疫情政治化、警务改革与推特脸书之争

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the all in podcast. We're here with Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and David Saxx. Our usual usual force them as we chop up the business news and what's going on. And just as a point of order, the frequency of the show is well, don't don't ask about Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:20): As we feel like Jason Calacanis (00:00:21): it. As we feel like it. Correct. So do not ask me to advertise on the podcast because Tremac band advertising and do not ask me when the next one is. The next one is when Chamath decides he wants to go on a rant. But what how how are you holding up Best DC? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:40): BestDC is doing pretty well. Jason Calacanis (00:00:42): Yeah. And the family, everything, have you come out of quarantine in any way? So the first question I have for people is, has your behavior changed now as we go into, I think, what most people are calling phase 2, Any change in what you're doing in the risk you're willing to take? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:04): So really good question. You know, I I I I've kind of ventured out a little bit, but I just kinda put on a mask. The only place I don't wear a mask is when I walk around my house just because it's you know, I live in the suburbs, and so there's just so much space between people that you don't really run into anybody. But if I have to go to Walgreens or CBS or whatever, I always bring a mask and gloves So I've got I ventured out a little bit, but, you know, nothing nothing meaningful, to be quite honest. Jason Calacanis (00:01:36): And, Saks, your still out of the country at an undisclosed location. How are you feeling about what risks you're willing to take? You know, small groups of people, are you going out to a restaurant? Are you seeing other people? How how do you look at the risk you're willing to take personally? David Sacks (00:01:56): I've I've adjusted my risk profile, I think, quite a bit. So, I mean, the the the learning over the past few months was just that relatively the the the fatality rate for, say, relatively healthy people under 50 without risk factors is, you know, fifty times lower than say, you know, someone under over 60 or someone who has risk factors. And so I'm not being reckless, but I'm willing to kind of reengage in social behavior among groups of friends. And on the theory that, you know, all of my friends have been locked down I was I was in total lockdown for 2 months. Sort of my friends. And so, you know -- I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:39): I have several questions. The first is -- Yeah. I mean, how old are you? Look like Jason Calacanis (00:02:44): 90. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:45): Roughly. How old are you exactly? David Friedberg (00:02:47): So how does how do Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:47): the risk factors apply to you? 2nd, you have friends. Jason Calacanis (00:02:51): So both of these things. Well, we know there's 3 on this call. Oh. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:55): So, Zackie Poo, I love you. I miss you. David Sacks (00:02:57): Yeah. I know. I mean, you raise a good point. I mean, my physical age might be ninety, but my lungs are only forty eight years old. And So my my hopefully, my my lungs are, you know, qualifying that under 50 category. So, you know, I've been playing golf with friends. You know, I've I've kinda widened the the circle of people I'm willing to let into my quarantine, basically. So Jason Calacanis (00:03:23): -- By a dozen, by a 100? What how would you -- David Sacks (00:03:26): By about I've actually let in at not all at once, but at different times, probably about twenty people. Jason Calacanis (00:03:33): Got it. So you feel comfortable and those people, you do ask them, have you quarantined? Have you been wearing masks? Have you been tested? Or you're just like, how how you kinda David Sacks (00:03:44): I mean, I I I I generally know that people I mean, Now this may change over the next few months, but everyone's been kind of under shelter in place. And so if you were gonna start to socializing with your friends, this would be the safest time to do it because everybody has been sorta locked down to some degree. And, you know, most places have been closed. And so, you know, if your friends haven't gotten it, they're probably pretty safe. Jason Calacanis (00:04:08): Alright. Switching over to you, Dave Friedberg, tell me what you think of SAS his position. Obviously, Shamont's still in quarantine, you know, venturing off to the store once in a while. Sachs opening up to, you know, twenty people or whatever in small groups playing golf outdoors, but I'm assuming he's not having, like, an indoor party for 50, obviously. How would you look at the risk he's taking and what risk are you taking, Friedberg, personally in your life? David Friedberg (00:04:33): I'm not too dissimilar. I've got about 8 buddies coming over to the pool this afternoon. We're gonna do kind of like, a Father's Day hang session, but we're gonna be outside. And I've done a lot of hiking without masks and going outside without masks. I'm not really too concerned about outdoor behavior. There was a a good analysis done that showed in tracing cases where they actually found the origin of where transmission occurred, 97% occurred indoors. So, generally speaking, like, outdoor activity to me is, like, pretty reasonable to do. So I'm pretty free with, like, doing stuff outside, meeting friends outside, hanging out by the pool, and I've had a bunch of people come by and hang out. And then indoor stuff, I try and avoid. So if I'm gonna go into a supermarket, I'll wear a or grocery store, I'll wear a mask, and be in there as short a time period as I need to be, and I'm certainly not going into restaurants and stuff like that. Jason Calacanis (00:05:29): But you would set outdoor. Is that a restaurant? I would assume if the tables were 6 feet apart. Would you go to a restaurant and sit in a restaurant? David Friedberg (00:05:36): Yeah. I'm I'm not rushing to do that just yet. There's just something a little bit weird about the way some of those configured. But, generally, yes. Like, Outdoor seems fine. You know? But, like, the way they set it up, it's it's almost like you're exposing yourself to a bunch of people around you because they're pretty confined spaces that they're setting up these tables at. And it but, yeah, sunlight and wind effectively will, you know, break apart the protein that that is the virus and and you will not have this kind of infectious viral particle. And so that's a pretty, you know, well understood thing at this point. And, you know but it's not spoken about as much by public health officials because they don't wanna kinda mitigate the concern, and they don't want people to start taking off masks and and you know, taking on very risky behavior. But, yeah, generally speaking, I think kind of, like, outdoor behavior is pretty pretty safe and and and non non transmissible. I the the the risky stuff I'm doing is, you know, we we had a you know, just having, like, folks come back to the house, and that's where I kind of still try and draw the line, which is having people in the house, and you don't know where they've been. And so that's a little bit concerning. Jason Calacanis (00:06:41): Inside the house, the spittle particles with COVID 19 in of them, if they did, would be lingering. That is what I'm sorry to be graphic, but that is the concern. Correct, Friedberg, is that when you're outdoors, the spittle, would blow away, and the bar is hurting the Right. David Friedberg (00:07:03): I mean, it really doesn't have so the liquid that holds the protein because the protein needs to be in a liquid. to to kind of maintain its integrity. When that evaporates and it'll evaporate from wind or from sun, and that protein will degrade, it becomes kind of a noninfectious particle at that point. And so when you're inside and you don't have those mechanisms, that particle can just float around in the air, and that's how it gets spread. And that's why in in the tracing work that was done, it shows, like, 97% of cases happened in an indoor environment just like this. And I don't believe in the six foot thing. I think it's bullshit. Like, if you're six foot away from someone in a room, people are coughing and that room gets filled with those particles over a 1 hour period, it doesn't matter if you're fucking 6 feet away or 20 feet away. that stuff's in the air. So this whole notion about like, hey, distance yourself in a restaurant and indoor space, it's like, no. That's actually not gonna necessarily solve a problem. maybe if someone immediately sneezes, you'll avoid it. But, I mean, certainly, SaaS is advocacy for masks to make Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:58): life better. Jason Calacanis (00:07:58): Are you are Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:59): you is that an ora ring you're wearing? David Friedberg (00:08:01): Yeah. Have you tried it? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:03): Yeah. I I actually just bought it a few weeks ago, and I've been using it to monitor my sleep. But there was an article that said that, you know, I think that the all the NBA players are going to be given these aura rings as well because it can apparently detect coronavirus 3 days ahead of other peep other other ways because it can see it change in your basal sort of body temperature? David Friedberg (00:08:25): Yeah. So UCSF ran this beta with them, and they developed this algorithm that they think is pretty predictive. So we'll see if it works in production. But, yeah, that's the theory. Jason Calacanis (00:08:34): Well, there's also this connected thermometer that if you use it, I I forgot the name of it. it sends all the data to a central repository, and they've been able to predict it as well. And this just when we look at how the government Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:49): I think it's called wrecked attempt. Jason Calacanis (00:08:51): Rect attempt? It has to go in your rectum. Yeah. And it just whatever's going on in your rectum, it goes right to the government. Now it they're and but this is an interesting thing when you think about low cost ways to deal with this, the amount of money we poured into the system, Shamoff, is so great that if we just sent every single person in America an aura ring or one of these thermometers and said, just take your your temperature all the day. We would know where the outbreaks were, and that would be a lot less expensive than a lot of the stimulus we're doing try to cure what's going on. Do do you agree that we should maybe include that in some sort of approach? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:31): Look. I think the I think the basic issue is that something really odd has happened in the United States, and we were talking about this in our group chat, which is that we have managed to find a way to politicize absolutely everything. And, you know, some things, for example, like universal basic income or, you know, what is our national policy towards China, those are political issues. But things of public health, when they get sort of distorted and viewed through a political lens or just idiotic, you know, we view masks as a political statement, we view we would view these aura rings as, you know, people being afraid that the government was going to track them. So we'll find every good we'll find a lot of excuses in order to blow up any good idea at this point because we can politicize anything, and we do it better than any other country in the world. Jason Calacanis (00:10:23): You know, it's an interesting point you make there, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go to you in a second, Sax. If you pull up my computer for a second, Nick, One thing I cannot understand when I watch the media or I watch this discussion, and we we haven't seen doctor Fauci in about 60 days. I don't know where they buried him. But He's he's been put in a bunker somewhere, but the number of deaths in the United States continues to go down. massively. Now I know New York was a big outbreak, and that contributes to it. But at the same time, if you look and you compare deaths to new cases, you know, the new cases has increased in some regions, and testing has gone way up. So in trying to interpret this data, I don't understand why there's not somebody saying, listen. Here's the good news. Deaths are going way down. Testing is going way up. And here's what we should take from that. Sachs, I think, you and I might be slightly different sides of the eye. I wanna comes to politics, how do you look at this in terms of leadership at a federal level and then the media? And how you know, to Chamad's point, we politicize this. David Sacks (00:11:33): Yeah. Well, I I agree that that things get overly politicized and mass is a is a really good example. It's just a really common sense, easy solution. You know, I wrote a blog that we covered on this pod two and a half months ago. saying that I thought mass should be public mass wearing should be policy. You know, it should be the law. Little did I know that I was taking a left wing position? Jason Calacanis (00:11:57): Yeah. Oops. Did you lose any friends over that? David Sacks (00:12:00): Right. Right. Jason Calacanis (00:12:00): Peter Teal is still talking to you. David Sacks (00:12:02): Yeah. I mean, I know you guys have me on the show as the the token right winger. But, actually, I disappear at CNN. Just asked me to be on the show today to explain why masks should be policy. So I I just saw that that was a common sense thing. You know, I'm normally very receptive to libertarian arguments, but You know, like like we talked about, the the boundaries of the returnism are, you know, you you you only have the freedom to wave your arms until your fist hits my nose. You know? And something similar is true about in when your infectious particles hit my nose. You know, there there are reasonable boundaries to to to freedom there in the interest of other people's health. And and, you know, that that blog, a lot of public pronouncements COVID have not aged very well. Over the last couple of months, I think that blog actually has aged pretty well by comparison. And because you just look at all the countries that have been successful at fighting COVID. I mean, Japan has a 135 million people. It's an old population, and they've had under a thousand deaths. South Korea 51,000,000 people under 300 deaths. You take a a Western European nation like Czech Republic They had a huge COVID outbreak. It spiked just like the rest of Europe. They went all in on mass wearing, and they've completely controlled the virus. It's knocked out. And so it's really crazy to me that we just can't get on the same page as a country about something as obvious and easy as mass wearing. Jason Calacanis (00:13:34): And it's because we we the the the the left wants to get Trump out of office so badly, and they're so triggered by him and they hate him so much. Whether that's valid or not, we'll leave aside that they want to and then he wants to say no mask. I don't understand his motivation. What do what do you think Trump is thinking, and who's advising him that he should be anti mask? David Sacks (00:14:00): I I think somehow it's for the right, it's become an act of defiance. And I understand that to some degree because I do think that the lockdowns went on too long. They I mean, with I think with 2020 hindsight, we would say that lockdowns weren't necessary if we had just gone all in on a mass policy. That's what they did in Japan. Right? And so you you know, the the problem the problem with kind of the the politicians in charge is that you know well, backing up a second, I think the right policies to end lockdowns but wear masks. And the problem with the politicians is half of them didn't wanna end lockdowns, and the other half didn't wanna wear a mask. And that's kind of the the weird way in which has become this political football. Jason Calacanis (00:14:41): Trump was trying to do this as an act of defiance. What was the left trying to accomplish do you think? what would be your cynical or charitable approach to what they their reaction to this and locking down so severely? David Sacks (00:14:53): Well, I just I I think that what was the purpose of lockdowns? I think it was the the I I think the initial reaction was it was based on what happened in Italy. Right? And so in Italy, we kinda had this worst case scenario where the hospital system got overwhelmed. you know, tremendous fatality rate from the virus. And then we started to see the same thing happening in New York. And and I think, you know, locking down briefly in New York to get a handle on the situation, I think, was justified. I don't think it again, with 2020 hindsight that we needed to do it anywhere else in the country, if we had instead, you know, just worn mass, Jason Calacanis (00:15:31): Do you think the left, though, perpetrated a perpetual lockdown? This is the most cynical view that I've heard, and I don't think you hear this often, and that's part of why we do this podcast is to sort of explore these, you know, kinda takes that you hear on the inside, but not not maybe on CNN. The cynical interpretation was they wanted to keep lockdown to crash the economy, to make Trump look bad to get him out of the office. Do you think there's anything valid to that argument? David Sacks (00:16:00): You know, I I don't know. I it it yeah. I mean, I don't it's certainly possible. I think that it's possible, though, that the left just kinda underweights, you know, the economic damage of of lockdowns. You know? I heard a lot of arguments about from from the left that if you wanted to end lockdowns, then you care more about money than lives. Jason Calacanis (00:16:21): And you can't put a price on a life, which is literally what we do all the time. Like, insurance, health care, we put up price on life, free beverages. David Sacks (00:16:30): But but but I but I was never in favor of doing nothing. I mean, I, you know, I was tweeting weeks ago that we should end lockdowns but wear a mask. And so my argument would be, look at Japan, you do more for lives and the economy by having a mass policy instead of lockdowns. Jason Calacanis (00:16:44): Friedberg, what's your take on Saks's take? David Friedberg (00:16:48): No. I don't disagree. I mean, I I you know, I'm not I'm not a great expert on kinda the the politics and you know, I can kind of comment on policy, I think, in terms of what I think is reasonable or not. I certainly, you know, thought that the lockdowns were unreasonable in the extent, but then the problem was they weren't followed, so they were all for waste. And Jason Calacanis (00:17:12): -- So so the worst of all the worst of all outcomes David Friedberg (00:17:16): Yeah. But there wasn't a huge like, until they actually went into effect, there wasn't a huge amount of debate about this. It was just like, oh, shit. We better all go into lockdown. what happens this is almost like the human conscious and unconscious mind. Like, you know, the the conscious mind rationalizes what the unconscious already decided to do. So everyone freaked out. Everyone had a great deal of fear. We shut everything down. And then the left and the right had their own rationalization after the fact about you know, what that meant? Was it good? Was it bad? Did we overreact? Did we underreact? Should we have done more? And so I feel like the narrative is told a little bit too late here where we all kind of, like, have these commentaries about left and right politics after the fact. And, you know, I I I don't think it's really meaningful, to be honest. It's just almost like let's let's fill in the what happens story with our own point of view based on our our our our tribe or whatever we sit in. Jason Calacanis (00:18:03): So, Tremath, where where how do we get out of this now? Because The debts are going down. No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:08): No. We're out. We're out. We're out. The the the genie is out of the bottle. Look. The reality is there is not a single country government that can tolerate future lockdowns because I think the populations will revolt. And so we're going to have to deal with cases as they crop up, and we're gonna have to deal with infection rates popping up. And, you know, we'll have to deal this bursty economic landscape. Today, Apple just announced they're closing a bunch of stores in a few in a few states. They'll I'm sure they'll reopen them in a few weeks. But we're gonna be in this sort of start and stop mode now for the foreseeable future. But the the it's just not possible to ask people now to go back into any form of quarantine or shelter in place. I just don't think they'll do it. David Sacks (00:18:53): Right. And people people only do lockdowns until there's some activity that they that they wanna engage in that they think is essential. Right? And so you saw with the protest, if you believe that civilized protests are essential. You believe that you're you're you're out of lockdown. And, you know, and if you wanna go to a Trump rally, you believe that's essential and you're out of lockdown. And so, you know, so every and, you know, you had the case in Texas of the woman who wanted to open her haircut salon. And so, you know, you you were never gonna get good compliance with a lockdown plan. In in addition to the damage and destruction it caused. It was never very effective because people weren't willing to do it. And I think the big public policy mistake here was the politicians squandering their credibility on lockdowns that were never very feasible. Instead of just going all in en masse, and it would have been a lot cheaper. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:50): By the way, the other thing is you we we need to push mask wearing back into a public health debate And, you know, Newsom yesterday Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, basically said masks are now mandatory in California. The thing is you have to add fines if you don't wear them where, you know, people can be cited and fined. And then the other thing and David, you said this earlier is You have to be criminally culpable at some level if you go out of your way to not wear a mask and infect somebody. And there is a a bunch of you know, case law on how this can be true. And so I think that, you know, we need to we need to solve these things because you need to have good hygiene around mask wearing and what the consequences are if you choose to not wear Jason Calacanis (00:20:37): 1. Well, you know, Schwab, it's interesting you bring that up. There was a there have been cases of people purposely infecting people with the HIV virus and going to jail for it and being liable for it. So There is, I think, and I'm I'm more Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:50): What's the difference? Jason Calacanis (00:20:52): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:52): in somebody's face versus having sex with them when you know you're infected. What is the Well, Jason Calacanis (00:20:56): that I don't know if you saw this viral video of the the Karen, which is I as Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:03): So many Karens these days. Jason Calacanis (00:21:04): So So many Karens. And Anne Karen just, like, got upset that somebody was calling her after not wearing a mask in a cafe, and she literally coughed on the person. Did you see that video? How is this person not in jail? I mean, it's -- I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:16): think that was in New York, right, Jason Calacanis (00:21:18): in Brooklyn? -- New York, and the woman didn't know she was being filmed, but oh my I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:21): mean, the great thing about the Internet right now is, like, if anybody basically transgresses, they are identified in about a nanosecond. And, I mean, I saw that because on on the Saturday morning, she coughed on this person who was complaining about her not wearing a mask. And within 15 minutes, they had her LinkedIn. They had contacted Wyll Medical Center where she worked. And then while put out a press release basically saying we had fired her, you know, for being a dummy well before the mask thing. And so the whole thing now just gets so adjudicated and resolved so quickly. It's it's it's incredible. We basically moved to judge Dred now. It's like the The social media is the judge, the jury, and the cops in this entire equation. The one that I loved, actually, that that really actually, frankly, I I look forward to was the the the cyclist in Maryland. I mean, you know, you cannot go after kids touching another person's child and and women and, like, attacking them for putting up, you know, black lives matter posters, like and then to attack these. But then, again, the it was the sub community on Reddit, and it was amazing. it was the actual, like, Maryland subreddit. Who knows what's going on in the Maryland subreddit on Reddit? What could they be talking about? But they identified this guy, and he was fired. He was arrested, and it all happened within, you know, probably 36 hours. David Friedberg (00:22:53): But you guy you guys know in that story, there was another guy who was identified first, and he was the police officer. And then people went after him, and he basically had his life ruined within those first 24 hours, and he wasn't the guy. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:23:07): Yes. And David Friedberg (00:23:07): he wasn't the guy. Jason Calacanis (00:23:08): The way they got him was the Stravia data. Right? Like, he had they found a guy on Stravia who had done that Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:14): by -- -- us. Strava. Jason Calacanis (00:23:15): Strava, whatever. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:17): Yeah. The Stevia. That's right. That's stevia. Jason Calacanis (00:23:18): The guy was using stevia, the app that for the bike people. and they monetize that app through subscriptions. Am I correct? Don't be in front of my dyslexia, Jamob. Yeah. You're bullying me on my own podcast. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:33): You say monetize on CNBC in front of millions of people. It's unbelievable. We tried to teach you how to pronounce that word for 15 years. Jason Calacanis (00:23:40): I know, but I say it on purpose now, and I lean into it now. David Friedberg (00:23:44): Mooney -- It's David Sacks (00:23:44): so slightly pornographic or Jason Calacanis (00:23:46): something. David Friedberg (00:23:46): He also he also knows your dates. I'm gonna go home and most most are made later. Okay. Go back to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:52): your stevia story. What is it? David Friedberg (00:23:54): Wait. I so so so what happened is this guy got in trouble, and this my point about the problem with the group bank hive mind approach to to these issues is you can end up not when you don't follow a predefined due process, and you let the mob kind of rule over these moments, bad shit can happen too. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:10): And -- So what what happened what happened to the cop? David Friedberg (00:24:13): The copy like, everyone started chasing him down and, like, you know, his whole life got ruined. Everyone, like, death threats and fucking with him. all this sort of stuff. Jason Calacanis (00:24:21): Yeah. Calling his employer, calling people who know him. David Friedberg (00:24:23): But they found his phone number. They found his address, and Jason Calacanis (00:24:26): then he got David Friedberg (00:24:26): turned upside down. Yeah. They and but, basically, like, the fact that they found out that it was someone else doesn't resolve the fact that there are now hundreds of people after this guy, and they don't pay attention that it wasn't him. And, you know, due process has a role in a civilized society where you can actually create structure and resolve these things in a in a proper way as opposed to letting mob mentality kind of rule. I mean, otherwise, you know, this stuff can get a pretty ugly, pretty fast as we saw as this being just a really, you know, pretty lightweight example. But I'm not sure I'm a huge advocate of this, like, chase the guy down and then punish him at once and cans those canceled culture is a little bit ugly right now because you don't have all the facts and you miss stuff in a lot of cases. Jason Calacanis (00:25:04): Yeah. There there is definitely it's great that you can find criminals so quickly, and I'm curious what people think and, obviously, you just don't wanna mistarget somebody. And so there's if you do find somebody who's targeted, like, give the information to the authorities, but you may not want to docks them immediately and and try to ruin their lives before you actually know what's going on. A lot of companies now, Microsoft, IBM, and others, Amazon, I think, are saying we don't want to we're gonna take a pause on facial recognition. I'm curious what your each of your thoughts are on law enforcement and and we'll get into the law enforcement discussion and and race relations here in this country and what we went through. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:46): We look. We we have been we have been we've been arming our police force mistakenly like our military. and we've been doing it for, you know, decades now, and it makes no sense. There is this crazy tweet I saw today. Maybe we can find AOC tweeted out. where she she found this announcement from some, like, long tail police department somewhere who basically got a free armored truck carrier. And, you know, they're they're they're driving it around town or whatever pulling it out of the garage. It looks like Downtown Bagdad And you're like I mean, they're in, like, Fargo, North Dakota, wherever they are. I mean, like, it's just so it makes no sense. I don't think I don't think any of us thought that we wanted to apportion our tax dollars to build a a second shadow army I think we all want an army and a navy and a and a marines and an air force. We want, you know, aircraft carriers and f Sixteens and tanks and machine guns and all that stuff, but we want them with our military. And then we want cops, I think, to be extremely well trained. I mean, half the time, you know, cops are you know, you ask them to be mental health counselors. Other times, you're asking them to be, you know, CPR givers. Other times, you're asking them to be criminal apprehenders. The job is too complicated. They clearly can't do it. They're poorly trained, and then you arm them on top of all of that, and you have the show that we have today. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:27:14): It's not like there's an IED waiting somewhere for them to drive over where they need metal plating on the bottom of the vehicle. That's not what they're dealing with every day. David Friedberg (00:27:23): At at a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:24): minimum, let's like look. I I'm a huge fan of ending Qualified Immunity. I think that doesn't make any sense. I think we have to stop arming our police like their military. Don't train them like the military. Train them like a different kind of service, and we may need to go back to 1st principles to figure out how to actually train them properly, to spot abuse, to deal with mental health, and just to be, you know, a little bit more patient and understanding and empathetic versus trigger happy. David Friedberg (00:27:52): Can I ask you can I ask you a question on that? So a lot of the actions that police take when it comes to lethal action is defended by the notion that my life was under threat as a as a cop. And that sources from the fact that we have a second amendment in this country where a lot of people are, you know, you know, gun carriers and are allowed to to have arms. So our police force has had to respond with the fact that there are a lot of guns in this country with defensive principles and defensive mechanisms to defend themselves against a lot wife due to a gun. And that makes the United States really unique in terms of the the circumstance versus if you look at the United Kingdom where they don't have a second amendment right to to to bear arms. The police aren't armed, and the police behavior is significantly different. You can look at this in any country where there isn't a right to bear arms. Do we not have a fundamental problem in this country that stems from the fact that the police feel or can justify that they're always under threat of lots of life due to arms being out in the in Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:48): the Yeah. The contra I think it's a fabulous question. The contra example, I would say, is if you look at Switzerland where the per capita gun ownership is really high, Canada where Palihapitiya gun ownership is really high. What I would tell you is there's a different kind of psychological training that police people go through before they're put on the streets. and that is fundamentally different here. The job as defined to them here is different than it is in Canada or Switzerland where, you know, gun ownership levels are quite robust. And I think it all comes down to incentives. And the reality is is that there is a to your point, David, this amplification of this idea that everybody is armed, which I think is fundamentally mostly not true in the day to day course of, like, living one's life. But I think police people tend to be very amplified around that threat. And as a result, The unions have basically written contracts that protect their use of force. The law is written in a way that protects very use of force. And so all of it comes from, to your point, a defensive posture of fear. But if you actually try to train these people differently, I think you'd have a different outcome because what I can tell you is the police in Canada do behave differently. They don't reach for their gun every second. Jason Calacanis (00:30:06): It it's an interest. It I think there's a very interesting example, and I I know we don't wanna, like, just take one anecdotal incident and then you know, make a a a big sweeping generalization with it. But if you look at the gentleman in Atlanta who was shot in the back twice, Rashid Brooks, Rashard Brooks. Rayshard Brooks. Rayshard Brooks. This example to me is so illustrative of the problem. They spent 40 minutes talking with this individual who was absolutely not a threat. They had frisked him. They knew he was not armed. He was intoxicated. He's in a drive through. Of all the ways you could have dealt with the situation, And I come from a family of police officers, and I can tell you a lot of stories about cops letting people go. Obviously, white people with warnings In this situation, letting him sleep it off, taking his keys, letting him run away. You know who it is. You have his driver's license. You have his car. You have his keys. Let him run away. Under what circumstances would you feel justified shooting a person when there were so many other options, and I it comes exactly, I believe, Chamath from 2 things you pointed out. 1, they're in a very defensive position into the training. They're trained to use lethal force And if you're in a situation where you feel threatened, you just shoot. That's it. And if you shoot, you shoot to the center of the body to kill the person. And in their training, they're not trained to think, how do I disarm the situation, diffuse the situation, and what are the other options? This person is obviously not a threat, and you knew the taser was fired twice. I'm not saying the person should have resisted arrest. I'm not saying the person shouldn't have aimed the the taser at the person. but they should be trained to protect life and diffuse situations at all costs. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:55): Jason, like, think about the They should have been trained maybe to just walk into the Wendy's, buy this guy a coffee, and then drive him to the motel that he said that he was staying at. Yes. Or they should or they should have been trained to just write a ticket and say, listen. Here's a, you know, here's a citation for being drunk because you did technically kinda drive, and now I'm gonna leave it alone. They could have done many things that they chose not to do because the incentive was to you know, project power in that situation versus project any kind of empathy and compassion. Jason Calacanis (00:32:26): Right. And and the selection of people who go into the police department and I come from a family of police officers and firefighters. Brother, uncle, cousin, grandfather, up and down the line, Irish cops, and firefighters, big tradition in my family. And I can tell you that there is a contingent of people who go into the police who are power tripping or maybe didn't get wherever else they wanted to be in life and the job of seeing people and dealing with the bad stuff that you pointed out, you know, people in domestic sit domestic violence situations, people who are mentally ill, homeless addiction problems, all of that then trains these people to see the worst in humanity and then they just look at their job as just this dystopian, horrible experience. And they are in that defensive posture. Whereas we need to train people, and then I I made this tweet where we should have a new class of police officer that is more like a Jedi Knight. you know, they get paid twice as much. They have master's degree in social worker psychology. And when that call comes in for an emotionally disturbed person, a person who's intoxicated on drugs, a domestic violence situation, you don't wanna send the average b cop to that. You wanna send the Jedi. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:46): No. But, Jason, make it even easier. Like, when when you go in and get a 911 call and it's you know, there could be it's it's it's somebody who's in sort of like mental distress or you're gonna do a mental health check, why don't you send a really well trained social worker? Jason Calacanis (00:34:02): Absolutely. And the reason is Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:04): Why don't we have a whole, you know, a whole force of social workers that we pay a $100,000 a year? Jason Calacanis (00:34:10): Absolutely. And and and the this that's what these police officers are making. There is an argument to not have them armed. There's an argument for them to be armed, but maybe they're so enlightened and trained so well. I think the training in the United States is in the low hundreds of hours. In other countries, it's thousands of hours. I mean, if a person has a gun, I think police should not get their gun until they've completed maybe 2 or 3000 hours on the job. In other words, they get to the 2nd or third year. So the first year where you're a pro b, why even have a gun? Why not just have them doing things without a gun? And then when you get that gun, maybe you need to have the equivalent of a master's degree. You know? Maybe you need to have a a level of trade, and we need to go to 1st principles like you're saying, Chamath, and rethink this whole thing. In any startup or any problem solving, you would look at the show me the thousand calls. How did they break down? What were the outcomes? And if you look at the outcomes of dealing with mentally ill people or people who are addiction or domestic disputes, the the outcomes are things that police are not trained for. That's gotta be a very high percentage of these situations let alone the no knock warrant, which makes absolutely no sense. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:17): I mean, I think I think there's there's just a lot of Look. There's a lot of change coming. I think that there's a lot of legislation afoot at every sort of level of government. And I think the good news is that it's going to be hard for people to sit on their hands on this. I don't think it's going to be universally across the country. But I do think that, you know, people will then, again, self select and wanna live in places where, you know, sort of the laws match their ideals, and this is gonna be an area of tremendous reform and change. You know, what's interesting about all of this is, like, if you actually go back to the Republican ideology, it's interesting to me why Republicans aren't the first ones to try to embrace rewriting you know, the union contracts and actually decreasing unionized power. Because that sort of, like, has generally been a tent hole theme of Republican ideology. But then as it gets applied to cops, I think they kind of just advocate responsibility. So there's a lot of reasons where you could have bipartisan agreement on a bunch of these things. But, again, I think we're we're we kind of, like, get caught up, and we refuse to see the forest from the trees and wanna fix these things. But I suspect that a lot of these changes will happen just because they're so bloody obvious. And depending on your ideology, you can frame the same reason for completely different motives and get to the same answer. Jason Calacanis (00:36:39): Nobody nobody wants this. Sachs, what do you think about the the union issue as our token right winger? David Sacks (00:36:48): I think yeah. I think I think the police unions have too much power. all the public employee unions do. I think, you know, just like the teachers' unions have thwarted school choice and education reform, I think we're seeing the police unions toward a lot of sensible reforms around the use of force. You know, our our friend Bill Girly has been tweeting a lot of great research that around police departments that are unionized. There's a lot more complaints against them. There's a lot more examples of the use of force and unwarranted use of force. And so, clearly, there's a connection here between police unions and the thording of common sense reforms. And I saw someone someone tweeted this idea that you know, the the reason why no one's taking on the police unions is because Republicans see the word police and Democrats see the word union. And they're both fans of those things. And so who's who's take them on. Jason Calacanis (00:37:43): Come on. Yeah. I mean and teachers' unions is the same thing. And and the political system, the political power of the unions, is so entrenched that in order to get an office for in most cases, you're gonna need to have the support of those unions. And if you don't, they're going to tell people explicitly not to vote for Yeah. David Sacks (00:38:02): I mean, well well, look. I mean, you look at the cities that have had the biggest problems here. I mean, starting with Minneapolis, and these are Democrat controlled cities. these are not, you know, Republican controlled cities. And the politicians are very much, you know, in Kahoot with the the big Union the unions there, including the police, the teachers unions, all that. And so, you know, both parties need to to to be open to reform. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:27): To your point, David, there's a there's story that came out last or last couple of days about the DA in Atlanta who pressed charges against the 2 officers. But the narrative was about how the DA is being investigated for getting a 140 k in kickbacks from a nonprofit tied to something. And then he was claiming that his main opponent who's right who could because these, you know, district attorneys are politically elected officials, right, where she had basically done a side deal with the police to not to not go after, you know, use of force in return for their endorsement. And, you know, what a what a horribly messy, like, complicated growth situation irrespective of whoever turns out to be right there. So to your point, they've become so entrenched and it's just so low level that then, you know, what should be obvious justice basically just gets thrown away for what's expedient and convenient. David Sacks (00:39:28): Yeah. Well, you know, this is another example where, like like with the mass, I felt like there were you know, I wasn't violating conservative principles. I thought there really was a conservative principle. I think with, you know, with with this example of the overuse of force by police, you go back to what Lord Acton said, which is power crops and absolute power crops, absolutely. If there's no one standing up to the police unions, politically, they have absolute power, and that's gonna lead to corruption. So I do think, like, Republicans should be looking into this. Now I think part of the reason why Republicans wanna defend the police is because we've also had these examples of looting and writing and lawlessness, you know, after the the the civil rights protests. And I think that, again, we're we're kinda dividing up into into sides. And there's too much justification of bad behavior on both sides because of what the other side is doing. You know? And I heard people on the left justifying the the looting and riding on the grounds that you know, it was a legitimate expression of, you know, of of opposition. It was a legitimate protest. It was a legitimate expression of opposition to to the police violence. And I I think that that is wrong. And I think it's wrong for people on the right to defend this police, the excessive use of force by police on the grounds that somehow it's justified because we need to control the lawlessness and the rioting. And, you know, I think both are wrong. Jason Calacanis (00:40:56): And and we we lack a federal leadership to not make this overly political, but when Trump then teard gases with the military protesters to go do a photo opportunity, you know, it's sending the message that he and he wants to be the law and order president, now you're just charging things up instead of just going on TV and just saying something to bring people back to the concept that we're all Americans, we're all in this together, and we rise and fall together, It's such an easy statement. Listen, the protesters have valid concerns. We need to work on this issue. And, yes, if you see people doing any vandalism You we have to stop them. Please make sure that doesn't happen because it it works against the very valid criticism and protests that are going on that need to go on. And and the fact that the president can't say that is crazy. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:49): Well, what do you guys think about what he has been saying and how Twitter and Facebook have basically taken different sides of Jason Calacanis (00:41:55): Friedberg, go ahead. David Friedberg (00:41:57): What Trump's been saying? Jason Calacanis (00:41:58): Yeah. Should should Twitter be censoring him slash putting warnings on his posts when he's saying crazy stuff? David Friedberg (00:42:03): I don't think so. I yeah. Look. I mean, It's such a slippery slope, and there's too much room for interpretation. I'm just saying the obvious. But, you know, if you're a platform, you're a platform. you know, you let the things get built on top of you. Sure. You can have some some rules around what can be built. But as soon as you start you know, saying what is true and what is not true and you become the arbiter of truth, you're no longer an agnostic platform. And I think that, you know, that that is a big, dangerous risk to take because as you guys know, something maybe and I think we saw this with the what's that Twitter account 0 hedge? Was that the name of the -- -- hedge. That got banned. And then they came back because it turns out what they said wasn't necessarily as untrue as Twitter at first thought that they were saying was untrue. So, you know, it was a great example of how, you know, a point of interpretation can very quickly kind of reverse course, and you can look extremely biased in in making that decision at that time. Jason Calacanis (00:43:03): Well, in the in YouTube took I I think Susan with Jikky the well, Jackie took the position at YouTube that we're going to allow people to talk about coronavirus if what they're saying is in sync with the World Health Organization. David Friedberg (00:43:16): Yeah. And and by the way, the World Health Organization, I've had an issue with since well before COVID. Just from another life, they I I won't get into it, but they've said some stuff publicly that that was just flat out fucking wrong scientifically and and invalid, and it was politicized. and we we kinda got to the root of the political driver behind it. So I've long held kind of disbelief in the World Health Organization as a trusted source of of scientific fact. Jason Calacanis (00:43:41): And to Saks's previous point, you want to be able to check power And if the World Health Organization is this incredibly powerful organization who got it wrong with masks and didn't even -- Yeah. -- you know, like, David Sacks is getting it right. Some venture capitalists in the area gets it right about mask in the world. The health organization gets it wrong? David Friedberg (00:44:00): Well, he's in Mexico, but yeah. David Sacks (00:44:03): I mean, undisclosed location. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:05): Indore undisclosed location. -- back sicko. Jason Calacanis (00:44:09): But okay. Saks, should they should they be putting labels and warnings on politicians when they say things that are consensus wrong. David Sacks (00:44:18): Yeah. I mean, call me old fashioned, but I'm very much in favor of free speech. and I'm against censorship. And, you know, fact checking your politicians you don't like is is a is basically biased. It's soft censorship. I mean, they're being very selective in who they decide to fact check, and you know, there's no good way to do it. Right? I mean, there is no truth API that they can just plug in to to fact check people. The the way that you deal with with bad speech is more speech. I think it's a a line from Justice Brandice. That is the way, historically, that we have in this country that we've dealt with speech by people we don't like, which is you have more speech. And and I I don't think censorship or warnings is is is the right way to go. Jason Calacanis (00:45:04): Chamath, what do you think having worked at Facebook? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:07): Look. I think it exposes a couple things. One is that the Twitter product is is still relatively brittle. I mean, like, at least Facebook has a whole suite of emoticons to say something is a crock of shit. you know, and it makes you feel bad or, you know, makes you feel angry or thumbs down or whatever. And so Twitter's reactionary feedback mechanism to its algorithms is very brittle. And so if you were gonna try to algorithmically tune down the distribution of, you know, a Trump tweet You know, you could see where you could balance thumbs up or hearts in this case with other ways of signaling that this is either wrong or hate filled or, you know, instigating. And and I think, like, a little bit more self policing is probably the only scalable solution. All of that said, here's what I will say. I think basically that Facebook is is becoming Middle America, and Twitter is becoming sort of the coasts. And, you know, Facebook is basically a product of Middle America plus kind of like countries outside the United States and, you know, Twitter's about, you know, rich coastal kind of people. And you can see that the the way that the content ebbs and flows and you know, the kind of content problems. Like, just for as an example, you know, what is what is Twitter's latest content problem? It was that Donald Trump tweeted a video from CNN that was doctored, you know, and it and it only showed a clip of a, you know, a black toddler running away from a white toddler, and the caption was you know, the chiron said something about raises and it turned out to not be wrong, blah blah blah. What is Facebook's issue 2 days ago? It was that, you know, the boogaloo movement, which is, you know, a bunch of people who believe in the militia and an impending civil war, principally use Facebook and Facebook groups to organize and they found out that they were distributing and, you know, driving, you know, viewers and usage and content. So it just kind of tells you, like and and if you break down the issues and, you know, there's a there's a couple of people who tweet out the most popular tweets on Twitter versus the most popular content on Facebook. What you see is a left and right distribution. And so I think that the audiences are are segregating themselves into into into using products that basically feed them what they wanna hear. Jason Calacanis (00:47:24): Well, Jamal, let me ask you a question about the leadership. We you work directly. with Zuckerberg for many years, and we all know Jack from Twitter, from various projects. what is Zuckerberg's politics? Is he a secret Trump supporter? is does Peter Till who's on the board and your good friends with Peter Till and worked with Peter Till Sachs? I'm curious what you think goes on inside the brain of Mark Zuckerberg in terms of making these decisions. Is he scared that Facebook has become dependent on the right and is that? Tremov, that it is a right thing. And is he right or left? What is his politics? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:06): I don't think that's the right framing. I think that if you're running a big network like this, You have to remember the Jason Calacanis (00:48:12): you you Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:13): know, you're one of the 5 or 6 most valuable companies in the world. You yourself have you know, Jason Calacanis (00:48:18): 50, 60, $70,000,000,000. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:20): Basically, the world is your oyster. And what you've seen over the last 5 or 6 years is that there is an increasing regulatory headwind. And if you basically play the game theory out, you know, these companies are gonna get regulated, and they're gonna get over tax, and they're gonna get kind of slowed down at a minimum and broken up at the maximum. And so if you're running one of these companies, I think the only thing you can do is hold on. And so if you're gonna hold on, there's no point in making any of these changes because it minimizes the amount of cash you can make and the amount of you know, support you'll have. So you might as well pick a side effectively by doing nothing and waiting. And I and I and I think that's that's largely what all these guys have decided to do. They've essentially said we're not gonna sort of take a side here. Jason Calacanis (00:49:07): Well, no. Twitter has taken side. David Sacks (00:49:09): Twitter ass. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:09): Because they're small enough. They can survive. They're not going to get broken up. But if you're one of the top 4 or 5, look at the position they taken. The position they've taken is we have no position. Jason Calacanis (00:49:19): That's Facebook's position. We have no position. We're not gonna police ads? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:22): No. Hold on. It's also Google's. It's also Microsoft. It's also Apple's. It's also Amazon's. And in fairness to Facebook, all big 5 tech companies have said, our position is no position. And the reason is because that's the only thing they can do to keep that market cap and to hold on to the economic vibrancy of their businesses for longer. Jason Calacanis (00:49:41): Sachs, why did Twitter and Jack actually take a position because this cannot happen if Jack is not a 100% supportive of it. He is the driver of it. And the person who okays it And then what do you think Zuckerberg Tremont didn't wanna answer this, but I want you to try to answer it. What is Zuckerberg's relationship with Peter, TL, and his thinking on a political basis in your mind without, you know, giving up your relationship with Peter, but what is his politics and and what is their relationship? David Sacks (00:50:10): Well, I I don't know exactly what sucks politics are and or I not even exactly. I have no idea what his politics are, not remotely. And I do remember the time when Peter supported Trump during the election, and the rest of the board wanted to run him off the board. So clearly, It's not like I highly doubt Facebook is a bastion of right wing thinking. Jason Calacanis (00:50:29): But why would Zuckerberg keep him on the board then? In in defiance of everybody else, Who hates him? David Sacks (00:50:36): Maybe he simply believes that supporting the Republican candidate and the presidential election is not grounds for removal from a board. Maybe simply is not that intolerant. I think I mean, I'm gonna actually go out on a limb here and defend Zuckerberg a little bit, which is my impression of what Zuckerberg's trying to do is simply maintain Facebook as a speech platform. And, you know, if you're gonna be a speech platform, you're gonna be caught in the crosshairs of all these very controversial debates. And, you know, people are gonna publish things that other people hate. In fact, even that the majority hates. But isn't that the type of speech that the ACLU historically offended. You know, it feels to me like there's been a rise mainly on the left in terms of intolerance for speech they don't like that they consider to be Jason Calacanis (00:51:24): -- David Sacks (00:51:24): But 100%. -- officially what yeah. You saw that with New York Times newsroom. I think you tweeted a tweetstorm from an opinion writer there is around the the Tom Con editorial, which, you know, it's not like I agreed with it, but they kind of had a they basically fired the opinion page editor because they realized they they published Jason Calacanis (00:51:43): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:44): And by the way, sorry. Just to build on your point, the title, which wasn't even written by Tom Cotton, was, I would say, an order of magnitude worse than the article if you read the whole article. David Sacks (00:51:54): Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:55): But the title was really offensive wasn't even written by them. It was written, I think, by the editor that got fired. But the article itself was it's kinda bad, but not nearly as bad as the title of the cheating writer. Jason Calacanis (00:52:05): for this. because Friedberg 20 years ago, when we were all as gen xers coming up, we were taught to defend freedom of speech. This is a core tenant of a of a vibrant democracy. and that you need to be able to read unpopular opinions. In fact, the KKK needs to be able to march down Main Street, and we need to protect that ugly speech in order for everybody else to have it. And here we have, you know, an editorial, which obviously none of us agree with. is is is this an existential threat to America that we are now going to say freedom of speech is not a core tenant of the of the America can experiment. David Friedberg (00:52:45): I'm just looking for the term that was used by what's the other New York Times opinion writer? I forgot her name, Zach. Maybe you'll help me she talks about, like like, a comfort culture or so, basically, we used to pride ourselves on a culture that enabled freedom of speech, and and and that was that was cherished and heralded. And what is cherished and heralded now is a culture that protects people from hearing offensive and scary things that they don't wanna hear. And that shift, you know, those of us who are Gen X, which I think I am, I was born in 1980 into the millennial Gen Z, and beyond kind of generation has occurred, and it is fundamentally changing the nature of how we find truth and how we find, you know, coalesce around decisions as a society. And we're excluding the things that are offensive, and it's a little bit scary to think about my point of view that, you know, we can't explore all options. We can't hear all dissenting points of view. This is certainly a very deep argument about how our society and our our how our democracy operates. But it is happening. And and so the point was, like, we are we are starting to shift towards valuing comfort over over freedom of expression, and and that's a that's just kind of the big the big change that's occurring. And, look, we do live in a democracy. So the votes are gonna be what what ultimately decides what happens here, votes in terms of who's using Facebook versus Twitter, and votes in terms of who's voting for what presidential candidate and what governor and what mayor. And so we'll see. You know? It's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a c change in in how this democracy operates. David Sacks (00:54:33): Yeah. I think it's a c change going back very far because the the the whole principle of the enlightenment going back 100 years was stated by Voltair. which is that I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death. You're right to say it. Who today is willing to do that? I mean, that was the the idea that led to political liberalization in the west. It's really a unique feature of Western democracies and liberalism. You go to anywhere else in the world. I guarantee you people aren't defending to the death. You're you're right to to say things they disagree with. I don't think they're I don't think Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin is defending. You're right to hear things that they don't want you to. So, you know, this is a very foundational part of of American and, you know, western political liberalism. And it's being challenged now. And I think you know, we should have more self confidence in our ideas to worry so much about Donald Trump's tweets, which are a femoral be forgotten very soon. that we're willing to throw out freedom of speech. Jason Calacanis (00:55:40): Well, yeah. I mean, I this is the thing I don't understand about labeling his tweets is you know I mean, is anybody not think that this guy is hopped up on Adderall or a complete moron? Like, or any of those things? Like, we all know he's an idiot who just tweets fifty times a day and he's a scared, you know, that he's not gonna win his, you know, reelection and that he's a yeah. He's he's a literal reality star. So who do you mean David Friedberg (00:56:04): by when when you say we? We all. because it's a different we that I think you're saying that I think other people would be saying Jason Calacanis (00:56:09): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:09): Yeah. David Friedberg (00:56:09): I I but -- We represent. Jason Calacanis (00:56:11): Right. I mean, that's, I think, the generational divide here is -- David Friedberg (00:56:14): I don't know if it's generation. I think there's a lot of dimensions across which these differences of per perspective occur. And I've said this for amongst our group for a long time, but there's a huge difference between a rural population and urban population in the United States. in terms of what their priorities are. And I think that difference in priorities is unconscious, and that's where things really resonate the says and that really moved the needle for a lot of folks. The priority of civil rights is not a as it might be in an urban center, it's not a priority in a rural center. And in a in a in a rural population, there's a different priority prompt no matter what how he says it. The things he's saying are different than what I'm hearing from the urban population, which is where the media comes from and so on and so forth. And so Trump resonates with me. I don't care if he sounds a little bit wacky. I need wacky because it needs to be different than than than standard. And and there's just there there's a lot of divides here and a lot of dimensions across Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:07): our teams. I I think that we absolutely should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should never attack this very basic principle of free speech because we will never forgive ourselves if we do. But then this is why I think we come back to we should be a little bit more resilient to build products and services that allow a little bit more texture in the discussion so that you actually can have free speech flourish more in a more transparent way. So, David, to your point, you know, how do you drown out you know, hate speech. It's with more speech. Well, these products don't necessarily even enable that. And so I do think that we have this you know, sort of an issue where the products and services that billions of people use to consume their information and construct a worldview today They neither will allow things to be flagged, nor will they increment the feature surface area. so that you can actually have. So then that's why I think people then get into this place where everybody feels cornered, and nobody likes what's happening. And so I think that's kind of what we're in. I think that if we had a little bit more ingenuity and thinking by the folks that you know, Twitter and Facebook, it would go a long, long way. David Sacks (00:58:34): Yeah. I I do think there's something I mean, the the conundrum of Twitter is simultaneously, it's the main way I get my news information. But I also see it as a huge source of group think and kinda mob mentality. And so you you know, the more time you spend on Twitter, I mean, I see a lot of people saying the more unhappy they are. And so you do wonder whether it's making you more informed or whether it's just making you buy into some sort of mass psychosis. Jason Calacanis (00:59:00): Well, it could be both, by the way. You could be becoming more informed. and you could be going into a psychosis, which we have a lot of friends who are high profile who, like, their behavior on Twitter is a is a separate thing than who they actually are. Right? Like, they just lose their shit on Twitter, and, you know, they the the the it is really a very strange place to be sure. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:23): Can we talk, by the way, can we just talk about this Bolton book? I mean, what the fuck. Jason Calacanis (00:59:32): I mean, he he did ask Xi Jinping to help him win the election, and he bartered by soybeans to help me win the election. I mean, this is insane. David Sacks (00:59:43): I think I think we need to we need to first of all, you always gotta look at the source here. So I I don't know how Jason Calacanis (00:59:50): somebody commentator who's as far right as you could go -- David Sacks (00:59:53): Well Jason Calacanis (00:59:53): -- -- who was picked by Trump himself? David Sacks (00:59:56): Well, he he was a very weird choice for Trump because one of the main reasons why Trump won the Republican nomination is he promised no more bushes, meaning an end to these crazy Jason Calacanis (01:00:06): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:06): Chris NeoCon. Jason Calacanis (01:00:07): -- David Sacks (01:00:07): NeoCon Wars of Intervention. And this guy Bolton, like Jason Calacanis (01:00:11): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:11): He's right out of that playbook. central cash. Well, David Sacks (01:00:13): he yeah. He's he's the, like, hawk of Hawks. There's not a war he doesn't wanna get us into. He wanted to get us into a war with Iran. It never made any sense for Trump to hire him in the first place. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:22): But do you know why he hired him? Jason Calacanis (01:00:25): That stated in the book. David Sacks (01:00:26): I've heard I've heard the explanation that he liked. I I think he said something like when when he sends Bolton into a room, he likes he like he thinks his strength is his negotiating position. because the other side thinks that they were about US is about to invade or something when both competed Jason Calacanis (01:00:40): to them. And it's also Trump was like, I love hearing you talk. It's just like Fox News. Like, that's the quote is so he literally picks people based I mean and he picked Ludlow, right, for his you know, He picks them based on being TV personalities. David Sacks (01:00:56): I just think this bolting guy is, like, you know, this is crazy Warhawk who also is this kind of like a Weasel. And I don't know how he creates a 500 something page book out of spending 17 months in the White House. I guess he's just writing down every Jason Calacanis (01:01:12): I'm surprised it's not 5000 words. That should be a that should be, like, tokens lord of the ring trilogy. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:19): I'm gonna put this other. if he can produce the note that Pompeo gave him that said, Trump is so full of shit. That thing at auction, I'm telling you now. Jason Calacanis (01:01:28): What what do you each bid for it? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:30): At least $500,000, at least 500,000. If that note actually exists and he has it, it's not I mean, it's it's But I I just think to to me, first of all, it's a little ludicrous that this guy he is a bit of a weasel because, like, where were you during the impeachment? a, He made an economic calculation that his book was more important than the future of the country. So first of all, you know, kinda go fuck go fuck yourself for that. But the the the other thing though is that, you know, be beyond his sort of, like, character flaws, It's just the story after story after story. It's just kind of from the bizard of the absurd, like Finland's a part of Russia. England doesn't have clear weapons. Please buy soybeans. Jason Calacanis (01:02:12): You are part of the you are part of the nuclear powers? UK, really. The United Kingdom has nukes. Wow. What if India gets Yeah. David Sacks (01:02:21): But but every every one of these insider tell all books always makes the You know, always makes the president look bad. I mean -- It's Jason Calacanis (01:02:28): not a it's not a hard task. David Friedberg (01:02:29): Was there anything though that was surprising to anyone? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:31): The Xi David Friedberg (01:02:32): Jinping is Jason Calacanis (01:02:32): a blockbuster. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:34): The Xi Jinping did catch me off guard that he was that brazen and kind of sad. Jason Calacanis (01:02:38): But does the tone point David Friedberg (01:02:39): you I mean, like like, the fact that it was said, but, like, the motivation attention, the the the model of us. I think, like No. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:45): To your point, my my expectations are so low. It's it's like teaching a kid to poop in the toilet for the first time. You know, as long as it doesn't poop on the floor, even if he does it in his diet, or, you know, everything looks like success as long as there is just not raw feces on my hardwood. Jason Calacanis (01:03:04): If he if he sat on the the potty, it's success. It's success. Even if the pants weren't pulled down. If he poops his pants on the body Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:13): Tell me about tell me about wanna switch topics. Tell me about vaccines because it seems to me that there's, like, a growing cohort of people, and I'm not gonna put Moderna in this camp, but, like, maybe they did. That we're very opportunistically out there generating a ton of PR, but what if you had to pick a time and a time frame and then a manufacturing time frame, can you just tell me Yeah. Give us the over Jason Calacanis (01:03:38): under so we can we can bet a line on it. David Friedberg (01:03:40): So there's gonna I think there's gonna be a staged release of vaccines that'll probably believe it or not start in q 4 of this year. and there's been production ramp up going on in parallel to testing. So, you know, to get these vaccines produced, whether you're talking about the mRNA vaccine or you're talking about the the viral vaccine like they did in China, which they actually do have in production. there's a bunch of different challenges with scaling up and ramping production. And then, you know, what's called downstream processing and filtering and then packaging and all this stuff. Anyway, it's a it's a big fucking exercise. So what's going on is there's been a parallel effort to actually scale up production of these things before we've actually completed the testing of them to make sure that they're safe and efficacious. And as a result and some of this came out of that first or second stimulus bill, some of it came from private funding, and then other governments are just straight up paying for it. And so there are a number of facilities that are actually ramping production right now if they don't if the vaccines ultimately don't pass muster, it's just gonna be a write off of a couple $1,000,000,000. And so, theoretically, we could have doses that are available for distribution to health care workers and frontline people in q 4 of this year is is what I would kinda set the over under at. And then, you know Jason Calacanis (01:04:56): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:56): You think these vaccines are, like, flu vaccines, which is, like, 50, 60% effective at best? David Friedberg (01:05:04): Yeah. I I don't really know the answer to that. I I would say that these they're probably pretty effective. I would say the flu vaccine is just a high rate of mutation and also a low rate of utilization and a high rate of infection. we're gonna have a lower rate of infection, probably a more moderate rate of mutation as a result. And so we we should be more in control if we get something that works with the current strains. And the way that this this SARS CoV-two that most of the vaccines are built around the Jason Calacanis (01:05:32): 7, David Friedberg (01:05:32): I think, major targets around the spike protein and and different epitopes across the spike protein. And so, you know, you're if you see a great degree of mutation across that protein, it's likely gonna be less infected effective and less effective as a as a as a virus, and so it'll go away. And so I think that we've got a really good shot here at the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:53): What what are the odds that somebody politicizes the vaccine and America doesn't get it? David Friedberg (01:06:00): America doesn't get it. Jason Calacanis (01:06:01): Oh, politicized a 100%. Yeah. David Friedberg (01:06:03): Yeah. I mean, look. We politicized fucking measles. 30% of people of kids now aren't getting vaccinated for measles. which is crazy. Another measles outbreak happening in the US, which is just, you know, mind boggling. So -- I Jason Calacanis (01:06:13): think that's just happening in Marin where you David Friedberg (01:06:16): Yeah. That's it. Easy. That's a Jason Calacanis (01:06:18): That's just with the place of the highest percentage of graduate degrees in the country. David Friedberg (01:06:24): Yeah. No. But, I mean, it's an it's inevitability that that gets what it's ours. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:06:27): But, David, like, how does how does the distribution of these vaccines work? Meaning, like, let's just let's just say that it's, like, Sanofi, for example, because I saw that the French government made a large investment and the Germans did as well to essentially, like, onshore a bunch of their, you know, companies who who had promising vaccine candidates. And so if you assume that there's a distribution of these vaccines, let's just say the most efficacious ones China, are they just gonna dole this out to whoever's willing to buy it, or they're gonna decide on a political basis how to basically give these? And then when they come to the United States, How do we know that it comes to Texas before it comes to Wyoming versus California versus New York? David Friedberg (01:07:06): So I think the ones that are getting federal support, which all of them are, pretty much at this point are, you know, gonna be federally mandated in terms of distribution, and there's probably some commercial agreement that none of us have seen in terms of, like, what that looks like. Jason Calacanis (01:07:19): Chauff will send him to the swing states where he's behind is what you're saying? Well, David Friedberg (01:07:23): I think this I think it'll probably be delegated down to helping human service What Jason Calacanis (01:07:27): are the chances that there's a Trump logo on the side of the -- David Friedberg (01:07:31): Yeah. Is your Trump your is your Trump vaccine? Jason Calacanis (01:07:33): There's a Trump vaccine to save your life. Okay. It's it's a good point for us to to kinda wrap around the horn. Tremathe and I think a lot of people were convinced that Trump was gonna sell into office, Now everything is showing, you know, Fox News polls, CNBC polls, survey monkey polls, that Trump is very far behind, especially in the swing states, What are the chances? Trump wins the election, Saks? David Sacks (01:08:00): I think he's Well, I think COVID's really hurt him because the sort of feather in his captivity really had going for him was the economy. That's been hurt, but it's coming back. you know, the situation could look very different 6 months from now. Right now, it looks pretty bleak because I do think that his reaction to the the crisis was seen as a very inflammatory story. But I think 6 months from now could be a very different story. Jason Calacanis (01:08:24): 5 David Sacks (01:08:25): months. So Jason Calacanis (01:08:25): yeah. You don't think he's gonna win right now? -- now. But he -- David Sacks (01:08:28): The election today, If the election were today, he would lose. But, you know, the economy, we're seeing a v shaped recovery, which I think is surprising all of us. And if that holds up and we get past the civil unrest that we've had and, you know, he saw us being so inflammatory on those issues. I think that, you know, the situation can look very different in 5 months. You gotta remember the other thing, which is Biden at some point, is gonna have to enter to some presidential debates. And, you know Jason Calacanis (01:09:00): -- I was knowing if he's gonna be there. He's what you're saying cognitively. David Sacks (01:09:03): Yeah. I mean, that's Not Jason Calacanis (01:09:04): popular to talk about, but you actually think there's a cognitive issue? Yes or no? David Sacks (01:09:09): Probably. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:09:09): Probably. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:10): Yeah. It's Jason Calacanis (01:09:10): uncomfortable to say for some reason. Yeah. But it's -- I David Sacks (01:09:14): mean, Adam Minomo look. I there's a problem with the way he speaks. I don't know if there's a which is indicative of a problem with the way he thinks. But, you know, like, when if they're on stage for 2 hours in the debate, I think we're gonna find out really quick. And I and I think those debates are pretty unavoidable. I don't think able to figure out a way to get out of it. So, you know, I think a lot of people think that he gives you propped up by his staff. And they can to some extent, but I think at some point, we're, you know, we're gonna have to take a look at Joe Biden. Jason Calacanis (01:09:46): Chamath. Trump wins, Trump loses. Right now, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:53): I think it's sort of 75.25 he loses. Okay. I think that's gonna get closer to Jason Calacanis (01:09:59): 5545 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:00): as the date comes close. I think it actually comes down to 2 issues. Number 1 is who does Biden pick as a running mate? And can he lock up the the swing states with that running mate. And number 2, which I think is probably gonna play an enormous role if if the community organizing that saw the Black Lives Matter movement get to this next level is avoiding and preventing voter suppression. You know, LeBron, I think, is about to start an enormous campaign with a lot of very well healed, well known celebrities to get up the vote. But if there's a concerted effort to prevent voter suppression and get young people and people of color to the polls, It's a Biden landslide. Jason Calacanis (01:10:54): Biden now we've gone from a Trump landslide just 6 months ago in all of our minds to a Biden landslide. Friedberg, where are you at? David Friedberg (01:11:02): I still think Trump's gonna win. I'd say 70% chance Trump wins, and I'll tell you why. I think there's still there's not gonna be structural improvement between now November for the majority of people that voted for Trump in the last election, there are gonna be a large number of people in blue collar and rural areas that remain challenged with their life and feel like they're missing out and they're missing and and and this may even be true in Inner City districts, but but the big kind of flip vote in the rural and blue collar areas is gonna say I still need change. I need things fixed. and Trump is the agent of change. Biden, he has always been the agent of change, and I'll tell you the other thing he's he's also a master of is laying blame. And so Trump is incredible at pointing a finger at some third party and saying, that's the enemy. I'm the guy who's gonna go defeat him for a year. And I think that's what won in the election last time, and I think win and make the election again this time. No matter what shit happens between now November, he will find a way to make the story about how some third party or some process or some deep state is still responsible for that outcome that's keeping you down Mister Blue collar factory worker. And I will be the person to vanquish that problem Biden is the old state. He's the old guard. He's the guy from before. And we haven't changed anything in the last 4 years where people feel happy and secure about their lives. I think to Saks's point, if the economy was even stronger, it may hurt Trump's chances. Sure. A lot of folks might say, great. Trump's responsible. Let's give them a thumbs up. But the more people are feeling pain, the more they're looking for an agent of change. And I think Trump against Biden is still gonna be that agent Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:44): of change. Jason Calacanis (01:12:44): -- either deciding either tie or swing vote I believe Biden wins. I believe Trump has absolutely lost his ability to win this because he made 2 critical errors to Saks's very astute point. He he just complete blunder on wearing masks and leadership during COVID. and complete blunder in terms of dealing with the social unrest, which he could have acted as an a reconciliation agent and he's his own worst enemy and couldn't do those 2 very simple things. I think Biden wins big if he takes the following strategy, which I will call the avenger strategy. which is it's not just about him. He gets an incredible running mate to Tremont's point, but not only that. He pre announces his cabinet avenger style and they start hosting ala Cuomo in New York daily briefings where they talk about what the country needs to do with a brain trust in a roundtable with five or six people preselected so you're not voting for Biden who might have cognitive issues and Saks is correct. He could fumble under Trump's greatest strength, which is demolishing people in debates, which we, ourselves, all watched. We watched Hillary get absolutely beat up in those debates, and that was or I remember those nights, we were watching at your house, Chamath, and our eyes opened right up like holy cow. Hillary's in trouble here. He he's just really good at at this type of maniac boxing that he does with Little Mark Rubio and everybody else he annihilated. But if he picks the right VP candidate, and I wanna know as we close here, Who is the VP candidate that you think he should pick? Amy Klobuchar just bowed out and said, a woman is not enough, you need to have a black woman. So Chamath, who is the ideal running mate? Sax, Who scares you the most since, you know, the GOP is gonna lose this time around? Who's the scariest for you? And Friedberg, who do you think you should pick? give it some thought, or do you not have a a consensus choice? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:51): I'll I'll I'll leave my statement to the end. k. Sacksi poo. Jason Calacanis (01:14:56): You know -- Don't sandbag this and pick somebody you want them to pick because it helps them lose. David Sacks (01:14:59): Well, I I I don't know the the the back bench or democrat politicians well enough to say exact I don't have a pick. I would just say, I would really like for him to pick a great crisis manager. Jason Calacanis (01:15:10): An operator. Somebody who's been there. David Sacks (01:15:12): Somebody who's been tested in a crisis there's a very high chance that this VP pick will become the president given Biden's age and everything going on in the world. And we've just seen crisis after crisis this year. I think there's gonna be more shoes to drop. And this person that we don't even know yet could very easily be the president of the United States in the next two years. So I just hope you pick someone who is good at handling a crisis. Jason Calacanis (01:15:36): Okay. So that would mean Oprah perhaps or Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:39): God, you just pick my fah. Jason Calacanis (01:15:43): Is that really your dick, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:44): Yeah. Yeah. Oprah Winfrey. I mean, she would be she would be incredible. Oh my god. She would win every state. Ugh. She's incredible. Oprah Winfrey for the win. Jason Calacanis (01:15:59): I mean, if you're gonna pick somebody Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:02): Biden Winfrey. Jason Calacanis (01:16:02): It's like Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:03): a slam dunk. It's a slam dunk. I'm Better than Michelle Obama. dunk. Jason Calacanis (01:16:07): Better than Michelle Obama. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:09): Slam dunk. I'm gonna email Blinken and Evan Ryan right now. Oprah Winfrey. Jason Calacanis (01:16:14): Okay. Friedberg, you have a better candidate. Who's your choice for this? David Friedberg (01:16:18): I I I don't have a I don't have a choice. I I mean, I'm not gonna make it a choice here, but I I think the challenge he's gonna face is finding a black woman who can appeal to the blue collar and rural boat in these areas where he needs to kinda win some Winston poked over. And so he's gonna end up in these urban districts like the Atlanta mayor or, like, Kamala Harris. and they're they're not gonna they're not gonna bring that vote. So he is in a little bit of a pickle here because Amy Klobuchar helped him bridge the rural divide. But, you know, he's got a he's got a I I think it's it's gonna be a a a bit of a search here to Jason Calacanis (01:16:54): find something really important. -- going with Oprah because It just becomes she is such a reconciler. Now it doesn't fit the execution in a crisis. to Saks's desire, and I and I shared that. -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:08): built a bigger business in Trump. I mean, what do you Jason Calacanis (01:17:10): But that is what I was about to get to is I think she's so successful, and she's such a great leader in so charismatic. She would bring in better operators than Trump and Pence ever could. I mean, look at the shit show of people who came in and out of the cabinet. It was one goofball and incompetent asshole after another. Sorry to get a little frisky here at the end, but I feel like we're poker game, Trump's cabinet was in an embarrassment almost universally. Correct, Saks? David Sacks (01:17:40): Well, look, I I here here's the problem with Oprah or if you want, you know, any other Hollywood celebrity, George Clooney, or what have you. They're in this they're not used to getting beat up the way that politicians in our country get beat up. You know, they're used to having people catering to them. They're used to having the star trailer. and the star treatment. And, you know, they tend to have a glass jaw on politics because they've just never been put in an environment where they're just constantly assaulted. Trump, I mean, was a celebrity, but he was used to he kinda grew up in that whole New York tabloid environment and was used to punching and counter David Friedberg (01:18:13): punching. Jason Calacanis (01:18:14): Embrace it in fact. He was his own fake PR person. He was calling the post. David Sacks (01:18:19): Yeah. It's you know, I said old saying about, you know, wrestling with a pig You know, everyone gets dirty, but the pig likes it. I mean, Trump is kinda like the pig who likes it. You know, mostly celebrities don't like having to get beat up you know, they're used to being very popular. And and that's why they tend to be, I think, tough picks politically is they don't they tend to have a glass jar. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:41): Alright. On that -- Biden Winfrey. Biden Winfrey. Biden Winfrey, guys. Jason Calacanis (01:18:44): Love you. Let's play poker outside. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:46): Mhmm. David Friedberg (01:18:46): We'll see Jason Calacanis (01:18:47): you all next time. on the all in podcast. Bye bye.