疫苗政策、大型科技公司、DeepMind 最新突破、财富创造与机会

Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:00): Sachs, I am gonna give you a $1000 each to the charity of your choice for every correct answer. Fuck it. 10,000. But you have to answer. You have to answer in real time, and you can't fuck around. Okay? No stalling. Jason Calacanis (00:00:15): This is this is too any charity chooses including Tucker call us in 2024? Okay. Let's go. You have Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:20): to give the answers right away. You cannot fucking think about this. Here we go. 321 1st middle and last name of your children, and their birthdays, go. David Sacks (00:00:31): First of all, the last Jason Calacanis (00:00:35): stalking for time already. David Sacks (00:00:37): No. I'm here. You're already stuck. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:39): Okay. Go, Dino. You can peep these out, Nick. Go ahead. Come. David Sacks (00:00:42): So is January Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:46): No. Year? What's the David Sacks (00:00:47): year? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:48): 2008. Jason Calacanis (00:00:50): Is October Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:57): 2010. David Sacks (00:01:02): And then Jason Calacanis (00:01:04): little guy, little man. The little guy. Little little day, man. David Sacks (00:01:08): You're trying to stop me with Jason Calacanis (00:01:09): the little guy. Little man. The little David Sacks (00:01:12): guy. The little guy the puppy he was born October of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:18): 2016. Jason Calacanis (00:01:22): Alright. Good. He did it. You did it. Alright. That was a struggle. David Sacks (00:01:27): I got it. I got it. Jason Calacanis (00:01:28): He got there. He got there. That's all that matters as he got there. It is it is all David Sacks (00:01:32): you're gonna give the you're gonna give Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:33): $10? Yeah. $10 each to the $10 each. So it's $30, namely -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:01:38): at Tucker Carlson. For president. David Sacks (00:01:40): DeSantis Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:41): 2024. Jason Calacanis (00:01:44): I said charity, asshole. to let your winners ride. Rainman David Sanders. And I said -- We open so Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to your favorite podcast, the all in podcast where we talk about the economy, technology, politics, and well, basically, anything that's in the news with us today. Again, the queen of Kenwa himself David Friedberg. How are you doing, David? I'm hanging in there today. Alright. People are looking for the dog. Where's the dog? Monty. He's sitting here David Friedberg (00:02:28): on the floor. Monty, come here. Come on. Jason Calacanis (00:02:30): Come here. Come on, Monty. Alright. And from a random palace somewhere in the world, The dictator himself, Chomov Polyhappatthia. How are you doing? See? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:41): I'm doing great. You know, I got another dog. Jason Calacanis (00:02:45): while you were in Italy? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:47): I went to the breeder that I got Oki from and she had a three year old that was not really, you know, ever gonna become a breeding dog or whatever. So I adopted the three year old he has a parasite, so he's been pooing everywhere, everywhere. Jason Calacanis (00:03:06): That's great information for the call all Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:08): over the all over the castle. Jason Calacanis (00:03:09): All over the castle. Fantastic. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:11): liquid poop, by the way. But we finally diagnosed it today, and he's going to the to the vet to get some liquids and to get the parasite spunged from his body. Jason Calacanis (00:03:24): Okay. Thank you for that information, and I don't know. Nobody cares. You no. Nobody cares. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:30): I mean, Jason Calacanis (00:03:30): I see how you were doing. I thought you were just gonna say great. I didn't know we were gonna go straight to diarrhea. David Sacks (00:03:35): We got a new dog too. Jason Calacanis (00:03:37): You did? David Sacks (00:03:37): And it's also it's been kind of a disaster. The kids were like that. We found this, like, I think, you know, golden. that is really calm. You know? Like, she's just super low energy and calm. It's, like, perfect for us. I'm like, I don't know. I think that's just like the puppy's kind of asleep. You know? Like, it's gonna wake up. They're like, no. No. No. No. This is like a special dog. It's, like, really well behaved, whatever. So, anyway, we get it. sure enough, like a week later, the puppy wakes up, and she's eating everything in the house, destroying everything It's yeah. So now we're Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:11): -- Jason Calacanis (00:04:11): Wait. Is that dog number 2 or 3 for you? David Sacks (00:04:13): It's dog 2. The for dog 1 was a rescue dog. Who's great? So dog number 2 is now getting trained. Jason Calacanis (00:04:20): Alright. David Sacks is with us. Of course, the Raymond himself. And in related dog stories, I put all the girls to bed, and then I hear screaming. I get up. I run outside, literally, the new Bulldog who's nine months old MAXIMUS went on, you know, one of his running fits, one of my daughters falls out of bed, gets, like, a bruise on her, like, lower back, and she's wailing The other daughter feels terrible about it. And then the dog decides that he is going to projectile vomit everywhere all at the same time. Yeah. You guys have had these moments where, like, hey. It's just complete utter chaos. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:56): It's chaos. Jason Calacanis (00:04:56): Chaos is chaos. It's chaos. Dogs plus kids equals cass. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:00): Chaos. So -- But, yeah, would would any of us have it any other way? I love the combo of dogs and kids. It's just the best fucking grass. It's really -- Jason Calacanis (00:05:08): Dogs are amazing. And kids are amazing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:10): Especially when you bring in a new dog or a puppy into the house, it's chaos, but it's a really beautiful chaos. Jason Calacanis (00:05:15): Well, you know what I think also is, like, think about how overrated everything in life is. People are like, oh my god. This place with the pasta in Italy is the greatest life changing thing and All this movie was incredible. It's the best movie ever made. And it's never the best movie ever made or the best pasta. It's great or whatever. But I think kids and dogs are underrated universally. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:36): Have as many kids as you can possibly biologically have and can economically afford as mine. one opinion, and the more dogs, the better. Jason Calacanis (00:05:45): I love dogs. Yeah. Alright. I think we should start with the COVID cases because this is impacting everything from the economy to people's decisions, touching on people's freedoms, And it's hard to know where to start here, but I think facts are always a a good place to start here in the United States. We had gotten COVID cases you know, to that 12,000 a day average, it was pretty amazing. And it looked like it was gonna go straight down, smooth sailing. And we had had deaths down at around I saw some 7 day averages where we were at a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:20): 150, 200. Jason Calacanis (00:06:22): Now the weekends are kinda weird. in terms of reporting. But the 7 day average today is at 248. In other words, it's been flat. for a month when you do this on this according to the New York Times statistics and Google you can search for Google, and and you'll find these have some great data. that they'll just put right in the search result. However, cases have gone from this 12, 15 k a day average soaring in just 30 days to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:49): 62,000 Jason Calacanis (00:06:51): a day and a 7 day average of 40,000. So we're basically triple the number of cases cases trail traditionally deaths by something in the neighborhood of 10 days. I think I'm correct, Friedberg. So what do you think is actually going to happen here? We're gonna we're gonna get up to 10 a 100,000, 200,000 cases a day. and maybe double the number of deaths from the people who are not vaccinated? David Friedberg (00:07:16): Yeah. You know, the current logic on this is that there will be because of the number of people that are generally infected and are spreading what is now and even more infectious variant of COVID, the people that are not vaccinated are starting to get it at a higher rate, and that's where the debts are starting to come from. So, yeah, we will see deaths climb. And I think like we talked about last time, we're starting to see even Gavin did an interview yesterday in California talking about how you know, there it's on the table that we may go back to certain restrictions, behavioral restrictions, mask mandates, etcetera. So there's gonna be a set of reactions. And I think as we talked about last time, we saw the market start to react to the potential of that on Monday. and then very interestingly kind of reversed course up to Tuesday and everything came back when everyone was freaked out on Monday after they saw the weekend's data, which showed that cases are climbing like crazy in the US But I think the conventional wisdom is not that many people are gonna die. Therefore, we're not gonna see, you know, political leaders force restrictions that are kind of gonna damage the economy, and we're gonna start to walk what I think Israel's calling the golden line. which is balancing the economy with the the health of the citizenries. So so, you know, we'll we'll see. It's gonna come down to policy, but I think from perspective, there will absolutely be a rise in deaths now as unvaccinated people are the gonna be the bulk of those deaths, and and this thing is spreading again amongst people that haven't been vaccinated. Jason Calacanis (00:08:47): Well and then, Sachs, this becomes now a great raw shock test of what do you see in this data and in this moment because it's a pandemic as many people are saying now. I think this is becoming the meme or the catchphrase. It's a pandemic of the unvaccinated. So people have chosen to opt in to this pandemic, and then a group of us have chosen to not be part of it. You were part of it even as a vaccinated person, but you're feeling great. You're back to a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:15): 100%. Jason Calacanis (00:09:17): So what do you think should happen in terms of closings or shutdowns or mask mandates? What's your take on the pandemic of the unvaccinated? David Sacks (00:09:30): Well, I think we need to differentiate between public policy and private behavior. So, you know, after last week's episode where I said, you know, Delta variance real, there's gonna be huge spike in cases. Unfortunately, I thought we had this thing whipped, you know, a few weeks ago. Now I think the data is showing something different. You know, everyone there there's a lot of commenters saying, sacks, you've turned, you've been blue pilled, No. It's you know, I I think there's a difference between acknowledging what's going on and then having the the policy conversation around it. I think the the difference now from last year I mean, there's a couple of things. One is that we do have vaccines. So I think for most people getting vaccinated will take the worst risks off the table. The other is we know so much more about what works and what doesn't work. And so lockdowns don't work if, you know, if they ever did. They they they they they they we now know looking at from what different states did last year that they don't make a difference. So there's no reason to go back to that policy. But, also, I mean, I would even say on mass, it should be Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:33): -- Jason Calacanis (00:10:33): Wait. Wait. Do we know that? I mean, is that -- I think so. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:35): -- Jason Calacanis (00:10:36): be sure of that? David Sacks (00:10:37): Yeah. I think so. Because the thing that the government planners never take into account is that private citizens are gonna adjust their behavior in both directions. So in Florida, they didn't have mandates, but people who are at risk took, you know, extreme precautions. They would either lock themselves down or be very fastidious about wearing a high quality mask. By contrast, in California, we had the most severe lockdowns, but they were never really feasible. So there's ten pages of exceptions. People didn't really abide by them. And then on top of it, you know, you have all these mask mandates, but if somebody wears, like, a a sock loosely a fix to their face, does that really protect them? You know? So, you know, people if they're if they're not interested in complying with these mandates, they do it in a halfhearted way. I'm not convinced that the mandates work in the first place. So the the smart thing to do here is just to have recommendations and let private citizens decide what their response is gonna be. We know now so much more about the risks that we all face than we did a year ago. And so just let private citizens decide. I mean, I'd even say on on vaccines. I mean, look, I'm pro vaxx. I don't really understand where the anti vaxx people are coming from. But I'm kinda done wasting my breath trying to convince people to get vaccinated, you know, on this show who don't wanna get vaccinated. You know? If they don't want to send those doses to the developing world, Were they're desperate for them? Jason Calacanis (00:12:01): Let me ask you, Tremoth. Do you do you agree with Saks's position that list and citizens? They're just gonna have to make their own decision here, leave everything open. and let's not have the economy collapse again and people people are smart enough to make their own decision. And is this framing of This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated the correct framing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:20): Wow. I'm I'm really of 2 minds. There's there's the part of me that says that you have to give people the right to make their own decision. The problem is that in this specific case, there's so much transmissibility. And As a result of that, how this thing can mutate that I think that public health has Jason Calacanis (00:12:43): to take a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:43): priority over any individual individual's rights. In in this very specific narrow, narrow case, Jason Calacanis (00:12:52): Because the delta variant is so transmissible, people are going to have to lose some freedoms. Is one of those showing a vaccine card when you go to When we Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:04): need that you wouldn't need that if everybody was vaccinated or you had to go through a lot of hoops to be unvaccinated as an example. I mean and and the reason is because the longer you allow this thing to float around in the petri dish of the unvaccinated, you're increasing everybody's risk. And this is where I think individual Friedberg, as long as there's a trample on collective freedom, then I think live and let live. But I think on this specific issue, I think that it's it's unconscionable to be in a situation where we are fighting basically a time function where at a certain amount of time, you're going to have a variant that that is basically will overcome all the vaccines we have will kill enormous numbers of people, including the vaccinated, will literally shut the economy down. And that's a probabilistic event now. And I don't like the fact that I'm susceptible to that because of a bunch of people who frankly aren't doing it for medical or religious reasons they're just watching Fox News and just spouting off. David Sacks (00:14:11): I agree that we're at risk there, but we're also at risk from accident unvaccinated people in the rest of the world. So Delta variant came from India, the Lambda variant, I think, the wrong came from Peru. I mean, the fact of the matter is unvaccinated people everywhere or a potential petri dish for the virus. So I'd rather I mean, this is why we need to send those unused doses that, by the way, are at risk of expiring We now I mean, there was a a tweet about this recently. There's huge stockpiles of vaccine in the US that are going to waste right now. We should ship those anywhere in the world that people are ready to get vaccinated. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:43): -- Jason Calacanis (00:14:43): to Mexico and Canada. And Canada's, I think, this month going to even though we got off to a massive head start, gonna eclipse us in terms of the percentage vaccinated. Let me ask it more pointedly. Should a tea should teachers be public school teachers be forced to be vaccinated? Should you be forced to have a vaccine card to get on public transportation airplanes or, you know, take buses, you know, long haul buses, long haul trains. And then third, should you be forced to show a vaccine card to get on to go to sporting events or concerts. Let's go through those 3. So your personal freedom ends, you're going to be forced Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:24): If you Jason Calacanis (00:15:25): wanna go to group behaviors. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:26): Yes. If you wanna participate in a public construct, if you wanna consume a public resource or if you wanna provide a publicly funded good, then it's the broader public's rights that are superior to your individual rights. Otherwise, work at a charter school where it's not required, watch the fucking concert from home, or drive your car, use a bicycle, or take an Uber. the end. Saks. Jason Calacanis (00:15:51): What do you think? And then Friedberg. David Sacks (00:15:53): So I I understand that argument. I would differentiate between public and and private requirements. because I I don't like the idea of giving government the power to forcibly stick a needle in your arm. So Jason Calacanis (00:16:06): Well, what Chamath said, you could stay home where you could take your bicycle. David Sacks (00:16:09): Well, sure. Jason Calacanis (00:16:09): So -- Is that reasonable that you don't get to go to a warriors game because you're on and Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:14): -- Jason Calacanis (00:16:14): Yeah. David Sacks (00:16:14): I I think, you know, the the Warriors stadium is is privately owned. The team is private. So I think the I think that private companies should be able to set up their own rules for the benefit of their employees and customers. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:25): -- Jason Calacanis (00:16:26): airlines? because that is, you know, a gay it's there's a limited number of them David Sacks (00:16:31): Yeah. I think so. Jason Calacanis (00:16:32): airlines should be able to force it. Now what about school teachers? David Sacks (00:16:35): Should they force -- They can't force it, but they can set the requirements for you to board their planes. You know? Jason Calacanis (00:16:40): Okay. Now what about public schools? Should if let's do teachers and students. Should teachers be forced to get a vaccine if they wanna come in because you said if they don't come to work in the fall on a couple episodes back, you're fired. David Sacks (00:16:53): Well, why wouldn't they wanna get vaccine. The whole debate with the teachers' unions was that they wanted to be at the front of the line for vaccines, which isn't an issue anymore because we have so many. So I don't think that's a serious Now now requiring the kids to get vaccinated is that that would be the real policy question. And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:09): -- Jason Calacanis (00:17:09): Well, let's tackle both. Should teachers be forced to get the vaccine? Yes or no? David Friedberg (00:17:14): You just kinda brushed over -- Yeah. You put Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:16): -- -- David Friedberg (00:17:16): force force no. I mean, I think it's important to just and to just, you know, pinpoint this, like, forcing teachers to get vaccinated in order to, you know, work at the school, I I just wanna highlight the precedent it sets, right, which is you know, you just said you don't want the government to tell people that they have to go get a shot in their arm. If someone has a a personal choice, that they don't wanna get that shot. Does that mean then that they, you know, should lose their job as a public servant? David Sacks (00:17:45): Well, no. I mean, no. I'm I'm saying that look. I I I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:49): -- David Friedberg (00:17:49): You said it's not a big deal, but, like, if there's 1 or 2 teachers that say, you know what? It is a big deal to me. I have a different a set of reasons why I don't wanna get shot. David Sacks (00:17:56): I I I think those teachers, that's an assumption of risk. I mean, if they've decided they're gonna assume the risk, then, you know, don't come crying to us when they get sick Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:05): -- David Friedberg (00:18:05): Well, the argument is that they're gonna be the the vector of exposure, right, that they Jason Calacanis (00:18:09): can potentially -- -- petri dishes as they're talking about. David Friedberg (00:18:11): They get they could be the vector that gets kids sick. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:13): in all of these situations, there's an always a very obvious and justifiable exemption for religious and medical reasons. to not be vaccinated. Not just for this, but for anything else. So I struggle to understand why all of a sudden people who don't have a fucking clue about science are all of a sudden, these armchair scientists who can judge whether or not a vaccine is appropriate for them, where they probably already gave vaccines of all other kinds to their kids and themselves. They probably take all other kinds of advice from doctors. But on this one specific issue, they narrowly say, you know what? I'm an expert enough because I'm watching this television show I've made a decision. That to me makes no sense. David Sacks (00:18:57): Yeah. Look. I I actually agree with you. I'm in the camp of that everybody barring some you know, highly specific medical condition that renders you ineligible should be getting vaccinated. So I agree with you about what the right answer is. but I do think that when it comes to government, it's it's a more complicated question about how much power you give to government to force people to engage in you know, behavior they don't want to engage in. Can you catch them? Private organizations are different. Jason Calacanis (00:19:28): Right? We will agree on private organizations, but we we do have to make some decisions on public transportation. And we do have to make decisions about teachers, and we're gonna have to make decisions on students. So could you bench the teachers who or or otherwise penalize them who are not vaccinated. You know? There are sometimes where, you know, a cop or A teacher is put in a you know, not in the classroom, not on the beat for whatever reasons, sometimes disciplinary, but for other reasons. Could you just say, listen, if you're not gonna get vaccinated, you're going to not be in the classroom. You're not gonna you'll be a remote teacher. And we're just gonna create 2 classes here. I don't I don't think I don't David Sacks (00:20:08): I don't think there are many teachers who don't wanna get vaccinated. But but I Look, I think the virus is everywhere now. It's just endemic and so to single out like one particular group and say, you're gonna Jason Calacanis (00:20:20): wake yourself up. keep you down on your opinion. So you're saying, teacher should not be forced. David Sacks (00:20:24): I'm saying that I mean, if they work at a private school, the private school could definitely require it. Jason Calacanis (00:20:29): We're talking about public only now. We all agree on private. So you were saying Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:32): -- Jason Calacanis (00:20:32): I think it's a really cool -- -- down on Yeah. David Sacks (00:20:34): I think it's a really complicated question because I think there are clear public health benefits to everyone getting backdated. I also don't really like empowering government to force you. Because look. It's like everything else. The government may be right in this particular case, but what else is it gonna do with that power? And, you know, I don't like giving government that power. So look. It's a complicated question. I don't you know, it's not I would I would probably air on the side of not letting government force people to do it. But but I've been look. I I think it's a close call. I do think it's a close call. Jason Calacanis (00:21:06): Jamath force the teachers to get vaccinated or not? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:09): Yes. And the reason is because these kids are already being left behind even when school is functioning normally. and you can see it in the test scores. You can see it in our readiness. You can see it in our ability to actually do the jobs that are required. We are not doing what we need to do as it is in the absence of a pandemic. And now you introduce a reason for folks to basically check out and not appear, I what do you guys guess? How how many years were lost in these 15 months when kids were at home? I would say not 15 months. No. It's more. 2 years, two and a half years, three years Jason Calacanis (00:21:53): to fill a messy, architectural scoring depending on what grade they What did did did your kids miss graduation? Did they miss senior prom? Did they miss their SATs? I mean, what did they miss in terms of -- Yeah. I mean, to to my Turmata is David Sacks (00:22:05): a good point, which is that if that that when government is the employer, requiring it on their employees because it leads to better outcomes for that institution. That is a little different than government just mandating that you, Jason Calkano's private citizen, have to go get a shot in your arm. Right? I mean so there there is a slight difference there. Like, military, for instance. Right? The military probably wants to vaccinate everybody so that if they need to be ready for a combat situation -- Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:22:36): -- David Sacks (00:22:36): they're not, like, you know, incapacitated by an outbreak of COVID. Right? So I can I I I think they're you know, we're getting into shades of gray here from a polling policy perspective. You know, I I I don't want teachers missing school because, you know, for weeks of time, because they didn't do the obvious thing in COVID vaccine. So look. I I think there are some really good policy arguments there. But I think, again, the the the one place where I'd say government is clearly overstepping is if they just said, listen. you, private citizen, not an employee of the government, has to go get vaccinated. As much as I would like everyone to to to get vaccinated I don't wanna give government that kind of power. Jason Calacanis (00:23:17): President Biden could legally require military members to get vaccinated, but so far he has declined to do so July 9th, New York Times. Friedberg, where do you stand on this? Tremat says, he's all in. You're a teacher. You get vaccinated at the end. Sachs is kinda close but is a little concerned. What do you say, Friedberg? David Friedberg (00:23:37): I mean, another way to frame it is that there's a new qualification for a job Like, you know, there's qualification to be in the military. You have to have certain physical capabilities. Jason, I don't know if you would qualify. I don't think I would. I don't think I can do, like Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:52): -- Jason Calacanis (00:23:53): For for totally different reasons. Your inability to fight or throw a punch would be Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:58): No. Maybe Jay Cal could eat the enemy. Jason Calacanis (00:24:00): Oh, yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:02): Trust me. Jason Calacanis (00:24:03): I would be great in the military. I'm a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:05): -- Jason Calacanis (00:24:05): He'd be David Sacks (00:24:05): he'd be, like, La Menza. He'd be cooking the balls or something. Jason Calacanis (00:24:10): Private Joker. Private mile, a doughnut. David Friedberg (00:24:14): There's the re I think the reason there's sensitivity to it is because there are existing teachers in jobs. And then you're telling them that in order to keep your job, you have to go get a vaccine. Now if we were to if we were to have 0 teachers today, and we were starting a public school system from scratch. And you said, here's one of the qual find criteria to be up to a school teacher. You have to have an education degree. You have to have maybe a master's degree in education. You have to have appropriate qualifications and training and certification. oh, and by the way, you also have to have a vaccine. If that becomes a criteria, I think people find it less offensive. It's the fact that we are now saying, that there are people that are being told that you have to go get a shot in order to keep your job. And that's the complicating thing that I think people are trying to wade through. I don't think Jason Calacanis (00:24:59): I I David Friedberg (00:24:59): don't think that if you were to say, like, look, it's obvious that the qualifying criteria to be in the military is you have to be able to run and do push ups or or whatever the the criteria might be. But if you impose that on people that were already in the military and then you're gonna kick a bunch of them out, people would be up in arms about it. Yes. Jason Calacanis (00:25:14): If you have PMI, requirements. Yeah. And that David Friedberg (00:25:16): that and that's the concern, I think, that arises with, you know, imposing these kind of, you know, personal body criteria upon, you know, specific jobs when people are already employed in that job. And it's there there's there's absolutely no answer. Right? Like, if you're gonna do it, you're gonna have incredible backlash and trouble and pain. And if you were to and and we're not in a circumstance where we can build these organizations and these institutions from scratch. David Sacks (00:25:42): Look. There's a lot of social issues where, you know, particularly on the liberal side, people do not want the government prohibiting them from getting certain medical procedures. Right? Well, You know, I'd say it's even more invasive. Jason Calacanis (00:25:58): Are you talking about people transitioning? David Sacks (00:26:00): Or, you know, or the issue of abortion, you know, very hot button social issues where people are saying, the government should not have the right to legislate what happens with what Jason Calacanis (00:26:09): happens with Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:09): -- -- David Friedberg (00:26:10): with toll free goods. Yeah. David Sacks (00:26:11): What happens with my body. Right? Well, force it you know, giving government the power to forcibly inject you with something is, you know, that is that is invasive. And So I do think there are, like, rights implications to that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:25): But I wanna be very clear. If you want the services that are offered to you by the collective whole. If you wanna consume and be a net drag on the resources that we share, then you need to sign up for the compact that we all sign up for. That's that's my over arching argument. The the the thing with abortion where I'm on the other side of the issue, just to be very clear, is like, It is a woman's body. I don't think I have any right to dictate what she does. I don't understand what she goes through, I don't understand what situation she's in. I don't think I have the judgment to do that. It should -- And it doesn't have an Jason Calacanis (00:27:10): impact on the collective Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:11): And her decision to carry or not carry a baby doesn't theoretically come with a probabilistic chance that I may die It does not. Right. But when you choose to not get vaccinated to a highly transmissible respiratory disease that could kill me Jason Calacanis (00:27:28): Or mutate Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:29): I'm not saying that I have a say, but I do think I should have a say if you're then all of a sudden gonna consume the same resources that I consume where I've signed up to that compact for public health Jason Calacanis (00:27:38): based on all this, here's where I come to. What if we gave teachers an off ramp? Listen. If you you you need to be vaccinated to be in the classroom. If not, You're gonna get a 1 year buyout or whatever 1 month or 2 months for every year of service. So if you've been with us for 20 years, you're gonna get 20 months of pay. And or you could say if the virus is spreading at under this rate, in other words, you know, we we got under 1% of the population infected or whatever, the the criteria is then you can come to work in the classroom. But if this thing is spreading, you're out, and that's it. And there's an off ramp here to to David's point. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:15): Unless there's a narrow like, look, I I do think you can be a conscientious objection for legitimate reasons. Again, Like, we we have these very specific definitions for religious or for health specific reasons that you that you don't get vaccinated I think those should be respected. It's not that cohort of people we're talking about. It's everybody else that right now wants to not think for themselves And as a result, put everybody else and themselves in danger. Yeah. David Sacks (00:28:42): There there I I think the most compelling part of your argument, Jmoth, is that we're is the health externality. Right? That that that each person's decision does have an impact on whether they could be transmitting, you know, multiplicative, contagious particles. And this is why I was in favor of a mask mandate at the pandemic is it's not just an individual decision. Your your choice actually does affect whether other people get sick. So, you know, this is why I I do think it's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:13): -- Jason Calacanis (00:29:13): It also wasn't very evasive. Correct, Saxx? I mean, was your other point? David Sacks (00:29:17): Yes. Exactly. potentially high benefit for very low cost. I think we're but but but the thing that maybe I didn't necessarily take into consideration is you know, people complied in such a half hearted way. I mean, I do think the mass makes a difference if it's an n ninety five quality mass that you put on correctly. Right? Jason Calacanis (00:29:36): Correct. David Sacks (00:29:36): But when people just strap a sock to their face, it's loosely fitting, and they don't give a shit, I mean, does that really make a difference? I mean, I'm very let Jason Calacanis (00:29:44): me ask you a question, Saxx, and then we'll go to Friedberg, and then we'll flip to the next topic. If we were on our 3rd pandemic, our our let's god forbid. second pandemic starts, a totally different one, you know, Ebola type or something. And we're on the 5th variant, and people are dying at a higher rate. Does your calculus change Saks? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:03): Because the cons -- David Sacks (00:30:04): Because the the the downsides, the the cost of you know, not not imposing those more restrictive regulations goes up considerably. I mean, definitely, my thinking today is highly influenced by the fact that that if you're vaccinated, you're, call it, 95% likely to be taking the most deadly or serious risk off the table. And so the people who are choosing not to get vaccinated are essentially assuming the risk. You know? It's like it's like smoking in a way where when I made the movie think for smoking, Christopher Buckley told me, you know, he's the author of the book. And he said, look, there's something uniquely American about defending people's right to do something that's manifestly harmful. Right? You the the main character And thank you for smoking as a spokesman for a big tobacco, and he's engaging in political spin, but his argument is, look, people have the right to engage in this behavior even if it is know to be harmful to them. Maybe America is the only place in the world where people buy into arguments like that, but I do I you know, look, that is that is that's freedom. As many people do stupid things. You know? And and so we have to weigh the benefits of of freedom against the the against the cost. And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:19): By the way sorry. Can I just say something? smoking is a perfect example because as you know, there is now a nontrivial amount of law around the liability related to individuals that enabled secondhand smoke. Both the smoker, but also other things, condo boards, other places where all of a sudden you didn't choose to fucking have, you know, tar and nicotine -- Right. -- Bartan. Jason Calacanis (00:31:45): It was my dad worked in bars where it was a cloud of smoke for 30 years. 30 years. David Sacks (00:31:51): Right. Jason Calacanis (00:31:51): They told him he was essentially a smoker. David Friedberg (00:31:53): It's not it's not just the detrimental activity at the time. Remember, we've socialized the cost of treatment for people through public health systems. And because of that, it's not just an individual's choice if there is a socialized cost for everyone that's now gotta pay the price. David Sacks (00:32:10): But the the government is so omnipresent in all of our lives, there's always gonna be a social cost to any bad choice people make. And to to Moss's point, I mean, everybody uses government services to some degree. So that alone can't be the reason. I I do agree that the -- Well, no. Jason Calacanis (00:32:24): But there are some outrageous behavior, David. What about people speeding on highways at a twenty five miles an hour. Like, it's the same thing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:30): -- David Sacks (00:32:30): legal. That's illegal. But but I think I think Shamonta is right that the smoking example is a good one because we do regulate secondhand smoke because there's an externality. There's a health externality to everybody else if you smoke in a public place and so we restrict that. But We don't make smoking illegal. We don't stop you from doing it in your own homes Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:48): -- David Sacks (00:32:48): Yep. -- or in private places. And the argument is, listen, if you wanna do something that's harmful, primarily to you, that's your choice as an American. You know? And I know people a lot of people don't like that. Actually, this is the This I posted a tweet that I got Jason Calacanis (00:33:03): attacked for. an opinion is wrong doesn't mean it should be censored. Just because the behavior is harmful, doesn't mean It should be prohibited just because something is beneficial doesn't mean it should be required. David Sacks (00:33:16): Right. Jason Calacanis (00:33:17): It's a completely reasonable tweet. David Sacks (00:33:19): Yeah. I thought it was a pretty inoffensive, Anadine tweet just reminding people that just because Again, something is is positive doesn't mean you force people to do it. And just because some behavior is harmful, you don't you don't ban it, I think smoking is a a great example of that. Right? We let people engage in behavior that's harmful to them because freedom is a value in and of itself. For this, I was attacked as a selfish asshole by by this other pod. And I I really A Jason Calacanis (00:33:49): power swisher and Professor Coltag? Exactly. Professor what? Cole takes that literally made an index of all of Professor g's you know, takes that Macy's would be incredible and Amazon will lose its money and yada yada. He's kind of obsessed with you too, Chamath Progy. Yeah. Who just got a show canceled on Bloomberg. But they were a little Cara Swisher was called Saxx an asshole. David Sacks (00:34:13): Well, triggered. It was bizarre that they would get so triggered by this inoffensive tweet. But I think what you see here is an example of the way that the woke mind thinks, which is Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:24): Well, hold on. I I don't think Kara's woke. David Sacks (00:34:26): Are you kidding me? She she's like the she's like the madam DuFarge or the woke revolution and she's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:31): -- David Sacks (00:34:31): Who's getting defarge? Madam Madam Madam Du Farge was this character in the French revolution who had nipped the names of the next person to be guillotined. And she she was, you know, one of the the the leaders of the Sands Q Lots. No. Look. Kara is constantly ginning up the mob to try and, you know, guillotine some non non non woke person. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:50): I don't think that that's true. Jason Calacanis (00:34:52): That's true. I think she's kinda mobbery. David Sacks (00:34:53): You're trying to you're trying to curry favor with her so you Jason Calacanis (00:34:56): don't -- No. We're not. No. No. I mean, she did get it right. You are an asshole. I mean -- You are an asshole. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:00): She got that. She got that Jason Calacanis (00:35:01): right, but you're not old and failing. Well, you are kind of old. You looked old. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:04): -- you look old. She's David Sacks (00:35:05): effectively saying we're all assholes because I think all of us have talked about Jason Calacanis (00:35:10): the need -- -- assholes. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:10): I'm an asshole. Jason Calacanis (00:35:11): Yeah. I love it. Own it. Okay. David Sacks (00:35:14): What which Jason Calacanis (00:35:14): is not a liner. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:16): What's your other choice? Being a whiner on the sidelines? David Sacks (00:35:19): What we've said on the show is that we have a moral imperative to get to get back to normal. Do we not? That is what we've said. And for that, she's basically saying that that is a let them meet COVID position. right, that we are basically we don't care if people get sick and die because of COVID. That's not true. You know, we just have about give a balance Jason Calacanis (00:35:38): for you. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:39): I think we should make people get vaccinated. Jason Calacanis (00:35:43): Yeah. You're pretty close to getting people vaccinated. I asked you, Saks, if there were 3 more variants, and this was an acute situation. You said you would force David Sacks (00:35:51): Oh, look. If we if we had if we had a a variant of COVID that was as deadly as Ebola and as transmissible as Delta variant, it 100% changes the game. There's no question Jason Calacanis (00:36:02): about it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:02): -- Jason Calacanis (00:36:02): willing to change the government's ability to put a shot on based on Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:06): -- David Sacks (00:36:06): It's a benefit cost. It's a yes. It's a benefit analysis. Jason Calacanis (00:36:10): And That's reasonable. David Sacks (00:36:11): But, look, I give freedom a lot of weight, and part of my calculation is the fact that I can get vaccinated to take to most likely take the most serious risk off the table. So while I I am impacted to some degree by other people's choices, I'm much less impacted now that we have Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:29): -- But you're you're thinking about this. You're I still have a problem with the way you're thinking about this because you're using you're viewing this as a linear problem. This thing is transmutating. And so David Sacks (00:36:39): you have to -- -- off, but there's still billions of people all over the world who are unvaccinated. And we'd be better off focusing on getting them a marshal plan for the vaccines. All these unused doses, we're wasting our breath in the United States, trying to get these vaccine hesitant or anti vaxx people to get vaccinated. David Friedberg (00:36:56): Do you guys see that Emmanuel Macron of France You know, basically tightened all these restrictions around access to public places, going into bars and cafes. They basically put all these rules in place that you have to be and he did it in a public address on TV. 22,000,000 people watched it. Yep. And then after he did this, suddenly, the vaccination sign ups went up to, like, 20,000 a minute. They got million people sign up to that get vaccinated. Yep. Jason Calacanis (00:37:23): You have to make the difference between the boys. I mean, in France, what's the point of being alive? David Friedberg (00:37:27): And then let me throw a wet blanket on the framing of this on whether all of this talk about forcing vaccinations even make sense or is possible. I have been to, like, 3 events over the last month or 2 where I was required to be vaccinated, and I literally just took a photo of this index card that I got from this person and sent it to them, which I could go make at Kinkos or I could print it home. It's a lot of effort. There's I I don't my my point is I don't think that there's not a great digital system today to enable the level of restriction that we're actually talking about. How are you actually gonna know that people going to the Warriors game are actually vaccinated? How are you actually gonna know Jason Calacanis (00:38:06): They did it at Madison Square Garden. They they literally had you pull out your ID, and they matched your name to your card, and I think printing out a vaxx card and faking it. If I if I care be a fine. Could be a $10,000 fine. And so you would do it like anything else. You could you could you could make a bogus driver's license. David Friedberg (00:38:22): My point is that it's not digital. Right? There's no there's no kind of centralized system where we know who's actually been vaccinated and who's not. so much of this is just this, like, analog paper trail thing of, like, here's this piece of paper that says I'm vaccinated. I think that you're you're never gonna really close the hole on this thing. Now you certainly will see the sort of psychological behavior that they saw in France, which is you just announced the restrictions, you announced these rules, everyone signs up, or some number of people will sign up. But, you know, I'm not sure this actually ends up becoming this truly enforceable mechanism of behavior in in society over the next, you know, short while. I mean, maybe over time, we digitize all this stuff, but we'll see. David Sacks (00:38:57): Yeah. I mean, the best the best case scenario is that because Delta is so transmissible, we get to herd immunity all the people who didn't get vaccinated just get it and get the natural anti bodies and hopefully this thing hurts Jason Calacanis (00:39:08): that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:08): -- Jason Calacanis (00:39:08): are we to that? because we have 60% of adults in the United States have had one shot or more, which is why deaths probably aren't going up because that's, like, 75% in people over 60, I think. So, Friedberg, in your estimation as our science guy, with what we have, like, 30 million people who've been infected. that we know of, you gotta triple that number. Right? because there's people who we don't know, and then you have 65 you have 60%. So we we gotta be in the range of 70% have been exposed or been vaccinated. So when does it kick in? Or are we experiencing, you know, herd immunity right now with these low death David Friedberg (00:39:44): we talked about this before, but there are you know, there's a spectrum of infection. Right? You're you're you're you you can have viral replication happening in your body, and then your body clears out the virus before you even know because you've got enough antibodies to that particular strain of a variant of a virus, before your body even, you know, you start to feel symptoms. And there are cases where the virus kind of replicates in an uncontrolled way for a period of time, and you have incredibly symptoms and you have inflammation and all the stuff that follows. And so, you know, in terms of how you measure this stuff, it's really difficult to say that you're gonna stop all viral replication by getting a certain number of people to be to have been exposed. As we've seen, even when you have a broad and diverse antibody pool in your body because you've been exposed to a vaccine, we are still seeing that some of these variants can break through for some period of time because there's not enough of the antibodies that can actually bind to that specific variant. And so the rate of transmission slows, the rate of severe infection goes way down and so on. So it's not as binary as, hey. We hit herd immunity, and now we're done. It it seems this is you know, as we talked about earlier, and as I think everyone is coming to terms with this is gonna be an endemic virus, and that means that it's gonna be circulating in the population in the modest way causing sometimes severe, sometimes you know, modest outbreaks for likely a very long time, no matter how many people get it, no matter how many people get vaccinated because you have different strengths. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:15): -- Jason Calacanis (00:41:15): level should we ignore it? At what level should we just say? Listen. That is the steady state. How many cases a day? How many debts a day do you think is the steady state that we should just say, we just go to work and ignore it. David Friedberg (00:41:27): I am a brutal, cold hearted libertarian on this point, and I have been since we've first talked about this last year. I've always been of the mind that we need to balance the the the follow on life effect from the economic fallout associated with making certain behavioral changes and restrictions relative to the actual loss of life. Right? So you can never go I I I I really think this point about 0ism and this term about 0ism is an important one. You can never get to 0 cases. What is the acceptable number of cases and what is the cost to keep that case load down. The balance of those 2 is a very difficult leadership decision. Put a number on it. it's about saving lives. Right? So, like, there are a certain number of people whose lives are gonna be ruined, who are some of them will commit suicide. Some of them won't be able to earn an income again. Their businesses are gonna get shut down. What is the economic cost of that versus the economic cost of the loss of life versus Jason Calacanis (00:42:20): the people? What's the number we had an average of 250 death Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:24): 250,000 Jason Calacanis (00:42:25): case, known cases a day at the peak. We had a a peak deaths of 41100 a day. We are now at two hundred people dying a day and, you know, 30,000 cases. Is there a number at which you say, let's just focus on getting back to work? And is that number where we are now? I'm trying to get an -- So I Yeah. David Friedberg (00:42:43): Again, I wouldn't simplify it to those data points. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:46): What I David Friedberg (00:42:46): would do is -- Do Jason Calacanis (00:42:47): we simplify it? David Friedberg (00:42:47): Again, I would look at, you know, at what age are people dying? How many life years are we losing? And how can we address the acute populations that are at risk and the acute populations that are that are potentially gonna be exposed, manage those populations differently than you manage the broader population that a lower likelihood of risk of of death and a lower likelihood of fatality. And the restrictions that you then impose to, you know, start to manage the risk and the exposure to different populations gets weighed against the saving of life and the loss of life in both circumstances. So it's it's not easy. Right? It's it's and everyone wants to sum this whole thing up to, like, how many deaths a day is appropriate? That's not the right answer. Right? Because Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:23): -- Jason Calacanis (00:43:24): Well, you're saying how many David Sacks (00:43:26): That part of it is so obvious, right, that and we we should have known this last summer. The the obvious part being that what you wanna do is focus your prevention on the part of the population that's the most at risk. And what do we do with lockdowns? We literally locked down the entire population every business. It was completely insane. We should have focused it on protecting the most at risk populations, isolating the sick or the people at greatest risk, not everybody. It was just insane. And, I mean, I can't believe we're still having that conversation a year later. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:58): Can I before we move on to the next topic, can I Jason Calacanis (00:44:01): can I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:01): read the best Can I read the best best comment from Saks's tweet? So Saks's tweet, because an opinion is wrong, doesn't mean it should be censored. just because a behavior is harmful doesn't mean it should be prohibited and just because something is beneficial doesn't mean it should be required. The best response goes to distantly social rumpole whose full name is at Wendellshirk, who said, This message brought to you by the generic self serving platitude alert network. We now return you to your regularly scheduled episode of the Bland so Oprah with the Pablo Sisters. David Sacks (00:44:38): Well, yeah, I look. There there there's there's an element of truth to that, which is I I I almost didn't tweet him as I thought it was too much of a plot. tude. But the fact that people on the other side got so triggered by it shows why it was actually useful to to tweet it is they think that if you're calling for any modicum of freedom or return to normalcy, you're basically a selfish asshole. I mean, it's insane. I mean, they want to stay in this world of 0 s COVID restrictions forever. Jason Calacanis (00:45:08): We gotta move on. We're 45 minutes into COVID, so we gotta move on. But I think if this is in the influenza plus or minus a 100% zone, we gotta pick a number where we decide we're moving forward as a society. And, you know, local communities can make decisions if they have outbreaks. But I kinda think if this is within you know, 2 x of our yearly debts from, you know, influenza and just the normal cold. I think we move forward. as best we can. Do we wanna go to China, Cuba? David Friedberg (00:45:39): I think just real quick, before we move away from this, I really wanna just highlight the deep mind announcement from this morning because I think actually quite relevant to the tracking of variants and what's been going on. Jason Calacanis (00:45:49): Okay. David Friedberg (00:45:50): So this morning, you know, deep mind which public alpha fold. We talked about this a few -- Do Jason Calacanis (00:45:56): you mind it's all by Google? It's their AI arm. David Friedberg (00:45:58): It's it's an AI arm owned by Google, and they they basically took protein structure and Friedberg to predict what a protein looks like physically as a function of the DNA or RNA that codes the amino acids that make up the protein. And so, again, like, when you have a string of amino acids, they they combine and they fold into a wave. It's really hard to predict, and that's the shape of the molecule that we call the protein, and then it does something in the body. And historically, we've had very hard times understanding how genetic code translates into physical structure of protein, which would allow us to predict what that protein can then do. in the body. So this morning, deep mind, incredibly published a database, would be predicted structure of every protein in the human body and in 10 other species using this this capability that they now have. Jason Calacanis (00:46:45): What does it mean in English? David Friedberg (00:46:47): And so, you know, what this means is we now have a a physical model of every protein that human DNA can make, and that model would allow us to basically now predict what that protein does how it does it, and how certain drugs can bind to those proteins, and how certain drugs can affect those proteins, and how we can alter human health by making new molecules or adjusting the genetic code to change the shape of those proteins in specific and targeted ways. So it's an incredible dataset that was just published. It's almost like, you know, releasing the Rosetta Stone, in my opinion. in terms of we now have this ability to translate human genetic code into the physical form of the molecules that run our body and do things in our body. They did it for 10 other species, and they said that they're gonna publish this proteome database and scale it for all other species of wipes that we have the sort of dataset around. for which they expect will achieve over a 100,000,000 unique proteins in this database over the coming months, freely available at searchable. let me just explain and I I know I'm on a monologue here, so I'll win the monologue status. Jason Calacanis (00:47:50): That's a good one. It's a good one. David Friedberg (00:47:51): But let me just explain why this is relevant. The delta variant What it is is that, you know, the the the SARS CoV 2 RNA sequence is about 30,000 base pairs long. 10% of those are about 3000 base pairs make up spike protein, which is the protein at the tip of the COVID virus, like, the coronavirus that gets into the cells. And you know, for every 10 people that are infected with coronavirus, there's about Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:15): 1 David Friedberg (00:48:16): nucleoside mutation. 1 of those base pairs changes and the the virus evolves. And we don't know how that change in that genetic code translates into a different structure of the protein. And so we suddenly discover empirically and, you know, by looking around, suddenly, all these people are getting more infected than we're getting infected before. we look at the genetic code and we're like, oh, here's the changes that happened. But we could have with this capability from AlphaFold predicted what changes make the spike protein, do a better job binding to human ACE 2 receptors on the cells and getting into cells, and what other changes could be made in the whole genome of the SARS CoV-two virus that could cause this virus to be more transmissible and more deadly, all these sorts of factors because we can now estimate the physical form of that protein by changing the base pair. And so this tool that was released today, I think highlights that over the next decade, These sorts of things that are going on with viruses mutating and variants occurring on that are affecting our population can be better estimated and tracked digitally And it gives us the ability to start to prepare tools and defense mechanisms against them with new drugs and new variant models and new vaccines well ahead of the oh my god. We just got hit with a nuclear bomb. Let's clean up the mess kind of in the future. So it's an exciting day and exciting moment. Jason Calacanis (00:49:36): Would they have been release this, David, if it hadn't been for COVID coming out? Do you think deep mind just pivoted their entire group of because they have about thousand people I understand. And by the way, they pay something in the order of 6 or 700000 a year on average. And there's many people there who are getting paid 1,000,000 of dollars a year, So just think about the scale of what Google is spending on this. You guys know that -- They probably shifted a large number of people to work on this. You noticed I have I David Friedberg (00:50:04): have long deep roots at Google. And -- Yes. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:06): -- David Friedberg (00:50:06): I will tell you that the value system of people there, you know, the press and and the public will think what they want. But I think that the value system of people there drove them to realize the importance of this work that they're doing with alpha fold, and it is important for humanity important for the health broadly of people. They could have kept it all inside and used it to build therapeutic drug companies and make money from that. And I think the importance of this discovery and this capability was was realized and is published for that very reason. There's a lot of work that DeepMind does to optimize ad targeting and ads spending and all this stuff, and they make tens of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:41): 1,000,000,000 David Friedberg (00:50:41): of dollars of incremental revenue for Google per year based on those capabilities. And then there are these things that benefit all of us. And by putting this out publicly, it's a it's a great good for humanity. And, you know, they're they're they're making it freely available and searchable. And so I I I don't think that COVID kind of instigated this. because they've been working on this for a very long time since before COVID. And this is a very hard biological problem that that is key to understanding biology and how biology works that's been going on for decades. They've unlocked it with software, and they're making it freely available. And, you know, there will be hundreds of drug companies that will now start because of what's in that database Jason Calacanis (00:51:16): of a publisher. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:17): -- Jason Calacanis (00:51:17): a this is a mitva to society to humanity. Does it the fact that Google's spending well over a Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:24): $1,000,000,000 Jason Calacanis (00:51:24): a year in deep mind and doing projects like this. Does this change any of your thinking about breaking them up, Chamath? Or you know, how we look at Big Tech? David Friedberg (00:51:32): That's a good question. Jason Calacanis (00:51:33): No? Because -- Where where does that fucking people go from? Yeah. Where does it where does this kinda David Sacks (00:51:38): We learned something very disturbing about Big Tech this week, actually. This is quite a bombshell that Jen Passaki dropped from the White House press briefing. We we we gotta talk about this. She just sort of casually mentioned that, oh, yeah. By the way, the administration is flagging posts for a social media company for Big Tech Companies to take down to remove. Jason Calacanis (00:51:59): Accounts. They they're talking about specific accounts. And and post. Yeah. And she just kind kind David Sacks (00:52:03): of meant just casually mentions, oh, yeah, the big tech companies are very, you know, eagerly cooperating with the administration to take down these accounts accounts. She even said, that when one of these companies takes down an account, the rest should do it too, implying that the White House is providing the central coordinator role in the censorship. Jason Calacanis (00:52:24): Correct? -- block list. David Sacks (00:52:25): Yeah. They're and it can Jason Calacanis (00:52:26): be behind the white house. Let's let's take the most charitable view here. I know that it's very easy to make this a left versus right. their censoring, yadayada, Trump got banned. But if somebody was saying, this was micro this was an account that was claiming that microchips were in the vaccine. Would it not be how would the and it was hitting scale? You know, what would be the way for the White House to inform social media that there was an account that was saying falsely that microchips were in there and that that was trending. David Sacks (00:52:58): Well, the White House search officials are free to put out their statements and their position. But this is different. This is the White House coordinating behind the scenes with Big Tech Companies. Well, Jason Calacanis (00:53:06): they're not behind the scenes. They're saying they're doing it right here to everybody Correct. David Sacks (00:53:10): Correct. The behavior was behind the scenes, but the Passaki just admitted it, which is why it's such a bombshell. Look. Even the ACLU If Jason Calacanis (00:53:16): you were president and there there was an account on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter that was saying there was a microchip from Bill Gates. David Sacks (00:53:23): This is a this is a blatant violation of the people's first amendment rights? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:28): -- Jason Calacanis (00:53:28): then tell them. How would you -- You David Sacks (00:53:29): are allowed. You're the first amendment gives you the right to say things that are untrue. It is not the business of government to declare what is true and what is false. Okay. Even even hopefully, even the ACL I'm not done. Even the ACLU, came out of retirement. We hadn't we haven't heard from them for the last year during any of the years -- Hard Jason Calacanis (00:53:48): to be the ACLU. Yeah. David Sacks (00:53:49): We haven't heard from them during past year. during all of this activity has been going on with accounts being blocked and ghosted, and they finally came out of retirement to say that that this is a dangerous violation of people's first amendment rights. You cannot have the government saying what is true and what is false. And then denying people the right to express their opinions based on what the government thinks is the truth. And, by the way, there's been a very subtle change here in the language that's being used. If you remember what the the argument used to be that we have to stop disinformation. Now it's shifted to if to stop misinformation. So those two things are very different. It's kinda like the well, it's kinda like the difference in the term quality versus equity. They sound similar, but they actually mean very different things. So disinformation is actually a campaign of -- Purposeful. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:42): -- David Sacks (00:54:42): purposeful campaign of propaganda and lies usually put forward covertly. So it's the FSB You were some intelligence agency putting David Friedberg (00:54:51): out -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:54:51): Yeah. Whatever. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:52): -- David Sacks (00:54:52): putting out disinformation usually under false accounts. So in that case, we can say, no. You can't do that because you can't engage in deception around who you are. Right? But misinformation, is simply information that's being put out that frankly you disagree with. Okay? And -- Or Jason Calacanis (00:55:10): it could be discernibly wrong. Wait. You're you're kinda framing that wrong. It could be you're putting out information like there's a microchip in the vaccine that is explicitly known to be wrong. David Sacks (00:55:19): Look. The the the lab leak theory was considered misinformation by these same people 3 months. ago. Jason Calacanis (00:55:24): Okay? Let's take this specific example. There's a microchip. If the if it was the case that they said there's a microchip in the vaccine, would you be okay with the White House contacting social media company saying, hey. You got these accounts that are saying there's a microchip. You might wanna look into it. They're not saying take it down. They're saying take a look into it. David Sacks (00:55:39): That's not the White House's business. Do I believe in the microchip theory? No. Of course. And it's absolutely ridiculous, but it is not the business of Jason Calacanis (00:55:46): government to David Sacks (00:55:47): be telling social media who to ban and who to block list? Jason Calacanis (00:55:51): I think they didn't tell him to ban. I think they told him to be aware of it. Go ahead, Shamoff. I think your framing's wrong, Saxx. Go David Sacks (00:55:56): ahead, Vasaki said that when one site takes it down, they should all take it down. And then Biden on top of it comes out and pours kerosene on the fire by saying that social media sites are literally killing people Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:08): -- David Sacks (00:56:09): Well, yeah. -- by by allowing by allowing this misinformation. So here we have Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:12): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:56:12): gonna see now. Let's be honest. David Sacks (00:56:14): He's a president. This is a president of United States using the bully pulpit to call social media sites mass murderers by virtue of allowing people to have free speech. Trump never used language that intemperate. I don't remember him ever calling Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:28): -- Jason Calacanis (00:56:28): Oh, god. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:28): -- David Sacks (00:56:29): American companies. Jason Calacanis (00:56:29): Let's go ahead, Jamal. Massachusetts speak. Let's about speak. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:32): This is the exact reason you you can't have a strangle hold on distribution because it will get perverted. And then we either have people we like or people we don't like in these positions of power or people we like or people we don't like regulating, and it's constantly flipping, and we're all just doomed and bound to get fucked over. So back to the thing that Friedberg product before, I think Alphafold is incredible. I think Google has been an incredible company. They make money hand over fist They waste an enormous amount of money in all kinds of trash, so it's good that they were actually able to do something useful here. I generally think that companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon unfortunately do not allow the constructive form of capitalism that people want in today's society. Jason Calacanis (00:57:30): They're just too big. David Sacks (00:57:30): Trumpoth makes a great point, which is we got these big tech monopolies who've become gatekeepers over content. Okay? And what the administration has done and Their allies in congress is hang a sword of Damocles over the heads of these big tech companies. They've appointed Lina Khan to be the enforcer at the FTC. They've got their 6 pills in congress right now. They've held congressional hearings around taking away section 230 protection, which is very economically advantageous for these big tech companies. So they position the sword perfectly over the heads of big cut companies threatening to break them up and rein them in. And then Jen Passaki in the White House go to them and say, we want you to take down these accounts that we don't agree with. This is misinformation. Okay? That is a huge danger to free speech. It's basically like the administration saying to these big tech companies, nice little social network you got there. be a real shame if anything happened to it. Look at what's going on. Jason Calacanis (00:58:23): Don't you want them broken up? David Sacks (00:58:25): I do want them broken up, but what I Jason Calacanis (00:58:27): So which is it? Do you want them to hold the sword, or do you not want them to hold the sword? David Sacks (00:58:30): I actually want the sword to come crashing I actually want the sword to Jason Calacanis (00:58:33): go crashing down. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:33): -- Jason Calacanis (00:58:33): swing the sword hold it over and then use it for extortion. Yes. Yes. That's actually a great explanation then. Friedberg. I'm trying to moderate here. Friedberg David Friedberg (00:58:42): I -- Do you -- We've talked about this before. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:45): -- spent all day on his phone. He has not dialed into this podcast. -- guys. Jason Calacanis (00:58:50): I thought we just went over the alpha fold stuff way too fast. I mean, the arguing over freedom of speech is happening, and all of this debate, Friedberg, at the same time, that we are making incredible life changing moments for humanity. 2 different companies went to space last week with civilians. And then we are basically defining the blueprint for the human and every other species on the planet, and we're fighting over people too stupid to take a goddamn vaccine that would save everybody's life and let us continue on, and people are dunking on Bezos for not reading the room. I don't know if you saw this, Friedberg. But how do you think about the space race in relation to reading the room, etcetera? David Friedberg (00:59:40): Progress technologically will only arise with capital. So you can assume that that progress you know, it it it it's not like someone stumbles into a cave and discovered a rocket ship or stumbles into a cave and discovered alpha fold. There are years of toiling in labs like Edison did making the light bulb. it Radisson had to raise a ton of money to get that light bulb project off the ground. If you guys haven't read I'm trying to remember the the biography that's Wizards of something. Was it's got wizards in the title. It's a good biography of medicine. And, you know and and I feel like we're at this moment where Jason Calacanis (01:00:20): The Wizard of Menlo Park? David Friedberg (01:00:21): Yeah. I think that's the the Wizard of Menlo Park. That's right. And and the the amount of capital that it takes to make these breakthroughs at alpha fold or at Waymo or what Bezos and and Elon are doing. is so extraordinary that you have to be in a position where you can fund this work. You're not gonna get a bunch of kickstarters. to fund a SpaceX like project or a, you know, blue origin like project. And so I think that the benefit of scale that comes out of some of these businesses is that we can do research and development, and we can progress our capabilities of the species forward in a way that would have never been possible if not for the capital assistant and the ability for these businesses to accumulate a large enough pool of capital to take on multiple $1,000,000,000 bets. And like Chamath said, waste a lot of money and lose on 9 out of 10 of them. But if that $1,000,000,000 bet works, it's worth $500,000,000,000, and that money continuously gets reinvested. And look at what Google did with Waymo. They put over a $1,000,000,000 in that before everyone woke up and said, my god. Self driving is real. It's possible, and it kick started an industry. And I I just feel like the amount of money and and not to mention the fact that, like, These are free markets. So these businesses, Google, you don't have to search on Google. You don't have to buy from Amazon, but everyone benefits from searching on Google. Everyone from buying on Amazon. And the capability of these businesses is rooted entirely on the fact that consumers are choosing to use their products and their services because they are so good. And so I don't feel like these guys are screwing people over. You can consider the small business model as being like, you know, hey. maybe we shouldn't have had small business retailers for as long as we did because at some point, distribution was gonna be economically advantaged by being centralized And therefore, all consumers are gonna benefit by centralizing. Is there really a right to maintain local distribution sites that we call small businesses that should remain in business forever? maybe there's a way to help them transition into a new business model or a new market, but same with what happened with the taxi industry. Technology will force these evolutions. David Friedberg (01:02:25): the capital accumulates and that capital can be invested in things that we would have never imagined on a smaller scale. But go ahead, Chime. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:32): No. I do think sympathetic to what you were saying. I do think that if you look at every platform innovation that's ever happened, so whether it's, you know, we go from no print to print, you know, to newspapers, to radio, to television, you've always first started with pendulum that was very much firmly in the cap of centralized monopolistic or oligopolistic kind of early outcomes. And either through legislation or through innovation, then the pendulum swings to decentralization. That's typically happened. Right? And you can look at all of these industries that's gone through that. So it stands to reason that technology will be not dissimilar to those things. And everybody says the argument is well known because technology has these specific features of network effects and lock in But I think that betrays this idea that legislatively you can come and just basically destroy the China and the China shop, and you have to just start all over. So it's likely that we're gonna move to a place that's a healthier outcome for everybody. And obviously, we want things like alpha fold to exist. And we want things like Waymo to exist. The question is, how should they exist? And if they come out of the goodwill of Google, it is just so easily as likely that some other person, let's say it wasn't Sundar and Ruth Parat But to other people who didn't like it, these things could have been in very different forms and shapes and not existed at all. And I think that's the arbitrary nature of it, which is not necessarily free market capitalism that doesn't benefit us? Jason Calacanis (01:04:02): Should we, Jamoff, be upset that Bezos is going to space and spending tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars that he made from Amazon. He had a bad Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:12): press conference. Let's just be clear. At the end of the day, he has wanted to do this his entire life He built an incredible company. He was able to take a lot of that capital and invested in it. He's that 1,000,000,000 of dollars and other things, $10,000,000,000 in climate change. His ex wife has invested, you know, $6,000,000,000 just last year alone in all kinds of good works. So those 2 individuals, because of their success, I think will generally do and have done the right thing. Let's not get that confused with a horrendous press conference where he just pushes his horrendous. Well, I think you said it. You know, the the thing that he said around you know, I just wanna thank the customers and the employees for paying for this. It sounded flippant and it didn't really acknowledge the incredible amount of heavy lifting and hard work that he did acknowledge in the clip from 2000 on Charlie Rose. Right? So if you if you actually played those 2 things back side by side, you'd say, is this the same person? One was thoughtful, extremely respectful. The other one was now maybe he was just amped up. I mean, I could see -- I think it would Jason Calacanis (01:05:20): be what I think. It's super high, really. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:22): -- Jason Calacanis (01:05:22): on cloud 9, so to speak. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:05:24): And so and so he just wasn't thinking about it, but, you know, honestly, like, look, he is smart enough and that team is smart enough to say, we're assuming you're coming back So here's some fucking talking points. Why don't you just look at those on the way down as you float down to earth and let's just make sure we nailed this and put our best foot forward? That is where I think he probably has some regrets based on how people reacted. David Sacks (01:05:44): This Bezos Space flight was a real Rorshock test because he took heat from both the right and the left but the criticism was very different. You know? The critique I heard from the right was that he's having some sort of midlife crisis, and the rocket looked too much like Dallas. Okay. Fine. Whatever. That that criticism from the left was it had much more to do with a real contempt for private initiative and private enterprise. You could almost see them being horrified and dismayed that you know, why was he doing this with his own money? You know, if this had been a NASA flight, I don't think they would have a problem with it. And so you see here that even though Bezos has been so much more effective using his own money, to do this, the the left just reflexively hates that. The and and and and and they can saying, well, how dare he use this money? The money could have been used on something else so much better. Well well, what Jason Calacanis (01:06:40): is -- -- think of that argument Yeah. David Sacks (01:06:41): I I think it's wrong in a couple of respects. It basically implies that the purveyors of these social programs are better distributors of societal resources than our greatest inventors. And I don't think that's true. You look at these social programs they wanna keep doubling down on. They're not working. You know, these programs, our our policies towards homelessness is not failing because of lack of funding. There's a tremendous amount of funding. In San Francisco, they're spending 60,000 per tent per year. They're spending $300,000 in social services per homeless person per year. Lack of funding is not the problem. The approach is the problem. spent something like $25,000 per fuel per pupil. In California schools, the test scores are going down. So, you know, these people who are criticizing Bezos know what to do with the money. They don't know how to spend it. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:29): They're not David Sacks (01:07:29): good at executing. However, Bezos or Elon These are 2 of our greatest inventors. Jason Calacanis (01:07:34): Let them go. David Sacks (01:07:35): Let them go because, you know, they are pushing the boundaries, and I do believe There will be great engineering and scientific breakthroughs that come as a result of what they're doing with this new space race. Jason Calacanis (01:07:47): It's also super uninformed. If correct me if I'm wrong here, but they were saying that they they should have been doing more initiatives on earth if you actually and they were kinda talking about climate change and the use of these fuels to get to space. And number 1, the the rocket ship fuel, my understanding in these, is less than the what happens in a 747. So put that aside. And then second, Elon has done more for global warming with Tesla than anybody in the in the battery packs, I think, in modern society. I I I can't think of somebody in the private sector who's done more. And then has there ever been a get there's never been a gift of $10,000,000,000 to one cause let alone one cause, which Bezos gave, which was climate change. David Sacks (01:08:27): No nobody nobody has done more. also Jason Calacanis (01:08:30): you would know, Shamalff, I I thought Richard Branson had done a lot for global warming. I thought he was very involved in the carbon credits space. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:36): I think that we're witnessing something that can best be described as people who have reached a point in their life where they've realized that they're impotent getting incredibly angry at people who are willing to be wrong, but wanna just have a chance to be on the field and try. David Friedberg (01:08:57): and have the freedom to do so. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:58): And that just literally infuriates a certain class of people. It proves itself up by what David said. We are not in a funding crisis. We are running 10, 20,000,000,000,000 dollar deficits, you know or sorry. 10 you know, 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollar deficits. 10 $20,000,000,000,000 debt levels that are increasing every year, we have a surfade of money. We print money whenever we want. We don't have a shortage of money. We have a shortage of capable people who know what to do with that money. And in the absence of people being able to do things, They would rather other people not do things, not because it's not the right thing to do, but because it makes them feel impotent. David Sacks (01:09:40): Right. And and and so what what is what is driving that. I think you there's a real contempt for private initiative. And and, Jason, you're right. You see it in the hatred towards Elon. Nobody has done more to actually reduce carbon emissions than Elon. I mean, even the Bezos gift Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:56): -- Jason Calacanis (01:09:56): End of story. David Sacks (01:09:56): Period end of story. I mean, the Bezos gift to some philanthropy, I don't know if that's gonna make reference or not. You're right that he's putting his money where his mouth is on that issue, but it's indisputable that Elon The electric car industry would not exist without Elon, and yet there is contempt and hatred for the fact that he did this through private initiative. If the government Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:18): -- He does it in a way that is not checking the boxes for this cohort of people who feel incredibly insecure and fragile emotionally. They don't like that he says what he wants. They don't like that he does what he wants. They don't like that he dresses the way he does. They don't like any of it because it's not conformist enough. It's not about the look. People -- Well, Jason Calacanis (01:10:40): it's also about the money that it's the wealth that's been accumulated Well, no. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:44): No. No. Hold on. I don't think that's what it is at all. No? I actually think what it is is psychological. It is nothing about money. I think what we are witnessing, and I think social media has just blown the cover off it, is a psychological awakening that people have which is that they were comfortable knowing that there was a class of insiders and a huge cohort of outsiders and they just believed the world would function as it should. Now you see people migrating through this membrane, achieving enormous amounts of success, Basically, eclipsing every single insider possible by orders of magnitude, and it breaks people's brains because they don't like it because now they think David Friedberg (01:11:25): Why didn't it happen to me? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:11:26): Why not me? And the thing is because you're not capable. And at somewhere along the Jason Calacanis (01:11:31): way -- -- working. You're not dedicated, you didn't try. Or you didn't try. David Sacks (01:11:36): They didn't act with agency. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:11:37): I mean, look. Every day every day, the the greatest thing that I've learned about the public markets now having been, you know, purely on the early stage technology side, building, running, then investing is I get a mark every day. right now to do both businesses, I get a scorecard every day. And some days I really think to myself, maybe I'm just not good enough today. And I say to myself, that is true today. And then the the the difference is tomorrow I have a choice, which is I wake up and I decide am I gonna go back at it or not? And I'm not gonna game. And I'm not gonna hate on other people who had a good day today just because I had a bad day. And that's what I think we're going through. We're going through and social media allows it to happen, and it allows you to put it out there. You can hide behind the screen name You could basically say whatever you want to vent this pent up frustration one house. Jason Calacanis (01:12:32): journalist doing it. Of David Sacks (01:12:34): course. course. Because Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:35): -- Jason Calacanis (01:12:35): These journalists are doing it too, and they're just so bitter that they feel dunking on the greatest Inventors of our time is a productive use. The difference is journalists Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:46): do it with a real screen name under the guise of journalism. Everybody else does it with a fake screen name. And it's all just a bunch of trolling. David Sacks (01:12:52): In order to do something really great like Bezos or like Elon, you have to believe that you have agency over your own life. You have to believe that you can accomplish great things. You have to, you know, act with with purpose. And Is that really what we're teaching kids to today in schools? What we're teaching them is they're either victims or oppressors at some inter sectional framework We're not teaching them about earned success. We're teaching them about privilege, which is, you know, is presumably ill gotten, and it's all about a transference of privilege and and basically money from people who are oppressors in this framework to people who are victims. But no one's talking about how you actually create change the success of Jason Calacanis (01:13:37): the world. Abundance. David Sacks (01:13:37): Right? Abundance. It's all a negative sum It's always a negative sum game. Jason Calacanis (01:13:41): Friedberg, go ahead. I dated all back David Friedberg (01:13:43): to the Kim Kardashian Sex tape. I think that there was this moment where someone who was didn't do anything, didn't have a career, wasn't doing anything work wise, but was kind of a pseudo celebrity for being a celebrity. It's like the Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie era. Right? Like, folks who don't really have much to talk about except that they're the ones that people are talking about. And then that sex tape turned her into a superstar, and then she became a billionaire a few years later. And so you know, there there there is this kind of poignant moment, I think, where folks are like, wait a second. You don't have to do anything to get really rich in this country. You don't have to do anything to achieve all this fame. Therefore, the ex the the the kind of assumption is, hey. You know what? There are people that just get stuff and get to do what they wanna do, and the rest of us don't. And I do think that social media is the magnifying glass that takes those those moments and makes them very big and kind of then that becomes the assumed standard. When the reality is, I mean, all four of us worked really fucking hard. All four of us came from nothing. I don't know about Saxx, but, I mean, the rest of us -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:14:53): His dad was an immigrant doctor from South Africa and he moved to let's No. I'm just David Friedberg (01:14:57): I'm just in the eighties. But well, I mean, I mean, I think all of us graduated college deeply in debt. And then we all worked our way out of debt, and we all found ways to work really hard and find opportunities for ourselves in this incredible country. and to build value and to build businesses Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:13): -- David Friedberg (01:15:14): It can be done. -- to realize those returns, and we don't start out as elites. We were never elite. We were always the struggling you know, immigrant entrepreneurs that got ourselves to where we are because we clawed and we pushed and we fought and we had grit and we had determination and we had smarts and we had put in the effort. And I think that that's not really and so did Bezos and so did Elon. And I don't think that there is any standard of elitism that endowed in them, like maybe in the British the days of the British monarchy, these kind of inalienable rights to have the freedom that they have. And I think that that and I think that that so important because people miss that point, and they think that Kim Kardashian or the random bolt of lightning or the elite is the the kind of a doubt upon people in a way that's unfair. Jason Calacanis (01:15:59): They're misreading the situation. It's a great point. David Friedberg (01:16:01): Everyone else is missing out. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:16:03): They misread the situation. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:05): So a couple things. Kim Kardashian may have gotten some initial fame because of her sex tape, but fuck if she's not an incredible businessperson because from there to now, That's execution. Totally. There's a lot of there's a lot of toiling, David Friedberg (01:16:17): hard work, good decision making. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:19): She fucking nailed it. Was I lucky to have actually joined Facebook versus MySpace? Yes. But when I was there, did I fucking hit the cover off the ball? Goddamn. Yes. You know, was I lucky to have started social capital and be able to raise capital? Sure. But then did I have to help find a team coach that team, work with them, make good investments, that's fucking hard. And I think what people forget is that this takes a lot of hard work that there's all kinds of levels of success that you can be proud of all kinds of different accomplishments. What I loved is when Friedberg used us and Elon and Bezos in the same sentence because I catch myself where I'm ashamed sometimes where I'm like, I am not as good as those 2 guys. So how dare I use my name in the same sentence as their name? And then I think, wait a minute. What the fuck am I quibbling over? Like, this is insane. In any way, shape, or form, we've all made it. I'm sure there's different degrees, but it's beyond that it matters at this point. And this is what I think we're living in a society where it really distorts you. So if -- Jason Calacanis (01:17:22): How do we change it, Chamath? How do we change people from thinking that it's random and that Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:26): you can't do it because there are group of Jason Calacanis (01:17:28): people who are -- No. It is random. But there are a group of people who believe the system is rigged. I cannot become Shamoff. David Friedberg (01:17:34): And I'm stuck in a rut, and I'm stuck in a rut, and I can't get out. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:37): I can't get out. How do we change that belief? Yeah. The whiners and the complainers and the haters are stuck in a massive rut. And I think the thing that happened and I said it last pod, I'll say it again. Maybe I'll just say it every fucking pod. It is not about winning and losing. It is about trying and learning. And that is a huge thing. It's about a learning mindset. It's about this idea that things are changing so fucking fast, the only thing that I can do to Jason Calacanis (01:18:02): stay safe is to learn Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:03): how to learn because things will constantly be changing underfoot. David Friedberg (01:18:10): But what do you say to the single mother Jason Calacanis (01:18:11): with 3 kids who who is in David Friedberg (01:18:12): a town where the the the accurate shutting down, and she's losing her job, and she doesn't have the resources to move. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:20): She she is not the person that hates Elon Musgar Jeff Bezos. I will fucking bet Jason Calacanis (01:18:24): you all David Friedberg (01:18:25): because aren't there in institutional ruts in the United States. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:28): Yeah. I understand. These are 2 completely different topics. My point is if you go online, It is filled with Pete, a small cohort of people that are positive, and then a large cohort of people that are silently trying to just gain information -- Trying Jason Calacanis (01:18:44): it out. Yep. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:45): -- and a small vocal minority of bitter people who can't do shit. And all I'm talking about -- -- privilege people. Well, who knows if they're privileged? But I'm just saying that they're here. -- Jason Calacanis (01:18:54): getting paid a 100,000 to work at the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:55): election or something. I just think that these people have been checkboxes their whole lives They tried to play the team sports they were told to. They went to the schools. They tried to do the the CFA, the NBA, the this or the that. nothing work for them. They work in an environment where they don't feel any equity, actually. This is where equity is important. They feel disenfranchised and they're angry. And as a result, they just want everything to be different so that nobody wins because they can't win. But if they were winning, they would be the first one to say shut the fucking door behind me. I'm convinced of it a 100%. David Sacks (01:19:32): The irony is that the people you're about all went to these elite institutions. And and and they imbibed these ideologies and philosophies. And I think the people who have been successful went to those not in all cases, but they went to those places. And then rebelled against it or just shut it out. Here's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:19:51): what we should do. Here's what we should do. We should all contribute 5 or 10,000,000 bucks into a into an LLC. We should call Pegasus We should use Pegasus to infiltrate all the fake screen names on Twitter and then index that to LinkedIn to figure out where they all went to and what they do and just partner with some database of all the haters. Jason Calacanis (01:20:09): Well, I mean, it's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:10): how funny would that be? Jason Calacanis (01:20:12): I I it's it's very interesting because I'm watching a group of these complainers leave traditional mainstream media because I I'm focused on journalists because I was one, and I'm watching them leave journalism. A small group of them and become entrepreneurs on substack or their own products. And I feel like there's a little group of them who are realizing, holy shit. I can make a $1,000,000. if I apply myself and I quit the New York Times and I go start my own publication. David Sacks (01:20:37): Right. And and I actually say something interesting and differentiated, not just towing the party line at the New Jason Calacanis (01:20:42): York way. There's a whole little there's a little crack here in this, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:45): like -- I'll say I'll say they are just as successful as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the the financial quantum may be different, but I bet you the personal fucking satisfaction quantum is the same. And this is the key. This is the key. You could be running a $500,000 your business, and you could feel like a 1,000,000 fucking bucks. Jason Calacanis (01:21:06): Yeah. Sure key in your house. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:08): Yeah. You have a nice house, you have a nice family, you you employ a couple people, you provide a good life, you do what you wanna do, when you wanna do it, The sense of freedom that comes with that and agency and agency is the same as them, and maybe in some ways, The super richest guys in the world are actually have less agency than these guys would because they're so, you know, scheduled and people are coming after them all the time. David Sacks (01:21:33): One of my big takeaways from being in the tech industry for 20 years is that if you're smart, hardworking and don't have behaviors that sabotage yourself, you will be successful in this industry, you know, over 2 decades. I mean, I've just seen Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:46): -- -- Jason Calacanis (01:21:46): not. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:46): -- David Sacks (01:21:46): how could you not? You have such tailwinds at your back There's so much value being created. We saw over the past year more money, more LP dollars have gone into venture capital by far than any other year. And more money, more returns is coming out. That's why more money Jason Calacanis (01:22:01): is going Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:01): -- Jason Calacanis (01:22:02): You know I'm on Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:02): the call when you Jason Calacanis (01:22:03): say anybody could be successful just by show David Sacks (01:22:06): you -- Right. Jason Calacanis (01:22:06): And and and -- But Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:07): you said the but the first part is the critical part. You just said, who are not prone to self sabotage, there is an enormous number of people who are prone to self, I was 1. I am still 1. But I worked Jason Calacanis (01:22:18): on that big deal. -- besides yourself, your ego? David Friedberg (01:22:20): He blew up his firm. Jason Calacanis (01:22:23): That's true. But I think he blew it up because there was creative destruction. I think he wasn't enjoying it, and he needed to start over. David Friedberg (01:22:30): He's talked about it publicly. He said it. Jason Calacanis (01:22:32): But the blowing up of when you how do you reconcile the blowing up of the farm, Chumov, whatever number Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:37): of years later and rebooting it? This is all old news. It's like, you know, the amount of and capital and money that we've made is undisputable, and I've made it under all kinds of weather conditions. So, you know, it all kinda speaks for itself. But the problem is, again, if you ask an average person, I think they care. I don't think they know. I don't think they have an opinion. If you ask some, you know, blue -- I was in the hat. Jason Calacanis (01:23:03): I'm interested in how you reconcile or look back on it. Now it's so much I'll David Sacks (01:23:07): I'll tell you from an outside perspective how I reconcile Jamath's decision there is I think that as you become more successful, your tolerance for doing stuff you don't wanna do really goes down. Total. Jason Calacanis (01:23:17): He goes to 0. Of course. David Sacks (01:23:18): Tremonta's got to a point where he didn't wanna be doing it, and he blew it up. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:22): 0. David Friedberg (01:23:22): by the way, that that that is a characterization as well that, you know, sometimes in in your career, you have to make it and in your personal life, you have to make a tough decision. And there is Jason Calacanis (01:23:32): and there David Friedberg (01:23:32): is no good outcome. There is no good way -- There's no framing Jason Calacanis (01:23:36): way to do it. David Friedberg (01:23:36): But there are these moments where you got a rock falling on you from one no rock falling on you from the other side, and you're gonna have to make a tough decision to get out of the way. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:43): I said to myself a long time ago that if I was ever lucky to act actually be wealthy enough where my wealth would change by meaningful amounts. Every order of magnitude, I would do something different. And so, you know, you can do the fucking math. So there it is. Jason Calacanis (01:24:04): I it's it's interesting being friends with you and watching it. And then, also, I hate to give, you know, Bill Hellmuth any credit. David Friedberg (01:24:10): There it is. Jason Calacanis (01:24:11): But being friends with Phil Helmuth, and watching him set outrageous goals for himself in poker? I just thought, you know what? You gotta set some outrageous goals for yourself, and that's how I had sort of broke through as I just said. The minute that I realized at everything I do. I wanna be the largest syndicate, the most -- Jason. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:25): -- Jason Calacanis (01:24:26): prolific investor. The edit I realized Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:28): that I was basically going to become you know, a billionaire because of my Facebook stock, I fucking quit. And the craziest thing about it is I left so much stock on the table it's like 2, $3,000,000,000 of fucking stock. I couldn't care less. And then and then, you know, once I figured out that there is something that you can do with capital that even more meaningful than just investing in companies at a small scale, but now you can, you know, control companies and really allocate and shape how economy flows I made a different set of decisions. And now I'm here. And if I increase it by another order of magnitude, I'll make a different set of decisions. And that's poorly understood by folks because again it doesn't map into a worldview. But the point is, it maps into something that keeps me whole and sane and it allows me to not be zero sum about everybody else's success. And that's what I think we need to teach people. Try stuff It's okay to fail because that's as long as you're not self sabotaging yourself, David said it so well, you will eventually be successful. Whatever you learned, David, You know, Jason Calacanis (01:25:31): in this next chapter being an investor capital allocator. David Sacks (01:25:33): You that me? Jason Calacanis (01:25:35): Yeah. David, you. Well, that's what I said. just Yeah. David Sacks (01:25:38): No. It's what I said. I mean, just well, I mean, the thing that's happening right now is just the tech economy keeps getting bigger and bigger. just an explosion. There's an explosion in the number of unicorns, an explosion in the amount of funding that's available, explosion in the amount of returns being generated, There are now so many VCs that VCs are literally throwing money at people. I mean, any half decent idea now gets funded. The idea that somehow this ecosystem is elitist or exclusionary, it's absurd. Right? I mean, you've got micro VCs now who no one has to go to Sandhill Road anymore. Right? I mean, there are so many ways Jason Calacanis (01:26:16): to serve as much. -- downhill Road. It's a ghost town. Remember traffic jam? I went I went down there the other day, and it there was no traffic jam. I I was speaking at Stanford. And literally, I was like, oh, I gotta put 15 minutes into my drive to get through Scott Santo Road because it was at 8:30? Right. I zipped down Santel Road to Stanford. There was 2 cars. David Sacks (01:26:34): So the the tech ecosystem is so osmotic. It's so permeable in terms of allowing new people. And in fact, it's sucking in all the talent it can find because it can't hire enough people, even in the worst economic conditions. And yet, when it comes to talking about social and political talking about opportunity in social and political terms, the only thing you ever hear is that, you know, the ecosystem is somehow elitist exclusionary and Jason Calacanis (01:27:02): that -- -- that's old that's old news. That that might have been valid 15, 20 years ago. I know when I went to Sandor Road for the first times 15, 20 years ago, it was a bunch of white partners who went to Stanford or had MBAs from, you know, Harvard, but that's not the case now. It's a bunch of people with rolling funds and micro VCs and syndicates -- Totally. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:21): -- Jason Calacanis (01:27:21): and everything in between. David Sacks (01:27:22): If you're so wrapped up in in being a social justice warrior, that you've just missed that there is, like, basically infinite opportunity. You know? Then it's on you. You're sabotaging yourself, and then 5, 10 years later, you're still stuck in that role. And then -- And then you become bitter, and then you become bitter to Jamal's point. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:40): Friedberg, how hard was it for you to leave Google? And what what was that like? David Friedberg (01:27:44): I was at Google for two and a half years. I it had gone through I joined before the IPO. I was, like, couple 100 employees, just under a 1000 employees, and then we went public. I got this huge bonus from Sergey to stick around when I was thinking about huge. I mean, for me, it was, like, 7 figure safety. It was yeah. It it was a couple 1000 shares of stock and, like, $250,000 of cash. and I gave it up. You know, it'd be worth a lot of money, but I just felt like I I learned so much at Google, and I had such an appreciation for the team there in the company. And by the way, I worked at Google and all of a sudden, the company went public and I could buy a house. I mean, it was an incredible moment for me. And and and I suddenly felt what Chamath talked about, which is this freedom in my life. Suddenly, I had hit that that that next plateau of wealth where I now had a couple $100,000 of net worth, and I could leave or I guess I had over a $1,000,000 of net worth, and I could now leave and go do something I wanted to go do with my I no. I I had a couple $100,000. And I could go leave and do what I wanted to do. which was to build my own business and have the freedom to make decisions. And and so I honestly felt like, really fine just leaving all that money behind. I left I left 1,000,000 of dollars behind for when I left Google after being there for two and a half years to start my company. And, you know, it was a struggle. Right? Like, I mean, as you guys know, building a business, which I did from 2006 to Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:14): 2013 David Friedberg (01:29:16): was a nightmare. Every day was a nightmare. I I say in entrepreneurs, and I've said this publicly before, but it feels like every day you're taking a step backwards. and 1 out of 5 days, you take a 5 step leap forward. So at the end of a week, you're one step ahead of where you started, but your existential memory is that you're failing every day. Every day. And suddenly you wake up and 7 years have gone by, and you're like, oh, shit. We've got an amazing business, and someone wants to buy it for a $1,000,000,000. And if you don't have the grit and the guts and the determination to push through those those daily battles and and deal with that that hardship, you know, at I don't think that being in the comfort of the big system of Google felt right for me. I think being in the playing field and battling it out every day is right for me. And so it was the right it was the right call for me, obviously. It worked out. But, you know, still, I I I make choices in my life in terms of what do I wanna do? Do go live on a yacht or have some luxury or do whatever. And I I prefer to just make great businesses and turn science into into commercial opportunity, and that's how I choose to spend my time. Jason Calacanis (01:30:17): I just wanted to send this out to the whole panel. Do you ever think, you know, having hit the home runs and having cash to literally retire at this age and then just, you know, kiteboard or do whatever, do you ever think about retirement and not going into work? Fuck no. k. Yeah. You wanna do you feel you wanna work harder? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:39): Yesterday yesterday as an example, was an incredible day because I was able to bicycle with Nat and the youngest to go get a Gelato. I had a kickoff meeting for I had a kickoff meeting for a startup that's doing something incredible in batteries where, you know, starting from scratch, series a cofounders, me, and the other the other director, and we're starting, literally starting. And I remember the feeling of having done this now 30 or 40 times, and it's the best feeling. And then I and then I had a call because I'm trying to put a, you know, more than a $1,000,000,000 to work in a different battery idea. And I thought to myself, god, I I'm so fucking lucky. And it's it was a grindy long day and I had never felt more thankful. So why would I You know, you could and I don't know. I I feel just so blessed. Jason Calacanis (01:31:47): Sachs, you ever think about hanging up and Or are you more motivated to go to work every day? Are you annoyed? Yeah. David Sacks (01:31:53): I mean, the the thing that's giving me the most energy right now is we're in a private beta on call in near this app that we incubated. And -- Good. Good. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:02): It's better. David Sacks (01:32:02): It's it's it's good, and it's getting better every day, and I'm really enjoying tinkering on it. And I feel like, you know, I've you know, it's kinda like -- You're a good Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:10): tinker, by the way. You're a good product innovator. Jason Calacanis (01:32:12): You're good. You're good at tingling We we you know, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:15): we Friedberg hire is VP of product at Facebook. Jason Calacanis (01:32:18): What? Yeah. What would that have paid him? It's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:19): 2000 Jason Calacanis (01:32:24): Sachs Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:24): -- David Sacks (01:32:24): Probably Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:25): 1,000,000,000. -- straight 7,000,000,000. Probably 1,000,000,000. -- Jason Calacanis (01:32:27): against right Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:27): 7,000,000,000, Jason Calacanis (01:32:27): probably Chamath Palihapitiya (01:32:27): 7,800,000. 2007 3, Jason Calacanis (01:32:28): so that's not taking that kid? David Sacks (01:32:30): No. No. Because I did Yammer instead, and, you know, Yammer was successful, and I got through my own boss, and that was better. You know? So I I don't know if I I probably wouldn't have made as much money. But, look, I've done like you guys, I've done made lots of decisions that made me less money. If I just stayed at PayPal for 20 years, my stock would have been worth many, many, billions. Right? That's why I tell people don't sell everything. Let your winners write at least partially. Yeah. I mean, look, my I was an investor in Facebook. If I had just kept all of that stock, that'd be worth a $1,000,000,000 today. So I mean, it's pretty crazy. Well, sell some just don't sell everything. Jason Calacanis (01:33:04): That's my new philosophy. David Sacks (01:33:06): Yeah. But to your point about to to your point about what gives me enjoyment, I mean, I'm really having fun tinkering with this app. And you know what it's like? It's like It's like a new season. If you were in, like, the NBA or something, it's like, can we make a championship run? Can we get one more ring? You know? Yes. And so you're like you know, it'd be like saying to somebody, hey. You already got, you know, to NBA an NBA champion. Hey. You got 3 rings. Why do you want a 4th? You know? And it's like, are you kidding me while I'm still in this league? While I'm young enough and healthy enough to make a run at one at one more ring, How could you not wanna do that? You know? Jason Calacanis (01:33:43): You gotta go for it. David Sacks (01:33:44): You gotta go for it. Jason Calacanis (01:33:45): I can see you are you're engaged, which is great to see. Alright. Listen, there's been an amazing episode. We will see you all next week. If you like the show, thanks. The end. We're not gonna bet. We're gonna try something. Go try something. Everybody go try something. -- something anything possible. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:01): Try. Just try and foul. Read a book outside Jason Calacanis (01:34:04): of your David Friedberg (01:34:04): comfort zone. Read something that you wouldn't have otherwise read. Love you guys. Jason Calacanis (01:34:08): I love you guys. Love you backwards. See you soon. Love everybody listening too. Love everybody. I mean, literally, if you're listening to this and you are buying into Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:10): this that the system is rage -- -- mutual. Jason Calacanis (01:34:18): Don't be a troll. Don't be a douche. Like, the system is not rigged. If anything, the system is rigged for you to participate and succeed. Join the party. David Sacks (01:34:27): The system is malleable. The system is if you want to change the world, the system is malleable enough that if you pursue it in the right way, you can make it you can make a a dent. Jason Calacanis (01:34:39): You can. Who is this? Who is this then? Hey. Look how happy you are. Who is the best dad? Where is your dad now? Alright. We'll see Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:49): you all. Jason Calacanis (01:34:50): next time on the all in podcast. Bye bye. We'll let your winner slide. Rainman, David Saffens. And it said We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with them. Love you. besties are best. driveway? We should all just get a room and have one big you, George, because they're all just useless. It's like it's like sexual tension, but they just need to release that mountain. What? You're the b p What? David Sacks (01:35:35): You're a thief. What? What? Jason Calacanis (01:35:38): Where did you get Merckies are back?