西海岸特大干旱与气候危机、核能的道德表演、旧金山乱象

Speaker 1 (00:00:00): What did your doctor give you to make you lose all this weight? What did the what is your celebrity doctor giving you? Tell the truth. Speaker 2 (00:00:05): Do you get that new shot? David Sacks (00:00:06): People people on Twitter are like, your your Twitter account sounding a lot more like Jay County. And I'm like, I think we're on the I think we're on the same diet. I think that's what's going on here. Jason Calacanis (00:00:16): In Speaker 1 (00:00:17): 32. Speaker 5 (00:00:19): The weather winter ride. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:22): Brainman David Saffens. Speaker 2 (00:00:26): We open source it to fans and make discoveries. Jason Calacanis (00:00:34): Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All in Pod with us today. Of course, the queen of Kinois. And from his cast in Italy, the cackling dictator, Tremov Polyhappatthia, nice gardenias, and back from his Big big battle, his brawl, unblocked, and undefeated. The rain man himself, David. Sacks. David Sacks (00:01:03): And judging by the comments, I'd say dominant. Jason Calacanis (00:01:06): Oh, you read the comments? Just another sign of your upset. in with how I perceive. Speaker 1 (00:01:11): -- David Sacks (00:01:11): don't. Like, you don't. Speaker 1 (00:01:12): -- Jason Calacanis (00:01:12): even I never read comments. Don't press. Rule number 1, don't read the comments. You're not doing it again. David Sacks (00:01:17): It shows because you're not listening to the comments, so it makes sense. Jason Calacanis (00:01:20): Oh, okay. Go ahead. And and you get your whole troll army. How many people have you hired on your social media team to troll me from anonymous accounts on Twitter now to prove your points David Sacks (00:01:29): now you're paranoid too. Jason Calacanis (00:01:31): Alright. So I'm not gonna do it. David Sacks (00:01:32): Don't be paranoid. Don't be paranoid. Anyway, look, we've we've patched things up. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:36): It's patched up. David Sacks (00:01:36): Don't break the peace. We have Detant. Jason Calacanis (00:01:40): Alright. So Friedberg is busy writing tweetstorms now about the drought in California, which seems to be just gonna be a really bad year, basically. So Friedberg walk us through it. How bad is California's drought gonna be this year? David Friedberg (00:01:59): So the drought is already very bad. I put out a a lot of tweet in the morning last night, I think. I drank way too much caffeine yesterday. I'm in the mountains, and, like, the only way I can avoid having headaches is, like, drinking caffeine all day and was a mistake. It kept me up all night. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:12): You're sure it's not fair. Speaker 1 (00:02:17): Maybe you're so excited about this Jason Calacanis (00:02:20): that you just can't sleep Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:22): with your feet, Nick. Nick, you Jason Calacanis (00:02:24): could beat Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:24): this out. Speaker 5 (00:02:25): Nick, you gotta be a shit out. David Sacks (00:02:27): No. No. Speaker 5 (00:02:27): No. Keep David Sacks (00:02:27): that. Keep that. David Friedberg (00:02:29): So you know, the the the big tweet storm I put out at 2 in the morning last night kind of highlighted that there was a paper published in 2018, 2019, that showed how, you know, North America, particularly the western half of North America is in this, you know, mega drought that we haven't seen in, you know, 500 plus years. And since that paper was published, you know, in Speaker 1 (00:02:51): 2019, David Friedberg (00:02:52): conditions have only worsened. We talked about this a few pods ago, but, like, the snowpack level in California reached 0% throughout the higher state by June 1st. That has never happened before. Temperatures in British Columbia, as you guys know, reached over a 120 degrees for several days in a row last week. which has never been seen in history in British Columbia. You know, there was a paper published today that estimates that over a billion animals in life forms were wiped out in the coastal region off British Columbia because of this heat wave. And the temperatures in in California are obviously excessive as well, not as bad as they were last year. But what matters most is that the moisture conditions in our forest land is lower than we've ever seen at this time of year in history. And so this all sets us up and and and the other kind of big consequence, the high temperatures is causing an increased demand for air conditioners. That's the big variable in power demand on all grids. And the low snowpack means that we're not getting hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power is down by 70% in the state of California over where we were in 2019. because there's no snow that's melting causing the rivers to flow, and about 11 to 15% of our state's electricity comes from hydroelectric power. we're gonna have more power demand. We have less power available. We have extremely dry forests. And so this is setting us up for a a number of possible faster this year. And so rather than just trying to sound the alarm bells, what I'm pointing out is that there may be some things that we should be thinking about doing to try and get ahead of some of the consequences of these these big risks, like, you know, having enough masks for people to breathe outside. So we don't have to shut down schools and shut down outdoor work and all the things that might happen. having community centers that have power available. David Friedberg (00:04:31): The state is scrambling to find excess power on the grid right now. But, you know, it it just highlights like there's a moment here that is almost like where we were going into COVID. It may not happen, but the probability it's high enough that something bad may happen that we should probably start to get prepared for it. you know, we should probably be talking about the things we're doing to get prepared for it, and we're talking about and we should be talking about the things we're gonna do to make sure that communities are safe and people are safe and businesses can keep operating. because if the state of California has a 158 QI, which is the air quality index, workers can't work outside. And all the outdoor work, which employs 3,000,000 Californians have to shut down. And, you know, you kinda start to add these things up. It's like, what are we gonna do as this happens, not if this happens, and and we should kind of be planning for it? And I don't see much happening in terms of planning and and and preparation and talking about the opportunity. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:19): History rhymes because if you remember and this is all going into a recall election in the fall, This was a different, but kind of equivalent setup where you guys remember we were having all these blackouts and brownouts when Grey Davis was recalled. And then Shorts and Meger just swooped up out of nowhere. And, you know, people thought, oh, that there's no chance, and people were just frustrated because the quality of life took a measurable step backwards in the intervening 6 or 9 months before the recall election. And so it'll be really interesting to see how Gavin Newsom manages of this because if he can't get the states act together and you have all of these issues at hand and a credible candidate emerges, you could have some really interesting political fireworks in September. Speaker 5 (00:06:09): A Jason Calacanis (00:06:09): big part of this, correct me if I'm wrong Friedberg is that we live in essentially like a lot of desert area here in California, and we just haven't invested in the desalination plants. We have one that's come on since 2005. And I think there's another one in SoCal that was mothballed in the during the last drought, wanted to open it up again. But We now have one in Carlsbad, the Claude Bud, Lewis Carlsbad, desalination plant that is now I think that costs us a billion bucks. But Israel, correct me if I'm wrong, is now they charge three times as much for water than we do. So people take water seriously and they actually monitor their water usage, and they have desalination and they have more water than they need per capita. David Friedberg (00:06:53): Well, d desal doesn't really solve a number of these problems that I'm I'm highlighting. You know, the the probability of the the forest land on the Coast, not just in California, but all up and down the West Coast catching on fire is very high. No number of desal plants is gonna put out those fires. When that happens, the air quality is gonna get really You know, like, we saw last year. I don't know. You guys remember I escaped to Lake Michigan last summer when the -- And Jason Calacanis (00:07:14): we remember the threats. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:07:16): Yeah. And it it was it was insane. You know, it doesn't desal plants don't solve the air quality problem where people can't work outside. Your kids can't go to school, etcetera, etcetera. desal plants don't solve the problem of hydroelectric plants, which re requires snowpack to melt to get rivers to run to turn those turbines to generate electricity for the state. Jason Calacanis (00:07:36): nuclear would solve that, though. David Friedberg (00:07:37): Nuclear would solve that certainly. And so, you know, the the point is we're kind of reaching this apex of are we gonna do climate change adaptation? Are we gonna have, you know, kind of long term systemic solutions that we're gonna start to put in place for these risks that we face? And more importantly, from an acute perspective, in the near term, what are the actions we should be taking to protect communities and get ahead of this problem? So it's not a scramble after the crisis. which is what we typically do with these sorts of crises. Jason Calacanis (00:08:04): We're not investing in infrastructure. If we put in some nuclear power plants, if we did more desal, and we did more forest management or put more firebreaks into, you know, all this. David Friedberg (00:08:14): I'm talking about the simple solutions like Have a key Speaker 1 (00:08:17): 3 Jason Calacanis (00:08:18): things would be massive, wouldn't they? David Friedberg (00:08:19): Well, those are long term solutions. I'm talking about, like, for this summer Speaker 1 (00:08:22): -- Jason Calacanis (00:08:22): Oh, this semester? Is it possible? David Friedberg (00:08:24): We need we need communities no. But we need to prepare what is gonna happen this summer. So when communities get run out, what are we gonna do? You know, do we have community centers set up where people can get water and power do we have masks available so that outdoor workers can keep working in the state? You know, all of these things that we could be doing to get in front of the inevitable consequences of these risks, I think, are things that we should be actively pursuing. Jason Calacanis (00:08:46): If you're in California, you should order your air purifiers now. We ordered 6 more of these Conway ones. that we used last year that were amazing. David Friedberg (00:08:55): Get N95 masks. Jason Calacanis (00:08:56): Do it. We we have the N95 masks. We ordered them already, and we're gonna put in a generator, which I know not everybody is able to do. But you can buy a portable one for as little as 3 or 400 bucks, I think, now. So a portable generator in case you lose power, stock up on everything else. David Friedberg (00:09:11): We need those solutions. Like, I think there's gonna be a big kind of power generator push. Right? Like, Distributed power has always been something. That's the whole point of solar. You get the solar in your roof. You get your own power. But how are you gonna keep your AC running when it's a 120 degrees outside if you power. You know? That that's kind of a very scary circumstance of heat waves, and it's it's something that we should have a real plan around. And if I were the governor or if I were kind of California leadership or leadership up and down the West Coast, you know, the western governors, I'd probably be running a daily press conference starting now saying, let's just get in front of this problem and talk about what are the risks we're seeing, what are the problems we're seeing, and what we're doing about it just so people feel reassured because, you know, scrambling after a crisis doesn't make anyone feel better. you know, showing that we're prepared and we're taking action to get in front of this crisis, which is not a 100% certain, but it's a greater than 0% probability is something that could helpfully kind of reassure and start to put the pieces in place for for the near term. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:07): By the way, just just for those that don't really appreciate how interconnected everything is. The basics, the science basics on drought as I learned about them were really, really incredible. So you'd think, okay. Well, How how is all this stuff connected? It turns out that, you know, as we have warmer and warmer temperatures, yeah, I didn't know this. Freeburg, you probably do this, but it accelerates soil evaporation. And then there's this really terrible feedback loop that starts which is you have drier soil which means you have less vegetation. And then as a result, you have less what's called evapotranspiration, which means there's less regional precipitation. And then this whole thing just starts to spin and spin and spin. you have warmer temperatures that results in less snowpack. The snowpack melts earlier and we have a situation now in the United States which is just incredible. saw a graph which is one of soil moisture. And it shows basically the western half of the United States is in the first percentile of soil moisture looking back over many, many decades. Jason Calacanis (00:11:08): So Well, and then all of that vegetation dries up and then decommission Speaker 1 (00:11:13): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:11:13): spotter for more fires. No. Jason, we're Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:15): to well, even worse than this. We're in a position where, you know, we are threatening our own food supply. And just just to just to put a a a finer point on this, it's not just the western half of the United States that's now suffering from this. It's Brazil. It's the Mediterranean and Southern Europe, and it's large parts of Africa. You add up all those number of people, there are many countries there that are actually self sufficient, which will then no longer be, will have to import food. That food quality is, you know, questionable at best in some cases. So we're in a really tough position here and saw it's Jason Calacanis (00:11:49): Isn't this all solvable with technology? I mean, if we just tax people a little more for the water use if we really invested in the desal plants, if we really invested in nuclear, we could actually flip this whole thing the same way it's spiraling in the wrong direction. It could spiral in the right direction. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:02): two things on the water side. I've I've been looking at water investing for a while. There's a there's a real problem, which is, you know, when I when I looked at this my team found some incredibly interesting opportunities. Largely, it it it it evolves around owning water rights. Right? And then basically selling them back to the state and when states get in difficult situations. The problem is I think it's politically intolerable for let's just say somebody like me to own those kinds of wallets. Speaker 1 (00:12:30): -- Jason Calacanis (00:12:30): Darren. Yeah. I think Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:32): I think it's I think it's no point. The the idea then that I had was like, well, maybe what we should be doing is buying these things and sticking them in a foundation so that we can guarantee water for people in certain states. Maybe that flies. I'm not so sure. David Friedberg (00:12:45): So that's the government's job. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:46): That's the government's job and but then they're not doing their job. But they're incompetent. They're unfortunately not not as skilled as you'd want them to be on the stall. Jason Calacanis (00:12:54): Sachs, how would you spin this out of this death spiral and into abundance is there a way? David Sacks (00:13:01): Well, I mean, the the the first thing to realize here is that this is not a black swan event. I mean, this is entirely foreseeable. Drought conditions have existed in California for a long time. In fact Speaker 1 (00:13:13): -- 200 200 Jason Calacanis (00:13:14): years. Yeah. David Sacks (00:13:15): Well and even maybe going back millions of years, I mean, have found evidence that, you know, millions of years ago, you would have millions of acres of California burning every year. And so Drought conditions have existed for a long time. Has climate change amplified that and made it worse? Yes. But this is entirely foreseeable. We know we're dealing with these conditions. And in fact, back on his first day in office in Speaker 1 (00:13:41): 2019, David Sacks (00:13:44): Newsom held his very 1st press conference about this issue on emergency preparedness for fires. But the problem is there's been no follow through. And so news you know, to go back to Shamas Point about the political ramifications here, you could have a gray Davis like situation with the recall where all of a sudden Newsom goes from being the favorite to potentially losing because of fire season. But by the way, I mean, the whole reason why the the recall election is happening in September now instead of October, November is because Newsom is precisely worried about the Great Davis scenario. And there are this recall is supposed to happen in the October, November time frame. They've moved it up to September because Newsom thinks there's a higher chance of fading The worst of fire season by doing the election sooner, the problem for him is that fire season now starts in August. And so we could be in the middle of fire season when this recall election happens. And this thing could boomerang on him. But back to the point about, you know, Newsom held this press conference back in in January of Speaker 1 (00:14:43): 2019, David Sacks (00:14:45): And the problem is there hasn't been any real fall through on forest management. So, you know, Newsom was recently caught in a lie saying that, you know, they had basically treated 90,000 acres is what this article I put in the chat said. In reality, that only really treated about 11,000 acres, even 90,000 would be inadequate. Right? They're not doing enough. And the way you know, I talked to a very prominent person who knows California politics well and knows all the players. And what he said is, look, the fundamental problem is that Gavin is not operational. Right? He's fantastic at fundraising. He says all the right things at press conferences. Right here. But but not everything is about running for reelection. And the problem is he has not managed to this outcome. And and so now we're in this situation where to Freeport's point, we're gonna be scrambling after the fact. Now what is Newsom's excuse gonna be? gonna be, you know, climate change. It's gonna be global warming. It's kind of the all purpose docket my homework excuse for anything that goes wrong is he can just blame it on climate change. But the reality is we knew about climate change. Climate change is something we're gonna have to live with. Even if we stop it, in its tracks from this point forward, we're not gonna be able to reverse the effects it's already had. And so we need leaders who will step up and and get much more aggressive about preventing this problem. Speaker 5 (00:16:08): I think my my and by David Friedberg (00:16:09): the way, my tweet, I didn't mention climate change at all. Like, I you know, I don't think that that's even the point. The point is we are facing acute conditions on the in the western half of the United States right now that lead to a number of significant and severe consequences. those acute conditions, you know, you could blame them on climate change and say that they're a part of climate change. It doesn't change the reality. They are here today. and we have to deal with them. And I think yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:34): We have a we have a couple of things that are that are gonna happen here in short order that I think can make this thing accelerated a little. So there's a an organization, a a a department in the United States government that's not very well known called the US Bureau of Reclamation, USBR. And they are the ones that will make formal assessments of water levels. And there's a really important assessment that's gonna happen in Lake Mead at the end of this year. And the reason why it's critical is that if the US Bureau of Reclamation measures Lake Mead under a certain threshold, they can declare a tier 1 shortage. And what that means, just practically speaking, cutting through all the, you know, jargon is that, initially, the state of Arizona will be denied around 600,000 acre feet of water next year. What does that mean? That's about 15% of the demand for that state. And so you're gonna start, you know, to deal with these sort of like rolling I don't know what we're even gonna call these water out scenarios where it's not just about watering your lawn that's not gonna be possible, it's gonna be a whole bunch of other things. Now is a solution, and this is where California can come to the rescue for most of the Western United States if they really want to or at least for the rest of California, which is there is an enormous untapped groundwater aquifier in Southern California, which is the size of lake meat. it's an incredibly unique thing. It's actually owned by a public company. And the whole goal was, okay. Well, let's just build a pipeline, right, from the aquifer to deliver drinking water to folks that, you know, are lacking water And this has been a multiyear, you know, bordering on multi decade slogged because of California politicians. because water has become highly politicized, no one wants to pay the full cost for a commodity that they frankly view as a right but then they don't want to step in to do the work to actually make it reasonable and viable. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:42): So this whole thing is just again, David, as you said, the dog gave my homework. And now we're really playing with some very complicated things that are really out of the control and intellectual capacity of the of frankly state governments, which is the interconnectedness of weather, temperature, water, or soil, or food supply It's Jason Calacanis (00:19:01): yeah. I think I think -- What's so frustrating for this is this is so easily stoppable, and we are not doing the blocking and tackling the free throws, the basic things. If you look at just monitoring our water usage, I invested in 2 companies. 1 of them didn't work out, but both of them were to monitor water usage. And what we learned was at a campus like Stanford, they have like 4 water meters. Like, they're not going down to the building level in some cases. There'll be, like, four buildings on one water meter. And you can very easily at each sink at each, you know, shower head, you can put a device that cost 25 bucks installed. It just wraps found the the the the water the the the pipe. And it could tell you how it's flowing, and we'd lose 20, 30 percent of our water to leaks Nobody is monitoring their usage because there is no cost to it to Chemat's point. And then you look at these crazy insane almond and other agriculture in the the middle of California, they are using flood irrigation, which I'm sure Friedberg can give us an education ad versus what, you know, the trip irrigation that they use and other reclaiming methods in Israel and other places. So we look at water as, like, to Tremont's point, some crazy god given right that we can just splash it everywhere. We can take 20 minute showers And then we allow how crazy is this. We allow the bottling of water in California. We allow these companies to bottle water and then sell it and we don't even monitor our usage. We have -- Well, Newson's biggest donors. -- it is gross. David Sacks (00:20:40): Newson's biggest donors who who who's that family that grows all the almonds? or whatever? Jason Calacanis (00:20:45): Whoever they are. David Friedberg (00:20:45): The the Resnix. David Sacks (00:20:46): The Resnix. Single biggest them and the teachers' unions, single Jason Calacanis (00:20:49): Oh, Linda Resnick and those Palm people with the Palm stuff Speaker 5 (00:20:53): I I know them. David Sacks (00:20:53): It's it's total political corruption. Right? I mean, they get Jason Calacanis (00:20:56): It's Chinatown. It's literally the movie Chinatown. David Sacks (00:20:59): Yeah. Well, I think so to this point about why aren't politicians solving the problems. I mean, to make a meta point, there's a great tweet from Thomas Sol or the person who manages the Thomas Sol account. where he said no one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They're trying to solve their own problems. Relection point. Which are getting elected and reelected. That's number one number Speaker 1 (00:21:21): 2. Jason Calacanis (00:21:21): State office. That is their only goal. Speaker 1 (00:21:23): 3 David Sacks (00:21:23): is far behind. And and that that's basically the situation we have is I think Newsom actually is a little bit like Trump, not in his personal style, but in that, he thinks he can talk his way out of problems. And he's not gonna focus on solving a problem when he can just spin his way out Speaker 5 (00:21:40): of it. By the way, David Friedberg (00:21:40): I I just think you guys should know the you know, because a lot of people talk about residential water use. That is also kind of an acute and local problem where depending on your water supply, how much water you have available to your community. But in terms of aggregate, water use, the vast majority of water in California is used in agriculture It's about 10 x what is used for residential applications. So -- Yeah. -- California Agriculture by the way, it's not bad thing. It's a huge part of our economy that water has generally been fully available in aquifers. People bought that land with rights. They paid a premium for those rights to those aquifers. This is a very complicated problem in California, and that, you know, supports a large part of the California economy. So, you know, you can't just kinda blow them away. But 90% of water use in California is associated with Ag. And it's not just a generally we need to save water problem. It's very specific to a region and a community and their particular water source on whether and how much you need to save versus do you have abundant supplies and so on? And so it's it's a little bit more complicated. But, Zach -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:22:43): But we should be focused on abundance Friedberg. If if you look at the new nuclear power plants that you know, Bill Gates is invested in, and then you look at desalination, which is an energy issue. We can desalanize for roughly two or three times the cost that we're getting more water for now. So just put a nuclear power plant next to a desalination plant, and you're done. David Friedberg (00:23:04): Great. That's a 20 year project. And you gotta -- Why is it Jason Calacanis (00:23:07): a 20 year project? China does it in Speaker 1 (00:23:09): 2. Jason Calacanis (00:23:09): You gotta need to be more bold in this country. It is completely ridiculous that we accept that everything has to take 20 years. We need this now. Where's the leadership that says, fuck it. Let's do it immediately. Let's set a goal of 2 years. to build 10 of these. And let's turn the fucking money. David Friedberg (00:23:26): I'm not sure it solves our acute problems. It solves long term problems associated with climate change and energy security and bought water security. -- both? Jason Calacanis (00:23:33): Let's do both. David Friedberg (00:23:34): Sure. We should do everything. But right now, the, you know, the the conditions indicate that there are some specific things that we can and should be doing to kind of support the state in terms of what's gonna happen in the next year or 2. And, yes, we should also be funding long term projects that create water security and energy security for everyone in the United States. But, Zach, to your point and and by the way, if you guys ever wanna read an interesting book, about how the grid operates. There's a book called the grid, and it talks about how the electrical power grid system was built in the United States and how inefficient it is and all the problems there there are a lot of structural problems that need to be solved, not just, you know, dropping in cheap power. Sachs, who is the good operational candidate that you've seen that's running for governor of California in this recall Is there someone that stands out in your mind? because I I I don't seem to hear anyone talking about, hey. There's a good alternative to Gavin Newsom Speaker 1 (00:24:19): -- Speaker 5 (00:24:20): Right. Speaker 1 (00:24:20): -- David Friedberg (00:24:20): at this point. David Sacks (00:24:21): Yeah. I mean, we don't a clear alternative has not emerged yet. You know, I guess the and and part of the problem is that because there was no Republican primary. You haven't sort of consolidated the opposition to a leading candidate. There are a couple of, I guess, interesting candidates On the Republican side, I need to spend more time getting to, you know, know them. I mean, I have never met them or talked to them. But the the 2 her, I think, mentioned quite a bit, are this is Guy Falconer, who's a mayor of San Diego, who is sort of a socially liberal Republican. And then there's a state assemblyman named Kevin Kylie who who I think says a lot of interesting things, and he just announced he's running. There's another guy as well, John Cox, but he got trounce by Newsom in the last election. I think it's time to let somebody else take a shot against him. And then, of course, you've got Caitlyn Jenner, but I think people are still trying to figure out if her campaign is real or how real it is. So yeah. Look. We the the opposition has not consolidated against Newsom. the way it did with Schwarzenegger, you know, back in 2001. I'm Jason Calacanis (00:25:32): voting I'm voting Republican just to create a counterbalance. I don't care who it is. and I'm not a Republican. I'm an independent. But I'm voting across the board. I'm just gonna go to Republican for every position in California, and I'm gonna just run my finger down the Republican line. I check every single one. David Sacks (00:25:48): Jacob, how does it feel to be a radical Trump supporter? Jason Calacanis (00:25:51): I listen. I I not for Trump, but Jamath, talk to us about nuclear and what we can do to get to reverse with these hippie dippie well intention, no nukes concert, set us back 50 years. And let's be honest, a lot of the climate change problems we have today we would not have if we had invested in nuclear. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:11): Yeah. I I sit through all that. Well, I sent around an image. Nick, maybe you can stick it in the show notes or something so that people can see. But if you if you look at if you graph the construction of nuclear reactors from, like, the Speaker 1 (00:26:23): 19 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:24): sixties 19 sixties to today, essentially, what and you color code them by country. What essentially you see is a transition from the able from the frankly, from countries that basically were just right at the at leading the pack, and it was really the United States. Building, building, building. And then two things really happened. There was Three Mile Island, and then there was Chernobyl. And there was an incredible overreaction to not really understanding either the cause and or the remediation to two events. Now could you imagine if there were 2 airlines that crashed and we stopped flying? how basically we would have, you know, retarded the progress of the world. And now you impose it on something like nuclear energy which is consistently proven to provide an enormously abundant, cheap, and clean form of sustainable energy and It actually solves a bunch of the problems we talked about before. So for example, if you look at the power consumption for desalination, it's off the charts quite honestly. Okay? That's why people can't say that it can't be done credibly. If you look at even just like the amount of energy that's required to clean water and to you know, sanitize water and make it drinkable. The the the standards that are defined by the government are incredibly stringent, but the the implication of it operationally is an enormous amount of power that goes into it. But Jason, you are right, which is that if we have small forms of sustainable abundant energy that can be basically hyper localized and located where we can do these jobs, the jobs to be done. it's transformational. Now why doesn't it happen? It doesn't happen because the same folks who really want to sound the alarm bells on climate change, which is the progressive left are not really willing. They're intellectually lazy when it comes to nuclear. They don't do the work. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:20): They make a Blant sort of broad based prognostication about how we need to do something about climate, then they will point to solar and wind without really understanding the contamination of the earth that we do in order to mine the rare earths and the actual metal and mineral inputs that are required for solar. Jason Calacanis (00:28:40): It's -- Yes. Speaker 1 (00:28:41): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:41): nuts. But it sounds better. Jason Calacanis (00:28:43): Right? It sounds better. It sounds better. Speaker 5 (00:28:46): Oh, when Jason Calacanis (00:28:46): you see air in the air, the sun, water. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:49): And it's like, if I could show you what what tailings are, and, like, the dirty after effects of mining copper and nickel out of the ground, which is what we need for batteries and how countries like Indonesia are literally dumping it into the ocean, dumping it faster that they can get their hands on it so that they can sell copper and nickel and cobalt to us so that we can make batteries. You would actually say to yourself, if you knew all these facts, you'd actually say to yourself, you know what? Maybe nuclear isn't so bad, and maybe I overreacted to 2 into the Jason Calacanis (00:29:20): to understand this. You just have to look at the laziest group of individuals and society, the French. They want to take the laziest route and do the least amount of work and have the most amount of leisure. Sorry to our French listeners. 70 percent of the energy in France is from nuclear. It's nuclear. They figured this out. They said, how do we take more time off and not work and have unlimited electric? 70% nuclear. They're so smart. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:48): Well, the the the the French are actually smart because after they're smart, Because after Fukushima, what happened is if you had, you know, sort of like woke politicians Speaker 1 (00:29:57): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:58): Germany. -- a punch of Germany They completely unwound their entire nuclear agenda, which was -- -- down. Ugh. Which which was insanity insanity. And so now here they are, they're writing laws faster than they can make them up. They're basically pivoting entire industries to try to now adopt batteries and storage without any real understanding about the downstream implications to the earth that they are going to create. David Friedberg (00:30:23): The net Speaker 5 (00:30:23): the net David Friedberg (00:30:24): the net consequences. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:25): If they had just stayed the course on nuclear, they would be in a much better place. And and to France's credit, they were like, what the fuck are you people overreacting about? Again, just think about this, guys. Jason Calacanis (00:30:35): The pragmatism is delightful. Speaker 1 (00:30:38): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:38): stopped flying after 2 airline crashes where would the world be? Where would the world be? Jason Calacanis (00:30:44): I mean, be pragmatist here. What Do we want to deal with high energy prices and brownouts and all kinds of problems and rolling blackouts, or do we want to put this issue behind us if we just go on a Manhattan project literally to make new nuclear, we would be this issue would be behind us and we could focus on something else like education. It's so dumb. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:09): The very scary thing about nuclear is despite all of the progress. it will get bogged down in litigation and bureaucracy. These are the last two Speaker 5 (00:31:19): things that should be in front Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:19): of science and Physics especially when it comes to energy independence. I just think it's Jason Calacanis (00:31:27): it's crazy. -- any way out? Any way we can get people to what's the best way to convince the American public to embrace nuclear and force our politicians to do it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:38): Open your mind and think for yourself. David Friedberg (00:31:40): Right. Please. David Sacks (00:31:41): Well, Mark Mark Andre said a good term. He said we're living in a v talkercy as in the word veto. I think it was an interesting interview with Antonio Garcia Martinez on his blog. Anyway, yeah, they were talking about the inability of the US to build anything anymore. especially when you compare us to some, you know, place like China. And whether you wanna call it nimbyism or v Talkracy, there are just too many people and groups who have the right to say no to anything and block anything important from happening. But we gotta we gotta stop letting our politicians off the hook by making excuses, you know, just because there's climate change doesn't mean that the politicians can't do anything about it. David Friedberg (00:32:25): I mean, welcome to the downstream consequences of a successful democracy. Right? Like, a democracy over time doesn't reduce the number of laws it has. Every year, politicians need to do their job and they create new laws. as new laws accumulate, like, the things get clogged up. Right? Like, when when have you seen a law that gets passed by a local government, a state government, or federal government, that makes it easier to do something. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:48): I get that. But where where does it say in the constitution of the United States that being part of a democracy also means shutting your brain off and becoming a dumb cynic. Yeah. That's that's not part of what being part of a democracy is. I by the way, I wanna I wanna talk about that for one second. There was this thing that I sent you guys in the Chamath. And, Nick, hopefully post post that in the show notes as well. But there is a study that was done about cynicism And it went back and it did like a qualitative assessment of more than 200,000 people and their attitudes and their measured IQ, their measured literacy, their measured numeracy, and their measured earnings. And here's what they found. cynicism is associated with lower IQ, lower literacy, lower numeracy, and lower earnings. the idea of cynical individuals being more competent appears to be a widespread yet largely illusory lie. Jason Calacanis (00:33:47): So I think yeah. Totally. I think this makes sense. I mean I I was shocked Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:52): by that study because I actually generally think cynical people must be smarter because they're thinking more rationally and maybe I'm being emotional, it turns out they're fucking stupid. Jason Calacanis (00:34:02): Well, here's the thing. There's cynicism and then there's people who are contankerous and not content. And I think people sometimes conflate those 2 things. If you look at the constant Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:11): constant pervasive cynicism is not a feature of democracy. It means that you just stop thinking for yourself as a protective mechanism. Right. Jason Calacanis (00:34:19): But but the people we know who have changed the world and who they seem to be they're not cynical. They're not cynical. They're actually delusional and optimistic or if they wouldn't have started a company to make electric cars, you know, or, you know, whatever piece of software or climate.com or synthetic biology. You have to be a radical optimist. I mean and we're literally trying to attack our incredible capitalists who are actually solving these problems while our politicians can't get their shit together and make desal plants and nuclear plants. The private market seems like the only solution Saks has Speaker 1 (00:34:56): -- David Sacks (00:34:56): Well, the the the there's an old saying that Pestebus get to be right and optimists get to be rich. And yeah. I mean, if you think about it if you think about it, you know, pessimists don't create companies. Right? They're they're -- No. Jason Calacanis (00:35:13): They throw rocks. They become journalists. They become shit posters on Twitter. David Sacks (00:35:17): They've become critics. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:35:18): Anton Diego. Speaker 5 (00:35:19): Right. I Jason Calacanis (00:35:20): tattoo it. Sachs, what Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:21): do you think about this idea that, you know, if we get into the throws of it for water, the folks that own water rights, I think that this is going to be like an eminent domain issue where the government is at some point just gonna sorry. Need it back. It's mine. David Sacks (00:35:36): Yeah. During an emergency, for sure. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:38): For sure. David Sacks (00:35:39): But, I mean, I I I I I hate to I hate to use the words. I agree with Jacob. But but, you know, look, there's not a shortage of water in the world. Right? I mean, the world is mostly water. So it is a function of building desalination plants if that's what we need. There has to be a solution for that problem. And Friedberg right that maybe it does take a decade or 2 to to put in all place all that infrastructure, but then why didn't we start 10 years ago? Jason Calacanis (00:36:09): Is it we should be starting a program where we convince the American public that abundance would lead to them having more freedom and our country being stronger. Electrical abundance with nuclear, water abundance with desalination, and agricultural abundance with those previous 2. Because if you had unlimited nuclear and energy and you had unlimited clean water, the price of agriculture will go down and we'd have more free food for everybody or lower cost food. David Friedberg (00:36:39): I'll tell you I'll tell you a theory I have on this. And and it's basically an anti science theory, which is that, you know, culturally, we've kind of developed this anti innovation, anti science mentality broadly speaking across kind of modern culture in the United States. If you remember coming out of World War 2, and I think it has its roots in the Cold War, You know, out of when World War 2 ended, you know, we were all in it together, you know, this country. Everyone bought the same stuff. We all had right crispies every day. We all kind of you know, we're excited about our our our homes that look like everyone else's home on the block, and technology was empowering all of this. Right? There was a space race on. There were plastics that were suddenly allowing us to make all sorts of amazing things. There were chemicals that were creating new drugs for humans and new applications for agriculture that was making an abundance of food and increasing lifespans and so on. But then what happened in the late sixties seventies is we realized we got ahead of ourselves. And, you know, there was cancer from DDT. There was, you know, three mile island. There was a a number of pollutants that got into the environment that permanently damaged the environment from chemical companies. And we started to wake up and say, like, wait a second, all of this technology that we thought was so great and was giving us this extraordinary abundance, it turns out it's really risky and can cause massive unknown consequences. And if you watch I think I talked about this in our podcast once, but one of my favorite videos to watch is a video on YouTube from the Disney Chamath history in institute, and they show the history of tomorrow land at Disneyland. When tomorrow land opened in 1955, every ride was all about adventuring into space and, like, traveling into the human body. And they even had a ride from Monsanto where you would go into the micro world and look at plastics and stuff. And it was all about this amazing abundance in technology. And the guy that the narrator on the video says, beginning in the late sixties, early seventies, we changed all the rides. David Friedberg (00:38:32): And the rides all became about fear of technology. It was all about aliens attacking Earth. It was all about captain E. O. was like, you know, the the world became robotic and got taken over by unnatural things. Even Star Tours was about a robot that went awry, and the robot doesn't know what it's doing, so it drove us off course, and we had to survive the robot. And so everything became you know, subconscious or it's a womanly a little bit this negative technology sentiment. And I think that that still persists. You know, there is an asymmetry people take for granted the abundance over time because you get used to it. But you feel the acute pain of the loss when technology goes awry, and then that becomes the social conscience. And I think we're still grappling with that. I I don't know how you reverse it because Speaker 1 (00:39:12): -- Jason Calacanis (00:39:12): You know what? 3 people so we're just gonna David Friedberg (00:39:14): do this. Jason Calacanis (00:39:14): Are we not experiencing this right now, everybody, with COVID? where there's one group of people who are like, oh my god. The science we were able to deploy in COVID and get through this so quickly is so promising that the world's gonna be better net net after the pandemic. Even with all the suffering, you could make an argument that suffering is gonna lead to more prosperity. And there's another group of people who are like the delta variant. Let's get our masks back on. and and people wanna take the cynical rat on them. David Friedberg (00:39:45): As an as an individual, I don't want harm done to me or my kids or my environment. That's that's the, I think, the general kind of conscience. Right? And I don't care about the abundance because I've basically taken it for granted. And so now I find myself as an individual saying, you know what? We shouldn't do nuclear because look at what happened in Fukushima. forgetting the fact that you've been living off of free electricity practically for decades or whatever the, you know, the case might be. Speaker 1 (00:40:09): -- David Friedberg (00:40:10): water and free water and all these things. And I think the that the abundance that technology delivers to humans, because humans are only programmed to recognize change. They're not programmed to recognize absolutes. there's a lot of good socio psychological and evolutionary -- Give Jason Calacanis (00:40:22): us an example of that. Give us an example of that. David Friedberg (00:40:24): Like, if, you know, if you go to the store every day and you're used to just getting a Speaker 1 (00:40:28): $1 David Friedberg (00:40:29): can of coke, you don't say, oh my god. I feel it's an amazing world I live in. I get a $1 can of Coke. You never praise that $1 can of Coke. Now if you went to the store and the can of Coke went up to Speaker 1 (00:40:39): $2, David Friedberg (00:40:41): you'd be like, what the heck? Why does Coke cost so much? And so you know, it Speaker 1 (00:40:45): -- Jason Calacanis (00:40:45): So we habituate, but David Friedberg (00:40:47): but you Jason Calacanis (00:40:47): habituate to the great things in Speaker 5 (00:40:48): our lives. David Friedberg (00:40:49): The price of Coke dropped to Speaker 1 (00:40:50): 50¢, David Friedberg (00:40:51): you're like, okay. That feels good. and then you get used to the price of Coke being 50¢. And a few weeks later, if it goes up, you're upset, but you're not as happy on the other way. So human emotion is kind of asymmetrically, you know, defined by these negative consequences. And I think over time, you accumulate these negative consequences as your core psyche and you have an aversion to doing, you know, innovative things. As a whole, not all people, but as a whole, that's how we operate. And it's why technology kind of gets lambasted over over time. Jason Calacanis (00:41:18): this is the most frustrating thing to meet Shamalff is that we have so many amazing things happening in technology, and nobody will 10 x or a 100 x on them from the government perspective or the public, I had a company called 0mass on my podcast, which I think is now called Source, and you're aware of this company, Maybe we could talk a little bit about the impact hydro panels would make if we just embrace this technology. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:42): Well, I mean, sore sources and ink incredible company. Basically, there's a there's a guy who runs a Cody Freeason who when he was at MIT, basically developed a essentially a material, a membrane that can absorb the ambient water that's in the atmosphere and basically allow you to collect it and to separate it into its components and to basically create potable, salanized, or potable drinkable water in a panel that looks like a solar panel. So you put these solar arrays everywhere And out of the back, you put a little pipe and it collects the humidity in the ambient air and and it spits up water. It's It's an incredible thing, and he's able to go and rewire schools. And and the thing is he can go anywhere because, again, he doesn't need anything. David Friedberg (00:42:32): Right? You literally put it Jason Calacanis (00:42:33): on your roof. It's incredible. And it makes you if you I think he told me at the time when I interviewed him 2 or 3 years ago, He said you could put two of these on your roof and get like four cases of bottled water a day no matter where you were on the planet. And by the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:49): way, he's moving to a place which is really cool. He told me this. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it, but I'll say it anyways. Jason Calacanis (00:42:53): Are you saying this might be beeped? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:56): No. We're he's got a B candidate? No. He'll have an eventual app where you can kind of direct the the hydro panel to make kind of water that you like. So if you love acrylon or if you love Speaker 1 (00:43:07): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:08): Dial it in. -- g water or if you love smart water Jason Calacanis (00:43:11): or -- You're on the vents. Right? Speak specifically because it's the most expensive Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:15): term. I love I love smart Jason Calacanis (00:43:16): water. I I I have Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:18): a very gratuitous reason why I remember when I met jobs he drank smartwater, and I thought, book is good enough Speaker 5 (00:43:25): for him. It's good enough for me. Jason Calacanis (00:43:26): I'll tell you when I knew Shamophony. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:28): I just gotta copy people. Like, you gotta copy the good ones, and I was just like, Jason Calacanis (00:43:32): this is personal anecdote. This is when I knew Chamath made it. We used to play poker in his garage in his little three thousand square foot Palo Alto house. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:39): Little -- No. Burlington. Burlington. Burlington. Jason Calacanis (00:43:41): In Burlington. Whatever. He had this little tiny house. And we're in the garage, and he's like, look. I'm putting up a flat panel. I'm gonna, like, paint the wall. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:48): No. We had a little you had a little easel, and you'd write on chalk how much you owed. You know? Jason Calacanis (00:43:53): Then Shamat's like, I got a new house He's got his new house. We come over. He's like, Jake, how you want some water? I'm like, yeah. Love a glass. He's like, oh, Jake, how you want a beverage? I'm like, yeah. I'll take a glass of And he goes, oh, and he walks over to a rack. And in the rack, like, you know those things you push wine on? There's a rack for water. And there is VOS in the glass bottles. There is Evian in glass bottles, old. And you're not like the Evian that you get at the regular supermarket, Like, somebody sourced the Avian bottles that restaurants have, and then he had the smart I mean, there's 60 and I'm like, it's more on a glass of water, but okay. I'll take the Avian in the glass bottle, it was delightful. Saks, I got 3 different bounce passes I can give you just where you want it. Do you want cancel culture? Do you want Chesapeake or Speaker 1 (00:44:39): -- Jason Calacanis (00:44:40): COVID. -- what do you want? Or COVID. I can give you any of these. David Sacks (00:44:43): I can -- I'm David Friedberg (00:44:44): ready to pass. David Sacks (00:44:44): I'm talking about any of those sound good to me. mean -- Alright. Speaker 1 (00:44:47): -- David Sacks (00:44:47): the I the the it might be time for a chase update because we haven't done that in a while. Jason Calacanis (00:44:52): The killer d a? David Sacks (00:44:53): The killer d a. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:44:54): Oh, by the way, I just wanna say I found the journalist You know the journalist Saxx. Don't say her name. And she is setting up her LLC, and the $60,000 we raised from the GoFundMe is gonna go to her cover the DA's office for the next 6 to 12 months in a newsletter website. Right. David Sacks (00:45:09): And just to be clear, because I think people kinda misinterpreted what you're trying to do there with Go fund me, Jake Howell? Yes. This is not for opposition research. This is not digging this is not digging up dirt. This is reporting on on public policy, on what should be public facts with respect to what the DA's office is doing, how Chasa is performing in his job. Jason Calacanis (00:45:32): Isn't it interesting though how the left journalist, when I hired investigative journalist, to cover criminal justice, accused me of hiring an Oppo researcher, and these are investigative journalists. Had I told them explicitly, I'm just hiring an investigative journalist to cover crime in San Francisco. There's no Oppo research here. they insisted on saying, I wanted to get it to Ches's personal life. And I Speaker 1 (00:45:52): -- Jason Calacanis (00:45:53): Yeah. -- explicitly said that's not what this is for. David Sacks (00:45:55): Well, Let's face it. There aren't too many journalists anymore who are investigative, who are actually in the business of turning up new facts about elected officials. They're too busy pushing a narrative. their engagement agenda journalism. And actually, we saw a really good example just to tie into to what's hap what happened over the past week. is you had this story in the San Francisco Chronicle, which is basically pure propaganda from you could see that the the passing from Chase to the supporter of this this fascicles claim that crime is falling in San Francisco. I mean, this claim is so preposterous. We this is the same week we saw viral videos of 10 robbers bursting out of Neiman Marcus, you know, with Speaker 1 (00:46:44): -- Jason Calacanis (00:46:44): With every handbag. David Sacks (00:46:45): Yeah. Exactly. And so you know, plus you had the viral Speaker 1 (00:46:48): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:46:48): scary. Yeah. David Sacks (00:46:49): You had the viral video of the the guy going into CVS and just know, it wasn't even shoplifting. It was a How did you see Brian Jason Calacanis (00:46:58): Sugar's video of the person who broke into his house? stole his kids' iPads and everything while they were in the house. David Sacks (00:47:05): Right. And Cyant Bannister who had another home invasion just tweeted. Jason Calacanis (00:47:08): Home invasions are now not prosecutable crimes in San Francisco. David Sacks (00:47:15): Well, no. What they're doing is what Diane reported about her case is and by the way, Her case is in the public eye. Okay? So it's very brazen for the DH to be doing this, but what they did is they dropped the home invasion charges and they're just treating it as basically a a theft of, you know, a few $100. You know? That does not capture the violation of breaking it to someone's house and how dangerous that is. But I originally, I thought, okay. Why is the DA's office doing this? Originally, I thought well, maybe it's just because, you know, Chase doesn't wanna incarcerate anybody, but it's more than that. You see, if they drop the charges down to petty larceny, then he can include it in a different stat. You see, home burglaries are up by some gargantuan amount, like, 50% year over they wanna be able to claim crime is falling. It's now they're juking the stats by reducing the charges from the more serious crime to the less serious crime. And then what they Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:13): do They're Jason Calacanis (00:48:13): shaping the stats. David Sacks (00:48:14): They're juking the stats. You ever watched the the show, The Wire, That's where this expression comes from is, you know, first, the the politicians get held held accountable to the statistics. Then they realize that, then they start manipulating the facts. And that's what's basically Jason Calacanis (00:48:30): So dirty. David Sacks (00:48:30): It's so dirty. But but the next step in the process is they then feed these juke stats to these compliant reporters. Jason Calacanis (00:48:37): I mean, the fact that they keep repeating these statistics as going down when people are stopping reporting crimes because they won't prosecute them, then they mischaracterize them. And then they never say 85% of the commuters coming into San Francisco are no longer coming into San Francisco and Target announced like Walgreens that they are either closing stores or producing the hours because they can't deal with the crime. And they're saying explicitly, this is the highest crime we've ever seen in any of our stores. And then this crazy communists. Are they communists on the left here? David Sacks (00:49:11): CVS Walgreens And Target are all closing stores that are reducing store hours. because they understand the hit to their bottom line. But you have this mantra. It is it is communist like where it's like the commandments written on the barn in animal farm where it is propaganda that's so at odds with reality, it's just absurd. Okay? Jason Calacanis (00:49:32): It's farcical. David Sacks (00:49:33): It's farcical. But then how do they enforce it? What they say is anybody who questions this narrative is a bad person. Is in fact A clancement. A racist and a clancement. So so this is the other thing that happened over the past week is that you had Speaker 1 (00:49:48): -- Jason Calacanis (00:49:48): This is crazy. Speaker 1 (00:49:49): -- David Sacks (00:49:49): basically, Michelle Tandler, who is a moderate and as nice a person as you could ever find. Concern citizen. Concern citizen. David Friedberg (00:49:58): San Francisco born and raised. David Sacks (00:50:00): Yes. Who tweeted that all of her friends are thinking about leaving the city. And then in response to that, you had this this senior policy adviser at Chasaboudin who works for the DA's office named Kate Chatfield, attacker basically implying her views were, you know, were KKK values for for for having the audacity to warn that people are worried about crime in San Francisco. So she gets attacked. By the way, this this Chatfield person, the top of her profile, is the clenched fist of the communist revolution, J. Pelle. So this is who's running the DEA's office. But but, look, it's not just trolling, and it's not even just slander. It's, I think, an abuse of power for someone in the DA's office to go after and attack a concerned citizen like this. Okay? But this is how the enforce Speaker 1 (00:50:51): -- Jason Calacanis (00:50:51): Can you read the tweet that she did? You have that there? because -- Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:50:54): -- Jason Calacanis (00:50:54): she basically is The people who have experienced home invasions are concerned for the safety of their families. And what this woman did, Michelle, I believe is her name. She just said like people are scared for their families and then Kate Chatfield reference birth of a nation. and compared her to, oh, our wives are not safe because of black people. And that's a KKK You know, everybody's birth of a nation. Everybody understands her birth of a nation. Yeah. David Sacks (00:51:26): The original name of birth of a nation, I think, was the Cleansman. Jason Calacanis (00:51:29): Yeah. Yeah. David Sacks (00:51:29): It's like a KKKKK piece of propaganda. Wow. But it's really outrageous. Jason Calacanis (00:51:34): She just blocked me. Kate Chatfield blocked me. Wow. David Sacks (00:51:38): This is a public policy adviser who's now hiding her account. Well, why I mean, a public official should not do that. I mean, they should Speaker 1 (00:51:45): -- Jason Calacanis (00:51:45): And so this set you off. Let's be let's be honest. To set you off. David Sacks (00:51:49): I I know Michelle Tandler, she worked at Yammer. You know? And I didn't I thought it was out of bounds for not just a public official, but someone in the DA's office Who what did you do? Well, I just -- You Jason Calacanis (00:52:00): went into revenge mode. Let's be honest. You got a little bit you were a little bit tweaked. David Sacks (00:52:09): I donated another $50,000 to the recall Chase campaign. And you dedicated it to Jason Calacanis (00:52:14): Kate. Yeah. You said this is for you. David Sacks (00:52:18): Yeah. Because look. The this is threatening. Every American should have the right to criticize their government without having its law enforcement arm come down on them. And so here you have a legitimate concern expressed by a private citizen and the DA's office is coming down on them, that's not acceptable. Jason Calacanis (00:52:37): I think I need to break some news here. I didn't wanna talk about this publicly, but I'm so outraged now that I think I should let this out. So while I in the weeks after I started that campaign, to hire an investigative journalist for Ches's office. This is breaking news. I haven't talked about this publicly, but I'm gonna break it now. Do you know who contacted me? the DA's office. Do you know what they contacted me about? They were investigating a start up that I had invested in, I wouldn't say which one, and they wanted to interview me about my involvement with that startup because that startup had some complaint from a downstream investor who felt that they were committing some type of fraud or problem. Coincidence? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:27): Are are are you serious? Jason Calacanis (00:53:28): I am dead serious. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:29): This is literally becoming Chinatown. Jason Calacanis (00:53:32): they literally tried to intimidate me. And I, yeah, I didn't wanna bring it up, and I talked to the person on the phone the the the the person from the DA's office who was investigating this. And he's I was like, do I need an attorney for this? Why are you calling me? because and he's like, well, you know, we just wanna talk to you about this. And I was like, yeah. No. Like, we have a bunch of questions, and I just said, you know what, subpoena me. I'm not, you know, file something, and I'll come in with my attorney to talk to you, but I'm not gonna talk with you on background. No. So they basically tried to intimidate me. You know what? And I kinda let them because they didn't wanna make it public, but I'm making it public now. David Sacks (00:54:05): You shouldn't make it public because Speaker 1 (00:54:06): -- Jason Calacanis (00:54:06): It's public now. We'll begin -- And this is 2 weeks after I said, let's hire the journalist. It's intimidation tactics. David Sacks (00:54:12): It is intimidation tactics. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:13): That's intimidation. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:54:15): I will not be intimidated, Cheso. David Sacks (00:54:17): Alright. But what you could see here is okay. Look. Jason Calacanis (00:54:19): I mean, I was intimidated. Speaker 5 (00:54:21): So so Jason Calacanis (00:54:24): Yeah. No. I mean, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:25): I'm like, it's not I'm not gonna have me intimidated again. What? Jason Calacanis (00:54:29): Now that I think about it, like, didn't do anything wrong here. I put 50 k I put 50 or a Speaker 1 (00:54:34): 100 Jason Calacanis (00:54:34): k into a company that didn't work out, and now some other investor's complaining, and they're trying to tie it back to me somehow. David Sacks (00:54:39): But, Jason, the -- You you're gonna be intimidated. The chief law enforcement officer of San Francisco is basically trying to make you the target of an investigation because of what you said publicly. Of course, that is intimidation. David Friedberg (00:54:52): Guys, isn't it possible that they're just interviewing you about a fraud claim? I mean, if, like, what Speaker 5 (00:54:56): that's Wait. Wait. Hold on. Jason Calacanis (00:54:58): But think about the timing, Freightberg. It's 2 or 3 weeks. Like, the spirit, David Friedberg (00:55:02): like -- No. -- 2 or 3 weeks. You know, Speaker 5 (00:55:05): I gotta I gotta tell you something. A a David Friedberg (00:55:06): police officer drove past my house last night. Yeah. David Sacks (00:55:09): Free Bird. Okay. What? Jason Calacanis (00:55:11): Wait. It's the first and only time I've ever been contacted by a law enforcement officer over an investment. David Sacks (00:55:16): I'm sure it's just a coincidence. David Friedberg (00:55:17): Stop committing fraud. 350 investments. David Sacks (00:55:21): Yeah. Listen, Chasa has not had time. He's almost cheers in office now, and he has not had time to successfully prosecute 1 murder trial, not 1, but his office has time to run down whatever they're trying to run down with JakeAL. They don't have time to prosecute the the home invader who broke into cyan Bannister's home. Jason Calacanis (00:55:41): Or Brian's. David Sacks (00:55:42): Or Brian's. They don't have time to do that, but they somehow have time to attack Jacob. Jason Calacanis (00:55:46): He tweeted the video. Let me David Sacks (00:55:48): explain what's going on here. There's 2 things going on. I think one of which is becoming very well understood, but the other one is The first one is the gothamization of San Francisco. We understand that crime is out of control, cynicism, and resignation. People are just kinda giving into it. It feels like San Francisco has become Gotham City. These viral videos of the robbers brazenly committing daylight theft There is no Speaker 1 (00:56:09): -- Jason Calacanis (00:56:09): Feeding up UPS drivers in the street. Speaker 5 (00:56:11): There Jason Calacanis (00:56:11): is -- Feeding a UPS driver in Speaker 1 (00:56:13): the street. -- David Sacks (00:56:13): is no consequence. Okay? But there's a second thing happening, which is the Orwellianization of San Francisco Government And San Francisco Politics. You not really have the crime. You've got the brazen lies about the crime. You've got this insistence on this animal farm commandment that crime is falling. And if you question it, you are a black man. You're akklansman. And then they get their the, you know, the the Kate the Kate Chat feels to push this out, and then they get academics to back this up. Okay? There are now They get their friends in the media and in the academy to give these spurious claims credence. And then the final step is that the rich virtue signatures pay these people off. They pay the Jason Calacanis (00:56:56): they protect your money. Who's paying off? David Sacks (00:56:58): The Dustin Muscovitz is the Mike Krieger's, the Reed Hastings. And, you know, even the actually, the biggest contributor to Chaser right now is the guy who's under SEC indictment for the ripple scandal. Jason Calacanis (00:57:12): Oh, no. Yeah. Chris? David Sacks (00:57:14): Chris. Yes. Exactly. So people who need to very favor either because they're they've got their own problems or they just like to virtue signal. Jason Calacanis (00:57:23): Chris Larson. Chris Larson is Cheson, David Sacks (00:57:26): Vegas. -- campaign. Jason Calacanis (00:57:27): Oh, wow. That is Dar. Brian Sugar released the video, and that person's not gonna be prosecuted. I mean, that is the crazy part. You get somebody on camera and they won't prosecute them. And people forget these are organized gangs that are doing this. This has been proven. This is not a poverty issue. These are not poor people who are stealing bread for their families or trying to make their rent. It's organized gangs. David Sacks (00:57:49): Right. Did you see the getaway or the name of Marcus Heights? Jason Calacanis (00:57:54): Yeah. They're all, like Speaker 1 (00:57:54): -- David Sacks (00:57:55): The Mercedes Speaker 1 (00:57:55): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:57:55): driving great beautiful cars with their license plates off. This is like mob behavior and if you give criminals trust me, I grew up in a criminal environment in Brooklyn. If you give criminals a window, they will figure it out. You give them an opportunity. If you give them something to hack, they will hack it. Period. And you you basically have green light of them. Okay. Listen. It's enough of us complaining about this. I am gonna stop complaining about this, and I'm moving either David Friedberg (00:58:23): to Texas. Jason Calacanis (00:58:24): I'm moving to tech this or to Florida. I'm making the announcement now. David Sacks (00:58:27): Hold on. Is that for sure, Jake? Jason Calacanis (00:58:29): Listen. I you know, I'm in a partnership, and then my partner doesn't wanna be here anymore, and I'm half and half. So I'm not sure why I'm here anymore. I mean, I I think California's my position right now is California is gonna be on a decade long slide, and I'm working for 10 more years. I decided I'm fifty. decided I'm gonna go to 60. I'm gonna try to invest in a 100 to 200 companies a year for 10 years, and then I'm done. So why would I spend 10 years in a place that is on a debt spiral? Can this be reversed in our in the next decade? David Sacks (00:58:57): Jake, how does it feel how does it feel to be completely red pilled? Jason Calacanis (00:59:00): I'm purple pilled. I wanna live in a per I wanna live in a reasonable place. And it seems to me that Austin and Miami are purple. You know? And they're not I don't wanna live in a right wing place outright, and I don't wanna live in a Communist place. I wanna live in an American place. I wanna live in a place where Americans can talk about issues without being villainized, period. David Sacks (00:59:21): That's that's what I feel about this pod. Jason Calacanis (00:59:24): You're not being villainized stats. Just give me a break. Alright? Just be you people really wanna know if you went to dinner with Tucker. Can you just make that statement that you did dinner with Tucker? What do we Speaker 5 (00:59:35): got next? David Friedberg (00:59:35): You just made that up. Jason Calacanis (00:59:36): It was a joke. Why can't you admit if you did or not? David Sacks (00:59:39): Listen. I I -- Freeburger, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:41): I have 15 minutes. We gotta go. Jason Calacanis (00:59:42): COVID, delta, people are panicking. but the numbers keep going straight down. Pfizer says Israel says maybe Pfizer is 65% instead of Speaker 1 (00:59:55): 94%. 65% Jason Calacanis (00:59:57): seems pretty great. We at any risk? David Sacks (01:00:00): Well, I okay. Let me jump into this because I've been affected personally by So, yeah, on the last pod, I did I did give the stat, which was that at at that point, the the best data we had even a week ago was that the the the Pfizer vaccine was holding it pretty well against the delta variant. It had reduced the effectiveness from about 95 to 88%. That's sort of the numbers. I think on Monday, Israel released a new study showing that the effectiveness of Pfizer against Delta had been reduced to 64%. Now it it that's against, you know, getting symptoms and and testing positive. It was still 93%. Again, serious cases requiring hospitalization, but that 93% is down from, you know, Speaker 1 (01:00:43): 99% David Sacks (01:00:44): plus. So there has been reduced effectiveness by Delta. It's it is a little bit concerning. And as if to underscore this point, someone very close to me who was double vaxx with Pfizer just tested positive. Jason Calacanis (01:00:58): He did test positive. David Sacks (01:01:02): So he he woke up yesterday morning with -- Oh. Speaker 1 (01:01:06): -- David Sacks (01:01:06): with cold symptoms. He had sore throat, runny nose, Jason Calacanis (01:01:10): But he's fine. David Sacks (01:01:11): And and a slight fever, which then graduated into a headache. He went and got tested, and he tested positive for COVID. So I think he's fine. Jason Calacanis (01:01:18): What city was he in when this happened? David Sacks (01:01:19): LA. Jason Calacanis (01:01:21): Okay. Let me ask a question to Friedberg. Is it not the best possible situation? I know this sounds like a stupid question, but I am the lowest IQ guy on the Is it not the best situation to have the Pfizer or whatever have this amazing then to get a mild case of COVID and then be doubly protected? Is that in some way an ideal situation if there is no long haul COVID? David Friedberg (01:01:44): It's not really clear if that's gonna make a difference. You know, again, like, remember, acquired immunity is on a spectrum. Right? So a virus can get in your nose, starts replicating. And if you got a ton of antibodies that immediately get to your nose, it'll shut down that virus before you experience anything. if that virus gets in your nose and starts replicating and you're you've got a kind of, you know, your antibodies to that specific virus, you know, aren't as concentrated. It's gonna take your body a little bit longer to fight off that virus, but you're still well ahead of the game as a way to think about it. And so, you know, to some extent, what we're seeing most likely is this delta variant having a greater escape velocity from people that have been vaccinated than, you know, the alpha variant or any of the other variants we've seen. And so as a result, you know, people are getting to date, luckily knock on wood, mostly mild and moderate symptoms, and only a a minority of people that are exposed are are you know, that condition. But it's being tracked really closely. I mean, like like Zach said in Israel, they have now said that, you know, if you're vaccinated with Pfizer, double vaxx with Pfizer, you're now Speaker 1 (01:02:55): 64%, David Friedberg (01:02:57): you know, effective, and you're you know, that that means that if you're exposed to to COVID, there's a a chance you can actually get these symptoms. But the hospitalization rate and the fatality rate, is still way, way low because you have built up enough immunity. You've built up enough antibodies to have a good strong defense to keep things from getting out of control. And so knock on wood right now, we're still looking good in terms of fatality and hospitalizations, but there's certainly Shamoff? You know? Jason Calacanis (01:03:23): What do you think of this situation? David Friedberg (01:03:24): At Shamoff, are markets kind of worrying about this because I'm kind of wondering, like, as as as market participants see this stuff, are they trading it in a way that's, like, fearful? And does this lead to some market conditions in the next couple days of weeks? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:36): I mean, I think that there's a very good chance that Some politicians are gonna try to use this for another shutdown in the fall. I don't David Sacks (01:03:46): let's see. I I think you're right, and I think the Teachers unions, the NEA and the AFT are already put putting all sorts of demands on going back to school. I don't think this date so first of all, I think we have to be intellectually honest. that this is a bad data point. This is really the first bad data point that we've gotten. Until now, all the data's been good. The protection from the vaccines last longer have been completely holding up against the variance. But this data point from Israel is not a great data point. I wanna see more of them, more data, Yeah. But I don't think that this by itself Jason Calacanis (01:04:19): weren't -- -- didn't Israel only get to, like, 55, 60% vaccinated? David Sacks (01:04:23): Oh, no. They're they're way higher than that. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:24): No. No. They're way higher than that. David Friedberg (01:04:26): Yeah. Half of the infections they're seeing in Israel are children that were not vaccinated. And then the the other Jason Calacanis (01:04:31): half are David Friedberg (01:04:31): the other half are adults, And so if you look at the adult infection rate, it looks like it's something around Speaker 1 (01:04:37): 15% David Friedberg (01:04:40): of, you know, these k or it's yeah. I I forget the number, but there's some statistic that shows that it's not the majority being vaccinated. There are unvaccinated people that Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:50): are -- Look. David Friedberg (01:04:50): We're we're gonna probably Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:52): we're gonna probably need a booster, and we're probably gonna be on a cocktail. But beyond that, I think we need to make a moral decision that we are all getting back to life as normal. Jason Calacanis (01:05:03): Yeah. 100%. I'm done. I'm not David Friedberg (01:05:05): There there will be booster there will be boosters for sure. David Sacks (01:05:08): Right. David Friedberg (01:05:08): Like, this fall. Yeah. David Sacks (01:05:09): Yeah. Exactly. And I think the the the question about this this data is, does it warrant a change policy, and I would say not yet. You know? Speaker 1 (01:05:16): 100% Jason Calacanis (01:05:16): not yet. I mean, we the whole policy idea was ICUs being filled. And if you look at the stats in the United States, at the deaths, we are now at a 7 day average of under 200. I think it's a 150 deaths per day. Some again, I'll ask you free brew. many of those are with COVID versus from COVID? David Friedberg (01:05:34): Yeah. It's unclear. But, like, Israel hasn't had a single death in 2 weeks from COVID. Right. Jason Calacanis (01:05:38): And what are we talking about here? David Friedberg (01:05:39): Despite this increase in numbers, that's it's still a, David Sacks (01:05:41): you know, regular -- It's not it's not what the media likes to portray, which is variants punching through. Right? I mean, it's not like Delta variant is just sweeping through Israel. Okay? There is a slight increase in cases. And we're definitely seeing elevated cases here in the US. I mean, Delta variant's gonna become the main the dominant strain if it isn't already. Look. It's mostly sweeping through areas that have not been vaccinated, but there are now cases. I'd say mostly mild cases. of people who have been vaccinated. I mean, I think it's all the more reason why if you're an adult, you should get vaccinated. We really do need all adults barring some sort of, you know, highly specific immune condition that where you you need to be on some sort of different treatment. But almost all adults in the US really should getting vaccinated. Otherwise, we're gonna have keep having these variants -- Yeah. -- sweep through. David Friedberg (01:06:35): I'll tell you. I I had a really good conversation with an infectious disease doctor yesterday who's a research specialist and well known in the space, and he pointed out that The evolutionary cycle of this virus is a function of how many people are not vaccinated because the more bodies the virus has to hop the faster the the virus Jason Calacanis (01:06:55): can -- -- evolution it can do. David Friedberg (01:06:56): The more it evolves. Right? Jason Calacanis (01:06:57): Yes. David Friedberg (01:06:57): And so, you know, certain virologists and emologist will model this where they will highlight kind of the the evolutionary rate of the virus as a function of unvaccinated people getting infected every day. And so the more people that we get vaccinated, the longer the timeline it takes for the virus to evolve and get to a breakthrough variant. And so we need to accelerate and continue to push people to get vaccinated worldwide to reduce the available pool for evolutionary success of the virus. David Sacks (01:07:24): Yeah. It's it's to put it in maybe layman's terms. All these unvaccinated people are basically like a giant petri dish for the virus to keep to keep mutating. And we do need, I think, like, a Marshall plan to help all these other countries get vaccinated. I mean, I think we have enough vaccines in the US But what have we done to help all these other countries? It directly benefits us if we reduce the size of that petri dish. This delta variant came from India. Why? There's like a billion plus people there who, you know, for the virus to mutate on. I mean, obviously, With the petri dish that big, you're gonna get a variant. Now there's a new variant coming out of Peru, which looks potentially scary. Now These are not full breakthrough variants yet, but to FreeBird's point, it's just a matter of time. Jason Calacanis (01:08:09): You guys wanna guess the bottom 2 states in the country? Speaker 1 (01:08:12): I mean, it's just -- Speaker 5 (01:08:13): Mississippi in David Friedberg (01:08:14): terms of Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:14): that neighborhood. Mississippi and Alabama. Alabama. Jason Calacanis (01:08:17): Exactly. Can you imagine Mississippi and Alabama Speaker 1 (01:08:20): 33% Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:22): Come on. Get your act together. David Friedberg (01:08:24): What is Jason Calacanis (01:08:24): And it's gonna whip through those places, and you're all gonna die. You're gonna kill your grandparents. David Friedberg (01:08:29): Is that an evangelical movement issue? Is that Speaker 1 (01:08:31): -- David Sacks (01:08:31): It's it's it's while we talk about this in the last pod, there's 2 groups in America who are Jason Calacanis (01:08:36): most vaccines. -- men. David Sacks (01:08:37): Hold no. Let's be more specific. It's evangelicals and African Americans. Those are the 2 groups who are most Speaker 1 (01:08:43): -- Jason Calacanis (01:08:43): You keep saying -- -- magic you keep saying And what is it? How do you pronounce that? Evangelical. Even Gelicals? It's actually male Republicans. Why can't Speaker 2 (01:08:53): you? That's that David Sacks (01:08:55): you're not being specific about David Friedberg (01:08:56): Yeah. Guys, I gotta I gotta I gotta run. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:59): Love you, Freightberg. David Friedberg (01:08:59): Love you, guys. We love you, Freight. Later. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:01): Love you, Declan. Speaker 5 (01:09:04): We'll let your winner slide. Jason Calacanis (01:09:06): Rainman, David Saffens. Speaker 5 (01:09:09): I'm doing all. Speaker 2 (01:09:10): And I said, we open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Speaker 5 (01:09:19): besties are best. Speaker 2 (01:09:28): driveway checks. Speaker 5 (01:09:31): Oh, man. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:32): I have a casual media analyst. Speaker 8 (01:09:34): We should all just get a room and just have a think you, George, because they're all just useless. It's like this, like, sexual tension, but we just need to release them out. Speaker 5 (01:09:42): What? You're the bee What? Speaker 2 (01:09:45): Pure feet. What? Jason Calacanis (01:09:47): Where did you get Murphy's artifact? I'm going all