12:40): Francis gave me the PIN. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:41): That's fantastic. Can you Jason Calacanis (00:12:43): tell you never call me Francis? David Friedberg (00:12:46): What is the big announcement today? David Friedberg (00:12:48): I work for you guys. David Friedberg (00:12:49): We're we're we're really excited to hear it. Jason Calacanis (00:12:50): Yeah. Tell usgovernor sacks.com. What do you got on deck? David Friedberg (00:12:54): There there is nothing. The this is a this is a Jason construction. I don't wanna get the Jason Calacanis (00:12:58): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:58): Do we have a do we have an exploratory committee set up yet? Jason Calacanis (00:13:02): Let's get sacked out of the game. I need that deal Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:04): as well. Guys, obviously, if this comes to pass, we're gonna rewrite history as David Sachs was our Nigerian candidate. You know? I floated the trial balloon There was a layup for David Sachs to come an alley up and dunk on Gavinism. Jason Calacanis (00:13:17): Woof. No look. Oh, come Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:18): on, Saxx. No look. The world needs Jason Calacanis (00:13:20): -- David Friedberg (00:13:20): I I tell you, Newsom is doing everything in his power to to to blow this recall because, I mean, timing is working in his favor. I mean, he's done horrible job on everything, vaccine related. But the reality is COVID is winding down. It's gonna be over. So even though he delayed everyone getting the vaccine by by weeks, if not months. Jason Calacanis (00:13:39): Months. David Friedberg (00:13:40): Probably yeah. By months. We've got 7,000,000 unused doses sitting on the shelf in California because all of this crazy eligibility requirements. Despite all of that, by the time we actually get around to the recall, which will be in about 5 or 6 months, the the recall election you know, the economy's gonna be booming again over COVID's gonna be over. People will probably forget. But but for the fact that he is now saying that he cannot guarantee that schools will reopen in the fall. So we now have we now have schools reopen in, you know, every public schools reopen basically in every other state you now have private schools are all reopened in California, and he still cannot guarantee that schools will be reopened. Not not now, but in the fall. Brad Gerstner (00:14:22): David, throw down the gauntlet. Yeah. Make the guarantee -- You made enough money. -- you will open all the public when they open on phone day Jason Calacanis (00:14:30): 1 -- Yeah. -- and -- David Friedberg (00:14:31): Well, I'm not -- This is Jason Calacanis (00:14:32): the window, David, now or never? David Friedberg (00:14:34): I'm not I'm not I'm not saying that that I'm running, but one thing I would say is that whoever it does. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:39): What what about if you ran? How David Friedberg (00:14:41): If I if I ran, I would 100% absolutely guarantee that school is open in the fall. What we need what we need is a governor who will go to the teacher's unions and say, listen. You will either report your duty the 1st day of school 5 days a week. No exceptions, or you will look for another career. Dave is -- -- what we do. David Friedberg (00:15:02): David Sucks. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:04): David Sucks. David Friedberg (00:15:05): More more more more. More. I know. Right? are you. on David Friedberg (00:15:08): I'm not David Friedberg (00:15:09): running cash. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:09): Let's go let's go let's go David Friedberg (00:15:10): can you make all the vending machines free? David Friedberg (00:15:13): Yeah. Sure. We can do that too. David Friedberg (00:15:14): Okay. Can you can you get rid of all my debt? Yeah. Why not? Okay. Okay. Like, I'm in. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:21): Can we go back to the to the markets just for one second? because I just wanna I wanna ask a couple questions. Bratt, q 1 was nuts. Let's get some color commentary from a big player in the capital markets you. Talk us through us talk to us through what factor rotation what was talk to us about your reactions to this Artego's capital thing about inflation. Also, gut check. Like, what is the what is what is the rest of the year look like? Like, talk just how what's your sentiment, how you're feeling? Just give us a on just the economy. Jason Calacanis (00:15:55): And the gut check, Brad, on weren't you, like, the biggest shareholder in United at some point? And -- Oh, that Brad Gerstner (00:16:01): was a bad way to start off 1020. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:16:03): I wanna hear about that. -- a bad Brad Gerstner (00:16:05): way to start off Jason Calacanis (00:16:05): 2020. Brad Gerstner (00:16:06): However, I would say that it ended up being the best year in the history of the firm. And so, you know, like, We, like everybody else, had to reinvent a lot of things about our business last year, and and we learned a lot from that moment. And and the courage that a lot of people at at United showed through through that period of time. Without a lot of help, a lot of people think the government was helpful. There's a lot of unhelpful things that were being done, but notwithstanding that fact to to Chima's point. Chima, I I think I went on CNBC in November and just said, like, when we normalize, there's no reason that the 10 year shouldn't be back at the level it was in January 20. Right? And for every 1% move in the 10 year, you've got a 10 to a Jason Calacanis (00:16:47): 20% Brad Gerstner (00:16:48): drawdown in growth multiples. And the reason for that is very simple. They're long duration assets. You discount them back at a higher rate, and so you have multiple compression. And so we were starting at an all time high in terms of growth equity multiples for both software and Internet when you look at October, November of last year. We've seen about 30 to 40 percent retracement or, you know, give back in terms of those multiples. Right? In some names, it's bigger and some some names, it's less. I suspect that there's another 10 to 20 percent to go, right, for a 10 year that's gonna be sitting here at 18. It I I just got done talking as part of this roadshow. As you know, to all the biggest growth equity portfolio managers on the on the public buy side I can tell you they're all deleveraging growth. They are not adding. They're not looking to add dollars to growth. And these are the biggest managers in the world. And so we're not through that process. There are some people who've anchored themselves to the fact that Zoom was just at 500. They're like, oh my god. It's going straight back to 500. You're like, no. 100 was the outlier event. That was the all time high multiple event. It will get there in the fullness of time, but it's gonna have to get there through earnings. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:59): So So what do you think then happens in the privates? And, you know, there's a lot of talk about certain firms, some of your competitors in the growth states side, ripping capital into companies every 24 hours or 48 hours. Where where does that then normalize? Because aren't we setting up a dynamic where If you have a bunch of growth firms pricing crazy rounds whose valuations can then will not be able to be held up in the public markets, aren't we creating a different kind of problem? Brad Gerstner (00:18:28): Well, you know, you and I have watched this dynamic play out probably four or 5 times over the course of the last 15 years where there's this inversion, private capital markets. Private markets are actually overvalued relative to public markets. I just look at a few IPOs this week over the last couple weeks. Deliveroo, hot private company, down 30% in the IPO. App loving came out this week, 20% down in the IPO. Right? At the end of the day, the great day, you know, as as Mungar likes to say, you know, the markets are a voting machine, and the public markets are a brutal voting machine. And so, you know, it just is gonna take remember when Groupon got done that last private round at 20,000,000,000, and then about 9 months later, trading at Jason Calacanis (00:19:10): 5,000,000,000 Brad Gerstner (00:19:10): or Zynga. I mean, you and Zynga go through the list. We've watched this. You know? So it just takes the smackdown and people losing actual money And and, however so that's the one side. Right? This is a temporary dynamic markets. We'll clear. I think it is possible you reference you know, a a good friend of of mine, you know, who's supposedly writing a term sheet every 2 days. You know, at Tiger, The truth of the matter is you can hop you can hold simultaneous troops. You can believe the next 3 months that we're likely to have more multiple compression in the public markets. Right? You could hedge your public book in a variety of ways against that like like we did and and announce last last December. And at the same times, you can believe that the secular trend in technology has never been more potent. Right? And I believe that if you own an index of the top 30% of technology companies in the world today and you're willing to hold them for 5 to 10 years, you will be incredibly well rewarded. The the The most asymmetric bet maybe in the history of all of investing is having a golden ticket to have access to the best technology companies in the world today. It's it's like unfair play. And everybody on this call is playing in what is a highly asymmetric and unfair game stacked in our favor. Now we can screw that up by trying to think we're good at short term trading or doing a bunch of other stuff. We can get individual things wrong. But if you bet on the top the top quartile of technology companies on a global basis like Tiger and others are doing. And you and you have time on your side, you're gonna be well rewarded. Jason Calacanis (00:20:48): We we talked about the mid market late stage venture space being a no man's land, a vortex, the value being created in the late stage and value being created in the early stage, but the money in the middle becoming a commodity because of Tiger co2 and others coming in and just coming over the top. Do you subscribe to that, Brad? Do you think that's just a financial transaction in the middle and not a lot of value to be made there, or do you think No. Brad Gerstner (00:21:13): I mean, I I you know, listen. It doesn't matter in Snowflake whether you invested in the $100,000,000 round, the $200,000,000 round, the $500,000,000 round, the $1,000,000,000 round, where Coya came in. You you know, if the company is going to Jason Calacanis (00:21:26): 2, 3, $400,000,000,000, Brad Gerstner (00:21:29): right, all of those are extraordinary returns. So Altimeter has described itself often as a life cycle investor. Right? I represent the biggest portion of the capital in the firm. some long term endowments or or number 2 and number 3, and we have a multi decade view on the world. And our view is the one that I just articulated. I wanna have maximum dollars. I don't care that it's all in the b or the c or the d or the IPO or, you know, I wanna have maximum dollars behind our best ideas. and I wanna be an incredible partner to these companies as they move through the life cycle. And part of the reason we build a Capital Markets business to help founders in a better way step into the public markets is it's part of our mission. Right? Like, I wanna you know how frustrating it was to me, Jason, to be pre mar or pre IPO in Mongo or Twilio or Okta. And then when it came to the IPO, I have to go to the banks and grovel right, and grovel for an allocation, and they dribble 5 or 10,000,000, and I see them handing big check, you know, big allocations to people who I know we're gonna flip it. And I actually wanna own this stuff. It's very frustrating. And so we think there's a better way and when those companies come public in the future? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:22:38): You said something which I wanna use as a question to Friedberg and Saxx and Jason because these guys are involved very since in one way and what I'm gonna say, which is you said gross tonnage of dollars. One of the most incredible things that I thought about the Coinbase s one was the amount of unbelievably smart buying that Andreessen did. And I thought to myself, and recent just out Sequoia and Sequoia. And what do you guys think about sort of how they've been able to to actually execute. It just seems like Andreessen has done an incredible incredible job. I don't wanna I mean, Jason, you're close to Sequoia's So are you free, Brooke? I just want you to react to that. David Friedberg (00:23:24): No. You gotta get you gotta give them credit on Coinbase because I think they made the they made the most money. I guess, Ribbit and Gary Tanner initialized may have made the highest ROI because they invested a smaller amount of dollars earlier. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:38): Right? My return my return in RIPET, the the Maya from Iconic told me was 506 times. David Friedberg (00:23:45): Right. Exactly. So so so Ribbit made the 500 and I guess and Teresa. But Andreessen made, like, Jason Calacanis (00:23:52): 20,000,000,000 David Friedberg (00:23:53): of returns of which, you know, they're probably getting 25, 30%. So they they made the most money. May not have been the highest IRR, but it was the most money. And you're right. They doubled down in this, like, 2018, 2019 It sounded like they were doing a bunch of secondary buying Jason Calacanis (00:24:10): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:10): They were buying the stock at 25 bucks. David Friedberg (00:24:12): Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:24:12): They bought it all from Fred Wells sitting in Union Square. Right. David Friedberg (00:24:15): They're buying for other investors. David Friedberg (00:24:17): They were just Jason Calacanis (00:24:17): -- Right. -- they did what soccer did with Twitter, right, and with Uber and and started buying out the -- David Friedberg (00:24:22): But they but they did it but they did it at a time where people were losing faith in crypto. There was, like you know, remember there's, like, this big Jason Calacanis (00:24:28): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:28): The crypto winter. David Friedberg (00:24:30): Yeah. There was a big crypto boom in, like, I'd say, December of 2017, January 2018, then kinda collapse and that, you know, it mirrors the price of Bitcoin. You had Bitcoin reach a peak of about 20,000 that crashed all the way down to 4 to 3 or 4000. obviously, that was a great time to buy Bitcoin. But it sounds like these guys were also buying Coinbase at that time. So that was a pretty that was a remark the David Friedberg (00:24:52): way, it's a it's a it's a good validation of Brad's point about, you know, market perturbations being fairly independent of value creation over the long run. And, you know, if you have faith that this is where value will be created over a period community to buy in, buy in, and don't let the market perturbations drive your decision making, or else you end up in this market trading trap? Yeah. I think I think we've talked about this a lot. Warren Buffett talks about it a lot. I think, Shamoff, you've made the point about not timing the markets, but your time in the markets, and there's no when you have conviction in a business or an idea or a thesis. You know, you can continue to to double down on that conviction regardless of whether you think relative valuations are appropriate or or kind of disjointed at the time. Brad Gerstner (00:25:37): It's even more acute because what happens is we make short term decisions. And then those short term decisions oftentimes to prove to be right in the short term. And let me give you an example. Right. Exactly. Right. And then it leads to behavioral lock in. Speaker 7 (00:25:50): Right. Brad Gerstner (00:25:50): So at the end of 2014, Bitcoin's at $1100 a share. We get I get very interested in crypto. I think this is one of the most asymmetric bets I see in the world. Right? I have I think it's a low probability event. But if you win the size of the prize is absolutely gigantic. Right? So we're looking at a deal with Andreessen because I thought Balaji was one of the smartest people in the space. The company was called 21.co, idea of mining for Bitcoin on a chip. On the eve of the deal, my partner and I, I said, you know what? I believe that we should place our bet in in Bitcoin because I'm not sure whether or not this mining company is actually going to work out. Okay? So we pass on the deal. crypto Bitcoin goes from 1200 to 300 in, like, a straight line down. And what was my takeaway? My takeaway is like, man, I'm so smart. I'm so smart we passed on that deal. Okay. Rather than being curious, rather than learning more, rather than developing And what Andreessen did during that period of time is they stuck to their belief that this could be a highly asymmetric outcome. Ultimately, I ran into Katie Horn, a board member at Coinbase, the night of the IPO. And she said, Brad, you know, Do you remember, you know, 21.co? I was like, yeah. She goes, those were some of our original shares in Coinbase. We sold that company to Coinbase. David Friedberg (00:27:17): Wow. Brad Gerstner (00:27:18): Right? And and and, you know, it's just for me, I sent this note to our team because I said, you know what, guys? In the face of having some good wins, I wanna remind you of some really potent near near winds and misses. Yeah. And my mistake at that point in time was I lacked mental flexibility. I got locked in to this idea that I was really smart by having miss21.co. rather than learning from that moment and saying, listen, when I started to see it move. And then it moved pretty quickly, and I was like, oh, I missed it. It's just like a stock. We do the same thing. The reality is you should allocate to things that you think are thematically highly as asymmetric. and great ideas. And and and this was one of them and and one we missed. David Friedberg (00:28:02): Can I just kinda add something to that? I was in 21 is 21e6. I don't remember getting any Coinbase shares, so David Friedberg (00:28:09): I need to Speaker 5 (00:28:10): I need to -- Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:10): So somebody somebody you did not own the prepared. David Friedberg (00:28:14): Yeah. You Jason Calacanis (00:28:14): didn't got David Friedberg (00:28:17): you did not know I didn't prefer. I did own preferred. I invested Then Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:20): you did not clear the press stack. You did the wrong series. with Jason Calacanis (00:28:24): one thing I'll add to that is you have to look at the mandate of these funds. If you're an early stage fund and you have the ability to sell at 500 x or a 1000 x or 2000 x, Sometimes you've gotta lock that in and give something to your LPs. And I think this is where, you know, thinking full life cycle, you said, Shamalff, like, what did you learn from all this? Well, one of the things I learned is I didn't even know what pro rata really was when I started my career. I didn't do pro rata in Uber or anything. And now my position is I am going super pro rata in our winners. So not only holding winners, I'm trying to get to 10, 15 percent ownership in these companies, and it's starting to happen, you know, with companies that are worth 500 or 700,000,000, And so that that is the economic that's the change in behavior I'm doing, which is, you know, to your point, if you bought Snowflake at any time, you feel great about it. but then you have to have buy in from your LPs that they agree with that and that they're okay with you taking a longer strategy. And then at some point, you wanna return capital And that becomes super problematic. You're in 7, 8, 9, 10 of your fund. You wanna take some chips off the table. And so what I'm gonna do now is I think I'm gonna try to do both where I have a group of LPs who wanna buy shares, and I don't know how to figure this out. And maybe somebody could advise me here. because I have had other venture firms who had this challenge where Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:46): the -- I don't want I don't want anything you want. David Friedberg (00:29:49): Well, no. No. I know that. Carol, Jason. Why do Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:56): you say you're cellphones like that. David Friedberg (00:29:58): No. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:29:58): I'm looking for advice here, but Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:00): talk to you. But the whole point of this podcast is for Jason Calacanis (00:30:03): me to draft off people who are smarter than me. Uh-huh. Mission accomplished. So here we go. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:30:07): We still have to teach you how to set up an LLC to buy your house. Speaker 5 (00:30:10): I mean, it's all about done. Jason Calacanis (00:30:12): I'm talking about the process. Sorry. I'm an idiot. Nupa Rish. But here's the issue. Can I be an angel investor in Uber and then be selling shares in Uber to my other LPs and creating that sock a secondary market, or is that conflicted? You know what I'm saying? Well, I'll David Friedberg (00:30:29): I'll tell you, you know, I I think this is public. don't know if it's public. I will say it anyway because I think it's well known. But Sanders Fund had early SpaceX shares that they thought it was prudent to sell in the early funds, those SpaceX Shares, the later fund was buying SpaceX Shares in that round. And so they were in a circumstance where they had such a big markup on the early round the early fund that they had to kind of distribute and liquid liquidate those SpaceX shares. Meanwhile, they're some with a good overlap of LPs, we're buying in the other fund at that at that higher price. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:01): You are speaking to something I lived out in the early venture funds of social capital because when it was not entirely my own capital base, I felt that pressure and I did similar things. because I was like, oh, wow. We're in year 7, 8, 9. Yes. You know, the I had and I had great LPs. It's like, wait. I how how can I not give capital back to the Broad or Mayo. These are phenomenal institutions. They weren't pressuring me at all. But I felt internal pressure, and I started to make suboptimal decisions for myself. I couldn't make really, you know, clearly the best optimized decision, which would have been to hold everything as long as you know, to to your point, like, if you're in the top quartile of things, the best thing is to never sell. And it's an incredibly special place where you can actually have that freedom to do it. The it's what's interesting is I actually think the the folks that are in the best position to do are actually employees, and you I actually think that they're They're randomly doing this when you look at the churn rates of employees today. Like, I saw this crazy stat. The average tenure at Uber is 1.8 years. David Friedberg (00:32:05): That's crazy. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:06): The average tenure at Tesla is 2.1 years. The average tenure at Google is 3.2 years. So if you think about a traditional 10 year career in the valley, you have somewhere between, you know, Jason Calacanis (00:32:16): 3 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:16): and 5, 3 and 5 different baskets of shares that you're getting. And, you know, those are those are costless options effectively. That's actually an incredible form of portfolio construction for these people because if you never have to sell those things, you can wait till they go public and you can underwrite them forever. That's probably what a lot of employees in Silicon Valley have figured out implicit things. have a question I wanna ask you guys as well, which is I just wanna go back to the public markets for a second. I tweeted out some of these amazing things I learned from the Bezos -- Oh Jason Calacanis (00:32:45): my god. This is demented. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:47): Did you guys see what I what I tweeted? Jason Calacanis (00:32:48): I saw your tweet, and I and I've been reading it. It's unbelievable. It's been Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:52): at do you have it in of you, Jason. I do. Jason Calacanis (00:32:54): I'll just give you the Chemut's tweet here high level. 28% of purchases on Amazon are completed in less than 3 minutes. I think we've all done that. 50% of purchase is on Amazon are completed in less than 15. And if you actually look at that and I think this is a really know if you made this calculation or -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:12): No. This is Bezos wrote it in the letter. All of these things David Friedberg (00:33:14): right now. Jason Calacanis (00:33:14): So if you value your time at $10 an hour, a very low one, that's $750 a year And that means your prime is free of a $120 a year. So that means you're 630 in profit. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:26): Let me say it differently. The average trip to the store driving, buying, coming back is an hour. So what Bezos said is that typically we will save you 75 hours because we can make all of that more efficient for you. At 10 bucks an hour, that's worth $750. We only charge you a 120 for Prime, which means you're you get $630 of savings. But then he goes on to say, and we have 200,000,000 customers on Prime, so we're saving them a $126,000,000,000 My instant reaction was 2 things. And so the last two points in that tweet or mind, one is holy fuck. That's more in one year than what most companies are worth in their entire lifetime. And the second is that you can buy Amazon for 13 times 1 year's worth of savings for a customer. It's just if you look at Prime, Yeah. Which which makes Amazon seem exceptionally cheap. But I the reason I brought up Amazon is he also wrote in there about his responsibility to his employees. and we were just talking about employees in churn. And this was incredible to me that 70% of their employees voted down the unionization effort in Alabama and I just wanted to get Saksipoo. David Friedberg (00:34:32): Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:32): Red red pilllet, crushed it, snorted. What do what do you gotta say? David Friedberg (00:34:36): Yeah. Well, I mean, what what happened is you had in Alabama, there's a Amazon plant there that where they there basically was an election to decide whether they would go Union or not. And there were 2536 workers who voted in this union election. About 1800 voted against unionization versus Jason Calacanis (00:35:00): 738 David Friedberg (00:35:00): who voted 2 union eyes. And then ballots from another 505 workers were either were challenged by either Amazon or the union, so we don't know yet what they mean. But those votes won't change the outcomes the election is over. Now this was a heavily lobbied election. I mean, Amazon was lobbying employees, but so were the unions, and it looks like the unions at the end of the day or lost and the employees voted to, you know, remain meaningless. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:28): Brad, what do you think? Brad Gerstner (00:35:30): I thought it was a beautiful defense of capitalism that's very much needed right now. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:35): Yep. You Brad Gerstner (00:35:36): know? it reminded me a lot, frankly, of the Gates Foundation annual letter, you know, where Bill Gates is saying, you know, capitalism is far from perfect. but it's resulted in the most important era of prosperity and health and wellness in the history of the planet. And, you know, as I said on CNBC this week, you know, we live at a moment where Calacanis is absolutely under attack. And I truly believe it's the greatest force the greatest potential force for good in the world. It brought us a vaccine. Right? It brings us innovation that pulls people out of poverty that makes people healthier that edge gives an opportunity for people in rural areas that are impoverished to be educated. But I do think it's incumbent upon Bezos. I think he this was very much a robber Baron sort of defense of building railroads. And I thought it was brilliant in its execution, but I think it's important in for all of us to stand up, not defensively, but to say, what are our obligations to make capitalism the greatest force for good? You know, to whether you and I talking about Invest America on CNBC and giving every child in this country a participation in the ownership society. Right? Or all the other initiatives that we need to work on to, you know, to to make the case. We need to make it better. Jason Calacanis (00:37:02): And I think one of the issues here is, you know, what we see on Twitter being part of the Twitter Adi is, you know, people who are super woke, socialist, whatever, talking about this. But in reality, the workers don't want it. And I was talking to somebody in the media says -- No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:18): Hold on. Can I just say something slightly different, Jason? I think what workers don't want is the version 1.0 of unions. Jason Calacanis (00:37:26): Okay. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:27): Because I think what they see that as is a tax that then goes and fills the coffers of certain people. I think you've seen like, you know, a bunch of waste a bunch of graft, a bunch of corruption, people have been arrested, unions are not effective anymore in collective bargaining. They are not. They don't have any data. They don't have any facts. They're not Jason Calacanis (00:37:48): -- They don't have any power. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:50): They're but they're not set up to win. So I think In my opinion, I think unions have an important role, but you need a version 2.0. You need some young, smart, bright people to reframe what unions are. And then I think you would see everybody collectively organized, which is it's not about dues. You don't need 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars to to all of a sudden, like, used to then elect certain people. And that old model is breaking. It's breaking every day. Instead, I think what people need to do is like if you come together and like you understand what are the products we make, what are the margins we have, how is my contribution measured. You know? And then you're able to use data and fact to really collectively bargain. That hasn't happened yet. So I think what it works Speaker 5 (00:38:32): is a Jason Calacanis (00:38:32): -- Or it could be a free market, and people could go work at Starbucks or for Postmates, you get paid more. David Friedberg (00:38:38): You know, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:39): capitalism allows both to exist. David Friedberg (00:38:40): Yeah. If you if you think about what a union is, you can almost make an argument that it is the ultimate manifestation of a free market system because it is basically like a bunch of people spinning out to have their own start And so, you know, that that group of people are saying we're not charging enough for our product or service today. The value that we are creating is worth more. Therefore, we should go create a you know, a different business and charge more and effectively compete in the marketplace with a higher quality product at a higher at a higher price point. And I think that that may be kind of, you know, the the the distinction between what people kind of view to be regulatory capture around unions where there have it has been government involvement in the past. versus what may be possible. I think I've heard some people talk about how, you know, at some point in the world we end up with, you know, at some point in the evolution of to meet up in a place where there are no employees. There's just a ton of independent contractors doing independent work, and maybe there is an organization of people around doing the same work over and over together as a group. where you charge 1 kind of, you know, aggregated fixed rate for that service. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:41): The other the other thing to me was, like, all of a sudden, it brought into such a stark contrast. This wasn't like Jason Calacanis (00:39:46): 5545. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:48): This was 70 30, and probably it could have been Jason Calacanis (00:39:51): 80, 20, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:52): or 90, 10. And so it said to me, wait a minute. There's a very small vocal group of people who are screaming for the mountain tops about this level of unionization and organization. And then the people that are actually the the participants of that system are like, no. Thank you. David Friedberg (00:40:07): Yeah. Well, I mean, it shows that Amazon does a great job managing. Right? I mean, they they create enough value and they they bid enough for the service that people don't feel like they're being underbid. Jason Calacanis (00:40:15): Media companies have been going through a unionization process from GOCER to Vox, The New York Times has already had 1, and you're starting to see a bunch of folks voting on that. I was speaking to somebody who runs one of these companies, and they said, the in the short term, it's fabulous because they set the prices of employees. So when somebody comes to you and says, I wanna raise. They say, well, we because here is the pay scale that you negotiated so we have to stick to that. And I can't give you more than other people because one of the things you fought for as a union was pay parody. And so you've got 5 years. Here's what it says on the chart. 5 years, so it made everything predictable. And they said they like that. They said the problem is Over the long term, when you get to year 10 of a union, in order to fire somebody who's not doing a great job, you have negotiated with the union that they have to get all these warnings and it's uncomfortable so then the managers don't do the performance plans. They don't do that. And then eventually who's left in the organization? the lower performers and then who leaves the higher performers who can command more money. So once you get this union thing going inside of a media company, In the short term, it controls cost. In the long term, it kills excellence. This was what somebody told me. David Friedberg (00:41:27): Have you guys seen the movie American Factory I think this was on Netflix. It was actually created by am I it was the first film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company. But it's a it's a very interesting film about there's a Chinese billionaire who goes to kind of the rust belt. to out so a little city outside Dayton, Ohio. And there is and basically opens a factory producing glass wind shields for cars. And this this factory had been shut down. The whole town was kind of out of work. They were kinda down in down in the dumps. And so this this crazy Chinese billionaire comes in there and reopens the factory. And all he and and and it creates like 2000 jobs for for people in this town. And everything starts off great. There's these really interesting sort of culture clashes between the American workers and the Chinese executives, and some of it's kinda comical and they showed in the movie. But then about halfway through the movie and and and by the way, like, these are people who are out of work and You know? This Chinese company comes in. They they do things kinda their way, but they pay people pretty well and creating a lot of jobs. And, initially, everybody is very happy with it. politicians are all encouraging it. And then about halfway through the movie, the unions come in. And the unions start agitating, and they start telling all the workers that you're underpaid, you're mistreated. They start you know, there there's there's sort of intimidation tactics being used. And then the politicians come in, And, you know, these politicians are sort of you know, this Ohio. Right? And so the politicians start telling the the workers at this plant that they should get unionized And it turns into this giant battle because and and the the Chinese company basically threatens to leave because they came into this town. and made something like a $500,000,000 investment in this plant based on an understanding of a certain cost structure And now all of a sudden, the uni wants to change that. And, you know, it turns into this giant conflict. David Friedberg (00:43:30): And you realize that, look, the workers in this town had a good deal. And then the unions are about to, like, blow the whole thing and and wreck it. And they're about to drive this Chinese company out of the town And then they do this election kinda like what Amazon did, and, ultimately, the Chinese company wins and the voters choose not to go with the union. But you just feel like you could it's just so frustrating to see this because it's it's not like the the the this particular union is benefiting the workers. It's about benefiting these union representatives. They raised Jason Calacanis (00:44:04): it. -- paying off the politicians, which gets back to our discussion in your little speech for your governor run that you're gonna fire all the teachers come September 1st if they don't show up for work. David Friedberg (00:44:15): No. But look. It's it's a really interesting movie because it I think what it does is it highlights that what's in the interest of these labor union leaders is not necessarily what's in the interest of the employees. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:26): Anybody wanna know -- No. No. They're this guys look. That this is like the simplest form of incentives to understand. You paid dues as a union member. Those revenues get allocated and controlled by a handful of people in union leadership. So this is this shouldn't be a surprise that their incentives get misaligned, especially when you go from a small effective union to a broad, you know, union that represents all kinds of different workers. It's an impossible infrastructure to manage. and it becomes unwieldy. Unions can be effective. There is a value in a place for them. They need to get reinvented. David Friedberg (00:44:59): By the way, I looked this up. You know what the average wage the average fee is to be in a union across all unions in the United States as a percent of labor? and running together, I guess. It's Jason Calacanis (00:45:09): 1 David Friedberg (00:45:09): to it's 1 a half percent. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:45:11): I said 2. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:12): Yeah. So the argument is if David Friedberg (00:45:14): they can increase wages net to those employees by more than 1 a half percent, it pays for itself. Right? That that's the argument. So -- -- about Jason Calacanis (00:45:21): their incentive. David Friedberg (00:45:22): They -- I totally I totally get Jason Calacanis (00:45:24): they are a start up in and of themselves. Speaker 5 (00:45:25): They they David Friedberg (00:45:25): are an asset manager. Right? Their goal is to grow assets. Yeah. And so -- -- goal Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:29): is to grasp us. David Friedberg (00:45:30): So so the more assets they grow, you know, the the the bigger their business. Brad Gerstner (00:45:35): The the the way in which, you know, relating this back to Bezos's annual letter. Right? We've been presented this false choice for 2 decades between some form of and randian capitalism and a nanny state. David Friedberg (00:45:50): Right. Right. Brad Gerstner (00:45:51): Right? The the the either everything's unionized or we have no intervention at all. What what I love about this moment in time what I love about the leadership of Benioff or Bezos or or even Anthony Tan, this incredible mission values driven leader who's using the power of capitalism to uplift tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia is that I see a totally new generation of leaders that understand the responsibility. Like, they're charting the middle way. Right? And we can equally reject Lorena Gonzales. Right? And at the same time, want to have $15 minimum wage in the state of California. Like, those two things are mutually compatible. And so that's why Saks has to run. He's gotta chart the 3rd way. Jason Calacanis (00:46:39): Let me ask you this, Brad. Would you put up 250 k for an exploratory fund, Brad? David Friedberg (00:46:43): Zach, do you put do you do you believe in a $15 minimum wage? David Friedberg (00:46:47): Oh, I'd be fine I'd be fine with this. Not that that's not that's that Chamath Palihapitiya (00:46:51): Oh, it's on. You took a blue pill. You took a blue pill. David Friedberg (00:46:55): Give everyone to every I David Friedberg (00:46:56): think certainly in the Santa Cal I think that makes sense. You know, I think, look, there might be some parts of the country where the standard of living is much cheaper. I mean, I think probably the the minimum wage should be a state issue because there's such a disparity and different cost of living in different states. So I'm not sure I'd federalize it. But I'm but certainly in California, I think 15 bucks makes sense. Brad Gerstner (00:47:15): What about 20 bucks, David? David. Why David Friedberg (00:47:18): not why not a Jason Calacanis (00:47:19): 1000? Speaker 5 (00:47:20): Yeah. David, I'll talk to you later. Jason Calacanis (00:47:21): -- Speaker 5 (00:47:21): for you. Why not David Friedberg (00:47:22): why not a 1000? Yeah. David Friedberg (00:47:23): David, listen. David Friedberg (00:47:25): Get everyone get a free Tesla. David Friedberg (00:47:27): No. But look. Can I make can we make the point about unions in California? I think there's a huge difference between private sector unions and public sector unions. So look. I'm not against collective bargaining when it comes to these private sector unions. Okay? Because the the workers do have you know, these these plants involved can involve very tough working conditions. It's physically dangerous. You know, they're before there were labor reforms, they're working really long in, say, hours or safety issues. Okay. I think it makes sense to have some sort of collective bargaining. And there's somebody to negotiate with. There's the management of the company has an incentive, and so you have some give and take, and you have a negotiation that produces an outcome. public sector unions are completely different. Right? Because when the teacher's union goes to negotiate, who are they negotiating with? They're negotiating with Gavin Newsom, And the teacher's union is his biggest contributor. So who who has an incentive to oppose their demands? David Friedberg (00:48:23): It's his market. David Friedberg (00:48:24): there's no market. And so at a minimum, takes a politician who has a lot of integrity to stand up to the teacher's unions because Jason Calacanis (00:48:34): You did it in New York. David Friedberg (00:48:35): Blumberg did do it. David Friedberg (00:48:36): By the way, by the way, this is this is a true market dynamic for everything as it relates to to government spending. if you think about when when the government says it's gonna spend something on someone on something, legislation passes, and it mandates that something needs to be bought. When that happens, there is no negotiating power because there is no marketplace to achieve that objective. They have to spend the money on the thing that they said they were gonna spend it on. And at that point, there is a seller who sells that thing who says, oh, shit. These guys have to buy it. I'll double the price. Okay. Great. That's just the natural law of government inflation that happens. It's happened with everything that we've seen inflate in this country, education, health care, is all because it's a government mandated service And so then the service providers to the government have a single captive customer who has to spend the money. And so the same is true of education. The government has to educate Therefore, I can show up as an education union and say, I'm gonna double my price to educate your people because you have to do it by law. and you've passed all these laws that say you have to do it, and there is nothing the government can do about it. And so, you know, I think it is worth highlighting that there the the lack of a marketplace, meaning if you were to negotiate with a company, let's say a company had to buy productivity software for its employees, it could decide whether or not buying that productivity software generated a positive return at the point that the sellers are negotiating against them, and they could say, no. You know what? I'm not gonna buy it. Everything's too expensive. I'm gonna go find another way. The problem is governments are mandated to spend that money on that particular service, and therefore, there is no room. David Friedberg (00:50:04): And so so unions are a manifestation of this fundamental problem with giving governments large budgets and relying on the government to provide the service to us outside of a market driven context. So I think the question really is, can help care, can education, can these things that have been inflated with the government having such an active role be provided in a way that the government facilitates their provisioning without the government being the customer. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:27): This is a good jumping off point to one very to the next end topic. There's a bunch of things happening. in government that I just wanna get your guys' reaction to. Jason Calacanis (00:50:36): 1, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:37): which was the crazy summary that somebody did about the -- to Biden pulling out of Afghanistan. Okay? The second is, unfortunately, Biden reiterated Trump's decision on refugee numbers just today. So he's not he had a pledge that he would you know, go back to the the original numbers, the Obama level numbers, and he said he's not going to. He's gonna keep it at the Trump level, which basically says you know, very nominal refugees. And then the third is the growing frustration and perceived incompetence of the CDC, and now you have the entire business community starting to push back. Those are 3 completely different things, but they just speak about some government things. I'm curious about your reactions too. Anybody? Well, I Jason Calacanis (00:51:21): mean, the thing that that highlights for me is the media double standard. And I think this is why a lot of people are going to centrism and why this podcast has become a purple podcast and a and a rational podcast because AOC was going down to the border, hysterical crying. You remember the photos they were all dressed in white? And is there any difference between what Trump did at the border and what's happening now? Doesn't feel like it. Feels like it's a problem that they're both trying to solve, and it's 90% the same outcome. And then you look at Afghanistan, you know, Trump's like we gotta get out of here, and then the press dunks on him. Like, how could you do that? And now Biden's doing, and he's getting high fives. And so I would just like to see some consistency from the press and the reaction in Americans on these issues which seem to be non winnable or, you know, how much do you lose in these instances? Like, Afghanistan is a lose lose, and the border is a lose lose. Like, there's there's no winning, I don't think, in these in some in some situations that a president has to face. I'm interested what Saks has to say. David Friedberg (00:52:19): Well, yeah, I saw that I saw that sweet storm on the media double standard around Afghanistan. We should show that and and link to it in the show notes because the the whoever it was Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:26): It's incredible. David Friedberg (00:52:27): It's incredible. I mean, he David Friedberg (00:52:28): he incredible. David Friedberg (00:52:29): This is, like, definitive proof of of the media double standard where he goes literally he does a side by side. of every single major prestige media outlet, their coverage on Trump versus Biden's drawdown in Afghanistan. You know, Trump Trump did the major drawdown, and I think got us down to maybe, like, 1500 troops there. I think he missed a political opportunity not to go all the way down to 0, then he could have taken credit for ending the war, which I think he wanted to do for whatever reason didn't get it done. And he basically handed Biden a beautiful opportunity just kinda end the war once and for all. I think it's very popular. People are we've been there for 20 years. I think people wanna get out. So I think Biden's decision was politically correct, and I think it was the the the the the right decision as well. I think we've it's it's it's time to be out of there. But Yeah. The the coverage in the press was just completely hysterical about Trump doing it. It was predicting all sorts of negative consequences. And then when Biden did it, like like Jason's saying, it was nothing but kudos. So Well, the CNN quote. Not not not not only is a press not objective and not impartial, but they changed their mind about a particular issue based on which team is doing it. David Friedberg (00:53:39): Yeah. I mean, if you Jason Calacanis (00:53:39): look at the 2 quotes, they have a CNN tweet that they he just screen grabbed CNN on the same issue. He says, this is reckless, and it's really risky of Trump's plan to withdraw troops. And then the next CNN tweet from this administration, president Obama Praise president Biden's bold leadership to withdraw from Afghanistan of Afghanistan by September 11th David Friedberg (00:53:59): And there's dozens of these, NPR, CNN, New York Times, Jason Calacanis (00:54:03): Washington Powers. Yeah. And then I think this is why Americans hate the media. David Friedberg (00:54:07): Absolutely. I mean, the the the this is the, you know, what the what the conservatives I would call the mainstream media, you know, MSN. I mean, but they are proving their bias right here. I mean and and they're increasing irrelevance. This is why the American public don't trust them. Don't listen to them and don't care what they have to say. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:23): Brad, what do you think? Brad Gerstner (00:54:24): Well, I I wanted to you know, at a federal level, we really can't opt out of any of this. Right? We're not gonna leave the country. We got an election every 4 years. So we're just talking about market failures in the state of California. And one of the most beautiful designs of our system of federalism, back to this idea of markets, right, is the fact that you get to choose what state you wanna live in. In in a post COVID world, we have the greatest AB testing in the history of federalism. Because now you can live and work from anywhere. And the differences between state policies have never been greater. And so we've never had this incubation that we can all watch and live tweet about on Twitter. And so now Texas and Florida, they get to make choices. California gets to make its choices. And then we get to see. And political scientists are going to have a field day in 5 to 10 years. And people are voting with their wallet today. The AB test in real time, we have the largest economic migration in the history of this country occurring right now. Speaker 5 (00:55:33): And Gavin Newsom Brad Gerstner (00:55:34): and Lorraine us, they're going to have to be held accountable for the conditions in San Francisco, for the decisions with respect to companies leaving the state, people leaving the state. And frankly, it's not about lower taxes. I would contend that even bigger issue is the contempt for capitalism. the contempt for entrepreneurialism and innovation that exists in California, and I have no intention to leave. But I will tell you this, like, I'm gonna fight like hell for a third way, right, that actually says Calacanis can be a force for good in California. And that's why Saks needs to run. David Friedberg (00:56:17): Well, miss Saksay, David Friedberg (00:56:19): I I love I I love this idea of a of a state by state a b test. I mean, what was the old line? I get it was a it was FDR's line that or federalism is the laboratory the states of the laboratory of democracy. Yeah. Great. So I I wanna show this. I just posted a link in the chat of COVID death rates in the US by state, and it's really remarkable because every state has very has we've seen a lot of very different COVID policies by state. What we see is that California and Florida have almost the same death rate. I think California's like, 154 per 10000 in Florida is, like, 159. It it's a very, very small gap. Despite the fact that California has the longest and most severe lockdowns in the country and Calacanis Florida has been the most open. And then meanwhile, you look at states like like Michigan, which has also had very severe lockdowns and has had a much higher death rate. And so you see that there's there's really no correlation between death rates for COVID per capita and the the severity of of lockdowns. Basically, the data shows that lockdowns don't have an impact on estate's success in battling COVID. And, you know, it's just remarkable that we still are despite this data, despite the fact that, you know, science is not showing us, we still have lockdowns in the state of California. We've loosened up a little bit, but we're still talking about orange tiers. And it's just and I I'm here in Florida right now. There there it's open. It's open. And You know, Florida has a lot more old people than California, and the death rate is just about the same as California. So it's just remarkable to me that we are stuck in in this mentality of lockdown. And I think it's because Newsom has bought into this savior myth that he has. I think he's remembering all this press that he and Cuomo got at the beginning of COVID about what great behaviors they were and how they protected the population from from COVID. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:16): But it's also been compounded by federal failure because the CDC basically said or not said, they revealed themselves to be incompetent. You know, the same person that we all thought was an incredible genius, Fauci, Increasingly looks like somewhat of an idiot. And not completely informed on the topics that he should be informed about. And then, you know, you have these federal agencies so for example, when you put the CDC and the FTA together, some of their decisions are just complete head scratchers. Like, for example, This past week, you know, the FDA stopped the use of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine because seven women between the ages of eighteen forty eight got a blood caught and one passed away. And if you think of doing over 7,000,000 doses. David Friedberg (00:59:01): Right? And so -- -- 1000000. What Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:03): it's it's literally Jason Calacanis (00:59:04): -- 1 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:04): in 7,000,000 from 8,000,000. Right. It's a great town. David Friedberg (00:59:07): And and, actually, here here's the crazy thing. A lot Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:09): more people died in car accidents on the way to getting those and nations and actually died from a blood clot. And so more than lightning strikes Speaker 8 (00:59:16): or lightning strikes some Jason Calacanis (00:59:17): -- It's it's David Friedberg (00:59:18): it's bad risk assessment, but it's also been very bad PR for for the vaccine. So in the wake of that, the with the polling on vaccines went down by, like, 15 points. And so they're scaring people away from getting vaccines. I don't know if that polling was just on j and j or whether it applies to other vaccines as well. But the most important thing that the health officials could do is just convince people to get vaccinated. And the decision they made on rolling back J and J has really hurt that. And then also this you know, the the the Fauci comments that even if you're vaccinated, You can't go to movies. You can't go to sporting events. You still have to wear a mask. You still can't, you know, get together in groups and indoor spaces. Well, then why would you get vaccinated? Why would you take that Jason Calacanis (00:59:58): That is so critical. Friedberg, do you think if you get a vaccine, you should be allowed to take the mask off. Like, that could be a reward? David Friedberg (01:00:04): Look. I mean, that's a it's a bigger question than the science question. Right? But I certainly don't think that there's any risk to you or people around you once you've been vaccinated with respect to you're wearing a mask. And so, you know, this the the the mask mandate, I think, as you guys pointed out, is a little bit more kind of political and social posturing than it is kind of, you know, scientifically reducing the the the the spread of the of the virus once you've been vaccinated. Once you've been vaccinated, you're in the clear theoretically can do what you wanna do. David Friedberg (01:00:36): Of course. So so I mean, let's just be really clear. Once you get vaccinated, there's no reason to wear a mask. Remember, the reason for the mask mandate was source control. Right? David Friedberg (01:00:45): That's right. That's right. David Friedberg (01:00:46): To to prevent other people from getting the virus. Well, if you're not carrying the virus and you're not admitting the virus, there's no need for you to wear a mask. And to and to and to to insist that people wear a mask after they've been vaccinated is performatively anti vaxx because you're sending the message that the vaccines can't be trusted. Jason Calacanis (01:01:05): You agree with that Friedberg? David Friedberg (01:01:07): Yeah. It's a fair point. I totally. I mean, I think it's a it's a really fair point. And And, you know, the the the whole counterargument to that, which is counterfactual, is, you know, hey. You know, you can still transmit the virus. We don't know that you can't transmit the virus But, you know, you could theoretically say that about anything. We know deterministically, we don't have empirical evidence that we can say statistically, here's how likely you were to transfer but we know deterministically, this is the process by which a vaccine works. You're not gonna be having replicating virus viral loads in your body. Therefore, you're not gonna have a high viral load coming out of your nasal of your mouth. Therefore, you know and this is the case with all these kind of vaccines like the flu. We you know, you shouldn't be or be needing to to wear a mask. So, like, you know, it totally makes sense. Speaker 5 (01:01:51): And Jason Calacanis (01:01:51): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:51): What's the upper bound, Friedberg, of the number of people that'll that are gonna get vaccinated in the US? Are we gonna get to 60% -- I think Jason Calacanis (01:01:58): 60% David Friedberg (01:01:59): probably. Yeah. I would guess 60, 60, 65%. I mean because remember, what percent of people under 60, and 20%, I think? Is that Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:07): Yeah. David Friedberg (01:02:07): Yeah. I think we've really we've really we've really botched this. I think we've totally botched this vaccine rollout. David Friedberg (01:02:13): By the way, I I I will tell you because of the the upper bound being where it is, I I I still think we'll end up at a point where we're gonna have a lot of people that are gonna be immune because they already had COVID coupled with the vaccine. We're gonna have extremely low numbers. But the reality is the numbers are not gonna get to 0. And we talked about 0ism a couple of podcasts ago. Because we're not gonna get to 0, I think this is a really important thing to remember. the way that we've tuned ourselves to react to COVID, it it was initially remember, it was initially about, you know, minimize the surge And by minimizing the surge, we will keep the health care system for being overwhelmed. Now we've transitioned into the we can't let COVID spread. But as we've seen, the reality is, cannot stop COVID from spreading no matter how many lockdowns you put in place societally. People still get together in their homes, and they'll give each other COVID. And because some number of people will continue to have COVID, we are gonna have COVID in the United States for years to come. It is not gonna go to 0. And the question we have to ask ourselves is how are we gonna allow ourselves to operate? How are we gonna live our lives if the COVID risk is non zero? and it will always be nonzero. And by the way, the measles risk is nonzero. The chicken pox risk is nonzero. There are already nonzero you know, transmissible infectious diseases out there that have some degree of fatality rate to them. But I think the biggest thing we should all be concerned about is this notion that we are like, shifting into a new normal that will last for many years because we will never be at Jason Calacanis (01:03:38): 0. So can I I'm moving out of California if that's the case. I'm literally gonna text. Brad Gerstner (01:03:42): There will be mutinies. There will be mutinies. Jason Calacanis (01:03:45): I'm done. I got my vaccine. Brad Gerstner (01:03:46): I'm done. People people that nobody's gonna stand for that We already see it. You know, Chesky went on CNBC this morning and, you know, basically said, you know, they are battening down all the hatches because there's no like, the demand for travel is literally going to blow the roof off the building. Totally. Right? Like Jason Calacanis (01:04:06): -- David Friedberg (01:04:06): People people are over it. Jason Calacanis (01:04:07): -- Brad Gerstner (01:04:07): too smart People make risk reward decisions in their personal lives every day. And if the government tries to lock them down, they're gonna tear down the gates. Like, it's not going to happen. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:18): But what what you're saying, though, is that what the implicit thing about what you're saying, which is scary is unlike times before about measles or chicken pox, you we now are basically debasing the credibility that these government institutions have about anything they say. the real enemy in the room when this is all said and done. So now you have people that are acting on their own. So the CDC says, You can't fill the middle seat, the airlines say, no. Go fuck yourself. We're gonna fill whatever seat we want. And nobody's gonna complain back to what Brad said because they're risk underwriting for themselves and saying, Wait. You don't know what you're talking about anymore. And so where does it leave us? Jason Calacanis (01:04:53): Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Brad Gerstner (01:04:55): You know, one of the ways states even even democracies maintain power, was information control. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:01): Right. Brad Gerstner (01:05:01): Right? And there is no information control today anywhere. In fact, the the we have frictionless information, which means that by definition, I think, there's a greater chance for decentralization. I mean, remember, you know, the Arab spring, governments were overthrown on the basis of Twitter. Right? I don't believe we live in a Hobsy state, you know, of suffering in in the natural order of things. Right? But I certainly believe that government has a role to play to help organize us. And, you know, because there are big issues that we face in the future, and you know, I just hope we can find a balance, you know, in the path forward. Jason Calacanis (01:05:40): But this I I think, Chamath, this is a an inoculation, I think, to bad institutions. If you look at people who spent $250,000 going into debt at some big expensive college, these young folks are saying, I'm not gonna do that anymore. Now those colleges have to react and change. And now we're seeing what the teachers are. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:59): This but I think, Jason, it's actually more extreme to that. Like, We're learning that institutions aren't reliable, number 1. And then the second is that we're learning that those institutions are static. So meaning. Like today, there is I think that there's a lot There's a big case to be made that the CDC doesn't really know what they were doing and that in some cases the FDA has been a little overreactive. Okay? Now What can we do about these things? It's not like we can have a new CDC that we all create and believe in or a new FTA. These are the of the government. Those laws won't change because there's a bunch of incentives for folks who are currently in power that oversee those things to remain that way. So now, you know, exactly as Zach said, on the whim of, frankly, like, you know, maybe an overreaction, we pull vaccines off, then we pull them back on, then we pull them off. You know, the reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine was kind of a little awe inspiring. You know? Oh, it's bad. No. It's okay. Oh, it's good. No. It's bad. Take it off. Take it on. Put it on. And that's a that's been a global reaction. So you add all of these things up. I think the takeaway is what Friedberg said. Institutions are broken Because the incentives of the people that run them are not aligned to the people that actually expect output from them. David Friedberg (01:07:18): I'll say two things to this. that that's an important point. 1 is institutions to me are like like like a any living organism. They wanna grow. And so, you know, every government wants to add law, spend more money, grow its budget. Every company wants to have more power, grow its top line. Even every university, Harvard's Endowment wants to grow over time. It wants to do more research. It wants to have more classes. It wants to have the bigger campus. every institution as a result is then trying to aggregate more resources and more power and more authority. And so, you know, then when you have these moments where the institution doesn't serve the stakeholders that it is meant to serve, you have this breakdown. of trust in the institution and institutional fallout begins. Whether that's the financial system and the and the evolution towards decentralized finance and Bitcoin and so on, or the failure of government and the ignorance against laws and what the government is telling us to do and so on or in companies. And so the big question for this century is gonna be, are we gonna allow that to happen? Now I mentioned this a few pods ago. What I'm most concerned about is the absolute alternative to an institution as a mob rule. And a mob rule as we've seen where you get cancel culture and you get, you know, GameStop going through the roof and and and you get trial before before without a jury and and trial without a judge. I can be really ugly and can be really nasty. And so the original intention of many of these institutions was to create a system by which there are rules and values that we all ascribe to, and those values go out the window when those institutions fail. So the big the big challenge, you know, we as as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as humanity are gonna face the centuries this this this dichotomy between the failure of institutions and the need for institutions to constantly grow versus the challenge of not having institutions with respect to how do we operate societally with mob rule and distributed rule. And and it's gonna be interesting to to kind of see there's gonna be a lot of back and forths over the next couple of decades, I would imagine, with respect to how do we make economic, government, and business decisions and how they play and whether institutions or kind of distribute a decision making plays a role in that oversight. Jason Calacanis (01:09:26): Good segue here to Euro Powell, Josh Hallley Sachs. I I never thought I would see the day that a Republican wanted to bust. all the big companies, but he says no acquisitions by companies with the market cap over a 100,000,000,000. putting aside the fact that this wasn't Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders proposing this, this was your your bestie. You're Josh Hawley, Sacks. Have you met him or donated to him? David Friedberg (01:09:54): I haven't met him. I haven't met him. I I think Jason Calacanis (01:09:56): -- -- second question, you make a little donation there to Holly? David Friedberg (01:09:59): Maybe maybe one day, we'll see. You know? Speaker 5 (01:10:01): We'll see. Jason Calacanis (01:10:02): What do you think about this concept? 22 David Friedberg (01:10:05): points. Okay. Number 1, you're right that this is showing you know, there's there's a big political realignment underway. This legislation could have come from Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. I think they would have justified it in different ways. I think what Hall is concerned about is a concentration of power by Big Tech Companies who are then using that power to censor people. So that's kind of the impetus there. I think Sanders and Warren, their impetus would be around more of a concentration of wealth and money and the power that that creates. So slightly different motivations, but I think they're probably on the same page here. It's kind of this populous wildfire that's that's kind of burning in in both parties. I think that's sort of the first observation is is is it's kind of this new populous realignment of our politics. The second point I'd make about this is that this legislation is is what I would call sort of performative legislating. I mean, I don't think this bill is a serious proposal to come law. It's too much of a sledgehammer. I think that, you know, if the goal here is to try and rein in big tech, I think just banning you know, any acquisition by firms over a $100,000,000,000 market cap, it is way too much of a It's just not, you know, it's just not crafted enough. I mean, it would have Jason Calacanis (01:11:18): -- Is there any merit to it? And how would you change it, Saxx? David Friedberg (01:11:20): It would have tons of unintended consequences for you know, what we do. I mean, we've talked about David Friedberg (01:11:25): this before. Jason Calacanis (01:11:25): Is it good for what we do though? I mean, if companies stop selling early, if Instagram and YouTube stayed independent, wouldn't this have been much better for investors? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:11:33): It was a blanket it was a blanket statement that said any company can't do it if they were over a Jason Calacanis (01:11:38): 100,000,000,000. Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:11:39): So Brokshire Hathaway's business. Boom. Gone to Jason Calacanis (01:11:42): 0. David Friedberg (01:11:42): Right. I mean Jason Calacanis (01:11:43): -- David Friedberg (01:11:43): It's too much of a blunt instrument. And and, look, even for us. Right? There's only you know, 3 I guess 2 or 3 good outcomes. Right? There's IPOs, direct listeners, or Spats. Let's put them in the category of a company going Jason Calacanis (01:11:54): public enterprise. -- sales. Yeah. David Friedberg (01:11:55): Then there's m and a. Okay? Mhmm. And then the 3rd outcome is basically the company goes under. It goes bankrupt. Right? So if you take m and a off the table, you are basically denying a lot of attractive exits for risk capital, and that's gonna ultimately hurt the returns for risk capital and lead to less of it. There are a lot of there are a lot of companies where you know, founders create a technology that's valuable and interesting, but it can't monetize, and it needs to be part of something larger. And if you deprive every I guess, big company of being able to buy of r and d acquisitions, it's sort of crippling the economy for no reason. I don't think it really addresses the issue that Holly really wants to address, which is censorship. So my point is I would find a different way to address it. I think that at the end of the day, this legislation is not meant to become law is meant to make a statement and to to be a warning to Big Tech. And to get you know, and and Holly's trying to appeal to a constituency on his side of the aisle, and I think it's sort Brad Gerstner (01:12:54): of -- It's disgusting. David Friedberg (01:12:56): It's performative in that regard. Brad Gerstner (01:12:57): I mean, Holly like, He votes against the election. He comes out with this asinine solution to his censorship beef. You know? Like, this is the problem. The grand standing of these politicians on both sides that aren't focused on, like, how do we make sure that everybody's participating in the ownership society. How do we deal with, you know you know, issues of diversity? It's a you know, it's so far removed from actual pragmatic solutions to the real problems facing us that it just drives me insane. And so He will most certainly not be getting a donation from American High School. And, you know, like but what I am gonna invest aggressively in You know? And what I think we ought to be doing, and I I I hope Chamath will take me up on this. Right? I don't wanna go spend 10,000,000 in Washington to lobby them to create the Invest America account. Let's you and I put up the money. Let's incubate this. Let's hire a CEO. Let's you know, let's let's put up 1015000000 bucks. Let's distribute it to families, 2000 bucks at a pop. Let's build a proof of concept, hire a great CEO. That's what we do. and prove that it works. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:11): Yeah. That's better. That's actually a more practical giving pledge than the giving pledge. Jason Calacanis (01:14:16): Oh my god. What a great idea to move. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:19): We we should if we should just do that right now and basically name and shame everybody that doesn't wanna contribute who's made money. because the reality is we all have been extraordinarily lucky. Yes. We've worked hard. But frankly, you know, none of us deserve any of this. We've been lucky. And so whatever representative share that you could contribute and what it does, it gives you know, a low income, person of color, a minority person in America, somebody who's, you know, disadvantaged a Jason Calacanis (01:14:44): $2000 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:44): head start when they're born is a fucking amazing Jason Calacanis (01:14:47): -- Brad Gerstner (01:14:47): We could raise a $100,000,000 in the next 3 months. Because do you know the reason people people are like, I don't wanna is because they don't believe government is going to use the money wisely. If we went out and told all these folks that we're gonna use it to give $2000 directly right, to create an a sense of ownership and participation in the American dream, their little slice of Tesla, of Walmart, of Amazon, of Google, like, the money will come in from all the folks that you mentioned, and I would love to see this crew get on board with that. Speaker 5 (01:15:17): Yeah. I Brad Gerstner (01:15:18): think we could do it over the course of the next 6 months. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:21): I'm in. Let's do it. Jason Calacanis (01:15:22): The audience who doesn't understand what we're talking about, imagine we put a $1000 into a 401 k or 2000 401k for an American every American born? What would that look like when they're sixty five years old? And what if 500 of the 2000 was in a 529 would that look like when they're eighteen years old and you go to college? So that was my little punch up jamoff is, you know, put half of it in a retirement, half half in education. David Friedberg (01:15:46): It turns out if you put your stimulus check each of the last three stimulates checks into Dogecoin, you would have $300,000. Okay? So there there may be there may be alternative investment accounts that that Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:57): can't -- Absolutely. Jason Calacanis (01:15:58): Alright. Listen, there's been Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:58): another amazing sorry. Just so you know, the $2000 by the time you're 65 at at 8%, which is, you know, if you just buy the S and PTS, would be about Jason Calacanis (01:16:07): 300,000 97,000. More than enough to comfortably retire in style. And if you were to put 500 of it into and a for college, maybe you get 25 k or something. I'm not sure what it equals in 18 years. Speaker 5 (01:16:18): But -- And Brad Gerstner (01:16:19): as Buffett has talked about in in snowball, the behavioral economics are if you have savings You save more. Right? Well, this is about educational. Yeah. Yeah. People feel part of the system. Feel about, like, they're part of the game. Jason Calacanis (01:16:31): Alright. Listen. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:32): Another amazing episode. Brad, thanks, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for Jason Calacanis (01:16:36): coming on. We don't have a nickname for Brad. never David Friedberg (01:16:39): King of Stacks. Oh, just kidding. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:44): I'm happy to hand Speaker 8 (01:16:44): I'm happy to Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:45): hand the crown. Oh my god. David Friedberg (01:16:46): Oh, Oh. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:49): Oh, just I just wanna be called king. Yeah. I cook up in Speaker 5 (01:16:51): Montana. Fireboys. Jason Calacanis (01:16:55): Somebody picked me Let's go have a guys trip. What are we doing here, guys? Where are we going? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:01): I I just wanna say, well, since David is in Miami -- Don't Speaker 5 (01:17:04): know Miami. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:04): To stay since David's in Miami, I'm gonna tell you guys that my favorite prime number has always been Jason Calacanis (01:17:11): I don't know what it means. What's the joke? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:15): It's in Miami. Oh, gosh. David Friedberg (01:17:17): I'm pulling that out. You can see that David Friedberg (01:17:19): out. In Miami. Alright. We're Jason Calacanis (01:17:21): not in Miami. Let's David Friedberg (01:17:23): Love you, besties. Jason Calacanis (01:17:24): Next, I love you besties. Love you, Brad. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:26): Love you, Brad. Jason Calacanis (01:17:27): Brad, say, love you to Saxx. See what happens. Good. Keep you Brad Gerstner (01:17:29): try it. Keep it out. Jason Calacanis (01:17:30): Brad, say love you to Saxx. See what happens. Brad Gerstner (01:17:32): Love you, Saxx. David Friedberg (01:17:33): Waco. Back at you. Speaker 5 (01:17:38): time. I'll be Speaker 8 (01:17:38): ordering pockets in my bag. Speaker 7 (01:17:42): We'll let your winners ride. Speaker 8 (01:17:45): Rainman David Savage. Speaker 7 (01:17:49): And it said -- We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:53): Love you, West. I swear Speaker 8 (01:17:54): to Ken Wong. besties Speaker 5 (01:17:57): are gone. Jason Calacanis (01:18:03): 13. Speaker 8 (01:18:12): We 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 that we just need to release them out. Jason Calacanis (01:18:20): What? You're beef. What? Speaker 5 (01:18:23): Where are we? Speaker 7 (01:18:23): Where are we? Where are we? Speaker 5 (01:18:25): Where did Jason Calacanis (01:18:26): you get Murphy's arms at?