Coinbase CEO 回应争议博文、市场现状、千家独角兽

Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:00): Guys, my dog. Jason Calacanis (00:00:01): In jail, Joker's in jail? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:03): Joker got in jail again. Okay. So he's been jailed in Italy. He was jailed in Palo Alto. Jason Calacanis (00:00:08): When will that dog learn? spent quality Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:10): -- Jason Calacanis (00:00:10): Why do you think he's ill? -- control. Why do you jail? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:12): He's a runner. Jason Calacanis (00:00:13): He he Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:14): went to he's a runner. He's a runner. He's a truck stop. He the the we we we send him to like a, you know, like the dog walker where he goes and runs around, and they come pick him up, but then they the guy opened the van doors. He took off. Anyways, he gets found they they're trying to call me because I guess my number is on the thing, which I hadn't realized. Jason Calacanis (00:00:37): You don't pick up? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:37): Can't reach me. Well, I'm in I'm in DC in New York. And they put them in the kennel, and we get this picture. And, Nick, you can post the picture, but, you know, because I sent it to you. Poor poor Joker and dog gel. Jason Calacanis (00:00:48): He's a great dog. The but he is he is -- Wait. David Friedberg (00:00:51): Is he back? Did did you oh, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:52): he's back. We got him back. But he's back. He's out of jail again. Jason Calacanis (00:00:54): Honestly, he's only gonna learn if he goes to jail. You should David Friedberg (00:00:56): get a little tag for him. Those little remote tracking. Jason Calacanis (00:00:59): Well, that's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:00): not I mean, scraped, but it doesn't stop him from escaping. David Sacks (00:01:03): But that dog, there's something wrong with Jason Calacanis (00:01:04): that dog. Remember when Jared or Jack came over? Yeah. And the dog was, like, growling David Sacks (00:01:12): It's the only dog that doesn't like me. I mean, every other dog every other dog will love David Friedberg (00:01:18): him. -- Tringdon. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:19): No. He's not been trained. He's not been trained. We have to trade him. I mean, I I I get it. He hasn't been trained, but he's so cute. David Sacks (00:01:25): Did you train that dog to hate white people. That Jason Calacanis (00:01:29): dog is a little racist. I'll say it. to let your winners ride. Rainman David Sanders. And it said -- We open so Alright, everybody. Welcome to another episode of all in, the podcast that you've been listening to for 48 episodes. Here we are. On the precipice of greatness, 49 episodes in. with us again today, the Queen of Kinwa, your science ambassador, David Friedberg, also on the pod, the rain man himself, Definitely his dad lets him drive in the driveway, David Sachs. And batting cleanup, the dictator himself, Chamath, Polly Hopatir. What did we all think of last week's pod with Balaji? David Friedberg (00:02:26): I felt it got cut off too soon. I was getting into a groove with Balaji and I'm trying to figure out how that up with him because I thought they were getting into some pretty interesting discussion towards the end, and we obviously ran out of time. Chamath had to hop off. So it would it would have been great to keep that conversation going with biology. I I really do think there's a big question mark on, like, how does the centralized web or decentralized social networks in particular work with respect to kind of that, you know, recommendation application layer, which is effectively what search solved on the Internet. And so I'm I'm I'm curious to keep the conversation going and seeing, you know, what this means. Jason Calacanis (00:03:01): I made the decision to end the pod because Chamath had to go, Saxx had to go. There was a hard stop. And I was like, I I don't wanna keep this going without the other besties, and people are very upset. They thought I shut it down abruptly, but we had a certain amount of time, and we can always have them back so everybody relax. But I did look at the stats. We each came in with our, you know, whatever percent pro rata, and he had double. So he had 40%, and we all had baseball. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:26): -- for a guest, I think. Jason Calacanis (00:03:27): I felt right. Didn't it feel right? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:29): I think it's important to hear what when folks come on. what they have to say. He's a really smart guy. And, you know, you can kinda just let him go and riff for a while. and then just react to him. So I think it's lovely to hear such a deep thinker. Think out loud. quite honestly. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:03:48): And even if you don't agree with him, I don't agree with him on a lot of his points about, you know, decentralized everything. I think centralized works for, you know, many things better. I'm curious, Saxx, you know, looking back on it. Were there moments that you felt maybe you disagreed with him more or agreed with him more and wanted to lean into a conversation? Obviously, it's very hard five people on a pod and only get a certain amount of airtime, etcetera. David Sacks (00:04:10): Well, look, I think I think biology is a great guest to have on once in a while. I mean, it does kinda turn the pod a little bit more into a TED Talk. Definitely have that vibe, but the the fans liked it. And, I mean, Balaji should have his own show. I mean, he can go for a while. I mean, he's got a Jason Calacanis (00:04:28): lot to David Sacks (00:04:28): say for hours. Jason Calacanis (00:04:29): Yes. And he has. David Sacks (00:04:30): He has. And and I think he should do his own show because there's definitely a huge fan base for it. And and if people want more biology, I interviewed him for about an hour on purple pills, which is kind of the the I don't know if you wanna call solo pod. Solo show that I do where I occasionally interview people on call Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:47): -- Jason Calacanis (00:04:47): Can download call in and go check out purple? Pels. So, yeah, I you know, I gave apology a little pep talk coming in saying, hey. Listen. It's a roundtable discussion, and I've interviewed it before, and you can kinda tip into the monologuing and explaining very big picture things. So just try to pass the ball a little bit here. And I and I think he he did adjust his game a little bit, but it's, you know, it's hard to have somebody like that on. I think you've pointed Sachs that it's more like a TED Talk for him? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:16): We're having a conversation, and he's used to being interviewed. And I think that is a that's a transition. But you know, it was fine. Let's move on. Jason Calacanis (00:05:23): Yeah. Okay. So I think we'll start off with something we talked about on episode 9, which was coinbase's CEO, Brian Armstrong, wrote a very controversial blog very, very controversial blog post exactly a year ago. Coinbase is a mission focused company. At the time, he was dealing with a never ending debate inside his own company about lives matter about social justice and any number of issues. And he said, listen. The company is mission focused. Our mission is to, you know, make people more financially independent, literate, etcetera. And we're going to ban any discussions on our electronic communications. You can do things on your own time. it was quite controversial all the time. We had a good discussion. I relistened to our I I relistened to our discussion on that pod, and we all universally felt like it was the right move. Well, he went ahead and picked up the hornet's nest. He did not have to talk about this ever again Everybody had forgotten about it and he grabbed the hornet's nest, ran into the end zone and spiked it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:24): Jason, can you well, before you do that, can you say how many people left as a result of his blog post and all do you know those stats? because I think -- Jason Calacanis (00:06:32): I don't know those stats handy, but it it doesn't change. David Sacks (00:06:35): It was 5% ended up leaving. is a big article about it. You remember this this was I I think I think it was worth him doing a follow-up post. This was the 1 year anniversary of his blog post, and he was kinda giving us a status update. And what he basically said is that the policy had worked. So you got so first of all, should we just review what the policy was? Yeah. The policy was that they were gonna declare the workplace to be politically neutral that people would leave their politics to the door. They would not have sort of extraneous political conversations at work. That doesn't mean you couldn't support whatever causes you wanted on your own time or tweet whatever you want on your own time. But while you're at work, they would declare it to be sort of a political DMZ, like a demilitarized zone. Basically, all he was doing was reasserting the old center, the old etiquette of, hey. When you go to work, you you're not engage in Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:28): -- You're paying David Sacks (00:07:28): to work. Yeah. You're paid to work. You're not there to engage in political activism. So that was the policy. And, of course, the the the the woke mob became completely hysterical about it as it turns and so then what happened is that Brian offered everyone a very generous severance policy if they didn't wanna stick around with the policy. Yes. Extremely generous. They made it really easy Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:50): -- Jason Calacanis (00:07:51): absurdly than generous. David Sacks (00:07:52): Right. They made it really easy for people out if they want to check out. Well, only 5% took the policy. Jason Calacanis (00:07:56): Sixty people. David Sacks (00:07:57): Yes. And then on the heels of that, there was a gigantic New York Times hit piece against the company, the usual disinformation of slanders against the company. And then now we have this follow-up piece. And I think what Brian basically reported is that Today, Coinbase is a more aligned company because everyone who's there wants to be there for the mission. That's what they focus on when they go to work. He talked about how they had hired top talent away from other companies. I mean, basically, he put out the bat signal and people came running because, you know, we have Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:28): They wanted neutrality. They did not want it. Jason Calacanis (00:08:30): People are voting with their feet to come over there. David Sacks (00:08:32): They're fed up with the politics and distraction, and and I think the employees were secretly relieved that he declared this policy. Basically, he took the heat on himself for the larger benefit of all the employees who just wanted to be there and work I not have to wonder whether they're doing something right or wrong because they're on the wrong side of a political issue. Jason Calacanis (00:08:51): Friedberg nailed it when said in our episode 9, which you go back to, Friedberg, you may not remember your comments, but you said, what about the employees who just wanna come to work and don't want to engage in political space. Now you're infringing on them to force them to be participating in these discussions, and they don't have a choice because they need to feed their families need to go to work. so Friedberg, I think you're gonna take a little victory lap there. He says in this tweet storm, I'll just read the third part of it. One of the biggest concerns around our stance was that it would impact our diversity numbers. Since my post, we've grown our headcount about a 110 percent, doubled it. While our diversity numbers have remained the same or even improved in some metrics, so all of the hand ringing and pearl clutching that this would have a negative effect on the company has turned out to be wrong. Go ahead, Chamath and then free brew. I mean, if you want it's like Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:36): I think it's important to set the context for what this is. There is a a productivity war going on inside of institutions around the world. And what's happening is that people's personal beliefs are bumping up against what the mission and goals operational goals of a company are or a university or all these other places. And so this is probably the first big example. This is a what is a 50, $60,000,000,000 public company. 40,000,000,000. $50,000,000,000 public company that basically said enough's enough. This is our mission. Everybody else basically just needs to shut the fuck up. And I think that that's very important Now if they then go off and actually crush their goals, that's the one missing piece in all of this because when that happens, then you can write a through line through all of this and say, okay, this is in part what allowed them to do it. So I think that the the the the folks that, you know, were really up in arms still have one small straw in the fight, which is that if these guys don't achieve their goals, they'll point to this as one of the reasons why. But if Orion's diversity strength and -- If -- You know, like, yeah, you're suppressing free speech, you know, that argument. But I think if Brian then goes and delivers a couple of knockout quarters and a couple of knockout years, then, you know, what he will be able to say definitively which no one can refute is, we leave our politics at the door. We define our OKRs and then we go and we build things that people need as a company. And then you go off and you can do what everyone And I think that that's very powerful for many companies and institutions. Jason Calacanis (00:11:19): Friedberg, you heard my recap of what you said last time. I'm not sure if you remembered it or you re listened. What are your thoughts today? David Friedberg (00:11:24): I think it's it's worth just noting less about the particularities of what was said and the particular issue at hand here. And I I would look more to kind of Brian's leadership style as an excellent example of defining and creating strong culture. culture in an organization can give that organization what it needs to succeed. It puts everyone aligned in a specific way on how we make decisions, how we operate. It doesn't matter what his particular beliefs and opinions were or what to exclude, what to include in the dialogue of the discourse and the model for discourse within the organization. I think what matters that he put a line in the sand. And he said, this is what we're gonna do, this is what's in, and this is what's out. And organizations that do and do that effectively, generally win. They win more. They do better. The teams are aligned. The teams are are more unified. And I think that definition may sometimes be controversial. And you'll notice that as companies get bigger, go public. They're larger. They bring in professional managers, and the founder CEO steps out. they generally don't do that. Right? They they generally try to not do that definitional work because they're trying to minimize loss and not kind of take the bet on maximizing long term gain and doing the things that they think culturally define or will enable success long term. So I I I think it's a great example of leadership generally on how you kind of can can be very vocal about defining a strong culture. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:46): Elon calls it I think Elon calls it Corpus speak. David Friedberg (00:12:50): Right. Well, here's what happens. Like, when you're there. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:52): Meaning most companies when they get bigger, they gravitate towards Corpus speak. And then what happens is some cohort of employees who are really good just feel trapped in this kind of morass of mediocrity. David Friedberg (00:13:03): by the way, look at Elon's, you know, call it attrition rate. Right? By the typical large scale public company corporate metric of, like, many people are leaving per year, you'd say, oh my gosh. Something's up with that organization. But it really speaks to a strong culture. There's a company that's famous for this called Bridgewater Associates, you know, run by Ray Collio. $100,000,000,000 hedge fund, one of the best performing investment vehicles of all time. And they have incredible culture. I've talked about Ray Dahlio's book, Principles before, and some of the work he's done on this. where he is so adamant about getting culture right within the organization how you operate that they almost have, I think, a 30% attrition rate after the 1st year of people that come in. because they not only try and screen for these elements of what they consider to be the right cultural fit for their organization up front, but then they also screen people the heck out of the door if they're not a good fit. And and I think Elon has a similar sort of model. And, you know, I think Brian, the way he speaks about the organization, is a similar model. And it's about defining the lines it's about being very crystal clear about what's in and what's not. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:59): Whatever as a CEO and a founder, whatever you believe, you need to believe in it strongly. David Friedberg (00:14:05): And you can communicate it clearly. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:07): And then communicate it and then let people vote. They vote with their feet. They don't get to vote whether to change it. They just get to vote whether they get to stay or whether they go. And I think that that's a really smart -- Jason Calacanis (00:14:17): I think that's well said. Yeah. David Sacks (00:14:18): I think there's one other issue here at Jake at Jake Howell. This goes back to your point about why did Brian have to bring this back up? Was it unnecessary? Did he spike horn assessed in the end zone. Here's why I think it was necessary. If you go to point 78 of his tweet storm, he says it was the most positive I've gotten from any change. I've made in the history of the company, which is saying something. How could something be so negative in the press that turned out to be incredibly incredibly positive with every stakeholder, 90 percent of of employees, privately, all the investors are telling him it was a great thing. And then what he says is the only sense I can make of it is there's a huge mismatch right now between people stated and revealed preferences, and we're operating in an environment of virtue signaling and fear of speaking up. So to me, this is the point of this tweet storm I'm bringing up now is without people like Brian standing up and saying what the truth is that, look, everybody wants this, they're just afraid to articulate the principle. we we keep we keep encouraging this climate of fear. And, you know, the alternative to Coinbase, you know, one of the other companies we about is Apple. I mean, you could basically choose to be Coinbase or Apple. What has Apple done? They booted out Antonio Garcia Martinez because of a passage in this book that they knew about. And ever since then, the company's been roiled by boycotts and petition writing from the employees about some new calls every couple of weeks. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:40): And, eventually, that'll show up in the operating results of the business. It's just a matter of time. David Sacks (00:15:44): Right. And so so why why does that go on? I mean, I'm sure employees at Apple don't want to be, you know, constantly roiled by these, like, petition campaigns but they have to put up with it because everyone's so afraid to speak up. And that's why it's important that what Brian do we have to basically recognize that this woke mob who's cowed everyone to silence is maybe 5% of these companies. And if everybody just acts like Brian, the problem will be over. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:11): Well, we know we know what the trail of breadcrumbs is right now, and I think we should probably, you know, shine a light on it, which is that that 5% is exactly the same as Donald Trump. They just exist on the left. There's more and more research that shows that just as much as we thought they were right authoritarians. They're also left authoritarians. And this is what we're seeing that that the craziness that, you know, everybody decries on the right actually also exists on the right. Jason Calacanis (00:16:42): And they just put a a button on that before we we pivot to the next story. Armstrong was very clear that the mission is about global wealth inequality. So staying focused on that in his mind is the the high order a bit and will result in the most great change. So paradoxically or ironically, you know, all these woke people attacking Coinbase, coinbase might do more for wealth and equality and justice in the world. If they stay focused, then if they try to tackle everything. And, you know, this is a road to nowhere for Apple. I think, Saks, you pointed this out about how if you were running Apple, you would fire anybody who does the petition. because I'll tell you where Apple is about to to to basically land by enabling all of this woke mob inside their own company by toddling them, addressing them, and not keeping them focused, they will eventually get to the fact that China has 3,000,000 Uighurs in a concentration camp and those Uighurs are proven to be providing through slave labor, equipment, and components to companies that eventually make their way to Apple Products. Ergo, Apple supports slavery. And that's what the employees will eventually get to, and that will cause chaos. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:57): But there's something even closer more closer to home. That that's probably true or could be true. I don't know. Jason Calacanis (00:18:02): It is true. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:03): But, you know, the fact that Apple had the the most important security leak in their entire software career just a few months ago is also quite important. Like, you had a 0 -- Jason Calacanis (00:18:16): Because why did it put it? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:18): So you had a 0 so the i iOS 14.8 exists because of why. Because a researcher or a set of researchers in Toronto discovered that there was a 0 click exploit in iOS that allowed you to basically turn on the microphone, turn on the camera, you know, grab anything you needed from iPhones. It was the most secure device until 2 months ago. When it turned out it was actually the most insecure device Jason Calacanis (00:18:43): So you're saying I tend to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:44): think I tend to think those kinds of technical mistakes happen when people take their eye off the ball. And I think people take their eye off the ball because they're demoralized with dealing with distractions. Saks? David Sacks (00:18:58): Yeah. I mean, I think it's the whether it's the Uighurs' or the security issue, it's a good example of the employees at Apple see the spec in somebody else's eye but not the log in their own. I mean, that's that's the the principle. And and they would be much but are all focusing on dealing with their own internal issues. But but let's go can we go back to that article that Chamath referenced about -- Yeah. Well, don't you have to Jason Calacanis (00:19:22): trademark anything you got anything else on this issue? you wanna before we we segue over? David Sacks (00:19:26): No. I thought this is a really great article. Do you wanna explain it, Jake? Jason Calacanis (00:19:29): Yeah. I'll just give you a quick overview, and then you can dive right in since you put on the psychiatrist and author Sally Sattel, hopefully, I'm pronouncing that correct, wrote an article for the Atlantic entitled. The experts somehow overlooked authoritarians on the left. The main point here is that Trump's presidency sparked a ton of research and coverage of authoritarianism on the right, but mostly ignored the left with some researchers even suggesting that the left wing that left wing authoritarianism isn't real. In an email to Suttell, a social psychologist from Rutgers said the following, For 70 years, the law the law in the social sciences has been that authoritarianism has been found exclusively on the political right. Why is that? One reason left wing authoritarianism barely showed up in social psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions for prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole, sex. David Sacks (00:20:19): Well, actually, Chamath put this on the docket. So, Jimath, do you wanna introduce what you liked about it? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:25): The reason I saw this and I thought it was so interesting was basically we had an entire body of research trying to understand why some folks are attracted to these authoritarian figures like Trump. And overwhelmingly, all the research at the time said they only exist on the right. And, you know, you and all of this started after Hitler. And so there was all this research around the social and attitudinal reactions to Hitler and how he came to power and then all of the iterations of folks like him on the right afterwards. And so people put Trump in that category and then they said it can only exist there. But as it turns out when this person did this research and she surveyed 7000 people and all of this data was very well summarized in this Atlantic article which I'm sure we can post in the show notes that folks should read. Low and behold, it actually exists on both sides. So as it turns out the extreme right and the extreme left are exactly the same. They're moral absolutists. They believe in themselves and themselves only, and they believe anybody else that outside of where they are is fundamentally in the wrong. And if you actually look at that and see how Trump behaved in his presidency and now how you see how the left names and names, you factually find a lot of commonalities. So the the reason I found that article interesting is that it actually says again what we've been saying, which is coming down the middle and finding, you know, reasonable compromise is the only way forward because this minute you start moving in either direction, you are the same. And that person is an ugly person that we don't wander out. Jason Calacanis (00:22:06): Let me give the money quote and then get you a feedback. Friedberg, the similarities in this study included, quote, similarities between authoritarianism on both sides, left and right. Preference for social uniformity, check, prejudice toward different different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior cognitive rigidity, aggression impunitiveness toward perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy And as Chamath pointed out, moral absolutism of Freeberg. David Friedberg (00:22:36): I think authoritarian figures resolve when a population feels insecure. So, I mean, we talked about this last pod, but I do think that you know, the notion of freedom emerges after the comfort of security has been provided. And I think the absence of security drives people away Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:02): from David Friedberg (00:23:06): kind of your ability to get a job. I mean, remember, Hitler rose to power when unemployment, you know, post the Weimar Republic was skyrocketing. People, you know, couldn't get jobs. They couldn't afford food. And the authoritarian figure was going to provide the security needed, I think, to resolve the learns that the population had. And then, you know, people latch on to that. So, you know, there are moments in time when I think authoritarianism can emerge with different forms of resolution. It doesn't necessarily mean that the authoritarian actor needs to take a a left or a right point of view. They're just gonna give you a path to security. when you're feeling insecure. If you don't feel insecure, you're gonna say that's ridiculous. So countries that are wealthy, countries that are privileged with opportunities that maybe the United States has are less likely and less inclined to fall in in, you know, in favor of authoritarian leaders. And then as we slip backwards economically, unemployment wise, etcetera, we're more likely to be to be in favor of of of those sorts of actors. And so I think that, you know, we'll see him emerge. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:10): Don't but don't you think it's crazy that we actually didn't think it could exist in one end of the political spectrum, and now it does. You have a point in that or no? David Friedberg (00:24:17): I never really understood the whole, like, Hitler is purely a right wing guy. Like, he was a a, you know, a socialist, and he was trying to enable, like, you know, socialized services and socialized systems for people you know, in in a lot of political circles that would be argued as being a very kind of left point of view. And so I I don't know if it yeah. David Sacks (00:24:36): I Let's go beyond let's go beyond Hitler. You're you're right. The the Nazi party was a national socialist party. That's what that's what the name of the party was. But There's also stalin, poll pot, mal. I mean, if you're paying attention to history, you know that there's been authoritarianism. on the left, not just the the right. And so but, you know, in the universities and in the media, they only wanna focus on the right wing version of it. And I think what the study does is it upends 70 years of dogma that that, you know, authoritarian authoritarianism is only to be found on the political right. I mean, it's obviously can be found on the political left as well. And you can see that in cancel culture, in speech restrictions, in these very aggressive COVID mandates that are now happening. you can see it in the the sort of the the the ghoulishness anytime somebody in the right, you know, dies from COVID. I mean, there's There's always some chortling on the part of the left about this. The harsh penalties for noncompliance. I mean, Right now? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:41): -- Jason Calacanis (00:25:41): rigidity is the one that stands out for me. Like, there is just on the left, they make a decision Amazon is bad. and they cannot move off of that. Right, David? Like -- Well, David Sacks (00:25:51): what about what about willingness to wield group authority to Chorus behavior? And what about aggression and putativeness towards perceived enemies. Jason Calacanis (00:25:57): Cancel culture. That would be cancel culture. David Sacks (00:25:59): That to me is correct. Yes. David Friedberg (00:26:00): It begs a good question, which is, what socialist regimes have come to power without an authoritarian figure. Has there I'm just Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:12): -- David Sacks (00:26:12): I'm not. Right. They're all revolutionaries. And, actually, the the study has a really good point about this, which is they they say that The researchers describe what they called anti hierarchical aggression. So one of the traits of authoritarianism is is they call it an outsized concern for hierarchy But, you know, leftists think that they don't believe in hierarchy. But actually, they do. They believe in an anti hierarchical hierarchy, which is they wanna turn upside down, the social hierarchy, and they're willing to justify the the the ends justify the means. In other words, if you can turn the hierarchy upside down, they'll let you do anything. And it's actually pretty scary. That's where the sort of the revolution comes from. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:52): Here's a practical thing, Jay Kalaba, what you said, which illustrates this point even further. Right now, we have a 3 and a half $1,000,000,000,000 bill kind of meandering through Congress and, you know, it's very much a question mark about whether it gets passed or not. And one of the elements that's in there is free community college. Now when it passes if it passes, there's a lot of support that that's something that the government should do. it's a good thing. But if you're a private company like Amazon who just announced that they will give you free college, they're still a bad company. And and this is the example of this intellectual rigidity that doesn't actually see the forest from the trees. What do you really want? Do you want the process where you control and you meter out progress? Or do you actually want the outcome where somebody can get a job where they make 15 or $20 an hour? and also now get college paid for. Jason Calacanis (00:27:48): Yes. We pretty much matter. Yeah. We'd much better if the government didn't have to provide it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:53): I'd love I'd love it if the government could pay for it. but I'm really glad that Amazon is in a position to pay for it as well. But if you start to become absolutist and say, well, no. It just needs to be top down and metered out this way And any private organization that wants to try to do it is still bad. I think that's where that rigidity holds us all back. It's unnecessary. Jason Calacanis (00:28:11): Here's where I say the rigidity, Shamoff, is They keep saying gig workers are bad. Nobody should be allowed to be a gig worker, and David had a great interview with the ride sharing guy on Colin in which they talked about the fact and this is somebody who is super pro advocate of drivers that listen, 80% of people do not want to do shift word. They do not want the government dictating how they work. And I talked anecdotally with an Uber driver. Said he's making, like, 70 bucks an hour during peak hours, They were fighting to get minimum wage for drivers. Now drivers are making Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:46): 20, 30, 40, 50 Jason Calacanis (00:28:47): dollars an hour, Uber rides have gone, and Lyft rides have David Friedberg (00:28:51): gotten massive. It's massive competition. market works. Jason Calacanis (00:28:54): Well and and they can't take the win. They they still are so rigid on the left that they're demanding whatever that woman's name is who is, you know, in the pocket of the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:02): -- Lorraine Gonzalez. Lorraine Gonzalez in Jason Calacanis (00:29:04): the pocket of the the unions, How cynical are they? The victory is upon them. Yes. People are getting paid five times more -- Yes. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:12): -- Jason Calacanis (00:29:12): three times more than minimum wage, and they still wanna screw them. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:15): The takeaway for a lot of people should be that your Spidey senses should go up when folks present solutions as a choice of one source only. Jason Calacanis (00:29:27): Ah. You know what I'm trying? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:28): When things when things can can Calacanis only happen in one way, and it's the way that I feel the most comfortable. Yeah. Your spidey sensor should go up, and you should think to yourself, really? Is that is that really the only way? Like, can't we have choice? Can't we have different ways of solving this? Jason Calacanis (00:29:43): Can't we Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:43): -- Jason Calacanis (00:29:43): Maybe we could run an experiment and see what happens? Go ahead, Saxx. David Sacks (00:29:46): Well, I I think your SpiceSense should also go up whenever somebody is basically saying that speech needs to be censored for some higher purpose. You know? that that that whatever people are trying to abridge and take away our rights and our sort of long held values or freedoms, you have to start getting concerned. And there's always a reason why they wanna do it. In the study, the quote that the the left wing authoritarians agreed with was getting rid of inequality is more important than protecting the so called right to free speech. So There's always some higher reason. The means always justify the the ends always justify the means. But but that's that's what you have to look out for is when they're taking away your right to speech. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:29): another fun proof point fun because it's Dave Chappell that you can listen to or watch to see a flavor of this left wing authoritarianism is called redemption song, which is a little clip he put out recently. And the the entire clip is more about him getting his body of work back from Comedy Central. But the part in the beginning talks about folks on the left that really tried to dunk on him when he got COVID. And you should just listen to his reaction and how he frames it because I think it's pretty powerful. And again, it explains that extremism on both sides, they actually end up looking the same. David Sacks (00:31:08): Yeah. Gression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, and I think that applies to anyone who, yeah, anyone who defies the the the whatever the conventionalism is on COVID. There's another another example in the study of that that the people who the left wing authorians agreed with the statement I cannot imagine myself becoming friends with a political conservative. So, you know, you've got these social groups that are completely uniform. And by the way, there've been, like, studies for a long time showing that Liberals are twice as likely as conservative as to be upset if their son or daughter were to marry someone of the opposite party. So this has been a this has been turned up in polls for a while. But this and you've seen it on Ubers disease and college campuses. Right? But this is idea that, you know, anybody of the other's political side is just suspect you know, morally suspect needs to be shunned, needs to be expelled. Like, those are the people you have to be concerned about. Jason Calacanis (00:32:03): Yeah. You can't be friends. I can't be friends with the US acts because you voted for Trump. It's just ridiculous people have this. No. But it's I think it's the derangement to to give the other side of this. I think Trump was so extreme and so trolling and so great. I mean, if you think about his superpower, it was to troll the left and put them into such a deranged mindset that they did actually become that which they hated most. David Sacks (00:32:28): Right. But he he did he he did troll the left. But but here's but here's the thing is that we only hear in the media about the authoritarianism of the Trump administration? How many times were they screaming fascism during the Trump years? And and now today and and, of course, you know, if you go to MSNBC see it's it's January 6 all day all the time. That's all they wanna talk about. But you there's a total blind spot with respect to the authoritarian tendencies of the left, which we see right now in COVID policy. I mean, it is getting so extreme right now. And, I mean, Friedberg, you posted the breaking news That just announced via press press conference, Gavin Newsom is now implementing mandated COVID vaccines for all public k through 12 schools in California starting this fall. Jason Calacanis (00:33:14): Wait. Wait. These students? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:16): Yeah. All all eligible kids in all in all public schools. David Friedberg (00:33:20): In order to go to school in California, you have to have a vaccine. David Sacks (00:33:24): I mean, Kindergarten? Kindergarten? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:27): Well, I mean, they're not eligible yet. David Friedberg (00:33:28): If it's when they're eligible Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:30): -- David Sacks (00:33:30): Yeah. -- they're they're they're gonna be eligible very soon. I mean, look, I I I so so we have a thirteen year old and eleven year old and a five year old. The thirteen year old got vaccinated. She wanted to. We supported it. The eleven year old wasn't eligible. She didn't get a vaccine. She got COVID. For me, it was a mild case. and our five year old isn't eligible for the vaccine. He never got COVID. Now if if and when a new vaccine comes out that our five year old is eligible, I don't think he needs it. I mean, I'm not anti vaxx. I mean, I'm glad I got the vaccine. I'm glad, you know Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:01): -- Jason Calacanis (00:34:01): Is he going to school? Is he going -- -- got David Sacks (00:34:03): the vaccine. Yeah. He goes to school. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:05): -- Jason Calacanis (00:34:05): question is do you if it is safe, do you want them going to school, catching it, spreading it, and do you want them to not have to wear a mask? Because -- How can David Sacks (00:34:12): you say conclusively? what, say, for a five or six year old at this point in Jason Calacanis (00:34:17): time? It's a little hard. Their bodies are developing and, yeah, you need some time to do that. David Sacks (00:34:20): Do we really need to mandate this? I mean, why why can't parents make up their own decision? Jason Calacanis (00:34:24): Because of other people in society who would be impacted as Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:27): -- David Sacks (00:34:27): I mean, you you also see this. You know, look, I I think I think vaccines may be our complicated debate because vaccines do you provide protection. Let's talk about these mask mandates, which I supported at the beginning of the pandemic because it's all we had to fight it. But you take an example like San Francisco, still has these stringent mask mandates. The mayor of London Breat was caught out at Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:46): -- Jason Calacanis (00:34:47): Dancing, singing, screaming, And in fairness to her, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:50): it was Tony Tony Tony. David Friedberg (00:34:51): I mean -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:34:52): I mean, that's when she established her defense. She was Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:54): like -- She was basically like, is Tony Tony Tony, guys? What do you want Jason Calacanis (00:34:57): me to do? I'll risk COVID, which is practical for you. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:00): I have to get rid of that one. Jason Calacanis (00:35:01): I had to get rid of that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:01): -- Jason Calacanis (00:35:01): wanna risk if you wanna risk COVID to play poker or see your favorite part of the study. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:06): I mean, what do you wanna do? Jason Calacanis (00:35:07): What do to do, guys. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:08): -- Jason Calacanis (00:35:08): think about let let let me ask this question. David Sacks (00:35:10): What she said when she got caught was actually correct, which is we should be out supporting restaurants. We should be out supporting nightlife Adults should be able to make their own decision about the risks they're willing to take. The problem is Jason Calacanis (00:35:21): she's not willing to give David Sacks (00:35:22): the rest of us that choice. Jason Calacanis (00:35:23): Right. David Sacks (00:35:24): And we can all make our own choice. And by the way, look, the idea that the COVID's not gonna get you with you know, once you take off your mask when you get to the table, You know, we've talked about this. Jason Calacanis (00:35:35): Right? You David Sacks (00:35:36): yeah. You you wear the mask and the maitre, you stand to the table, then you take it off to eat and drink, and the COVID somehow is gonna get in. This is by the way Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:43): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:35:44): she was saying. She was like, I listen. I they were like, you weren't eating. We have you on video. You weren't drinking. She's like, it's unrealistic for an adult. to put the mask on and off in between sips and bites. And I was on a flight, and I was flying coach as opposed to business class recently. And when I was in business class, I was eating and drinking. There was no Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:02): -- It's an entire foreign language so far you're speaking. What are you saying? So Jason Calacanis (00:36:06): I start so tomorrow David Friedberg (00:36:07): night. Most people pay for a plane ticket, and then they get on an airplane. Jason Calacanis (00:36:11): So but the the interesting thing was when I was in business class, I was eating in my meal. I was drinking. No issues. I had the mask off for whatever 20 minutes I was eating and drinking. When I was in coach, same situation, the flight attendant was going up and down the aisle. And while people were eating and drinking, if they didn't have the mask on, she was kinda being like a whole monitor saying, please put your mask on in between bites. And I was like, okay. David Sacks (00:36:35): Yeah. And when we supported this mask mandate way at the beginning of the vaccine, we all thought the government's gonna distribute n99 or at least n95 high quality, 3 m mass. Right? You've never got those. Jason Calacanis (00:36:45): You never got them people -- -- kids. David Sacks (00:36:47): I know. And people people are, like, walking around wearing these cloth mat these loose fitting cloth mats. It's ridiculous. Jason Calacanis (00:36:53): It's theater. David Sacks (00:36:53): The the COVID goes, you know, through the bottom, over the top, through the site group, right, through it. I mean -- Sure. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:59): -- David Sacks (00:36:59): like, it doesn't do anything. Jason Calacanis (00:37:00): And -- Yeah. You're the lone ranger. Yeah. How's that work? David Sacks (00:37:02): I mean, look. If you wear a high quality, like, you know, PPE type mask, I think it might be helpful. But, you know, it's a marginal benefit once we have vaccines. Jason Calacanis (00:37:13): Oh, by the way, just as we end this, what do we think of Andrew Wigan well, you can't comment on this maybe because you're an owner on the team, but a number of NBA players high profile ones, in fact, in New York And California where you're not allowed in the arena if you're not vaccinated are now deciding to sit out their home games So Kyrie Irving being the highest profile 1 is refusing to get the vaccine, and he will be getting paid. He's got a $200,000,000 contract Max Blair. I think he gets 40, 50,000,000 a year. He's gonna give up half of his salary to not 20,000,000 a year to not get the vaccine at least. And leave his team to not play with them in home games? What are our thoughts on mandating NBA players who are playing inside an arena? to be vaccinated. Did you David Friedberg (00:38:05): see Draymond interview? Jason Calacanis (00:38:06): I did. David Sacks (00:38:07): What did what did Data have to say about this? Jason Calacanis (00:38:10): He says that he's so Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:11): fucking strong, isn't he? Yeah. He was, like, David Friedberg (00:38:13): this is ridiculous that we don't, like, respect each other's like, we've made this so political and it's all, like, antagonistic as opposed to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:20): -- David Friedberg (00:38:20): It went meta. -- recognizing that there are different and people have differences of opinion and respecting them and embracing each other for those differences rather than, like, attacking each other and finding fault in each other. and forcing them. Yeah. And it's a great point, but I don't know. I mean, I don't think that this point is any different than the point about you know, mandating a vaccine for anything, any workplace, any school. I mean, if you're gonna mandate if you're gonna mandate vaccines for workplaces and mandate vaccines for schools, you know, the NBA is gonna, you know, not be kind of excluded here. It's what it is. Jason Calacanis (00:38:52): Right. Just happens to be a bigger paycheck and a higher profile stage. David Sacks (00:38:55): Yeah. I think as a matter of policy, the the right policy here is to let private employers decide whether they're gonna require vaccination or not. I think I think private organization have the right to do that. If, you know, if a restaurant tour wants to say that we are gonna be an all vaxx restaurant, you wanna you know, they're only gonna take clientele who are vaxx. That should be their right to do it. If another restaurant says we don't care, people can go to that restaurant if they want. But, you know, I think the the free market can sort sort this out. I don't know that we need the government imposing it. If the NBA decides this is what they wanna do, they can't. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:26): -- Jason Calacanis (00:39:26): has decided what they think about decision. David Sacks (00:39:28): Well, I mean, what I wonder about is how necessary it is. I mean, given the fact that, you know, all the players are young and healthy, And if they want the vaccine, they can get the vaccine. Oh, look. I'm really glad I got it. You know? I think it but But I just you know, if it it given that everybody is vaccinated now who wants it, I just you know, what is the point of forcing that last 10% of holdouts to do something they don't wanna do. I mean, this is where I think the author I would resist the authoritarian impulse. Jason Calacanis (00:40:00): Friedberg, is there a new pill that's coming out I saw a story today about this. I don't know if I wanna cover that or go to Unicorn's first. David Friedberg (00:40:08): Merck published some results on this, basically, antiviral pill, it it effectively inhibits RNA replication in viruses, and it's kind of It was designed to be kind of broadly applicable. It was, you know, discovered at Emory University years ago, and they were testing it for influenza and then even priests pre COVID, they were testing it on other kind of coronaviruses, SARS, and MERS. And so the the the data that they just published shows that there's a 50% reduction in hospitalizations. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:44): 50% David Friedberg (00:40:45): in hospitalizations for for people that are Natest positive for SARS CoV 2 infection, and then they start the pill within some number of hours. You take a few of these pills. Jason Calacanis (00:40:56): I think they said 5 days. Right? David Friedberg (00:40:57): Yeah. Well, it's I think they well, they did the test on, like, it was effectively, yeah, 4 or 5 days. That's right. And you end up reducing the number the percentage of people that end up in the hospital by 50%. Now, you know, so the idea is that for countries that don't have act access to vaccines, you could very cheaply make this chemistry. It's a cheap molecule that you could theoretically produce at scale, and you could ship it all over the world. and countries that don't have, you know, broad scale vaccination programs, they can make these pills available quickly and cheaply. And then, you know, as people get infected with SARS CoV 2, they just pick up this pill, you know, put it in every pharmacy, go grab a couple, and then the hospitalization rate goes down. We don't yet know if it reduces the transmission rate. So there's a lot of question marks on, like, does this actually solve the problem of the pandemic? It's certainly another instrument to blunt the, you know, the impact. Jason Calacanis (00:41:49): Pronounced the name of it. It's mal new Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:51): Mal new pair of air. Jason Calacanis (00:41:53): Mal new pair of air. The government by the way, David Friedberg (00:41:56): there wasn't a lot of people in the study. No one that took the pill died. People that didn't take the pill did die in the in the inside in in the infected population because they split them. Right? They gave some people a placebo and some people the pill. The people that had the placebo, they were deaths. No one in the group that had the pill the actual pill died. And so, you know, so so theoretically, we don't yet have enough data to know, but there's also a big question on the side effects. Typically, these anti viral RNA kind of blocking drugs have other side effects they're usually pretty mild, but you know? So so there'll there'll be a little bit more studying, but, generally, people view this as a super big positive to another instrument. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:36): I'm gonna make a I'm gonna make a prediction. Jason Calacanis (00:42:38): Here we go. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:40): I think that the combination of vaccines and what is equivalently Chamath flu for COVID, which is effectively what this is, is the 12 punch we need so that this basically is rendered Jason Calacanis (00:42:54): You're missing the 3 you're missing a key piece there, the testing. You must have testing to know that you have to take this. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:00): But I I I think that that's a I I think, like, the testing is It's not efficient, but the solutions exist. My point is if you have a combination of all these things, this is like a flu, which means that there'll be less ability for folks to not show up to work, which means that most of the economy movie will get back going. And I think then we can bet get back to really addressing what are all that 10 or $12,000,000,000,000, how does it show up in the economy? That's where the inflation comes from. That's for all this other stuff. So I'm I'm pretty excited by what I read today, but now my mindset is going to 18 months from now, midterm inflation. I think that's going to be what it's all about. Jason Calacanis (00:43:38): We ordered 1,700,000 courses of this. I'll call it it's a we could just call basically, this is the equivalent of a Z Pak, so we can call it as the impact. if this hits -- And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:48): I I've taken probably 1,700,000 seatbacks a month. Jason Calacanis (00:43:51): That's just on the way back from Vegas. So, I mean, this feels like the end game, and they are going for emergency use. So let's keep our fingers crossed. This would mean the stock market's gonna rip each month? David Friedberg (00:44:05): No. I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:05): think the stock market is in a little bit of precarious position because if you have to if you have to reposition yourself for inflation, there's a lot of tech stocks that will get just absolutely obliterated like well, when when you when you when you when you have inflation, so the the order of operations. Inflation means prices go up. The the government sees prices going up and they say, how do we control that? they raise interest rates so that the cost of borrowing goes up so that then less money is being spent. Right? So that we become a little bit more restrained. When you do that, then all of a sudden, people have to think about how much money you're gonna make in the future because if you're not investing as much in the future, you won't make as much in the future. And when you out all those dollars back, there's less of them. And so all of a sudden, you start to think about, oh my gosh. Well, I want dollars today, not dollars 10 years from now. that really puts a lot of pressure on tech stocks because we trade on multi year valuations in the future. So inflation is very bad for technology. stuck. Inflation tends to be good for companies that make money today. Why? Because if I get a dollar today, I can put it in this in the, you know, bond markets or I put it into a savings account and I can get more interest than I would have otherwise. And then separately, you also wanna own things that physical and real because those have more value. So all of that has to then get worked out into the economy, and we have to make a bunch of economic decisions. So we so now the solution for that in all of those cases though is still if you're a hyper growth company, you'll be okay. So if you're growing more than 50, 60 percent a year, You're fine. But if you're growing 20 or 30 percent and you're kind of a middling business and rates are going up and inflation is going up, you're in a very, very, very precarious spot. And, Sachs, what do you think? Jason Calacanis (00:45:50): Okay. Well, I think there was David Sacks (00:45:52): there was a great article in The Wall Street Journal over the past week called University Endowment mint billions in the golden era of venture capital is basically talking about. I mean, these these you've ever seen downwards are are like gaining 50% year over year. There's been like nothing like it before. There's so many unicorns being created. There's and if you there's a separate article in, I think, pitch book as well about the rate of Unicorn or Crunchbase, yeah, that the rate of Unicorn creation. I think last year, it was, like, 1 every few days. Now it's it's more than 1 a day. Bonkers. And so, you know, we're getting multiple unicorns now created every day this year. It's just this golden era VC, this engine of wealth, and prosperity creation. So That's the good news. And and to connect this to a point we were talking about earlier, if the the radicals on the left would just allow the golden goose to keep laying Golden eggs, we're gonna have enough wealth and prosperity to pay for all these progressive programs in the long run. but they're not willing to wait. And so you have in Washington, for example, I think a political program that really could upset the Apple cart. I mean, you're talking about a 3 and a half Chamath Palihapitiya (00:46:59): $1,000,000,000,000 David Sacks (00:47:01): reconciliation bill. It'll probably get brought down to somewhere between 1a half and 2 then you got a $1,200,000,000,000 infrastructure bill. They've already spent 1,900,000,000,000 on a COVID relief bill. This is after the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:12): 6,000,000,000,000 Jason Calacanis (00:47:13): What would you what would you advise should be the amount spent? David Sacks (00:47:16): Well okay. Good question. So last year, the federal government generated record tax receipts. The most revenue it's ever raised, and it was about 19 a half percent of GDP. When Bill Clinton left office, he bros boasted about the fact that government spending was only 18 and a half percent of GDP. Last year, it was about 30% of GDP. My theory on this is that if you have government spending as a, you know, share of the economy at around 20% from a tax spending standpoint things basically work. Okay? But as you try to go up to 25 30%, it starts to break. You have too much deficits and debt, too much money printing, too much taxation, too much inflation, you become more brittle. And you start to you basically are, you Jason Calacanis (00:48:07): know Unhealthy. David Sacks (00:48:08): You're killing the golden goose. And so, you know, all we have to do is let the economy keep ripping. 20% of it is gonna is gonna be government share, and you'll be able to fund more and more progressive programs over time as society gets richer And by the way, this this prosperity that's being created in the tech ecosystem, it's available to everybody who has a good idea. I mean, this is not So so as we all know so it's not just government that's creating advancement and economic opportunity for disadvantaged people. the tech economy is creating it as well. And what I worry about is is why are we taking so much risk in upending this whole system that is working quite well? Jason Calacanis (00:48:50): Well, the other thing is this is all in the face of there being 11,000,000 open jobs. There's 1.4 jobs for everybody who's unemployed. So the idea that in some ways society is broken and people can't be employed, now these might not be the greatest job. David Sacks (00:49:05): There's only 4,000,000 there's only 4,000,000 people looking work, there's 11,000,000 outstanding jobs. Jason Calacanis (00:49:09): Yeah. I mean, it is bonkers, Friedberg. Or do you think this is sustainable? What are your thoughts on spending and turning over the Apple cart, as Saks is saying. David Friedberg (00:49:19): The longer you guys have me on this podcast, the more likely it is you guys are gonna unmask me as a die hard libertarian. I will not let my tendencies, you know, come out in full force. the spending is ridiculous, and there's a lot of waste. So, I mean, I'll just leave it at that. What I think is interesting, though, is this unicorn creation system this unit of corn creation machine, you know, it's worth highlighting because I think that that crunch based article show that these unicorns in aggregate were worth, like, what? $1,500,000,000,000 or something? And those so those are all private companies. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:53): $3,400,000,000,000. 3,400,000,000,000. Jason Calacanis (00:49:56): So is that the amount of both bills? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:59): 3,400,000,000,000 David Sacks (00:50:00): is the total market cap of all the private unicorns, not just in the US but the world. And right now in Washington, they're talking about 3 and a half $1,000,000,000,000 reconciliation bill. Same size. Can you imagine government spending basically, the entire value of the tech ecosystem in 1 year is bonkers. David Friedberg (00:50:17): Right. And so this but by the way, I mean, like, I think that that 3,500,000,000,000,000, you can kind of think about that as being the future economy of the future global economy. Right? So the entire I just pulled up the latest quarterly stat, but the entire market cap of public US companies today stands at Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:35): $47,000,000,000,000. David Friedberg (00:50:37): the top 500 are about $38,000,000,000,000. So, you know, these private companies that are kind of the emerging tech companies are, you know, call it 10% or, you know, 8% of -- Today. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:49): -- David Friedberg (00:50:49): all public pub today of all public companies today. And, you know, it used to be The technology company started in Silicon Valley, sold technology to traditional industries. What's happening in Silicon Valley today and over the last 10 years or so is that technology, quote, unquote, companies are becoming the next industrial companies. They are replacing Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:10): -- Jason Calacanis (00:51:10): Profounded insurance. Right. David Friedberg (00:51:12): And so this is like what we saw. You know, Airbnb is a hotel chain with that hotels. Uber is, you know, a transportation company without vehicles. DoorDash DoorDash. But but even more importantly, there's an entire emergent class of life sciences companies, of of novel hardware companies, And these businesses are leveraging their core technology competence to create an advantage in replacing an old model of doing industry. Jason Calacanis (00:51:37): They're not selling into the old David Friedberg (00:51:38): school council. I think that the you know? And and people are freaking out about, you know, some of these big investors like Tiger Global coming in and writing crazy checks if you take an index of the 3 and a half $1,000,000,000,000 today and said, you know what? These guys today are gonna be worth more than the $46,000,000,000,000 market cap of all the other public companies that sit today in the next 20 or 30 years, that's a pretty good way to kinda place your money over a 30 year horizon. I'm gonna go ahead and put as much money as I can into the index of the private companies and expect that they're gonna be worth more than 46,000,000,000,000,000 in 30 years. I'm gonna make a Tiger, that's a retirement fund for my family. And so it makes a ton of sense, I think, that these, you know, these unicorns, given the that are, you know, kind of evolving from software and like sciences and so on do end up kind of playing out. It's gonna be ugly and that when what'll what'll is you'll end up seeing the asymmetry. You'll see the, like, oh my gosh. It's something that's a 1000 x, you know, 100 x return. It'll become a $100,000,000,000 public company or $200,000,000,000 public company. then there'll be a bunch of them they're gonna die. And people are gonna focus on the depths and say this was overhyped. The bubble is over. But the reality is the index of companies today, I would be willing to bet 20 to 30 years from now, it's worth more than the $46,000,000,000 of all the public companies today. Jason Calacanis (00:52:49): So Shammoth, one of the things we're seeing here, and we are playing a small part in it or a large part depending on who you talk to. We now have over 6000 publicly traded companies on US exchanges. No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:00): We we have less than 4000. We have about 38100. Jason Calacanis (00:53:03): Okay. No. We had 3612016 according to the research I have here. According to MarketWatch, 6000 public trade companies in changes. So what's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:11): the right number? -- counting the pink sheets and over the counter stuff, which is I -- We're Jason Calacanis (00:53:14): seeing dramatically more publicly traded companies. many speculative ones or ones where you're getting to buy in in year 4, 5, or 6. Obviously, you're part of that with you know, all the different IPOAs through what are you up to now? What's the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:30): Yeah. We have 6 tech specs. We have 4 biotech specs. You know? I mean, I've started or invested in a bunch of others that have gone public. Jason Calacanis (00:53:38): So let let's look at this through Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:40): the lens of the the public markets as well. My Mac review is exactly what Friedberg said. We are much better off with as many technology companies being birthed and being viable Because over the long arc of time, those companies will rebuild things that are today inefficient and broken in a better way. and the world becomes better. The question is for a lot of people well, what if the wealth isn't better because it's only, you know, a fraction of the number of people with a very specific skill set that Ben the other people don't have. That I think is a valid argument. But then there's a different way to attack this problem which is you could actually do something really meaningful around corporate interest rates and corporate tax policy that would then get it Right? So like even if those those 1000 companies If you assume that that $3,400,000,000,000 10 x's, that's 34,000,000,000,000 of eventual market cap. Right? That's gonna be supported by 1,000,000,000 of dollars of earnings. But maybe those things only have a 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 employees but there's 8,000,000,008, you know, odd people in the world. Well, the way you get the money into the government's coffers so that they can reallocate it to everybody that doesn't work at those thousand companies is through sensible tax policy that goes after the companies because those companies will still do the job. Right? It's not like you're gonna choose to not work at a, you know, world beating startup in a mission that you care about because of the corporate tax rate. Nobody's gonna do that. Right? So I think this is where, like, if you if you if you actually Take a step back and think of the bigger picture. The answer is right in front of us. We just choose not to listen. This is why you know again what Trump did was kind of stupid. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:55:18): You know, he focused on corporate tax policy. cutting it unnecessarily. And now what we're doing is we're fighting over tax policy and part of the reason why this bill isn't gonna get passed is because of corporate tax policy and trying to raise it again. But really what we should do is actually raise it, leave personal rates roughly where they are. You know, Elon even said. When when asked by Cara Swisher this week, he's like, I pay 53 percent taxes. What about you? Jason Calacanis (00:55:43): Yeah. It's going to 57. And, you know, it's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:55:46): -- 53. 57.61. Who cares? Sure. Whatever. David Friedberg (00:55:50): It's all Jason Calacanis (00:55:50): the same. And he has to the point he made was, listen, the ProPublica article was really disingenuous. They said he got a tax refund and they didn't they never explained, well, that's because he overpaid his taxes massively the year before. So they're selectively pulling information, and the fact is he said, I will be the 1st money into SpaceX and Tesla, I'll be the last money out. That is something we want more founders to do, which is never sell their shares and, b, have more skin in the game. Sorry. I I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:20): I'm sorry. I disagree with that. I think that that's a that's a bunch of fucking malarkey. Why? If you choose to not sell, so be it. Jason Calacanis (00:56:29): Okay. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:29): But look at the good that Bill Gates has done by selling down Microsoft. Jason Calacanis (00:56:35): So, I mean, the other half Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:36): shouldn't exist. The Bill Gates Foundation shouldn't exist. Jason Calacanis (00:56:39): No. No. No. No. The reproductive Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:40): the it had to be paid somehow. Jason Calacanis (00:56:42): He did that when he hits hit sixty years old. I'm sure when -- No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:45): -- you know other. No. He started to do it when he was forty years old, Jason. David Friedberg (00:56:49): And he on and he on sold PayPal, and he was able to use that money to to reinvest in Tesla and Snapchat. Jason Calacanis (00:56:54): I do think the deal is putting all the money back into 2 companies that are solving 2 major issues. But he David Friedberg (00:57:00): he wouldn't have been able to do that if he hadn't sold in the first place. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:03): My my my point is let's not conflate the problem. If you generate wealth, I think that you should be bound, morally bound by society to put the money back to work. He chooses to put the money back to work by reinvesting so aggressively into the things that he's doing. That's laudable. Jason Calacanis (00:57:22): Yeah. I think that's virtuous. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:24): I agree. But it's not the only way. Bill Gates took a different path, which is to basically take all those profits sell it down to then be able to go and put it into the Gates Foundation. People will take multiple paths. The point that's the same among all these people is there's a moral obligation they feel to do the right thing for Jason Calacanis (00:57:39): the future. Then we're in agreement. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:41): So let's just celebrate that, not some tactical thing about David Friedberg (00:57:44): buying and selling stuff. One other point I'd make some up, like, you you said that, you know, we should tax the the the wealth creation and distribute it. There's another way to get that redistribution of wealth, which is to enable act access to the investments earlier by public pension funds, by the endowments, by the places where people, by the retirement funds, where, you know, a broader swath of the population, you know, have savings sitting. Jason Calacanis (00:58:09): And I know -- Change the accreditation loss. David Friedberg (00:58:11): We've we've historically kind of forced the narrative that everyone in the United States needs to have a home and have 80, 90 percent of their wealth tied up in a piece of real estate. And then we end up with these massive kind of inflationary bubbles to keep that value, that book value kind of growing for them. The reality is if that money was put more productively into building businesses via retirement funds that had access to venture capital the public pension funds already do, but they should they probably under allocate to venture capital today relative to where they're putting their -- And Jason Calacanis (00:58:37): we we talked about the endowments of looking at it. David Friedberg (00:58:39): But that's Another way, by the way, that was the model, you wouldn't need to tax. Right? You you Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:43): could basically Well, David Sacks (00:58:43): by the way, one one of the brilliant provisions in this reconciliation bill is they're actually disallowing retirement funds to invest in alternative assets, including startups and and Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:53): -- David Friedberg (00:58:53): Insane. -- Venture Capital Funds. That is so wrong. So what? David Sacks (00:58:58): Yeah. What? That's in there. Jason Calacanis (00:59:00): They literally are taking pension funds and saying, you can't have access Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:07): to them? David Sacks (00:59:08): You you as an individual through a 41k or Ira. David Friedberg (00:59:11): Ira. Ira. David Sacks (00:59:12): Ira. -- not invest in alternative access. Jason Calacanis (00:59:14): to your rule. Right? David Sacks (00:59:15): the s partly in response to that. Jason Calacanis (00:59:17): Well, they should just make it a cap. Don't you think they should cap Peter Tiltz? David Sacks (00:59:22): I think David Friedberg (00:59:23): That's why. Why cap anything? Who's this who's this episode? Jason Calacanis (00:59:26): Because it was against the spirit of it. The spirit of the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:59:28): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:59:28): Roth was let's let's discuss the senate specific issue, Alex. I'll tee it up for you, Saxx. Peter Till put his Facebook stock in his broth. And, yeah, you're supposed to get that tax free so you can have a great retirement. He did that as an end run around paying taxes on the Facebook investment that became worth 1,000,000,000 of dollars reportedly. So now they're saying, You can have a Roth, but anything above 50,000,000,000, you gotta pay tax on because the goal here isn't for you to use it as a shelter against some massive venture gains, sacks. David Sacks (00:59:59): Yeah. I I don't have a huge problem with them putting a cap on the benefit -- Okay. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:02): -- David Sacks (01:00:02): of these accounts. However, my my issue with what's in the bill, there's a couple issues. One is, like we said, they're disallowing investments in alternatives. which I just think is bad for savers. Why would you wanna do that? 2nd is the treatment of what happens when you exceed the cash And right now, what they're saying is you have to distribute out all of those funds and then subject subject them to immediate taxation at ordinary income rates. which is confiscatory because you could have made the investment outside the retirement account and paid lock log gate log term cap rates range. Jason Calacanis (01:00:36): If you do go over, it should be, yeah, long term tax, of course. David Sacks (01:00:39): Yeah. And and furthermore, it's even worse than that because what they're saying is let's say that you do have an alternative, like an investment in a start or a a venture fund, you have to distribute it out and pay tax on that even though that investment is not liquid Right. Jason Calacanis (01:00:52): So you should be able to take it out and just be treated normal cap gains and not have to liquidate it. Do you think -- Well, David Sacks (01:00:57): what what it's gonna do is it's gonna get it's gonna get people an incentive. gonna warp the incentives for saving because what it's gonna say to people is you wanna do well, but not too well. Jason Calacanis (01:01:06): Right. David Sacks (01:01:06): Because if you hit the cap, you're now subject to a confiscation. Jason Calacanis (01:01:09): You get penalized. Yes. It should be Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:11): -- David Sacks (01:01:11): So it shouldn't be neutrality. Yeah. Exactly. I think the way it should work is you have a cap and any distribution above that. you basically, that becomes the basis for future taxation. David Friedberg (01:01:20): I think I think all Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:21): of this can summarize more simply. I think that we have unfortunately gotten so confused that we've decided to fix the finish line and stagger the starting line. Right? Because all of this still doesn't apply to rich people. Jason Calacanis (01:01:36): No. This is vindictive, like, rich Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:38): people rich people can do all of these different things. They can set up these out of state trust. They can set up generation skipping trust. They can be, you know, qualified investors. They can have QSBS deductions. And so what this will do, unfortunately, is entrench the kind of wealth gains that Peter Tio was able to generate in a very visible way that will just piss everybody off. And I think instead you gotta go back to a different 2 of the different litmus tests. So I Jason, you have been the strongest advocate for letting people participate in the economy. I have always agreed with that. We need to figure out how we can make sure that that it that it isn't abused. But that's the best way is to educate folks about financial literacy so that they can actually be a part of it. even the starting line let everybody be able to put stuff into this stuff and learn about it. Jason Calacanis (01:02:30): I mean, what Peter did, essentially, was put lottery tickets into his, you know, nontax Retirement Fund Lottery tickets being buying stocks in private companies early. But regular Americans aren't allowed to do that. So rather than retroactively try to penalize Peter because you disagree with his politics or because he did it too well, I think it's better that everybody be allowed to be an accredited investor and do what Peter did, which is Everybody should be able to take their 401 k or their Roth and be able to buy the next LinkedIn Uber. So if you were a civilian and you took an Uber or you used LinkedIn to or somebody in year 2. And you had an opportunity to buy those shares, you should be allowed to buy it because you're a human resources person or Uber driving. You realize, is a great service that'll change the world. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out, Friedberg? David Friedberg (01:03:15): Yeah. Look, I mean, the the downside is you see speculative concentrated bets that wipe people out. That's the reason the protective provisions are in there. So I think there are probably sensible ways of managing that. you know, around, you know, qualifying, you know, pools of these investments in a way, creating indexes against them, etcetera. and maybe that's the right way to provide access, but, you know, giving individuals that maybe, you know, don't have the right kind of point of view, on a particular investment, the ability to put all of their capital into that investment. Generally, I would say go for it. The problem is we've socialized you know, protection. Right? So and this is the same with health care. In a model for governing or model for a state, where you provide socialized care for people through health care, socialized health care, or you provide socialized support for people through, you know, this the Social Security system and other services like It's difficult to say, okay. The government's gonna be your backstop and is gonna provide the support for you, and we're also gonna let you take risky behavior. And that's where I think the 2 have to go hand in hand. If you wanna get rid of one, you gotta get rid of the other. And so because otherwise, we all end up paying the cost of the person that takes the, you know, outsized risk, and then we all end up having to foot the bill for that person taking that risk. So if we're all gonna be there to protect that person, we have to tell them you can't take unnecessary risk. Jason Calacanis (01:04:42): Okay. Hey. Saks, let me ask you a compare conspiracy theory here. Peter TL supported Trump when Trump was teetering on the access Hollywood tape And he went to bat for him. He gave him a big donation at that time then obviously did the Republican National Convention and was a key intellectual influencer in his election plan. Now the Democrats are in and suddenly the becomes this one outsized Roth IRA and we're gonna rewrite the law so that Peter Thiel has to take $5,000,000,000 or so is one of the estimates that I saw online on CNBC out of his IRA. Do you think this is specific vindictiveness on the part of the Democrats to try to attack specifically Peter Thiel? I know he's your bestie. David Sacks (01:05:33): Well yeah. I mean It Jason Calacanis (01:05:34): does feel and I'm not I'm not a Peter Thiel apologist, but this feels vindictive and personal. David Sacks (01:05:39): So yes and no. Okay. So what I would say is there have been proposals over the last I think going back to maybe even 2014 on providing some restrictions or caps on, you know, these these iras and the Roth IRAs. However, there's never been a proposal as punitive and retroactive and confiscatory, that's what they're doing here. And, specifically, it's the fact that they're gonna force Peter to distribute out everything above the cap and then tax it as ordinary income. I mean, that that's just changing the rules. That part, I think, is directed at Peter. And I've actually heard that staffers on Capitol Hill are calling this the Peter Teal provision. So let me just confirm that part for you. So what I would say is I think there is a sensible way to provide some restrictions on these retirement accounts, but the way they're doing it is so punitive I think it is motivated by political revenge against Peter. Jason Calacanis (01:06:36): Shamath, what do we think of the number of unicorns being created in the private markets? Obviously, a company hits unicorn status, I think they're gonna start buzzing around and maybe knocking on your door and specs and boards might start thinking about that. These companies sometimes have 10,000,000 dollars, $30,000,000 in revenue, 50,000,000 in revenue, and they're becoming worth a $1,000,000,000. Do these valuations make sense writ large? And are you concerned that this is a bubble? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:02): I don't think there's a bubble. Jason Calacanis (01:07:03): Okay. Explain why there's not a bubble in early stage private companies. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:07:07): Well, I think it's because of what we just talked about, which is that these companies by and large are growing at incredibly fast rates and they are replacing legacy incumbents that are growing very slowly or not at all. with and who who have basically won for a long time with inferior products. And so as these superior products with more nimble organizations, get capitalized to go to market, they're just gonna win. And so I think what we're seeing is a wholesale replacement of the economy. from the old to the new. And so that's why these companies will do well. And I think it's gonna be a a a really powerful force in the world because like the world should be a little bit more efficient and fairer when you have all this modern technology working on your behalf. So I'm a real supporter of all of this. I think there's gonna be even more and I think, you know, the the the thing that we have to be comfortable with is whenever something goes from fringe thing, which is what venture capital was, Jason, when all of us were, you know, 1st in Silicon Valley 20 years ago, to, you know, today in 2021, we're sitting here, this is gonna become a fundamental part of the economy And when that happens, there'll be more and more money. The returns won't be as good. That'll be okay but there'll be a lot of progress. And so, you know, we're going through the same transition that private equity did in the eighties nineties that venture that hedge fund went through a bunch of those. -- Jason Calacanis (01:08:37): different venture capital us who are retiring, Bijan from Spark, the kid from Lightspeed, bunch of other folks. Obviously, our friend Bill Gurley is stepping back. kid. What do you call me? Jeremy is Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:48): fifty. He's fifty. Yeah. That guy -- David Sacks (01:08:50): Am I doing something wrong here? I'm, like, busy creating a venture firm at age almost fifty -- Yeah. David Friedberg (01:08:55): You're you're on the long side of this. Well, at least Jason Calacanis (01:08:57): let me know. So what what what do we think is behind this? They just made too much money in their -- No. No. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:01): I have money for it because Jason Calacanis (01:09:02): it's too competitive now. It's too hard. David Friedberg (01:09:04): They're moving to Wyoming. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:09:05): I would say it's slightly different than this. I don't know I don't know the the I mean, I know all of those guys, but I don't know what their motivation is. But what I would say is I tend to think that the mindset of venture has a relatively short half life, and I think it's about 15 years. And I think that there is a And because, you know, company building is roughly a 10 year arc, you know, like, when you get into something early. And so I I I think that there is like a a newness whenever you start. I don't think it matters what your age is. And then there is this sort of like death march that sets in by year 8 or 9 And then you try to see it through to returning the capital and making sure all the employees and and founders you've been invested with land the ship. And I and I think what these guys did was get to that place and say, okay, I've had this 15 year beautiful arc. Do I wanna do another 15 year arc? And for a lot of people, it won't make much sense. And then, also, I think your patience to do it goes away. Right? Because it's like, You you guys know what it Jason Calacanis (01:10:16): we we all know the last thing. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:17): It is exhausting. It's exhausting. -- Jason Calacanis (01:10:19): of drama I'm dealing with right now in my portfolio is bonkers. The the the bet I don't know if you're seeing this, but the amount of shenanigans bad behavior, fraud, lying back stabbing, is that an all time high? David Friedberg (01:10:32): That would be your portfolio, Jake. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:10:35): No. It's like no. No. It's it's literally 3 companies. I'm literally dealing with 3 companies with drama out of 350. I think it's one out of a 100 is probably fine. But I am seeing all kinds of shenanigans. Even in the diligence phase, I'm seeing the change in mind. I meant Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:48): something more tactical, which is, like, for example, you know, yesterday, I we're we're starting something really ambitious in batteries. And I have to sit there for an hour, and we have to go through ordering the equipment, setting up the lab, getting the you know? Human resources. And there's only so much of that that you have the energy to do after a certain amount of time. It's important work You have to do it right but it feels a little low leverage. Now for that CEO, it's everything. And so you have to be on top of your game to help that person. And I think this is where I appreciate their honesty in basically saying, guys, I don't have that level of detailed focus in me anymore. And that's important because in a next generation of folks who wanna put in that 15 year journey, Jason Calacanis (01:11:34): you need somebody committed. You need somebody who's super committed. David Sacks (01:11:37): Yeah. And I do think there's a difference between being a partner in a large partnership where you kinda have your portfolio of companies. And, you know, to Tamas point, you're gonna be on that arc with them. And then kind of building a firm from scratch where, like, quite frankly, I would go crazy the way that, you know, you're dealing with Jason and Chamath saying, I would get burned out if I didn't have a team. Jason Calacanis (01:12:00): Right. David Sacks (01:12:00): So we now have, like, a pretty big team Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:02): -- Jason Calacanis (01:12:02): How many? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:02): -- David Sacks (01:12:02): to to well, just on the investment team, I think we've got about fifteen people and And then we now have a bunch of operating partners. So, you know, we were looking at what Andreessen Horowitz has done with services. You know, we had this big debate in the venture community for a long time about whether Venture firm should offer it should offer services and operating partners. And Andreessen, you know, went hot while with that. They've got, like, 200 people doing it. And I think they've proven that it works in the I don't you know, it's not totally clear how much value they're delivering, but it clearly works in the sense that founders would like the services if they can get them. It it Jason Calacanis (01:12:34): creates -- -- marketing, but it may not be necessary. David Sacks (01:12:36): It's great it's great marketing. Jason Calacanis (01:12:37): So -- If you're a great founder, when you were a great founder, you wouldn't want Andreessen Horowitz telling you how to run your HR and doing your marketing for you in camera. David Sacks (01:12:44): Right. But so what we've done is what we've done is focused on bringing on not two hundred people, but in x in every functional area that a SaaS company might need because you do want access to an expert. When you're setting up the department, you wanna go talk to the digital marketing person or the legal person or, you know, or, you know, we have an executive briefing center now. So we do believe that there is a version of the services model that makes sense, and we are building that. If I had to do all of that value add myself, yeah, I would I would burn out. Jason Calacanis (01:13:12): Yeah. I mean, I think it's a very good point. I literally last week launched the syndicate dot com slash SaaS, the SaaS syndicate just for the same reason. So I can build a group of individuals who are focused just on that and who have that domain expertise. But they're the great founders do not want you up in their business. So I I I'm concerned with, like That David Sacks (01:13:32): that that's why we have, like, kind of we call teach them how to fish model where we don't wanna do the work. We wanna give them an expert as a resource who can meet with them, show them show them some best pack Do Jason Calacanis (01:13:41): you have people though coming to you expecting you to do the work? because that's what I can happen sometimes is they're like Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:46): -- Jason Calacanis (01:13:46): Although can you -- -- find us a developer? And I'm like, No. But I can talk to you about finding developers, but I don't have a recruiter on staff. Do you have a recruiter on staff? David Sacks (01:13:54): We actually do now. We have 3 recruiters on staff. So Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:57): -- Jason Calacanis (01:13:57): So you're paying a half Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:58): $1,000,000 Jason Calacanis (01:13:59): a year to recruit for your companies. That's a big David Sacks (01:14:02): step. Basically. Jason Calacanis (01:14:03): That's a big advantage. Is it working? Are you actually landing developer? David Sacks (01:14:06): Yeah. I mean, look, we can't keep it. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:08): And I don't give a fuck about any of this. Alright. Jason Calacanis (01:14:10): But anyway, this is us in the weeds. So would you wanna talk about some -- Okay. Well, just David Sacks (01:14:13): top level. level it for a second. I I just wanna go back to this, like, golden era point when we're talking about venture capital because look. Obviously, in the weeds, we're gonna talk about our problems. But I really think that what's happening here with a 1000 new unicorns being minted every year is just unbelievable. If you look at the number of billionaires in the US, I just googled this. There were 614 billionaires in the US as of October 2020. Now there's probably more. I don't know. Let's say there's a 1000. Well, if you're mincing a 1000 new unicorns every year, how many billionaires is that creating? I mean Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:45): -- Jason Calacanis (01:14:45): How many million More importantly, how many people who are making 50 to $250,000 a year before they join the ecosystem and now are worth millions will buy homes, hire people start in the David Friedberg (01:14:55): next me just give you guys the the counterpoint to that, which I'm not necessarily arguing, but I'm this is what I think the narrative is, which is that those businesses that are kind of, you know, accumulating wealth and accumulating revenue are effectively destroying the old economy and shutting down companies and shutting and Jason Calacanis (01:15:11): storing jobs. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:12): -- Jason Calacanis (01:15:12): a million job openings. That's bullshit. David Sacks (01:15:14): I don't I don't I don't believe it's a zero sum game. Yeah. I think there is it's it's creative structure on both. David Friedberg (01:15:19): It is disruptive. Right? So there is a there is kind of a temporal flux and there's a flux of people across from the old economy to the new economy. And it's that flux that I think creates the great uncertainty and the great Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:29): -- Jason Calacanis (01:15:29): Yes. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:29): -- David Friedberg (01:15:29): heartache that everyone's trying to solve for. Jason Calacanis (01:15:31): That's the hammering. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:32): This is this is why it is so important to get corporate taxation right because if you're gonna replace GDP dollar for dollar. Don't focus on the fewer employees that work there. Focus on the largest number possible, which is the revenue that these employees are helping to generate for these companies. So if you had much, much higher corporate taxation, you can play around with all personal taxation you want. But if a lot of people do get shut out of the economy, you're not gonna make nearly as much Jason Calacanis (01:15:59): for the government as you would by taxing companies more. Chamath, should there be a backstop? Because we know tax law is so sophisticated. And if you're intelligent, you could make it seem like you didn't make any money because you're investing, you're distributing, yadayada. Should there just be a, hey. Listen. Whatever you wanna do at your taxes is fine, but x percent of your top line revenue is your base tax, and you cannot get around that. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:24): Should there be something like that there's a couple things that this tax bill attempted to do which could be really powerful if it does get passed. I think that corporations should pay a large tax. I think that they should be forced to spend a certain percentage on r and d, and I think they should be forced to spend a certain percentage on basically benefits. for their employees. And I think that would do a lot to level the playing field. Then I do think that you can have much higher individual taxation But you need to make it simpler because there's too many easy ways like that ProPublica article showed for you to play games for individuals to not pay taxes. And so you gotta simplify all of this stuff because it's too complicated. So if you're rich enough to hire a fleet of lawyers, You will work go your way around it. Jason Calacanis (01:17:13): Yes. Period. And they and they repealed it as part of the the AMT was for corporations, was repealed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, I think. I don't know where that stands. but it does seem like a lot of companies because of Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:27): -- David Friedberg (01:17:27): I don't know how that makes sense, Jake. Hell, I mean, like, some businesses run high margin. Some are low margin. Some are losing money. Some are over investing. Jason Calacanis (01:17:33): No. It's a kid. I don't have the solution. That's why I'm sort of saying, but one of the I think one of the optics issues here is, you know, people are like, that company didn't pay any taxes. that company sells this many iPhones. That company sells David Friedberg (01:17:44): this many -- -- because they're they're doing what tax laws were designed to do, which is to encourage investment -- So Jason Calacanis (01:17:50): how do you fix it? Give me a solution for you, Bert. David Friedberg (01:17:52): I I don't I think that once businesses are mature and they start dividending cash and making distributions and they're profitable, that might be the time to tax I'm not sure Jason Calacanis (01:17:59): why would they ever do that if they had a army of people saying, hey. You don't have to. David Friedberg (01:18:02): You don't want to talk at Jason Calacanis (01:18:03): this point. David Friedberg (01:18:04): If they're investing in growth, they're creating jobs, and they're growing the economy. That's what we that's what Jason Calacanis (01:18:08): we is fine. I wouldn't David Friedberg (01:18:09): think they're trading Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:09): as many jobs as you think, but they are growing the economy. That's why you have to tax the corporation because that's the effective proxy for taxing GDP. David Friedberg (01:18:17): Yeah. Look. I I would be all about let me just I'll wear my libertarian hat again for a second. But, like, I would be all about taxation if I felt like my dollars had a positive ROI where they ended up. And the problem right now is, like, government spending is set up in such a way that it's effectively been gamified and people extract capital from the government, and my dollars are not getting a positive ROI for me or for Society, I would rather have them sit Jason Calacanis (01:18:40): somewhere -- -- you left let's be honest. That's why you left San Francisco. I mean, it's just they're spending more Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:44): -- -- David Friedberg (01:18:44): left San Francisco. I've got a family, and I and I need a backyard. So a little Jason Calacanis (01:18:48): different -- -- part of it that you are -- Separate. Cisco is a David Friedberg (01:18:51): separate degree of incompetence. But, like but, yes, you're right. Jason Calacanis (01:18:54): They're spending more than ever, and you're and it's getting -- Of course. David Friedberg (01:18:56): San Francisco is a whole another a whole another nightmare, Jake. How well, like, I I'm just speaking Jason Calacanis (01:19:00): in general. California writ large. In general, like, David Friedberg (01:19:03): right now, whether it's the state level or the federal level, It feels to me, and I think it feels to a lot of people that dollars aren't being spent in a way that's generating a return for the taxpayer. And I think we all feel that way. And I think that's what's frustrating. It's not about how much one's being taxed. It's about how are those tax dollars being spent. And are they being spent in a way that secures the future of our nation, of our people, of our livelihoods, etcetera? And making you know, giving everyone access to opportunity What's what's happened what's happened is we've created things like student loan programs and, you know, housing programs and infrastructure programs that are literally just giving away money to private companies that are profiteering off of government spending. Jason Calacanis (01:19:42): Right. David Friedberg (01:19:42): And it's crony capitalism as our favor professor Scott Galloway says, it's one thing I really do agree with. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:19:47): -- Jason Calacanis (01:19:48): politics? David Friedberg (01:19:48): It is it is that there is this notion of crony capitals and where the United States and state governments, even local governments, as seen at San Francisco, California, all the way up to the federal level, are spending money in a way that I think we all feel is benefiting some disproportionately to most. Now if there was a a high degree of taxation and everyone was benefited in a meaningful way and those programs who are well managed and capital flowed meaningfully to to support everything we wanna support, great. I think everyone would raise their hand, raise two hands and say, tax the heck out of me, let's make that happen. But that's not what happens. And I think that's the primary aversion to high taxation. Jason Calacanis (01:20:23): Sacks, you get the final word. David Sacks (01:20:25): Yeah. I mean, look. I what I'm worried about is taxes are going up big time no matter what happens in Washington. Spending is going up big time. We now have peacetime deficits that are the biggest that they've ever been. The deaths the the national debt the peacetime national debt's the highest ever been. We have a looming debt crisis in China. We have supply chain shortages. Jason Calacanis (01:20:47): What could go on? David Sacks (01:20:48): I mean, You know, what I there there's a lot of things here that could upset the Apple cart, and I what I'm afraid of is we're gonna look back at at this year, the 1000 unicorns being minted and say, That really was the golden era. And everything happen and after that, we really screwed Jason Calacanis (01:21:03): that. David Friedberg (01:21:03): You sound like the old guy at Starbucks. Jason Calacanis (01:21:05): It says that every generation and complains about the last generation -- No. David Friedberg (01:21:08): I mean -- -- golden It's all down. Jason Calacanis (01:21:09): How much does music suck to me? David Sacks (01:21:10): Normally normally Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:12): -- David Friedberg (01:21:12): I will say how impressive it is that 10 years ago, none of those unicorns existed, and it is likely the case that three $1,000,000,000,000 of value was created via private funding and private companies over the last 10 years. So all these entrepreneurs, all these employees, anyone working at these businesses, anyone involved in these businesses, should be thrilled about the fact that you from 0 created $3,500,000,000,000 of value in 10 years, that's extraordinary. David Sacks (01:21:34): Yeah. I'm not I'm not I'm not create a nostalgia about the past. I'm talking about the present and trying to preserve it because I'm seeing some storm clouds on the horizon. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:42): Yeah. Yeah. I would like to play the best song from Tony. Tony, Tony is with you. Jason Calacanis (01:21:45): Yeah. Okay, everybody. We're heading out. This one's for you, London Bead. David Sacks (01:21:54): State state approved entertainment. You can take off your mask for this entertainment. It's so good. Jason Calacanis (01:21:59): Any do you guys watch out squid game? Anybody watched quit game? David Friedberg (01:22:02): No. We have lives. Jason Calacanis (01:22:05): Nobody watched quit game. Okay. David Sacks (01:22:06): My my kid my kid's been talking about that shit. I'd be laying the with gamers? Jason Calacanis (01:22:09): No. It's the most violent Korean horror dystopian show ever watched. They're gonna be scored for life. Oh, I wanna watch that. David Friedberg (01:22:17): Hey, acts. As a follow-up, did you did you stop your kids from from TikTok? Jason Calacanis (01:22:22): Did you take your kids off TikTok? David Sacks (01:22:25): They told yeah. I went in there. I'm like, kids. What are you watching? Jason Calacanis (01:22:31): I'll tell David Sacks (01:22:31): you in a second. Jason Calacanis (01:22:33): Alright. Yeah. David Friedberg (01:22:34): So did you take your kids off TikTok? David Sacks (01:22:37): Yeah. I went in there. I was like, kids, what are you watching? They were like, dack into the hell out of here. Jason Calacanis (01:22:41): Yeah. And she said, tell us our names. And he was like, Okay. I'll be right back. Jack, like, if you could tell me to turn off TikTok by my name, I'll do it. David said, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:50): see you later. David Sacks (01:22:51): Tell me my the conversation was, what do you guys watching on TikTok? I hear it's all sex and drugs. They're like, no. Watching dance videos. I'm like, okay. Go ahead. I trust you. Jason Calacanis (01:22:58): The dance videos are literally like absolutely sex and drug based every single one of them. They it is so deviated and insane. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:09): Stop. It is not that you were so exaggerated. Jason Calacanis (01:23:11): I am so not exaggerating. Literally, the if you list take the most obscene lyric to obscene hook to any rap song, that's what trends Oh my god. It's so true, guys. Every generation says David Friedberg (01:23:24): the same about the next. It's unbelievable. Right? Jason Calacanis (01:23:26): No. But it is like explicit. I listened to whatever. David Friedberg (01:23:28): I mean -- Like, you know, my mom, Pearl Jam, David Sacks (01:23:32): and all, you know, all David Friedberg (01:23:33): the way back to the beach boys. Jason Calacanis (01:23:34): Like, they said about television shaking Yeah. David Friedberg (01:23:36): Exactly. Jason Calacanis (01:23:37): Yeah. But, I mean, no, this when I say it's explicit, it is literally explicit. You just David Friedberg (01:23:42): don't get the youth, Jaikal. You don't understand them. Jason Calacanis (01:23:44): I I think I understand it a little bit too well. Anyway, Shasta. Do not Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:49): -- The Yutes. Jason Calacanis (01:23:50): The Yutes. Listen, I hey, guys. Are we gonna do the all in summit or not? I I went to the code conference, and I was like, this was amazing to get back to you. David Friedberg (01:23:58): You gotta stop talking about ideas and actually just doing them. Jason Calacanis (01:24:01): What are you talking about? We created a spot. I'm just trying to get -- -- buy in -- -- chasing a date. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:05): -- do it. Go. Jason Calacanis (01:24:05): Just do it. Okay. Alright. I need your buy in. We we have we're holding system here. -- brought in. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:10): -- David Sacks (01:24:10): Miami. Miami. Jason Calacanis (01:24:12): Miami. Okay. 1st year Miami, 2nd year in Italy. Not Rome. Alright. We'll do 1st year Miami, 2nd year in Italy. David Sacks (01:24:20): make it so much accessible. Jason Calacanis (01:24:21): I think we do gymnastics. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:23): I mean, you have you have a cane, so you can't get there. You old fucking bastard. Alright. Jason Calacanis (01:24:26): So here's how it's gonna work. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:28): 250 Jason Calacanis (01:24:28): tickets, 200 for purchase, 50 for scholarship, all in summit, 3 days, Miami, Saxon, and I are off to the raise of the line. Can you Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:36): make it more people, bro? Why do you have keep it so exclusive. You're just so Jason Calacanis (01:24:39): exclusive. I want to I want to what Chamath Palihapitiya (01:24:41): is it? I wanna invert the top down hierarchy to what? I wanna be a left wing authoritarian for this if I have to believe it. Jason Calacanis (01:24:49): That is what you are. Left wing authoritarian. Listen, you guys are gonna David Friedberg (01:24:53): be rich and powerful Jason Calacanis (01:24:54): at that. What party I am. I just want money status and power. Yeah. David Sacks (01:24:58): Let me tell you let me tell you why I like this idea is because to the points we're talking about with Coinbase earlier, We, you know, we have these conferences in the tech industry, and they're frankly run by people who hate tech and the tech industry. Jason Calacanis (01:25:13): And people are successful -- -- tickets. David Sacks (01:25:16): Right. Exactly. And so the I see these tech founders going up on these stages. as subjecting themselves these interrogations by people who hate them. And I'm like, what are they doing? Like, it makes no sense. Jason Calacanis (01:25:27): I'm putting up a form. I'm gonna let people take deposits. I'm gonna pick a month, and we're gonna go. How many people went Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:32): to the conference guys you went to this week? Jason Calacanis (01:25:34): I the code conference, I think, was probably 3 or Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:37): 400 Jason Calacanis (01:25:37): by design. It was a third or half of employees David Friedberg (01:25:40): with -- -- tickets? Jason Calacanis (01:25:42): I I didn't actually buy a ticket because I didn't want to be in the conference itself. because I was concerned about a breakthrough virus but I did host the poker game with Skye and Brooke. Tickets I think are 8000 for code and I think Ted is up to 10 or team. David Friedberg (01:25:54): So maybe -- So how much are we charging? They need, like, Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:56): $25,000,000. 70 500. David Sacks (01:25:58): We're charging 75100. So 210ies. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:00): -- Jason Calacanis (01:26:00): and then 50 scholarships for people who wouldn't be able to afford it. David Sacks (01:26:03): So the the gross the revenue here is around 1,500,000. And what's our cost gonna be? Jason Calacanis (01:26:09): Cost will be a Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:10): 1,000,000. David Sacks (01:26:11): And what so wait. So we're so we're making profit on this deal? Jason Calacanis (01:26:13): No. I'm making a profit. It's underwriting, and we're seeing Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:16): 500. Jason Calacanis (01:26:18): We Let me be very clear. Excuse me. -- what we make. I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:23): am buying the wine, and you will shut the fuck up. Jason Calacanis (01:26:27): Okay. So then it's gonna be it's gonna cost 2,000,000. So it's gonna make 1.5. No. No. No. And if he's notified Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:32): -- No. It's gonna cost 2,000,000. I want I want a wine budget so that everybody that comes is it feels like they've had an exceptional food and beverage experience. David Friedberg (01:26:41): Tomorrow, let's spend half a $1,000,000 on wine. No joke. Jason Calacanis (01:26:43): So then it has to be 10 k a ticket. But you know what? The people who are coming can afford it. David Friedberg (01:26:47): They don't -- -- we're not privileging you with some profiteering Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:50): -- Jason Calacanis (01:26:50): I'm not profiteering off of it. Honestly, the reason I wanna do it most is I wanna play poker for 3 days and I want to have us, the 4 of us interview the most iconoclastic interesting people I wanna do it for the fans so that some number of fans get to come who wouldn't normally be able to come to a conference at this level. And I'd say it would be a It'd be fun to get together -- Okay. Stop talking about Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:11): it and do it. We're all -- Okay. Jason Calacanis (01:27:12): I'll do it. Alright. I just wanna make sure everybody's bought in. I mean, it's hard to get David Sacks (01:27:15): you fuckers on the call. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:16): -- Jason Calacanis (01:27:16): set a date. I'll set a date. Okay. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:18): Not not the 1st week of February because I think I have a -- Jason Calacanis (01:27:21): I'm thinking March April. March April. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:24): Also, not 3rd week of February because I think I'm skiing in Europe. Jason Calacanis (01:27:28): Just a fucking price. Can you just give us some can you give us the dates? You're not gala venting around your and other places. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:35): Bro, I'm I'm grinding every day here. You see what I'm doing. It's like -- Jason Calacanis (01:27:39): I'm fucking working hard too. I mean, it's crazy right now. It's like the I've never seen the market like this. I mean, it is bonkers. David Sacks (01:27:45): Enjoy a while less. Jason Calacanis (01:27:47): What's that? David Sacks (01:27:47): Enjoy a while less. Jason Calacanis (01:27:49): Exactly. Alright, everybody. We'll see you next time for the dictator Chamaqaliha Patia. the rainman, David Sachs, and the queen of Kenwa. David Friedberg, I'm Jay Kal, and we'll see you on episode 50. Bye bye. What your winner's ride. Rainman, David Saffens. And it said -- We open source it to the fans, and they've off crazy weather. Love you at night. Sweetie, a kid wash. I'm going all the water. What what airliners ride? besties are gone. We should all just get a room and just have a one big huge order because they're all It's like this, like, sexual tension, but we just need to release her vow. What? You're a thief. What? David Sacks (01:28:44): You're a thief. Jason Calacanis (01:28:45): Speaking. Where did you get Murphy's artifact?