E107: The Twitter Files Parts 1-2: shadow banning, story suppression, interference & more

1. 0:00 – 2:17

   Bestie gut health!

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:00

      You were bloated last night. What else is new?

   2. JCJason Calacanis0:02

      (laughs) I said not bloated.

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:04

      (laughs)

   4. JCJason Calacanis0:04

      My God, you really are though.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:06

      You look bloated.

   6. JCJason Calacanis0:07

      Listen, that's coming from you? You started to look like Bert, and now you're back to Ernie. Your face is getting round again.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:13

      (laughs)

   8. JCJason Calacanis0:13

      All I have to say is... Hold on a second, guys, I gotta get a drink. Is it okay, you guys got a minute for me to get a drink?

   9. DFDavid Friedberg0:18

      Yeah, yeah, of c-... I definitely do. I definitely do. Go ahead. Hold on a second.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:20

       You gonna get a beer?

   11. JCJason Calacanis0:21

       No, no, um, I'm actually... you know, I've been working on my weight-

   12. DFDavid Friedberg0:24

       (laughs)

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:24

       ... so I'm just gonna pick here. I, I think I have the mocha latte from Supergut and I also have the chocolate shake. Do you have a recommendation here for me, Friedberg, 'cause I'm gonna put it in my coffee is mocha on a mocha? Is that a rule?

   14. DFDavid Friedberg0:36

       You can't go wrong.

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:36

       You can't go wrong. All right, thank you.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg0:37

       Double mocha's a win.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:39

       Just on a completely unrelated topic, did you happen to invest in Supergut, J-Cal?

   18. JCJason Calacanis0:43

       No, no, no, I haven't invested yet, but use the promo code (beep) .

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:46

       (laughs) Oh, okay.

   20. JCJason Calacanis0:48

       It's been a big part of my weight loss journey. It's also been a big part of me and Friedberg, uh, becoming besties and creating a unified block for All In Summit 2023, so I've got two solid votes.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg1:01

       I'll be very honest with you, if you guys give me a credible plan where we can maintain-

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:05

       Mm, I don't... (laughs)

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:05

       ... the integrity-

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:06

       I don't... (laughs) No, I was joking. Okay, hold on, hold on, keep going.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg1:08

       I was joking. I was joking. (laughs)

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:09

       Okay, hold on.

   27. DFDavid Friedberg1:10

       What the hell is this? (laughs)

   28. JCJason Calacanis1:10

       Maintain credibility, continue.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:12

       Guys, what's going on?

   30. DFDavid Friedberg1:12

       Listen to me, listen to me, listen to me.
2. 2:17 – 33:09

   Twitter Files Part 2: shadow banning and blacklisting entire accounts and topics; how content moderation was handled at other tech giants

   1. NANarrator2:17

      in.

   2. JCJason Calacanis2:17

      All right, everybody, the show has started. The four of us are still here. By, by some miracle we're still going after 107 episodes, and it's better than ever. Last week we were at number 12, so... Mainstream media, hmm, we'll see you in the top ten.

   3. DFDavid Friedberg2:31

      (laughs) Mainstream media.

   4. JCJason Calacanis2:32

      Here we go. Twitter Files Part One and Part Two-

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:35

      We're not on strike-

   6. JCJason Calacanis2:35

      ... dropped.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:35

      ... despite your oppressive conditions, J-Cal.

   8. JCJason Calacanis2:37

      Yes. (laughs)

   9. DFDavid Friedberg2:38

      (laughs)

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:38

       We're not on strike.

   11. JCJason Calacanis2:39

       Oppressive conditions of making you show up on time.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:43

       (laughs)

   13. DFDavid Friedberg2:43

       Totally. Yeah. If I was getting pa- five bu- paid five bucks for this, I'd be on strike right now.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:47

       (laughs)

   15. DFDavid Friedberg2:48

       (laughs)

   16. JCJason Calacanis2:48

       Guys, not only are you getting five bucks, you're getting a bill for the production. Okay, here we go. Twitter Files-

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:52

       By the way, how beautiful is it that the same-

   18. JCJason Calacanis2:54

       Hmm, go.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:54

       ... reporters who couldn't stop writing about the oppressive working conditions that Elon Musk was supposedly creating 'cause he simply wanted the employees to go back to the office-

   20. JCJason Calacanis3:04

       (laughs)

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:04

       ... and work hard, and if they didn't, he'd give them a generous three months severance package-

   22. JCJason Calacanis3:08

       Yeah.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:08

       ... those same reporters are now on strike because the Sulzbergers are running a clickbait farm over there with oppressive working conditions.

   24. JCJason Calacanis3:15

       The intellectual dishonesty has never been higher in the world.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:18

       Yeah. I would like, I would like to ask-

   26. JCJason Calacanis3:19

       I'm looking for the intellectual honesty.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:21

       Yes. Will the publisher of the New York Times agree that anybody who isn't happy there can have a voluntary three-month severance package?

   28. JCJason Calacanis3:29

       Yeah, uh, click this link and... Do you want to work hard or do you want three months severance? If the New York Times publisher did that, you know what would happen? 800 of 1200 people would take the severance. Of course. All right, here we go. Twitter Files have dropped. Part One dropped with the legendary, award-winning, highly respected journalist Matt Taibbi. If you don't know who he is, he is a left-leaning journalist who worked at Rolling Stone and did the best coverage, hands down, of the financial crisis and the shenanigans, and he held truth to power to that group. This is important to note. The second drop was given to Bari Weiss, who is a, uh, a right-leaning independent journalist. These are both independent journalists. She previously worked at the New York Times itself. Now, I think we should work backwards from two to one. Do you agree?

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:22

       Yes, for sure. Let's start with the drop that just happened last night.

   30. JCJason Calacanis4:25

       Yes. So last night, a drop happened. So here's what happens in Twitter Files Part Two. I'm gonna give a basic summary, and then I'm gonna give it to Sax because he's champing at the bit. We now have confirmation that what the right thought was happening all along, which is a secret silencing system built into the software of blacklists, was tagging right-wing conservative voices in the system, and these included people like Dan, uh, Bongino. Is that how you pronounce it?
3. 33:09 – 47:30

   Twitter Files Part 1: Suppressing the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story

   1. JCJason Calacanis33:09

      agreement with you.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya33:09

      Let's bring the first, uh, batch of Twitter files into the conversation, the one that Matt Taibbi exposed. What he did was confirm that a completely true story by the New York Post about Hunter Biden that came out a month before the election was suppressed by Twitter executives, including at the behest of, you know, of, of FBI agents and, uh, former security state officials. So this has now been exposed. There was no legitimate basis for suppressing that story. It was true, it was a respected publication. They did it anyway. This is election interference. You know, the same people who pride themselves on strengthening democracy are engaged in this wide scale censorship of one side of the political debate, including of true stories before an election, and then they puff out their chest and say, "We're protecting democracy." They're not protecting democracy, they're interfering with democracy. They're interfering with the public's right to know. And then we look at a country like China and we say, "We're so much better than them because they've got this problem over there-"

   3. JCJason Calacanis34:10

      We are.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:10

      "... where the state and big tech are colluding to create a Big Brother-like system."

   5. JCJason Calacanis34:15

      Yeah.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:15

      Well, what is this? What are these tools that have been exposed?

   7. JCJason Calacanis34:19

      This is one percent of that.

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:19

      This is a Big Brother-like system.

   9. JCJason Calacanis34:21

      Okay, yeah. But just, you have to, you, I know you want to make it like an equivalency. It's less than a one percent equivalency because in our society, we can have moments like this and we can have investigations. So just to, to put it in perspective.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:33

       Yeah, I don't, look, uh, J Cal, I don't think we're equivalent, but what I'm saying-

   11. JCJason Calacanis34:36

       Yeah.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:36

       ... is that this is very much like a Big Brother social credit system that was being perpetrated-

   13. JCJason Calacanis34:42

       Yes, we, there should be an alarm bell should be going off. There should be an alarm bell going off.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:45

       And if Elon didn't decide, just we had this one idiosyncratic billionaire who believes in free speech, if he didn't decide to take this on, we would never have known this stuff.

   15. JCJason Calacanis34:55

       Okay, tell me what happened in between these two things. There is a, an attorney at, uh, Twitter-

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:02

       Right.

   17. JCJason Calacanis35:02

       Uh, and I don't know the details of this-

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:04

       Right, okay, so this is interesting.

   19. JCJason Calacanis35:05

       ... uh, I, I do not work, I do not work for the Twitter corporation, I do not speak for the Twitter corporation, Sax does not work for the Twitter corporation and does not speak for it.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:11

       Yes.

   21. JCJason Calacanis35:11

       But there was, in between these two drops, something that happened.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:14

       Yes. So basically, what was discovered, and this is all just publicly reported, is that-

   23. JCJason Calacanis35:19

       Yeah, publicly reported.

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:19

       ... a former FBI lawyer named Jim Baker had now become deputy general counsel, um, at Twitter. And this guy Jim Baker is like the Zelig of the whole Russian collusion hoax. He was involved in the, um, in the FISA warrants that were app- that the FBI applied to the FISA courts that ha- had all the errors and omissions. He was involved in the Alpha Bank hoax. He was the guy that that Perkins, uh, co E lawyer Sussman was feeding this like, uh, phony, uh, phony scam to. And he, I don't think he was officially sanctioned, but basically he was asked to leave the FBI. And then lo and behold, where does he land? At Twitter. And he is involved in their content moderation policies. I think what it shows is how deeply intertwined our, our big tech companies have become with the security state. Now, how did this get exposed? Well, Barry Weiss was basically, uh, putting forward document requests for this, for the latest batch of Twitter files, and she wasn't getting anything back. And she's like, "What's going on here?" And the guy who's giving her the files is, his name is Jim.... and she's like, "Well, wait," like, "Wait, Jim, Jim who?" And she finds out, "Wait, Jim Baker? Wait, that Jim Baker?" That... You know, New York Post had a long story about this guy. And so it was discovered that the guy who was curating the Twitter files was this former operative of the FBI who was involved in the Russian collusion hoax and then was involved in their, their blacklist decisions. So in any event, once this came out, Twitter fired him and then, you know, Buria apparently received all these files that are now the, the second batch of the Twitter files.

   25. JCJason Calacanis37:09

       And just to be clear, that's not James Baker if you're, you know, thinking it's the former-

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:15

       Right.

   27. JCJason Calacanis37:15

       ... Reagan Cabinet member. Not James Baker. This is Jim Baker, who is a different person.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:20

       Right. But a lot of people are wondering, "Well, how could this have been missed?" Listen-

   29. JCJason Calacanis37:23

       He's an FBI a- ex-FBI agent.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:24

       These guys-
4. 47:30 – 58:27

   China effectively ends Zero-Covid policies; Iran, China, and Japan demographics

   1. JCJason Calacanis47:30

      So let's move on. China ends most zero COVID rules and Iran might be abolishing its morality police, news broke, uh, in the past week. On Wednesday, China's health authorities overhauled its zero COVID policy and announced a 10-point national plan that scrapped most health code tracking and also they're rolling back their mass testing, uh, and this allowed many, uh, positive cases to just simply quarantine at home, like we were doing, I guess, a year ago now. And, uh, they're limiting some of these, uh, lockdowns. This all comes from a Foxconn letter, which we don't know the cause, causation here, Chamath.

   2. DSDavid Sacks48:07

      Does, does it though? Does it?

   3. JCJason Calacanis48:08

      Well, we don't know. That's why I just said. We don't know cause and correlation here. Give, give us some perspective here, Chamath.

   4. DSDavid Sacks48:14

      Well, I just think it's kind of ridiculous to assume that the second-largest economy in the world pivots based on one letter from one CEO. So, I know that that's how the Western media-

   5. JCJason Calacanis48:27

      Describe the letter, please. Yep.

   6. DSDavid Sacks48:29

      Well, apparently what happened was Terry Gou, who's colloquially known as Uncle Terry, who's the CEO of Foxconn, wrote a letter that essentially said, you know, "If we don't figure out a way to get out of these pande- this, this lockdown process, we're going to lose, um, you know, our leadership in the global supply chain." And apparently, that jolted the Central Planning Commission to realize that they needed to, you know, get out of these lockdowns. I think it's something different, which is, I think this has been part and parcel of a ver- very focused and dedicated plan...... by Xi. Phase one was to consolidate power. Phase two was to get through November and to basically get reappointed for life and dispel any other, you know, rivals that he actually had. And now phase three is just to reopen the economy again so this guy can basically sit on top of the second-largest economy in the world. So I think this is sort of a natural, uh, flow of things. The other part of it, which I think is being under-reported is, I think that the way in which they did it was less responsive, in my opinion, to a letter from Uncle Terry, but was more responsive to the fact that there are people on the ground. And I think that these guys are getting very sophisticated in understanding how to give the Chinese people some part of what they want so that they're roughly happy enough to keep moving forward. And I'm not gonna morally judge whether it's right or wrong, but it's just a comment on what the game play and the game theory seems to be coming from the leadership of China. So it's just... I think this is... It's, it's, it's good for the Chinese people. And the real question is, what will it mean for the US economy if these guys get their, um, get their economy going again?

   7. NANarrator50:15

      We talked about this previously, but this is a good example of the autocrat not necessarily being absolute, uh, in, in their, um, authority. And, uh, the sense that I think we get at this point coming out of China is that there was enough dissent from the populous on the lockdown and the experience of the lockdowns. And we can all go online and see the videos of steel bars being put on doors to keep people in their apartment buildings and people screaming and buildings being on fire, people can't escape the buildings, how much of that was true or not, and, and riots in the street and people fighting with the COVID testers. How much of it are, is true or not, we don't really know, but it certainly seems to indicate that there was enough dissent and enough unrest that in order to stay in power, the CCP had to take action and they had to shift their position and shift their tone. And I think it's a really important moment to observe that sometimes the CCP, um, and, you know, perhaps even we can extend this into other autocratic regimes that we think are absolute in their authority and their empower- and their power, perhaps are necessarily influenced by the people that they are there to govern and that they are, you know, uh, ruling over. Uh, and that while we don't think about these places as democracies, perhaps they're not entirely the traditionally defined autocracy, that there is th- an influence that the people can have. And maybe we see the same change happening in Iran with young people and a population that's more modern, that's growing and swelling in size, that doesn't want to accept some of the traditional norms and the traditional laws. And, you know, maybe that will kind of start to resonate around the world, that the internet is starting to do what everyone hoped and wanted it to do, which is the democratization of information, the democratization of seeing other people's conditions and seeing what the rest of the world is and is like, gives the populous the ability to rise up and to say, "This is what we want," because we know that there are better things out there. And these autocratic regimes have to start to shift slightly. And over time, maybe that has a real impact.

   8. JCJason Calacanis52:29

      Here's a specific statistic and chart for everybody. The demographics of, uh, Iran are incredibly, um, notable. If you look at this, uh, chart, uh, for those of you listening, it just shows, uh, people by age and how many, what percentage of the population they are, uh... or actually the real numbers of the population. As you can see, it's basically like a pear. Uh, you have very few old people and you've, have a lot of people in their 20s and younger. And so young people-

   9. DSDavid Sacks52:57

      No, no, no, no, Jason, it's really 40s and 30s is really where they're-

   10. JCJason Calacanis53:01

       Yeah, okay, so 40s, 30s. Uh, you, you don't have the geriatric population that you see in other countries like Japan. Um, and so the demographics of Iran are extremely, uh, weighted towards younger people, millennials, Gen Xers, and younger. And, uh, they have VPNs, virtual private networks. They can see everything happening, uh, in the free world, uh, versus, uh, let's say, closed societies. And so I think that's what gives me a lot of hope is that these countries are going to have to evolve because young people are seeing how the rest of the world lives. And, and, and I think that's a big part of the change. Chamath, what are your thoughts?

   11. DSDavid Sacks53:40

       About Iran specifically?

   12. JCJason Calacanis53:42

       I think the demographic change and then China and demographic change/the protests.

   13. DSDavid Sacks53:48

       Well, I've said, I've said this, I've said this before and I've been tweeting about this for years, but people so poorly understand demographics. Everybody thinks that we have a surplus of people and we don't. And we need to have a positive birth rate in order to kind of continue to support the expansion of the world and GDP. And we need that. And right now, we're not in that situation. If you look at a country by country basis, a lot of these countries, um, are facing that in a pretty cataclysmic way. The most sensitive country to this is China. I mean, their population at current course and speed, I think the last number is, it's going to halve by 2100. There'll be about 600 million people in China, which is unbelievably disruptive in a very negative way for them, right? Because you will have a lot of people who are entering the workforce having to support an entire cohort of people above them in terms of age, right, who are retired, et cetera. So the state is gonna have to get much, much more actively involved over the next 50 years in China. And then you look at other countries like Nigeria or India who are in, uh, you know, at the beginning of what could be a multi-decade boom because you have 20-year-olds that will be entering the workforce, you know, they'll effectively work for less than their older counterparts, right? So then there'll be an incentive then to bring work onshore into those countries.And so it's gonna have huge impacts because then you have rising GDP, you'll have rising expectations of living quality, you'll have rising expectations of how governments treat those people. So it's all kind of positive in general. But the world needs more people, let's just be clear, especially in Western countries. We are going to be not, we're not as badly off as China but we're not far behind.

   14. JCJason Calacanis55:31

       Yeah, here's a quick view of China and Japan. Just, you know, these same kinda, I don't know what they exactly call these charts, they're kinda like vertical histograms, but if you start... And again, you know, data's hard to come by in some countries but, you know, China's starting to get top heavy, uh, when compared to Iran. And then if you look at Japan, quite stunning, there's just no young people left and, uh, they live very, uh, to much older ages in Japan. It's, it's, longevity is, uh, one of their great strengths as a population, as a country, and so these demographics can't be fought. Uh, you're gonna have a contrictio- constricting economy in Japan, and their place in the world is gonna be very, very different. Okay, where do we wanna go to next?

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:13

       You never asked my opinion on, on, uh, what's, on these protests in China.

   16. JCJason Calacanis56:16

       Oh, I was gonna s- usually you just talk, so go ahead. (laughs) I didn't wanna, I didn't know if I could talk to you.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:19

       Oh, I just talk? No, I usually have to fight to give my opinion.

   18. JCJason Calacanis56:22

       Oh, here we go. Listen, have your agent call my agent and we'll talk about it, okay.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:26

       (laughs)

   20. JCJason Calacanis56:26

       Uh, we'll talk about it at

   21. NANarrator56:27

       Well, I have a slightly different view-

   22. JCJason Calacanis56:28

       ... the all-in and the alligator.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:28

       I have a s- I have a slightly different view of, of what's happening-

   24. JCJason Calacanis56:31

       Go ahead.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:31

       ... in China, uh, Jason-

   26. JCJason Calacanis56:32

       Go ahead.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:32

       ... which is, you know, I think that the people there need to stop harassing the CCP. You see, the Chinese Communist Party, they're the elites, they've set things up for the benefit of the people. They're not engaged in shadow banning, they're just, you know, they have a system there to, you know, to engage in censorship, to prevent abuse and harm.

   28. JCJason Calacanis56:52

       Yeah.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:52

       Right? That's the system-

   30. JCJason Calacanis56:54

       Continue.
5. 58:27 – 1:13:30

   Kevin O'Leary defends FTX on CNBC, was paid $15M as a spokesperson; Sinema flips to Independent

   1. JCJason Calacanis58:27

      I, I think we have to talk about FTX. I, I don't know if you saw, and I... The, the people covering for SBF, uh, it continues to be an absolute joke. The number of interviews that SBF is doing is absurd. But the people carrying water for him is e- is, is even more offensive. Th- I mean, if you're a criminal trying to cover up your crime, okay, we get it, you're trying to cover up and stay out of jail. Uh, but Kevin O'Leary, um, who, um, i- calls himself Mr. Wonderful was on CNBC trying to defend the fact-

   2. NANarrator59:02

      (laughs)

   3. JCJason Calacanis59:02

      ... that he was given, this is stunning by the way, 15 fucking million dollars to be a spokesperson for FTX. So the grift not only went to the press, politicians, uh, but now commentators on CNBC. $15 million. To put that in context, I mean, you're talking what an elite NBA player gets from Nike. Th- this does not exist in the world, uh, you know, Kevin O'Leary might get, you know, 50 to 200K for speaking gigs, but nobody gets $15 million to shill. Here's a 75-second clip that I don't know if you've all have seen, but is unbelievably stunning. See you on the other side of 75 seconds.

   4. NANarrator59:47

      If you're a defense attorney that represents someone that you know is guilty, you gotta say, yeah, well, they're innocent- So- ... but you may know they're guilty. You may know they're guilty. If you find someone, if you watch someone kill someone, yeah, they're innocent- I don't think there is- ... until proven guilty. ... there's only the murder of my money in this case, okay? It's, it's murder of, uh, uh, FTX's money in my view. Every, everybody's. Look, Joe, if you- 'Cause it was FTX's money that you got- If you, if you make a decision- ... I don't, I don't even, I don't think you should be singing the blues right now at all. Oh, yes, I'm singing the blues. Why, because your 15 million didn't pan out that you... That's a lot of money to be a sp- a paid spokesperson. Hey, listen- It's a lot of money, you didn't have to do much for that. That's per- that's found money, Kevin. That's a different decision, that's a different discussion. Okay. I, uh, I, you know, you can make that decision on your own but I'm going to this point- It's found money. ... that if you want to say he's guilty before he's tried, I just don't understand it. But it, it may end up costing you 15 for, for reputational and everything else, that's the problem.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:00:37

      Well, that's why I stay on this pursuit. I'm very transparent about it, I've disclosed everything I know about it, I will find out more information. If I make the credit committee, I will act as a fiduciary for everybody involved, I will testify. I am an advocate for this industry and this changes nothing. Just look at the numbers that came out of Circle today, I'm an investor there too. You've got the, "I lost it all in FTX," and we have a fantastic print on Circle. The promise of crypto remains. This will not change it. Pretty crazy, 15 million bucks. Any thoughts on the continuing SBF saga, Sax?

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:01:11

      Well, I don't know why we should care so much about him. I mean, Kevin O'Leary.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg1:01:14

      Yeah.

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:01:14

      But, um, but look, I think-

   9. DFDavid Friedberg1:01:15

      It's indicative, right? It's indicative of all these guys that got money from this guy.

   10. DSDavid Sacks1:01:19

       Who, who is he? Who is he?

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:01:20

       He's on Shark Tank.

   12. DSDavid Sacks1:01:22

       He's on what?

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:01:23

       He's on Shark Tank and he's a contributor to CNBC who's on multiple times a week. The point is, like, you've got the, the grift. I'm, I'm just trying to point out $15 million to a CNBC commentator is just an extraordinary payoff. I, I've never heard of anything like that.

   14. DSDavid Sacks1:01:40

       I don't, I don't think it's fair to pick on Kevin O'Leary per se, because there is a bunch of those guys that took money from him, you know? A bunch of athletes did.

   15. DFDavid Friedberg1:01:49

       Senators.

   16. DSDavid Sacks1:01:49

       Probably a bunch of movie stars. You know, um, a bunch of-

   17. DFDavid Friedberg1:01:52

       Cats, Republicans, Democrats. Yeah.

   18. DSDavid Sacks1:01:54

       Like, everybody got paid by this guy.

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:01:57

       Well, yeah, no, but, but a-

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:01:58

       Democrats. Democrats. (laughs)

   21. DSDavid Sacks1:01:58

       So, so again, just, just like in the, just like in the Twitter example, I think it's important in this case to generalize, because the generalized thing is the real problem. Look, if you wanna focus on the crux of this, you have a concept in law that Sacks knows better than the rest of us called fraudulent conveyance, and we have example after example where it does not matter whether it was in the Bernie Madoff example or for example, Jason, we talked about it, the guy in LA that lost all the money, client funds playing poker.

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:02:26

       Yep.

   23. DSDavid Sacks1:02:27

       You have to give the money back, especially if it was fraudulently conveyed to you.

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:02:31

       Yea- Explain. Can you explain this in detail for a second so the audience understands?

   25. DSDavid Sacks1:02:35

       Well, on my understanding, which is very basic, and I think David can probably do a much better job, is the following, which is, if you get money some way, but it comes from somebody who fraud- fraudulently acquired that money, you have to give the money back. So in this example, what it would mean is if that they can show that that $15 million that this guy got came from SBF basically raiding the piggy bank of user accounts, he's gonna have to pay the money back. Just like, for example, in the Madoff fraud, the, the, the, the folks that went to find the money were able to go back to folks that actually redeemed even the beginning early ones and said, "I understand that you didn't know any better, but this was fraudulently conveyed to you, so we need the money back." And they got the money back.

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:03:26

       I- in that case, if they had put a million in and it grew to three million, they got their million principal back, but the two million in gains, which were ill-gotten, had to be returned.

   27. DSDavid Sacks1:03:34

       Returned, returned, exactly.

   28. JCJason Calacanis1:03:36

       That-

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:36

       So as I, as I understand it based on just what I've read, that there's a 90-day rule around contributions, meaning that if... I think this has to do with the bankruptcy, that, that if he donated money within 90 days, then that can be unwound. So, um-

   30. DSDavid Sacks1:03:52

       90 days, yeah.

Episode duration: 1:13:49