紧急加更：俄罗斯入侵乌克兰——各方反应、普京的野心与拜登的回应

Jason Calacanis (00:00:00): Fifties are plastic. -- going on. David Friedberg (00:00:03): To let your winter ride. Rain David Sachs. David Sacks (00:00:10): And it said We open source it to the fans David Friedberg (00:00:13): and made this call reasonable work. Love you Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:15): with Alright, Jason Calacanis (00:00:19): everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All In podcast episode number 70, we made it to 70 episodes, which is just shocking to me. And we're recording a little bit earlier because one of besties had to change their schedule, Chamath. And it's a crazy day to be doing this last night Putin decided to invade the Ukraine late Wednesday night early to Thursday morning. Putin started a special military operation in quotes to demilitarize the Ukraine And we've been watching this buildup for weeks. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:01:00): You're missing it. You and he said to demilitarized and denotify. Jason Calacanis (00:01:03): And denotify. Yes. Of course. because the Ukraine was filled with so many Nazis. His trolling continues. I guess just starting it off, Sachs, you're a big Putin fan along with Tronch and you're the right wing. So tell us how Gloria is this invasion for the Republican Party. David Sacks (00:01:23): Well, it's it's it's interesting what it it's well, that that's funny, but it's all so it's also kinda sad because what you're doing right there is exactly what the whole Twist sphere is doing, which is anybody who wants to actually deescalate and diffuse this war before it escalates some metastases and something much worse gets to announces a Putin apologist. I have no dealings in either, you know, Russia or Ukraine for that matter. Ukrainian cash is not lining my pockets. like many of our politicians, their families in Washington. I have no interest except preserving the safety of the United States of America. And The point is that, I think, Biden, the the one clear, elusive point that he made in his last speech, I know he's giving one today, is that the United States of America would not intervene militarily in Ukraine. We should all understand that. He made it very clear the troops that were being sent over there were to defend our NATO allies. Ukraine is not one. We do not have a treaty obligation to defend them. What is happening right now is tragic. Putin is the aggressor. It's a humanitarian disaster. I do feel bad for the people of Ukraine. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. However, we are not gonna intervene militarily in that conflict, nor should we, because we cannot risk starting World War 3 It is not a vital American interest who rules the Donbas in a way that it is a vital American interest to avoid a war with Russia. And the tragedy here The second tragedy is that we did not do everything we could to diplomatically try and solve this problem. And what do I mean by that? On this pod 3 weeks ago, I said that Ukraine was never gonna be part of NATO. Why? because Biden just said it. We can't defend them militarily against Russia. We were never gonna admit them. why didn't we give up that card? That I'm we don't know for sure what woulda happened. David Sacks (00:03:14): But if we had been willing to, basically, affirm that we believe in Ukraine sovereignty, but they are not being part of NATO. That might have defused this conflict. Jason Calacanis (00:03:23): -- think we had consensus on that. We said, like, hey. What if I think I yeah. I suggested. What if we set a 5 year you know, moratorium on them joining or something like that. Absolutely. -- out there. David Friedberg (00:03:31): Can I just ask Saks one question on this? Okay. Yeah. Sacks, do you not think that the US you know, regardless of the obligations under NATO, Saces a little bit of an issue on a global stage where, you know, we we told this leader back down, don't do this, and then we don't respond militarily. that that action effectively reduces America's influence and credibility when it comes to these sorts of defensive statements in this kind of global theater. And our primacy is being challenged because we lay down the law. We said this is not allowed. You cannot do this. there's gonna be repercussions. And then it happens, and there are economic sanctions, and, you know, maybe we'll talk in a second about some other potential repercussions. But by doing something militarily, we weaken ourselves and we weaken our position, and it gives permission to others to take action that may be counter ultimately the kind of the US interests abroad. David Sacks (00:04:30): Okay. So in response to that, I have to we'll quote what Barack Obama said. and we we've mentioned this on our previous pod. He said the fact is that Ukraine, which is on this is back in the the Atlantic interview he gave. The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non NATO can be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do. This is an example where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for. The fact of the matter is none of us on this pod wanna send our sons and daughters to go fight and risk their lives and die to determine who rules the Donbas or even Ukraine. We sympathize with them. We may impose sanctions on their behalf. We may arm them militarily. but we are not willing to fight. And so therefore, us trying to lay down this law to Putin was a bluff, and he called our bluff. And the smart thing we can do right now is not to escalate. Look, we've already gone to the river. He's got you know, we basically try to barrel and bluff him at every street. We got to the river. He has now invaded. We're now in a showdown. What do you wanna do now? You wanna escalate this even more? The only way that we could make this worse is to precipitate a world war. Now if -- Our absolute priority our absolute priority right now should be to make sure that this war doesn't spread. David Friedberg (00:05:43): My prediction is as of right now, it would be very unpopular to go to war or for the US to enter the war in a on the battlefield. I I do think And I don't know if we're gonna hear more about this today, but I do think that the cyber war is beginning today. The United States has talked at length about having, you know, tremendous cyber capabilities. And my understanding is as of this morning, a number of state websites were down in Russia, and a number of, you know, Russian cyber interests were under attack. And so we may see the US kind of confront Russia on another battle stage, not on the, you know, on the field, on the physical field. But if over the next couple of weeks, this continues or days, And I was just looking at CNN this morning and BBC, and there were these images that started to come out of, like, you know, Ukrainian airplanes that that had been down. And if you start to see images of children, you know, helpless children, buildings being bombed, body strewn on the street, does that not change kind of the American opinion on whether or not we should do something here? And will that not kind of lead us potentially into a war that, you know, today, I think we all you know, where many people would say strategically doesn't make sense, economically doesn't make sense, know, we're only gonna lead to kind of escalation. But don't you think that American opinion typically changes when imagery arises, when, you know, the sort of brutality of war I Jason Calacanis (00:07:09): mean, that's why I can plot images out of some course, and we have in the past. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:07:13): But even today, it's, like, the 1st day, and there's, like, these really gruesome awful photos coming out, and I I could see people getting sympathetic to that and starting to kind of, you know, bang the the war drum saying, this is ridiculous. We can't let this Tyra do this. It's awful. Well, it's David Sacks (00:07:27): already it's it's already happening. You know? But this is why we should not conduct foreign policy by Twitter. We should not Twitterize the situation. This is when this is when cooler heads need to prevail. The fact the matter is when Soviet tanks, they rolled into Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia, In 1968 across the Prague Spring or Poland, in 1981 across solidarity, we did nothing because avoiding war with the Soviet Union was more important even though we sympathized to those people. And in 2008, we've been in this situation before. Jason Calacanis (00:08:00): 2008, David Sacks (00:08:01): Georgia, the Republic of Georgia, Putin invaded on behalf of these breakaway Russian sort of dissident provinces, South of City and Alqazi. Why did that happen? Well, if you remember back in 2008, there was a lot of talk about Georgia joining NATO. And you had, you know, the Warhawk senator, John McCain, go over there and declare we're all Georgians now. And so what happened? All of a sudden, these breakaway provinces, the russified provinces, the South Ossetti and Avkhazia started rebelling, That gave Putin the excuse to roll in there and the tanks. A year later, he left, but there was no more talk of Georgia joining NATO. So and, again, we George W Bush was president of the time. We did nothing militarily. We just sent humanitarian assistance. That was it. So we've been in this situation before. We should not I keep hearing in the media on cable news and on Twitter. This is historically unprecedented. We must act No. We've been in this situation before in 2008 in all those previous times. We were in this situation in 2014 when Putin invaded Premier. Jason Calacanis (00:09:03): -- ask you a question, Zach. we we had this concept of, hey. Maybe if we said, hey. We won't admit them into NATO and do you think that if we had actually made that concession or said we're not gonna let them into NATO for a decade or whatever? Do you think that would have changed Putin's behavior as of now? David Sacks (00:09:20): Well, it's it's honestly, it's hard to know. I mean, I can't I can't prove a counter factual. However, I think it was tragic not to try. Okay. I do think I think I think it should be the goal of diplomats Jason Calacanis (00:09:30): -- David Sacks (00:09:30): Sure. Jason Calacanis (00:09:30): -- David Sacks (00:09:30): to try and and again, as I said on a previous pot, it was the sleeves off our vest. Ukraine is not gonna be a member of NATO. So to give that up would've was basically giving them nothing. It was almost meaningless to us. And instead of making that concession, what happened Blincoln came out with this statement. NATO's door is open and will remain open. It was perhaps the most provocative thing he could have said in that situation. Jason Calacanis (00:09:55): And they they would have had to been voted in. That would have hap wouldn't have happened anyway. Let me ask you this question. You've been complaining about the media and Democrats. banging the drum of war and you're saying they're more hawkish. On the other side of the table, you have Trump came out and said that Putin's move Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:12): on Jason Calacanis (00:10:13): the Ukraine is genius, and the guy is very savvy. And then you have Pompeo saying I have enormous respect for him, and that he's a very talented statesman has lots of gifts. and he knows how to use power, we should respect that. So your party, your crew, is praising Putin, do you think the praising of Putin is wise in this kind of situation? David Sacks (00:10:32): No. Look. Here here here's what's going on. First of all, the the the war hawks and the people being the drums of war happening on both sides of the aisle and on both both both sets of cable news. I was watching Fox last night, and they were all but, you know, cheerleading for war, basically, saying we have to go on offense. Jason Calacanis (00:10:48): -- excited. I watched it too. David Friedberg (00:10:49): Yes, Chris. David Sacks (00:10:50): We're saying we have to go on offense that what what is Biden doing saying that we're not gonna intervene militarily. I'm, like, watching these people who are acting you know, it reminded me of Doctor Strange Love where you have slim pickens, the cowboy -- Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:11:03): -- David Sacks (00:11:03): why do the atomic bomb on the way down? Jason Calacanis (00:11:05): They're excited. David Sacks (00:11:06): And I'm watching the cable news, and all these people are acting this way. And I'm like, what in the world is going on? You know? It's Jason Calacanis (00:11:12): -- Ratingsings? It's all -- David Friedberg (00:11:14): This is a big part of what I tried to point out our prediction show at the end of last year, you know, the the if a country is happy, if the economy is growing, If there isn't significant risk of inflation, no one wants to go to war. When those are not the case, there's a tendency to say we gotta do something. And if you don't you're you're anxious. And if you don't have anything to do and some conflict arises, that's a good place to kind of apply your energy and your pressure. Jason Calacanis (00:11:40): Let me bring the dictator himself. to this. Jamal, you've been silent thus far. Any thoughts on what we're seeing here? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:47): I was letting the proletariat speak. Jason Calacanis (00:11:50): Okay. David Friedberg (00:11:51): Alright. So Jason Calacanis (00:11:53): -- David Sacks (00:11:53): Are you the boojwah sea or or what? Yeah. That sweater is very boojwah I have to say. Jason Calacanis (00:11:59): I mean, I mean, sweater Karen right now is drafting multiple emails. She's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:06): melting. I think Jason Calacanis (00:12:07): there could just be a go fund me to revoke that sweater from you. What is a story with that sweater? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:12): That that's what that's what Trudeau. Trudeau Toodle will readdulking a state of emergency to stop that. So Jason Calacanis (00:12:17): Yes. You're willing to go see to go find me. I mean, this feels like we're processing this Chamath so quickly that the Ukraine just asked on Twitter today for everybody to tell at Russia how they feel about what they're doing And the Ukraine I I I this is happening in real time, is tweeting memes now about Putin. The this seems almost surreal and is getting very strange in terms of how we're interpreting it. I mean, is there an Framp here, or are we just gonna have to deal with Putin doing this every number of years? And this is just gonna be, you know, a year or 2 of you know, conflict. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:57): I don't know. But here's what's important to two points. One is the economic sanctions have begun and the economic damage to Russia I've been started being infected by, I think, Germany base of pieces of under the certification of Nord Stream team. That has a huge economic impact on Russia. Right. I think the ruble against the dollar was off 9 or 10% this morning when I woke up here in Europe. So it so it's down even more. So now interesting thing about that was that I read an article on The Wall Street Journal. Maybe Nick, you can dig this up, but this is a few years ago. Preceding this Russia had built massive amounts of US dollar reserves. In fact, had been depleted over, like, the last little crisis that they went through. And then they had rebuilt all these dollar reserves. So in some ways, it may have been the case that these guys have this plan all along. and they put some you know, they build up their bank account just in case because they knew this could still happen. The other thing is there's a quote from HR Medmaster. He sent that churns is a is a is a simple equation. It's it's the product of will and capability. Right? Will times capabilities. And so, you know, you're going to be a deterrent on the world stage militarily, not only do you have to have an incredible military capability, we also have to have a will to go to war as what we said. And I think in America, you know, what Facebook said is, I think if you pulled a lot of people, you know, people are pretty exhausted after all of these different conflicts And so I'm not sure that the will is there to go to Europe. And so the best off ramp is to try to find some amount of economic pressure points cement to negotiate some sort of, you know, release file for all of that economic pressure in return for some normalization I think that's really the best chance. You know, I could be honest with you. And I was thinking about the odds of this just from a financial perspective and, you know, whether should be doing something different or putting something on. I thought that there was zero chance that this would happen. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:45): Luckily, I I put it as close to Jason Calacanis (00:14:47): 0 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:14:47): as possible because I thought in 2022, It just didn't seem like this could be possible. And here we are, and it seems like it is. Well, I hope everybody reclaim a safe. But I think that Biden's gonna announce some pretty crippling sanctions, and I think the west is gonna be very punitive financially. And that's probably Opera. But it depends on it depends how long that stuff will last because, again, like I said, I think Russia's foreign currency reserves are pretty strong. going into this pub. Jason Calacanis (00:15:15): Let me let me then pass the ball to you, Saxx. There's there's gonna be a lot of people who are gonna die. Both Russians and Ukrainian, sadly, if this thing keeps escalating. There's a 190,000 Russian troops on the border or making their way into the Ukraine Is there an off ramp here in your mind in any way? Do you think the sanctions will work? And and god. These the the poor citizens of Russia, I mean, Are they gonna crack at some point? And is this gonna blow back onto Putin? Because what should they seem to get out of this, I guess, is a question. Do do the Russian people support this? And will they support it on an extended basis? David Sacks (00:15:57): Well, okay. So there's there's a few questions there. Yeah. Okay. So the the fact of the matter is so so I think you're right that Putin has bought himself a headache Right? I mean, the the the eastern parts of Ukraine that are, you know, ethnically Russian, the areas of the Donbass, they will those people will support him. But the western part of Ukraine that wants to be free that's not ethnically Russian, that is gonna be a headache for him to manage. I don't think he wants this problem long term, it's probably gonna be more like the situation we had in Georgia in 2008. He goes in for a year, He institutes perhaps some sort of puppet government or some government that's more favorable to him, and then he gets out probably. This is if there's no escalation. I think it's very important. I keep making this point. The most important thing Biden can do is to make sure that this does not escalate militarily and that we do not get militarily involved. I think sanctions will happen. I mean, that's pretty clear. Probably we have to move forward with that. But but at the same time, it will sanctions work in terms of being a strong deterrent. No. I don't think so. There was a very good article by Neil Ferguson and Ken Griffin, actually in the Wall Street Journal talking about what we should do. They made the point that sanctions don't usually work. However, what we should really be striving for is energy independence. So Jason Calacanis (00:17:17): -- 100%. David Sacks (00:17:18): So yes. But the crazy thing is, America, despite having these huge natural gas reserves. 7% of our natural gas is coming from Russia right now. So why? because we stop fracking. We stop the, you know, Biden cancel the Keystone pipeline. And then in Europe, the situation is even worse, which is they're completely dependent on on Russian natural gas. Jason Calacanis (00:17:39): Germans are in the UK. Yeah. Not France. David Sacks (00:17:42): The op ed made the point that we could be investing in liquefying natural gas and exporting it to Europe to create more energy independence, and that would remove their dependence around food. And that energy independence here Jason Calacanis (00:17:52): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:52): Problem of energy independence is it takes too long And we went through a massive capital under investment cycle over the last 6 or 7 years. And so, you know, in the order to start this up, you need to just started actually putting money in the ground 6 or 7 years. And and the problem today is if we put money into the ground now, that's not gonna yield any sort of return on invested capital for another Jason Calacanis (00:18:12): 6 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:12): or 7 years. So when you look at these natgas companies, every single one to a name has basically said we are not gonna put every any incremental capital into US domestic, mad gas, or shale, or even offshore. The real solution is to actually go fully alternative and to go to renewable energy because you can today Right? Deploy solar vastly more aggressively in the United States. Look. At the end of the day, the thing that is completely abundant and has the best implications all around is solar. Jason Calacanis (00:18:40): And it's gotten cheaper than coal and Chamath Palihapitiya (00:18:42): and -- And and and and you've asked yourself, like, why why are we only 3% penetrated in the United States? Right? We can manufacture these panels. We can deploy them broadly. Right now, you know, we're in this situation where California is actually revisiting the ITC credit or the the net metering loss, sorry, rather, which would have huge implications for the California solar market. It could actually for that bull market. And so, you know, we have to get really organized, David, to your point, but there is a path to energy independence. I think it's alternative energy. It's wind and solar. because we can do it today, and you can do it really quickly. And you can basically leapfrog the entire capital investment cycle that you need to do for that gas week. We've already missed the train Jason Calacanis (00:19:20): Well and, also, you could have Germany could start turning back on nuclear power plants if they could get their citizens to pick nuclear over war. That seems like a pretty easy choice. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:30): It takes you 1. Look. Jason Calacanis (00:19:31): Well, no. No. But they've they've recently returned their sponsor. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:34): No. They've been doing it for Jason Calacanis (00:19:35): 20 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:36): years. Yeah. They've been turning them off for 20 years. Jason Calacanis (00:19:39): I know. They could they that means they don't have to rebuild them, Shamoff. They could just turn them back on -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:44): You you Jason Calacanis (00:19:44): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:44): which is a common wage we have. That's not no. But that's not how it works. It's not a light switch. I know, but it's not the same Jason Calacanis (00:19:50): as building a new one in the US. That's the point. They could -- No. But it's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:53): still year it's still years to turn these things back. The threat of doing Jason Calacanis (00:19:56): it But you gotta think, Chamath, the threat of doing it would terrorize the Saudis and the Russians. If all of a sudden, the EU said we are gonna go, of solar, massive nuclear, and we're gonna be energy independent. Just just to throw fat fat. -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:11): sure any Jason Calacanis (00:20:12): I'm not sure any country. -- dramatic effect. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:20:14): I'm not sure any country is gonna is gonna really have a massive reaction to any other country talking about a multiyear investment cycle. I do think, Jason, to your point, Solar is not a multiyear investment cycle. It can literally happen in bucks. Yes. And it's cheaper to have -- -- much more disruptive. So for example, you could if you took $3,000,000,000,000,000 if you'll better and instead said, you know what? We're just gonna actually put solar everywhere. Everywhere. That would be k. You take $3,000,000,000,000 of solar, and you put it literally everywhere in the United States I think everybody would support it. You would have domestic job creation like nobody's business. You would take so much carbon out of it there, and you would you would have this enormous energy independence. While it would give you a degree of freedom so that the next time you're pushed to war, you can actually evaluate it under a very different, you know, risk out to us, then it will absolutely need the energy from the country as it will. Jason Calacanis (00:21:02): Yeah. That's the point. And just for a fact check here, nuclear power in Germany accounted for 13 percent of German electrical supply in 2021. France, by the way, 70, 80%. And that was generated by 6 power plants, of which 3 were switched off. at the end of 2021, they literally just turned these off chamov. And the other 3 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:22): I know, but the decision was not made yesterday, Jason. Well, I pointed, this is these are 20 year decisions. Jason Calacanis (00:21:27): No. I was Fukushima that pushed them, actually, and the sentiment of And they also had 70% of their electricity on a couple of weeks come from renewable. So the Germans suddenly thought that they didn't live in a shady area, and they could get by with just solar, which is a big mistake. Just turning these off. Germany, if they didn't turn these off, they would have a different approach here too. You can be sure of that. David Sacks (00:21:49): like, I'm a I'm a fan of solar, but I'll just make the point that natural gas burns from a climate standpoint, it burns much cleaner than oil, and oil burns much clearer than coal. So natural gas is a way better than a lot of the alternatives. And the main problem with it is that when you frac, you can get the release of well, that but that's in the ground. But in terms of the release of methane, which is a greenhouse gas, that's actually worse than c o two. And so you can actually get, you know, methane released. But in the US, we have techniques for recapture of it, whereas I don't think Russia cares about that. So we'd be a lot better off. I think solar's part of the answer, but I don't think we should be turning our backs on the enormous reserves of natural gas that we have here in this country. Jason Calacanis (00:22:32): Friedberg, what are your thoughts? You're hearing 3 of us talk about energy. Give us your science boy superpowers here, and What what do you think is the clearest shot on goal here for energy independence as an option to war? David Friedberg (00:22:46): I'll just point out that the notion that there are countries that are jockeying or positioning to stop the train towards renewable alternatives for energy production this century the number of countries in that bucket are close to 0. You know, Saudi Arabia took Saudi Aramco public, specifically so that they, yeah, under kind of MBS' strategic direction, diversify away from you know, the fossil fuel dependency of their economy and diversifying to other assets. So they are gonna sell down their equity interest in in Saudi Aramco over time. and invest in things. You know, they probably made their first bet and regret it with SoftBank, but they'll probably make other bets to try and invest in kinda next gen industries. And so, you know, if you look at the money that's going from even Exxon, And, you know, there's a guy locally here in San Francisco who ran a very significant board proxy fight to get on the board of Exxon. and he won. And he's jockeying for continued and increased investment from an r and d perspective in renewables and alternatives and we're seeing this across the board. There's gonna be, in the next couple years, if not already, many of these fossil fuel dependent businesses and countries have or are making a massive shift towards alternative renewable sources of energy. So I don't think that there's any enemy here. There's no evil. Like, all the folks that have been dependent on in the are aware of the fact that this is not where the future is, we do have to transition. So the reason I bought energy stocks in December And the reason I made this point was threefold. 1 is because we have, as a result of this general consensus view, under invested in energy infrastructure. and the demands that are gonna come out of the x COVID economic growth cycle cannot be met with the current energy infrastructure you're gonna see energy prices continue to climb, coupled with the fact that when war or conflict arises, typically, you see stockpiling and you see trade routes being shut down and you see energy prices climb. David Friedberg (00:24:49): And so, you know, I think, generally, we're in a little bit of a transitionary state. Everyone knows where the puck needs to be. everyone's headed there. But for now, I think everyone's trying to navigate how do we get through the next couple of years. And in this particular, you're know, get through the season of uncertainty? You know, how how fast is the economy growing? How much have we actually under invested in infrastructure how much renewables do we have coming online? Now I think the right answer, if I were to be president of the world, I would immediately deregulate nuclear and make nuclear fission reactors a mainstay of energy production here in the US. And I think that there are a number of techniques we can undertake for safer building without all the regulatory cycles and process needed to get these things stood up. You know, China, as I've mentioned in the past, is over the next 30 years committed to building. Check this number out. I think we talked about this. A 140 nuclear power stations. their estimated cost, I believe, is on the $3,000,000,000 per station range. They are gonna increase their total energy production capacity with these nuclear power stations on the order of 15 to 20%, so they will take coal offline as they bring those online. or they will kind of start to have a cleaner mix of energy rather than building a next gen infrastructure. So, you know, if we, as the United States, intend to be an economic challenge to China this century if we intend to compete effectively with them. we are gonna have a really hard time with energy prices being what they are here in this country. China is already 30 to 40% cheaper than us on an industrial scale basis with their current energy infrastructure. And when their nuclear comes online over the next decade, their prices are gonna drop even further. David Friedberg (00:26:41): Nuclear should be in the 4 to 5¢ per kilowatt hour range. Today, China's in the kind of, you know, 7 to 8¢ per kilowatt hour range. The US for industrial I think is in kind of a 9 set, 10¢ range, 8 to 10¢ depending on where you look. So, you know, they're already cheaper. They're gonna get even cheaper, and so not just from, like, what's the right transition from a security point of view, but energy is gonna be so critical in this next century for us to maintain our footing as a competitor to China, particularly as think think about this for a second. If automation is the future of manufacturing, then electricity and energy ends up being the biggest cost driver for those systems. And if our if everything is on parity and everyone's got the same automation systems, whoever's got the cheaper energy wins. Jason Calacanis (00:27:26): And to dovetail you and Shamalts both positions, a friend of ours said, hey. You know, nobody wants to live near nuclear power plants. And They've already got the grid going there because it has to be there surround the nuclear power plant with a solar farm because it's the most efficient way So actually pairing these 2 things, perhaps even with some batteries, solves the entire problem. And and what do we think, Saks, is the eventuality here in terms of the relationship between Russia and China now that we've wrapped up the energy. And then, you know, all of us, I think, don't wanna quote war here. So I guess there's two questions here of escalation, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:08): and I'll I'll I'll I'll Jason Calacanis (00:28:09): let you pick which one you wanna go for. Escalation with Taiwan or because if Putin is not held if we don't hold the line here, you know, Putin picks another country to or another region to go after 2023, 2024. At what point do you say we gotta hold the line? David Sacks (00:28:26): Well, I mean, I think the line is that we have existing NATO treaty obligations to protect the members of NATO. On their Article 5, we have to come to their defense. Ukraine is not 1. Georgia is not 1. So to me, that's the line. There is our existing treaty obligations. And this is why we should not want to add some of these countries to NATO is because it involves us in their disputes and drags us into war. you know, on Twitter, all I hear is that this is 1938 all over again, and we cannot appease a dictator. And that is one lesson of history. It's an important lesson. However, there are other lessons of history, and it seems to me that the situation we're in could be more like 1914, which is World War 1. What happened in World War Jason Calacanis (00:29:07): 1? David Sacks (00:29:09): Basically, conflicts between minor powers dragged major powers into wars And basically, Germany gave Austria a this so called blank check war guarantee, and then that led to a war with Russia. And then that dragged the, you know, Britain and France in and eventually the United States. So, you know, it was a case where nobody none of these powers wanted to be in a war with each other, and yet somehow inertia and threats and escalations and miscalculations and folly all sort of tumbled their way into it. And that, I think, may be the historical precedent here that we wanna avoid. I think we need to be very careful not to let, you know, every conflict all over the world drag us into these these types of wars and disputes David Friedberg (00:29:56): Sachs, do you think American primacy is coming to an end? David Sacks (00:29:59): I hope not. But if if our goal is to preserve American primacy, which I think it should be then we need to be smart about how we use our strength, and we don't wanna fritter it away. And what have been doing for the last 20 years, frittering away our strength in wars we didn't need to be in. In the Middle East, we spent how many trillions on nation building there that would turn out to be a total folly and waste of money look at this, and we have a $30,000,000,000,000 national debt. If we want this century to be an American century like the last one, we need to preserve our strength and use it wisely and not involve ourselves in every conflict. And, you know, so look, we need to protect our NATO allies. I agree with that, but we don't need to be creating disputes and and evolving ourselves in wars that we have no obligation to get involved in. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:48): We need energy independence, and then we need to delever our balance sheet also for American Finance. Absolutely. And it's awesome, but it's gonna require a lot of focus and sacrifice. I really think the thing that I just made up is actually really quite genius, which is redirect that $3,000,000,000,000 build, that better build to just pure solar everywhere in the United States. It would be so disruptive. I mean, it would just be so disruptive. Future electricity for everybody. Jason Calacanis (00:31:13): It becomes a dividend. It's like it's UBI in a way. Everybody gets no electrical bill. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:17): I I I don't think it would allow people not free electricity forever, but I do think it would subsidize basically the deployment of energy infrastructure to every single household in America in a way that would just completely shake up frankly the political world order Because, you know, what you guys said is so true, a lot of this stuff rests on, you know, the politics around natural resources. Right? So, you know, today it's oil. Tomorrow, it's gonna be some rare earth. You know, in 10 years, it could be copper and lithium. And we wanna find ourselves with the ability to be clear, eyed, and focused in our response to these issues. But if we need critical resources that can only come from one other place or 2 other places, and we don't have the engineering ingenuity dev, figured out how to, you know, delever our reliance, and we're gonna get dragged into not just this conflict, but a whole bunch of other conflicts going forward. David Sacks (00:32:11): I'd say yes and we could be energy independent for free right now if we were just to repeal some of these executive orders. I mean, we were energy independent like a year or 2 ago, until we ban fracking. Jason Calacanis (00:32:25): Why why do the fracking when solar's available? It seems to me, like, we wanna actually preserve the environment, stop global warming. So if solar is available and nuclear is available, why would you advocate for fracking and ripping up the earth and you know, polluting it. David Sacks (00:32:39): I'm a fan of solar. It's really just about costs and time to deployment. Jason Calacanis (00:32:43): Got it. Okay. So you see it as a bridge. Hey. Maybe we do it for 5 years, 10 years. David Sacks (00:32:46): Long term, I think, solar is the answer, but I think that's a long term strategy. Jason Calacanis (00:32:50): The other thing that is confounding is, like, Americans and this is another thing I was just the media, and I did exactly what you did, David, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:32:57): is I put on Fox. Jason Calacanis (00:32:58): I was like, let me get their interpretation of this because the Trump folks are praising Putin And then these guys are wanting to go to war. So it feels like there's some inner conflict or war going on in in the Republican side of things. But even on the Yeah. And then on the left, you have this craziness. They were I mean, Wolf Blitzer, and everybody was so excited about this war. They were like, stay tuned and oh my god. We're gonna be 24 hour coverage. They were, like, orgasmic in their coverage of it. David Friedberg (00:33:25): Remember CNN got their got their big -- Yeah. for the golf forward. That was it. We'll split that. Jason Calacanis (00:33:29): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:30): chance to shine. David Friedberg (00:33:30): I remember being a kid watching that. Jason Calacanis (00:33:32): That is the language free break. It's interesting to me though. That was the language they were using. So Don Lemn was saying, And we have the full resources to give you blow by blow coverage if everything happening. Stick with CNN. This is where we do our best work and it was literally like war porn, and it was really uncomfortable to watch combined with, Saxon. This is what I wanted well, maybe free break. I'll throw this one to you. they kept talking about how Americans were gonna suffer at the pump. And I just thought this is so crazy into stoping, there's a 190,000 young Russian men who are gonna die, countless Ukrainian civilians who are gonna die potentially. And this thing could Galatasack said, you you know, you you can't play games with war. It could the dominoes can fall in all directions. You you have no idea when you light off these grenades. And and we're talking about our pain at the pump, very weird, very weird times. Freeburg any thoughts? America's weird. It's weird. Well, I David Sacks (00:34:29): wanna if if if Freeburg doesn't wanna respond to that, I wanna I wanna talk about the media coverage. I'll add to that. I mean -- Yeah. You flip over to MSNBC. John Bolton is on MSNBC. And one of the weirdest things happening in our politics now is that all the neo cons who used to be members of the Republican Party who for Jordan W Bush and got us into the Iraq war have now all become Democrats, and they're all over they're they're supposedly the the conscience of the country over on CNN and MSNBC and beating the drums of war, it's absolutely unbelievable. And one of the the one of the tactics they use that I think we should talked about is, and this goes all the way back to Vietnam War, is that anybody who merely tries to, let's say, understand the other side or wants to deescalate or get out of a conflict. They try to portray as unpatriotic. I mean, this again, this goes all the way back to the Vietnam war with the Vietnam protesters were portrayed as un American and unpatriotic. Well, it turns out they were right. That was a mistake for us to get embroiled in Vietnam. And similarly, the Iraq war, it turns out that was a gigantic mistake. But in 2003, David Frum, who's, like, one of the leaders of this group wrote an article called Unpatriotic Conservatives in which he attacked and sort of Mao Mao that there were, you know, conservatives like PapuCann and Robert Novak, who were against the Iraq war. And he called them unpatriotic and imply that they were un American and somehow in the pocket of Saddam Hussein because they were against us, our involvement in Iraq war. Jason Calacanis (00:35:55): Well, they turned -- -- right. David Sacks (00:35:57): They turned out to be right, and yet they were demonized. And called on patriotic. And where are we today? Those same people I'm seeing David from on Twitter now impugn, the patriotism of people who merely want us not to escalate this, not to get involved, and maybe to try and understand our enemy. Because, you mean, this is one of the problems with Twitterizing our foreign policy is look, we can see Putin as an aggressor. We can see him as a thug or an authoritarian or as a dictator. But nonetheless, we should still trying to understand our enemy and anybody who tries to promote a greater degree of understanding or diplomacy gets attacked by these people as being Putin apologists Jason Calacanis (00:36:35): Chamath, you you said you didn't see this coming. You thought this is a very small probability. I think we all felt it was a pretty small probability that Russia would actually go through with this. You thought it was actually something I actually, I do FreeBird, you didn't think it was gonna happen. There's a certainty. Yeah. We wait. You thought it was a certainty that America would get involved because of the WAG. The the dog's scenario O, or that Putin would do it because -- Both. Putin's -- Both. Okay. David Friedberg (00:36:57): Yeah. But this is not, like, a surprise that Putin did this. I mean, this has been a long time company. Jason Calacanis (00:37:01): Yeah. I mean, it just felt like I I I I thought that he would say of a rattle and we come to some resolution here. And but what does he want? It seems like nobody and this is what everybody keeps saying on TV. By the way, David Friedberg (00:37:13): I think that's a really complicated question. I I feel like there's decades of and layers of, like, to the story. It's like, you know, war and peace, and then you read, like, one half of the final chapter, and you're like, oh, yeah. Okay. Like, there there's a lot to the story that's gonna be really hard for us to unpack. So, you know, I'm not sure there's a very simple, like, what does Putin want as much as there is a significant narrative that that that backs the history, you know, post Soviet history with Ukraine and the relationships. I mean, you you guys may remember that there was a president a presidential candidate or president that was poisoned by Putin at some point. I mean, there's been, like, a long history to this that I don't think is something that we can Jason Calacanis (00:37:52): The reunification is what most it would put that under is this -- David Friedberg (00:37:57): Well, there's there's an economic. There are social. You know, there are individuals, cultural, motives. I mean, there there's a lot driving this. There's a lot of influence within that country that I don't think we really fully grasp within the country of Russia. I mean, that we don't fully grasp related to some of the cultural relationships with some of the population in either in the Ukraine. And so, you know, it's a very difficult question to simply answer. David Sacks (00:38:21): Can can I take a shot at it? Yeah. Sure. Okay. What does Putin want? So I wanna there's an article by Peter Bayon who was an editor of the New Republic. He's not, you know, some far right conservative or whatever. He published this quote from a memo that was written by Bill Burns back in 2008. So Bill Burns is the current DCI is the director of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA. He is also a Russian expert. He speaks Russian fluently. He is the he and he spent many years over there in our government, and he works for Biden. He is Biden's head of the CIA. So he is the highest ranking Russian expert in our government. In 2008, he wrote a memo to condoleezza rice who was in the secretary of state. And what he said is, this is about you Ukrainian entry into NATO. He said, Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin. He says, In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players from knuckle draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin sharpest liberal critics I've yet to find anyone who views Ukraine and NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. So Burns pointed out to the then secretary of state that this was a huge red line. And since then, since 2008, Putin has been very consistent that Ukrainian entry into NATO has been a red line. And even in the speech that he gave last week, he talked about he talked about this. And he said that I'm quoting Putin from his speech. He says, if Ukraine was to join NATO, it would serve as a direct threat to the security of Russia. So, you know, in response to Putin's speech and on Twitter, I keep hearing that Putin is this madman. We can't understand what he wants, that the only possible explanation for his behavior is either senility. David Sacks (00:40:10): He's gone crazy. He's gone mad. And, you know, I'm looking at this, and I'm like, okay. Maybe those things are true, but You can't say that he hasn't been clear about what his red lines are. He's been saying this for 20 years that Ukraine joining the NATO alliance is an absolute red line And, you know, I mentioned before on this pod that imagine if the cold war is still going on and the Warsaw PAX still existed. And, you know, Justin Trudeau was gonna lead Canada into the Warsaw pact, we would absolutely be up in arms about that. We would not let that happen. it is that kind of issue for Putin. And we just act like this guy is insane that that has no point of view. I'm not we don't have to believe he's right. But to basically say that his he he has no interest in Russian security that we need to give any weight to, that we just need to dismiss all of his concerns out of hand. It just you know, this is not the history of the situation. Jason Calacanis (00:41:08): Yeah. Did you read anybody read Madeline Albright's New York Times piece? It was pretty interesting because she was in the position when they first met him. And he's been talking about the Ukraine and reunification for 20 years. And it's probably a good lesson for the entire planet that dictators are gonna you know, they they have a certain to your point, Shamath of, like, having well and capabilities A lot of people have capabilities. A lot of people don't have will to start wars anymore on this planet, and and he clearly is in that group. I think that's hard to say. David Sacks (00:41:41): But but, Jason, we we don't know. Here's thing by not taking NATO off the table as an issue. We don't know whether his true aim here is the restoration of the Russian empire or merely to avoid, you know, this border country being part of a military alliance that he views as a threat. So I don't know what the answer is. Jason Calacanis (00:42:00): -- or part or door number 3? He wants more attention. He wants to be more globally relevant. David Sacks (00:42:05): Right. But we made the mistake of not taking this issue off the table. And so If we had taken the issue off the table, then we could get to the real heart of the issue. Maybe it would have diffused the situation. Jason Calacanis (00:42:15): For the EU and NATO had done it. Right? It's not just in this like, the people in Europe have a big say here. As we're discussing this on a on a Thursday, February 24th, Biden has announced a coalition of partners EU, Australia, others are doing pretty significant sanctions, it seems limiting Russia's ability to do business dollars Euros and yen imposing major sanctions on the Russian banks trying to cripple the ruble blocking 4 major Russian banks freezing. All of their assets in America, adding sanctions to Russian elites. I guess that's the oligarch class. And Russia's largest state owned enterprises will no longer be able to raise money from Coalition of governments. Biden assumes this will degrade their military advancement. And Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:00): I have a funny Russian story to talk. So Right. when I was when I was still running when I was managing not just my money, but other people's money, and I was raising funds, eventually, you know, you you get LP commitments from all kinds of people interested in investing with you if you're generating great returns. Right? Meaning, rich family offices all around the world wanna give you capital. There's a very strict process in America where when you get capital in, you have to make sure that those folks basically pass, you know, an anti money laundering check and a know your customer kind of check -- KYC checks. And one of these checks is actually a a gray list and a blacklist that treasury and the DOJ kind of manage. And every now and then they'll put people on and off the list. And there's a very famous person in Russia who I will not say when I was raising money for my last fun. This is probably in 2014 or Jason Calacanis (00:43:57): 15. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:58): He was on the he was not on the list and, you know, very well known person. Yeah. And I thought, wow. This is a great opportunity. to get somebody who seems to be doing a lot of really interesting good work at all. And not less than 2 or 3 weeks after we had signed our LP agreement, I think it was DOJ or treasury. put them on this list, and we get a we get a, you know, an email basically saying, hey, tear up the LPA, and you can't take the capital. And we had to undo the entire limited partner agreement and crazy. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:44:28): What percentage of the fund would that person have been both Chamath Palihapitiya (00:44:31): I don't I don't remember. But he was a he's a significant person investing in a significant picture. Jason Calacanis (00:44:36): 5, 10% or something. So I would guess Yeah. David Friedberg (00:44:38): Hey, Jason. I just wanna going back on a point I made about energy and energy independence Jason Calacanis (00:44:43): -- David Friedberg (00:44:43): Sure. -- earlier because I actually pulled up the numbers. So, you know, the average cost per kilowatt hour in the in China right now, it's about Jason Calacanis (00:44:55): 9¢ David Friedberg (00:44:57): for for energy production. It is estimated that nuclear power production should drop to about 4¢, but could be as low as 1 cent per kilowatt hour if operated at scale with perfect efficiency just to give everyone a sense of where not just security risk and kind of, you know, the the green opportunity lies, but also where economic advantage lies in investing in nuclear infrastructure. And so as China builds out a 140 nuclear plants here over the next 2 to 3 decades, they're gonna see their energy costs decline from about 9¢ for industrial use, potentially, you know, into the sub 5¢ per kilowatt hour range. which makes them tremendously competitive on a manufacturing point of view. Jason Calacanis (00:45:38): It's a lot of Bitcoin servers. That's a lot of hash. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:41): I think it's never gonna happen. I'm not I I love So are David Friedberg (00:45:45): you kidding me what's not gonna happen? Nuclear? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:47): I I think America America's America's ability Steel nuclear, I think, is a very difficult proposition, and I think our real solution is subtle. David Friedberg (00:45:54): It's solar? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:45:55): It's practical. It can be done today, and it can be done right now. Jason Calacanis (00:45:58): And just to look at the EU versus the US in terms of gas mileage, which is just stunning. The EU Has mandated average -- -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:46:08): have the America doesn't have the resolve. It's like it's like we have to we have to cross so many bridges And, you know, we have to really confront a bunch of issues that we that have been riddled with so much inaccuracy. You know? For example, if the environmental in the understanding of how nuclear energy works, you know, the NIMBY is in Jason that you referred to about not being able to build these things all around the country. And so reducing a form factor, in my opinion, is a technical challenge that I think we can overcome, but it still leaves the policy and the societal level challenges that I think are very difficult to overcome. Because you're talking about rewriting history in many ways and and convincing hundreds of millions of people that things that had thought were true or no longer true. And I think that's much, much harder than we give it credit for. Jason Calacanis (00:46:53): And Cars is a perfect example. Americans now 24 miles to the gallon. The EU is mandated. 57 miles per gallon in 2021. They're getting it done in the EU they're twice as effective. I tweeted, hey. Listen. Americans, we we need to buy better gas mileage cars and move to EVs. And I was faced with quite a backlash. I mean, It was insane. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:14): That's not entirely true because California did pass their own legislation. David Friedberg (00:47:18): Yes. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:18): And then there was this issue because the car companies pushed back and said, you know, it's too expensive for us to build 2 different SKUs. for California and 1 for the rest of the America. Jason Calacanis (00:47:26): They're already building 1 for the EU. Just to give David Friedberg (00:47:29): you one counterpoint to your statement about energy independence arising potentially from solar to generate a gigawatt of capacity and industrial scale solar farm would take about 75100 acres. You know? So that's about Jason Calacanis (00:47:41): 30 -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:42): I don't I don't think that's how it's I don't think that's how it's there. I I I think a very simple solar installation in everybody. So with a simple battery is more than enough to basically give people the power they need. And then these big C and I installations that's happening on top of all these big buildings will cover the rest. And I think that you'll still have some amount of nat gas peakers usage. And maybe you can have some amount of solar or hydro or wind. But people are experimenting and figuring out the battery storage capability to supplement this. I think what we don't have is that a 3% residue solar we don't have a credible alternative. But at, you know, 80% resi solar, with battery systems in everybody's home, which is a tractable solution that costs 1000 of dollars per phone, which the government could subsidize, would be a great use of capital I think will be transformational for LNG. It would completely rewrite the energy calculus. David Friedberg (00:48:32): So so, again, to do that today would cost because when you do something on a residential roof, it costs a lot more than doing it on an industrial scale. So when you build out a 75100 acre solar facility, You get economies of scale. You get single tubes. Everything can run off one wire. When you build it on a roof, you need contractors to come in. You gotta wire the home. You gotta put batteries in. So the actual amortized cost over the lifetime of that solar installation works out to something on the order of 15¢ a kilowatt hour. Whereas if you do it on an industrial scale, it works out to about 3¢ a kilowatt hour. So, you know, your your point makes sense, but it it it makes things more expensive. So then the question is who's gonna fund the delta and is someone actually gonna pay for that delta to make this? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:49:11): We're gonna we're gonna I'm sure I'm sure over the next few years, we're gonna spend 1,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars on nothing. Those 1,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 of dollars could probably Whatever your gap is. I don't know whether your map is right or wrong. But whatever the gap is that gets us to China as an example in terms of the cost per kilowatt hour, the government could substance. And there is a quantifiable number. And if we had if we decided whether it was worth it or not, we could decide. But all all I'm saying is it it's it's something that we need to put on the table because every time a new president comes into town and gets elected, They generally get this one big shot on goal. You know, the last few presidents have tried to either, you know, cut taxes or basically give these glasses economic stimulus packages. And the net dollar effect of these things is now measured in 1,000,000,000 of dollars. And I suspect that the net you know, cost of subsidizing enough solar energy that you get to broadly deployed is also in 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars, and we should just decide whether that is in the better use of David Friedberg (00:50:06): the Alright. Jason Calacanis (00:50:07): Just to do some quick math here to boost your Tremont's point, he almost nailed it exactly. There are 85,000,000 stand alone homes in the US, I'm just gonna assume none of them for the sake of this argument have solar on them, but 3% do, I think. Average cost of putting solar on homes 20 to 35,000. I picked the number 30,000. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:30): Yes. Yes. Hold on a second. But but in Australia, it 5 best. Jason Calacanis (00:50:34): Okay. They have a cheaper system or something? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:36): No. It's because of all the nonsense that exist inside the United States. -- subsidized. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:50:40): So but just to give the raw caught year. If it was $30,000 to put on 85,000,000 -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:46): You can do it for $5000 a home because Australia, which is 16th the size of America, is able to do it with no subsidies direct to the consumer for $5000 in installation. So that price is possible. Jason Calacanis (00:50:58): I'm gonna pick the $30,000 crazy price in America. $2,500,000,000,000 to put solar on every home. The end like, we're you were $30,000,000,000,000 in debt. 10% of our debt would make us energy independent forever. The the the plan gets better when you do math. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:15): Sorry. And think of think of the amount of savings you do to the environment. Think of the lack I don't know if you saw this, but there was a UN report about the criticality and importance of emerging wildfire threats. to our ecosystem and our ecology. I don't you know, for all of us that lived in California, do you guys remember how the sky was orange and red 2 years ago or those Jason Calacanis (00:51:35): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:35): Yes. -- crazy pictures from Los Angeles. So if you if you have a have less of a reliance on these aging utilities and these utilities infrastructure, there'll be less forest fires. The air will be cleaner. people will be more resilient. Think of the times that, for example, in Texas where there is a massive freeze, right, where people were shut out of they couldn't have power because the outflow traditional utilities were shutdown. If it's only 2 and a half $1,000,000,000,000, I think we should have done this yesterday. I can't believe the number is that low actually. considering the things that when we put to an after $1,000,000,000 price bag, something's been spendable. Jason Calacanis (00:52:07): The cost of upgrading I'm just pulling some numbers here off of the Internet, but replacing our electrical grid would be 5,000,000,000,000. So if you think about the replacement cost of the actual grid, which we're gonna have to do at some and the upgrade cost of 500,000,000,000 a year or the maintenance of 500,000,000,000 a year. This actually starts to seem very reasonable. And achievable if we had the will, which means we need to have some politicians who actually aren't in the pocket of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:34): big oil. number of jobs that Biden would create, if he actually ran with this, And and because you do need a lot of local installation capability and other jobs, you would create 100 of 1000, maybe even millions of jobs in the United they would be really well paying. And you would be pushing us towards a completely energy independent clean energy, you know, 0 carbon future. That'd be transformation. Jason Calacanis (00:52:58): Yeah. I wonder how many hours of work it is to install. You could actually do that math as well and figure out how many jobs you create and then how much tax those people pay and then how much they spend of that money to put back into the economy. you're probably getting a 30, 40 percent rebate on that $2,500,000,000,000. So it becomes even better because of the high paying jobs. Right? The markets are tanking, obviously, over the last couple of months, Dow is down 11% year to date. And, of course, a lot of the growth stocks, we've talked about this over and over again from Zoom to Netflix, Facebook, Spotify Coinbase Twilio all down over 50%. Today, the market went down 5, 6% on the news and then rebounded is this all priced in? And is this the bottom of the market? Cathy Wood is supposedly buying and I don't know if it's net buying or she's just reallocating. But are are we now in the bargain hunting -- period of the market, and and we've bottomed out. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:02): The the smart folks that I talked to who I really, you know, look up to and respect think that the bottom from the S and P is around Jason Calacanis (00:54:10): 38100. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:12): And that what we still need to do is this one last flush And that last flash will really touch the big cap companies, but that growth is largely done sort of getting taken to the woodshed. So in general, I think that so generally, buyers of growth now sellers of value and waiting for this one last, you know, 400 point move down the S and P, and I think people think it's roughly the bottom. Now if there's a world war, obviously, who knows all bets are off, but yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:54:45): So, Saks, what's more shocking that we're almost at the bottom? Or there's people in the markets that Tremoth really respects, which is -- David Sacks (00:54:52): Well, speaking speaking of people that we respect. So I think Brack Ursner has a really interesting take on this is that. David Friedberg (00:54:58): Oh, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:58): sorry. I I I should also be clear that I'm recruiting this one person who I really respect. He knows who he is. So they're Postable. Got Jason Calacanis (00:55:04): it. Yeah. David Sacks (00:55:05): So Brad Gerser has published a couple of charts showing basically multiples in the Internet index and among SaaS companies over the last, whatever, dozen years So and what you can see is that over the last 2 years during COVID, there was a huge spike in multiples for Internet companies and for SaaS companies And that over the last, really, since November, the last 3, 4 months, has now come down. And as of, I would say, last week, it was right at about the historical trend, and now it's starting to go under the historical trend. So from a bargain hunting standpoint, you have to say that this is the first time that we've been below the the average for a few years. Now it's not to say it can't go down even more. because in the same way that you can be above trend, you can also be below trend. And if this war escalates and metastases, it will go down more. But if this conflict can stay localized and the economy doesn't go into a recession because of everything that's happened, then yes, this might be bargain hunting. Jason Calacanis (00:56:08): Here's the chart for everybody to take a look at from January 20 to January 22, the 2 years of the pandemic. And I think this is times forward looking sales. If I'm if I'm reading it correct, I don't have the full chart here. I just have a a screenshot of it, a portion of David Sacks (00:56:23): Yeah. I think it's enterprise value yeah. It's enterprise value divided by, like, forward looking revenue, which is you can kinda say is, like, ARR. Yeah. It's sorta like ARR. recording revenue. Jason Calacanis (00:56:35): And so, yeah, we we had this 15 x. We went up to 40, 50 x private market deals going at a 100, 200 x. Mhmm. Those days are over big time. And it's we've talked about that ad nauseam. One of the interesting things that I'm seeing is I think people are looking at businesses that have been corrected and saying, hey. What is the true value of this? And the I think the best example is Peloton, new CFO, The CFO Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:01): of Netflix. I gotta go. Jason Calacanis (00:57:02): Alright. I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:57:03): gotta go, Jacob. How David Friedberg (00:57:03): are you? Love you got love you, Jimmy. Then stay safe Jason Calacanis (00:57:06): and enjoy your vacation. Cheers now. So I just without Jamath here, I just wanna talk a little bit. Have you guys watched what happened with Peloton and the CFO coming in and just really revitalizing that business very quickly? David Friedberg (00:57:17): with Jason, I'll say one thing. I think 2 weeks ago, if you pulled the market, I there would probably have or if you looked at the the the trading prices of bonds, you probably would have assumed a Jason Calacanis (00:57:32): 95% David Friedberg (00:57:33): chance of a half point rate hike in March. And as of today, my guess is that the probability of that is below Jason Calacanis (00:57:40): 5%. David Friedberg (00:57:43): and you're probably assuming, you know, a quarter point rate hike or maybe even a deferral. at this point. And I think that's one of the things that's keeping the market up instead of tanking so much this morning. Jason Calacanis (00:57:55): -- are predicting that it's been such bad news that they'll push it out. David Friedberg (00:57:59): Yeah. They're assuming that under conditions of great uncertainty like this, the Fed cannot act as aggressively as they were planning to act. Interesting as a result that that rate hike would be pushed out, and it would continue to kinda keep prices somewhat inflated. and continue to support the market with cheaper capital and and liquidity. So, you know, a lot of capital around the world is gonna get locked up as armed conflict kinda comes to bear. And when that happens, you know, markets will tighten up and prices will be affected. And so the fed in in traditional times would wanna have an incentive or or would have a motivation to, you know, inject liquidity into the markets. And so this is not a great time to do a half point rate hike And so it's almost certain at this point that they're not gonna do a half point rate hike. Jason Calacanis (00:58:44): Feels to be, like, huge setup right now. People have capitulated the markets gotten demolished. David Friedberg (00:58:50): I just think there's some Jason Calacanis (00:58:50): good -- -- companies are still great. Like, Zoom is still a great company. -- David Friedberg (00:58:53): great businesses out there and some companies to invest in some great stocks Chamath Palihapitiya (00:58:57): to buy for all the David Friedberg (00:58:58): way from technology through to industrials, through to, you know, even some of the energy companies that are gonna benefit greatly from this commodity cycle we're we're kind of in the middle of. And so there there's gonna be, you know, I I think an opportunity to move away from speculative behavior into real kind of cherry picking, productive, cash generating businesses in the next you know, or or or even growth businesses that are actual, you know, value craters, so versus being, like, 10 year speculative kind of bets. So is a great time to kinda be looking for businesses you really like to own, to identify them, to make investments, and to hold those investments for a very long period of time. you know, you're not gonna find a lot of market conditions like this. I mean, if we all went back to March of 2020 and you remember the S and P was at Jason Calacanis (00:59:48): 2023100 I was gonna buy Disney. I never got around to it. David Friedberg (00:59:52): Yeah. So, like, your first if at that point, you pick businesses that you knew were gonna be durable businesses and that you loved and you thought were gonna have legs to them. You bought everything from bet to Disney to Lockheed Martin, you know, you could have done tremendously well. So now is a great time to kinda be looking for businesses that you really like. and to buy a stake in them. Yeah. Forget forget about trying to time the bottom. That's fool's errand. Jason Calacanis (01:00:14): Right. No. No. If you wanna buy stuff, you wanna hold for 10 years David Friedberg (01:00:17): to spend. Jason Calacanis (01:00:17): -- David Friedberg (01:00:17): are relatively cheap, relative to a time horizon that Saks pointed out and and Gertzner pointed out. So things are relatively cheap, find businesses you like to own, and buy them cheap. They could get cheaper, Jason Calacanis (01:00:28): but they're kind of at the bottom end Chamath Palihapitiya (01:00:30): of the whole year. David Friedberg (01:00:31): I think the whole time frame around, like, speculative stuff is kinda wiped out. Like, I think that that that that that era's gone now. What are you David Sacks (01:00:36): saying, Frank? Well, it's it's that plus. I think one of the things that happened is that people are realizing now that the burst of activity, especially like in ecommerce type companies that happened during the pandemic, that was not ongoing sustainable growth. It was one time growth. In fact, in many cases, it was sort of worse than one time growth, which is it was pull forward growth meaning that growth in the future will be lower because you pulled forward all of that revenue. Well, I think Peloton might be a good example. I mean, everyone bought them during the pandemic But then after the pandemic, everyone who needs 1 has got 1 already. Jason Calacanis (01:01:11): So -- Could also be cars. Right? Like, people were desperate to buy cars, and now there's not a viable boom. David Sacks (01:01:15): Right. So what what happened is not only have have multiples gone down, but these companies were being comped based on growth rates that were unsustainable. And so now they're all revising their forecast down So it's a double whammy, and and Brad's made this point. But what's interesting right now is the markets are actually rallying, and I think it might be because of this latest Biden news at this press conference. So the important point here is that Biden did not sanction Putin directly. There's talk about sanctioning him personally, or and he also did not remove Russia from the swift system, which is like sort of the key banking system. And I don't know if this is because Biden doesn't wanna do it or because Europe won't support the move. Pretty clear, Europe doesn't wanna do it. So no one is willing to suffer too much economic loss here to defend Ukraine never mind sending troops. So it seems to me that the signal here is that both militarily and in terms of economic interest Europe does not want further escalation, and that may be why the market is rallying. Also, the Fed may hold off on interest rate increases while this is all going on. So, you know, sometimes markets can act in funny ways. Jason Calacanis (01:02:29): Well, they're forward looking. people are putting money at stake so they have skin in the game. So it's you know, they they people can talk all they want about what's gonna happen with the markets. But unless they're placing bets, that's kinda cheap talk. And here, people are actually placing bets on socks. They think will do well in the future. David Sacks (01:02:49): Skin of the game. People look. Their economic interests are skin of the game. Having people's sons and daughters go off to fight and die in some foreign war. That is real skin to the game. What is not skin to the game is people tweeting you know, there are more moderation condemnation and whipping things up. And, you know, we should not be listening to the and calling everyone who disagrees to them traders because that's happening too. you know, this is a time for cooler heads for prevail. Jason Calacanis (01:03:17): Alright. You and I are gonna actually agree on this. And we're both gonna agree that Trump and Pompeo should not be fawning over Putin. Yeah. But you yeah. commented on that. Let's get people wanna hear us get into it. Well, I mean, you can't support them funding over Putin like that. Do you? I can't imagine you do. David Sacks (01:03:36): I I heard I heard what what Trump said when he was saying didn't hear the Pompeo quote, so I can't speak to that. Jason Calacanis (01:03:42): The the Trump -- It's a genius. David Sacks (01:03:44): Look. Listen. You know, sometimes Trump is being is sarcastic when he says things like, oh, what a beauty. You know? Mhmm. He means the opposite, and I think the point Trump was making wasn't really about Putin being so great. The point I heard Trump making was that if he were president, this wouldn't be happening. Now you can disagree with that. It may be true or untrue, but that was the real point he was making. I think that you're letting, you know, the political partisans try to whip this thing up. And as part again, as part of this meme, of anybody who doesn't support what I want, must be a traitor, must be in the pocket of true of Putin. Jason Calacanis (01:04:20): We have to use this meme warfare to get people Friedberg to shame these politicians into backing, like, David Friedberg (01:04:30): the solar plan and doing something meaningful like Jason Calacanis (01:04:33): this. like, in backing nuclear, how do we get the politicians to reflect energy independence as a priority? It feels like it's not a priority for them. Well, I mean, the one one of David Friedberg (01:04:43): the good things about American democracy is that politicians are generally pretty responsive to what their constituents want believe. So they use polling data, and that polling data drives you know, if if they wanna get reelected, they better do what the the polls are telling them people want them to do. And so, ultimately, if you can kind of influence people broadly in the United States, and that can that can go both ways, by the way. Jason Calacanis (01:05:11): We have special interest too, and and you have people with weird ideas. Right? David Friedberg (01:05:14): Like -- Yeah. But generally, like, if something is deeply unpopular, politician risks not getting reelected, they're not gonna kinda run to do that. And if something is very popular, even though it may not be the right thing by some objective framework, you know, they would still run to do that. So, you know, I do think that there's, you know, some degree of of work to be done around, you know, framing for people broadly, you know, via the work maybe that we do on our podcast. But I think more importantly, on a peated way and in a way that's kind of inspiring and inclusive will drive people to kinda wanna see these changes happen, and ultimately politicians should respond. David Sacks (01:05:53): Can I make one other point to to to your thing about you you know who who today would be considered, you know, in the words of Championsaki parroting Russian talking points? Barack Obama. If Obama, today, we're out there saying exactly what he told, the the Atlantic magazine back in I think it was Jason Calacanis (01:06:10): 2000 12 David Sacks (01:06:12): or or 14. If he was saying that today, he'd be accused of being in Putin's pocket and being a Putin apologist and a trader and all this kind of stuff because he said that in that interview, he said, listen, Putin was always very business like. He was functional. He showed up. He wanted to negotiate and deal. Basically, he sound like a guy who look. We may disagree with him about everything. but he wasn't a madman. He was someone you could talk to. Jason Calacanis (01:06:37): A rational actor. He was a David Sacks (01:06:39): he was a coldly ruthless, but rational actor. And that's basically what Obama said. He's someone you could talk turkey with. And if you say that today that, hey, maybe we could negotiate our way out of this with Putin, You're accused of being, you know, a a puppet of his. Jason Calacanis (01:06:56): Yeah. Well, the concept of starting a war in this day and age is just it's crazy. Like, it is crazy that he's starting this war and putting all these people at risk, and we don't even know what the goal is. You guys he he's not even asked for anything. Like, what is he exactly asking for? So he may not be he may have been rational then, or maybe Obama was trying to steer him towards rationality and praising him publicly to get that more rational food to show up. This feels like irrational. that we don't know what his goal is. Like, the fact that the world can't say, if we gave him x, he would do y, is I think his strategy, Putin's always like to be this, like, unpredictable madman. Right? David Sacks (01:07:37): No. I mean, we just said that he's a coldly ruthless rational actor, sort of the opposite of a madman. I mean, his red lines have been clear. He's been stating them for for years. The the problem is that, again, we're conducting Jason Calacanis (01:07:48): -- -- referring him to murdering opponents of his and David Sacks (01:07:51): Oh, there's no question that he's ruthless. He's an authoritarian. Call him a dictator if you want. I've tweeted in support of Alexei Navalny. Jason Calacanis (01:07:59): Yeah. David Sacks (01:07:59): So I get it, but that doesn't mean he's a mad man. He has desires and interests, and it's the job of diplomats to figure out how to conduct diplomacy and negotiation with people you disagree with. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:12): And one David Sacks (01:08:13): of the problems we have today is, again, we've Twitterized everything. So you know, we basically figure out the first step is who are the people that should be canceled, you know, who's wearing the white hat, who's wearing the black hat, Let's all rise up in virtue signal and moral denunciation and, you know, stick our fingers in our ears and not listen to the other side. And And listen, that that is a way to find yourself in greater conflicts, not avoid them. Jason Calacanis (01:08:39): Yeah. Alright. So just wrapping up here. Let's let's wrap with Sachs' favorite part of the show. Saks' favorite moment where he's super engaged and learning. He's got his thinking cap on. He's taking notes. and that is the science corner. No. Not What David Sacks (01:08:58): about Vendetta corner? I thought you're gonna say Vendetta corner. Jason Calacanis (01:09:00): Yeah. What I wanna do is you're hitting on your dead a quarter this weekend. The dead David Friedberg (01:09:03): a quarter is actually my favorite part of the show. Jason Calacanis (01:09:05): It is. Now people love in dead a quarter in the community spaces. Who are you? Who are you? -- David Sacks (01:09:10): loves it because Twitter is all about vendettas, but I have no vendettas this week. Jason Calacanis (01:09:14): Vendetta from it. David Sacks (01:09:16): The vendetta from David Friedberg (01:09:16): you? -- with your time. David Sacks (01:09:18): Yeah. I'm I'm trying to advocate that this is time for cooler heads prevail. And so Jason Calacanis (01:09:22): -- Oh, fuck's sake. Start a fight with somebody. Aren't you fighting with Paul Graham? There's nobody your your your your feelings on the side? David Friedberg (01:09:30): Not really. -- golf for ski week? Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:09:32): I don't think we're fighting over anything. It's not I can't not that I can think of. Alright. for the dictator, Shamoff Polyhopatia, Sultan Science, David Friedberg, and the rain man himself, David Sacks. I'm Jay Kal, and we'll see you all at the all in summit. In May, 15, 16, 17. You can go to the website summit dot all in podcast.co where you can just type all in sum the all in summit into Google and find it. May 15th 17th in Miami, Florida. We're doing it at the New World Symphony. And we have a page there where you can vote on speakers. It's gonna be 3 days of fun. We have a scholarship there if you can't afford the regular ticket. And You can apply for a scholarship if you're a super fan, and we'll look forward to seeing you there and go vote for some speakers. Bye bye. Love you, Vestis. David Friedberg (01:10:21): your winter's ride. Rainman, David Sachs. David Sacks (01:10:27): And I said -- We open sources David Friedberg (01:10:29): to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Jason Calacanis (01:10:37): what airliners ride. David Friedberg (01:10:41): Besty's our best. I don't think so. That is my dog I'm missing your driveway. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:10:51): We should all just get a room and just have a think you, George, because they're all his useless. It's like this, like, sexual tension that we just need to release somehow. Jason Calacanis (01:10:59): What? You're the bee bee. What? Pure feet. David Sacks (01:11:02): Be your feet. Sweety sweat. Jason Calacanis (01:11:04): We need to get mercies are back.