国会山骚乱的起诉、美内外的民权状况，以及多发性硬化症的突破性研究

Speaker 1 (00:00:01): Look at Freeman Bird. He's like, this is so awkward. I can't wait. He's got he literally brought popcorn. Jason Calacanis (00:00:06): Didn't you? David Friedberg (00:00:06): I'm just watching the show. Speaker 1 (00:00:07): -- Jason Calacanis (00:00:08): fucker. you for a popcorn. He's like, I wanna see round 3. I have David Friedberg (00:00:11): nothing to say today. I'm just gonna sit here and watch. Jason Calacanis (00:00:13): I'm I'm for a popcorn. David Friedberg (00:00:14): I got my chili roasted pistachio nuts. I'm gonna sit back and enjoy Speaker 1 (00:00:19): -- -- 50 Jason Calacanis (00:00:20): shot. Speaker 1 (00:00:20): -- David Friedberg (00:00:20): the Jay Kalzak. All the year. Jason Calacanis (00:00:23): The LETger winner's ride. Rainman, David Sanders. David Sacks (00:00:30): And I said -- We open source it to Jason Calacanis (00:00:39): Are we really gonna do this as the top story? I mean, this is the 3rd time we've tried to do this story. Do we give the background Saxx or no? We wouldn't have had to do it David Sacks (00:00:48): over and over again. If you didn't act so hysterical, Here we go. Jason Calacanis (00:00:51): First one you killed. David Sacks (00:00:53): No. You killed it. Jason Calacanis (00:00:54): No. The first David Sacks (00:00:55): one you killed. Yeah. Because it wasn't even on the docket, and it wasn't it wasn't even newsworthy. Jason Calacanis (00:01:00): Okay. And the second one I killed? David Sacks (00:01:02): Because you came across, like, a starcraving lunatic. Jason Calacanis (00:01:05): I spiked it the second time because I was so infuriated by your cavalier attitude towards it. What do David Sacks (00:01:11): you worry about my attitude for? Why don't you just focus on making your own good points? Jason Calacanis (00:01:15): Here's the thing. Oh, David Friedberg (00:01:16): yes. I was so correct. Jason Calacanis (00:01:19): I was so correct. The 2 of you Speaker 1 (00:01:20): -- David Friedberg (00:01:21): Let him let him go, Tamaz. Let him go. Jason Calacanis (00:01:23): Do you guys got popcorn? David Sacks (00:01:24): Let's hear idiot tried to blame his own hysteria on me. Jason Calacanis (00:01:28): You said that January 6th was overblown, and, of course -- No. David Sacks (00:01:32): I said it was a disgrace. I said it was an embarrassment. It was an embarrassment to the country. I said it was wrong, but you wanna inflate it. You're you're engaging in in classic Washington threat inflation. Nope. And and there's 2 problems with that. 1 is you're gonna take your eye off the ball of the real issues facing the country. like inflation, the economy, and economic anxiety like COVID, like crime, like schools. I mean, these are the issues that Americans care about. not, you know, a riot that happened over a year ago. And if you and the Democrats keep talking about this and focus on it on MSNBC, to the exclusion of the issues that really matter, I'll see you in November because you're gonna get slaughtered in this midterm election. It's gonna be a landslide. But the other problem with it is with this threat inflation is that it justifies the expansion of surveillance powers and prosecutorial powers by the justice department by the you know, by by the by the justice department and other branches of our government who want to basically go after, you know, this this so called domestic terrorism. That will lead to an infringement on civil liberties just like the expansion of those agencies did after 911. And so I think we should all be, like, concerned about it. Now look, are these oathkeepers a bunch of idiots? Yeah. There were 11 oathkeepers of that rally. They broke into the cabinet. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:52): Wait a minute. David Sacks (00:02:52): You're saying -- -- prosecuted. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:54): Wait. Wait a minute. Jason Calacanis (00:02:54): Wait a minute. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:55): You're saying an old fat guy with an eye patch And that says oathkeeper lifetime member is not credible to you? David Sacks (00:03:04): Exactly. I mean, look. This is these guys are they're they're not unlike the Antifa, right you know, people in Portland who are trying to burn down buildings or or Chase of Hudin's parents who are domestic terrorists. I mean, yeah, this is a small number of knuckleheads who broke into the capital. They should be prosecuted. they're they're guilty of of saying this leader is saying in temperate things. But was this gonna be a coup to take over the capital? I don't don't think so. Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:03:33): Let let me jump start. Speaker 1 (00:03:34): -- David Sacks (00:03:34): focus on that to the exclusion of the real issues facing the country. Like I said, this landslide in November, this red wave is gonna be even bigger. Jason Calacanis (00:03:41): Just to your point about my focus every week here on the number one tech podcast in the world and on the number 6 tech podcasts in the world this week in startups, I focus on all of those issues. But let's read because we can chew gum and walk at the same time. Let's read what happened on Thursday. The FBI arrested 11 members of the oath keepers on Saddition charges, and the House committee subpoenaed, Facebook, Google, Reddit, and Twitter after insufficient responses to the January 6th rights or interaction, whichever term, you prefer the leader of the oathkeepers, which is an organization that claims over 30,000 members primarily in the military and police. David Sacks (00:04:18): Okay. Well, hold on a second. If this was their big moment to stage a coup and take over the government, why were only 11 or the 30,000 there? Jason Calacanis (00:04:25): The 11 were indicted, David. There were Speaker 1 (00:04:27): -- David Sacks (00:04:28): How many were there? Jason Calacanis (00:04:29): Well, we don't know yet. But last week, you said -- The the -- last week, said there was no coordinated attack, and now we have proof that there was. David Sacks (00:04:36): That's not what I said. You look. You you can't veto the segment from last week and then try to claim that I said certain things. Jason Calacanis (00:04:43): Let me just finish. Can I get through this story, or can we keep interrupting? David Sacks (00:04:46): My god. Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:04:47): Quote from the You're David Sacks (00:04:48): you're complaining about interruption. Okay. Jason Calacanis (00:04:50): That's another interruption. May may I finish it without before interruption, or would you like to just keep monologuing? David Sacks (00:04:55): What are you reading? Why don't you just give us the link just so that the audience can just go get the actual story. And that's Jason Calacanis (00:05:00): what I'm trying to do, but you keep interrupting. So here we go. While certain North Keeper members and affiliates inside Washington DC breached to Capitol, grounds, and buildings, Others remain stationed just outside the city in QRF teams. These are quick response teams that had weapons and they transported firearms into Washington DC in and these in support operations were aimed at using force to stop the law, full transfer of presidential power. According to our Department of Justice, which is a majority Republican, obviously, law enforcement SKUs Republican. Yes. It is. Speaker 1 (00:05:31): -- David Sacks (00:05:31): kidding me? Jason Calacanis (00:05:32): A portion of the old papers communication occurred on signal. David Sacks (00:05:35): Signal -- Are you gonna keep Jason Calacanis (00:05:36): interrupting me? Oh my god. Can I just read 2 sentences, Dave? David Sacks (00:05:39): Gonna taste your own medicine pal. Jason Calacanis (00:05:40): Okay. Fine. signal is an encrypted chat app that's not supposed to have any backdoors, but, obviously, there are some plant. Here are some of Roads's comments. We aren't getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind body and spirit. It will be a bloody and desperate fight. We're going to have to fight. This cannot be avoided. If David Sacks (00:05:57): we wanna make the January 6th stuff relevant, first of all, let me just say, I see that it primarily as a media story. What happened happened, obviously, it was a disgrace and embarrassment black eye for the country. I'm not supporting or defending anyone. I think tend to think these oath keepers, it was not like a super organized concerted effort to take over the government. It it's somewhere it it's basically a bunch of loud mouths who you know, engaged in a riot. Maybe there was more planning preparation fine. The court case will bear it out, and if they can prove that it was what you said it was great. Let them go to jail. I have no desire to defend them. But I also think then the grand scheme of things, this whole thing's been blown completely out proportion. I mean, if you watch MSNBC, It's all January 6 all the time. And, you know, if Democrats are gonna focus on this issue for the next 10 months, and, you know, who Roger Stone was photographed on a sidewalk with, which was the big story the other day. This red wave in November is gonna be an even bigger wave. I'm just telling you right now because it's not what the average voter in the country cares about. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:06:57): I think you're right about that. I think you're right about that. Jason Calacanis (00:06:59): I'll agree with that. I think, you know, MSNBC is focused on this, and Fox is focused on fake voter fraud. And we've been pretty clear here that none of us agree with either of the extremes of media coverage I do think this is an issue worth -- Wait. David Sacks (00:07:14): What's off the quote voter fraud are you talking about? The the guy who who's obsessed right now with voter fraud is Biden. He just gave a speech a very intemperate speech saying that if you don't support his new voting rights acts that you're on the side of Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:07:28): There were some political activists there. He had to do that because he was also trying to basically bolster the ability to get this, you know, filibuster thing passed in the senate. So he he basically had to play a relatively weak hand and and, you know, again, what happened again legislatively is that His own party said, no. Enough. In this case, it was Kristen Cinema who basically said no. None of this -- Right. David Sacks (00:07:49): Well, cinema mansion won't support amending the filibuster So -- Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:07:52): -- David Sacks (00:07:52): this thing was DOA. We we said it was a DOA. When the bill back better, Bill collapsed, we said they were gonna try and pivot to voting rights to change the subject even though it was DOA. But there is something that Biden could do or could have done that I think would be a bipartisan reform, which is to reform the electoral account act. I mean, what happened in November, if you're concerned about Trump and, you know, this version of the potential to subvert the election and the way he tried to influence pens to stop the counting of the electors. If you're concerned about all of that, there is a fix for that, which is the Electoral Count Act of 1887. It's completely antiquated. Obviously, it's been around for over a 100 years. There is bipartisan support for fixing that. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has come out for Jason Calacanis (00:08:34): months -- Explain what it is to the audience? David Sacks (00:08:36): Well, it's just a it's just a it's a law that that governs how these electors in the electoral college get counted up and certified so that, you know, the election gets certified. So and David Brooks had that piece that that Jamal shared in the New York Times, which is The problem we have right now is not in the actual voting. It's in the if you're worried about what happened in this past November, it's in the certification, not the voting. And, you know, what Brooks was writing about is there's a lot of social science saying that, you know, a lot of these rules that Democrats and Republicans are really focused on around the convenience of the election don't really influence the number of people who vote. People who vote want People wanna vote vote people who don't don't you know, we're getting hung up on the wrong thing, which is, you know, these voter ID laws. What really matters is the certification of the electoral college. And you could find Biden could find I think there's a number of Republicans who would support a clarification of that law and updating a bit so that what potentially could have happened in, you know, in January. If Pence had gone along with this plan to basically reject the counting of the electors. I mean, everyone understood that that that was just ceremonial. Right? That Jason Calacanis (00:09:47): was wrong. Speaker 1 (00:09:47): -- Jason Calacanis (00:09:47): think of that plan? What did you think of Trump's plan? David Sacks (00:09:50): I think that Trump had a right. to air his grievances in court. But once the court threw out his claims and rejected them, and once the Supreme Court denied search, you already It was over. It was over. The Supreme Court has the final word in our democracy about legal matters. And so no. Pence never had the authority or the ability under the electoral account act to reject the county of electors. That whole process is ceremonial. But but the mere fact that this isn't even even an issue suggests that we should fix it. We should go back and fix the electoral account act of 1887. So And look, you could Biden could have gotten 60 votes for that. You know? I think that was very doable. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:31): He can get he can get votes for that. He can also get votes to stop the insider trading of members of Congress. You could get that done too. David Sacks (00:10:40): So why why isn't he focus why he focused on things where he can actually get a bipartisan majority. His one big legislative success as president has been the infrastructure bill where he got a bunch of Republican support. Jason Calacanis (00:10:50): Which is a pretty big win. Yeah. David Sacks (00:10:52): Those are the types of issues he should be focused on. And instead, he's giving these, you know, speeches saying that anyone who disagrees with aggressive agenda on voting rights is basically George Lawserville Connor. Jason Calacanis (00:11:03): Did you guys hear his speech the other day on CNBC about COVID? I mean, he was so incoherent. It was kinda scary. It feels like he's in cognitive. The cognitive decline is Yeah. I voted for the guy. I didn't need to get Trump out of office. I thought that was an existential risk. But, man, he is cognitively declining quickly. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:21): I mean, I think the craziest thing about COVID was this ratable lens interview. I mean, like, why does it take 2 years into a pandemic to tell us what we kind of anecdotally knew? But if we had known upfront or sooner, we would have completed Rachel Walensky does an interview. She's the head of the CDC, and she said, well, it turns out that 75% of all the deaths because of COVID, were people that suffered from at least 4 comorbidities, at least 4, not 3, not 2, not 1. Yeah. David Sacks (00:11:50): It wasn't all it was I think it was a subset defined by it might have been, like, vaccinated deaths or something like that. It was it was one study. But, yes, that was basically the conclusion. Absolutely. Is significant comorbidities among people who died? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:02): And so if we if we had known that, don't you think I mean, Friedberg, you you tell me, but wouldn't we have just changed our response to just mask and just kind of, like, start living our normal lives and people with 4 comorbidities or people at a certain age or immunocompromised should have stayed home. And we would be in a very different situation. So, you know, I mean, I I understand, Jason, that Biden didn't the last few speeches have been a little Tight? You know, I mean, I think look. The the Quinet Pack Cole pull then, Nick, you can post I mean, look. His ratings are just plummeting. Plummeting. Jason Calacanis (00:12:33): I mean, he's down to Trump levels Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:34): every week, and so he is definitely searching for a handful of wins. I don't think he's strategically found the right ones. He could have done something on certifying the electoral college. He could certainly do something right now on insider trading laws for members of Congress, but instead we're focusing on all these random things. But, anyway, sorry Speaker 1 (00:12:55): -- David Sacks (00:12:56): He can't get the insider trading thing past Pelosi. But but but but, yeah, I think it is something that would get a huge bipartisan majority. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:02): Look. She's gonna lose anyway, so he might as well just throw under the bus. David Sacks (00:13:07): You're right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:07): This is about his political salvation over hers. By the way, you guys saw this. I I mentioned this in the group chat. someone floated the trial balloon of dumping Kamala Harris and replacing her with Liz Cheney. This is how bad things have gotten for the Democrats. Jason Calacanis (00:13:20): They're -- I mean, we were trying Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:21): to they floated a balloon of of Biden Chaney in 24. A Jason Calacanis (00:13:26): crossover ticket, I we talked about this on the for a couple years in private and poker. I thought I think a crossover ticket is what the country needs to kinda get back to center. And I know it's a crazy concept, and it's a 1% chance. But I I kinda like the crossover. But things have gotten so bad for the Democrats now that and I I sort of said Sax floated this or pre floated it. We had a little debate on the Twitter. I don't know if you remember 2 or 3 episodes ago. Saks said, hey. Listen. There's gonna be a new appreciation for Clinton. And not 10 days later, the Wall Street Journal, and a bunch of people are floating Hillary coming back to run. Speaker 1 (00:14:01): So I David Sacks (00:14:01): take you -- -- Clinton. I didn't mention Hillary. Jason Calacanis (00:14:03): I know that. But I think you either you are in your star chamber and doing a pre float on all ends, so then the backups in the can then, you know, pump Hillary as that. Or it just people are listening to you, and you're that influential. David Sacks (00:14:17): What what I'm what I'm proposing is Biden engaged in Clintonian, by which I mean, Bill Clintonian triangulation. which is he does not have the votes in Congress to enact a progressive agenda. He should be looking for bipartisan wins. He did with the infrastructure bill. He could do with this entire trading thing. could do it on the electoral account act. These are things that would be, you know, progress. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:40): Yeah. China and importantly momentum. Momentum going into Speaker 1 (00:14:44): 2020 24. Jason Calacanis (00:14:45): And and maybe good for Americans? Like, I mean, his China policy, the fact that he came out with a statement on the Uighurs I thought it was very strong. You know, it's one of the stronger things he did, but it's not coming up in the polls. And I think that whole Republicans a little bit of husky. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:00): Nobody cares about what's happening to the weekers. Okay? You you bring it up because you really care, and I think it's nice that you care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you Jason Calacanis (00:15:08): a very hard you're saying you virtually don't care? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:10): I'm telling you a very hard ugly truth. Okay? Of all the things that I care about, yes. It is below my line. Okay. Of all the things that I care about, it is below my line. Disappointing. Jason Calacanis (00:15:20): Well, we David Sacks (00:15:20): I think people if you if you explained to them what's happening to the Uighurs in China, they care, but it's not top of mind for them. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:26): That's not -- What's top of mind Jason Calacanis (00:15:27): right David Sacks (00:15:27): now is they go to their grocery store, and and the shelves are empty. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:30): Sure. That I care about. Yeah. I I I care about the fact that our economy could turn on a dime if China invades Taiwan. I care about that. I care about climate change. You know, I care about a bunch I care about America's crippling and, you know, decrepit in health care infrastructure. But if you're asking me that do I care about a segment of a class of people in another tree, not until we can take care of ourselves, will I prioritize them over us? And I think a lot of people believe that, and I'm sorry if that's a hard truth to hear, But every time I I say that I care about the Uighurs, I'm really just lying if I don't really care. And so I'd rather not lie to you and tell you the truth. It's not a priority for me. Jason Calacanis (00:16:07): And my response to that is, I think it's a sad state of affairs when human rights as a concept globally, you know, falls beneath you know, tactical and strategic issues that we have to have. We need Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:19): to have another watermark. That's another luxury belief Jason Calacanis (00:16:22): don't believe believing in the the human declaration of human rights that Eleanor Roosevelt -- It's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:26): a luxury belief. -- patience. Jason Calacanis (00:16:27): I don't think it's a luxury belief to believe that all humans should have a basic set Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:30): of human rights think it's a luxury belief. Jason Calacanis (00:16:32): And the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:32): reason I think it's a luxury belief is we don't do enough domestically to actually express that view in real tangible ways. So until we actually clean up our own house, The idea that we step outside of our borders with, you know, with with us sort of like morally virtue signaling about somebody else's human rights track record is deplorable. Look at the number of black and brown men that are Jason Calacanis (00:16:54): far from deplorable. Speaker 1 (00:16:54): Look at Chamath Palihapitiya (00:16:55): the number of black and brown men that are incarcerated for for absolutely ridiculous crimes. I don't know if you saw this past week, but there is a person that was released from jail because he couldn't even be protected in jail because in some of these cells. They run these fight clubs inside of Ryker's Island that are basically passively endorsed by the corrections officers that don't do anything. Jason Calacanis (00:17:14): And the difference? So hold Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:15): on, Jason. if you wanna talk about the human rights of people, I think we have a responsibility to take care of our own backyard first. First. And then we can go and basically morally tell other people how they should be running their own countries. Jason Calacanis (00:17:32): The difference is, Shamoff, Saying what you just said in China or Saudi Arabia would put you in jail and get you a 100 lashes and you would be tortured for a decade. We here in the United States are far from perfect. We still have the death penalty, which is against the United Declaration of Human Rights which we signed, which Eleanor Roosevelt created in the UN. and we propagated as Americans around the world. We started that, Shamoff. And we can have these discussions about being better in this country And the what aboutism that you're proposing is so disproportional to the equivalent of the holocaust going on. We're talking about a 1000000 Uighurs in concentration camps right now. To talk about what we have here that we need to fix and compare it to that, or to Saudi Arabia whipping bloggers and throwing gay people off roofs for being gay. The these two things are not morally comparable. they are very far, and we need to have open discussions and talk about human rights all the time. Because if we do not talk about it all the time, then your position which is I don't have time for that. I wanna solve my problems, then gives the green light to dictators everywhere that nobody's watching. We need to have vigilance. And that and that's what I find, and I I think we need to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:42): work on -- Hold on a second. -- position. That's not what I said, and that's not true. You said you can't get Jason Calacanis (00:18:46): up for it? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:47): Yeah. So tell tell me the problem. Are you are you saying that the the situation with the Uighurs is the same as Jason Calacanis (00:18:53): the Holocaust? People who are Jewish are making that comparison. You never know all of that stuff. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:58): I'm asking you properly speaking. Jason Calacanis (00:19:00): There are upwards of a million people in a concentration camp right now. This is getting to numbers that are actually comparable. It is actually a valid comparison. Speaker 1 (00:19:08): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:08): saying there are million people in a concentration camp? that is the numbers that human rights organizations are saying. Jason Calacanis (00:19:14): Between 300000 and a million people are incarcerated right now being tortured raped and in doing forced sterilization, reeducation, and when they're released are being tracked in Ghettos. And so are you seeing the entire world? bringing this up. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:28): Hold on. Are you saying the entire you're saying the entire world has basically decided that that doesn't matter? Jason Calacanis (00:19:34): You just said you can't get up for it. I'm talking about you specifically talking Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:37): about -- -- getting up? Well, who is getting up for it? Jason Calacanis (00:19:39): I am very up on it. I talk about it all the time every week. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:41): What about the US government? What are they doing about it? Jason Calacanis (00:19:44): The Biden just said, we are going to do a ban, and we are going to sanction companies that do business in that region. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:51): So Apple and and Tesla? Jason Calacanis (00:19:54): I think there will be increased pressure on all companies that are engaging in China over human rights. It's goods that are sourced from David Sacks (00:19:59): those areas. Right? Correct. Yes. It's not doing business there. It's it's it's if your supply chain comes from that area -- Right. Jason Calacanis (00:20:08): And it's a fur Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:09): it's a kind of like, we won't we won't buy Nazi goods, but we're we'll sell our iPhones into Nazi Germany. Jason Calacanis (00:20:15): Well, if you wanna have a discussion about this, you know, it's How do we disengage from China without this discussion here? How what amount of time will it take to disengage from countries that have brutal dictatorships that are committing human rightsatronic against. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:29): My look. Look. I I I think I'm spending a lot of time and money actually trying to fortify America's supply chain. You guys know about some of the things that I'm doing. I'm not I'm not doing that from a moral perspective. I'm doing that from practical capitalist perspective. I think the jobs are better served for Americans, and I think that we should have the ability to build our own businesses just like China has the right to do for themselves Without the risk of these things being undercut by policies that we don't understand, which is effectively what you do when you outsource your supply chain, to countries where you're not a 100% aligned with them. Yeah. And they're dictatorships. So, again, I'm not I I I I'm not even sure that that it China is a dictatorship the way that you want to call it that. Again, I think -- Convin Jason Calacanis (00:21:11): is a country that's in the name. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:13): Look. You have to understand, Jason. There are a set of checks and balances here on China that, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think that I have the moral absolutism to judge China. And I would say that when NATO is silent, the United Nations is silent, all of Western Europe is silent, and America is effectively silent that this issue may be small data points being extrapolated in a way to create a narrative that may be not be true. And if it is true, Jason, there's a responsibility for those body politics to do something because that is the early warning signal that the rest of the world uses to say, Okay. Hold on. Let me rep reprioritize my list of things. So -- So you're -- -- what I'm saying is I am not gonna be an armchair journalist on this topic, nor am I gonna be armchair human rights advocate for the world because I just don't know. I can focus on the things that I know about, build the things that I know about, and if something really does get red light status, then other parties will do something. And, again, I just wanna be clear. NATO is silent. United Nations is silent. America is silent. A press release doesn't change the actual technical posture on these topics. Jason Calacanis (00:22:16): Okay. If that if your position is that human rights matters to you if government large government organizations or politicians give you the green light to care about it. That's fine. I care about it. intrinsically every day. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:22:28): Great. I'm fine with you doing that. David Sacks (00:22:29): I thought there was a segue there talking about the Ray Dahlio thing that Friedberg cares about. I mean, this is I mean, this debate that you're having between kind of realism and idealism and foreign policy is sort of what Dahlio tackles. Right, Fever? David Friedberg (00:22:43): Look. I mean, it sounds to me like there's let's just say a red herring. There always needs to be, as Chamath points out a narrative, on framing our enemy when, you know, you're running out of land. I mean, you guys saw this was it a journal article or a New York Times article that came out today that US intelligence revealed that Putin had actually put some actors into the Eastern Ukraine to set up for a reason to have a response and therefore an excuse to invade the Ukraine. So he was trying to create a bit of a fireworks show. to give him an excuse. We always need a narrative that we can sell to our you know, our our our citizens. And so, you know, there there's not gonna be a lot of, you know, patting on the back of China right now. As we've talked about, there is this you know, overarching multi 100 year economic cycle, you know, call it geopolitical cycle that the United States and China are about to clash on. And in order for them to clash effectively, we need to get the narrative right, which is to paint them as the bad guy and to make things evil. And, look, I mean, you you may take your ethical framework and say that they are bad, and you may be able to take other parts of your ethical framework and looking objectively, call some countries that you consider good, bad as well, depending on what story you wanna tell self and what story you wanna be told. And I think that's what's going on and will continue to go on for a long period of time. And this this weaker thing, as as Chamath pointed out, How do you measure on an absolute basis human rights? I don't think that there's a way to do so. Whether it's one person getting tortured publicly, in a street or a hundred thousand people being suppressed economically and not being able to to get jobs, it's hard to say what is appropriate, what is not, what is evil, what is not. David Friedberg (00:24:30): At the end of the day, we we create narratives and that narrative allows the bigger picture to kind of play itself out. And I think that's what's going on largely. And I don't think we're gonna hear a lot of good news about China for the next decade from any politician in the United States or anyone that wants to defend our political and economic interests globally, which are certainly being challenged by China right now. I don't know. That's my diatribe about the Dahlio. Look, a Dahlio obviously does a great job of kind of simplifying and eloquently stating what's going on. But I think this is one of many, many manifestations of it. Jason Calacanis (00:25:05): You need only read what the UN amnesty international human rights watch the Guardian, the New York Times, you know, this is not for question. David Friedberg (00:25:13): Why do you think you're so wound up about this and you're not wound up about what's going on in Somalia? Oh, no. Or you're not wound up about what's going on in Saudi Arabia, or you're not or you're not wound up about Speaker 1 (00:25:22): -- Jason Calacanis (00:25:23): Hold on. Hold on. David Friedberg (00:25:23): What's going on in Eastern Ukraine? Jason Calacanis (00:25:25): Hold on a second. There are human rights violations all over the world. I comment on them, and I have commented on them for decades since I worked at amnesty International, amnesty International, which is I swear I started my career. I've been passionate about this since the age of 18 or 19 when I worked at amnesty International. You said that you cannot grade these things. Right? You just said, like, it's hard to compare these things, and this is a problem. Like, you can actually do that. There are human rights violations like freedom of speech, which, you know, is a great aspiration, but we would say torture, murder, systematic rape, and sterilization are more intense and horrific than just freedom of speech. So if you look at Hong Kong, when they shut down Apple News, that's one level of human rights. Right? People have lost their ability, but you're you're David Friedberg (00:26:11): again, you're telling stories. Jason Calacanis (00:26:12): hundreds of these are not stories. These are facts. Apple News was shut down. David Friedberg (00:26:16): you're telling a fact about a particular a particular set of experiences that are particularly harming a set of people. Let me give you another fact. in the United States where we have a population of let's be generous and say 400,000,000 people. Speaker 1 (00:26:30): 2,300,000 -- 340,000,000. 340,000,000 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:33): Americans Speaker 1 (00:26:34): 2,300,000 David Friedberg (00:26:35): of whom are incarcerated. Absolutely. In China, with a population of Speaker 1 (00:26:39): 1,400,000,000 1,700,000 David Friedberg (00:26:42): Chinese are incarcerated. Jason Calacanis (00:26:44): Absolutely something we have to do. David Friedberg (00:26:45): Where is human rights being violated on an absolute basis? it's a very difficult conversation to use facts and figures because at the end of the day, there's a lot of data that can be pointed the other way. And so it all comes down to narrative. And that narrative always has an objective, which is what are you trying to get people to believe and what are you trying to get them to get behind and get to do? Yes. And what are you trying to justify? Yes. And the attitude Speaker 1 (00:27:07): -- David Sacks (00:27:08): They don't have a drug problem over there because they killed all the drug dealers. Malcolm put them up against the wall and shot them. So, you know Speaker 1 (00:27:13): -- Jason Calacanis (00:27:13): They just send their fentanyl here. David Friedberg (00:27:15): That's fair that's fair enough. But I'm just saying, like, look. And and and it's it's a very good point, which is you can actually take the data and you can slice it and tell different stories around it. But at the end of the day, it's very hard to say there's good and there's people that we have to go and attack, and and that is what is Jason Calacanis (00:27:29): going on. -- set attack. I never set attack. I didn't say invade China over this, and I didn't say invade Saudi Arabia. I think we should talk about it. Speaker 1 (00:27:35): -- David Friedberg (00:27:35): the temperature. Raise the temperature. Right? Jason Calacanis (00:27:37): No. I did not say that either. If you wanna know what I think should happen Speaker 1 (00:27:40): -- David Friedberg (00:27:40): Put political pressure on that. Right? Jason Calacanis (00:27:42): I think when people are involved in torture, murder, rape, and sterilizing people, that there should be economic and disengagement that occurs as a first step. And that that is why when people in our circles in venture capital take money from somebody who murdered a journalist, Mohammed Bin Salim, and be asked from Saudi Arabia. We should disengage from a country like that. I believe that that is what we should do. And I believe people like us I believe people like us who are capital allocators and are creators and who are influencers should be talking about human rights all the time. And we should be familiar with the universal declaration of human rights. And we should read what's in it and we should aspire to hit those notes in our country and everywhere else. And this me, tourism I'm sorry, this, you know, equivalency problem that you guys keep bringing up, That is a trap. That is an intellectual trap because there is no equivalency from putting a detaining a million people putting hundreds of thousands of them and torturing them to what's happening in the United States where we wrote the universal declaration of human rights and where we can have conversations about it. If you try to have the conversation, we are Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:51): happy with you. Jason Calacanis (00:28:52): We would all be tortured in Saudi Arabia. We would all be tortured and detained inside of China. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:58): I just think that there's a very dangerous thing that you're doing, which is you are ranking and which is essentially assigning some sort of let's just call it economic value to those things that you just just described. Torture, rape, forced sterilization. But I think then you're ignoring how do you actually economically rank systemic racism in the United States What happens in our inner school system, inner city school system? What happens to Black and Brown men? What happens to the families of those people? What happens to how the lobbies basically break down the healthcare system. All I'm saying is, Jason, if you take your argument to the extreme, You start to get into all these areas of gray where it's impossible to assign economic realities to those things so that you can actually rank and rate. That's why I do think that yeah. Because what you Jason Calacanis (00:29:47): remember -- We're talking about things numerically ranking these things. No. No. No. I didn't I never use a numeric. I'm just saying one is proportionally different. Sure. I'm not putting economic. I never even determine it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:56): If those really bad things happen ten times, and these kind of bad things happen 1010 10,000 times. Which one's worse? Jason Calacanis (00:30:03): I think if you asked anybody who is in a Uighur prison being sterilized towards your life if they would rather be yes. I mean, you could you could actually do this test. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:11): Jason, I'm asking you a question. If ten people 10 Uighurs' were raped or forced sterilized Speaker 1 (00:30:16): -- Jason Calacanis (00:30:17): Yes. Speaker 1 (00:30:17): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:17): versus 10,000,000 black man falsely incarcerated. Which one is worse? Jason Calacanis (00:30:21): Yeah. This is not the way to do the calculus. You could do it on an individual basis. You can look at an individual inside of a prison being tortured and an individual living in the United States every single person who is inside of that torture chamber, being raped, being sterilized, would say, I would absolutely love to come to America. That's why everybody wants to come to this country and live in a democracy where they can speak freely. They can practice whatever religion they want and not be tortured. And what you're doing by adding up all the tiny pain and suffering that we have here in America and then you know, trying to conflate that with these horrific acts, you have to look at exactly how horrific these are on an individual basis. just like we did with George Floyd. We see George Floyd happen. That is something that is absolutely worth being outraged about at a higher level. Right? You have to stop for a second and say, oh my god. This has to be resolved. We can do these 2 things at the same time. We can refine our education system here. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:16): George Floyd. Jason Calacanis (00:31:16): George Floyd actually the Uighurs' being paralyzed. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:19): I think George Floyd proves my point because there's been innumerable number of black men that have been murdered with an area thing that's ever happened in the United States. but had happened in an exact moment where the sum of all of these other things that happened before had just compounded to a point where the whole thing spilled over and enough people decided to basically say the sum total of this damage -- Yeah. now is the equivalent of a very meaningful human rights violation? Jason Calacanis (00:31:45): You can work on both these things at the same time, is my point. And and this and this you're basically giving a path by by kind of conflating these two things in my mind. You can work on both these issues. You could wanna stop abhorrent torture and murder and rape while wanting to make our justice system better while wanting to make our education system better. You don't have to pick one Chamath. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:05): I think you do, actually. Jason Calacanis (00:32:07): No. You do not. We could absolutely Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:09): create There's nothing I can do about the Uighurs' in Chamath. 0. Absolutely. Jason Calacanis (00:32:12): There is. You could not capital allocate to regions or to companies that are engaging. I I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:17): don't I don't have any shing shanies Speaker 1 (00:32:18): -- Jason Calacanis (00:32:19): Okay. Perfect. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:19): And if you do see one, Jason Calacanis (00:32:21): you could do that. And you could also speak up about it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:22): Because it can't Jason Calacanis (00:32:23): get out of China. What are you talking Do you take money from Saudi Arabia? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:27): No. I hate my own capital. Jason Calacanis (00:32:29): a more and did you make a moral decision about that? No. Okay. If you did get offered a Speaker 1 (00:32:33): $1,000,000,000, Jason Calacanis (00:32:34): would you take it from them? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:34): And by the way, to be honest, there's a bunch of my companies that have been supported by folks who have taken money from them. And -- I know. Jason Calacanis (00:32:41): That's a problem. When I look what Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:43): well, what's a bigger problem? Is it that the solution that these guys are that they're designing for mental health or diabetes or you know, housing or whatever it is this startup does when they take money from SoftBank or remember, all of a sudden, they should be canceled and not be able to do that. Jason Calacanis (00:32:57): I didn't say cancel. Just take the money from somebody different. Nobody said canceled. Where? I I don't know. Co too. Pick another firm. Goldman. I don't know who it doesn't take Saudi money. Should the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:05): should the United States create a program or whenever you get a you ever get a term sheet from SoftBank or anybody with money from Speaker 1 (00:33:11): -- Jason Calacanis (00:33:11): Didn't say that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:12): PIFF, you should just be able to go and redeem it for some somebody else's money. Jason Calacanis (00:33:15): I never said that. I think each individual, a capital allocator like yourself, and a CEO should make what they believe is a morally right decision. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:22): Well, they voted, and they don't care about this issue. They're voting with their dollars every day. Jason Calacanis (00:33:27): that people should care about human rights, and they should care about who they make money for. I know I'm a loan voice. I know I'm a loan voice. But I believe you should care about your making life forward. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:36): Jason, I'm just saying something very subtle. I'm not saying that what you believe is wrong. In fact, I think it's beautiful and wholeheartedly right. What I'm saying is when everybody else tries to nod their head and agree with you in the moment, they're just morally virtue signaling in a luxury of belief that they themselves don't exhibit, they don't make any changes towards, and it's largely because they don't believe that this is an issue. And I'm just putting it on the table as It just is true based on everybody's behavior, maybe other than you, I agree with you. But everybody else is voting. I I would change everybody's behavior. And I think you can offer your opinion, and maybe you will change some people's minds. Jason Calacanis (00:34:10): I I'm sure there are some people listening here, and I know there are some founders who would not take money from SoftBank. would not take money from Saudi Arabia. And I know there are some capital allocators who will not take money from dictatorships. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:20): I think that you're you're also forgetting that there's there has been, as as as it seems, again, from very, very far away looking in, a lot of things that they have been able to do that is really constructive. You know? They've actually created some pretty decent ties to Israel. They've actually started to create a path to normalize normalize relations in the Middle East. you know, they've organized against what could be the real threat there, which is, you know, a nuclear empowered Iran. So just to put things in perspective, Jason, it's kind of like, you have to look at the totality of the situation. Again, in the United States today, if you just looked at that one simple thing, you can cherry pick all kinds of reasons why many other companies shouldn't expect shouldn't accept American Capital because, you know, we don't really exactly have our shit together. Jason Calacanis (00:35:06): proportion of these issues is the issue. David Sacks (00:35:07): I think I think what what Shamont is saying is the world the world is complicated. I mean, we had so under the the previous president, they said there could never be like, a piece in the lease or a deal between Israel and Arab powers. And there was the Doha agreement where you had 3 Arab states signing peace trees with Israel, and Saudi Arabia allowing flights between Saudi Arabia and Israel for the first time. And that's all because of MBS. And there was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how King Salmon actually was holding MBS back on this because you know, he's part part of the previous generation who was backing the Palestinians. And MBS just wants to move forward and actually get a deal done with Israel and if the Palestinians won't make it, then he's willing to move forward without them. And this is not me saying this. This is the Wall Street Journal. Jason Calacanis (00:35:54): Yeah. David Sacks (00:35:54): We need to dig up that piece. So all I'm saying look. What happened with that, journalists was absolutely wrong. But, clearly, like, foreign relations is very complicated, especially in the Middle and it's not clear that, like, net net Speaker 1 (00:36:09): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:09): Saudi Arabia probably just did the one wrong thing, which is that every country engages in extra judicial killings, they just got caught. Right? because I don't think it's fair to say it. Jason Calacanis (00:36:18): They also they also killed a journalist. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:20): I think that Americans have done that. Okay. We've done that as well as -- A journalist? Absolutely. I don't think you actually have any idea the extent of what we have done during the course of these wars in all of these countries. I don't think you know. Jason Calacanis (00:36:33): Well, I don't think I know. Yeah. So by saying -- And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:34): I think -- And I think you're basically saying Speaker 1 (00:36:36): -- Jason Calacanis (00:36:36): Nobody knows if we chopped up a journalist who criticized Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:39): the president. -- was in Al Gray? Al Abigrave? do you really know? Jason Calacanis (00:36:43): Do you Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:43): know of all the other Speaker 1 (00:36:43): -- -- Jason Calacanis (00:36:44): one of the worst one of the worst things we ever did and one of the things we need to aspire to do better at how much it is. David Sacks (00:36:49): on blending around the Middle East for 20 years now in Afghanistan. At least, all that we supported warlords in Afghanistan, we were allies with who were raping young boys. I mean, this was like a giant series of articles in The New York Times. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:03): All of them were they ran contra. I mean, we've been doing this since the ages. David Sacks (00:37:06): But even more recently, in Libya, we we basically got rid of Get Offey and plunged that whole country into civil war and has never recovered from it. So look. I I actually Jason, I I'm somewhere in between. I actually agree with your idealism. I'm my mind's so blown that you actually work for AMC International. But I just think that the world is more complicated than that, and sometimes we have to make choices. And and the the the thing that concerns me is that that idealism that you're citing has become a prelude and a pretext for war in the over the last 20 years. And we keep -- And Jason Calacanis (00:37:38): to be clear, I'm not advocating -- We David Sacks (00:37:39): keep going around the globe, getting into these conflicts, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Afghanistan. Jason Calacanis (00:37:45): You know, I mean, what good David Sacks (00:37:45): has that done us? Jason Calacanis (00:37:46): Yeah. You know I'm anti war. You know I'm anti war. You you know I'm not advocating for invading places. I'm advocating that we speak up When we see Saudi Arabia take a blogger, Raffi Badaway Speaker 1 (00:37:59): -- David Sacks (00:37:59): Everybody did. I mean, that was universally condemned. But but the question is, at the end of the day, Jason Calacanis (00:38:03): hained for writing blog posts. David Sacks (00:38:06): What's an alternative in Saudi Arabia? Who who's our alternative there? We don't get to pick and choose who the leaders of these countries are. Speaker 1 (00:38:13): -- Jason Calacanis (00:38:13): mean that doesn't I'm talking specifically about entrepreneurs, capital allocators. That doesn't mean we need to engage in business and building their chips Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:20): If you want the sternly worded press release, you just got it from Biden. Hopefully, it it's it peaked. It it satisfies. It quenches your thirst because The only other solution -- -- us talking about. Jason Calacanis (00:38:30): Actually, if you wanna know what I want, I wanna see the 3 of you speak up for human rights. That's what I would like to say. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:38:35): I think that human rights in the United States is way more important to me than human rights anywhere else in the globe. Okay. And I think that we have an abysmal track record of taking care of colored men and women in this country. And I don't disagree. And so I have 0 patience and tolerance. for white men blathering on about shit that happens outside your own backyard. Fix your own inside backyard because you guys whole humor right here as well because you guys are the ones that are Speaker 1 (00:39:02): -- Jason Calacanis (00:39:02): Get to diminish me for being white. No. No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:04): I understand. But I'm saying that you are uniquely in position of power in a way that the rest of us are not. And so when you guys clean up the inside, then we can go and fix the outside. Jason Calacanis (00:39:13): Yeah. I I believe we can do both. I I believe we can do the same thing at the same time. We could speak about human rights here. We could speak about in Saudi Arabia. We could speak about in China, and we could talk about the same thing. We could talk about all the human right issues. from Friedberg of speech to murder. I do. I do constantly. No. Well, if David Sacks (00:39:30): you care so much about journalists, why haven't you spoken up in favor of Sun and Assange to the way that Glenn Greenwald Jason Calacanis (00:39:35): Of Julian Assange? David Sacks (00:39:36): Assange and Snowden and Reed Glen Green Walls reporting on these peace topics. Speaker 1 (00:39:39): -- Jason Calacanis (00:39:39): that we need to get to the bottom of both of those. I I in in either case, we don't know David Sacks (00:39:43): the full information. You've with complete certainty on Twitter saying that these guys are traders and should be locked up in US prisons. Jason Calacanis (00:39:49): Oh, no. No. I I I think we don't know. I don't think we know who they're working for. David Sacks (00:39:54): Why haven't you tie spent the time to learn? Jason Calacanis (00:39:56): No. Well, I mean, it is a black box in that case. We don't know. In both of those cases, what the back story is. I do think I do have a new acquisition on that. David Friedberg (00:40:04): You know about what's going on with the Uighurs because you read a New York Times article? Jason Calacanis (00:40:08): It's it's it's -- So when you read the New David Friedberg (00:40:10): York Times article about snowed and Speaker 1 (00:40:12): -- Jason Calacanis (00:40:12): We have had people who have we have we have people who have defected. and been on 60 minutes who were in those prisons. You believe what you wanna believe? No. You you literally can believe somebody who escaped from the prison. You can believe them. Yes. With when it comes to Julian Assange, I I I don't know what to believe exactly because he released all those data dumps and he didn't do it proper like a journalist where he vetted the information with Snowden. I'm more inclined to think that he was a good actor, and I think it's a very nuanced position. So if you wanna try to pain to me as, like, not knowing everything about every human rights violation in the world, every nuanced position of a leaker, That's correct. I don't know everything about everybody, but I do know. Speaker 1 (00:40:53): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:53): take that position. I don't know anything about any of these things, which is why I choose to focus on the things that I can control and I wanna believe that I wanna improve my own backyard. Jason Calacanis (00:41:02): Which I think is absolutely great, and I think you can add an end there. which is you should be talking about human rights in Hong Kong, should be talking about in Saturday and should be talking about it. Okay. And and not my problem is the problem right now. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:14): Not my problem. Jason Calacanis (00:41:15): I believe that's part of the problem right now. You said it you you said it perfectly, Chamath. People don't care about human rights anymore. There's a large group of people. I agree with you who do not care about human rights way we did. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:24): I think we care about the local version of human rights. Jason Calacanis (00:41:28): Fine. Yeah. And I think you need to care of them and talk about all of them at the same time. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:32): The international adventures around human rights, I don't support in the least. And I do feel that a lot of this stuff is like the tip of the spear of people who then get morally absolute and say we have to fix this and the only solution is to invade these countries. And instead, I would just rather them. If they really care about it, let them stand up and do what they need to do, I think we need to fix our own backyard. Jason Calacanis (00:41:53): I David Friedberg (00:41:53): mean, look. Not to kind of bolster Timot's point, but there is a blind eye turned to that which we don't wanna believe or that narrative which we don't wanna sell and then we point towards the narrative that we do. And we see this all the time where the focal point of where should we be addressing human rights issues it's where we have economic and geopolitical interest. No one seems to be solving the problem in Somalia. No one's getting on stage talking about the issues that people are facing in countries outside of where we have deep rooted trade partnerships and serious economic interests. And so, you know, like we can tell ourselves all day long that we need to be kind of the absolutists and absolutely take care of the world because we're the the the beacon for human rights. But the challenge is we end up being forced to choose where we wanna spend our time and our resources, and our resources go to where those resources flow back to us. And that's often where we have a geopolitical and economic interest. Now it's chasing Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:48): I'm sorry. David Friedberg (00:42:49): I'll say I'll say one more thing. Like, just because it's important, Jake, because you you called us all out. I am an absolute human rightist in the sense that I believe every human on earth should have a right to do whatever they want within their own sphere of influence provided their sphere of influence does not intersect with the sphere of influence of others, end of story. and I don't see that happening anywhere on earth. And this ends up being a trade off. You always end up trading off your sphere of influence for that of the greater good or someone else because power allocates and power aggregates to specific places often to government sometimes to organize societal decisions that we say we're gonna trade off our individual rights and freedoms for that of the greater collective. And it is that judgment, and it is that gray area where all of these issues that we individually choose to address and spend our time on arise. And so I have, you know, just to point out, like, a very absolute point of view on this. But to me, the challenge is how do you make a discernment? How do you make a determination that imprisonment of brown and black people in the United States versus the treatment of people by malicia in Somalia versus the treatment of the Uighurs in China versus you know? And and you go on and on and on, it's a very difficult moral judgment. Jason Calacanis (00:44:05): Or you could just say they're all wrong. They are all wrong. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:08): They are all wrong, Jason Calacanis (00:44:09): but I care about all the other 2. We're gonna talk well, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:12): See, but you work on all of them. You work on none of them. David Friedberg (00:44:14): And I would rather see innovation enable more people to have access to more free speech to have more resources, to have more of an ability to climb and have the freedom to do the things they wanna do with their life. I think that innovation and tech technology can bring all of these old school ways of thinking and behaving out of the medieval ages and the dark ages. And so where I choose to spend my time. You know? How can we unleash people's freedom? We gotta make things more available. We gotta make things more accessible. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:42): I would just wanna make two points, and then maybe we can move on on this topic. point number one is when you're an immigrant, part of what you're doing is you're actually voting against the place that you leave, to embrace the place that you come to. And, Jason, you know, of all the four of us on this pod, you're the only natural born American. Right? You you started here. You've lived your entire life here, and that's an incredible blessing that you were given. and the 3 of us weren't. And, you know, in my case, I had to go through it even more circuitous path. I didn't even come to the United States. First, I had to go through Canada. But implicitly, you know, when I look at the places that I left and specifically, you know, when I look about when I look at Sri Lanka, who, you know, has a very checkered human rights record. In fact, terrible. in some ways and the way that they ended the war against Atamil's atrocious. I have to make a decision. Right? I have to make a decision about is this something that I'm gonna wait into or not? And what I've realized through my own life's journey is these are not my battles. And in many ways, I abdicated my responsibility to vote on that issue when I left. And instead, I stay here and I focus on the things that I can control here And I think that I do have a responsibility to fix the issues of the country that adopted me. And so that's where some of my framework comes from. separately, I do wanna give all three of us a shout out because I do think that there is an enormous human rights issue that I do think we did bring up and in the last few weeks has become a real groundswell, and it started on the, you know, year in recap pod where we talked about what's happened to our kids, and I just wanna call out that in the last few weeks, the amount of press attention that this issue has gotten, which I do think is a human rights level issue, which is a cognitive impairment of our children, has really come front and center. And I think that it's really, really incredible all the way to, like, even nature now publishing these, you know and and maybe the timing is just coincidental. but these big longitudinal studies that really show that, you know, we have driven a level of retardation in our children. We have held them back from a a level of learning and development that we now have thrown our arms up in the air, we don't know what the real long term impact is. That I think is a human rights level issue. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:01): And domestically in the United States, I think we're in a position to fix it if we decide to take care of So, you know, again, I don't mean to offend you when I say that in my prioritization list, it's below the line, but there are different human rights issues that I care about. And I think Speaker 1 (00:47:13): -- Jason Calacanis (00:47:13): To just to be clear, you know, when you said I called everybody out here, I'm trying to have a productive discussion, Freeburg. I'm not trying to put him in spot. David Friedberg (00:47:20): I don't get offended. I'm not I'm trying to have a predominant discourse. Jason Calacanis (00:47:23): I don't get to send it David Friedberg (00:47:24): anyway. I'm all good. Jason Calacanis (00:47:25): Okay. But I wanna make it clear that I'm I'm not trying to call out besties here. I'm trying to have a productive dialogue about your rights. Speaker 1 (00:47:30): -- David Sacks (00:47:30): prince Aloweed? He's, like, one of the largest investors in the world. Jason Calacanis (00:47:34): You know, I wouldn't -- You David Sacks (00:47:34): know, I wouldn't -- He's a society investor. Jason Calacanis (00:47:36): Yeah. He's a he's a Saudi investor, David Sacks (00:47:38): and the money comes to that. -- that of salary or AB, you wouldn't Speaker 1 (00:47:40): -- Jason Calacanis (00:47:40): If the money comes from a dictatorship from a authoritarian country, I would a 100% when Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:45): you -- -- locked up. He was locked up at the Ritz, and he was to give a bunch of his money. David Friedberg (00:47:49): So it doesn't usually live out of the country anywhere? I mean, like Speaker 1 (00:47:52): -- Jason Calacanis (00:47:52): Again, if his money if you're asking me let's put inside a specific person. I'll just tell you my my philosophy. Speaker 1 (00:47:59): -- David Sacks (00:47:59): a citizen or a former citizen of that country. Speaker 1 (00:48:01): -- David Friedberg (00:48:01): born there, JTAL? Jason Calacanis (00:48:02): Yeah. I I agree. Let me just tell you. I Clearly, I would never take money from an authoritarian regime. David Friedberg (00:48:09): Would you take money from a Chinese billionaire? Jason Calacanis (00:48:11): No. I would not take it from a Chinese no. I would not take it from a Chinese if I if I -- No. David Sacks (00:48:16): They're not an authoritarian regime. They they -- The Chinese Jason Calacanis (00:48:18): are not an authoritarian -- No. David Sacks (00:48:20): We're talking about a Chinese billionaire. Jason Calacanis (00:48:22): If the Chinese billionaire was outspoken about humor, I I would tell you it's a great thought question, and I'm just ripping here. It's a great thought experiment. If a Chinese billionaire had left China, and was Would you take Shamal to write? David Friedberg (00:48:35): because Shamal has violated your human rights at the poker table many times. Jason Calacanis (00:48:38): That that's true. That's true. Speaker 1 (00:48:40): If he has Jason Calacanis (00:48:40): He has turned over too savage going all in Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:43): when I have Speaker 1 (00:48:43): 2 Jason Calacanis (00:48:43): pair, and I'm like, I guess he's got a set. Yeah. He just absolutely tortures me. Yeah. So but no. I would not. I would if if the person was a reformer, yes. I would consider it. I would consider it. Jason Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:55): but, Jason, I guess what you're saying is, like, you, and this is your decision to make. My decision. Yes. It's it's important for you that you understand what people's personal belief systems are when you take money from them? Jason Calacanis (00:49:08): No. Human rights is important to me. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:10): But some saying my their personal belief system. Like, you know, you you always care less if they were an illicit drug user. Right? For somebody else so for example, I'll give you an example. So I did take money from a Chinese billionaire when I when I first started social media. It'll I'm not gonna say who it is. Jason Calacanis (00:49:24): Nope. No need. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:25): But there was a a morality clause, and there were certain things that were incredibly important to this person and they were very easy for me to reflect because they were nothing that I cared about. But, you know, they explicitly didn't want certain kinds of investments in -- Whether Jason Calacanis (00:49:40): it's gambling, cannabis, Sachs, porn. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:43): Well, for me, yeah, the list was gambling alcohol. Can't anyway, my point is you're fine signing up to those moral judgments from an investor. Am I? But not necessarily, you know, silence on I'm I'm asking you the question. You would be fine signing up for those moral obligate for moral delineation of what you can and can't do even if it's not against what you believe, but you have a different issue when it comes to silence on these other topics. Jason Calacanis (00:50:07): Yeah. I would here's here's how I'll I'll answer the question. I if I'm taking other people's money to invest it and they don't want to invest in the adult, I don't have a problem with cannabis as an example. I don't have a problem with Wagering and gambling. But if I'm building a fund to invest in businesses, those are that that's not an important issue for me, and I don't know if that's a great venture investment. And I can also invest outside of it my own money. So it's a more nuanced issue there. Like, I I have invested in wagering apps, and I'm thinking about creating a syndicate specifically for gambling and and wagering. And, yes, there are LPs who I currently have in my previous fund, the active fund that do not I do not invest in wagering because of that. So, yes, And they it's because they just want clarity in some cases on not getting sued for investing in a in a in a wagering companies we don't have a federal mandate yet. So but, you know, I think comparing it's it's these are great thoughts, man. It's important to discuss that. I would remind myself everything for me. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:01): I was fine signing up for no alcohol because my father was an alcoholic, and so it was it was more What was Jason Calacanis (00:51:06): he aligned? And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:08): There was a certain investor who, at one point, tried to be an LP, very well known person who was convicted of domestic abuse. And I didn't take that money because I was I had been the victim of domestic abuse as my mom Yep. And so that was a moral issue for me. The point I'm trying to make to, Jason, is that it's very nuanced. Everybody can be on a bunch of different sides of this thing, and I tend to think the most consistent reliable thing is that these are very local beliefs that when they touch you, you have a point of view on them. And I and I think that, you know, It's much more practical and maybe this is just being too practical. To see a world where people wanna fix their own backyard first, And the and I think a lot of why you may be disappointed that a lot of people don't have a strong review on things like China as people are a little exhausted with having moral views about things that are so far away when things in their own backyard are so broken. Jason Calacanis (00:52:10): Yeah. And and I can understand that exhaustion. And to be clear, I just feel like human rights is such an obvious and easy one to get behind for all humans. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:19): And that really was what Jason Calacanis (00:52:20): And that's what the universal declaration of human rights was about, was we were hoping that all countries in the United Nations or Eleanor Roosevelt was, that we could all just agree that torture was immoral. And when the United States, waterboarded people -- But the United States came Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:34): up with some -- Whether the death penalties are moral. So -- Right. Jason Calacanis (00:52:36): And you know what? That's something that you know, is our great founding and we need to work on. Speaker 1 (00:52:39): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:39): riddled with hypocrisy. Jason Calacanis (00:52:41): The declaration of human rights here is is an ideal. It's a goal. It's something to strive towards. And each country has places where they succeed and fail, and you can actually measure it. And we do measure it, actually. We do measure which countries have the worst record on human rights violations and which ones have the best. I think these Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:58): quantifiable scores are crazy. Jason Calacanis (00:53:00): No. No. They're not. You can literally talk look at how many women are raped in prison in one country versus another, how many people are tortured. Speaker 1 (00:53:05): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:05): point is when you put score to that or count it, you're not counting a bunch of other things that are really bad as well. Jason Calacanis (00:53:11): The scoring system could be refined. Sure. I will give you that. And I think This is the debate we had today, which was an unexpected debate, and I I didn't think we would go this deeper, I think, is such an important debate for us to have as humans and as a civilization because we are getting in the weeds on so many other issues, whether it's inflation or, you know, innovation or politics, that human rights I feel is something we should all be able to agree on. That all people should be David Friedberg (00:53:37): able to see. definition that's Jay Cal, everyone says yes. The definition and the prioritization is where all the noise sits. Jason Calacanis (00:53:45): Yeah. David Friedberg (00:53:45): That's that's everything. And how Jason Calacanis (00:53:47): do we deal with violence? David Friedberg (00:53:48): No one on earth that's gonna say I don't believe in human rights. No. David Sacks (00:53:52): We all agree with that deal. The communist side. everyone agrees with the ideals. The question is how you implement them. David Friedberg (00:53:58): Implementation, prioritization, definition, definition. David Sacks (00:54:00): Like, for Jason Calacanis (00:54:01): for example, we do. I think David Sacks (00:54:02): it's I think it's a legitimate position for you to say that you're not gonna take money from dictators. But to then say that any family office from any individual who was born in that country, you're not gonna take their money either? Jason Calacanis (00:54:15): I would have to think about it. I didn't say that. Like I David Sacks (00:54:16): said, I would have to think about it. They're willing to risk their lives by denouncing their own governments Jason Calacanis (00:54:21): who send you like. Speaker 1 (00:54:22): -- Jason Calacanis (00:54:22): to do it. I don't know if they have to do it publicly. I mean, if I talked to this hypothetical Chinese or Saudi person and they said, I don't agree with this. I'm working against I'm a reformer. I I guess I would have to consider it because -- No. No. No. But you would want to make money for the reformer. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:35): But, Jason, what if they said I don't have a point of view? that I would go with people who would you morally disqualify them? You would disqualify them on moral grounds. David Sacks (00:54:44): That's not the way to make allies, Jake. which is important. Jason Calacanis (00:54:47): You're not letting David Sacks (00:54:47): me -- So look. Look. Jason Calacanis (00:54:48): Hold on. I need to answer it if you both gonna ask me this question and accuse me of, you know, this I would have to make a nuanced decision on an individual basis. I would not make a blanket decision. That's my position on this hypothetical situation where somebody is a Saudi citizen as a family office, I would have to make a very new us decision like you did Chimov, where you didn't take the domestic abusers, and you did take the person Speaker 1 (00:55:09): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:55:09): That was an American, but I took the Chinese government. Jason Calacanis (00:55:11): Yeah. But it's the same thing. It's a human rights violation. It's it's a horrible thing, Medicard, and you had to make a nuanced decision. And, you know, if that's what I'm hoping to promote here is that we have a dialogue about human rights again. Because when I was growing up in the eighties, This was something that the world was getting consensus on, and the West had consensus on. And I think the West is very weak now And the fact that the NBA, that, you know, Apple, whatever companies, I don't wanna call out individuals because it's not productive. especially if it gets reaggregated and, you know, I happen to know some of them. It it's it's something that the west has to contend with of. What is our strategy here with human rights violations? Do we engage them? Do we admonish them? Or or somewhere in between? Do we disengage, engage, or, you know, make our feelings heard and try to shape their behavior to bend towards human rights. And I it's a very complicated nuanced discussion. I'm glad we had it here today. David Sacks (00:56:06): The time period you're talking about where we supposedly had consensus on this during the you said the 19 eighties during the Cold War. Oh, Jason Calacanis (00:56:11): I was talking about in America. David Sacks (00:56:13): Yep. Okay. Well Speaker 1 (00:56:14): -- Jason Calacanis (00:56:14): We we talked about it a lot in America is my point. David Sacks (00:56:17): Yeah. Well, I think actually, I think Ronald Reagan did a earlier job with this. He denounced the -- Incredible empire, but said that we should be a shining city on a hill. And we did we actually avoided a bunch of a necessary foreign wars. Speaker 1 (00:56:31): 100%. David Sacks (00:56:32): So Look. I think the best way for us to lead on this issue is to be an example, and we're not doing a very good job of that. I mean -- 100% agree. Speaker 1 (00:56:39): -- David Sacks (00:56:39): your ideals are great, but the world doesn't neatly line with those ideals and presents us with choices that don't fit those ideals. I mean, during the Cold War, we had a choice to to support either communist regimes or in a lot of cases authoritarian regimes. And we chose the lesser of 2 evils. I think today, we have choices between if we wanna support Islamic fundamentalist regimes, or we wanna support authoritarian regimes who are resisting it. I mean, those are the types of tough choices the world actually presents to us. And I think that's what makes it hard to to sort of to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:10): to stick to these ideals. -- is my friend. Jason Calacanis (00:57:12): It's a complicated chessboard, and you're better at chess than me, so I will give you that think it's great that we had this discussion. I really do appreciate that you guys were willing to talk about this for so long. It's an important discussion because if we don't stand for human rights and basic human rights, what do we stand You know? And and I agree that domestic is important. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:29): I stand for I stand for me. Yeah. We know that. Jason Calacanis (00:57:32): We know that. Tell us about the sweater. Tell us about the sweater. No camp Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:35): for tonight. This is just a single -- Jane, David Sacks (00:57:37): Kyle, if you're concerned about the rise of authoritarianism, which actually this was my one of my big trends in the prediction episodes. Speaker 1 (00:57:42): -- Jason Calacanis (00:57:43): I am concerned. The democracy is the David Sacks (00:57:45): most negative trend. But then I think you should be concerned about this, like, rising tide we have here of censorship. and the surveillance state. -- care Jason Calacanis (00:57:52): about it. Yes. I'm in agreement. David Sacks (00:57:53): And our federal law enforcement agencies demanding more and more powers. Jason Calacanis (00:57:56): And lockdown. David Sacks (00:57:57): And lockdown -- I'm in agreement on those. Jason Calacanis (00:57:59): I'm in agreement on those. Speaker 1 (00:58:00): -- David Sacks (00:58:00): blowing this whole, like, January 6th thing out of proportion, you should be concerned about their attempts to exploit and use that to demand more powers to prevail across the American citizens. Jason Calacanis (00:58:11): I do not believe in surveillance. But I And and I think you David Sacks (00:58:13): know -- -- understand that the hysteria created around that event is gonna be used it's gonna be exploited Speaker 1 (00:58:19): -- Jason Calacanis (00:58:19): Possibly. Speaker 1 (00:58:19): -- David Sacks (00:58:19): to demand Jason Calacanis (00:58:20): these powers. politicians are explaining this on all sides of the aisle. I agree with you. The right and the left. The right is diminishing it. The left is exacerbating it. The truth in the middle is, I think we are in agreement, Saxx. The overwhelming majority of people who went to the Capital App Day were dipshits who just wanted to protest, and they cared about Trump, and they went there for the party of it all. And then there was a small cohort who intended harm and who are deranged and who could potentially be dangerous in the way Chmatt framed it, lone wolves or small packs of wolves like the Oklahoma City bombers who murdered a large number of people. And so we have to be very careful in in executing one group one way and one the other way. And that's exactly what the Department of Justice has done. In that case, seven hundred people got pled deals or very minor sentences. And then these folks are gonna have the book thrown at them and rightfully so because they could have murdered Penn. So they could have murdered Pelosi just like that woman got murdered. I'm sorry. The woman tragically got stopped and shot and died. Like, that could have been a much different day. If dozens of people had died, those cops had not shown restraint. We could be sitting here having a much different discussion about the oath keepers. If the oath keepers had done what the Oklahoma City bombers succeeded in doing, This would be a much different discussion. David Sacks (00:59:32): Right. They didn't, which is why it is a different discussion. Jason Calacanis (00:59:34): Well, thank god for our police and and for how brave they were in not unloading their pistols when any reasonable person who was being beaten by that crowd and crushed would have taken their gun out and started firing. They didn't. Thank god those police did not start firing. Look. David Sacks (00:59:49): I I think the one thing we can agree on is we don't want something that happen again. And there's Speaker 1 (00:59:53): 2 David Sacks (00:59:53): things -- 100%. -- things that would prevent it. 1 is reform of the the electoral account act like we talked about. That's what Biden should be going for. not making these speeches about Paul Conner and George Wallace, he could actually get that done. And the other thing is if the capital police had just been a little bit more prepared and had barricades and screens about security that also couldn't it couldn't happen again. That's all we have to do to solve that problem in January. Jason Calacanis (01:00:14): The third thing have to do is arrest these oathkeepers and put them in jail for David Sacks (01:00:17): what they did. That's happened. Jason Calacanis (01:00:19): Well, it's no. They've been indicted. You tell me if they're gonna go to jail now. David Sacks (01:00:23): They'll convict him of something. Jason Calacanis (01:00:24): Yeah. Well, and, frankly, so it seems. Well, they hopefully, they get their day in court. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:28): Maybe we can transition. And I wanna talk about the other side of the coin on inflation because I think that we have hammered the point for a long time now that you know, the government was really -- Slows. Speaker 1 (01:00:41): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:41): sort of, like, off piste by printing incompetent -- Trillions and 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars and and injecting it into the economy. And What it's really created has been this massive bout of inflation, which then could cause an ultimate recession because the Fed has to react. All of those things, I think, are well documented. I just wanted to put on the record the a little element of the counterfactual, which I think is really important. And this is an article in The Wall Street Journal, and Nick, you can post this if you can't please. But I'm just gonna read this, so I'm just gonna look down. The first two rounds of stimulus payments lifted Speaker 1 (01:01:15): 11,700,000 Chamath Palihapitiya (01:01:16): people in America out of poverty. According to the Census Bureau, Americans built up $2,700,000,000,000 in extra savings. and some expect that combined with rising wages to drive up to provide them with lasting stability despite the return to more normal spending patterns and rising inflation. So I just wanna make sure that all of us have heard that because that's an incredible thing to be able to say that 11,700,000 Americans in poverty are no longer in poverty because of stimulus, which I think when you look at the right way of framing what some of these progressives want to do, I think a lot of the good intentions comes from things like this. And I just think it's important to acknowledge that that did happen, and that's something that we should really be proud of. And especially if those folks can actually stay in the lower middle and then move up to the middle class, that's an incredible outcome. And, you know, we we all supported that, I think, genuinely. And I think that that's good. Jason Calacanis (01:02:11): We knew it was scary, and we needed to put something into the economy to keep it from crashing. And it's very hard to know what what the right amount was, right, Shamophili? How do you know what the right amount of stimulus is? in a pandemic that happens every 100 years. And thank god, it feels like Omicron is, you know, leading us out of this. Okay. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:28): Yeah. There are some great examples, by the way, in this article. If you guys if people wanna take the time to read it, of some examples of people that have really done an incredible job in in, like, completely changing their financial picture, which Jason Calacanis (01:02:40): I think is -- I mean, a lot of come a lot of people went into freelance, a lot of these young people realize I don't know if you saw this headline, a million less people started college this year and enrolled. And I think what's happening so many people who were going into college realize, I don't know if I should go into debt. I figured out a way to make money at home. I'm more financially literate. I'm gonna make a better decision about college and a 100 k into debt. Well, to be very specific -- -- people very resilient and being better making better judgments about their own lives because they've been forced to. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:06): To be specific, I think you mean boys. Because the other thing that's happening is in colleges now, it's becoming very tilted female versus male Speaker 1 (01:03:15): -- Jason Calacanis (01:03:15): Especially grabbing colleges. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:16): in some colleges, it's, you know, 2 thirds female, 1th male. 60 57. We were actually creating this weird launch doodle pattern here where an an entire gender is going to be very miseducated relative to another one. And in fact, it's it'll be the exact opposite of what it was like in probably the fifties or sixties where you had these large swaths of men that are educated, women who typically stayed home or were undereducated relative to their ability. Here now, it's the exact opposite, whereas, like, you know, women are getting undergrads and graduate degrees and boys are learning how to play video games and smoke pot. Jason Calacanis (01:03:50): In sales. A very strange time. I mean, that's what happens when you Speaker 1 (01:03:53): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:53): David, what is that like? Yeah. Being an in cell. Jason Calacanis (01:03:56): Tell us, you were pioneer in being an in cell. David Friedberg (01:03:58): Wait. Made it through the show. So it was so civil. Let's get the Friedberg ratio up. Let's talk about an exciting scientific paper Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:05): and the implications of it. Jason Calacanis (01:04:07): To science point, tell us about this new from Harvard that revealed Epstein Barr virus could be associated with MS. David Friedberg (01:04:14): I'll do a Zoom app then a zoom in. Yes, please. Bear with me for a moment. So You know, there are over 80 what are called autoimmune diseases. These are diseases where your body or immune system attacks your own tissue and causes real problems. 1 in 20 people worldwide suffer from some sort of autoimmune condition. So post disease, lupus, which affects you know, your whole system, rheumatoid arthritis, where your joints get inflamed, show grid syndrome, where your eyes and your mouth get get messed up, and and multiple sclerosis which we'll talk about here in a second. But these are all diseases that have a similar ideology, which is that your immune system attacks some tissue in your body. It it it dysfunctions and it attacks it. And there's always been this big question about kinda what causes autoimmune conditions and what causes immune system dysregulation like this. And there's all sorts of different theories and studies and papers, many of which have been you know, well well documented genetic risk factors, environmental factors age. And in particular, as you get older, the thymus, which is supposed to create these helper cells that go out and keep cells in your immune system from attacking your own body, your thymus kinda starts to fade away and or sorry. Your thalmann starts fade away and start start stop working. And so, you know, one theory that's been talked about a lot is molecular mimicry, which means that there's some protein from a virus or that enters your body or cancer. And that protein looks a lot like some other protein in your body. And so your immune system starts attacking that protein. And as a result, your immune system gets turned on to that protein. and it actually attacks a similar looking protein somewhere else in your body. And that's a, you know, a very kind of broad statement about, you know, some potential cause of autoimmune conditions. And you can find protein mimic rate theories coming from the gut where, you know, microbes in the gut are triggering this. David Friedberg (01:06:01): And then also viruses. So in particular, you know, cytomegalovirus and Epstein bar virus, which we're gonna talk about here today. So multiple sclerosis is this disease, one of the autoimmune diseases where your immune system attacks and destroys myelin, which is, you know, found on your nerve cells and in your brain. And it could actually cause you know, when when this happens and your immune system starts to attach your brain. You end up with these lesions and and really debilitating effects over time. 1 in 300 people in the US have been diagnosed with MS. It is a brutal disease. It it lasts your whole life. And the treatment today, the primary treatment is the drug that destroys b cells in your body, and your b cells make antibodies. And so by destroying the b cells, it gets rid of the cells that are making the antibodies that are attacking your own brain. And and this is a really effective treatment. It's been able to reduce the effects of MS significantly. But we still don't know what causes it and what triggers MS. And there's always been this theory going back to the the the mimicry question that one of these viruses that everyone seems to get as they, you know, age is causing it. And so Epstein bar virus has always been thought to be one of those viruses. It's one of the herpes viruses Everyone knows it as mono. So, you know, you get mono and you get swollen neck a lot of people do. Most people that get this virus don't end up having any symptoms that are even though they have it. And here's a crazy statistic. 90 5 percent of people have Epstein bar virus. And it's known that Epstein our virus does actually cause some kinds of cancers and lympho lymphoma and so on. So here's the paper that was published yesterday. And, again, if you know that Epstein bar virus, you know, is is doing some other stuff in your body that's negative, shouldn't this be a reason to look at it for but how do you get the data to do it given that Speaker 1 (01:07:51): 95% David Friedberg (01:07:52): of people already have Epstein bar virus? So here's what happened. These guys at Harvard went to the military, the US military. The US military basically had 10,000,000 members of the military take 62,000,000 blood samples over a period of time from 1993 to 2013. And when they take these blood samples, they, you know, they run their typical checkup on these people. on the military members, but they saved some of the blood sample in a freezer. And so they've got 62,000,000 blood samples sitting in freezers. the US military does. And so these researchers were able to access those blood samples. And they then found 5% of the people that don't have that same bar virus because remember 95% of people have it. So they found the 5% that don't. And they went through and they found that during this period of time, that they have all this blood data for, they were able to identify Speaker 1 (01:08:43): 800 David Friedberg (01:08:44): people that started out Epstein Bar virus negative and then got MS. a 100% of the people that got MS were infected with Epstein bar virus during this period of time. And for the group of people that that didn't get MS, only about half of them got Epstein bar virus infection during this period of time. And then they looked at this for about 20 other viruses and basically showed absolutely no correlation or difference in risk between all the other viruses if you got MS or didn't get MS. And so it basically creates a 95% probability that you're 32 times more likely to get MS from Epstein bar buyers than from anything else. It is from the racially diverse pool and age diverse pool, ethnically diverse pool. So a lot of other, you know, confounding factors like race or ethnicity or genetics, a lot of other factors like all the other viruses that might be causing MS have been excluded, and it shows that maybe Epstein Bar virus is the primary cause of MS that triggers certain people's immune systems to go nuts and attack the brain. And it's interesting because, you know, Epstein Broad virus has a bunch of proteins in it that look like other human proteins. So it makes sense why this might happen. And that costs $40 a year. There's $30,000,000,000 a year spent in the US on MS care. So if we can go in and get it I've seen bar virus eliminated from the human body, it would be an incredibly incredible cost saving and a therapeutic benefit to people with MS. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:08): You should talk about the reason why we don't have a herpes vaccine though. So hsv1, 2, 3, now four, None of these things have reasonable vaccines, and it's for a very specific reason, which is that the herpes virus itself is incredibly, incredibly difficult to isolate and find until it activates, and it hides itself, and it nets itself inside these nerve cells. So you may wanna just talk about how complicated it is to I David Friedberg (01:10:36): mean, the DNA disappears into these nerve cells, and so it's hard to get, you know, immune system to go and clear them out permanently. The Fcbar virus hides out of B cells in your body. And so it's floating around in your body forever And as your b cells replicate, the virus replicates with them. And then when your immune system starts to get weak, the virus pops out and starts attacking and inflating your body again. So number 1, Epstein Bar virus has never been a great target, a therapeutic target because there's not much money to be made because it's like, who the hell cares about mono? Once you get mono, you get over it. You're fine. But if Epstein bar virus is in fact causing this problem with with MS, there's a reason to go after it, a lot of money to go after it. And there are several new technologies and therapeutic strategies that are possible, one of which is, you know, Chemo sent out over a group text, a company that's doing T cell therapies. We can actually program a T cell And the t cell goes into the body and finds these these b cells with Epstein bar virus and wipes them out. There's a steroid, a diuretic steroid that's been shown that that's used to treat high blood pressure that's been shown to stop Epstein bar virus from leaving cells. There's an antiviral drug made by Takeda called Neuribovir, which has been shown to have high efficacy of eliminating Epstein Barr virus. So there are now therapeutic strategies that are being actively explored that could unlock the potential of minimizing or eliminating Epstein bar buyers for a broader population than we ever thought should be taking these therapy? Because the implications may be that if you can stop epsteinbar virus from replicating or eliminate it from your body, you can stop all these follow on diseases that occur over time in your life that are super debilitating and costly. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:12): Yeah. lupus is another one. lupus. Yeah. tied to herpes simplex for it. I think the the the real problem is going to be that 2 thirds of the adult population under the age of fifty five have herpes simplex 4. So, you know, you're literally talking about inoculating the entire world. And when we start to think about that grand of a scale, There's a cost issue. There's a manufacturability issue, and then there's an ROI issue that that, unfortunately, will be adjudicated. And it that to me is what really, you know, stands out. And that and that and that is that just the health care economics of it? Obviously, the science of it is still really complicated. Jason Calacanis (01:12:51): Aren't we doing an mRNA vaccine for Epstein Barr? And how would that play into this? David Friedberg (01:12:58): Absolutely. So there's a lot of techniques. This is, you know, t cell therapeutics, mRNA, chemotherapy type drug, a steroid drug, an antiviral drug. So every modality for therapeutics has some candidate or candidates for Epstein Bar virus. And so, you know, there may be a bunch of ways that you start to by risk factors and that you give someone one particular therapy that might be really affordable, like this antiviral may be super affordable. You know, if we could make it for 5¢ a pill, you could, you know, get it out to a lot of people prophylactically that are at high risk. You know, if there's a group that actually is active with A good treatment maybe to try and give them a T cell therapy and see if that helps. And so that's the clinical trials that we'll start now. Because if you can give people a T cell therapy and eliminate EBV and and stop all future need for MS treatment. That'll save Speaker 1 (01:13:50): $40 David Friedberg (01:13:50): a year. It'll start to make sense to run clinical studies to see if that stuff's possible and is worth doing. So it opens up a whole new kind of area of interest. By the way, this isn't novel. People have been talking about this for a long time, but this paper has such incredible data and such strong signal that it's really gonna it's really gonna catalyze investment. Jason Calacanis (01:14:09): We didn't have the big data based on this study. We would not have gotten here. For one on the show, I David Friedberg (01:14:13): will say thank god for the US government and all of the the the data that they've you know, all of these blood samples that they -- And then for big data. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:20): wanna get your read on the the human transplant thing that we saw this week where a genetically modified pig heart wasn't implanted into 57. Jason, you won a fifty seven year old man. to read that out. David Friedberg (01:14:31): Oh, yeah. David Bannon Jason Calacanis (01:14:31): had a fifty seven year old man request, a special emergency authorization for the experimental surgery from the f d the FDA, he was dying and unable to receive a human heart plate. The surgery was performed on January 7th in Baltimore, and, you know, this happened as the US is facing a major organ shortage. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:50): I mean, we have we have hundreds of thousands. I mean, people on organ donor registries or needing a transplant. You know, my father was on a kidney transplant registry for 8 years until he passed away. These things are just brutalizing for the individuals and the family around it. And so like, you know, all of a sudden, if you can see a path where you can genetically modify other sources of organs and implant them without organ rejection into the human body, that site that is That's mind it's mind blowing. David Friedberg (01:15:21): Here's what's really important. It's not just about the availability of these things, but it's about turning off one of the biggest the the the big risk factor of organ transplant is rejection, meaning you're putting all this foreign matter into your body. It's foreign proteins. And so when your immune system sees all those foreign proteins, your body goes, hey, wire and tries to kill it. It's like this there's all it's like imagine getting a 1,000,000,000 viruses at once. And so there's all these new teens. And so one of the interesting things you can do, you know, if you can grow these these organs and and alter the genetics of the cells that are being used to grow the organs is you can get those cells to match your own or to basically down regulate all of the proteins that might be triggering immune rejection in your body. So theoretically, you could grow Jcal's heart. with tissue in cells that match your DNA potentially and match your protein structure perfectly. Jason Calacanis (01:16:15): And if Saks had a heart, you could do it with him too. David Friedberg (01:16:18): Right. There you go. Good transition. But no. I mean, that but the and by the way, there there may also be a path here where we grow these these organs with your DNA without even using the animal body, the entire the entirety of the rest of the animal to do so. So there's a lot of really interesting breakthroughs that are possible, but but it's really great to see a highlighted, you know, non, you know, kind of transplanted organ from another body into the human body because it just again, it opens up what people have been talking about for decades, which is the possibility of this. Now that we have gene editing and potentially have the ability to grow biological matter in bioreactors. It's it's gonna be it's gonna be dramatic. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:00): Jake, what do you think about the Democratic person in the SEC saying that they wanted to basically make the accredited investor laws even stricter. Jason Calacanis (01:17:09): That's incredibly infuriating. You know? That was your big prediction. Yeah. I mean, we really have to get these law I mean, I think this is like a Theranos or WeWork overreaction, which is like, oh my god. There are some bad private companies. If you take the number of bad private companies and then look at what happening in the country with people wagering on sports and wagering on crypto slash investing depending on how you look at it. We need to have one rule for the road, which is people take a test. They get accredited, and then they can do what they want with their money. The equivalent of what I'm suggesting people can only invest a fraction of the money they have on their last 2 years tax returns. Let's pick a number. 5% of their to your average on their tax returns, 10%, whatever you wanna pick. And they have to take a test with the would be the equivalent of people having to take a 3 hour course and a, you know, I don't know, 50 question test to go to Vegas and play blackjack, and they could only put on the blackjack table Speaker 1 (01:18:12): 10% Jason Calacanis (01:18:13): of their total average yearly income for their household in the past year. You think about how crazy that would be to tell an American you gotta take a blackjack course and pass a blackjack test and understand the odds of poker or whatever. to play that game. And you can only put if you made $50,000 on hours last few years, you can only bet 5000 in Vegas at any one time. That's the max chip you can buy in a year. Those are the two things I'm advocating for in private company investing. And that's really if we wanna have people move from, you know, poor, to middle class, from middle class to affluent in this country. There has to be equity participation, and equity participation has to start early. Look at what happened with all these young people betting on crypto, betting on stocks or stonks, and, you know, doing puts and calls and all kinds of crazy things. you know, in public markets, we would really rather see those people or at least in addition be able to invest on LinkedIn if they were a recruiter in year 2 where they were an Uber driver be able to buy UberShares or if they were an Airbnb host, be able to Airbnb shares as a private company. It will change the entire complexion of upward mobility in the United States, and and we really have to keep educating people, not limiting their upside. That's my personal belief. David Sacks (01:19:31): Personal asks you that question. Stop paying attention, like, 5 minutes ago. Jason Calacanis (01:19:35): Oh, because we're talking about science and arts -- No. Speaker 1 (01:19:37): -- Jason Calacanis (01:19:37): in about Speaker 1 (01:19:37): -- David Sacks (01:19:37): Jamal to ask you a simple question, like, 15 minutes ago and, like, you just been Speaker 1 (01:19:41): -- Jason Calacanis (01:19:41): That was a 92nd monologue. David Sacks (01:19:42): Oh, I was. Speaker 1 (01:19:43): -- Jason Calacanis (01:19:43): for Henry Belcaster. By the way, I got inside information on Saxx. David Sacks (01:19:48): What's that? Jason Calacanis (01:19:48): You know how Saxx started, like, doing a little bit of artistic direction. You know, he's got that scorsese in him having done the award winning film. Thank you for smoking, and he he got Henry Belcaster on his team. You you know the tiktok guys? tiktok guys are David Sacks (01:20:03): taking -- -- some suggestions. Lately suggesting. Jason Calacanis (01:20:07): Saks has been directing David Sacks (01:20:09): not directing. Jason Calacanis (01:20:10): TikTok's super fan saying, hey. You might wanna make a TikTok out of this monologue I did. David Sacks (01:20:15): But here's here's what happened is some there there is a quote of a segment that somebody liked and they retweeted. They got a whole bunch of likes. And so I've sent it to the TikTok guy and said, this might make a good talk. David Friedberg (01:20:26): Alright. Jason Calacanis (01:20:26): Yeah. Nobody else doing that, but okay. David Sacks (01:20:28): Okay. Well, go for it. I'm not editing, but I'm slightly suggesting that Jake helped. Speaker 1 (01:20:35): You passed it again. Jason Calacanis (01:20:37): People do think that you have Tucker Carlson's writers writing for you because of my joke. Speaker 1 (01:20:42): -- David Sacks (01:20:42): say it, and people don't know Jason Calacanis (01:20:43): you're joking. I that is a joke. You do not have Tucker Carlson's current writers writing for you. There may be some Speaker 1 (01:20:49): -- David Sacks (01:20:49): I do admit I have a special writing team for Rose. Jason Calacanis (01:20:52): You do. I mean Speaker 1 (01:20:53): -- -- David Sacks (01:20:53): for roast. Jason Calacanis (01:20:54): But do you do you do you keep Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:55): them on retainer? Like, if you have a roast, like, you can just ask them to punch up some stuff for you or Speaker 1 (01:21:00): -- David Sacks (01:21:01): Yeah. I've only done it twice. I did it for you for your roast, Jay Kal, and I did it for Phil Jason Calacanis (01:21:05): Hill, miss Rose. Destroy, Phill. Oh my god. David Sacks (01:21:07): Yeah. Do you remember my joke? -- hysterical. Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (01:21:10): This was the cheapest roast ever. They rented, like, a junior suite that they got for free at some -- It wasn't rented yet. They got it for free. They got it for free. They had, like, thirty people in a room, and they're like, oh, you gotta come out for Phil's roast. It was, like, thirty people in a junior suite at, like, a b level hotel It's so And it was so bad. And Saxon and I came in, and we had absolutely a no allegiance to the audience. I lost so much money to that already. everybody. You guys were out of control. David Sacks (01:21:38): It was brutal. Here's the hell with roast. I got I got the material right here. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (01:21:44): To be sure, these aren't our jokes. This is what a Comedy Central writer wrote. So we have -- Well okay. So -- -- endorse these. David Sacks (01:21:51): No. What well, okay. So if you wanna understand how I work. So they basically put together some material, and then I shape it. And there's, like, some back and forth. Jason Calacanis (01:21:59): That's all. I work shop. You workshop it. David Sacks (01:22:00): We workshop it. Yeah. David Friedberg (01:22:02): Go ahead. David Sacks (01:22:02): It begins we're here tonight to roast that poker player known as the greatest. Unfortunately, Phil Ivy wasn't available, so we sell it for Phil Chamath. Hell. In the poker world, Phyllis knows the poker Brat, the rest of the world just calls him asshole. Hell. Phil has mastered the GTO strategy of playing poker. For most players, GTO stands for Game Theory Optimal, but in Phil's case, it stands for grading, talk second obnoxious. Despite all this, Phil Fan sees himself a quote unquote poker ambassador not to throw a damper on things calling Phil, an ambassador for poker, is like calling Bill Cosby, an ambassador for Quayludes. Jason Calacanis (01:22:42): Oh my god. Oh, no. You that one. Oh, that's not Chamath Palihapitiya (01:22:47): that's too That's so good. David Sacks (01:22:49): Let's face it. Phyllis Nuts. He's the only poker player sponsored by Lithium. So the man silence the poker table so he can hear the voices in his head. Jason Calacanis (01:22:59): So good. David Sacks (01:23:00): When Phil was in touch that Poker Hall of Fame, they retired as straight jacket. Jason Calacanis (01:23:04): Now Phil is doing well. Consecutively ill, everybody. He's he's deranged. David Sacks (01:23:13): Now Phil is doing what all people on crisis do. Write self help books. It's called positivity. which is ironic because the only thing Phil has ever tested positive for is narcissistic personality disorder. Speaker 1 (01:23:28): So good. David Sacks (01:23:29): This inspirational tome is a whopping 84 pages. Oprah has taken inspirational shits bigger than this. How about this shows book? On Amazon, it says people enjoyed this book also enjoyed pounding their dick with a meat tenderizer. Oh my god. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:57): Oh, you're you're bunch of guys for good. Jason Calacanis (01:23:59): Alright, everybody. Hope you enjoyed Saxx's excerpt from the Phil helmuth, narcissist roast, and we'll catch you next week on our online podcast. That's episode 64. Bye bye. Bye bye. What your winter's ride. Rainman, David Sachs. I'm going home. David Sacks (01:24:19): And I said, we open source it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with Jason Calacanis (01:24:27): it. what airliners ride. Best east are golf. That is my dog's We should all just get a room and have one big huge order because they're all excuses. It's like this, like, sexual tension that we just need to release somehow. David Friedberg (01:24:50): What? You're the thief. What? You're Jason Calacanis (01:24:53): gonna be David Sacks (01:24:53): Pure feet. David Friedberg (01:24:54): Sweety sweat. Speaker 1 (01:24:55): We need to get mercies are back. going all.