世卫组织的失职、第二次冷战、中国的宏大计划与美国效率的百倍提升

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): Hey, everybody. Welcome to the all in podcast. This is our 5th episode. As you know, we regularly published this podcast. Well, every 2 to 4 weeks, something like that. And just to give you a little idea of how well this is going, the podcast Speaker 2 (00:00:16): peaked at number 10 in tech podcast even though we never published it, and we're only 4 -- Number Jason Calacanis (00:00:22): 10. So tell your friends about the podcast so we could be number 1. and just dunk on traditional media, which is full of people who have us as the guests. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:31): Jason number 10 on what, Apple? Jason Calacanis (00:00:33): Apple Technology Podcast, we literally raced I mean, it went from, like, we debuted in the twenties, then the fifteens, and then boom, we hit number 10. And I was talking to somebody in media who who has us on as guests. And I was like, listen. I formed a super team, and we're now getting more traffic. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:50): I'm sorry. Who are you talking to just like a mirror where you were just looking at yourself? I mean, you are so fucking arrogant after that shitty video. Speaker 2 (00:00:58): What video are you referring to? What Oh my god. You you want me to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:02): say it to all the listeners. You want me to Jason Calacanis (00:01:03): say it. Okay. There was Let me just Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:05): Thanks for Jason Calacanis (00:01:05): the housekeeping. -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:06): made a cut of the billion times Jason mentioned he was an early investor in Uber. Jason Calacanis (00:01:11): Alright. Take it easy version galactic slash Slack. investors. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:15): I don't I don't say anything. I know they put Jason Calacanis (00:01:17): it put it on the Kyron, the lower third, every time you're on, see, everybody. David Sacks (00:01:23): My problem is I have too many unicorns to mention just one. Jason Calacanis (00:01:26): Right. So they just go with -- -- just David Sacks (00:01:28): want to mention. Jason Calacanis (00:01:28): They just go with PayPal and Nose Peter Till. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:31): David David, I have a question. Why is there a picture of 2 pregnant men behind you on Zoom? Speaker 2 (00:01:38): We now have the technology for men to being pregnant. David Sacks (00:01:42): This is a recent picture of of Jason and I on the golf course, and I'm not sure who's more out of shape. Speaker 2 (00:01:47): People get there. Are you in the first hole? You look like you're about to collapse. I David Friedberg (00:01:52): think. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:01:54): In fairness, in fairness, it's a 106 degrees. Jason Calacanis (00:01:58): -- David Friedberg (00:01:58): and put his hands under his shoulders and hold them up. Speaker 2 (00:02:01): It's a 106 degrees at 80% humidity, And I kid you not. Jason Calacanis (00:02:05): This is the this was the second and third time I played golf. This was the third time. And I'm gonna just ask Dee Frey. David Friedberg is here. Of course, he's our science friend, buddy, and Shamoff Polyhappetia is here. How many holes? I want one of you to set the over under on how many holes we completed each day, the maximum number of holes we completed. 4? Okay. Schumac took a lot of 4, and and you're taking the over. It was sex? 5. 5. Speaker 2 (00:02:34): Actually, David Sacks (00:02:38): And there is a there's a there's a red door every five holes, so that may have had something to do with it. David Friedberg (00:02:44): I took 9 because I figured Jason was on his rush to the hot outstanding. Speaker 2 (00:02:47): Well, that's David Sacks (00:02:48): where the red door is where the hot dogs are. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:50): Yeah. Well, you know why I said I said these two these two dorks with ADHD can barely make it an hour doing anything. so if you think an average round takes 4 hours, then, basically, you know, you get through four holes in about an hour, and then you wanna give up. Jason Calacanis (00:03:04): We got to the 5th hole. I am addicted to golf now. I I don't know if you guys know this. You can gamble on golf. Speaker 2 (00:03:12): Okay, sir. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:13): I I the biggest match I ever played was this was a Jason Calacanis (00:03:16): $500,000,000 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:18): NASA. Jason Calacanis (00:03:19): I don't know what a NASA is. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:21): I I lost I lost 1 and a half bets. I lost 750 k. Jason Calacanis (00:03:25): What what is a NASA type bet? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:27): NASA is basically a a gambling bet on a per hole basis. Got it. Jason Calacanis (00:03:31): We we had we had just a ton of fun, and it was great because this was the first time I've ever Chamath Palihapitiya (00:03:37): It's the single best aspect of golf, in my opinion. If you gamble, it makes that game one of the most incredible games because people with mental fortitude who cannot play at all can show up and literally make 100 -- Yep. -- 1000 or 1,000,000 of dollars. Jason Calacanis (00:03:50): Yeah. We were playing for a 100 of dollars per hole, so let's just leave it at that. In fact, we're playing $100 a whole. So it was it was just for fun. But, man, I I I don't know about you guys. Do why don't we have some we know if we know somebody who's got a membership in one of these places. I'd love to go back out again, but it was great fun and it was fun. -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:09): Shadow Creek come to Shadow Creek in Vegas, we can play. It's probably the best gambling golf course in the world. Jason Calacanis (00:04:14): Okay. I'm in. So let's get to business. For those of you who are tuning in for the first time, Chamath Palihapitiya is my cohere. cohost here on the podcast. We've been friends since we both did a very brief tour at AOL. He then went to work for Mayfield, which is a venture firm might not have heard of. He stayed there for about 27 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:04:37): weeks before Jason Calacanis (00:04:37): going to work for Mark Zuckerberg he secured the bag, then started his own venture firm. It grew way too big, and he kind of got bored having to manage a hundred people. now he's running his home office venture firm and doing 2 deals a year. The one you've certainly heard of is virgin where he's taking people to space, and he did a spack for that. IPO b and IPO c are lined up from what I understand. Correct me if I am wrong, and he'll be spacking 2 more companies once a year, I guess will be the pace. Is that correct, Chamath? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:15): Among other things, but yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:05:16): Yeah. And then David Sachs has now become and David Friedberg have become regulars. We've decided we're gonna stick with this for some as it goes because we're we're getting a really nice passing of the ball around topics. And David Sachs went to Stanford with folks, you know, like Keith Reboy, Peter Till during an era where There were a bunch of huge nerds who created a way to transfer money on Palm Pilots called PayPal, didn't work until they decided to move it to email. I'm not sure whose idea who gets credit for moving it to email, Sax? Speaker 2 (00:05:57): Sex. Jason Calacanis (00:05:59): Who who decided, like, hey, I don't know. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:01): Sacks is silenced. is his way of saying me. Jason Calacanis (00:06:05): because because it was a it was an object's failure when you tried to send money between Palmpile. It's Peter Till's original idea. But then somebody woke up and said, well, why just do this over email. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:13): What he hasn't said let let me tell you the names that PayPal he has not said yet. Musk Teal Hoffman Levchin Silence. Radio silence so far. David Sachs. Jason Calacanis (00:06:24): Jeremy Stoppelman. Chad Hurley from YouTube. Jerry Stoppman for Yelp. Anyway, he was part of that cohort. Then he made a movie called thank you for smoking, which was Jason Reitman's first film. Jason Reitman then went on to great success. That film actually made money. Sachs was so absolutely depressed by how long it took to make one film and how painful it was. He then decided to go create a $1,000,000,000 company in under 3 years called Yammer. which Chamath made a ton of money on, and he cackles about regularly. And then David Friedberg is with us. He is just the smartest kid at the table, but somehow figures out how to lose tons of money to us in poker. He created comic.com. And Sold it to Monsanto. He created Metromile, and he created Itza, which fell horribly. But that just goes to show you. Nobody remembers what Eatsa is, but they do remember his giant multi $1,000,000,000 companies, and he now is running his own startup studio, which is making incredibly interesting companies. Can I talk about the one that's related to beverages or not? David Friedberg (00:07:32): Not yet. Jason Calacanis (00:07:33): Okay. Anyway, there's a company related to beverages that is so game changing. I've seen people literally. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:39): You can't say it. He showed it to us under Friedberg. Jason Calacanis (00:07:42): I just said, can I talk about the beverage company? Yes or no? I'm trying to give the guy a goddamn plug here. Yeah. But he said, he said no. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:49): You can't do a plug. Jason Calacanis (00:07:50): I'm not doing a plug, but I'm teasing it. And I think he's literally sitting on what could wind up being the greatest, most successful company of the entire group. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:00): It's not period. Okay. Let's jump in. I wanna Jason Calacanis (00:08:02): talk about Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:03): the David you sold Chamath to Monsanto for a $1,000,000,000 back in the day when it was shocking to people, that amount of money still is. But, you know, you were one of the first sort of quote unquote unicorns. And then you You know, we're right in the front seat of Monsanto probably could have been CEO if you wanted. I want you to talk to me about what is going on with Bayer Monsanto roundup, and I wanna use that as a jumping off point to talk about the World Health Organization. David Friedberg (00:08:33): So Roundup is a molecule known as glyphosate, and it's been used as a herbicide for decades. And for decades, it was very well studied. The US EPA and the FDA and USDA and Global Health Organization patients have studied it carefully because of its incredible use. It is it biodegrades the the core molecule glyphosate biodegrades in a in a couple of days, and it is a a very effective herbicide. So when farmers grow stuff, they don't want weeds growing in the field. and Roundup was a pretty effective way at getting rid of weed so you could get more crop per acre, more yield per acre. A long time, people thought that Roundup like many of the traditional persistent chemical herbicides was carcinogenic, and people were concerned about that. And as a result, there was a lot of studying done. In Before I sold my company to Monsanto, I spent a lot of time researching Roundup and and glad to say to make sure that it was safe, that I wasn't selling my company what everyone was saying was the devil at the time. And from a scientific basis, I felt pretty comfortable about the the the data, the studies, the research that had been done. When I was at Monsanto, there was a bit of a political event that took place at the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization runs a group called IARC, the it's a it's a cancer research institute that's part of the WHO. And there was a gentleman who was politically trying to get himself on that council to make the case that glyphosate was carcinogenic. And years later, a Reuters reporter identified how he was able to get this council to disregard a number of scientific findings and studies, including the US EPA and other very wide, broad ranging studies by international organization showing that Roundup or glyphosate was non carcinogenic. But the political process by which he was able to get on the council get that data excluded from a study and then get I Arc to declare Roundup or glyphosate a possible carcinogen or probable carcinogen. David Friedberg (00:10:29): then triggered a bunch of tort lawyers in the United States to start suing Monsanto and now Bayer because Baylor bought Monsanto a number of years ago. for causing cancer. And the data is absent, but the way the US court system works is if you have some probable definition and you can get a jury to say yes, and the probable cause was there's a probable carcinogen label applied to it by IARC. And this Reuters reporter years ago did a great job highlighting how this whole thing politically motivated and and and the data and the science from a broad range of scientists, including the AAA S, A lot of scientific membership organizations very definitively and clearly show that glyphosate is non carcinogenic. But, you know, it was super troubling and frustrating. Now, look, this doesn't bother me personally anymore. I have no interest whatsoever. But it turns out that these lawsuits are now gonna cost Monsanto and now Bayer, which bought Monsanto, somewhere between Jason Calacanis (00:11:26): $10,000,000,000 David Friedberg (00:11:28): to settle this. and this is all a function of some political hacking that took place at the WHO. So for a long time, I've had a bit of a discern about how the WHO operates and and and the process by which they do scientific assessment and validation. And a lot of this has obviously become much more apparent with coronavirus crisis and their response with respect to masks and treatment and so on. So that that's a little bit of a background I think you're referring to it tomorrow. Jason Calacanis (00:11:53): And so you go ahead your mouth if you want to. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:55): No. I mean, like, it it to to me, I I think that this is such an interesting thing. I I wanted to use it as this on ramp to the WHO largely because it's like the inaptitude keeps compounding in that organization. I just read that we still don't have a definitive posture on masks from the WHO. and that they are finally seeding ground to the idea that the coronavirus could partially be spread in air. Jason Calacanis (00:12:24): I mean, This is so bizarre because -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:27): It's the middle of July. There are 3 million cases and half a million people who have died. and we are still there. And so, you know, when I saw that Trump pulled out of the WHO, you know, in this weird way, the way he did it was kind of cartoonish and stupid and, you know, kind of an insolvent child. But the reason he did it was actually pretty reasonable because this organization is not a scientific or health body. It's an academic body. And, you know, you can see this in universities where all of a sudden things tilt away from fact and it tilts towards, you know, all kinds of very, very, very small points of sort of like political capital that people fight over and so these politicized organizations are incredible. Jason Calacanis (00:13:12): And to the point at which we saw, you know, this past week, the report that well over 250 of their own scientists who they rely on said, hey. It's very clear that this is an airborne phenomenon aerosol, tiny microparticles of aerosol. When people talk, when they sing, when they cough, when they sneeze, all this obvious stuff, floats in the air. And if you have a closed air conditioned, you know, location, like, say, a church in the south or a hotel or a casino, it's not a good idea to be in there. And it's it's especially not a bad it's especially a bad idea to take your mask off. So now The WHO is over 2. And Trump, as you said, in his just horrifically comical way, can it explain, as we're very clearly explaining, that this is a political organization that is funded by a duopoly of superpowers that have many issues which we're gonna get into today, and and we it's I don't have to say who the duopoly is. Sachs, when you look at this being our token conservative here and you see the Trump win, how frustrating is it for you that Trump's delivery and his persona, when he is right and a person can't be wrong all the time, prove positive of that, you you have to deal with the fact that he doesn't in such a stupid, inane way, that you don't actually get credit for the win. David Sacks (00:14:37): Well, you know, Trump is often the the bull in the China shop and, you know, kind of disrupts the status quo by throwing a grenade into it. But, frequently, there there are good reasons why the status quo needs to be disrupted. And the the New York Times laid out the case in a new story on who the the one that reported the the scientist complaining that you were talking about. It was just a straight news story, but it almost came across as an expose a because whose incompetence was laid out so starkly. The fact that They were slow on mass and opposed them, and I think kinda lied about them. And then And then to to be downplaying the airborne nature of the virus in favor of maintaining this narrative that It's spread through touching surfaces or or fomites, which I think people are realizing now is much, much less likely. And so, yeah, you do kinda have to wonder whose side is is who on. And the the New York Times article kinda suggests why they do this. which is when they issue a declaration, they have to think about the ramifications in all of their member countries. And so what ends up happening is they sort of start with the policy implication or or political result that they are thinking about and then they kinda reverse engineer the science. And you know, the article talks about how, you know, if if who were to come out and and sort of be very clear about airborne transmission that could affect spending or or, you know, political budgets in all these different countries, and so they've been reluctant to do that. So, yeah, it's a it's a it's a organization, that sort of political first, and then reverse engineers the science to fit that. And Jason Calacanis (00:16:27): -- You know what this reminds me of? It's like when you have giant investors on the board of a company, the management team comes out, and now they've gotta present, like, a pivot or an acquisition or whatever it is. and they're thinking, well, okay. We've got this funding source. These people own 26% of who. This person owns 22%. We've now got to present it to them and and one of the round downstream ramifications, luckily, there's an alignment in a single company. The alignment is we all want the company share price to go up. But here in the world, it is not equally aligned. What is in China's best interest, what's in the EU's best interest, and what's in America's best interest might be radically different, and they are literally funding them. Correct from off? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:09): Well, there's a they are there there's a there's a thing called Sayers law, right, which many of us kind of have seen play out, which is that academic the the saying is something like academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small. And in this interesting way, the WHO has lost the script because they fight over politics. who gets to say what, who's being positioned, and they lose sight of the real downstream, in my opinion, the downstream implications of things that they have because if they actually just thought from 1st principles and tried to be a truly independent body that said we are gonna take the capital we're given from the countries that are supporting us and actually do the best and actually publish, like, what is the best thing to do for example, in the case of coronavirus and be definitive and iterate, we'd be in a much better place. But a lot of what is allowed the posture around coronavirus to transition from a health issue to a political issue in many ways has been because organizations like the WHO and the CDC are political bodies, and they're academic bodies. And so the incentives of the players within these organizations are not to necessarily, you know, project the right public health positioning They are at some level to think about their own career trajectory and the political machinations happened within the organization that are blind to normal citizens like us that just consume the output. And then -- So when you see something like an inability to give a definitive ruling on things like masks or, you know, other things. You just kind of scratch your head and wonder, is it that they're dumb? And the answer is no. It's not that they're dumb. They're just motivated by very different things than public health all the time. Jason Calacanis (00:18:58): Which might be including keeping their jobs. And the fact that we had David Friedberg on this podcast And then Saks, you know, chiming in after it, shortly after, just definitively saying first principles, why wouldn't you wear a mask? What is the possible downside? and Friedberg saying, hey. I'm getting some testing equipment. We should just be doing mass testing. Friedberg, when you look at this, and how when we started the podcast, I think in March or April, we were very clear as people not in the with the exception of yourself, not in the the health care space in any way, why can't they what would be a better structure for the who? And and or is there a better structure than just a bunch of, you know, randos like us on a podcast very easily seeing through 1st principles that a 79¢ mask is a no brainer that getting testing, mass testing, and recording it every day and doing sampling. What is the better solution here for governance or for dealing with these type of, you know, really large problems. And and ones that kind of have a a a clock, that's the other thing about this problem is This this problem came with a countdown clock. You had to make a really fast decision in order to protect yourself and we made a really drawn out decision. Now we're paying the price. David Friedberg (00:20:17): I mean, I think under the circumstances, you outline, you know, you need leadership. Right? So you need probably a country or some entity to step forward and and lead with respect to being proactive and aggressive with it because any multinational oversight body or political body is gonna be kind of you know, molasses out. It's gonna be stalled out with the the processes and the competing interests as you guys have highlighted. So the libertarian argument would be, like, the free market drive outcomes and, you know, some folks will succeed and some folks will fail. If we want all of humanity to succeed, then, you know, the likely scenario is we've seen with with world wars and such, which is you need leadership. You need one organization or one entity or one national body to step forward and say, this is what we're doing. and we're gonna lead, and the world was absent leadership over the last 6 months. Historically, the US has filled that void, but that certainly wasn't the case this year. And so, you know, it seems to me like you're not gonna find a political governing system, multinational governing system that's gonna be successful in solving these kind of existential global problems overnight, you really need someone to step forward. And and the US is kind of leaving a bit of a gap. This might be a good segue because the question next is who's gonna fill that gap going forward? Jason Calacanis (00:21:34): Yeah. So let's make that segue. When you look at the the duopoly that currently is I would say on par now. I don't think we can say we're the superpower anymore, and that China's an up and coming superpower pretty clear. They are an equal superpower. I don't know if anybody here disagrees with that right now, but if we have an edge, it's a very minor one at this point. how do we look at health problems with an authoritarian country where individuals do not vote And there is a god king who has recently said I will be the god king for the rest of my life for sure. How do we manage this relationship with China? Friedberg. And then I'll we could pass it over to Safar. David Friedberg (00:22:17): From a health care perspective? Jason Calacanis (00:22:19): Let's start there for sure, and then whatever other major issue you would like to then segue into, climate change comes to mind, trade comes to mind, human rights comes to mind. David Friedberg (00:22:31): I I would imagine the biggest the argument that your geopolitical commentators would make who are probably more experienced and experts in this than any of us, would probably relate to, you know, the the degree of influence. You know, the the question of who has the most influence globally may be kind of the way that you define who has the most power globally. And so, you know, in the current circumstance, you can look at at trade balance between China and other nations. You can look at trade balance between the US and other nations, and you can look at the balance sheet, the assets, and and the debt owed. And you're right. I mean, a lot of people are making the case that that we're kind of reaching a point of parity through some metric or some set of equations here. And at this point, there's there's gonna be a jockeying for for leadership globally in terms of influence. And so that will have ramifications with respect to things that are global in nature like global pandemics. And I think this is a a a really kind of key flash moment flashpoint moment for us. because we are facing that cert you know, we did face that circumstance this year, and, obviously, we took the the raw end of the deal. Jason Calacanis (00:23:38): We've we failed most. I mean, we we all concur on that. We did we did worst. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:43): China is just like an extremely good example of focusing on strategy while the rest of us focused on tactics. You know, the last 20 years have been punctuated by the United States spending literally 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars on endless wars and unnecessary military infrastructure and all kinds of wasted pork barrels spending and programs that just have resulted in 0 ROI for the United States and its taxpayers and citizen And instead, what did China do? They basically went around the world and they used the equivalent amount of dollars, and they said every word that the United States fights is a war that we can essentially be silent on. Let them do that dirty work. And what we will do instead is we will go and basically buy and own large swaths of Southeast Asia, large swaths of Africa, which is, you know, the emerging labor pools that will drive GDP forward for us and what what they've essentially created is not necessarily a voting block, but a productivity block. And that's what's so, you know, interesting and also really important to understand, which is that China is fighting not an ideological war. They're fighting an economic war, and it is one where they are buying, you know, member states to join them. with their capital. And so we've kind of, like, not seen it, and it's unfortunately happened right under our nose. So now what we need to do is we need to sort of wake up to this reality and have a very aggressive point of view around what, you know, matters. And so by the way, this is also why and I'll hand the mic to David after this. But this is also why I think, like, we have completely wasted so much time focusing on you know, all these other countries that just don't matter anymore. And, you know, I don't say that emotionally. I just say it practically, like, every single minute we spend on Russia is just a waste of time. This is a, you know, country that just won't fundamentally matter in the world over the next 15 to 20 years. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:46): Large swaths of Europe. You know, they're ideologically aligned, but they just don't matter. The United States has to develop a really specific strategic viewpoint on the fact that it is us versus China whether we like it or not. And it starts in things like public policy but it stretches to everything including capitalism, technology, intellectual property, health care, And this war will not be fought on the ground with guns. It'll be fought with computers, and it'll be fought with money. Yeah. And I think you need to realize Jason Calacanis (00:26:23): Loans and joint ventures, Saks, what are your thoughts here on this coming cold war? You know, we we we we beat the Russians in the cold the last cold war. And to Chamount's point, the only thing they have really going for them is their incredibly sinister KGB style information, warfare, and the decreasing value of their oil and irrelevance, which is why they have to do things like mess with us on social media. I mean, it literally I feel like it's, like, the last couple of dying techniques they've got in their playbook from, you know, the eighties as the KGB, and we got a KGB agent running the country. When we look at China, how do you frame our relationship with them and what would be the best practice for the next 10 years. Midterm. Speaker 6 (00:27:13): Well, I think I think David Sacks (00:27:14): what you've seen just really in the last couple of weeks is a critical mass of scholarship and punditry declaring that we are in a new cold war with China. And I think You know, of all the momentous news events that have happened this year, from COVID to, you know, the riots and protests, I I think that the most newsworthy and historically important event will be the beginning of this, and the recognition that we are now in World War Jason Calacanis (00:27:46): 2. So TikTok. David Sacks (00:27:49): TikTok is part of it. I mean, COVID Jason Calacanis (00:27:51): It's it's paradoxical about a dance app is literally the tip of the spear. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:54): I mean, I think I think TikTok is sort of at the fringes. I think the it the Cold War 2 to David's point started when the it states basically embargoed Huawei from getting access to 5g Technology. And I know that sounds like a very sort of, like, thin thread that most people don't understand, and we can unpack it in a second. But in my opinion, that sort of you know, at the beginning of this year, was when I started to pay attention and try to understand this issue more because it seemed like, wow. That's a that's a shot across the bow and declaring China as the clear you know, so the clear and present danger for American sovereignty. Jason Calacanis (00:28:29): And the NBA TikTok being cultural ramifications of that, which are different. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:34): Yeah. irrelevant. Who cares David Sacks (00:28:35): Well, it's it's Jason Calacanis (00:28:36): Is it irrelevant, Zach? David Sacks (00:28:38): Well, what TikTok and Huawei have in common is that the the sort of proxy battles of Cold War 2 will be fought between these sort of client corporations, whereas you know, Cold War 1, you have these you have sort of these proxy these sort of client states fighting these proxy wars. Cold War 2, you have more of these, like, client corporations. fighting these proxy wars. So, you know, it's that that's the sense in which I think they're they're related. the what what TikTok shows is a company that's desperately trying to maneuver so they don't become one of the first economic casualties of code Cold War 2. They appointed American as CEO. They've pulled out of Hong Kong, so they're not subject to to to those regulations. And they're desperately maneuvering so they don't get banned in the United States. They wanna preserve their market access. But I think there's a very good chance that they will get shut down in the US of the country. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:39): They've been shut down in India, and today is July 10th. And right before we went on, The breaking news was that Amazon basically asked all their employees to delete TikTok because of a security threat. So it's happening. I think that TikTok, unless they basically have ByteDance, sell under 20 or 30 percent of the company. and get it into the hands of Americans, it will get banned. And I think that there will be a massive destruction in enterprise value. But can I tell you why TikTok doesn't matter? or doesn't matter as much. I think David, you're right that it's sort of, like, collateral damage. It it almost is, like, you know, in it'll exist, but whatever. The Huawei thing, in my opinion, is so important because it shines a light on 2 things. The first is that, you know, what happened essentially is United States told TSMC, you know, you cannot basically give Huawei access to the 5g Chipsets and the 5g technology that they would use to essentially kind of, like, you know, implement their Spyware and then sell it into Western Nations. effectively. And so then what what it does is it puts China in the posture of having to figure out how did they get access to this stuff. And, you know, the most obvious answers to invade Taiwan and take over TSMC. And, you know, why would they do that? Well, obviously, that has huge geopolitical ramifications they could only do that again going back to the first comment is because they've already bought so many nation states into their productivity block that it's still on a balance a worthwhile trade. and it allows them to solve their version of Taiwanese sovereignty completely and definitively and basically say, look. We've we've now solved Hong Kong. You know, Macau was already solved, and now we're gonna solve Taiwan and put the whole thing to bed. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:22): And now we have access this critical technology that we need. So that that's why I think sort of, like, what happens with Huawei, sort of what happens with TSMC, what happens on 5 g is so important. Because if you're going to forest China, you know, to basically have to buy Western technology in order to get access to a critical piece of you know, Internet infrastructure, they're gonna be put to a very, very difficult test about what they have to do, and then they will have to be much more transparent on the global stage about what their ambitions really are and how far they're willing to go. And I think that's, you know, that's a lot more important than, you know, a bunch of kids dancing to short videos. David Sacks (00:32:04): Well and and just to just to add to that point. You know? So I I think Chamath is right that these these sort of chips the 5 g chips and these other chips are they're the new oil, you know, in terms of their geopolitical significance. you know, obviously, all of our technology or iPhones are advanced event you know, weaponry. It's all based on these these chips. And And 70% of them are fabricated in Taiwan. And and I think, you know, one of the huge blind spots of American trade policy over the last 30 years is is kind of not to notice that that this key technology that's really the substrate for all of our technology, for our economy, has now been many it's now been moved. And it's manufacturing shirt, you know, in Taiwan, whose sovereignty, China does not recognize and is constantly, you know, threatening with with the risk of being of being annexed. So, you know, we we have a tremendous vulnerability there. And you know, at the same you know, we we finally after about 40 or 50 years of declaring that we'd be energy independent, we've achieved that. But now we have this new dependency on these chips that Jason Calacanis (00:33:24): -- And pharma and manufacturing. I mean and we and we it seems like now manufacturing, we're starting to realize, hey, Elon was right. we need to be able to build our own factories. And guess what? American Spirit, American ingenuity, American Focus, American Capitalism, we can do it. We have the wherewithal to do it. There's no reason we cannot make these ships here. Sorry. I don't buy it that we're we're gonna be this dependent forever. We just need to have the will and the leadership to say, we're gonna do this, whether it costs us an extra 50¢ per chip. And -- David Sacks (00:33:58): Well, the fab the fabrication of these chips is incredibly complicated. I mean, they're they're they're basically Jason Calacanis (00:34:05): -- So let's buy the companies. David Sacks (00:34:07): Let's -- -- microscopic. Yeah. And it takes years. And, like, several years to set up the, you know, the facility to to to do this kind of fabrications. Jason Calacanis (00:34:15): -- buy those companies now? Why don't we just take it to Chemut's point, which was very clear, which is, hey. This is an economic. This is a a ledger. This is, you know, a check writing exercise to win this war. Why don't we take out our checkbook and buy 50 percent of these companies now and put them on the Nasdaq if they're not already there? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:34): It requires real leadership. at the end of the day, it needs to be led by the United States government. The the the reality is that, you know, lithography has gotten so advanced. I mean, like, look. I have you know, companies that are, you know, taping out chips at, like, 7 nanometer, and I don't I don't have supplier diversity. I don't know. I don't I can't basically choose you know, 9 folks to bid it out against of which, you know, 5 are domestically in the United States. There are 2. Right? And so, you know, you kind of just deal with the complexity or the lack of diversity that we have. And, Jason, your point is exactly right, which is the first and most important decision here is one that's philosophical, which is, again, saying That era of efficiency at the sake of all else is over. And we are now moving to an era of resilience which inherently is more inefficient. But in that inefficiency, we will rebuild American Prosperity because it rebuilds American in industry and it rebuilds American jobs. There's another example that I wanna build on David's point, which is let's all believe in a test that we all care about climate change for second. And we all want the world to be electrified. Okay? Well, electricity and electrification requires 2 very, very basic inputs. Okay? 1 is a battery, And the second is an electric motor. Right? Makes sense so far? Yep. Well, inside of an electric motor, There is one critical thing that you need to make it work, which is a permanent magnet. The permanent magnet spins around, and that's how an electric motor Okay. Why is that important? As it turns out that permanent magnets need special characteristics that are only provided by a handful of very, very specific rare earth materials. that we need to mine out of the ground and refine. Those materials actually exist in many places including the United States. Jason Calacanis (00:36:37): Yeah. We stopped mining for them. But Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:41): right now, China controls 80 percent of the supply of rare earths. They can choose how they price it. They can differentially price to their own companies which means that the battery and engine manufacturers inside of China can now lead on electrification, which means China can actually lead on climate change before the states can unless we have leadership that says at a governmental level on down, we are gonna make this a priority. We're gonna fund it. We're gonna make sure that they're onshore mines. We're gonna make sure that those mines are clean. We're gonna build a supply chain domestically, and we're gonna subsidize. This is what governments do best. It's not act. It's just incentivize on things like climate. So I don't know. Friedberg has spent a lot of time on climate change, so he has a he has probably a lot of ideas on this. But Whenever you look at any of these things, health, climate, food, it all comes down to the United States versus China strategy versus tactics. Freeburg? David Friedberg (00:37:34): I'm not I'm not sure I'm not sure I I think that the Chinese action is as deterministic as we think it is or as we kind of frame it where it's China's got this grand plan they're gonna beat the US, and they're gonna control things and make decisions that that hurt us. I think a lot of this is China, if you think about it less about black and white, there's a continuum. And the continuum is one of influence and one of creating an environment whereby these things can happen. So China, for example, made capital readily available for the agriculture industry to be able to buy buy assets. And so the companies inside of China, which aren't controlled, the Chinese government isn't telling them what to do. The Chinese government has set a policy that enables them to increase their prosperity, and as a result, increase the prosperity of the Chinese people. You know, when I was at Monsanto, we were we bid for the largest ag Chemicals company in the world based out of Switzerland. It's called Syngenta. And we bid, like, $44,000,000,000 to buy this company And the the largest chemical company in China called Chem China, bid $47,000,000,000 and and acquired the business, and they now own the largest ad chemicals company in the world. China also bought Smithfields, and they bought they put a bunch of people in Canada Hey, FreeBird. Jason Calacanis (00:38:55): How much of that money do you think came from the CCP? And and what involvement do you think the CCP had in putting their thumb on the scale of making sure that transaction went that direction? David Friedberg (00:39:04): Look. I mean, ultimately, wherever the the capital comes from, it's no less equivalent than what you would see in the United States where treasuries fund the central bank, which funds banks, which fund lending to corporations, which ultimately make Jason Calacanis (00:39:18): -- But do you think the leadership said, hey. We're winning this at all costs. David Friedberg (00:39:23): So here here's what happened. In 2007, there was a CCP internal doctrine that was published, and it's now reasonably well known, and there was a speech that was given that started this aggressive action in agriculture. And as a result, Chinese citizens started moving to Canada and buying farmland in Canada. They started moving to Australia buying farmland in China. They started building these facilities in Argentina and Brazil and Africa. And the Chinese government set out, you know, a strategic objective and provided the capital and enabled industry and people to go after pursuing these interests. But the CCP didn't say here's the road map. It's not like here's the specific plan for what we need to do. had a general high level kind of point of view that that that I think drove all that action and all of that behavior. And so, you know, it's I I would say it's it's not as perhaps coercive as we might think it is in terms of the CCP wanting to target and attack US. They're trying to increase their influence around the world. They're increase their own security and increase their own prosperity. And at some point, there's only so many resources globally. There's only so much land, so much magnets that, you know, they and they're winning in the markets. And, you know, we're kinda crossing that threshold now where they're actually, like, a a competitive Jason Calacanis (00:40:31): -- You know, the only difference between this is and couldn't disagree David Friedberg (00:40:34): with -- Sorry. My my point is I just don't wanna frame it as, like, I I just think it's it's a it's a it's a misstatement to frame it as China has this grand plan to come after the US and they're evil, and that's what they're doing. I mean, you know, they -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:40:44): So this is where I think you're completely wrong, Dave, respectfully -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:49): Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:40:49): -- in that, I believe this is an ideological war. And if you you can't diminish what's happening in Hollywood, TikTok, and the NBA and other sports, where China is explicitly saying, if you put a villain in our in a movie, if you talk about Tibet in a movie, we are going to not play that movie, and we're gonna funding your movies. And so they are absolutely using the vector of culture. And, Jamath, I think you're also wrong here where you're saying, oh, TikTok's not important. TikTok is something that a generation of kids absolutely are in love with, and those kids are like, hey. Boomers stay out of our platform. And so and and the ideological issue here, FreeBird, which I think that you're underplaying, is they want to win, and they want to spread their ideology, which is the ideology of authoritarianism. They are not going to win act Africa and then suddenly say, you know what? Would be great for Africa if we made the entire continent democracies. Tell me what -- That's not in their best interest. David Friedberg (00:41:54): How's it different than Trump Tweet? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:57): Well, Friedberg, I just think that it's it's inconceivable to me that the Chinese when they do this grandiose plan and they do the, you know, the political theater of having the thousands of people in the Chinese, you know, assembly hall Speaker 2 (00:42:09): once a year, you know, in Xi Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:09): Jinping Talks that they haven't developed a multifaceted, multilayered plan that they're executing. In part, I think this is why Xi Jinping essentially wants to be this ruler for life inside of China because he I think they have a 20 or 30 year plan, and I do think it is to disrupt the United States. And I don't think that they believe though, which is these smart thing that there's one silver bullet. I just think that they're gonna take a 1000 shots on goal whether it's, you know, monopolizing the rare earths or, you know, figuring out how to basically put spying software in the hands of millions of Americans, that's where I think TikTok is actually really important. It's essentially a vehicle to buy and backdoor into Americans or whether it's, you know, introducing a digital yuan so that we can try to disrupt the, you know, the the the use of the US dollar as a reserve currency of the world, they probably have a list of a 1000 tactics, and they're gonna go and execute them. And I don't begrudge them that I just think it's it's it's well organized machine. I just think we now need to counter punch. Sachs, David Sacks (00:43:15): Yeah. I mean so China is on a mission of of national greatness. I think the immediate goal is to is to assert its hegemony over Asia and to kick the US out of that region. But I think, ultimately, now they see in their sights potentially being the number one country in the entire world because of the because of the chaos that COVID has wrought over here. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:41): And and in fairness, David, the incompetence of Trump thus far. I mean, like, you know, it's it's not fair to think that the Chinese polyburo versus Trump and his cabinet are an equal match. Forget your political pursuit. David Sacks (00:43:52): Yeah. I mean, they they clearly seem emboldened and, you know, just in the last few weeks and and months, we've seen the ending of the 2 systems in Hong Kong, which was a 50 year commitment. They made in, I think, Jason Calacanis (00:44:03): 1984. David Sacks (00:44:05): So they abrogated on that Jason Calacanis (00:44:07): -- Well, exact -- -- commitment. That -- Yeah. David Sacks (00:44:09): You you Jason Calacanis (00:44:09): have the -- -- to do that 3 or 4 months before Trump is looking like he's not gonna be in office. So talking about -- Well, David Sacks (00:44:16): I think Jason Calacanis (00:44:16): I think -- -- shots on goal, this may be their only shot to do this. Well, there's the whole world's described. Yeah. But and just do they go after Taiwan in the next 100 days? Would it have a window? David Sacks (00:44:26): I think we have to be extremely clear that Taiwan is a red line for us and that we're committed to the security of Taiwan. Because if we show any hesitation or weakness there, they will they will seize on that. And Jason Calacanis (00:44:37): -- Would Trump do that? Would Trump put his foot down? because he did nothing when it came to supporting -- Well, I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:43): think we need to distract away from any given president of the United States because they they change every 4 or 8 years, and I think we need to have a bigger discussion, which is, like I said, over the next 40 to 50 years, are we comfortable with dual duopoly power structure in the world, which is the United States and China? Because that's effectively what we are today. Or are we the shining city on a hill once again? And if so, what are we willing to do to make sure that that's the case? And I think that's independent of your political persuasion in your party. David Sacks (00:45:10): Right. Right. Well, the the good news here is that both Trump and Biden are basically racing to sort of position themselves as the more hawkish candidate on China, which is to say that this recognition of Cold War 2 is now, I think, bipartisan which if you wanna sustain a policy in this country over, say, 40 years like we did in containing the Soviet Union, you have to have bipartisan support for that. And so it does seem like, finally, as a country, I think we are kinda getting our act together on China. I mean, obviously, there will be disagreements within that larger context, but it seems like now people are waking up to the threat that that China represents to, you know, to America being the number one country in the world. And I think David Friedberg (00:46:00): the -- Yeah. By the way, I agree with I agree with Saks. I mean, I I think that's exactly what's happening and and what will happen here. And and it'll certainly It'll be a big hill decline. I'll just highlight and I'll ask the question of, you know, Perda's point earlier, Let let me ask you guys. How many factories do you think exist in China? Take a guess. Jason Calacanis (00:46:24): 11,000,000. 22,800,000. David Friedberg (00:46:26): Now how many do you think exist in the United States? Jason Calacanis (00:46:29): 150,000. David Friedberg (00:46:31): Close. That 250,000. And China has about 83,000,000 factory workers, and we have about 12. So, you know, Timok, if we do end up in cold war 2, where, you know, we escalate the tension and escalate the divide, how do we end up you know, having avoiding $2000 or $3000 iPhones, how do we get all the televisions we want for 500 bucks? How do we do that? given that, you know, to catch up with this production capacity, we'll end up costing many tens of 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of invested capital that China invested over decades. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:05): Well, this is such a brilliant this is I somewhat fabulous question. And I think I don't have the answer, but here's the way that I think about the solution. You know, the The thing that we had before was in my way in in many ways, like, this kind of, like, perverted sense of globalism, And I think that we we, you know, we thought that globalism equals utopia. And that's not true. It's actually more like a chessboard, which means you have you know, 2 different sets of colored pieces competing against each other. And each piece on the board in many ways is a country. So, you know, we can look at that as a geographic SKU and say, like, we need to really consolidate, you know, North Central And South America as a block as a productivity block. And so, David, that's where we need to have more trade within those areas so that we can actually build up production capacity places that can absorb and produce low cost labor or low cost items to compete with the China bloc. That may be a solution. Jason Calacanis (00:48:02): I I mean, that is an incredible point Chamath, which is why with the rhetoric with Mexico, which would love Speaker 2 (00:48:10): to have Jason Calacanis (00:48:10): a deeper relationship with those. is so dumb. We we're talking about factories. They would love for us to put more factories on there. And whatever countries -- Forget Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:18): forget forget work our Jason Calacanis (00:48:19): way down the peninsula. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:21): Yeah. Go to go down the peninsula. Go go to Honduras. Go to El Salvador. Go to Guatemala. Where Jason Calacanis (00:48:26): the people are -- They won't work. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:28): Yeah. are are screaming for work, which is why they're trying to enter the United States. The best way is to not build a wall, take all that money and fuel it into production and manufacturing and warehouse capacity in those places in which they're leaving in the first place. Jason Calacanis (00:48:43): And if we thought, like, China, we would Go ahead. Do you have Friedberg? Sorry. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:47): No. You you David Friedberg (00:48:47): can't successfully sustain a cold war with China without global partnership. And I think, you know, this notion of nationalism and isolationism in the United States will not work in a world where we are also trying to compete globally with China and are and are raising the stakes in a in a global cold war. You can't have it both ways. So, you know, either the the current administration policy needs to change. I'd love to hear Saks's point of view on this or, you know, or we need to have a change in administration and actually you know, reengage on a on a global basis with partner states. David Sacks (00:49:22): Well okay. So I I think that the the the point about about well, I I think what what some people on the right would say is that being able to buy cheap goods at Target is not worth the hollowing out of the American industrial base that happened over the past 30 years, and that was a catastrophic mistake. And you know, this is what got Trump reelected was shattering that that blue wall in those rust belt states. So I think we can kinda look back on that and wonder whether that trade off was really worth it. But moving forward, I think the balance is gonna be to realize that Trade does create wealth. You know? All wealth, in fact, comes from trade whether at the level of individuals or nations. If it weren't for trade, all of us would be subsistence farmers or something like that. But we also have to realize that trade creates interdependence. because I stop making certain things in order to buy them from you. And so in order to engage in trade, we have to trust each other. I have to trust that that you, one day, won't decide that your ability to manufacture antibiotics is strategic, and you might deprive me of them in order to facilitate some geopolitical interest. And so I think what we're waking up to with, you know, production of of, you know, pharmaceuticals or N95 masks, you know, PPE, and now chips is that we've had this real blind spot with respect to trade. We've basically offshored So many of the elements are necessary for our national survival. And I think those elements have to be brought back so that America is safe and independent. But with respect to, you know, so many other things, I think it's fine for us to get them through trade, whether, you know, it could be apparel or toys or so many other goods that, you know, we do want cheap goods. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:14): I wanna do a Jason Calacanis (00:51:15): -- -- David Sacks (00:51:15): generally strategic. Jason Calacanis (00:51:16): I wanna do a mental exercise. We offer our living, try to come up with 100 x, 1000 solutions, whether we're creating the companies or betting on the companies. What everybody to just think for a second of the United States as a startup company and a 10 x100 x idea for how we can not only maintain our position, but maybe become the shining hill where we actually lead the world towards democracy, towards human rights. I'm gonna start with one that I just happened to. It hit me while you all were talking, which is why I love doing this podcast because I get such inspiration listening to you guys you know, pass the ball around. We haven't added a state to the United States in a pretty damn long time. What if we said to Puerto Rico, What if we said to the Dominican Republic? What if we said to Honduras? I I mean and I I don't wanna make this into a exercise in colonialism But if we said, you know what, Puerto Rico? How do you feel about being the 51st state? because we're already 80% of the way there. And what if we said the United States is going to, and this is just a crazy 100 x idea, we're gonna start taking countries that maybe love democracy, that would love to be part of the United States, And and having a bridge towards becoming part of this block, whether it's how Puerto Rico is David Sacks (00:52:35): Jason, the United States can barely function as it is. Jason Calacanis (00:52:38): Well, no. That's why I'm giving you the freedom to say this is a 100 x exercise as a start up. Because if we put out crazy ideas like this, maybe we can pull people towards thinking like the chessboard of how to play 3 d chess or how to win the chessboard, not just move the pawns back and forth. Speaker 6 (00:52:55): Well, I I think the David Sacks (00:52:56): first thing America has to do is is decide whether it wants to whether it still thinks that national greatness is important. and whether it wants to compete to to be the leading power in the world. Because right now, it seems like we're hopelessly divided, and our guns are literally drawn on each other. And, you know, you've got this all out assault going on on Capitalism. You have sort of cancel culture, and America just seems hopelessly divided. And I don't know if Americans still think it's important to be the number one power in the world. Right. Jason Calacanis (00:53:31): So what's your thought experiment on how to make Americans realize this is important? Or if anybody else wants to jump in here with a 10 x idea for America. Good. David Friedberg (00:53:39): I have a well, I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:40): I have an overlaying theory that I if this is sort of kind of me spitballing. So bear with me. But Jason Calacanis (00:53:46): -- David Friedberg (00:53:46): Let's do it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:47): You know, there's a there's this concept called the Overton window, right, which is sort of like the the minimally viable acceptable surface area, dialogue. In which case, it starts to sort of, you know, get extreme. I my I would theorize. I would tell you that the Overton window is the smallest it's ever been. And there's there's basically nothing that you can talk about that is relatively benign without it being politicized. And and the there's no gradation anymore. It's a very binary thing. You're either in the Overton window, which, for example, would be, like, you know, vegetables matter. or looking both ways across the street matters. And outside the Overton window, honestly, is Black Lives Matter as an example. You know? And it gets politicized on both sides. Masks, you know, if a balaclava when you're skiing because your face is cold is inside the Overton window, That same balaclava when you go to the drugstore so that you can actually, you know, either prevent disease one way or the other is outside the Overton window. You know, making sure that police, you know, are are there to protect you in a time of need is now outside the Overton window because it's framed in a in a lens of police brutality. So the Overton window has shrunk. So we we have very little surface area where we can actually all agree without getting into a fight. Ideologically Jason Calacanis (00:55:07): are trying to cancel each other. David Sacks (00:55:08): I totally agree with that. I mean, we have this we have this sort of epidemic of cancel culture going on. And I guess Jason, you recently experienced this. Jason Calacanis (00:55:16): Oh my lord. I mean, for Speaker 2 (00:55:18): the love of god, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:55:18): what happened, Jason? Tell us what happened. Jason Calacanis (00:55:21): Listen. I I look at Twitter as a place to have vibrant discussions. And, you know, 10 years ago, it was kind of where the Overton window was most open. You could have a discussion about anything. And we had a discussion about, you know, my feeling that as a former journalist, and we're doing random acts of journalism here that I just thought The New York Times was just way too biased and that they picked aside in order for their business to survive. and I actually believe that. I believe they picked the side of Trump I'm sorry. The side of anti Trump in order to get subscriptions because their advertising business has been demolished by the duopoly of Facebook and Google. This led to the circling of the wagons of the a journalist, which I was part of. But listen, it's pretty easy to hate me. I understand that. I'm a loudmouth. And so now I'm getting piled on by the journalist. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:14): And and you were an early investor in Uber. Absolutely. Don't forget that. Don't forget when they Jason Calacanis (00:56:18): the 3rd or 4th, I I don't they tell me the 3rd or 4th. Anyway, So there's a journalist at said publication. I'm not gonna say her name because I don't want any harassment of anybody. Nobody does. who said people are stupid for going back to work, and they're idiots. And I said, you know, this is a very convenient thing for a journalist who works behind a keyboard who makes a $100,000 a year to say because those people are literally not gonna be able to feed their kids if they don't go back to work. And this led to her saying I was harassing and stalking her. Then I was in Clubhouse, the new social network, where you talk, and the same journalist was in the audience. And I said to the people who were talking, just be aware, there is a journalist in the audience, because even though this is a private beta, this could wind up being in the New York Times, which it did. Not that discussion, but another one that was covertly taped. And I don't know if it was covertly taped by journalists or not, but it did wind up in the press. Anyway, this whole thing turns into a giant fight. And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:28): Clubhouse sounds like some dark SNM sex club in Berlin. Jason Calacanis (00:57:32): No. No. That's it. Here's what David Sacks (00:57:33): I think is most entertaining Jason Calacanis (00:57:34): about this. -- h o a u s. House. Club House. Speaker 6 (00:57:39): Yeah. Let me what I think David Sacks (00:57:40): is most entertaining about this is that the the the New York Times journalist was in this vicious battle with Balaji, who's a Silicon Valley founder and Palihapitiya. And they were And then Jason somehow comes running over and starts involving himself in this feud. And it's like, Speaker 6 (00:58:00): And it's like, apology gets foul, but Jason takes David Sacks (00:58:03): the flop. You know? And all of Speaker 6 (00:58:04): a sudden and all of a sudden, Jason's talking about, you know, how he's getting docs. Bology is the guy who was, like, called out David Sacks (00:58:09): in the New York Times, but somehow Jason Jason Calacanis (00:58:12): -- David Sacks (00:58:12): It's about -- takes the flop. Jason Calacanis (00:58:14): But, anyway, so here's what's happened. I'm gonna I I'm only telling the story. I'm not trying to get victim points. Give a fuck about that. It's July 4th. I they I put the kids down for the nap where we you know, steaks are going on the grill. It's a fucking great day. And then I'm on the Peloton trying to be just a little less fat so I can be less fat than Saks so that the photo that we're Saks is using, I just come out 5% less fat than Saks. And I look and I had posted a picture of the tree line outside my house to of a beautiful blue sky on July 4th. And I said, listen, everybody. Take a break from Twitter. Go spend time with your family, which is what I was about to do. A thirty seven year old private equity douche from Boston does a reverse image search on the tree line, finds a bigger picture of the trees, finds a picture of my pool based on that bigger and Google reverse image search and all these other tools, and then DOCSes me, which basically means releasing your address. He releases my address in my thread where okay. Because so I DM him, and he's using his real name, and he's got a LinkedIn profile. And I said, do you realize how dangerous this is? He goes, well, your stalking said journalists. I said, I am not stalking the journalists. When she said you're stalking her, So if you apologize to her and you take down the mean stuff you said about her, I'll take down your home address. And I said, hey, dipshit. This is illegal number 1. And number 2, you're gonna lose your Twitter account. And then I said number 3, we're connected your boss because you have a you're you're using your public name. Your boss is connected to fourteen people, of which, like, half are very close friends of mine. And I'm calling your boss, and I have all these screenshots of you doxing me. Jason Calacanis (01:00:05): What do you think is gonna happen on Monday? And I just gave him my phone number. -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:09): in this -- Hold on. Hold on. Jason Calacanis (01:00:10): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:10): quick -- In this situation. You wanna place a story? Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Jason Calacanis (01:00:13): Let me just finish the story. I tell the guy, here's my phone number he calls me. I said, hey. I know that you're a kid. I know that you did something rash, but this is actually, you know, a kind of a dangerous thing because you know, there's serious mental illness and whatever. Point 1% of the population. There's millions of people who are now involved in this discussion. It could be a security concern for me. I'm not gonna post your address. Please don't post mine. Delete the tweet. He goes, I refuse to delete the tweet until you whatever. And I said, okay. Well, I'm gonna call your boss on Monday. we know these people in common, she's going to fire you, and you're gonna lose your job. Now I know you're only 23 or 24, and this doesn't matter to you. And he goes, said, how old are you? He said, thirty seven. I said, you're thirty seven year old. I said, you're married? You say, yeah, I'm married. You got a six year old. Listen. Now you want me to make you lose your job because you're so mad at me over nothing. I said, I don't wanna call your boss on Monday and and and tell them what you did because it will certainly result in you being fired. And he goes, oh, I said, well, you might wanna go talk to your spouse about what you did and maybe get her perspective. He writes me an apology letter. We deleted it to all water under the bridge. But I I have been trying to tell people, you have to be very careful in when this gets too personal, because there are you are dog whistling to crazy people who then might do something crazy. Anyway, end of story, I backed off the whole discussion because I just don't wanna I I I wanna finish my second book, and I wanna do podcast with guys like you and and have a great time with my life and not be involved with a bunch of idiots. end of Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:41): story. So I wanna go back to this over to window concept for a second. So, again, just my my my idea. So you take the word matters. The word matters is in the Overton window. Nobody can argue that the word matters as offensive. If you if you prepend that word with vegetables, it stays in the Overton window. If you put looking both ways before you cross the street matters. Jason Calacanis (01:02:04): We're still there. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:05): States in the Overton window. If you say black lives as a term, just without the word matters, that's probably in the Overton window. Sure. You put black lives matters. It's out the over to window. And both sides politicize. I think the left politicizes with this cancel culture and basically like an extreme form of political correctness. And then the right politicizes by you know, in in their way a vain of hypersensitivity and then a doubling down on this notion of an attacking of individual freedoms and free speech. And in all of that, both of these two groups missed the fact that they're both sort of the same and they've they're they're wronged in the same way, but they're both not listening in the same way. Right. So if if I had to put something in the Overton window that would address the US China cold war thing, here's what I would say. We all need energy. We all need food, and we all need technology. Right? We need to sort of warm our houses. We need to feed our bellies and We need to be able to be productive in some way so that we can make money. And I think that everybody in the United States can agree that on these three dimensions, there are some really simple things that we could do that basically double down on US sovereignty. and allow us to basically be more on the offensive. So I'll give you a couple of ideas. On the energy side is we need to continue to support energy independence, and that will require subsidies. And the reason why that's important, in my opinion, is that then what happens is it hastens and accelerates Russia and the Middle East not becoming relevant anymore because they are forced to monetize their oil sooner. The Middle East probably disintegrates into 30 countries. You know, the Middle East was just a kind of a random exercise of you know, basically, Americans and Europeans after the war divvying up a bunch of things. It has no sensitivity to culture or language or anything. So that probably, you know, goes to it in a very different direction. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:14): And Russia and Russia becomes less important because they just have to monetize, otherwise, they will lose their only source of revenue. So that's one thing on energy that I think we could do that I think is relatively politically acceptable and inside the Overton window. Second is on food, which is that we have to double down on creating a completely independent food supply inside the United States. And there are ways again where if we don't need to be building tanks and having $90,000,000,000,000 programs for aircraft carriers anymore, We could pour that money into US Farms, you know, and give people like Friedberg a lot more money to go and actually make sure the United States has food security. that in any situation and scenario, we can feed the 330 odd million people inside of our borders. And then the 4th the the third thing is on technology, which is there are a critical bunch of inputs, whether it's 5 g chips, rare earth materials, or minerals, things like cobalt and lithium, which we need for batteries for climate change, that we can go and basically co opt because those things are concentrated in countries like Chile, in places like in places like Africa, where we can actually do a better job of instilling government governance and security. So that's my, Jason, back to your thing. These aren't sexy ideas, but they would work. I think they would work by both Republicans and Democrats and its noncontroversial. Jason Calacanis (01:05:43): I'll even punch up the food part. There's no reason why, you know, the same way we made water and public schools, you know, kind of a given in United States. Nobody really has to worry about going getting water. Nobody has to worry about getting a basic education learning to read. Let's say it's not perfect, obviously. why not make healthy produce and some amount of healthy food so affordable in the United States that it's essentially free. Right? And and then you you think about food security, like, how are we still discussing food security with the amount of money and prosperity we have in this country, make it free. We've we've almost made energy free. We have energy independence. I'll say a Manhattan project to make energy and food as free or de minimis as water would be just an amazing thing for us to rally around because then People can work on the next thing in their life, their careers, their family, their pursuits. Friedberg, what do you think of the Overton window? And would you add something to it that we can all agree on we could work on together and maybe unify the country as opposed to pulling guns on each other in the parking lots because of the color of our skin. David Friedberg (01:06:51): I'm reminded of a great moment in history when Will Smith and his friends blew up the UFO that came to attack Earth. nothing brings us together like a common enemy. So it could be that the the unification is gonna be you know, in part driven by this cold war too and and creating a common enemy in China is gonna work for both the right and the left and create a lot of opportunity as Chamath highlights in manufacturing and food production. There's there's a lot of tools available to us. I think we could all sit here and speculate, and I could pitch and plug all the companies I'm involved in. I think we're gonna play a role But I do think it's it's that moment where, you know, we are gonna coalesce around a common enemy And -- Well, it'd be good if you actually shared 1 or Jason Calacanis (01:07:38): 2 of those projects you're working on if you can. I actually would think -- Cool. David Friedberg (01:07:41): I mean, very I I think -- -- hear what you're working I've shared this before, but I do think biomanufacturing, which is the the the technology whereby we engineer the DNA of microbes and those microbes then make molecules for us in a big fermentation tank in the same way that we make beer or wine. Biomanufacturing can be used to make flavors and fragrances, and now we're making materials like silks and plastics, plastic equivalents, and and more interestingly, proteins for human consumption to replace animal proteins. And the cost of production and the cost of energy associated with making these materials, these molecules, these proteins through biomanufacturing is literally several orders of magnitude less than the traditional technique, which is just insane if you think about it in a first principles basis, of growing fucking corn, feeding it to a cow, letting the cow grow up, feeding it hundreds of gallons of water, killing it, chopping it up, transporting it to a restaurant. I mean, amount of energy that goes into making a pound of ground beef is insane, and the and the greenhouse gas emissions and so on. So I do believe that there is a big wave of biomanufacturing as an industry that is coming on the US this century. And it will, hopefully, by the end of the century, be primary way that we're kind of producing a lot of the molecules that we consume and that we use for clothing and materials. Jason Calacanis (01:08:57): So then that does what to factories. because, you know, you you did explain earlier the number of factories. If we can bio produce -- David Friedberg (01:09:04): That's right. Jason Calacanis (01:09:04): -- not only our steaks, not only our corn, So I'm not just -- -- mean we could bio manufacture steel plastics cars? David Friedberg (01:09:12): Not not so much steel, but alternatives to leather, alternatives cloth alternatives to Jason Calacanis (01:09:16): -- So clothes. -- David Friedberg (01:09:18): to clothes food. So imagine instead of a traditional factory, think about a factory historically being purpose built. So you build all these components to make one thing. So you spend all this money making a giant machine that you put stuff in on one end, and the same thing comes out over and over the And that's classic industrial revolution, 1.0 and, you know, 20th century industrial revolution output. In in this century, we are gonna build these giant printers. They're not gonna be single form machines that make one thing over and over. They're gonna be systems that are giant fermentation tanks. And in those fermentation tanks, it's like you program them with software. And the software in this case is genetic software. You edit the genome of these organisms, they take stuff on the input, and they Speaker 2 (01:09:59): make on the output a bunch of David Friedberg (01:10:01): different stuff. Jason Calacanis (01:10:01): A replicator, like, in Star Trek, and if there were season reality and people needed something over the summer for July 4th versus what they need in Christmas or in the winter and ski season, the same factory makes that thing. We're 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from this having an impact on the economy? David Friedberg (01:10:20): Yeah. And we're seeing it now. I mean, look, the number of artificial animal protein companies and the funding that they're getting, it's, I think, highlighting investor interest and in backing the CapEx needed to get this to become a reality right now. Perfect Day just raised $300,000,000 this week. And possible food rates $400,000,000 from the Qatari investment authority. You know, obviously, Beyond Meat is where they're at. I mean, these companies are using these techniques of genetic engineering to make microbes that make the proteins and the flavorings Jason Calacanis (01:10:50): -- David Friedberg (01:10:51): We put 50 -- -- replace itself. Jason Calacanis (01:10:52): we we put 500,000,000 into the PPP program. If we put 500 bill I'm sorry. 500,000,000,000. If we put 500,000,000,000 into this, how much would it accelerate it? David Friedberg (01:11:02): pretty substantially. And I think it goes from food to pharma to materials, and that's probably, you know, where you would see the the impact But, again, one system can make different materials, can make different programs. Jason Calacanis (01:11:14): -- could be independent of other countries for food to Chomat's point and also pharma, which we are way too depend and correct on China? David Friedberg (01:11:22): Yeah. We're definitely a net exporter. By the way, you know, our largest export partner is China. So most of our soybeans in the United States that we produce. And soybeans are grown on a 160,000,000 acres in the US, and it rotates half and half each year with corn. But about two thirds of our soybeans historically get exported China. David Sacks (01:11:39): Got it. David Friedberg (01:11:39): So we are already food secure from a net resource perspective. It's just the rest of the infrastructure in terms of turning that stuff into meat and and other stuff is where we're we probably have to build up a little bit of infrastructure Speaker 2 (01:11:51): to get. Jason Calacanis (01:11:51): -- swing the ball over to you when you hear the Overton window ideas when you hear about this biochemistry slurry tank revolution that Friedberg working on. How does that change or evolve your view of our relationship with China and the political mess we're in right now in 2020. David Sacks (01:12:11): Yeah. Well, I think Cold War 2 does provide a lens to to rethink and reevaluate a lot of these domestic political fights. And so, for example, are the big technology companies, you know, Google, Facebook, and so on. Are they these, you know, even monopolies that need to be broken up, or are they the crown jewels of the American economy that needs to be protected from Chinese espionage. You know, is the free enterprise system this you know, horribly, you know, oppressive, racist thing, or is it actually the engine or prosperity that's built this country? you know, is freedom of speech an outdated principle? Or is it something we we wanna you know, that that should be canceled? Or is it something we wanna for. And I think that, you know, when you start thinking about these issues, you know, in the you know, through the lens of Cold War 2, it provides an option to kind of reevaluate them and think about what's really important. And and, hopefully, it can provide a little bit of a a uni unifying force in America, not because we want China to be an enemy, but just because we want to maintain a sense of national greatness. And I you know, it's not something we wanna just wanna give up on. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:13:29): I have a question for Friedberg our our school's gonna be back in the fall because I cannot deal with my kids being at home. David Friedberg (01:13:37): Yeah. I think it's gonna be a mixed bag. It seems like I mean, if you follow this, this is a political decision. Right? It's not a scientific decision. And so there are different politics around nationally that are affecting this, and there are some schools that seem like they've got processes and and methods of being comfortable. Some of them are just everything out the window and say, I don't give a shit. The kids gotta go back to school, and some of them who are being very conservative and saying, you know, we're not ready for that. We can't take the risk. So you'll definitely see a mixed bag. I don't know where where you're living some up. I don't know what's gonna happen per se, but it's definitely a local policy Jason Calacanis (01:14:11): -- -- Friedberg. Is it safe to send our kids back to a ten person pod in a school in California. David Friedberg (01:14:18): I mean, that's like asking if it's safe to cross a train track. You know? You can look left. You can look right. But, yeah, you're pro you know, a a busy train intersection during during a rush hour. You know, it's hard to say what level of safe is safe. we know that kids are less susceptible to any sort of health risk themselves from the virus, and it looks like there's a lot of studies showing that they're likely less the virus of less transmissible through kids, especially kids under the age of fourteen. And so it seems like there's there's some theories that say that, look, it's these ACE2 receptors whereby the virus enters the cells really start to present when you turn ten years old at a greater rate, and, you know, it scales up to 14 and above 14, you're you're kind of an adult from an ACE 2 receptor point of view. And then there's the severity of the infection as we all know, is really more of a significant issue for much elderly people. So when you take those factors into account, the virus is likely less transmissible amongst children. Therefore, a bunch of kids get together. They're not gonna transmit it to each other, and and it's likely gonna be less severe even if there is an infection for kids. the risk is just about are the teachers comfortable and what happens when they go home? And there have been a number of letters that you guys have probably seen op ed and whatnot written in papers by teacher saying, I'm nervous to go back to school. I don't wanna teach this fall. I don't wanna take the risk for my health. I take care of my mom or my dad or have you. And so there's a lot of competing interests Jason Calacanis (01:15:44): here besides just David Friedberg (01:15:45): the science. Jason Calacanis (01:15:45): Let's go around the horn of who's sending their kids back to school. I'll start. I posted on Calacanis yesterday that we've decided as a family that we're starting a micro school. We put out a call for a a teacher and, you know, just looking at teacher salaries. They don't get paid particularly well in our society. As we all know, they're underpaid. we think we can come over the top and provide a, you know, a better financial arrangement for a teacher and then have one to 5 students, and we're gonna just create a micro school. That's our that's our current plan. Our kids did go to camp this summer in a small ten person or less pod. And we felt that was safe. Everybody was tested, and it was outdoors. But for me, being indoors at a school with 300 pods of 10. And I think the best teachers are not gonna show up, and our my kids don't learn over Zoom. I don't know about your kids, but It's not working. So we're starting a or we're gonna roll our own school and hopefully find 1 or 2 families who wanna chop up the cost with us, or we'll just pick up the tab and invite 1 or 2 families if they don't have the means to do it. But we're we're gonna we're gonna go solo for 2021. Friedberg Tremoth, what are you thinking right now? because we're only 7, 8 weeks out from this. Right? We're less than 2 months. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:00): I I really think, like, Look. Not everybody, Jason, is gonna be in a position to hire teachers. In fact, most everybody won't be. David Friedberg (01:17:07): Agreed. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:08): I think it's I wanna send my children back to school. I I refuse to create some alternative reality for them. I think it's really important that they are with their friends. I think that we're not really thinking strongly enough about the social implications for, you know, children, let's just say, like, you know, you take an eight year old or a nine year old or a ten year old, and you deprive them of their friends for a year, I mean, that's an enormous part of their life where they -- It's like a prison sentence. Yeah. They've they've been socially isolated. You know? Yeah. I just think it's a it's a really bad outcome. So I think that obviously from a public health perspective, we wanna keep our teachers safe I just think that it's so important that we realize that, you know, we are going to impact an entire generation of kids I think that if you're 18 or 19 and had and have had, you know, 18 or 19 years of normal teenagedom, you know, and and and growing up, that it's okay if you miss a year or you have to, you know, do your 1st year of college remotely. Like, it sucks, but you can deal. But I really worry about these kids in in primary school and middle school. It's really unfair. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:18:24): I mean, we our plan was to try to get to 4 or 5 students small bubble and then, you know, have outdoor. The problem is then the northeast -- I I just think Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:33): it I just think Jason Calacanis (01:18:34): it -- -- gone to school. It's you're in with a heating system with a closed ventilation system that was built in 1920. And Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:39): I think it avoids the real key thing, which is, like, I don't think you go to school to learn as much as you go to school to socialize. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:18:49): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:18:50): socialize. I mean, you you learn as a byproduct because everybody socializes. Not everybody learns. Right? Agreed. Agreed. There it's it's an enormously important formative experience for a child to be around 15 or Jason Calacanis (01:19:03): 20 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:19:03): of their other kids than to be in the playground to deal with all the adversity that comes with normal life of a kid. That's the biggest thing that I think we're depriving them of, and I understand that, you know, there's an important reason to hold these kids back, but I just wanna appreciate that behaviorally and psychologically, this is not gonna be for free. Jason Calacanis (01:19:24): Freebur Sachs? What what's your latest thinking? David Sacks (01:19:28): I I I guess I I agree with both Schmuth and Friedberg on on this that the there there are huge benefits to going back, and the risk to kids are low in terms of getting it and also they're less viral if they do. But Israel's sort of a strong recent counter example where they recently opened schools, and now all of a sudden, they've got a spike. So we're gonna send our kids back, but I expect it to be a little bit of a shit show. I think that the schools will reopen, and they'll they'll do all this plan a. There'll be all the like pods and half days and smaller groups and that kind of thing. And then somebody's gonna there'll be, like, one case, either a kid or, you know, one family. then all of a sudden, they're gonna shut down again. And I guess I you know, they're spending all this time planning, but I wonder if they're really gonna have contingency plans for what happens when there's a case Jason Calacanis (01:20:19): or -- Exactly what I think is happening. Yeah. I I think they'll just shut down. It just it it's too scary for a child to die or a teacher to die, and people the overreaction to it will be to shut everything down. Right? and then we're gonna be back to our kids. When when we sent our kids to camp for the 3 weeks they went, man, it was just they were different kids. Right? And to Chamonte's point, they they're they're little social animals. They need to roll around like little baby tigers and and play. if they don't have that, it it dramatically affects behavior, and we saw it in only 3 months. I mean, 12 months, these kids are gonna go mental. David Sacks (01:20:57): Yeah. I think that basically where the country is at is that we're an undeclared Sweden. You know, we've basically the the the virus is become endemic. It's everywhere. You know, we've basically given up on trying to contain or stop it. And And so now we're just on this path to herd immunity. And, you know, it's basically what Sweden did except we haven't declared. That's what our plan is. And so it's haphazard and but it's that seems like kind of where, by default, just headed for herd immunity. Jason Calacanis (01:21:28): Friedberg, as we wrap up here and I got one final question I wanna do after this, and then we'll wrap. Freberg, what's your thoughts, kids in schools, I I know you have kids. I'm not sure the ages if they're, like, would be going back to a a I think they're a little bit on the younger side. So if you did have eight nine, ten, twelve year olds, sending them back to school, starting your own, what are your thoughts? David Friedberg (01:21:48): Yeah. I mean, I'd I would probably be a little ridiculous and send them and test them every other day. at home. And, you know, you could get this vector Dickinson testing system now for 2 to Jason Calacanis (01:21:59): 50 David Friedberg (01:21:59): bucks. It's a handheld device. and these testerts cost $20. Say Jason Calacanis (01:22:02): the name of it again? David Friedberg (01:22:04): The vector Dickinson. It's a -- Vector Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:06): with a v. Yeah. B b b b. Wait. Wait. How do Jason Calacanis (01:22:08): I are they available? David Friedberg (01:22:10): Yeah. You can buy them through medical retailers. And, yeah, the handheld device that they use in hospitals and stuff today. It's it's 250 bucks. And there's a little test kit that you buy. It'll probably cost 20 to 30 bucks. It'll be available next month per test. or 15 to 20 bucks, and it takes 5 minutes to get a result. And so Jason Calacanis (01:22:30): You literally could do it in the schoolyard before they go into the building. David Friedberg (01:22:33): Yeah. So you could test I would test my kids every day if I had you know, my kids are are are you know, my one kid's in preschool. The other one's too Jason Calacanis (01:22:40): high school. -- do a little pinprick on their finger. Right? David Friedberg (01:22:42): No. If you could just do a little swab in the nose. So -- Oh, okay. -- kinda yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:22:45): Deep nose swab or or, you know, halfway? David Friedberg (01:22:48): There's data that shows now that you could actually do road swab and, you know, get a pretty good reading on it. So, you know, whatever the protocol is, it'd probably be pretty non invasive, and you could get a result. Now that's expensive. for most people, you know, that's Jason Calacanis (01:23:00): -- Not expensive for a school. David Friedberg (01:23:02): Not expensive for a school. That's right. And so I think that company will do well with that testing system they've launched because it actually tests not for the RNA, but for the protein. Jason Calacanis (01:23:10): Is this a public company? David Friedberg (01:23:12): Yeah. And the stock's done well. And and and this this this test does really well because it tests for the protein, not the RNA. So it's actually a a much, you know, much easier test scientifically to to do. You're not trying to pick up specific nucleotides or nucleic acid. You're trying to pick up a protein. And so it's, yeah, it's it's pretty effective. Jason Calacanis (01:23:34): Alright. Get over the -- Yeah. If the election was held today, we always like to talk about this a bit its loves when we talk about it. We talked about Oprah last time. That was our sleeper candidate. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:43): I'm changing. I'm changing. Tammy Dotworth. Tammy Dotworth is now my sleeper vice presidential. David Friedberg (01:23:48): I'm with wanted to jump off on that. Jason Calacanis (01:23:50): Absolutely. 100. Yeah. Now who's gonna win if the election was held today? Sachs, I'll let you go first since it's the most heartbreaking for you. David Sacks (01:24:04): Biden's strategy is working. His strategy is basically -- to say nothing to be, you know, tied in his basement and and but it's working because even though he's a cipher, I think people He's he's basically a protest vote against Trump. And Trump, you know, is, you know, seen as very divisive. and inflammatory. And I think the American people at this point just wanna push a button and make it stop. And right now, Biden seems like the make it stop button. Jason Calacanis (01:24:35): Yeah. Okay. And should Biden I'll I'll add to the question. So there'll be a bit too blend on this this double question. Who wins today? and should buy it in debate Trump, or is it better for him to just opt out of the debates and and not risk it? David Sacks (01:24:48): Buying strategy is well, I think Biden's strategy right now is working. I don't know why he would change it. I mean -- So Jason Calacanis (01:24:54): he should not there's 3 debates on the books he agreed to. Should he do the 3 debates? Yes or no. If you were advising him, David Sacks (01:25:01): So I think he probably will not be able to to duck the these debates forever. I think I mean, it seems unlikely that Speaker 2 (01:25:11): you know Jason Calacanis (01:25:11): If you were advising him, would you tell him to do it or not? Speaker 6 (01:25:15): I I would I think David Sacks (01:25:16): I would tell him his strategy is working, which is to say nothing and Jason Calacanis (01:25:19): So don't Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:20): go to the debates. David Sacks (01:25:21): If you can get away with it. I I'm not sure he'll be able to get away with it. So I think eventually people eventually, the American public will turn us attention to the election. But part part of part of the reason why his strategy is working is because Trump is running such a bad campaign. In fact, it feels like Trump has even really started to campaign. Jason Calacanis (01:25:40): There's no logic to it for sure. David Sacks (01:25:42): Yeah. Well, it's you know, normally, what the incumbent does especially when they've got a lot of money is they use this summer to define the opponent. They start running a lot of ads seeking to define their opponent. And and you know, where where are those ads? Where is that attempt to define Biden? I mean, I think I think it's hard because you know, because it's it's hard to define Biden as as a radical who represents these woke mobs. Biden doesn't even know how to say the word woke correctly. I think he's called him woked. So that's it's actually awful. That's actually helpful. Jason Calacanis (01:26:20): -- by my four year old. Speaker 2 (01:26:21): We needed her diaper changed. Speaker 6 (01:26:23): Right. Speaker 2 (01:26:23): Alright. Speaker 6 (01:26:24): But but the fact that Biden David Sacks (01:26:25): is so clueless and seems like so out of touch actually helps him because I mean, the way the way for Trump to win the election Okay. Let's let's put it that way, is to to make the alternative to Trump the destruction of Mount Rushmore. Right? I mean, if if Trump can somehow convince the American public that the election of Joe Biden means the ripping down of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and and Mount Rushmore and the destruction of of Capitalism That is the way for him to win. That's you know? But he has to actually Jason Calacanis (01:27:01): -- Listen. David Sacks (01:27:02): Well, he has he has to actually be able to to tag Biden with that Jason Calacanis (01:27:07): -- Why did Peter TL why did Peter Thiel drop Trump? He's he You've got a thirty year relationship with Peter Teal. You talk to him on the regular. Why did Teal drop him? Speaker 6 (01:27:16): I I don't know that he has. David Sacks (01:27:17): I think you have to get him on the show to talk. Jason Calacanis (01:27:19): Alright. There you go. Good deflection. Best DC, who wins, and should he do those 3 debates, Biden? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:27:27): Yeah. Yeah. I I I think you can't get away from them. I wouldn't make it a big issue because the debates are gonna be kind of this random crappy kind of experience. You know? I I don't even know whether they'll be in the same place. I think they should try to make sure that they're not in the same place. so that it's done almost over Zoom. Like, you can you can cripple the effort the the usefulness of these debates. In many ways, There really isn't much that can happen in the debates. The reality is that people aren't voting for Biden. They are voting against Donald Trump. Any chance Trump wins. And they are voting against the sheer incompetence of him and his family. And, you know, it's going to be very difficult for him to David Friedberg (01:28:13): overturn it. There is one thin path for him to win. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:28:17): which is to absolutely shower America with money close to the election day. So if there is a multimultitrillion dollar stimulus bill that passes, and it literally puts money into the hands of working Americans. It's especially in the swing states. It could work. Now the one thing I'll tell you is if you looked at the exit polls in Georgia, It's scary because there were 230,000, I think, more Democrats out of the exit polls in the Georgia primary than there were Republican. Now just hold the phone here for a second. Because under no calculus on electoral college, did we ever have to think that there is probabilistically any chance that a Democrat wins Georgia. And I think what this speaks to is a a changing demographic longitudinally And this is not a racial thing, meaning this is an age thing where these young people are very different politically. And so if you think that there is an even remote chance that Donald Trump loses Georgia, don't even worry about Minnesota and Pennsylvania and Florida because he would have already lost those in order to lose George. Jason Calacanis (01:29:31): Also, this pandemic and work from home is gonna result in people if it is a sustained work from home. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:38): We have scarred the American economy, guys. And we don't Jason Calacanis (01:29:42): know the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:29:42): extent of the injury because, you know, you know the extent of the injury when you get, you know, step out of the chair that first moment the cast gets taken off and you put a little pressure on the leg to see how bad it is, and we don't know how bad it is. except we know that it's pretty bad. So, you know, I think that all roads kind of look like Biden I think the very narrow path that Donald Trump has is, you know, a multi multi $1,000,000,000,000 stimulus bill directly into the hands of Americans. Jason Calacanis (01:30:13): Freiburg, is he gonna win yes or no? Should he do the the debates? Yes or no? David Friedberg (01:30:18): Yeah. If the vote were to happen today, he would win Joe Biden would win. I think he's actually more likely to win based on news that just hit the wire, which we haven't talked about today, which is it looks like Facebook is gonna ban all political ads. this year. Watch? Yeah. And so they do Jason Calacanis (01:30:33): that. Wow. David Friedberg (01:30:34): Obviously, that -- Facebook in a Jason Calacanis (01:30:36): fight for survival right now. That ad can't Amazing how a bunch of advertisers taking a 1 month pause all of a sudden brings Zuckerberg to the table. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:44): Amazing how my my well timed short thesis tweet David Friedberg (01:30:48): playing out. Speaker 2 (01:30:49): Oh, yum yum. David Friedberg (01:30:50): So I think that works that obviously works to Biden's favor. Alright. If that's the case. And then my my point on the the debate, if I were Biden, what I would do right now is I would go on Twitter, and I would say release your tax returns, and I'll debate you. and I would repeat that tweet twice a day. Love it. Love it. Jason Calacanis (01:31:05): 3 Speaker 2 (01:31:05): bird gets the dunk. Jason Calacanis (01:31:05): 360 Speaker 2 (01:31:05): ducks in David Friedberg (01:31:09): That's a dumb Jason Calacanis (01:31:09): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:09): Big Carter. Well done free burgers. Jason Calacanis (01:31:11): -- over free burger wins the debate. This show is sponsored by nobody. However, I'm gonna ask my best to see if somebody were to make a $25,000 donation to charity, would you allow me to read and add for 30 seconds during the pod at some point. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:29): No. But I'll match it to wherever you wanna go. No fucking ads ever. I love I love you, guys. I miss you. Jason Calacanis (01:31:36): Love you. Love you besties. -- boys. I love you love you free. Love you, Saxx. It was great playing golf. Let's get a let's golf. Let's let's let's fucking golf, man. I'm losing my mind. We'll see -- Let's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:45): do a little let's do a little small, little NASA boys, a little 10,000, you Jason Calacanis (01:31:48): know. Woo hoo hoo. Let's go. That's bamboo. See you Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:53): next time Jason Calacanis (01:31:54): on the all in podcast. Tell your friends to tune in if they want to listen to something intelligent. Bye bye.