武汉实验室泄漏论、印度溯源法、Coinbase 事实核查、大科技进军好莱坞

Speaker 1 (00:00:00): Okay. So, Jason, you're gonna send to Zoom link. Great. I'm gonna make love to that. That'll take 70 minutes, and then I'm gonna stretch and shower. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:08): Hold on. I'll be ready at 1:15. Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:00:11): Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. I just puked in my coffee a little bit, but okay. David Friedberg (00:00:18): It's just that he does he gets seconds and minutes mixed up. You know? Speaker 1 (00:00:23): 7 Jason Calacanis (00:00:23): seconds to have in God. 10 seconds to got it. Thank you for tuning in to the all in podcast. We got our cold open so Speaker 1 (00:00:32): 3 -- David Sacks (00:00:33): That's gonna be a highlight. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:34): That's a good that that should be the cold open. That should be the cold open. That should be the David Sacks (00:00:38): cold open. Speaker 1 (00:00:38): -- Jason Calacanis (00:00:39): in paradise. Wow. Thank you. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:41): Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (00:00:42): By the way, that part of these seconds includes Tremont brushing his teeth. Fuck you. to let your winners ride. Rainman, David Sanders. And I said, we David Sacks (00:00:57): open source it to the fans in a Hey, everybody. Jason Calacanis (00:01:05): Hey, everybody. It is a edition episode 34 of the All In podcast with us today. David Friedberg, the queen of Kinois, the science Friedberg of the pod, rain man. David Sachs hot off his 60th birthday David Sacks (00:01:21): bash in Jason Calacanis (00:01:21): Los Angeles. And sorry. I that was just going by the his looks. And the dictator, Chamon Palihapitiya, fresh off of writing editorials about himself in Bloomberg. Congratulations everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Jamath. Give yourself a pat on the back for that exceptional. Yeah. David Sacks (00:01:40): Friedberg is now my favorite bestie because he actually showed up in my day party and, like, you guys. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:44): Oh, I'm sorry, David. David, how how do you expect people to react in 24 hours to fly to a different city? Yeah. David Sacks (00:01:51): It was a surprise it was a surprise birthday. Jason Calacanis (00:01:54): Surprise to the guest. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:54): It was a surprise to all the invitees as well. David Friedberg (00:01:56): Let me tell you guys what you missed out on. Okay? Jason Calacanis (00:01:59): Alright. Wait. Let's give background. Saks is now -- 60. -- fifty years old. Speaker 1 (00:02:04): 40 9. -- 4. 72. Jason Calacanis (00:02:06): And His wife decided to throw a last minute birthday party after I bought tickets to the Knicks in and the nets and invited family members. Go ahead. And now we're the bad guys. David Friedberg (00:02:17): We fly down for the birthday. They, you know, they shelter you on the cars from the plane to the to the house. We get to the house, long driveway. There's like dudes making, like, watermelon tequila beverages while you hang out and wait. There's some dude from America's talent playing the guitar or playing the violin in the driveway. The bathrooms are nicer than the bathrooms I have at home. You know, these would be porta potties they rented in the driveway. And, you know, we're all waiting. Of course, Saxx is late Speaker 1 (00:02:45): 2 David Friedberg (00:02:45): a half hours through his own party. We're all hanging out and starving. But then we go into the party, sit down for dinner, And then who shows up as our, you know, dinner experience? It's the guy that won America's eye American Idol 2 nights before. So no one knows who this guy is except seventeen year old girls and myself. So I wanna pop out of my seat. I'm like, oh my god. It's that guy from American Idol. I had to rush into the backstage to get a photo with him, you know, Saks's garage. And then they have, like, coolio shows up. So we're, like, sitting down at dinner for course 2, all of a sudden pop comes out of the the the woodwork, Julio, I lose my shit. I run up on the -- The Jason Calacanis (00:03:25): coolio fan? David Friedberg (00:03:26): The dance floor. I grew up coolio, like, is, like, high school jams, man. I mean, that's, like, in the car, cruising, at this point, I'm, like, 7 tequila watermelon tequila's ants. I'm, like Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Smatron flavor though. No. David Sacks (00:03:40): on the David Friedberg (00:03:40): dance floor, you know, jaded out the cool yo. I think Kyleio thought I was sacked, you know, because he's like yeah. He's like, oh, 2 South African Jews. You guys all look the same. Cullio comes up, starts high fiving me and hugging me. And I'm like, what's up, Julio? Oh my god. This is like a dream come true. He's he's like hugging me. His face is right next to face. I didn't know what to say, and I, like, I'm I'm all I've I've had a little bit of tequila, and I and I whisper in Coolio's ear. I'm like -- Oh, no. I appreciate I appreciate you. I didn't Jason Calacanis (00:04:14): say you. Wow. I stand you, Kyle. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:18): Oh my god. David Sacks (00:04:19): I think I saw Friedberg throw his panties on stage 2 at 1. You David Friedberg (00:04:23): are such Speaker 1 (00:04:24): -- Jason Calacanis (00:04:24): Wasn't a nerd. David Friedberg (00:04:26): I don't know what to say. I mean, what do you say with clearly? Clearly, you don't know what Jason Calacanis (00:04:30): to say. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:31): Can I go back to the part where you said that you were dancing? And, instantly, the image I had was Julie Louis Dreyfus inside foul. Jason Calacanis (00:04:40): Yeah. I we have to find that security footage of And then, David Sacks (00:04:44): actually, Mark Martin McGrath from Sugar Rate David Friedberg (00:04:47): performance and he had that dude from cool and the gang performing. I I'm and the game showed up to the gift sacks and birthday wish. What an the game Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:54): of the rap. -- or the game? In the David Sacks (00:04:55): game game. Yeah. came and I was supposed to do a movie together, like, 15 years ago and, you know, never panned out. But he still remembered me and he came by to say hi on my birthday. pretty incredible. Jason Calacanis (00:05:04): It's very nice. David Friedberg (00:05:05): That's really nice. Have you guys ever met to access parents? Jason Calacanis (00:05:08): Yeah. Of course. David Friedberg (00:05:08): Yeah. At his fortieth. Yeah. They're so nice. Like -- They're so nice. We spent so much time with them. Well, luck hanging out with them. It was a really, really cool party. Happy birthday. Sorry. Jason Calacanis (00:05:18): We missed it. 72 hours is generally a shorter window than most out of city parties. But -- I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:25): have a better excuse. David Friedberg (00:05:26): I had Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:26): a corporate off-site for my team, so I apologize. So actually, David Friedberg (00:05:29): I apologize. David Sacks (00:05:29): That's okay. We missed you guys. It was really fun. David Friedberg (00:05:32): I can't wait for you David Sacks (00:05:33): to answer. -- sends out an invite for a party. You definitely wanna wanna David Friedberg (00:05:36): make yourself a thorough party. She knows how to throw David Sacks (00:05:38): a party. Jason Calacanis (00:05:39): She does. She David Sacks (00:05:39): knows how to Jason Calacanis (00:05:41): make it so how does it feel being This old and just looking so exhausted, David. Tell us. I mean, you do look exhausted. David Sacks (00:05:52): Are you turning 50 this summer? Jason Calacanis (00:05:54): I was I was he's already turned 50 in November I did. Yeah. David Sacks (00:05:58): Oh, wow. Jason Calacanis (00:05:58): I was in quarantine, so we're gonna have to have, like, a post. David Sacks (00:06:00): How heavy is that? Jason Calacanis (00:06:01): The fifties? I about a 194. I don't know. Give or take. It wasn't actually super heavy for me. I mean, I think just you do think about, hey. We're counting down. It's the back 9. You wanna make good use of the time you have left. And so, yeah, of course, it's something where you're gonna consider, you know, your life. Of course. Yeah. And just make sure you make good use of the time that you have here. David Sacks (00:06:26): Yeah. I think 40 was just a party, but 50 feels a little bit heavy. It'll still be a great party, but it does feel a little bit metaphysical, I guess. Jason Calacanis (00:06:34): Yeah. I'm I'm looking at metaphysical right now. So I'll let you know after I figure out what that word means. Well, okay. Listen. We didn't get together on Friday, but here we are recording on a Saturday. And lots of stuff going on. The thing I think I'm most interested in hearing from Friedberg about is the Lab League Theory. And I think that this touches on a little bit of the politicization of science, I guess. We there's a lab in Wuhan. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:03): I think it's more Trump derangement syndrome. It didn't allow us to see the for us from the trees. And the same words just said by a different president all of a sudden invokes an investigation. Jason Calacanis (00:07:13): Yeah. So, I mean, there is a COVID laboratory in Wuhan. It is the only one in China. And that's when the Speaker 1 (00:07:22): -- -- David Friedberg (00:07:22): virology lab, where they study viruses and Speaker 1 (00:07:25): -- Jason Calacanis (00:07:25): Yes. But specifically, they've studied COVID viruses. David Friedberg (00:07:29): They have. Yeah. That's I mean, that's a big class of virus. So -- And it's the only one Jason Calacanis (00:07:33): in China, and it's funded by America and China and the who? David Friedberg (00:07:39): The Institute of Virology? I mean, this is this is I mean, this is like Speaker 1 (00:07:43): -- David Sacks (00:07:43): The the the the the Institute of Virology was posting job Rex 2 years ago for specifically for researchers of bat viruses. We know they were studying bat viruses at this place. And Wuhan just happens to be the place where a novel coronavirus that seems derived from a bat virus, you know, like, emerges. I mean, what are the odds? Right? I mean, this was such an obvious theory, the idea that, you know, COVID might have leaked from from this particular lab. And yet we were forbidden from talking about it, I guess, till Donald Trump was out of office. I mean, I think there's really two stories here. One is Chinese culpability, you know, in in the spread of the virus. The other one is the media story. Why were we not allowed to have this discussion. Why did the media brand anybody who discussed this leaked theory as being some sort of conspiracy theorist or a racist, why were Big Tech Companies, censoring, or removing any user generated content from their sites that we're putting forward this theory. You know, why why was the media and Big Tech doing this? I mean, is it somehow Speaker 1 (00:08:49): -- David Friedberg (00:08:49): I can I can tell you more. David Sacks (00:08:50): But but somehow, they were telling us it was more racist to talk about a lab accident than to Speaker 1 (00:08:56): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:56): David, because the person who could have explained it in a deescalated factual way chose to escalate it and be emotional and superficial and that was Donald Trump. And so I don't I don't think that you could point to us and say we could have changed how the narrative is exploited. All of us are just normal average people on the ground. But there probably is sort of, you know, a hierarchy of, like, information, and there probably isn't a single individual individual beyond the president that who has access to more information. And so -- Right. Speaker 1 (00:09:28): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:28): if he was if he was just more moderate and normal and basically said, hey, guys. There is a legitimate risk that we need to investigate because Fast forward, basically, 18 months later, and this president who is moderate, you can like him or not like him, but he's kind of moderate and unattensive says basically that, and now we have this new cycle about investigating something we should have been investigating 18 months ago just at least to get to the bottom of it, what was going on. but Trump had to make it such a big deal and about himself. And I think that's a take away. David Sacks (00:09:59): But just because Trump says something doesn't mean it's not true. I mean, he is occasionally gonna say things that are true. And and -- That's not what Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:07): my point is. My point is if you're as president of the United States, you just have to have more discipline. David Sacks (00:10:11): Well but But I think you're right in the sense that the reason this became a forbidden topic is because the media had to act like anything Trump said is is untrue or crazy or racist Jason Calacanis (00:10:21): or crises there. -- sides then, David. I mean, the the media is failing to be independent critical thinkers And Trump is failing to be a good leader and be clear. And that means you have to be an independent critical thinker. David Sacks (00:10:33): The media's first obligation here is to the truth. They're not supposed to distort the truth or push forward a false narrative because of the political consequences. And and that they didn't wanna be seen as helping Trump in any way, and that's really what their motivation was. But I find it equally disturbing that Big Tech was censoring the truth on this issue issue. The whole point of having a free marketplace of ideas is so that we can arrive at the truth. And how is that gonna be possible when Big Tex is censoring? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:58): I I really disagree with you. I think that the the big text decision to censor this information was a was a derivative of the first two things. Like, I don't think that decision would have happened had Trump been normal and then, you know, media would have just listened and said, okay, maybe there's a chance this guy's right? He's saying and acting in a normal way. Let's go investigate. And then Big Tech would have basically said we don't know the truth one way or the other, but it seems legitimate sane people or on both sides David Sacks (00:11:28): of the nation. -- Donald Trump published mean tweets. It was okay for Big Tech or rather the media to basically portray the correct theory as a lie in a conspiracy, and it was okay for Big Tech to engage in censorship on that basis. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:42): What I'm saying is the following. The president of the United States, independent on whoever it is, has a very specific responsibility to be measured to be unemotional and to be about the bigger picture. That's what the president of the United States' responsibility is no matter who holds the office. And then the media's job is to fact check that and hold that person accountable and hold that person in a transparent manner. Jason Calacanis (00:12:09): Friedberg, yes or no? Is it a viable theory? And then let's get to odds and percentages. I mean, as a scientist, Do you think that this is be came from a wet market or some accidental exposure? Somebody eating bad or some cross contamination, a bat? and a pig and then somebody eats the pig, or do you think somebody from the lot from the lab accidentally brought it home with them? David Friedberg (00:12:34): don't know doesn't matter. I feel like we need to kinda recognize that bio warfare and bioterrorism is a real risk, and I think more importantly that this moment whether or not it's proven, it will never be proven or disproven one way or the other. So it really doesn't matter. What will ultimately happen is we are gonna kinda become much more cognizant of these sorts of threats to the human population. Let me be very specific. a a kid in high school could write up some RNA code David Sacks (00:13:05): today on their computer, order David Friedberg (00:13:05): that RNA to be delivered to them by what's called an oligo printing facility, get this RNA, boot it up, turn it into a virus, and they could release that thing into the wild. There are several very cheap over the counter Internet based ways that one could do this. So the fact that there's some sophisticated government run lab doing this, I don't think, matters as much. What's really compelling in this whole story line is, like, holy shit. This is possible. It's possible that there's either an engineered or discovered virus and it shows just how if these things leak out and they are insect ships and they are transmissible, can become a real risk to the global population. And it's not just viruses. there are other mechanisms of biowarfare that can be printed and created using similar techniques of genomics There are proteins called preons, and preons cause other proteins to fold in a mismatched way. This is actually what cow diseases. It's a pre on. It's a it's a protein that you find in the brain. And if you eat this particular protein ends up in your brain, it causes the other proteins in your brain that match that protein to misfold, and it basically replicates and creates this cascading effect to Jason Calacanis (00:14:18): make -- So, basically, like aliens like aliens and infected. David Friedberg (00:14:21): But but but I my my point is, like, whether it's preons or or viruses, there are techniques and there are capabilities and instruments now that all humans have access to. that theoretically could allow for the booting or the creation and the distribution of of truly terrifying tools biological tools. Now this comes hand in hand with the incredible optimism and opportunity that these tools present, much like chemical engineering presented in the early 20th century to humanity. we could create things like VDP and kill ourselves, or we could create things like artificial fertilizer and feed ourselves. And so there's this this tremendous as there is with any new technology this tremendous kind of optimism and fear, and it's gonna create, I think, a very powerful debate narrative over the coming decade on what do we do with these tools? Is it even possible to regulate them? Where is this gonna go? And and what are the risks? And it's not necessarily just government agencies that we need to kind of be considering here, it's the fact that there's a democratization of this tooling, which is enabling all this great innovation. Jason Calacanis (00:15:20): But -- Does David Sacks (00:15:20): it Saks? Jason Calacanis (00:15:21): Does it matter if it was leaked or not? Free break is saying it doesn't big picture. David Sacks (00:15:25): Of course, it matters. Of course, it matters. And and and the only reason we don't know conclusively that it came from a lab is because the Chinese government wouldn't let they thwarted the investigation. They wouldn't let the investigators come in. And so the smoke is pouring out of the Wuhan institute of virology, and they will not allow the firefighters in because those firefighters come from the west. We could establish the truth of what happened if they would let us talk to the scientists who work at that lab if they could go -- What David Friedberg (00:15:54): would you do about it? Let's say that you find out that it did, like yeah. David Sacks (00:15:57): Well, at a minute well, first of all, we're talking about a virus that's killed millions of peoples. millions of people across the world, it's caused enormous damage to to the economy, to our economy, to economies all over the world. You know? we have to think through carefully what the consequences of this would be, but it matters a lot how the Chinese government handled this. At a minimum at a minimum, We need to decouple ourselves from China with regard to anything. That's a vital American interest. We cannot be dependent on them. for the manufacturing of our PPE, for our antibiotics, for our pharmaceuticals, it is insane. Jason Calacanis (00:16:30): So there's nothing that we're gonna do not there's nothing we're gonna do to China in terms of sanctions if we find out they covered up a leak. If there's an accidental leak and they covered it up, We're we're not Speaker 1 (00:16:40): -- David Friedberg (00:16:41): There's still a lot of supply out. Jason Calacanis (00:16:43): Yeah. It acts more as a a warning sign for us to to do better and be more independent. David Friedberg (00:16:48): It's a principle of escalation. They are still the critical supplier to most of American Manufacturing in the industry. Every product that American companies make, most product, have some sort of Chinese produced input. And David Sacks (00:16:59): so I I would start I would start with, I think, the measured response that's also in our national interest is to reassure any critical components that we need for our pharmaceutical industry. So drug manufacturing and the manufacturing Jason Calacanis (00:17:14): PPE. -- China, it's about getting our together, Chamath, you agree with this? And what do you think? If we did find out that it was in fact a a covered up leak, which I think is the most reasonable assumption here, what should we do as America? As a country, global reaction to China. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:33): I agree with Friedberg and David Sachs in in parts. There's nothing to do. I think we have to move on. I think it's important to get to the bottom of it. It'll maybe help eliminate some of the politicizing of science that we've seen as a result of this thing. But, ultimately, what's done is done. Instead, what I think we have to learn from it is you can't elect hot heads and people who are unpredictable and unreliable to basically be our truth tellers and fact tellers. And if anybody but Donald Trump was the president of the United States in that moment, we probably could have had a chance of getting to the bottom of it when it counted. And whether you support him or not, it doesn't matter. The style made it impossible for anybody to really listen. That to me is the most important takeaway of that moment. which is he does have a responsibility above everybody else's. The second thing is I think this is the most important macro investing theme that I seen in my lifetime which is that globalization as we know it is over. And what Saksipoo just said is what I really believe which is that You have to onshore and you have to move to a place where you value resiliency over just in time. And if you look at the businesses that get that need to get built in order to enable resiliency, you will see 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of opportunity. And I I really, really believe in that. And that's that's very exciting David Friedberg (00:19:06): to me. So instead -- -- agree. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:07): Yeah. Instead of being anti China, which I don't think is productive, I think better to be Pro America and say, hey, let's just figure out how to build this stuff ourselves. Now here's the problem though. When the rubber meets the road, The biggest impediment to onshoring jobs into the United States are the same people on the left who actually claim that there is no upward mobility. And here's why. When you go and you wanna basically balkanize supply chains, You are introducing inefficiency. You're also introducing some puts and takes in areas that today have been like 3rd real issues. For example, The people on the left believe in climate change more than anybody else. But when you explain to them that in order to eliminate hydrocarbons, you actually have to mine critical minerals and metals out of the ground. They're the same people that say no way. Well, you can't have one without the other. And you actually have to have a rational conversation and realize like, listen, we're gonna have to do this. And so for example, like Biden this past week somewhat capitulated, for environmental interest and said you know what? Yes. Climate change is critical but we're gonna try to get them from everywhere else but America. It's not gonna work. So that's kinda where like I'm a little frustrated, but those are my 2 takeaways. Number 1 is pass Let's just get past China and let's just focus on the United And number 2 is globalization as we know it is done and we need to focus on resiliency. Jason Calacanis (00:20:32): Did you guys read the Wall Street Journal piece on The miners who in 2012 were the ones who, you know, were clearing essentially, bat dung. David Friedberg (00:20:46): Bat dung. Jason Calacanis (00:20:46): Yeah. And so this this is a really fascinating turn of events that we're starting to know this lab was doing if you didn't see the Wall Street Journal's story. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:55): We'll put it in the show notes. Jason Calacanis (00:20:56): Yeah. We'll put it in the show notes. But in April 2012, 6 miners fell sick with the mysterious illness after entering the mine to clear bat, Guano, I guess, is what -- Poop. That poop. -- poop, which is supposed to be Speaker 1 (00:21:07): -- -- David Friedberg (00:21:07): the primary source of fertilizer worldwide. Jason Calacanis (00:21:09): Yeah. So 3 of them died. Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Ourology were called in to investigate after taking samples from in the mine identified several new coronaviruses. Now unanswered questions about the miner's illness, the viruses found at the site and the research Done with them have elevated into the mainstream an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory that SARS Cove 2. The virus that causes COVID 19 might have leaked from the lab in Wuhan. I mean, this is just becoming more and more obvious. My my gut tells me that our government already knows this, has known it for some time, the 90 day sort of window that they've given. The Chinese to kind of give us an answer as to what happened here is window dressing and then we're gonna start the process of becoming more independent from China. because there's I mean, it's nothing you could do. I mean, how could we retaliate for an accident David Sacks (00:21:59): We're not gonna get in a war over this. No one's suggesting that. But I think we have to open our eyes to the regime that we're dealing with over in China. And just to lay to add a layer to this analysis. Novel coronaviruses are not the only thing coming out of Chinese labs. China is also the number one producer of fentanyl. Jason Calacanis (00:22:19): obviously. David Sacks (00:22:19): Yeah. Yes. And that's another truth that we can finally talk about now that Trump is out of office. People haven't wanted to talk about it or they thought that you were Historical or promoting a conspiracy theory if you talked about it. But I just posted 2 articles in the Chamath. 1 from Brookings and 1 from NPR. about how China is the main source of fentanyl that's pouring into our streets. At first, it makes a stopover in Mexico and then somehow it gets smuggled into the US. this is a huge problem in our cities. And, you know, I I think this is not this is not accidental. You know? This is This is deliberate. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:22:57): So the your position is the Chinese government is deliberately sending a super opioid drug into the United States for profit or to destabilize the country in different cities and create more division between the left and the right because homelessness and wealth inequality is getting mixed up with a super drug as opposed to a homeless problem. David Friedberg (00:23:19): This is getting a little this is getting a little I know it's getting crazy conspiracy theory. Jason Calacanis (00:23:23): Well, that's what I'm reflecting back to Saks. David Sacks (00:23:25): But but how how's it a conspiracy theory? We know that China is mass producing the fentanyl that's coming into the US. We know that that fentanyl is creating a gigantic crisis of drug addiction to homelessness on the streets. We know they could stop it if they wanted to. They have total control over that country. What is the conspiracy theory? David Friedberg (00:23:45): Yeah. I don't know if that's the equivalent of saying America produces all the world's cards. It's not America. There are organizations within the United States that Under under the purview Speaker 1 (00:23:55): -- David Sacks (00:23:55): The CCP is the CCP is handpicking who gets to run ByteDance and Ants, and they're retiring CEOs. they get to decide what is produced in that country and who produces it. You're telling me that Fence Speaker 1 (00:24:06): -- David Friedberg (00:24:07): What do you Sachs, what do you think is going on in the federal government when they say to their their counterpart at the Chinese Communist Party. Hey. We need you guys to stop producing dental. Do you think that conversation's happening? David Sacks (00:24:18): Yeah. It was this was an agenda item during the Trump administration and talks between Speaker 1 (00:24:23): -- David Friedberg (00:24:23): Do you have any sense of what what the feedback was from China? I mean, what's the counterpoint? I don't I don't know enough, but what is the counterpoint that that China would then say? Like, why they can't stop it or why this is still happening. I mean, my understanding is there are thousands of kind of, you know, column under regulated factories and facilities in China any number of which this could David Sacks (00:24:41): be -- Let me let me ask you a question. It it does does China have a fentanyl addiction problem in their streets? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:47): We don't know. I mean, Jason Calacanis (00:24:48): maybe they do. The answer is no. And the answer is they round up every single person who's a Hong Kong, gets it into would sell a book or if anybody goes to the -- That's fair. Speaker 1 (00:24:57): -- Jason Calacanis (00:24:57): Teadimans -- They don't allow that substance. Speaker 1 (00:24:58): -- Jason Calacanis (00:24:58): go to jail for 5 years. They just announced Hong Kong citizens who go to the Tiananmen Square Memorial this year are getting 5 years. And if you tweet about it, you get 1 year in jail. So they can They can control anything in their country. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:12): Just to build on your control point, I tweeted this to you guys in the group chat. We can post this as well in the show notes, but There was an article in Forbes this week that said, friends don't let friends become Chinese billionaires. That was the title. And the data point that -- This David Friedberg (00:25:26): is an old story, by David Sacks (00:25:27): the way. Jason Calacanis (00:25:28): It's like eight years old, just so you knew. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:29): No. No. No. This was written now. Jason Calacanis (00:25:31): That might have been no. I think read the story. I think at the says the story is, like, eight years old. But, anyway, it is true that Chinese billionaire Chinese billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:39): dies every 40 days. unnatural deaths have taken the lives 72 mainland billionaires over the past 8 years. 15 were murdered. It's the Wild West over there, miss. Speaker 1 (00:25:47): 17 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:47): committed suicide, 7 died from accidents in Speaker 1 (00:25:50): 19 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:50): from illness. and 14 were executed. Suicide accidents? Jason Calacanis (00:25:54): I put those David Sacks (00:25:54): in execute the 14 fork. Can you imagine 14 billionaires just get executed? David Friedberg (00:25:59): Is that story real? What is that story from Timov? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:02): I mean, well, this this maybe is a good segue into coin based fact check, but this is an article in force. Jason Calacanis (00:26:09): Alright. India versus WhatsApp. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:11): Well, I I'll give you the rundown on the India thing. So, basically, you know, there there is a right to, you know, free speech effectively in the Indian constitution. But then India passed the law effectively, I'll just I'll just summarize it as traceability, which basically means that if you have an online network and you post something in the network, If an Indian sensor or an Indian regulator or authority basically says, hey. Hold on. This is an issue. They have the right to basically have this the the network or whoever owns that network, trace it down to its originating source. Now that's a really important distinction because there are certain products. So for example, take WhatsApp. where a feature of that product is end to end encryption. Right? So it's hopping around in ways that are very difficult and and near to impossible for anybody to really figure out. And now all of a sudden that that that element which used to be a feature is now a bug because if the Indian government says, hey. Hold on. That statement I have an issue with, I need you to figure out who said that. They'll essentially have to undo all their end to end encryption to figure out. So then WhatsApp filed a court case in New Delhi this week, essentially, I think asking for an injunction. And so I think this is gonna go to a head. But you you have this now State of affairs which I think is really interesting which is so, you know, we we talk about how we have an issue with Chinese sensors. Well, now here's a different more complicated example because this is the largest democracy in the world. And what they're effectively saying is we need to have an equivalent red button and a set of levers so that we can figure out what's going on when we choose. And there's gonna be a lot of implications because inside of India, what's different than America as a democracy is, it has lower average incomes, it has lower health, It has lower literacy rates. It has more religious sort of tension and it's got many, many more young people who are more prone theoretically to get, you know, bamboozled by misinformation and disinformation. And so, you know, India sees those facts on the ground and probably wrote this law with those intentions in mind. Right? And it's had a bunch of these issues, by the way, particularly between Muslims and Hindus. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:29): And so what do you do? You know, what is Facebook and what's app supposed to do? What is Google supposed to do? What does it mean for Internet rights? I think it's a super super complicated problem. And do you prioritize misinformation and disinformation above the right for people's privacy, and you're gonna see it unfold in the largest democracy in the world over the next couple months. I don't really know how I feel about it. To be honest, except I do think that Indian government has a right to set the rules of their own country. Jason Calacanis (00:28:59): Well and and set the rules they are. I mean, remember, they also banned TikTok in an instance and hundreds of other apps. I think 60 apps from China have been banned permanently in India. So India obviously has a different approach to China, which is we're gonna put our foot down now. Of course, they're involved in some skirmishes on their border. But, yeah, it does seem Saxx. What do you what's your thought? You have personal right to privacy end to end decryption, and then you have, you know, the ability to run Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:27): a backdoor a backdoor to it. David Sacks (00:29:29): Yeah. This is another major sledgehammer to to globalization. You know? In the in the mid to late nineties, we had this beautiful dream that we're gonna create a single Internet for the whole world. It would create a single common market, a single place for people to interact and go, and that all these barriers, these geographic barriers, tribal barriers would come down over time. And now what we see is the trade barriers have come up. And now instead of having one Internet for the whole world, it's fragmenting into a bunch of different Internet. governed by local laws. You know, it started with the the great firewall of China creating sort of a separate Chinese Internet. Now you're starting to see country by country regulations. And I just think it's it's sort of an inevitable reaction that the power of governments and sovereignty comes before the the power of corporations, and they're reimposing their will. And I think the question for all these companies is gonna be where they decide they're willing to play. And You know, I think now I I do think it's a very different choice whether you wanna play in India or whether you wanna play in China. Because in China, when the government tells you to hand over information on dissidents, you really are aiding and abetting what could be political oppression. Whereas India being a democracy, I don't think the choice is quite the same at all. And so, you know, I do think these tech companies are gonna have to decide which countries they wanna sort of play ball with. And, ultimately, I think they probably gonna have to make a determination based on working with the democratic ones, and they're probably gonna have to exit the ones that engage in political repression. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:04): In my first of all, I think that's really well said what you said. In my in my annual letter last year, I kind of wrote, like, here's the white paper on how to dismantle Big Tech. And there were two frames. One was around taxation, which we're also seeing, but the second was on this regulator regulatory point David that you're bringing up, that's the simplest way to sort of break these companies down, which is if you have to engineer Now instead of 1 monolithic code base, multiple instantiations where you can't even get the leverage of, like, you know, cross border data centers. I mean, by the way, there there there's a really interesting thing that the Biden tax bill also proposes on this dimension. Right? It's gonna prevent you from sending IP you know, into places like like Ireland and keeping it there. Right? So you can't have all of a sudden, you know, code that's running in Ireland that executes something that makes money so that you can pay Irish tax versus something code that runs in America that's largely, you know, user oriented. That's not gonna happen. That's not gonna be allowed anymore. Right? So all of these things are happening at the same time, essentially, to rain big tech in, baking it almost a whack a mole problem inside these companies where you're fighting a tax thing. For example, Google's fighting antitrust in France. Then you're fighting antitrust at the EU level. Then you're fighting you know traceability and encryption in India. Then you're fighting, you know, inversion of an IP in America. Wow. Like, it's like all of a sudden, the lawyers inside of these companies will outnumber the engineers. David Sacks (00:32:32): And I think a lot of this is the downstream sequences of what happened back in January when Twitter and all the other big tech companies deplatformed Trump. Remember at the time, it wasn't just, you know, conservatives are in the US. who raised alarm bells. It was Angela Merkel in in Germany. It was the finance minister in France. I think India you know, talked about it. I think Modi had a statement about it. They all woke up and said, woah. A head of state can be deplatformed. by Jack Dorsey, he's more powerful than the president of United States. And countries all around the world started looking at the power of Big Tech and realized that they're subordinate to all of these tech billionaires and oligarchs. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:11): Tell me about Coinbase and Facture. I think this thing is incredible. I mean, I have to say by the way, the first thing I'll say about and this is this is the exact opposite of what I said the last time Brian Armstrong wrote a memo. This memo is excellent. And if you haven't had a chance to read it, We'll put it in the show notes, but Brian's essay is super I think there have been a couple of CEO memos in the last two months that I think Honestly, it should be in the hall of fame in the Smithsonian. 1 is the Toby Luteke memo that the internal email he wrote. And the second one is this one that Brian wrote because I think this This thing is probably one of the most important things in my opinion that has been written by a CEO which has the potential to lead to huge systemic changes. David Sacks (00:33:53): Well, he echoed he echoed a lot of the things we we've been saying on this part about going direct. Don't let the press tell your story. Go direct. get get the truth out. They're bay basically, what the what the blog said is they're gonna start using the Coinbase blog as a form, basically, as media publication for for crypto related things. And the fact check part is that when the popular press gets crypto wrong, which they do frequently in Coinbase's view, Coinbase is gonna call them out and correct them. They're gonna do a recycling Speaker 1 (00:34:25): -- Jason Calacanis (00:34:25): Here's what he says. increased awareness has been great. Unfortunately, we also see misinformation published frequently as well. Rather in traditional media, social media or by public figures, this does always come from negative intentions. Our business and crypto can be difficult to understand and often people are rushed to post first impressions online, making mistakes in the process other times misinformation comes from people publishing their own agenda or from people who have a conflict of interest. This is not unique to our business or industry, of course. So how should companies respond? 1, turn the other cheek. 2, fight and 3, publish the truth. I believe there is a reasonable middle ground between these first two options. turning their cheek and fighting, which is to simply publish the truth. David Sacks (00:35:02): You know? Well, 2 and 3 are the same. The the the way you fight back is you publish the truth. So the the to me, that's not a choice. Those are the same thing is you can either remain silent, take the high road, which always results in people believing whatever, you know, lies are are being said, or you fight back by telling the truth. Jason Calacanis (00:35:20): Fact check approach is not about antagonizing or embarrassing others. This is Brian Armstrong. But simply sharing what happened through our own channels, it also means sharing the good along with the bad with radical trans experience. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:32): I I just wanna say that I I wish him all the success in the world because I think if if if an as this works, which I which I think it will because People in the crypto universe are more prone to actually get their own information and do their own diligence. I think the spillover effects to other companies can be really positive all of this is going to the same place, which is the intermediate layer of traditional media is basically getting whittled down. Right? There was a there was a different thing that happened in these last few weeks, which was the Tribune company, I think, of us. Basically got taken private by some hedge fund. And in it, they talked about what has happened in the industry. And the most incredible thing was the amount of revenue that has disappeared from newspapers. And literally from the tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars to basically single digit billions today over the last 20 years, which effectively means traditional media's revenue source is going away. And if then all of a sudden, if you take that media model away and there are no more economic incentives then it stands to reason that the overarching incentives that remain are around reputation which is then about facts. And so the fact that Coinbase will have a place that says here are the facts and we're gonna put it on chain permanently on the record That's I think a really powerful idea. Andres and Horowitz, by the way, same situation. They're doing it in venture capital. You know, one of the largest and most prolific and important Sources of funding the future, they're on the record on chain in their own way, right, with their own media and and they're now helping to tell the stories of other folks through it. David Sacks. You know Saks has put so much content in terms of teaching people about the business that he knows really well But at the same time, he's also been able to write about what he thinks about certain things. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:21): And then eventually, on behalf of his companies, he'll be able to say things and do things as well. So all of a sudden, Not all of a sudden. I guess we've seen it, but if we had to put a label on this, this is the dismantling of traditional media. It is happening in real time. and it's accelerating. Jason Calacanis (00:37:36): It turns out, you know, as a subject being interpreted as you're being through the New Yorker right now in your story, Jamal. And am through my business insider profile. You know, all these profiles that they do, they're interpreting your life when people could just do to the podcast and hear us talk about it. Right? And it's like you can go direct to the source and listen to 34 episodes of all in, or you could read some interpretation from somebody trying to get page views. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:01): Well, here's my here's my observation. The thing is that people who create artifacts on a real time basis. So In many ways, we have all collectively now started to create a weekly artifact of who we are as people. It leaves very little leftover for interpretation. And so then fortunately, what happens is journalists trying to write content have to introduce some form of flourish to stand out. Yeah. Because if you're just repeating something that was said on the podcast or something that we said in the -- It's a good point. Speaker 1 (00:38:30): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:31): tweet, there's nothing left to talk about. It's kind of already been set. And so that's what creates boundary conditions for lying. And it's what creates boundary conditions for mistruths. And we've seen a handful of reporters back in the day fall you know, fall into that trap. We you know, there was a couple writers in the New York Times that got pinched for lying. It's gonna be harder and harder to lie. So in many in some ways, I'm actually pretty optimistic that that reputation management and truth will be easier to do in the future when this intermediary layer doesn't exist. But it'll take Many other companies to do what Coinbase is doing, and recent, us in this podcast, us with our tweets and our memos and our posts. I think it it's all in a good positive direction. David Sacks (00:39:10): Yeah. And and and and Armstrong in his in this blog talks about the gel man, amnesia effect with talked about on this pod before, which is -- Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:17): I saw that. Yeah. David Sacks (00:39:18): Yeah. Which is great. I love that. Yeah. Because, you know, the the gel man, amnesia, is you read the newspaper about a topic. You know something about you see that 50% of it is just wrong, then you turn the page to some other part of the newspaper, say, you know, world affairs you don't know as much about. And you just assume it's true. And we all know that the media is maybe 50% right about everything. And so yeah. I mean, so this is why we have to hear from experts directly. I think it's it's the decentralization of media. It's why I think this, like, heavy handed centralized censorship by Big Tech is so offensive and anachronistic is to try and control what everyone can say, especially when it later turns out that, you know, big media gets so many things wrong like the lab leak theory. So it it's it's this is definitely the way things are headed. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:06): I would like to invest some money to basically have Friedberg a platform to explain science. Jason Calacanis (00:40:11): Well, that's right here. Friedberg, tell us about the science of NBA games and large gatherings in the age of vaccination. David Friedberg (00:40:19): I'm pretty sure you got COVID this week. Take out. Jason Calacanis (00:40:22): I'm pretty sure. I definitely lost my voice at the Knicks games, but I have to say this was pretty stunning to go to a Knicks game, have everybody in the arena show their vaxx card to get in. I suppose somebody could photocopy 1 or steal 1, you know, it sounds like a lot of work, and I don't know what the if there's any penalty for doing something like that. But what when you see a full arena, Madison Square, and everybody vaccinated, Friedberg, do you does it give you any pause as a scientist that this is not a good idea or this is too soon, or do you think, heck, yes. This is what we should be doing proper risk assessment finally? David Friedberg (00:40:59): No. We should do what we wanna do. Jason Calacanis (00:41:02): They haven't folks signed. David Friedberg (00:41:04): What do you want me to do? Jason Calacanis (00:41:05): Do what you wanna do. There's a great science moment. Way to keep the Friedberg ratio high. David Friedberg (00:41:11): That was supposed to be the science segue. David Sacks (00:41:13): We're we're ready for a monologue. Let's go, Friedberg. Come on. Jason Calacanis (00:41:15): Let's go, Friedberg. We're probing the tiger here. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:17): Friedberg, why don't you tell this is something I thought was incredible. Amgen this week, at the end of this week, got approval for this really incredible drug that basically targets KRAS mutations in lung cancer, which has been this body of cancer that has basically been somewhat intractable for a really long time. And these guys have cracked the code, it looks like. And now the drug is Speaker 1 (00:41:38): 18000 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:39): a month, I think. But, you know, that's that's for insurance to take care of. But pretty incredible breakthrough that people are talking a lot about. I don't know if you if you were tracking it. David Friedberg (00:41:48): No. But I think that there were several other gene therapies. There there were several drugs that got approval in the last, like, month, one of which is this or actually, it was about 2 months ago, this drug that uses targeted CAR T therapy. Basically, you know, we all have t cells And we can edit our own t cells now using this CAR T therapy, this is a series of techniques where you basically reprogram your t cells genetically to go after a specific target in your body. And so there are now a whole series of CAR T therapies that are me to market that are actually in market. You can go down and go get treatment today for several of these CAR T therapies that, you know, not too long ago were really difficult kinda understand, you know, being real, they take your t cells out of your blood. You know, if you go in, you get your blood drawn, Couple weeks later, you come back to the doctor. They've taken the t cells out of your blood. They re engineer them. The way they re engineer them is really interesting. They basically use this technique where they would zap them with electricity and it gets this gene editing in there and then they they they get edited. And then they put those t cells back into your into your body, takes about an hour to get them reinjected back into your body, and then they do their job. And they in in many cases, they're being used to target cancer cells. It's a very specific receptor. So now the t cell has been programmed to go find that cancer cell receptor. They hit the cancer cell receptor, bind to it, and then eliminate that cancer cell. Jason Calacanis (00:43:23): So, essentially, in in plain English, you're putting this super t cell back on the body. It goes through the blood and then it finds something far in that shouldn't be there like a virus or cancer. You David Friedberg (00:43:35): can find anything you want Jason Calacanis (00:43:36): it to find. Whatever you want it to find, and it snipes it. David Friedberg (00:43:39): But, yeah, what it does, remember, it's it's looking for a specific protein, and that protein, for example, can be expressed only on the surface of specific cancer cells So if you found certain cancer cells that you have a cancer and we know that there's a specific protein that shows up on the surface of that cancer, which is common in many cancers because they all follow very similar kind of, you know, mutations, you can end up targeting that cancer cell and only that cancer cell and your your t cells go to work and they go and wipe it up. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:07): I think the breakthrough this week was in multiple myeloma and thyroid cancer. David Friedberg (00:44:11): Yeah. There's a multiple myeloma 1, which was a bluebird bioproduct. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:15): And then I think it David Friedberg (00:44:16): got picked up by Bristol or or someone else picked it up. So they they they basically paid the fee, and they run their own good manufacturing practice facility where your blood is shipped to them They do all the gene editing with your own T cells in this facility, and they ship it back to your doctor, and it gets re injected back into you. Jason Calacanis (00:44:36): And so there's a similar nature. Speaker 1 (00:44:38): -- Jason Calacanis (00:44:38): car T cell Is that what it's called CAR space T cell? David Friedberg (00:44:42): Yeah. So CARs stands for chimeric antigen receptor, and that is the little Think about it as like a seeker that's on the outside of your t cell, it goes and it finds a specific thing it's trying to bind to. And so you're reprogramming your t cell to have a specific receptor. And then as soon as it finds that that that as soon as that receptor binds to the correct protein that's looking for, boom, that that cell that it binds to gets wiped out. are we gonna talk about the crazy media mergers and spin outs that are happening? Because it seems like just in the last 90 days, the entire industry is rewiring itself. and it's kind of a pretty significant set of transactions that are underway. Jason Calacanis (00:45:19): Amazon is buying MGM, which owns most important Lee James Bond. James Bond has done $20,000,000,000 in adjusted revenue for their movies, and you can obviously see many different back stories and television shows around the James Bond. So this is kind of, in my mind, of that 8 or 9,000,000,000, they spent 6,000,000,000 on the franchise for James Bond so that Bezos can play James Bond, obviously, while he returns. David Friedberg (00:45:45): If you take a Zoom out, you know, several years ago, you guys may remember, you know, early 2000 into the mid, you know, odds. All the telco started freaking out. Yep. Because they were or sorry. All the media companies were freaking out because their controlled points of distribution, which were network television, and then their cable television stations, and the movie theaters, we're getting disintermediated by the Internet. So all these Internet companies showed up like YouTube and Netflix, and we're going direct to consumer where consumers were not getting access to content directly without the control channels that the media company is controlled. At the same time, the telcos were freaking out Because it turns out people didn't need cell phones anymore or need phone lines anymore, what they needed was Internet access. And Internet access was quickly commoditizing So the telcos were like, holy crap. Being in the business of providing Internet service, not a great business. We need to be making more value per user per year than we're gonna be able charging them for Internet access. So the telco started buying up media companies. This is what Verizon and others did. AT and T and T And the media so remember, Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo, AT and T bought Time Warner. And then the media companies, the old school media companies that were like still decided not to sell and to stay on their own, they decided, well, we gotta go Internet. Right? And so we gotta figure out how to be on the Internet and compete in this world where companies like Netflix Amazon are going direct to consumers. And, you know, they all started building their own Internet services. And so next comes from -- -- Max. Speaker 1 (00:47:13): -- David Friedberg (00:47:13): Max. Yeah. Hulu. and that, you know, Hulu was a big one. And meanwhile, the tech companies that went direct to consumers, they're realizing, you know what? If these media companies aren't gonna play ball, we better get our own media. We gotta get a Speaker 1 (00:47:24): -- David Friedberg (00:47:24): All 2 day. Yep. And so then they started licensing, buying, funding, and and building their own media companies. And so there's a total reorientation that's underway. interesting in the last couple weeks is Verizon decided, you know what? We can't be in the media business. We're not very good at it, and they spun it out, and they're selling AOL Yahoo. And then meanwhile, this really interesting deal is AT and T gave up on owning Time Warner. And so it turns out that the telcos who thought that they could own the media and monetize it You know what? It's just a pain in the butt. It's another business. We can't really figure out how to add value to our subscriber base with these products. They're gonna have to exist on their own. We don't know how to run them because we're on media guys. they're spinning out. So now the telcos, the interesting question to ask is, what are they gonna do next? What's the next move for them? because they gotta keep growing. Meanwhile, the the tech companies and the media companies are just like this, and there's 50 subscription services each with their own silo and Volcanization of content. And we're all gonna have to choose as consumers, do I want HBO Max or Paramount Plus or you know, the the bundle I get from Comcast and it's gonna be a nasty battle for the next 10 years where you at at where you want content, you're gonna have to go pick and choose who do you wanna buy content from. And so it yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:32): I have a theory. I think consolidation happens when markets don't matter anymore and are getting commoditized. And what I would say about all of this, what it shows me is that we're now transferring to the phase of the market where it's all about cost of capital. And right now, the only person that actually understood that was Netflix. And Netflix issued 1,000,000,000 of dollars of debt and they've started to finance every piece of content under the sun. And being small and trying to compete against Netflix was not possible. And now we're in that part of the market where content is actually not that important because there is an enormous diversity of it. So no one single person can really corner that market. And so then it becomes how much can you make and how cheaply can you make it. And their scale matters. So I think like what this shows me back to sort of what we talked about before on the other part about like facts and truth is this is part of a much broader media puzzle that's becoming more obvious which is traditional outlets that push top down content is kind of yesterday's news. And what it's being replaced by is more and better forms of user generated content. and highly commoditized professional content. And in all of that, the economics are going away. So if you if you if you are not sure Go and look inside of TikTok. The content that individual people create inside of TikTok is unbelievably good. and they are training an entire generation of kids to consume content 15 seconds, 30 seconds at a time. which has huge implications, by the way, for how they consume music. So for example, if you guys, like, look inside a TikTok and then go to YouTube and look at the most Jason Calacanis (00:50:21): popular videos -- -- the same. And same thing with Spotify. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:24): It's 15 second clips now. No. You know, these kids wanna listen to the hook of a song, and then they won't listen to it. I see how my kids use it and it's crazy because like they get addicted to a hook on TikTok. They try to go to YouTube to learn the lyrics. They only wanna learn the lyrics with the part that's in the talked about. David Sacks (00:50:39): And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:39): then they move on. Jason Calacanis (00:50:40): Buss it challenge. Yes. Whatever it is. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:42): And so the the point of all of that is that content costs are gonna continue to go down, which means economic are gonna go down. The margins are not that good. And so it's all just a commodity that almost doesn't matter David Sacks (00:50:53): to you. Jason Calacanis (00:50:53): I don't know about that. I think for the tier IP, like, you can't displace a Disney and their growing portfolio of IP, and those things are high margin. And, you know, having 250 -- I David Sacks (00:51:03): don't know. Speaker 1 (00:51:03): -- Jason Calacanis (00:51:03): having Speaker 1 (00:51:04): 250 500,000 500,000,000 Jason Calacanis (00:51:07): people paying you monthly has never existed in the history of humanity. There's never been a at scale service like this before. The closest was Verizon AT and T when they hit 100,000,000 members. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:17): I'm not disputing that people won't pay 9.99. What I'm disputing is The denominator of what they're paying for is increasing so fast that no one piece of content matters, Jason. Jason Calacanis (00:51:26): No. The idea we agree with that. Collections matter. Right? So the IP of Marvel Disney pixar put together there. Disney's not the David Friedberg (00:51:34): case study. Right? Like, pick Disney launched this thing with no direct to consumer relationships with when they launched Disney plus, do they have now? 60,000,000 subscribers. Oh, they're supposed to Jason Calacanis (00:51:42): do a 100 now. David Friedberg (00:51:43): Yeah. 100,000,000 subscribers, which is incredible. You guys have kids. My kids watching this stuff on your feet. Jason Calacanis (00:51:49): for the rest of our lives. David Friedberg (00:51:50): And over and over. They'll put on frigging Moana. I cannot tell you how many times they've watched the seat you are seeing in Moana. They wanna watch the beginning. They wanna watch the middle part. It's just like infinitely reusable content. And so Disney's content library is so powerful for that particular demographic, basically, to be demographic of anyone with children. that it's an instant on kind of moment. These other guys like Paramount Plus and, you know, HBO's obviously got some special content, but it shows how much content matters. Right? The quality of the content for the demographic is so key for this to work. All these media companies that have kind of a broad dithered you know, library of half quality, half good kind of content, they're gonna struggle, man, because they're not gonna be Jason Calacanis (00:52:30): I also feel like they're ringing a little too much out of it. With this too much content production, there is, like, 50 shows about superheroes. Then there's like 50 shows that are like, you know, meta commentary on the superhero shows. It's almost becoming exhausting. Like, how many homeland style shows are they gonna be? How many Soprano style shows are they gonna be? Game of Thrones. I'm getting burnt out on my life. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:52): I think you're making my point, which is that no one piece of content matters anymore. It's all David Sacks (00:52:56): the same. I so so my big takeaway from Bezos buying MGM and these other, you know, m and a events is it's less about the decline of content even though there are more options there ever have been and and therefore more competition. And it's more about the rising power and wealth and influence of Big Tech. I mean, if you look at throughout history, whoever is buying studios in any given era, they're the people with the money and power and they're seeking influence. It was GE buying NBC. Gulf and Western Bank Paramount in the Speaker 1 (00:53:26): 19 David Sacks (00:53:27): seventies, an oil and gas company, or they were Jason Calacanis (00:53:29): so many. -- in the picture. David Sacks (00:53:31): So that's right. Sony, Sonic, Columbia in the 19 eighties when you had the era of the rising sun. So whoever has the money and the power and seeking influencer, the ones buying studios, that's what this is doing right now. But I think this time, it is a little bit different in this sense that we're reaching an end state of digital convergence where the where where content and the digital distribution are now reaching their kind of final state. And so I don't expect these studios once they're owned by Big Tech to ever go anywhere. any I don't think they're gonna be trading again every 10 years. I think this is the end state. Amazon wants this library for their streaming service. And I think that Big Tech is gonna gobble up the rest of these libraries, and that's where they're gonna stay. David Friedberg (00:54:14): Do you think all media will end up in Tech? David Sacks (00:54:16): Yeah. I mean, I think I I think I think Big Tech is gonna eat Hollywood. Look. We've been on this this path of convergence now since the mid nineties with the Internet. And and the question was always, you know, we we knew that tech and Hollywood were converging and and joining just more and more. And the question would be on whose terms this final merger would take place. And I think that big tech now you just look at the market caps. They're so much bigger than the market caps of these studios that Speaker 1 (00:54:43): 8,000,000,000 Jason Calacanis (00:54:44): rounding error. David Sacks (00:54:45): It's a rounding error for Bezos. I mean, it's one day's it's one day's revenue or whatever or less. So, obviously, Big Tech is gonna win this battle. They are gonna own Hollywood. David Friedberg (00:54:55): But except for the few guys that have scale, to actually be successful like Disney. Right? Disney, maybe HBO, to some extent, we'll see how I mean, look, Zaslav who runs this discovery is an is an incredible media guy who gets it. But they could be a like, this discovery plus slash HBO plus whatever that combined business ends up looking like. that could be a competitor. There may be it's like there's 2 to 3 libraries that are deep enough and strong enough to compete and stand on their own as a tech kind of platform. what's also really interesting is that all the telcos are exiting, and what are they gonna become? Right? It's clear. What what's interesting is they're not they're not tech companies. Jason Calacanis (00:55:31): dumb piled out of the ass are important. David Sacks (00:55:33): Right. So so so here's the thing with the telcos, the the telecom stack, is is we know that tech is taking over Hollywood. But the question is what part of the tech stack. And what's happened is the part of the tech stack that has the direct relationship with the audience, Apple, Google, Amazon. Yeah. who aggregate millions and millions of consumers, they're the ones who should actually own the content because they are the ones delivering up the content to the consumer. And everybody else who's lower down in the stack who are just the pipes, they don't really have a claim on these libraries in this content. Jason Calacanis (00:56:08): The pipes are super valuable. Speaker 1 (00:56:10): -- David Sacks (00:56:10): dumb the pipes are are the pipes are valuable, but they're a commodity. What Elon is doing with Starlink is gonna disrupt them. I'm not saying they're not valuable, but they're not in a highly leveraged position to do anything with the content. Jason Calacanis (00:56:22): They're gonna keep increasing speed in order to keep you paying Speaker 1 (00:56:25): 30 David Friedberg (00:56:25): bucks a month. because, like, now that they're at they realize, you know what? We can't can't run media businesses and we can't monetize it well. What are they gonna do? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:32): because they're we Jason Calacanis (00:56:32): can't just focus on faster bandwidth. Get us to gigabit. I mean, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:36): it doesn't matter. I mean, like, you guys are like you guys are so fucking old. Like, you're just like talking about yesterday's news. Nobody cares. This is what I mean. Consolidation in markets like this should tell you. It's time to move on and focus on something else. This is a dead industry. with no profit. David Friedberg (00:56:52): So, Jamov, what happens to AT and T and what happens to Verizon over the next 10 years? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:56): It doesn't matter. David Sacks (00:56:57): Well, I I agree I agree with that part that it doesn't matter what happens to these Coast, they should be dumbpipes. Again, they're not in a in a leverage position to create value around content. They never should have owned it. But I do think there is major major significance in Amazon and Apple and Google and these other big tech companies, owning Hollywood because they have they're gonna combine the influence they already have with the influence of Hollywood. And you already have, again, censorship on these tech platforms. Are they gonna start censoring the type of content the Hollywood produces. I think these issues are gonna get more and more important over time because so much control over our politics and society and culture are being concentrated in the hands of, frankly, our industry. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:40): But this is what I think about the other the other side of that coin is what we talked about before with respect to things like Coinbase. While that's happening, more and more people who have their own distribution are going direct. So let's just separate entertainment and facts. From a fact perspective, I think we're seeing everything sort of become highly decentralized. And I think that that's constructive. Now there'll be services that will be there to help us navigate, but I think that's what's happening. With respect to entertainment, I just think, like, it was our generation was the last one that actually even cared about movies that cared about these tent productions that that cared about water cooler type conversations on Jason Calacanis (00:58:19): a Monday morning. Books, novels. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:21): Kids will not understand what the hell we're talking about. they're like, what do you mean you used to run into work Jason Calacanis (00:58:28): on money? Speaker 1 (00:58:28): -- David Sacks (00:58:28): go to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:29): the movies anymore? You think it's over? They couldn't care less. David Friedberg (00:58:32): Really? They play games Jason Calacanis (00:58:33): still a lot going to the movies. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:34): They love video games? David Friedberg (00:58:35): Yeah. I mean, by the way, they're obviously, like, that you know, the the combination of media attack and there just be kind of ultimate manifestation of where it's all Speaker 1 (00:58:44): -- Jason Calacanis (00:58:44): And it's not just our case. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:45): Just look at the monthly active usage numbers that Roblox and Epic And 4th? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's nuts. And so they are voting every day with their attention. And at the end of the day, the thing that has never been improved is the or increase is the number of hours in a day. David Friedberg (00:59:02): So, Shamak, your point your point on the telcos, you know, as an investor, I own a bunch of Verizon and AT and T stock. If you were running that company, what would you do? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:10): I would quit. Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:59:11): You might run it for capital and then buy assets. Oh, wait. They did that. You can. David Sacks (00:59:16): Right. What do you what's the crazy Speaker 1 (00:59:17): -- -- David Friedberg (00:59:18): want to do. Right? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:19): These businesses have had horrendous capital allocation for decades. And the reason that they were allowed was that they were they were part of a culture of insiders Speaker 1 (00:59:28): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:28): There were more other ins where other insiders said that they were important. But as it turned out, to individual users who are making usage decisions every day, they were not important at all. And this is what we're learning, that the emperor has no clue. So while everybody was you know, looking around themselves saying AT and T is important. And hey, you know, let's go and, like, you know, buy all of these crazy old school media assets Young people were like, I use Snapchat and TikTok and YouTube, and I'm done. Thanks. Goodbye. David Sacks (00:59:56): Talk to you. And who owns those platforms? I mean, you're right that professional content is being crowded to some degree by amateur content. But now this the big tech companies own the professional content or the studios for creating them, and they own the the user generated platforms that lets the amateurs create the content. So Big Tech now owns everything. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:16): No. But you're seeing the next shooter drop because the thing that I think content creators haven't yet realized. And it social media personalities and influencers haven't yet realized is how can I own my own distribution and monetize my relationship. That feature of the web will get figured out in our lifetime. And that's linked Jason Calacanis (01:00:40): to a Patreon, and then Apple is now -- No. No. No. That's -- -- Spotify is doing paid content. These people are doing Stripe accounts. direct with their offense? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:48): Those people are too old. They're not gonna figure it out. What I'm saying is there are going to be people who are teenagers today Right? Or kids who will be teenagers in a decade, 20 somethings, who will figure this out for whom the idea that if you're a Charlie Dimelio, right, you're TikTok's top biggest star with a Speaker 1 (01:01:07): 120 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:08): odd million followers that to go through an intermediary to talk to your people will not in the future make any sense. And I think, David, that's that's where the the next thing will change. I just think it's unreliable to expect laser beam, MisterBeast, Charlie Dimelio, all these people David Friedberg (01:01:27): to continue to go through the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:29): no. Because they have they have such I think he Speaker 1 (01:01:32): -- David Sacks (01:01:32): They could go direct some of those guys could go direct now that they're huge, but Speaker 1 (01:01:35): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:35): It's it's no different than building a name on the New York Times and then starting your own substack. It's gonna happen. David Sacks (01:01:40): Yeah. But you can't go viral, and you can't get discovered unless you participate Speaker 1 (01:01:45): -- David Sacks (01:01:45): These are not one of these platforms. Speaker 1 (01:01:46): -- Jason Calacanis (01:01:46): and not an or. You can use the platform you can have a different relationship. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:50): You will build scale you will build scale on a platform. Jason Calacanis (01:01:52): You'll do both. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:53): And then you'll go on your own because you'll wanna control and monetize your own relationship. It's It is what these folks have done, meaning like how Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian had built incredible scale and wealth. Yeah. is effectively through that. They build scale through Instagram and Twitter and wherever. TV show. Now the only thing that they haven't done they've monetized it through offline goods. But if somebody figures out how to monetize it through an online relationship, Then what you're really doing is you're learning how to build scale in an established platform and then you on ramp to something else that's also online and you go from there. to think that it won't get figured out, I think, is being nice. David Friedberg (01:02:29): It's Jason Calacanis (01:02:29): being figured out. It's being figured out right now. The street is figuring out. There's something called Ghost, which is like an open source version of Substack. It it is an open source version of Substack, and people are building direct relationships and doing their own Patreon. And if you leave Substack, you get to take your Stripe account with you. You use your Stripe account. So now it's important. You can go on Substack for a year, leave, and keep all your subscribers. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:51): I think this solution will get figured out through the crypto community. And the reason is because that is by definition, to your point, Jason, fundamentally distributed and tied to a payment and a store of value. because that's what effectively this is. It's like, where is the value of somebody's reputation? And right now, we don't have a way of measuring it and you can you can that on chain in some way. I don't claim to know how. Jason Calacanis (01:03:15): But -- I mean, people have talked about this as all these different platforms. Speaker 1 (01:03:18): -- David Sacks (01:03:18): that happens. I hope that crypto figures out a way to to create decentralized social networks and all the rest of it, but it doesn't exist yet. And the only way that Mister Beast or Charlie Dimelia or any of these people became stars is they went viral on YouTube or TikTok or Insta, they on a on a big tech platform. And so right now Speaker 1 (01:03:38): -- Jason Calacanis (01:03:38): The strategy is gonna be doing both you you use the platform. David Sacks (01:03:40): I think that's where it has all the power. They have all the power right now because if they deny you access to one of these platforms Speaker 1 (01:03:46): -- David Sacks (01:03:46): Oh, you're too Trump. Jason Calacanis (01:03:48): Who cares about Trump? I'm David Sacks (01:03:49): not talking about Trump. Jason Calacanis (01:03:49): You're talking about Trump. You're suing completely lost. Nobody wants Trump in their life, but you. Okay? David Sacks (01:03:55): You're the one who mentioned his name. Jason Calacanis (01:03:57): You're the one with Trump David Sacks (01:03:58): on the on the brain. Jason Calacanis (01:03:59): What are you talking about? We love that he's bad. You love he's bad. David Sacks (01:04:02): Or do you wanna Speaker 1 (01:04:03): -- -- David Sacks (01:04:03): missing no. I'm not missing it at all. But Speaker 1 (01:04:05): -- Jason Calacanis (01:04:05): You want them back or not? David Sacks (01:04:07): We're trying to do takeaways on these moves by Big Tech to Buy Hollywood Studios, and I'm telling you it's about who has -- I Speaker 1 (01:04:13): -- -- David Sacks (01:04:14): the power, money, and influence, and it's all big tech. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:16): I'll go out on a limb and say, we're we're it we're in the sort of the the August of their supremacy. So and again, I would just say, David, if on the one hand, It's a whack a mole problem with governments on taxation and regulation. And on the other hand, you have a way where you can have distributed social currency and value. Wow. I mean, these big tech companies are getting bombarded on every single side. And I think that's just a hard place to be. One last thing for you guys. On a market check, my 10 year break evens, remember, we're now down to Speaker 1 (01:04:51): 242. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:52): It's been 18 days Speaker 1 (01:04:55): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:55): What is he talking about? Speaker 1 (01:04:56): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:57): my little inflation check my little inflation check, and it seems like things are trending in the right direction. David Sacks (01:05:04): The markets David Friedberg (01:05:04): are back. David Sacks (01:05:05): The markets back a little. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:06): There may not be inflation. David Sacks (01:05:08): Well, I think what happened, Chamath, is you you put it well, I think, a couple of pods ago. The market sent signal to Biden that, look, this is too much taxing, too much spending. It's too inflationary. And I don't know if Biden heard the message, but several democratic senators did. Speaker 1 (01:05:21): -- David Sacks (01:05:21): break And they pumped to put on the brakes. They reduced the size of the package. They're now talking about maybe the capital gains rate going to 25. The infrastructure bill is, you know, been chopped in half. So I think there's less inflationary pressure coming out of Washington, hopefully. David Friedberg (01:05:38): Yeah. And what I what I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:39): heard last week, I I spoke to some folks in Washington. What they said was exactly what you said, David. They're not gonna at best, they're gonna get the cap gains Sorry, no movement on cap gains. They don't think it can happen at all, so that's not gonna move. Number 1. Number 2 is that corporate will go to 25 but not to 28. And then number 3, they're gonna really tighten the IP loophole, which will prevent American companies from shipping IP to places like Ireland to not pay tax. They're gonna make it impossible to do things like conversions, all this kind of stuff, and then scope that down. That's actually, to your point, a very, very good outcome for the markets. Jason Calacanis (01:06:16): So this was actually productive if this happens. David Sacks (01:06:19): if the infrastructure bill gets I think the Republicans now they they first McConnell said 600 to Speaker 1 (01:06:24): 800,000,000,000. David Sacks (01:06:25): Now I think they're they're at 900,000,000,000. I think the Democrats started at 2,300,000,000 now. I think they're at 1.7. So, hopefully, it's being brought down to a more reasonable number that's not gonna bust the the budget. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:36): Point 21.3, and everybody will have something -- But David Sacks (01:06:39): hey but here's the crazy thing. I mean, the US government debt is now at a 100 percent of GDP. We owe our entire economy. It's pretty crazy. And -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:06:49): There's still other countries that are at Speaker 1 (01:06:50): 1.5, Jason Calacanis (01:06:51): right, in double, like Japan and others. Yeah. The the the -- It's not precedent. Speaker 1 (01:06:54): -- David Sacks (01:06:55): Biden Biden's $6,000,000,000,000 budget would increase our budget debt our debt from a 100 percent of GDP to a 117%. If he gets his way too much, it's a World War 2 level of spending But what is the benefit equivalent to World War 2 that we're getting out of this thing? Jason Calacanis (01:07:11): Well, also, we're having surplus in so many states that we're doing lotteries. Thank you Queen of Kinois, rain man and the dictator. I'm JC Calcadis. We'll see you next time on the all in podcast. Bye bye. David Sacks (01:07:24): We'll let your winter ride. Rainman, David Sachs. I'm going home. And I said, open sources to the fans, and they've just gone crazy lately. besties are gone. That is why a Jason Calacanis (01:07:48): dog know this is your driveway. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:54): We should all just get a room and have one big huge order because they're always useless. It's like it's like sexual tension, but they just need to release that mountain. Jason Calacanis (01:08:03): What? You're the bee What? Fire of David Sacks (01:08:06): the earthy. What? What's gonna feel it? Jason Calacanis (01:08:08): Where did you get Mercky's are back?